Modern Wisdom - #647 - Megan Phelps-Roper - How Did Harry Potter Enter The Trans Debate?

Episode Date: June 29, 2023

Megan Phelps-Roper is a social activist, public speaker and author known for her insights into religious extremism. Harry Potter is the most banned book of the 21st century. Firstly frowned upon by far Right Christian groups for its promotion of witchcraft, the controversy has recently pivoted to the far Left who have concerns that JK Rowling is promoting transphobia. The obvious question is, how did one of the most beloved children's authors of all time end up here? Expect to learn the reason behind the widespread backlash and cancellation of JK Rowling, whether Rowling is worried about ruining her legacy, how the platforms like 4chan and Tumblr were so pivotal in this movement, just how similar the trans rights movement is to the gay rights movement, Megan’s perspective on the “What Is A Woman” documentary, how Megan's upbringing in the Westboro Baptist Church gives her a unique insight on this story and much more... Sponsors: Get 10% discount on all Gymshark’s products at https://bit.ly/sharkwisdom (use code: MW10) Get £150 discount on Eight Sleep products at https://eightsleep.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get 15% discount on Craftd London’s jewellery at https://craftd.com/modernwisdom (use code MW15) Extra Stuff: Listen to The Witch Trials Of JK Rowling - https://open.spotify.com/show/2K186zrvRgeE2w0wQjbaw7 Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello friends, welcome back to the show. My guest today is Megan Phelps-Ropa. She's a social activist, public speaker and author known for her insights into religious extremism. Harry Potter is the most band book of the 21st century. Firstly, frowned upon by far-right Christian groups for its promotion of witchcraft, the controversy has recently pivoted to the far left, who have concerned that JK Rowling is promoting transphobia. The obvious question is, how did one of the most beloved children's authors of all time end up here? Expect to learn the reason behind the widespread backlash and cancellation of JK Rowling, whether Rowling is worried about ruining her legacy, how the platforms, like 4chan and Tumblr, were so pivotal in this movement, just how similar the trans rights movement is to the gay rights

movement, Megan's perspective on the what is a woman documentary, how Megan's upbringing in the Westboro Baptist Church gives her a unique insight on this story. And much more. In other news, this episode is brought to you by Gymshark. Today at 11am EST or 4pm UK Gymshark's global sale goes live and there is up to 60% of all items sight-wide. Plus you can get an additional 10% of everything using my code, MW10, if you go through bit.ly slash shark wisdom. That link opens up all of the codes and all of the discounts. So if you've been thinking that you need to get some new Jim kit or that

you need to get some as a gift for somebody else and you've been vacillating about the purchase, now is the time to go and stock up on Jim Shark stuff. They do not do sales very often and this is one that you need to take advantage of up to 60% off everything site wide plus an additional 10% if you go to bit.ly slash shark wisdom and the code MW10. A checkout. In other, other use, this episode is brought to you by 8th Sleep. It is unbearably hot in Austin.

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And you can get a 15% discount off everything, site wide and worldwide. If you go to bit.ly slash letter C letter D wisdom and use the code mw15. A checkout. That's bit.ly and use the code mw15 a check out that's bit.ly slash cd wisdom and mw15 a Check out But now ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Megan felt ropa Harry Potter is one of the most banned books of the 21st century. Why? Well, I mean, for a lot of people, it was originally Christians. There was a certain, and not all Christians, but there was a certain kind of Christian

who believed that they were losing the culture in the 90s. And I think Harry Potter became like, it was the biggest target. But there were many things, if you look back, we examine this in our show. You look back, there is Sabrina, the teenage witch, and the craft, and charmed, and just many, many different examples of witchcraft in the culture. And so Harry Potter became a huge target, because a lot of people really loved it. How many bannings has there been in the last couple of years? Has there been any movement to try and get Harry Potter itself reband?

There's been some. It's not a lot. I mean, I think it was a product of that moment in time. So it's definitely not been, I don't think, the same kind of a target in the same way that it was in the 90s, for sure. What got you interested in the JK rolling story? Well, if you, I mean, you can't, you can't have watched what happened

in the summer of 2020. I mean, that, for me, that was really the, she tweeted in the summer of 2020, June of 2020. And there was this massive backlash. And I think to a lot of people who hadn't been really following the conversation surrounding sex and gender, the nature of that backlash, the heated nature of it, it seemed almost incomprehensible. So for me, I was coming from a place of ignorance and curiosity and we're just really wanting

to understand what was going on. And the more I started to look into it, the more, I mean, the more it seemed like the nature, the fact that the conversation was happening largely on social media was not serving anyone. It definitely seemed to me to be inflaming, inflaming that conversation, to say the least. And so I ended up writing this letter to JK Rowling to try to find a better way of having that conversation and really just again to understand what exactly was going on, what the nature of the controversy was, and why it seemed like everyone involved

felt both embattled and just like so much was at stake. What did the tweets say? Let's say that someone is terminally online, is me or you are? Okay, so which tweet? The original tweet actually was December of 2019 and it came across as, I mean, I think to a lot of people as quite innocuous,. It was something like dress however you please, call yourself whatever you like, sleep with any consenting adult who will have you, live your best life in peace and security.

But force women out of their jobs for saying that sex is real. Hashtag, I stand with Maya, hashtag, this is not a drill. So that was actually JK Rowling's first tweet that was stepping into this, publicly stepping into this conversation around sex and gender. And like I said, to a lot of people that seems like a really innocuous thing, even to many, and even to many trans people initially, like they read that as support, but pretty quickly that changed. It was, it was, I don't know how deeply

do you want to get into this right now. Tell us, tell us what, tell us the uproar that it could. So it was, it was seen as, you know, that she was kind of giving lip service to supporting trans people, but really, she is a, you know, what is, what is called a turf, a trans exclusionary radical feminist. It's been really vailed. Right. Yeah. It is, it is somebody who excludes, I mean,

it's again, it's in the term, it is you're excluding trans women specifically from your feminism. And so, you know, people like JK Rowling who were concerned, you know, she says that she supports trans people and then she wants them to be be free to live their lives as they will. But there are essentially, there are places where the interests of natal women, as she would say, people who are biologically or assigned female at birth is the term, that their interests conflict with the interests of trans women. So, and in the series, we identify, we basically split it up into three categories.

Women's sports, women only spaces, and then youth transition. Those are the concerns of somebody like JK Rowling. And part of the reason, I mean, JK Rowling herself and her story are fascinating. And that was, it's a big part of the reason, I mean, JK Rowling herself and her story are fascinating. And you know, that was, it's a big part of the series. But part of the reason that Rowling is interesting too is that, and why it's worth digging into her views, is that her views are shared by a lot of people. And so it's worth wrestling with those views just for that reason. I can't imagine how many letters J.K. Rowling gets,

whether it be from a very enthusiastic 11-year-old or a very irate trans activist or a well-meaning journalist investigative reporter that wants to find out her views on something, why did she reply to you? Well, she said that she had read my book, Unfollow, which kind of chronicles my upbringing in the Westbro Baptist Church. I, I've, basically, for the, it's been a little over 10 years since I left Westbro.

This very, you know, it's seen as kind of a cult is, is, is what a lot of people call it. It's largely my family and, And the short version is I left the church and thereby lost my family a little over 10 years ago. And in that time I've talked about how it was conversations with outsiders, civil discourse, you know, people who took the time to understand where I was coming from and to essentially help me find, you know, to sort of build a bridge from where I was to where they were and to find my way out of that kind of very radical hard line paradigm,

ideological paradigm. So in spending that time, I don't demonize my family. I very clearly, I've disavowed the things that we did, and which I think were very harmful. It could be extremely cruel and destructive. But I don't demonize them because I understand that, basically, everybody there was born there.

They were born into this and sort of indoctrinated into it. And so, I mean, I think I've made a very public, know, you know, public, in a very public way, talked about the nature, the importance of that kind of conversation and that I was interested in trying to find that kind of space for that kind of conversation in this public conflict on sex and gender. Right, so that is what forms the basis for your passion around this. Yeah, definitely. It's interesting. It's interesting to consider, you know, So that is what forms the basis for your passion around this. Yeah, definitely.

It's interesting. It's interesting to consider you being a part of a movement a while ago that would have seen JK Rowling and perhaps some of her work as a dangerous influence on the youth, and there is now a new movement that sees J.K. Rowling as a dangerous influence on a different portion of the youth, which is the which trials of J.K. Rowling, this sort of multi-headed sort of not a joke, but a lot of references going on in one title, I suppose. Okay, so you've said... Well, I was going to say like there's another way to read the title as well because you know, that was the, I think the original, like there's another way to read the title as well because you know that was the I think the original

You know those those parallels was the original reason for the title Um, and then the more we looked into it the more we realized oh my god like we can't call it that you know People are gonna be really angry like this is it's already it the conversation is already extremely inflamed We don't want to add to that But then we realized you know pretty quickly People on all sides of that conversation use the language of witch hunts and witch trials. Like they see themselves. So some people see rolling as the victim of a witch hunt. And some people see her as the prosecutor of one. They

think that she is prosecuting or persecuting this, this very small minority of people who are already the target of a lot of other people. And so how, why would she add to that, essentially? So the title is, you're right, it's extremely multi-layered, much more complicated, I think, than a lot of people give it credit for. You send Jackie Rowling a letter, surprisingly she responds and says, come and see me. Talk to me about what it's like to go and sit down with Jackie Rowling. I imagine that the number of interview requests,

especially for this kind of a topic, must have gone through the roof, And you are just some lady who's got a very extraordinary origin story, but in the nicest way possible, like just some lady that wants to go into the town. Yeah. And have a conversation. You know, like, what's the trip to go and see her like, what's she like in person, and what did that feel like to actually do it? Um, so I actually had never inter, conducted an interview before I sat down with her a little over a year ago now. Um, and I was, I was really anxious.

I mean, it like luckily, a few, I mean, a few things. First, it was more akin to a conversation than an interview, which was really helpful for me personally. Um, but secondly, I think, you know, she has a reputation of being extremely kind of controlling and wants to control the conversation, things like that. There's a lot of stuff in the media about that. And I had read all those things and I had watched and listened to a lot of interviews that she'd given. And I was really nervous for a lot of reasons. And I mean, I'm really grateful for the fact that she was incredibly kind, generous, warm,

very easy to talk to. There was nothing, there were no ground walls, there wasn't anything like, you can't ask about this. And when I very first started asking those questions, I, again, I had the impression that she didn't want to go back to the early days, the early 90s, when she's writing Harry Potter and, you know, she had alluded in her, in an essay that she wrote in June of 2020 to her history as a survivor of domestic abuse. And she hadn't really given details about

those things. And again, I just got the impression that she didn't want to talk about them. And, but almost immediately, I think I got maybe half a question out. And she just completely opened up. And I think it just spoke to the fact that she was really ready to talk about all those things. And so yeah, I feel like I got very lucky. I mean, she just was a very easy person to talk to and very warm and open with me for sure.

Having spent a good bit of time with it. Nine hours in total. Yeah, so a large chunk of time, more than any of us are going to spend with J. sure. Having spent a good bit of time with it. Nine hours in total. Yeah, so a large chunk of time, more than any of us are going to spend with J.K. Rowling. What have you come to believe about what's motivating her to take the stance that she is about this? I mean, I think there's a few things. I mean, there are moments in our series where she identifies specific things that caused her to speak up.

One of them, you know, some of them are like the specifics of the conflict run sex and gender, that she is concerned for the fairness in women's sports. She's concerned about young people and specifically, particularly young females, medically transitioning as minors, you know. And so there are some very specific concerns that she has, but I think one of the things that seemed to be a big part of her decision to speak up was the way that other women were being shut down. And the fact that there was very little space to be had in the public conversation without women having to fear for their safety

or their livelihoods, or even just like their public reputations. And so in other words, it's the no debate aspect of the conversation. And since she has money, she has influence, she has, would she suffer? Has she suffered as a result of speaking up on these issues absolutely but it's suffering that she can withstand so she's I think she sees for self as you know she has the privilege if you will to do that and so that you know I think she felt that she had to. It's so hilarious to me, kind of tragic, I suppose, that as I was walking around Universal Studios LA in Harry Potter World a couple of years ago, and it was just after J.K. Rowling

had been popped for a lot of this stuff. As I was walking around, I realized that there was expansions going on and there was live demonstrations and there were pretending to do wizardry and all sorts of stuff. Are you going to Orlando? There's a new ride that's opening up there in Harry Potter world over there. And it made me realize that so much of the performative empathy and virtue signaling that you see, especially from the capitalistic class that own these kinds of corporations that would quite happily change the display photo of their Twitter profile to a rainbow colored flag during Pride Month, but won't shut down Harry

Potter world because it makes them money. And fundamentally, this is the protection that J.K. Rowling is afforded, not only because she is rich, so she has the sort of monetary resources herself to give herself security and safety and not be able to be cancelled in that regard. But all of these people need her. All of these people need her to keep on signing the checks that say, yep, that's another universal studios Orlando ride that's been opened up. This is part of the Harry Potter canon, someone, some Harry Potter legal expert that she probably employs somewhere who's like this is within the prescribed rules or whatever it is and Yeah, it's it's a kind of like it does satisfy me in some regards the fact that you're seeing a woman

retain so much IP and so much power that she isn't Regardless of what she's saying and regardless of what you think about what she's saying it's really Cool to see somebody who has, who's unfucked withable, basically. Yeah, I mean, that concept in general is intriguing to me because, I mean, you can kind of see it on both sides. You can see it as, like you said, unfucked withable,

like because she has all this power, very different kinds of power, a lot of different kinds of power. And, but I think a lot of people who are in that same situation, those are all things that they can lose. And the sense, you know, the idea of loss of version, right, it's, it's, you know, kind of central to, to human beings, you know, we don't want to lose the status and the influence and the power that we have.

And so even people that you might consider, you know, they might be unfuck with a bull, maybe, but they're not really willing, because they're not willing to lose that. They're not willing to lose it. There's so much higher up the mountain that's further to fall. Right, exactly, exactly. And so it is an interesting aspect of this story for sure

because, you know, and asking her about that and specifically, what was it that made her take that stand? And you can hear it. I mean, in the story that we tell, and we go back and you hear that she, you know, suffered in a lot of ways that a lot of women suffer, you know, a lot of women are victims of domestic violence, a lot of women are our survivors of sexual assault and things like that. And so, you can hear the ways in which her past and her history influenced her decision to speak up on this issue. What does she think about people who say that she's ruined her legacy with the stance that she's taken?

Well, this was something, it was a line that really stood out to us. You know, she said, you know, basically you don't understand me and you never understood me because I do, she said, I do not walk around my house thinking about my legacy. Whatever, I'll be dead. I care about now. I care about the living. So she's not thinking about those things. She's thinking about how are women and girls being affected and children being affected

by these, these ideas in the here and now, and what responsibility does she have to speak up about it? Has she got personal security concerns? Oh, definitely, yeah. I mean, I think that's been a consistent thing for her since Harry Potter became huge, but it's definitely been also, the last few years it's been particularly bad.

That was my impression, we should say. Yeah, one of the most interesting things that I learned was this, you could almost say it's a full circle that occurred. There was a landmark case of Harry Potter books being removed from being out front in a library, and they were kept behind the librarian's desk for children who were of the right age to read them, but they had to

get parental consent to go and read them. Then there was a, basically, like, a freedom of speech request that was made, and this particular case was one, which meant that children were allowed to access books that were of the age that was appropriate for them. And even if you were worried that they were being indoctrinated into the occult, it had to be upfront, and they were allowed to read it it and the parents didn't need to jump through all of these extra hoops. However, it seems like full circle looking at some of the concerns that the right now has around LGBT books being placed in children's libraries, that some of the same legislation, tangentials, similar parallels can be drawn between what was happening with Harry Potter books being permitted, that is now permitting LGBT books to be in children's

libraries. There's an odd sort of horseshoe going on there. Yeah, it was really interesting. We interviewed these lawyers who, on both sides of that case, both the lawyer who was arguing against those restrictions and the lawyer who was arguing for them. And it was really fascinating to hear them describe how Harry Potter, those Harry Potter cases, part of the legacy of those cases was that they were now protecting LGBT books, especially in this current moment.

It seems a little bit ironic. Yeah, it's strange. So you spent some time with historians and internet historians as well. What did you learn that? We were part of the story that we were trying to tell is kind of how how the internet became this much more judgmental cruel place. Because, you know, and I also interviewed a lot of people, you know, those interviews didn't all make it into the series because we did so many of them.

You know, many of them were incredibly fascinating. And, but one of the things that I think was very sad to me as I was kind of going through all of this is how the kind of internet that existed, you know, in the 2000s, and that was a place, like it was for me. I was, again, essentially a member of a cult. I had been born and raised into this environment that was very, we saw, it's very us versus them environment. We saw outsiders as evil and they were hellbound

and I couldn't trust them. And I was able to form these communities on Twitter. And I'm, my experience was typical, I think, of a lot of people who did not have those kind of, you know, weren't able to make those kind of connections in their physical space. And it's kind of very sad to see the way that the Internet has changed over the past, especially the last decade or so. So we went through in episode three of our series to kind of track how those changes took place over time.

And essentially we ended up talking about these two, we zeroed in on these two forums, four Chan on the one hand and then Tumblr on the other. And what you see, I mean, Angela Nagel is one of the women, you know, she's one of the internet historians I spoke with. And she was basically, she used those two as exemplars. You know, 4chan is more male, more right leaning, more kind of, you know, chaos. And then Tumblr, like, leans more female, you know, both young, and kind of, I don't know if virtue signaling is quite the right term there, but kind of like very, you know, trigger warnings and safe spaces

and things like that, like we're kind of ascendant there. And you see the interplay within these communities and then also between them, You know, it's part of, partly explains how those things came to be. That makes sense. What role did both of these play in the story of how we get here? So with Tumblr, like that was really the one that JK Rowling described as being something that she, she was very interested, and she, she was very interested in the use of the word identify. And Tumblr was a place where people could go and play with identity.

And as I said, this whole kind of sensitivity culture where you're trying to be very careful in the way that you talk to and about yourself and other people, you can play around with identity. So this is where I think it was like 70-some different genders or something. And for a lot of people, we didn't see a lot of those things until it became like a news clip, talking about the way that Facebook was having those things. So it became this news clip, right? Facebook is introducing 70-some gender identities and you could choose whatever you. And so, but again, there were many aspects of Tumblr.

Like I think one of the big ones too was there was this blog called, or this account called, Your Fave is Problematic. And it's kind of, it embodies and exemplifies this trend that I think, again, really took cold about a decade ago. And it's essentially, you are showing your righteousness by pointing out

others unrighteousness. So somebody, you know, they're digging through your old tweets. They're looking at all of all of your behavior, like trying to find the thing that shows that you are a bad person. And because I, you know, I can identify those things, that makes me a good person. And so, you know, this, there's, it's so funny, because like, as I'm describing some of these phenomena, like this was absolutely representative of my experience at Westbro. We were constantly scouring the news and the media, like looking for things that show that

other people were bad and wrong and going to hell. And it we saw it as our duty. Like this was, again, a way to show that we were on the right side. And so I don't see any of these things as, you know, I'm not trying to condemn people for engaging these kinds of behaviors. I think I understand and can see where it's coming from and even that it's coming from an attempt to be a good person yourself. And yet in the prosecution of those ideas and trying to tear down other people, you know, there's this amazing line from one of the contributors to the show, Natalie Wynn, where she says, you're, you're

trashing people, but you feel like you're crusading. And I think that's very much representative of, of, you know, this aspect of, of internet culture that I think has made things so much uglier and certainly less pleasant. That righteous retribution, I think, Jekyll Rilling brings up as well, that this is a central theme within some of the books, that some of the most atrocious things that have been committed throughout all of human history have been done by people that were thinking that they were the good guys. Very few people actually do bad things in full knowledge of the fact that they're the baddies.

There's that famous sketch from a British sketch show where it's two Nazis and they're talking to each other and they turn toward the end and they say, hang on, are we the bad guys? And it's just that sort of, they realize, oh my god, maybe we're on the other side and then they cast it off and then they realize it's not. Okay, so. And I think, I mean, to me, that is a very hopeful thing because when the fact that, to my mind, I mean, I think it's, unless you are a literal psychopath or sociopath, most people

like really think that they are doing the right thing. And the fact that their intentions are good to me, like I said, is a hopeful thing, because it means there's something that you can tap into. Like if you can help them reframe the situation or introduce the kind of complicating factors and alternate perspectives, there's hope for change and improvement. How is it that one account on Tumblr, and even Tumblr itself, I don't know how many users were on that social media platform, but I wasn't knowing that I know was much. That might be because I didn't have many girlfriends like when I was younger. How can that be sufficiently influential as to move culture a decade later?

to move culture a decade later? So the way that it was described in the show, and it was the really interesting thing was, you know, as we were interviewing these people, and all three of them, all three of these internet historians were telling the exact same story, which is, you know, these kind of norms were taking hold on places like Tumblr, but it was when they migrated from Tumblr to Twitter, which again, another amazing line from Natalie Winn in that show. She says, Twitter is politics, full stop.

And so it is when these norms migrate to a place where there's a lot more users and a lot more, people like influential people, people in the media, journalists, politicians, that's when it really takes off and becomes kind of ascendant in culture much more broadly. What's the role that Fawchan plays? Fawchan, so the way that Angela and Igal described it, she's essentially saying, like when you have these two groups, so you have, there's the interplay within the group, right, that kind

of like pushes people to double down and become more and more extreme within their group. And then it becomes like this feedback cycle between the groups. So in seeing the extreme nature, you know, and especially like, so you have extreme sensitivity on tumblr, and extreme anti-sensitivity on 4chan. Seeing what is happening on the other site and the extreme nature of it in your eyes, it causes you to think that it helps you kind of pushes you into this idea that it helps persuade you that your political project is necessary is how she put it. And so, again, being among all these people who are confirming your values and then seeing

what's happening on the other side, does that make sense? It's like, it's... Okay, sorry. It creates a recursive antagonistic feedback loop, right? Exactly. And then when you roll into it trolls who use Poes Law to basically ruin the entire game, the number of trends that have come out of Fortuna. I'm actually friends with who was, he no longer is, but the only guy that was a public moderator of Fortuna. Yeah, he's got a few interesting stories. Yeah, it's just, it's such a hydrahead to even try and

get that to work. One of the interesting things that I kept on thinking about and you touched on it with how many people became friends and probably got married because they wandered when they were kids or late adolescence over the Harry Potter box. There's such a difference between whatever 25 years ago when the Harry Potter box came out and the internet was burgeoning and the story that we're talking about now, which is much more familiar to everyone that's listening, which is no longer about this sort of nostalgia for the internet of making friends, but it's the internet of making enemies. Now, and again, that trajectory, which I think a lot of people who are, you know, millennials

will be able to feel because they would remember what life was like before. Then they would have remembered what life was like, maybe during the, you could call it the brief golden years of the internet. And then the very quick pivot into whatever the world is that we're in now. Yeah. It's defining, it's like we used to define ourselves by what we were for. And now on the internet, we are defining ourselves by what we are against. And I think that's again, part of the interplay between seeing, you know, each side seen what's happening on the other platforms. You've got this great quote. The language of public life has lost the character of generosity. Yes.

Yes. That's actually, it's not my quote I should say, that's my, one of my favorite authors, Marilyn Robinson. And I just, I was reading something, something of hers. And when I saw that quote, I was like, that is, it's the understatement of the century, but it is that the loss of the ability to recognize that other people are human beings who are also on a journey. Like we recognize that about ourselves. We are able to recognize that we are not who we were yesterday and the ways that we screwed up in the past, we can learn better, we can do better, we feel that hope for ourselves. But again, that the language of public life is lost the character of generosity. We feel like we have to judge people based on who they are right now

and the sense that there is no hope for them. And again, to me, that that loss is, we've lost something real and valuable and good. You know, the the epigraph of my book is this line from the great Gatsby that goes, reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. And to me, that is just the encapsulation of this idea of grace, right, that the willingness to see other people is being on a journey and that there's hope for them to grow and change. We have that same hope for ourselves and that we can contribute to their lives and their understanding of the world

in a way that could actually help them. So again, the loss of that generosity, I think is part of what leads to this like incredibly judgmental, condemnatory mindset that I recognize so well from my upbringing. Continuing to track the journey or the propagation, I suppose, of this world view, it seems like the impositions on language have really been a flashpoint for a lot of this stuff. That moment when language began, there were proposals to change it,

the accusations that it was being perverted or it was being miscarried, that seems to have been something that, why do you think that it, why is language being such a important ground zero for this conversation? Do you mean specifically in sex and gender? Yes. Because it's representing how we see reality, right?

That's the whole point. Like, can we talk in a way? Can we communicate in a way that we can, I mean, so this is why, just imagine for a second, I think we've all seen the video clips of politicians who are fighting over the idea idea whether men can get pregnant. When these people are having these public battles, you have generally it is the Republicans who are saying men cannot get pregnant.

Then you have somebody, generally a Democrat saying, men can definitely get pregnant. Nobody in this conversation, I think nobody is confused about whether, like, that it is females who are getting pregnant. But the battle is over the language, right? And like, what we are willing to say, whether we're willing to make these changes and make these accommodations for this very small minority of people, and for some people, like, again,

it feels like so much is at stake on both sides. They think we are being asked to change or to alter our understanding and our ability to talk about reality. Like that's almost, excuse me, that's almost exactly what rolling, you know, is saying in episode seven when we talk about that this question. And then on the other side, again, it feels like I'm trying to think, maybe it's a sinked way of putting it, it's like one side thinks this is such a small change that we're asking. And it's not that, like, why is this a problem? Why can't you just alter this and accommodate these people?

It is just the kind and right thing to do. And the other side is saying, we have to be able to talk about reality. We have to be able to say clearly what is happening, you know, and we shouldn't alter. We shouldn't have to alter how we understand the truth and reality. And so, yeah, it's like, it's a very kind of frustrating place to be, I think, for people because one side is saying, it's not that big of a deal. You know, like, think about it, like, think about like misgendering or something. Like, misgendering is not that big of a deal.

Like, why do you take this as such a huge thing? And they're asking,ering is not that big of a deal. Why do you take this as such a huge thing? And they're asking, it's not that big of a thing. Why can't you just do it? You understand? So they both are minimizing the negativity, experienced by the other side. And again, it's a very hard place to be. This has been propagated a lot by journalists,

both traditional media and new media as well. What did the journalists that you spoke to contribute to this discussion? What did they have to say about why this had taken hold so much? I mean, I think one of my really most interesting conversations I had was with this journalist Michelle Goldberg who's been covering this for a long time. I mean, more than a decade, I think, at this point. And the way that she described it was essentially that, again, everybody, everybody, both sides, both the trans people and the quote unquote, TERFs, like JK Rowling,

feel very embattled. These are people who feel like so much is at stake, right? And again, when that is the case, like it's very hard for people to let go of their pain long enough to hear what the other side is experiencing. And because I think a lot of people have opted out of the conversation, because of how toxic it is, what you're left with is kind of the

people who feel the strongest on both sides and who have taken kind of the hardest lines in the most extreme positions, that like those are the people who those are the voices that you hear. And again, that feedback cycle is incredibly destructive. It feeds back feedback in a very strange way as well that if there is an increasing sensitivity on both sides to anybody who seems to see ground to the other as being accused of being whatever or whatever, that causes fewer and fewer people who aren't 100% absolutely ardent about their view to wait into the topic because unless you're unbelievably compelled to do it, why would you bother to step foot into this absolute cesspool,

which creates an incentive to push this out only to the absolute edges. It's only the people who are the most ardently four or the most ardently against going to step into this conversation. Because get fucked if you think that the moderate person's going to do it, because they're just going to get caught in a turn of crossfire. Yeah, and no exactly. And that it is that exact that's absolutely part of the dynamic that led me to write that letter to JK Rowling. Like there has to be a way of articulating these things and talking to people and hearing what they actually believe.

And again, not the most extreme versions of all these positions. Because that's, you know, you essentially get strumming, and just over and over again. And yeah, that- you've weirdy. You hear so many people articulate that exact thing. Why would I step into this when the stakes are very high? It doesn't seem like it affects me personally. And there is no upside here. There is no upside. Is- is- is- that's a good, an interesting question. Why has this become such a huge issue

that is spread across corporations, news commentators, reactionary talking heads, all of that stuff, when it's only an issue that affects, we do 1% of the population, something like that. It's a very small number of people compared with this huge, huge amount of attention that's being given to it. What's going on? I mean, I think it's because it's become a moral flashpoint.

Like, it is a discerner. Like, are you on the right side or are you on the wrong side? And when, I think when that is the case, and especially, you know, one of the, one of the things that's come up a lot is essentially with LGBT rights, you know, when same-sex marriage was won in this country. You know, it's like all these organizations essentially, you know, that were existing to try to ensure that we got that right won in this country. They still exist. And it like LGBT, so the tea part of it, like the trans rights essentially was like the next frontier. People saw it as the next frontier,

like this is just this kind of besieged minority and we need to take care of these people. And so I think because people saw that as the natural extensions is the next battle, it has become the flashpoint. Is the trans rights movement any different to the gay rights movement? Well, this is what people are having these major battles over at this point, because there are people who say, no, absolutely not, it is the same kind of persecution, the same kinds of arguments

are being made against trans people as were made against gay people and bisexual people. But then you have people on the other side who are saying, no, this is actually fundamentally different. And in fact, this is actually one of the complicating factors that ultimately led me to take on this project, because I'm also not immune to the fear. I mean, ultimately, when I first went down this path, my friend Andy Mills was the one who called me with his idea for this show a couple of years ago. And I was really interested.

I immediately started researching and sending all these things like, oh my gosh, you have to include this in the show. It's really fascinating. And then when he asked me to host, I definitely, I took a while before I said yes. And I spent that talking to trans people and to, but also, I mean, to gain lesbian people. And it was really fascinating to hear them describe, I should say, not all of them, but they were describing an element of homophobia

in the trans rights movement, which is essentially, if you are same sex attracted, if you are a lesbian and you're excluding trans women from your dating pool, then you are transphobic and that there's something wrong with you. And, you know, hearing these kinds of things from gay and lesbian people in my life, and hearing kind of this anguish, I would say, you know, essentially saying they had fought people like my family, me and my family, for a very long time

You know who'd been telling them there's something wrong with you for being same-sex attracted and now they were getting it you know very similar kinds of criticism from the progressive left and It was a wrong with you being same-sex attracted. There's still something wrong with you being same-sex attracted What's it's a genital fetishists? Right? Exactly. I mean, and it's, you know, obviously, like not all trans people feel that way or try to, you know, take those positions, but there are, you know, some who are.

But again, that's so fascinating. Like the series is, you know, we have seven episodes. It's, you know, essentially, you know, about seven hours of material. There was so much more. There are so many, like it is one of the most fascinating, incredibly rich topics, and the fact that so many people opt out of the conversation because of,

oh, and I don't just mean this from a curiosity perspective. I mean, like real people's real lives are affected by the answers that we will eventually come to in these conversations around sex and gender. And it's like, yeah, I'm still absolutely persuaded that we have to be able to have these conversations as calmly and kindly and civilly as possible because, again, people do feel like so much is at stake,

so many really important aspects of who they are and the way that they live their lives. What did the clinicians have to say? When it comes to clinicians, there's a lot of different kinds of opinions about it. I think one thing though that is clear from everybody that I spoke to, and that includes people like Dr. Mercy Bowers, who's the head of WPath, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. You know, essentially all of them agree that we do not have enough information.

There is not enough research. Dr. Bowers told me that I think it was like 80% of the research that has been done with youth medical transition has been done in the past 10 years. So it's very recent, you know, a lot of these professional associations in other countries like Sweden, Norway I think the kinds of concerns that a lot of people had, including JK Rowling, they're not completely unfounded. Absolutely not. Did you read Time to Think by Hannah Barnes? I have read part of it, yes, and I have seen a lot of her.

And everything that she talks about that is exactly the kind of thing that rolling was worried about and I think a lot of people who are concerned about youth gender transition. I don't know if you've seen Helen Lewis actually had a, I interviewed her in the series, she will actually be in the epilogue that'll be out later this month. She wrote a thing for the Atlantic, a piece in the Atlantic, and essentially said, neither the attempts to compel you transition or to completely ban it. Neither of those things is the answer, is essentially where she comes to. I think it's a really fascinating argument. Hannah was on the show and for the people that didn't see it, she basically presented,

I couldn't believe how carefully she tried, which I thought was very impressive. It's super, super, super gentle, anything where she was out over her skis where there wasn't evidence she was pushing back against. But she basically said, puberty blockers and the book's called Time to Think because that's what puberty blockers were and the book is called Time to Think, because that's what puberty blockers were advertised as being, that it just put a pause.

Pause on puberty, get rid of the blockers, and then puberty will rebegin and everything ends up being the same. But it's an ironic title, because it doesn't give you time to think, and there is an unbelievably high percentage of children who go on puberty blockers who end up essentially on a set of train tracks that results in gender reassignment surgery in their late teens. And there is an interesting question, are these young children mentally disturbed because they're trans or are they trans because they're mentally disturbed? How many people that are suffering with autism spectrum disorder, with obsessive-compulsive

disorder, with a number of other issues, are coping with them, especially as a girl, because it's the increase is rapidly, rapidly occurring in F to M, as opposed to M to F. I'm now a girl. I am being seen as a sexual object by my peers. I wasn't previously my body is changing. This is scary. I don't know what's going on. I have more than ever comparative views of what femininity is supposed to be on the internet, whether that be hyper-sexualized or whether that be like inverse or reverse mimesis, negative mimesis of being a tomboy. and maybe I don't fit into this

and maybe I've got autism spectrum disorders. I'm already not very lady-like. Maybe I'm just a boy or maybe I just want to take time, but that time to think isn't time to think. It's time on a set of train tracks that ends up with you getting into transitioning. And yeah, it's pretty scary. And I'm not a any gay anymore,

but the gender identity thingy service at the Tabis.clinic didn't do a good job. Yeah, I mean, that's Dr. Erica Anderson, who I also interviewed for the show. Each of these things, it's a very individualized, like we have to be able to look and examine and have each of these young people actually be examined and go through a, I think, what you call it, a bio-psychosocial profile, or I think that's what she called it. And places like, you know, the gender identity service at Tabestock were overwhelmed, essentially, with patients, and not really following those protocols, I think is one of the findings

of the cast report. So in the absence of those things, I should say, though, too, I interviewed this wonderful trans boy named Noah who had top surgery as a 16-year-old. I interviewed him shortly after he turned 17 and he's an incredibly smart, emotionally intelligent. If you listen to that, he is somebody who really deeply, I think one, he definitely got care that was much better than what was described at the Tabestock. But also, again, just an incredibly smart, emotionally intelligent person who

really wrestled with all of the potential consequences, thought about what if I eventually come to detransition. When I asked him about that, he basically said, if I eventually decide to detransition, I will have lived to regret my transition. He basically was saying, if he had not transitioned, he would have committed suicide. So, you know, it's an incredibly complicated set of circumstances and I really feel for

the parents who are trying to figure out like what is the best way forward. And it's in, you also hear, you know, one of the criticisms that we got from people in the show is, you know, why didn't we talk to a D-transitioner? But then you also have, you know, people who wished we would have talked to somebody who was not allowed to transition as a minor, who didn't have the kind of, you know, a trans person who did not have the kind of support that Noah had from his parents. And essentially we're forced to go through what they describe as the wrong puberty. So, you know, a trans girl who was forced through male puberty because they didn't get treatment. And now, as an adult, has to kind of undo all of those things. And, you know, it's, like I said, it's a really complicated and, it's a really complicated thing to try to figure out from a policy perspective, like, what is the right way? What is the right thing to do? And even more complicated from a policy perspective, what is the right way? What is the right thing to do?

And even more complicated from a publishing perspective on how to say these things without putting your foot on some sort of trip wire for one side or the other. Ultimately, I think when it comes to the conversation, which is, you know, there are a number of different layers to what you're talking about, the history of why this has come from, the implication for why it is happening, the experience of the people that are going through it, the consequences for society and for other groups

who are affected by the people who go through it, the conversation and why that's become so polarized, you know, it doesn't matter how terminally online you are, even if it's as much as me or you with regards to this kind of an issue, there are so many unseen holes in the floor that you can just stick your foot through. But you did spend a good bit of time on the show talking to critics of Jackie Rowling, talking to activists from the LGBT movement, etc., etc. What did you learn from spending time with them? Because I think, at least as far as I can see, a lot of people are very familiar with the pushback, with the well-meaning pushback especially against these sort of policies. It is pretty self-evident why biological men invading women's spaces, whether they

be bathrooms or prisons or psych wards or hospitals or whatever, it could cause complications downhill. What were your eyes open to when you spoke to critics of Jekyll Rowling? Well, when I talk to no, I mean, Natalie and Noah are the two primary critics we actually featured in the show because I really felt like their, their description, their ability to I think because I really felt like their description, their ability to I think help people understand where they're coming from because you again online you get a lot of this kind of very it seems like hyperbolic overstated and you can really hear the pain, you know frankly from from people like Natalie and Noah

They don't and again especially, he basically was saying he didn't want JK Rowling to not express her opinions, her concerns over all the things that we just described. The youth, you know, youth medical transition, you know, children transitioning to young before they have a real ability to understand the permanent in many cases changes that they are making to their bodies. So it's not that they you know think that her they basically think that she's not engaging in good faith. That's what Natalie said and then with Noah again basically saying the story that is told because she she has such a massive platform, and because she has been, you know, the victim of this kind of, again, overstated, kind of hyperbolic, the threats and things that she has received have been highly publicized.

And basically, she was saying, I mean, sorry, basically, no one was saying that those things are true and they're real, but they essentially take the focus off of the fact that trans people are highly marginalized. They are often excluded from society. They are treated like outcasts in many situations. Many people don't have, again, Noah's the support that Noah has from his family, from his parents. You know, as Natalie was saying, these people are cast out by their families, cast out by society, targeted by the government.

You know, they're a healthcare being banned, and in some cases criminalized. The fact that rolling essentially takes up so much air in that conversation, even though the things that are being said about her are true, they are essentially giving a view of something that is of the situation that is false. Does that make sense? Because the scale is not fairly, does that make sense? Yeah, it does. I'm thinking about how even within that, even within JK Rowling's contribution to this conversation, even that's multilayered, right? So her concern about some of the extreme and very dangerous implications of self-idee of many women's spaces, biological, many women's spaces, et cetera, et cetera. That captures a portion of the conversation, which I'm going to guess that contra points

and know a biological man who hasn't gone through, who doesn't have gender dysphoria, who hasn't decided that they're going to try and make any effort to transition. Something tells me that neither of them would say yes to that too because that makes their own case for legitimate trans people weaker. Or at least it's not going to be the first thing that they're going to charge out of the gates trying to get. They're going to try and help people that they think are genuinely suffering and could do with some treatments that are going to assist them. But because that's what J.K. Rowling has kind of captured as part of the conversation. And then the backlash to JK Rowling, which has been from the more militant parts of the LGBT movement, also captures and jades both sides. It riles up the opposition and says, see, I thought you were supposed to be for tolerance

and inclusion. This is complete rank hypocrisy or evidently you evidently don't care about this thing. And then that bad mouths the people on their their own side because they think, no, they don't represent us. And yeah, it's the ever escalating echo chamber incentive causes people on both sides to misrepresent both their own and each others. And it's that sort of recursive antagonism that ever, ever worsens and escalates. Yeah.

I mean, and again, this is exactly exactly the kind of situation that I was seeing when I brought that letter to rolling like there There just has to be a better way and I I really think that we you know You described all the landmines and it's very easy to step in completely unwittingly just based on the terminology that you use and so I mean It's it's it's really wild actually how much time we spend trying to get the language so that it is intelligible, right? Because even for people like to say trans women, a lot of people, even, you know, like I would say like lefty people that I know, you say trans women and they would say like, oh, is that a man who wants to be a woman or a woman who wants to be a man?

Like, I mean, it is very hard to parse a lot of this language because sex and gender are so kind of central to our understanding of the world. And so, yeah, like trying to figure out exactly how to speak in such a way that you are intelligible, but also not showing that you are, you know, have your thumb on the scale for one side or the other. It is quite, and this is, again, one of the many reasons that many people opt out entirely. Did ContraPoints do that video with the same title before or after you spoke to them?

After, yeah. How do you feel about that video? I mean, I am really, I really wish I could have talked to Natalie again, because I really, really like Natalie. I watched that video that she made, the witch trials of JK Rowling. And I mean, honestly, for several weeks beforehand, she was teasing that she was working on a video. And I was really, I was like, oh god, it's going to be about us.

And I, you know, I mean, I will say that like, as I watched the video, there was that there were a lot of things that I was, you know, I'm really trying to, you know, follow, follow her argument and try to understand where she's coming from and, and, you know, obviously I hate the fact that she regrets talking to us because I think we, we really, so many people see episode six that features her so heavily. Like, that was really challenging, I think, for a lot of people who thought they were just,

you know, essentially unquestioningly on JK rolling side. And the kind of, you know, she just, I think, represented herself really, really well in that conversation. I mean, it was really powerful. But when I was watching the video that she made after the fact, you know, there were several things that really stuck out to me and I'll just like go into one of them maybe right now. She just was describing this anti gay activist named Anita Bryant in the video.

And what she said was, Anita Bryant, like she's basically attacking my, you know, my view that I was saying earlier, that having civil conversation opened dialogue with people who think differently than you. That is the way forward to my mind. I think it is the most effective way to change hearts and minds and find a way forward when we live in a pluralistic society. So that's the idea of mine that I think

that she's attacking in this part of the video. And one of the things that she said was, JK roll, I'm sorry, she said, I need a Bryant, didn't need to be persuaded. She needed to be defeated. And that really stuck with me because I was thinking like, but what does that mean? What does it mean for a need a Bryant to be defeated? I mean, I think what it means is that it's for her ideas to be defeated, right? And what does that mean?

It means that people are persuaded that her ideas are wrong. So it still comes down to persuasion. We still have to engage with these ideas, particularly ones, as I was saying earlier, particularly these ones that are so mainstream, that so many people share. And if we don't engage with those ideas, I don't know how, how will she win? I guess is my question. And the really interesting thing is that Natalie herself

says this in the series. Realistically, that is the trajectory, like how same sex marriage was won because gay people came out to their family and friends and said, we are not groomers. We're not trying to indoctrinate your children. We're not trying to turn them gay. We're just people who happen to love people

of the same sex. So yeah, that was one of the things for me watching Natalie's videos. I actually don't think that we are so much at odds when it comes to exactly how to move forward from all of this. I wonder whether or how much of that could have been silenced, would have been like defeated is another way to have said that would have just been not given a platform at all. I don't know.

I understand why it... She wasn't advocating that in the series. I mean, I'm sorry, she wasn't advocating that in the video though. She was just to understand how you wear the circle of allowing somebody to speak, but also saying that it was wrong to let them speak. Like if defeated means ideas defeated, but you can't hear the ideas. How are you supposed to defeat them? Right. I mean, again, in this, in her video, she was describing a lot of like particular

things that gay activists, gay and lesbian activists did in the 70s and 80s. You know, they put Anita Bryant's face on toilet paper and they made fun of her and they, you know, she kept going back to this moment where somebody smashed a banana cream pie into Anita Bryant's face during this like live TV interview or whatever and she keeps going that moment going back to that moment and I am just saying it's like she's saying that I like my position is never make fun of people never you know you should never you know show that you are angry disgusted you know I never said any of those things what I said was that I think that the most compelling, the most effective way to create change is to engage, to really engage with the ideas, right?

Civil conversation that makes where people feel like their ideas are being heard and addressed. Again, this is something that completely changed the trajectory of my life. I was absolutely, I was so hardcore. I mean, I was raising it from the age of five. And in spite of myself and in spite of every intention that I had of, you know, preaching this, this message and certainly it might, I was never going to change my mind about any of it. And in spite of all those things, the power of civil conversation, again, changed the course of my life. And it meant that I lost my family. I mean, I left, you know, I left everything that I and everyone that I knew and loved as a result of those conversations. And I don't

think that I am unique. I think that when people, when you engage with what they actually believe and actually treat them like a human being, I don't think that the way that I responded was, like I said, I don't think that was unique. I think I responded in a very human way to people who treated me like a human being. I've got a quote from a friend here that says, when punishment for what people say becomes widespread, people stop saying what people say becomes widespread, people stop saying what they really think and instead say, whatever is needed to thrive in the social environment,

thus limits on speech, become limits on sincerity. And it's the reason that censorship doesn't work, fundamentally, that you don't actually change people's minds. You just drive those opinions underground. And yeah, it's got to the stage now where two things, perhaps, one being that we must win at any cost, whichever side you are from, suggest that if you can create an asymmetric battlefield by censoring the other side whilst allowing yours,

that gives you a particular advantage. And the other one being that there is sort of a generalized risk of ocean moment anyway, three out of ten gen Zedders support the installation of cameras inside the home to surveil for wrongdoing that just came up from the Kato Institute last week, which again, if you have got into a routine of giving up your privacy on the internet in return for access to Google or YouTube or whatever, then what really is the difference between doing that in the online world and doing that in real life? It's not all that different, right? The lines begin to get blurred for the person that's been natively online since the age of whenever they can remember being alive.

So I wonder whether protecting people from bad opinions, protecting people from dangerous ideas, which I'm sure both sides, you know, use during this discussion. I wonder whether that contributes a little bit to, you know, the ideas should be defeated. It's a strange one. I didn't realize that you didn't know that that video was going to come out until after you guys had spoken and all the rest of it. That must have been, yeah, difficult. Yeah. I mean, like I said, I really like Natalie. I've watched some of her videos. I mean,

I learned her cancel culture video. even described like this witch hunt impulse. And I think there's a lot of things that she says. But, you know, I also recognize, you know, she disavowed the series even before the video, like basically, you know, from the very, before a single episode actually had come out. Yeah, before the video, but also before you had released anything.

Yes, exactly. Presumably at that time, all that was known about what you were going to publish was what you had spoken about during your conversation. But did you during the conversation? Did you think like it had gone badly? No, I mean, like it was quite long. I mean, this was like, I think it was like a, shortly before I gave birth. So I think it was think it was a lot.

There was a lot of love. In a fever dream. You're right, yeah. But no, I mean, like I said, I really like her. I thought it was a really good conversation. It was really interesting. And I was really grateful. I mean, I remain grateful because I think

the inclusion of her voice in the series is such a... It is exactly the kind of thing that I think is missing so much. It's a very thoughtful, considered critique, not again this kind of hyperbolic, very loud or threatening. And she wasn't attempting to shut down the conversation. Which I think is what... Given that she's disavowed it after it happened,

does that change your opinion at all? Um, I, it's really funny because like I, I, I, I, I've really tried hard to understand where she's coming from. And I think, but I do think part of, part of it is the dynamic that you just described. And actually she described, um, in the series, you know, this, this sense of a lot of trans people, you know, rely on other trans people for support. And I think she saw that people in her community saw our show, even before a single episode had aired, as they knew what the show was going to say, they were sure that it wasn't going to be what they wanted.

And so it became a target immediately. And so I think maybe in part, she was responding to that. I think in part, she was probably responding to an understandable misreading of the title. But again, I really feel like, I actually don't think we are that far off, actually. Even watching that video, I still really like her. I still really disagree with some of the points that she made there. But again, we live in a pluralistic society. I'm

very glad that she has the ability to describe her disagreement and then I can respond. It seems to me from the conversations I've heard with you previously in today and the show as well that you're doing an awful lot of work, almost twisting yourself inside out in a desperate attempt to be as unbiased as you can, to be able to put it on the both sides, to be able to do all of these things, despite the fact that nobody, everyone can agree on, it's not that easy to step through this mind field without triggering one of the tripwires on either side, right? So the amount of effort that you've had to go through, I don't know, the same with Hannah Barnes. Hannah Barnes was like almost offensively delicate

with the way that she spoke when she came on the show. It was outrageous how softly she was treading. The evidence would suggest it seems or so on and so on. So I don't know, I mean, you know, spent enough time watching stuff on the internet she was treading, we were with the evidence would suggest it seems or so and so on. So I don't know, I mean, you know, spent enough time watching stuff on the internet to know when somebody has an ulterior motive and it doesn't seem to me like you all or her do. And especially given the background that you're coming from, which is open-and-hose communication on the internet saved you and brought you into a life which you know very much Appreciate and value

um And imagine the kind of knots they taught I mean like Westboro by almost any view of what we were doing at the church You know people saw us as inhumanly cruel and just just absolutely Monsters essentially and the people who took the time in spite of all of that sometimes I go back and look at old videos of myself and that you should see the way I used to communicate. I mean, this is the kind of just the condescension and the arrogance and just again a Horrably cruel things that I would say the fact that people were able to and horribly cruel things that I would say, the fact that people were able to look past that and recognize that I was a human being who was the product of my upbringing,

and their willingness to, you know, as you said, tie themselves in knots to try to show me that kind of grace. I mean, like, I absolutely feel an obligation to do that as much as possible. I mean, like, the show could have been a lot of different things, but really, I think what it is an attempt to do is to really understand where people are coming from as good faith as possible, because again,

unless people really feel heard and understood, I don't think the willingness to listen is obviously a lot less. But then also, like, you have to be able to wrestle with the very best arguments on the other side. And if you're going to find a way forward, and that's really what I hope ultimately, this is one step down that path. How much backlash have you faced since it's come out? path. How much backlash have you faced since it's come out? Um, some, but honestly much less than I anticipated, like when we started this two years ago, I, I was pretty terrified that how that was going to go. Um, but I mean, honestly, Natalie's criticism is, is the one that, that like, I think hurts the most, um, because like I said, we really, really tried to do

justice to her position. And I think we succeeded again based on the kind of response we got from a lot of people. So it hasn't been that bad actually. And it's actually been pretty incredible to hear from a lot of people, including a lot of trans people, who see the series as a real attempt at being even handed, a real attempt at helping people understand each other. And I mean, honestly, one of the earliest responses I got was from an employee at a diversity center who was like, oh my god, like we need this conversation so badly. Like, kind of essentially, again, seeing,

I don't think we weren't trying to litigate the issues in this series. I don't think I'm the person to do that. I don't think I'm qualified to do that. But again, even that, like the willingness of people to listen, to really hear the other side and to wrestle with the best versions of their arguments, instead of these straw men that seem to come up so much on social media.

I don't know. I feel a lot of hope, a lot of hope. What do you think about what is a woman, Matt Walsh's documentary, because they released that on Twitter a couple of weeks ago, and I saw online that that is now potentially the most watched documentary in human history because of how much it got signal boosted in the space of four days, which is insane. But have you, did you speak to anybody about that? Have you, you know, you're somebody that is absolutely needy in this conversation doing something that's not like ridiculously dissimilar, finding out what's going on, broadly asking questions, although maybe

with less of an agenda than Matt Walsh had, what did you learn from people about that, or what have your reflections been on how that contributes to the conversation? It's been a while since I saw it. I mean, there were definitely some moments. I think some clips that that were on this was like a year ago, I honestly haven't been. I was, um, but yeah, I mean, I remember, I remember seeing those clips about a year ago. I think actually when I was flying home from that first set of interviews with JK Rowling, um, and you know, it, I think, so it's really interesting for it, you know, he's asking them to articulate the worldview and in some ways, some of it seems like it can be pretty incomprehensible for, especially for the end-initiated, I think. And, you know, you can win cheap points that way,

but I think, again, for me, we know, we could have done something like that. We could have, but the point isn't to make it harder to understand. It's again, to present the very best versions of their arguments and what they're trying to achieve and how they understand the world and make that comprehensible to the other side. If you're only talking to people who already agree with you, there will be no progress. And so I just, I understand where he was coming from. I do think he was mostly talking to his own side. And you know, again, I understand I think why he would do something like that, but it's

not the kind of thing that I want to engage in because I really do aim for mutual comprehension instead of mutual antagonism. What do you think the future of this discussion has in store? You might not have a crystal ball and divinity is apparently some form of a cult witchcraft in any case. But yeah, what do you think is going to happen? Does the volume get turned up? Get turned down? I think it's... Like I said I do feel a lot of hope I think I mean even over the past few months

There's been quite a bit of change. There's I think more I mean, I don't think it's going to be like a straightforward trajectory where everything suddenly gets better and people are able to understand each other and and or you know Suddenly, you know willing and able to talk to each other, but I I do see and are, you know, suddenly, you know, willing and able to talk to each other. But I do see already a change in the public conversation and the ability to say more honestly, what you actually think, I think fewer people are opting out. I still think it's probably too many, or self-sensoring. But I do hear more people willing to ask the questions in good faith and to really try to engage.

And again, for me, that represents hope because that's, I do believe that that is the way forward. Have you spoken to JK since the series came up? I actually have not, but I will be interested to hear what she thinks. I do know that she hates the sound of her own voice, so I don't know. She might have skipped all of the episodes

of the bits that have got her in. Yeah. Well. Well, Megan Feltzer open, ladies and gentlemen, I really appreciate the work that you've done to be an incredibly effortful task to do and probably one that largely carried an awful lot of personal risk. So I very much appreciate the fact that you decided to step into this. If people want to keep up to date and check out most of why should they go? And when's the app log out? I think the app log should be out in a couple of weeks. It's taken a little longer than I expected because I did finally take maternity leave after my baby was born. It was just as nice. But yeah, I don't know, keep up with me. I'm on Twitter. I've actually been...

Yeah, I'm a gosh, what do I even say? What do I say, Chris? I'm on Twitter at Megan Phelps and on Instagram at Megan Marie.