Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 423 | Feminists vs. Radical Gender Ideology | Guest: Meghan Murphy

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

Today we're discussing culture, feminism, and transgender ideology with writer and podcast host Meghan Murphy. Although she once considered herself to be a strong feminist, Meghan never compromised on a simple biological fact — men can't become women, nor vice versa. This pro-science stance got Meghan kicked off Twitter and vilified by the Left, but she continues to speak out about important issues through her podcast and website. --- Today's Sponsor: Patriot Mobile has the broadest nationwide coverage and uses the same towers as everyone. They have plans to fit every budget and great multi-line discounts. Go to PatriotMobile.com/ALLIE or call 972-PATRIOT! --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Hope everyone's having a wonderful day. I am so excited for you to listen to this conversation with Megan Murphy. She is a podcaster. She is a writer. She is an activist for women's rights. And she has been kind of exiled because of her views on gender activism and quote gender identity. And so we're going to talk all about that today. We're going to talk about the parts of feminism that she has started to question. the parts of progressivism that she has started to question since she has kind of been pushed to the side by her former political allies and former fellow feminists. And so I'm really excited for you to just glean a lot of wisdom from her. And I think a lot of courage as well. She embodies a whole lot of courage. And she's got some good advice for us at the end. So without further ado, here is Megan Murphy. Megan, thank you so much for joining me. I have been wanting to interview you for a very long time. Can you tell everyone who may not be familiar who you are and what you do? I'm Megan Murphy. I ran a, well, I still run a feminist website called Feminist Current out of Canada. I have a

podcast and a YouTube show called The Same Drugs. I'm probably most, maybe most well known for getting kicked off of Twitter for understanding the difference between men and women. So I don't know. Is that a good intro? I'm a writer. I write for the spectator sometimes. Yes, that is a great introduction. I think that is probably where I heard of you first. That might be where a lot of people know your name from. I know you're probably tired of telling the story and like rehashing this over and over again. But for those who don't know, can you tell them why you got kicked off of Twitter? I don't know how many years ago it was now, a couple of years ago. Yeah, it was at the end of 2018. And I essentially was kicked off for, I mean, the funny thing is that I still don't actually know, I don't technically know what rule I broke because Twitter never told me. Like, you just get one of those form responses that says, you broke a rule for hateful conduct. So, you know, essentially I was kicked off for speaking critically about gender identity.

identity ideology. So, you know, I refuse to pretend that men can become women. It's not possible. I refuse to pretend that it's possible to change biological sex. Primarily what I was speaking out about were laws and policies that would effectively, you know, would harm women and girls, would harm women's rights would put an end to women's sex-based rights. And I said one of the tweets that I was suspended for was men aren't women, though. I wasn't attacking anyone. I was just engaging in a conversation. And the one that finally got me kicked off was when I referred to a male named Jonathan Yaniv, who is now calling himself Jessica Yaniv, who is predatory. who's a grifter, who's an all-round, a bad person,

a person who is trying to coerce female estheticians into waxing his balls, to put it bluntly, I referred to him as he, and then I was permanently banned from the platform. And this is a man who looks like a man. At the time, he was still using his male pronouns in his social media accounts, He hadn't medically transitioned or anything like that. I don't think I even knew that he was, you know, trying to pass himself as a woman. And that was that.

I got a form response. I appealed. I got another form response. We tried to sue in California. We lost that case. You know, like I still don't totally understand the situation. Because, again, I've not, I don't know if there was a rule against referring to males as he, if they didn't want to be referred to in that way.

The day that I got kicked off, there was a news report, a news report, an article in Pink News. I don't want to refer to Pink News as like a legitimate news source. saying that Twitter had a new rule against dead naming and against misgendering. And that was, you know, like, I don't know, 15 minutes after I got banned from Twitter. So the timing of that was very strange. So I'm just guessing that these are the rules that I broke. But I think that what it was is that I had like a really, I was gaining a really prominent voice and I was getting a lot of support in terms of my critiques of gender identity ideology

and the impact on women and girls. And somebody at Twitter or some people who have connections at Twitter didn't like that. And they just decided to silence me or attempt to silence me. It seems like the pushback has been harder against people that trans activists would call turfs like you than people like me. I'm a Christian conservative who, of course, is not in alignment with most of progressive ideology, including this idea that men can become women and vice versa and using different pronouns for people that does not correspond with their biological sex.

I'm sure I have said things very similar to what you've said on Twitter. I've certainly seen plenty of other conservative commentators say things like that on Twitter. Do you think that there is more hatred and more animosity towards people that they consider turf's, like radical feminist who are against transgender ideology, than there is against people like me, like Christian conservatives who are against it? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because, you know, I do, I try to avoid making generalizations like, you know,

Twitter hates women or this is a misogynist bias. But I did note at the time, and, you know, and men noted at the time, too, that, you know, Ben Shapiro called me. We talked on the phone after this happened. He was trying to offer his support and he said, you know, like, I tested this basically by tweeting almost the exact same thing that you did to see if I would get banned and I didn't. You know, like I was targeted specifically because, you know,

what I think that it is is that the media and the trans activists and the, you know, progressive social justice, warriors, whatever you want to call these groups of people, I think that they really want to and have worked really hard to frame this debate as left versus right. So, you know, they want the public to believe and policymakers to believe, legislators to believe, that the only people who would ever oppose gender identity ideologies are these right-wing Christian conservatives. And anybody who is a leftist, a progressive, i.e., you know, a good, a good liberal who supports rights and progress, those people all support

gender identity ideology and trans activism. And I was obviously not, I didn't fit within that narrative, you know, like I've been a feminist for a really long time. I was a long time leftist, you know, I've sort of now tried to move away from those labels because I don't, I don't want to attach myself to identities that I feel are limiting. I want to be able to explore ideas as ideas rather than attach myself to specific ideologies. But for most of my life, I identified as a feminist and a leftist. And I was, you know, I supported socialist policies and socialist, the socialist ideology and, you know, radical feminist ideology. And here I was pushing back against gender identity ideology and against trans activism.

And so I think that's a big reason why I specifically got silence and they'll still allow conservative commentators to say essentially the same things that I was saying. You know, maybe there's a different analysis there, but the words are the same, right? Men aren't women. You can't change sex. Biological sex is real. only women can become pregnant, those kinds of like crazy ideas. Yeah. Yeah.

So everyone listening and watching knows my perspective on it. I talk a lot about like the theology of the body, theology of sexuality. And also we do talk about the legal and just practical ramifications of, for example, men being able to enter into women's spaces. We talk about it from a biological perspective. But I'm interested in hearing from your feminist perspective, traditionally I know you're trying to shy away from labels, but traditionally progressive perspective, why are you against this whole gender identity movement? Why do you refuse to believe that men can be women and vice versa?

Well, I mean, in terms of material reality, it simply isn't possible for a male to become female. A man can adopt, let's say, feminine stereotypes. So he can wear a dress, he can, you know, get plastic surgery so he can have, you know, breast implants. He can, he can try to sort of appear more like a woman, but he can't literally change his cells. He can't literally become a female. No male is ever going to have ovaries and, you know, be able to get pregnant and give birth. But, you know, my concerns initially were that I, you know, I, you know, I, you know, I didn't see a way to have gender identity legislation and protect women's sex-based rights. So you can't have sex and gender identity.

You can either have sex or you can have this thing where we all just identify as whatever we want. You can't protect women's spaces if you say that any male who announces that he's a woman can have access to those spaces. You know, you can't protect women and girls' sports, for example, if a boy or a man. can just say, I'm a woman now. I get to compete alongside these girls or against these women. You know, we know that there are men being transferred into women's prisons. And that's really dangerous. And there's already been assaults and sexual harassment.

Of course. Like, often these are violent men. Often these are men who are rapists. And because of these gender identity policies and laws, they're allowed to just say, I'm a woman, you have to let me be transferred to a women's prison. Same thing with change rooms, same thing with bathrooms, locker rooms, transition houses, shelters. And exactly what I predicted would happen, happen. You know, when I started speaking out against these laws, it was because Canada was

introducing gender identity legislation, Bill C-16. And I was one of the only people in all of Canada who said something. And it was a struggle to say something. You know, I pitched all over the place to try to publish an article explaining my concerns in a very respectful, rational way. And almost no one would publish it. Eventually, I found somewhere to publish it, the National Observer, which is a Canadian, you know, a smallish Canadian online.

News Magazine, I suppose. And, you know, she was like, fine, I'll publish it, but you have to write it for free. I was like, sure, fine. I'm just trying to, like, get the word out. But, you know, it was me and then Jordan Peterson, basically, who were the voices who were speaking out about this. And, of course, Jordan Peterson became rich and famous, and I became vilified and silence and censored, and I lost my book deal, and I was banned from Twitter.

So, I don't know. It's, like, interesting also. Yeah. I mean, there does seem to be, like you said, a lot of misogyny in this. And I'm sure the people who are for trans activism, of course they wouldn't call themselves misogynist. Of course they would say that they're all four women's rights. They're for protecting girls. But they're never actually made to explain kind of the, the dissonance that you just pointed out that you can't have sex and gender identity or you can't have sex protection and gender identity. production. They're actually mutually exclusive. No one is ever forced to actually explain how those two things, at least in their mind, can exist. Have you seen any headway in that arena and like having these conversations and trying to actually reason with this ideology that just seems so incongruent in a million different ways? people who are attached to trans activism and to gender identity ideology won't engage with critiques

they consistently just resort to these mantras and these attacks so either they just will repeat you know trans women or women endlessly or they'll say you know you'll be inclusive like they'll accuse you of being transphobic. No one will explain to me why, this is a question that I've asked a number of times, why it's important for a man to be able to identify as a woman if a woman isn't a real thing. So, you know, when I've engaged with trans activists, usually what I start with is I just say, what's a woman? So if you're saying trans women or women, what's a woman?

You know, what is it that you're identifying with? You're a man, you identify as a woman or a trans woman. What is that thing? And nobody will answer me. So I don't even understand why it's important. You know, why do you have to identify as a woman if you don't even know what that means and if that's not a concrete material thing? Like, why don't you just say, I want to be accepted as I am?

I like dressing this way. I want my face to look more feminine. Like, that's all fine. I mean, to a certain extent, like we can debate those things, but in as far as how people want to live their lives as individuals, personally, I'm not going to interfere with that. If you want to get cosmetic surgery, you can get cosmetic surgery. That's your right to do that. You can wear whatever you want. I don't care. You can wear makeup. But when you start creating laws and policies around these ideas and start trying to force people, to say, you know, I identify as a woman, therefore you also have to acknowledge that I'm literally a woman and you have to accept that I'm female, then no, no, I'm not going to do that. First of all, I'm not going to lie. Like, I'm not, I refuse to say something that's not true. And I know that that's not true. I think that's a dangerous road to go down. I think it's dangerous to start saying that words don't mean anything anymore. And a word is just subjective.

that material reality is just subjective that, you know, like if I feel like, you know, I feel like I'm black or I feel like I'm a man, then, or I feel like whatever, I'm indigenous, then you all have to accept that because it's how I feel. I mean, that's crazy. And so, no, I mean, you know, people have tried to set up interviews, debates between me and trans activists and every single thing. time, or I should say, you know, 95% of the time I did do one debate with a trans activist in Calgary a couple years ago. They can't get anyone to participate in the debate. They just won't do it. And I don't want to be like egotistical about it, but I'm like, I think that they won't engage because they know that they can't respond to the things that I'm saying. Like, it's much easier for them to just say, oh, Megan's hateful, Megan's a bigot, Megan's transphobic instead of actually engaging with me when everyone is watching and can see that I'm not hateful or bigoted

and that the questions that I'm asking are reasonable and the things that I'm saying are reasonable and that they really they really can't respond to these kinds of critiques they can only repeat their mantras and vilify and silence and shut down it reminds me a lot of critical race theory and how critical race theory and all forms of critical theory probably queer theory included. They're all self-certifying. So it is true because it's true. And if you argue against it, it's not because you have a legitimate point. It's because you're part of the problem. And for example, like if a person who is black doesn't agree with some of the tenets of critical race theory that, for example, every single institution and interpersonal

interaction is characterized by racism in the United States, it's not because they just have a difference in opinion or even a different experience. It's because they've internalized whiteness. I mean, it's the whole thing. It's like a Kafka trap. And I see that a lot with what you're talking about. That it's the same thing that if someone says, you know, you're crazy or you're a transphobe or you're a racist and you say, well, no, I'm not. And then they say, well, that's exactly what a crazy person. They're a transphobe or a racist would say. And so there's like, there's no recourse. There's no argument. There's no debate. And it makes sense when you think about out, okay, well, we've made truth, even biological truth, like this arbitrary, that we can't even

define something that we've been able to define from a linea, a man and a woman, then of course, why would we expect people who hold those kind of beliefs to be able to have any kind of logical reaction to it or logical stance on it? But that really scares me. Like being in this post-logic, post-truth world where we can't actually discuss anything. I just don't see that ending well. And I can't even say what the end result is. I hope it's like some kind of implosion to where it just breaks down. I don't know.

What do you think? Well, yeah. And I mean, what happens is, you know, for example, if you're accused of being a racist and you say, no, I'm not a racist. I don't hold racist views. Then the person accusing you, you know, especially if they hold the correct identity, if they identify as a person of color or whatever, we'll say, oh, well, you don't get to decide.

Like, I get to decide if you're a racist or not. And it's like, okay, I mean, then what is it, like, you know, prove that I'm a racist, I guess. And it becomes this really slippery slope where they're like, well, you know, you essentially you use the wrong language or you challenge the wrong thing. You know, anyone who is anti-racist would support everything the black one. Lives Matter does, would, you know, hate the cops, whatever. It becomes all based in identity, but, you know, political identity. And like you were alluding to, if a black person doesn't support critical race theory or doesn't support Black Lives Matter or doesn't support all of the, you know,

policies and ideas being pushed by Black Lives Matter or whatever it is, then they're self-hating or they're some kind of traitor. And the same thing happens in all these activist groups, I think. You know, like it happens in feminism too. I've sort of started to question a lot of feminist mantras and, you know, things that we're supposed to accept as true and not question in feminism, which has put me at odds with a lot of feminists, unfortunately. People get really mad when you question the ideas, the ideologies, the activism that

they've attached themselves to for so long. And I've never quite figured out why, but I agree with you that it's sort of, I think it is a dangerous road that we're going down. And I've been rereading 1984 over the past couple of weeks, and it's quite taking. terrifying considering, you know, the context of what's going on with COVID and all the shutdowns and restrictions and the loss of freedom and freedoms and rights there, but also in terms of what we're doing to our language and discourse and, you know, we're, we're arguing against, I'm not doing this personally, but a lot of people are arguing against free speech because

they believe that free speech is harmful, you know, essentially free speech that they don't agree with is harmful. So for me to ask these questions about transgenderism, about gender identity ideology, supposedly that's harmful and dangerous and even violent, despite the fact that I'm not violent and I don't think I'm dangerous and I'm not trying to harm anyone. In fact, I'm trying to protect women and girls, which, you know, these females are half of the population. So I would consider that an important project. But, you know, I, and it's, it's ironic because I'm the one who's been threatened over and over and over again by trans activists with death, with rape. You know, every time we've held an event,

there's death threats. There was a bomb threat at our event in Seattle, which I think was the last event that I participated in on this live event before the shutdowns. You know, and it's really scary. Like I was I was really scared at that event in Seattle, which was at the Seattle Public Library, because they wouldn't let us hire private security. And I always have private security with me when I do these events. And they wouldn't let us. And I just thought, you know, what if somebody shoots me? Like I just, a lot of these people are really kind of mentally unstable. I'm not saying all trans identified people are all mentally unstable, but these kinds of activists are really quite unhinged, you know. It's unhinged to threaten someone with death because they want to

have a conversation about women's rights and you don't like what they have to say. Like, these people are not behaving in rational ways. And yet, you know, we're the ones being accused of being dangerous or of having a minority of you. I mean, that's the other crazy thing is it's Like they try so hard to paint us as this minority of like radical feminists who have this crazy belief that only women can give birth. But like these are just basic views that everyone in the world holds except for a tiny minority of people. Like I don't even believe that most trans activists.

Yeah. Yeah. And I don't even I don't even believe that everybody who says like trans women literally believe that a man can become a female. Like that's a that's a crazy thing to believe. Everyone knows that that's not possible. Like you'd have to be really, I'm not trying to be mean, but you'd have to be seriously delusional to not understand that there's a difference between male and female bodies. I think some people are delusional and I sometimes wonder if that's the point, like you talked about 1984, like limiting the scope of consciousness and critical thought that people

can have by limiting the language. That just seems to be something that's happening and, of course, controlling the schools and like what kids can learn. But I saw some stupid two tweets the other day about how we shouldn't call it breastfeeding anymore. We should call it chest feeding, which I'm very confused, like, about who is being accepted in that way? Because if a biological woman is having, if a woman is having a baby and she has breast to be

able to breastfeed, why would it be? be wrong to say that she has breast. I don't understand. I don't understand the whole thing. But it does seem to be just like creating this cumbersome burden on our language while at the same time limiting our scope of consciousness. So like in 1984, instead of saying excellent, they say like double plus good, which is ridiculous and longer and more cumbersome. But at the same time, it limits your scope of reality. Like it limits your scope of language because you just keep on recycling words. And that's what this reminds me of, like, lactating people or gestators or like chest feeding and things like that. It's limiting our understanding of reality. And so, yes,

I do think that there are some people that are delusional. I said something one time about, like, women needing the right to be able to defend ourselves because men are inherently stronger and we just don't have the same, we don't have the same ability to fend off a predator or something. And I had a woman tell me who I'm sure was not dumb. I mean, but she said that's internalized misogyny that you think that a woman isn't able to physically fight off a man. And I'm like, oh my God. I don't know how to reason with that.

I don't know how to reason with it. I don't know how to talk to a person like that. I mean, it's sort of, that's sort of like equality gone nuts, right? Like it's like we're not literally trying to be equal to men as in the same. We just want equal rights. And we want autonomy and freedom and the ability to live our lives autonomously and independently and with dignity. But anyway, I mean, yeah, like I think it's that people really, it's like people have been brainwashed. You know, they've been brainwashed by activism.

and progressivism. And, you know, it's, people are really shocked when you challenge these mantras that they've seen all of their friends say and that they've seen shared on Twitter and Facebook over and over and over. It's in their feeds constantly. So they just believe it to be true and right. And if you start asking questions, they're just like, it's like their, you know, brain short circuits or something.

And they've been told that anybody who. who questions these things, again, is like bad, is right wing, is, you know, far right or alt-right or whatever it is that you want to people decide to label so that you dismiss them and you don't listen to them and you don't engage with respect. It happens online. It happens in terms of my, you know, I guess my political or ex-political allies with my friends, you know, just to even say like, you know, I've said things like, you know, these people are struggling with like a mental condition or mental illness. And, you know, I'm not, again, I'm not trying to be mean, but if you're a man and you literally believe that you're a woman, then that's a form of mental illness. Like,

I don't know how else to get around that. You're not operating in reality. And it doesn't, doesn't mean that we should hate those people or vilify them, but I don't know why we're creating laws and policies around these kinds of ridiculous delusions that, again, only a tiny minority of people actually believe. At the expense of women, at the expense of a much larger population, by the way, like, it doesn't matter that I don't want my daughter to be sharing a bath or with a man or with a boy, doesn't matter that I want my daughters

to be able to, you know, compete against other girls because it's fair. That doesn't matter that I want that or they might want that. Or it doesn't matter that I'm offended as someone who has been pregnant and who has breastfed

that I'm offended by the language of chest feeding and jessators like it's so crude and rude. I find that really offensive. But my offense doesn't matter. offense of the majority of people, the majority of women just doesn't seem to matter. I guess it's just the intersectionality scale. I don't know. I don't have enough oppression points for my offense to matter. I don't really know. I don't know. Yeah, exactly. It is. It's, it's, we're creating laws and policies to address a tiny minority of people at the expense of women and

girls who are half of the population and who remain a very vulnerable half of the population. Like it is true that women can't generally fend off men. You know, like there might be a few anomalies here and there, like very strong women and weak men, so on and so forth. But like, in general, like, you know, like I box, I lift weights, I work out. I don't think there's any man that I could physically fight off. It's just, our. bodies are different and we are vulnerable to men and male violence and it seems crazy to me that we now can't even acknowledge that like the fact that you don't want your daughter in a change room with a man i don't even why should we have to debate that you know is that not obviously

inappropriate um and you know the the sports the the debate around women's sports and the conversation around, you know, trans-identified people in sports, which is really only a conversation about males competing against females. Like, there's not swaths of, like, trans men, so females who identify as men who are wanting to compete against other men, because why would you? There's no advantage of that. Yeah, exactly. There's a big advantage if you're a male in being able to compete with and against women and girls. But I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, a good conversation actually because a lot of people who aren't politicized who weren't engaged in this debate prior will look at this situation and say, wait, what? Like, that's a guy. Like, look how he's so

much bigger and taller than all these women. Like, this isn't fair. You know, people just sort of inherently know. Like, this isn't fair. Okay, this is a bit much. Like, it's one thing if you're like, you want us to call you like Susie or whatever sure fine who cares like a lot of a lot of feminists um well you know the kinds of feminists who are pushing back against gender identity ideology not the other kind saw where this was going early on and we're trying to warn people you know women like me women like germane greer women like jillie binzal um and we're super vilified over it and like I said, you know, exactly what I predicted would happen is happening. And it's just maddening because, and I'll see on Twitter, I'll see like conservative men be like,

where are the feminists on this? And then like, ban from Twitter. Like, I'm here. Yeah, I know. You're like, I'm here. I just not give you the form or at least. Yeah. I mean, I'm frustrated too that less, that more people didn't speak.

way back when. So I sort of get it, but I'm also like, you know, like I really was punished and silence in a lot of ways for saying all this stuff a few years ago. And, and yeah, I'm still struggling with that. I know that, you know, people are like, oh, it's just Twitter. Who cares? Like, it's just social media. I'd use another social media platform.

But, like, I work for myself. Like, I'm independent. I've always been independent. And I'm independent intentionally because I want the freedom to tell the truth and to say what I actually think. Like I don't want to have to deal with worrying about being fired or canceled. But at the same time, you know, like because I'm independent, I'm totally dependent on platforms like Twitter, you know, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, mostly Twitter. Like if you're a journalist or a writer, Twitter is the platform that you use. And that was the primary platform that I was using to speak to my audience and to connect with

interviewees. And it's just, it's made my work a lot harder, essentially. And it does sort of in some ways erase you from the public conversation. You know, I think if you're not, you're not on there, people kind of forget about you. And if you don't have institutional backing, you know, like if you're not working for some big, like, publication or, uh, channel or something like that. It actually has a really big impact. It's not nothing. It's a good punishment. Yeah. And of course, they know that. And that's exactly why they kind of exact the powers that they do. You mentioned a few minutes ago how there are parts of feminism.

You still consider yourself a feminist, I assume. But there are parts of feminism that you have started to question and wonder why all feminists have accepted? What are some of those things that you've kind of started to break apart? Well, I mean, I do, I am a feminist. So I have to say, yes, I consider myself a feminist because I am. You know, I advocate for women's rights. I advocate against male violence against women and sexism and sexist practices. But like I said, I just, I don't want to attach myself to labels that mean that people can

eject to me from that label or category or identity or whatever. So, you know, people will say, like, well, if you're a feminist, you have to be on the left. Like, if you're a feminist, you have to be intersectional. If you're a feminist, you have to, you know, believe all ways. women or whatever it is. And it's like, well, I don't, I'm not saying that I don't support these things, but I'm saying that I want to assess situations, um, and ideas independently. Um, and I don't want to be bullied into supporting a certain narrative or mantra just because I say I'm a feminist. So now I sort of am more inclined to just say, I advocate for women's rights.

And I feel like that's more specific. That's what I'm doing. I don't want to do ideology. I want to support women's rights and women's autonomy and freedom. And again, fight against violence against women and girls. But, you know, I've found myself at odds with feminists who say, you know, well, if you're a feminist, you have to support Biden. Or if you're a feminist, you have to support Biden. Black Lives Matter or you have to be intersectional, whatever, like, whatever that even means.

You know, like, if you talk to conservatives or right-wing people or people that we've deemed anti-feminist or libertarians or whatever, if you talk to somebody who doesn't fit, you know, our politics exactly, who isn't on the left, then you can't be a feminist. And it's like, well, then I don't want to do this anymore. Like, this isn't, I want to talk to everybody that I can talk to. You know, I want to know as much as I can. I don't want to limit my scope of knowledge. I'm engaged in critical thinking.

That's what I do, like, as a writer. And I want the truth, even if the truth doesn't fit within this political narrative. So I would just rather not attach myself to these ideas. I don't want to attach myself to the left anymore. I hate what the left is doing. I think it's wrong. It doesn't mean that I reject everything that the left believes. You know, like as far as economic policy goes, I'm, you know, probably pretty left.

So, you know, I still support universal health care and universal daycare. And I, but, you know, the ideas that the left are pushing are not ideas that I support. And I hate that they won't engage in debate in good faith. and I hate that they hate people who are different than them. Like, I don't think that that's a healthy way to build society. Like, I really, I like talking to people who are different than me. It's a good way to learn about people and to build empathy. And instead, what the left is doing is saying anyone who disagrees, anyone who's different is bad and wrong.

And I think that's bigoted. It is bigoted. You know, that's what bigotry is. and you know in feminism you know I found myself at odds of feminists because a man will get accused of something and I'm sort of just supposed to go along with it and vilify him and cancel him no matter what like even if I don't have any information about what happened even if I'm I'm, you know, questioning of the narrative. And for the most part, you know, I don't, like, just to be clear, it's like, you know, most women who say I've been raped or I've been sexually assaulted are not lying.

There's not, like, a lot of women who have a lot to benefit from lying about rape and sexual assault. But at the same time, I have found myself in the position of just wanting to ask questions, wanting to know more, wanting to have critical conversations. I don't like this culture that we live in where if one person says one thing about another person, you have to believe them because of their identity, and that person should automatically be canceled and vilified and lose their whole life and livelihood. That's not what I'm about.

And that is what a lot of feminists are about. And, you know, feminists have really failed to support free speech and have been very censorial. themselves. So, and I think that's so hypocritical and contradictory and wrong. Like, I, I am a free speech absolutist. I'm not going to demand that I be allowed to have free speech, but then say, oh, but you can't because your speech is bad. Like, lots of people think my speech is bad. That's, you know, if we decide that we only support the speech of people that we like or agree with, then we don't have free speech for anyone, then we're all vulnerable to being censored. And so many feminists don't really seem to get that. And I just, I find it frustrating. You know, I can't, I can't support that.

Yeah. I, you know, I've always kind of seen all of that what you just explained is just kind of hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance. Okay, how can they say, for example, like someone like you, you're inciting violence or you're hurting people or you're a violent person just for saying something when they are actually inciting violence against you or threatening you or whatever it is, you know, how can they say someone like me is dangerous that I shouldn't have free speech, that I shouldn't have a platform, but they don't want to think about if the shoe was on the other foot or if that standard was applied to speech that they do like or speech that they said. But then I realized that it actually is a consistent philosophy, not of everyone on the left,

but an increasing number of kind of rabid progressive, this kind of repressive tolerance, this idea that really in order to have a tolerant society, you have to be fiercely against what you see as intolerance. So transphobia, homophobia, racism, again, their definitions of these things. And so violence is justified. Deplatform and silencing is all justified

because if you think that your version of a future, utopia of, you know, that you think that your vision for the future is the only way to true justice and true equality and true equity and all of that, then of course you're going to take out any impediments. You're going to take out anyone that you see as a barrier to that because you believe like you're storming the beaches of Omaha taking down Nazis. Like you think that you are some kind of warrior and hero. So of course you're. going to justify violence, but you're not going to like it when the so-called Nazi does it. And I don't know how to necessarily pull people out of that, but I just keep telling, like,

whenever I see this, you know, another person being canceled for something stupid, voting for Trump for something like that. What I want those people to realize is like, you are the fascist. Like, you're the fascist. You are the fascist. And I'm just, I'm like, hopefully I can just say that enough, at least it'll get through to like some people that the people that are going around calling everyone Nazis, they're the fascists. Like we've seen this behavior throughout history. This isn't new. Exactly. I mean, I'm just like, do people not even bother like Googling the words that they're using? Like, I just want to be like, look up that word, fascism and see what it means before you start tossing it around in the way that you are because you're wrong.

And it's, I mean, yeah, I don't know. And, you know, crack a history book. Like people are repeating history in a really dangerous way and they don't realize that they're doing it. And they believe very strongly that they're on the right side of history. And they're not. They're on the wrong side of history. And I mean, I ended up on the wrong side of that debate around.

voting for Trump versus for Biden too, because I said essentially, like, you don't, a woman doesn't have to vote for Biden. She's not kicked out of feminism because she votes for Trump or votes for anyone else besides Biden. And I was vilified just for saying that. Like, I'm not voting. I live in Canada. I didn't vote in the American election. But like, I totally understand why people voted for Trump. And it's not because I love Trump. I think Trump is an and a moron. Like, I do, but I, that's not, that's not the only reason that people make decisions around who to vote for. Like, these are complicated issues. And there was a ton of things that I found really scary about Joe Biden, not just that he was going to erase women's sex-based rights, which he did immediately,

as he promised he would. But, you know, he's in bed with big, tech, you know, like this is, you know, I think that social media, you know, these monopolies are really scary and dangerous, you know, we're essentially being everything that we do is being monitored. They're dictating our speech and our access to information and to news. And you, you want women to just blindly vote for a man who's going to double down on that stuff and support these companies and support these monopolies and support, you know, censoring of news and information that doesn't fit the progressive narrative or the preferred narrative in terms of people who are Democrats or whatever. Like, it's just, it's not that simple.

And the fact that so many feminists would not engage in this conversation and in good, you know, in good faith. And so labeled me right wing or racist or white supremacist or a Trump supporter just for saying this, you know, this is not so complicated. Maybe you should go talk to some Trump supporters and try to understand why they support him because it's not all irrational. You know, maybe some people irrationally support Trump because they're rabid racists or whatever, but I don't believe that most people do. There's lots of good reasons to reject the Democrats. I hate the Democrats. There's no perfect answer here, but, you know, in Canada, there's no party that I support at this point.

But I just, that kind of binary thing. and that the enthusiasm with which these people who believe themselves to be so progressive and to be in the right and to be building this idealistic, better, more just world, but are so eager to hate and vilify and shut down and are unwilling to try to understand or empathize with other human beings. Like I just, it makes me so angry and scared. about our future. So no, I'm not going to align myself with people who behave in that way. That's not how I choose to behave. That's not the kind of people that I want to be around. And I think these

people are scary and dangerous. Like more dangerous than Trump. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, obviously I agree with you. And most people listening to this and watching this are going to agree with you too. There's going to be some people who listen to or watch this conversation. And it's funny actually how people have called me a turf because I'm not a radical feminist and no one would have ever called me a radical feminist, but it's, you know, like we've talked about, we're in this post logic world and all we want to do is categorize people and villainize them. So a turf is the worst thing you can be, then I'll be that. If we're a right-wing Christian, fundamentalist is the worst thing that you can be, then Megan Murphy will be that, even though that doesn't describe

you. And so I think a lot of people, you know, They're fearful of that. They're fearful of being canceled. They're fearful of being called a bigot. Can you speak to those people? Because I do think the vast majority of people agree with you, agree with us on this issue when it gets down to it, protecting women and girls. I really do think it makes up the majority of people, whether they say so or not. Some people might be manipulated or tricked by the euphemisms of trans rights are human rights. They hear that. And they say, well, yeah, I believe in human rights. Yeah, I believe that transgender people are people. that should have rights. But when it gets down to it, when it gets down to what it looks like for women and girls, I think most people do agree with us. Can you give some advice or some encouragement for young women who want to start speaking up and talking about this?

Or maybe, you know, I've talked to people in their nursing program. They're forced to put like their pronouns on their name tag or like labor and delivery nurses I hear from telling me that they have to ask their pregnant patients who are in labor, what their gender identity is or what sex they were born with, which is crazy. People who are in school, they're hearing this stuff or their friends or even their church. They're starting to push this kind of gender identity nonsense. And people just want to know like, what do I do? How do I speak up? Where do I get the courage to do that? Can you give people some encouragement?

Yeah. I mean, the reality is that if we are going to combat, any of this, the gender identity stuff, the cancel culture stuff, the polarization stuff, we do all need to start speaking out. And when you speak up, it gives other people courage. You know, when they see other people talking about the things they've been questioning in their own minds. I'm sure, you know, you probably get emails and messages from people like this, but I get messages all the time from people being like, oh my God, I thought I was going crazy.

Like, thank you so much for saying these things. It makes me feel sane. Like, I thought I was the only one. I feel like everyone I know thinks this thing, and it didn't make any sense to me. And now I know that it's sort of okay to say this

and okay to talk about these things. And there's lots of different ways that you can push back. Like you don't need to get on YouTube. You don't need to, you know, publish some big statement. on Facebook, you know, you can go talk to your MP, your political representative, you know, like you should definitely, if you're a parent, you should be talking to, like, the administrators, teachers, like, I think then a lot of people just think, oh, well, this is how things are now.

We just have to go along with it. And so that, so I do think that it's helpful if you sit down with say like your kid's teacher or the principal or whatever and be like, you know, like, I have really serious concerns about this. You know, you have a right to speak to these people about your concerns. They're having a major impact on your kids' life. You absolutely have a right to set up a meeting with your political representative with your MP or MLA in Canada. And to to talk about, you know, I just, I feel like we need to normalize the fact that people have concerns. Again, like we can't, we can't accept this narrative where we're this minority. We're a majority.

And the only way that they're going to understand that we're a majority is by speaking out. So, you know, however you can do it, whether if it's on social media, great. If it's writing a letter, great. It's making a phone call. Great. Setting up a meeting, great. Talking to your friends, great. But you got to do something.

I mean, and we do need more voices and we need more people and we do just have to be brave. And it is scary and it can be dangerous and people do suffer consequences sometimes. Unfortunately, I know women who have lost their job. It's hard, but that's how it goes. It's hard and doing the right thing. it is hard and telling the truth is hard and we just all need to be braver and we need to support one another in this right like we can't leave the the lone woman out there stranded like and and you know vilified and targeted as this like great oh it's only Megan Murphy she's the only one

in Canada who thinks that you know women are are female like right right and like yeah no like what she's saying is true and reasonable. She's not, she's that bad or we're nuts. Yeah. I think there's so much power and we've talked about this on this podcast before. When you see someone being unfairly maligned, whether or not you agree with everything they say or whether or not you know them personally, but say it's because they voted for Trump per se. It's because they believe that men or men or men or women, when you see them being canceled or their character being slandered, there's a lot of power and you raising your hand amongst very scared people and saying, I agree with that. Or even if you don't agree,

it's okay that they think that. Like, that's okay. There's a lot of power in sharing the arrows of your friends or the people that you align with on certain issues or even if the only commonality that you have with someone is that you care about free speech. But say you disagree on everything else, but you just, you disagree on the freedom to dialogue. Like, standing up for that person, like you said, courage begets courage. It adds a lot. And it's treating people how you would want to be treated. Like if you were unfairly maligned for something because you had an unpopular opinion,

wouldn't you want people to come to your defense and say, what you're saying about her being a racist or a terrible person or whatever it is? Just is it true? Wouldn't you want that? I would want that. And so I do think that we have to be more courageous in helping each other in that way and sharing the arrows and sharing the heat that comes and realizing like we kind of are in not to be

not to exaggerate or to you know be hyperbolic or mushy or anything but it is a historic moment I do think that generations are going to look back and wonder like what the heck did people do like was there anyone who disagreed with this was there anyone who stood up against this and you hope that one day people see the insanity of it and that they look back to conversations maybe like this one and say okay, there were actually people who cared. There were people who said something about this lunacy. I think that's the hope and maybe the optimism,

even if it's like a tepid optimism that people can have. Do you agree? Yeah, exactly. I mean, yeah, people are going to have to, you know, we may not win this fight, but people are going to have to look back and say, you know, like people stood up. and pushed back. And I agree with you that, you know, like I've stood up for people that I don't agree with, you know, maybe I didn't like what they did. Maybe I didn't like what they said, but I've still stood up and said, you know, like, this person doesn't deserve to be treated in this way. This person doesn't deserve to be fired or canceled or vilified. They're not a terrible person. And it sort of offers other people the freedom to do the same, to say,

oh, it's possible to stand up for Megan or whoever it is. I mean, there's so many people who've been subjected to cancel culture over the past couple of years. And again, like, it's important. And you should think about, I mean, you shouldn't, you shouldn't only be making these choices out of self-interest. Like, oh, what if this happens to me? You should just have ethics and you should stand up for what's right.

and stand up when something wrong happens. But you should think, like, oh, well, what would I want people to do if I were in this situation? Anyone could be in this situation. You never know when you're going to find yourself on the wrong side of the political debate or the cultural conversation. It can change in a moment. And would you want people to hear what you have to say and treat you with respect and empathy? Or would you want them to all? you know, unfriend you and stop speaking to you and accuse you of being an awful person and a

hateful bigot who should be murdered because like they said the wrong thing on Twitter. It's just not, it's just not a good way to engage with other human beings also. And I, you know, think about like, how would this conversation go if we were just one on one? If we were having this conversation on person and nobody was watching and I wasn't virtue signaling my politics to all my friends. Like how would you engage with this person? Probably in like a pretty decent, humane way. We've created this culture where we dehumanize one another.

And that's scary. You know, when you start dehumanizing people, it just, it makes it much easier to hate them, to be, to be violent towards them, to be cruel. So I don't know, we really need to, we really need to start treating people. with, I don't, you know, I don't want to say kindness because it ends up being like, oh, be nice. And it's like, I don't think you have to be nice all the time. Like that's sort of like, I don't know, I'm not nice all the time, but at least treat people like they're complex humans and they're not these one dimensional figures. Yeah, exactly. Okay, can you tell people how they can

can support you. They can't follow you on Twitter, but that's okay. They can follow you on Instagram for now and they can listen to your podcast, right? Can you tell everyone where to find you? Yeah, so I have a public Instagram account at Megan Emily Murphy. I have a public Facebook page, Megan Murphy. My podcast is the same drugs. You can find me on YouTube. I do a lot of interviews there. I have a Patreon to support my YouTube channel and podcast. So if you want to support me there, I really appreciate that. I publish interviews there and some writing there as well. But also, you know, just as if you feel like supporting my work or whatever, that's awesome.

I really appreciate it. Great. Well, we'll put the links to that, including your Patreon, in the description of this podcast. so people can just look there either on YouTube or wherever you're listening and you can click and you can support Megan. I really encourage people to do that. You're a good follow. I've been following you for a long time and I'm glad that we finally talked.

Thank you so much for taking the time to come on. I know people are really going to be encouraged by the conversation. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate your reaching out and it was really nice to talk with you. I really enjoyed this conversation and I'm really glad that we've connected. For sure. Thank you.