We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 75. ALOK: How do we interrupt trauma? How do we heal?

Episode Date: March 3, 2022

1. How do we make a new thing with our life? 2. What is your fingerprint on the world? 3. Who does history try to erase and why? 4. What does pain do to our bodies? 5 .What is our capacity for transformation? About ALOK: ALOK (they/them) is an internationally acclaimed writer, performer, and public speaker. As a mixed-media artist their work explores themes of trauma, belonging, and the human condition. They are the author of Femme in Public (2017), Beyond the Gender Binary (2020), and Your Wound/My Garden (2021). They are the creator of #DeGenderFashion: a movement to degender fashion and beauty industries and have been honored as one of HuffPo’s Culture Shifters, NBC’s Pride 50, and Business Insider’s Doers. Instagram: @alokvmenon

Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. I am so excited to jump right in with my new friend, who has been my secret friend for a very long time, but we have never met in person before this joyful, joyful conversation that we've been able to have. The poet, the beautiful aloke. Please go back and listen to Tuesday's episode if you have not yet. You're not going to want to miss that one. Sister, let's just jump right in and talk to, I think you had some things you wanted to talk to Alok about this morning. Alok on Tuesday's episode talked so much about the pain of the feminist movement, not understanding how our liberation is tied to the trans movement, how it's all the same. And I was thinking of a loke, I know you're from Texas, and especially with the attacks on reproductive justice in Texas and what's at the Supreme Court, I would love for us to talk a little bit about how my fight for bodily autonomy as a cis straight woman is inextricably linked to your fight for a bodily autonomy and how, you know, there's the obvious

link in that abortion is also a trans issue, of course, and that, you know, the power to make our personal medical decisions. but there's also this pervasive paradigm defining womanhood according to reproductive function. So the justification that a trans woman can't function as a woman because she lacks the essential reproductive capacity is the same justification that looks at me and says, because my essential function as a woman is my reproductive capacity, the state has an interest in regulating it. And I think that can we just talk a little bit about how the intersection of gender freedom and reproductive justice and how this is all the same bag of tricks? Yes.

And before answering, I just want to say, I see the gender studies major in you and it makes me so excited. Just the way that you speak. The gender study major in me sees and honors the gender study major in you. like truly you are my people like that's exactly how I speak on the daily people will be like how do you talk like that and I'm like how do you not this is how thoughts come into my head um okay so I want to I want to stage something that is so funny you see a bunch of cis women talking about how cis men should not be able to legislate their bodies and make decisions and those same cis women are legislating around trans and intersex bodies, right?

Ultimately, what we're fighting for here is you own your body and you get to decide what you do with your body. No one gets to tell you what gender you are. Gender is something that you get to choose. that's an elaboration of a feminist ethic of self-determination. It's natural conclusion. You can be a woman if you choose to be a woman. People think that trans and non-binary people are erasing people's right to be a woman. So when it comes through reproductive justice conversation, there's friction

because we'll say things like pregnant people, and people will say that's erasing womanhood. But we're not. We know that there are trans men who give birth. We know that there are non-binary people who give birth. We know that those trans men and non-binary people are actually being denied access to reproductive care. We all have a vested interest in reproductive care. So when we're talking about a group, we're just being factual. This is not something political. You're allowed to describe your individual experiences as related to womanhood. But when we abstract that to an entire group, we're actually erasing people who need these services. So we have to ask, why is there an

uptick and anti-abortion legislation and anti-trans legislation at the same time? The common denominator there is that men have determined that women's only function in society is to be a reproducing machine. And when you say, I've got other priorities, other investments, and you don't get to dictate that for me. I get to choose when I want to give birth, if I want to give birth. I get to choose how I assemble my family, my love, my appearance. That challenges this patriarchal idea of what women have to be in society. So actually, feminist women throughout history were called hermaphrodites.

If you look in the early 20th century, one of the slurs that people would say to feminist women is you no longer are women because you are not complying with male's definition of what women should be. And for listeners now, the term hermaphrodite is a slur used against intersex people. I'm using this as a historical context. But what that history can reveal to us, they would literally call feminist third sexers. Like, what? What that reveals to us is that both struggles are critiquing this patriarchal idea of what a woman ought to be. And what we're actually saying is women get to determine for themselves what womanhood means. So there's so much in common there.

The reason that there becomes friction or antagonism is a misplaced sense of fear because so many cisgender women feel like the issues, the legitimate, real material issues that they're experiencing are going to be erased. But they're not. There's still ways to talk about the specific concerns around reproductive access, pregnancy, while still being gender inclusive. Hmm. Yes. So when you listener, feminist listener, when you hear that your local community, school, whatever, is having a trans bathroom issue.

Okay? We want to have separate bathrooms. We want to please know that that is on the spectrum of a threat to your right to choose what happens inside of your body. Yep. Like all of it, same same. If you're not fighting for that, you're not fighting for any of it. Liberation is tied to each other. How does the average feminist get this wrong?

What do you see most often? Like, what does do feminists say that are not in the turf category, right? They're not extremists. What do they do or say that feels that you know is completely out of tune? Hmm. Where to begin? The first is whenever I speak about my experiences with sexism and discrimination, they say, welcome. as if they have a monopoly on this experience

and as if I haven't experienced this my entire life. I understand that, like, where the sentiment comes from and saying, oh, you're wearing a dress in society you're experiencing sexism, like, welcome to that. But it's not correct because patriarchy is not just men dominating women. Patriarchy is the policing of all people into gender norms. So even though our experiences of patriarchy might have been different, there's still patriarchy.

What patriarchy looked like for me, as someone was assigned male at birth, is some of my earliest memories were being called a girl as a pejorative, as if being a girl is something bad and irredeemable, and being put into sex-segregated spaces with the very people harassing me, such that my first development as a child

was through fear, such that I was disassociated. for the first 18 years of my life so as to not experience the pain of the constant routinized bullying that was glorified as actually a good thing because this is what we do to boys is we say tough enough right so you're getting bullied that's making you stronger so my experiences with patriarchy might not have been the exact same as yours but that doesn't mean that yours is somehow more legitimate or certifiable we should have a space where we can all be honest about the unique ways in which patriarchy has impacted us without creating a hierarchy

of who is more real or who is more serious. Then the second thing is an emphasis on the term woman without actually thinking about feminism as a project that liberates all genders. So oftentimes, even when we're talking about trans inclusion, people say, I stand with my trans brothers and sisters. you're not talking about trans inclusion because a lot of us are neither men nor women so you can say trans siblings or when you're talking about what you imagine the future to be it's not just the future is female right it's the future is whatever you wanted to be actually seeing the location to not just be about women's emancipation, the emancipation of all genders, right? And then the third thing I think I would really put out there is really trying to understand that the goal of feminism is not just

women's equality with men. That's a goal. But actually, the liberatory project here is gender self-determination, which means each person gets to choose. their own gender. And any system or institution that tells you this is what you should be, that's anti what we're trying to do. So what I try to tell feminists is it's about ending the gender binary. And then people get very nervous because they're like ending the gender binary. What does that mean? It does not mean requiring everyone to be non-binary. Like plot twists. Like I don't care how you identify. That's not interesting to me. What ending the gender binary is is stopping police other people's gender.

So it's not about how you identify. It's how you police other people. So ending the gender binary is a world without gender policing where people are able to look like they want, love like they want, because it's their life and their body. What does gender policing look like on a daily basis? How do we all do it? So it looks like thousands of strangers telling me that I should remove my body hair if I want to be believed, quote, for my femininity, as if women don't. have body care. It's just so absurd. I got lots. More in the chin area these days. But go ahead. It looks like telling me that I'm not really trans unless I get a medical diagnosis and pursue

medical transition. It looks like telling me that people with my body shouldn't be wearing dresses and skirts. It looks like people telling me that I can't do certain things in my career because people like me don't belong there. But that's not just what it looks like. It looks like the narratives we tell ourselves because that's where I really want to land this conversation. It looks like me looking at my career saying, I had a limited view of what my career could be

because I knew people were comfortable with someone who looked like me on a stage because of the history of drag in this country. And so I thought, oh, yeah, I'm a stage performer, that's it. I policed my own ambition and imagination because of other people's projections of what safety was. And so ending gender policing for me looks like I deserve to be as visibly flamboyant, looking like a clown as I want. I don't identify as a woman.

I identify as a Muppet. And that was a joke. I deserve to be able to be everywhere, right? So it's not just like during pride. It's not just like outside in the gaybarahood. I deserve to go back home to Texas and a practical six-inch heel and a miniskirt and a full beard because why not? So ending gender policing is also about expanding possibility and expanding belonging. Yeah.

I love that. And it's like the call is coming from inside the house all the time. It's like the police are in us. Yeah. Oh. This time of year, I am always looking for my sweaters. Luckily, Quince has all of the staple sweaters covered from soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like designer pieces without the markup to 100% silk tops and skirts

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You said something that gets to me all the time. I think about it all the time. You said, what feminine part of yourself did you need to destroy to survive in this world? Can you tell me what does that question mean to you? Yes. I think a lot of people, mistake feminism as policing femininity, not ending gender policing. So we look at women who are traditionally feminine and we say, you've bought into the myth of patriarchy, you are a joke, you don't belong here. And that's that negative self-talk in my head when I look at myself so often as I'm like, femininity is a joke.

It's not rigorous. It's not worthwhile. It's not worth fighting for. Masculinity is legitimacy, is intelligence, is leadership. And so when I was younger, I was an extremely effeminate child, and I was made to feel like I should have shame for the way that I spoke because it was too feminine, shame for the way that I walked because it was too feminine. So I didn't allow any audio or video recordings of me. There are very few photos of me for my childhood because I was so, so embarrassed by my femininity. But then what I realized is underneath that shame was my joy. I was feminine because it made me happy because it freed my body from the choreography of patriarchy, which made me be like this. Femininity said, you get to move. Feminity said, you get to be free.

Femininity was me in first grade dancing at my talent show in front of everyone with no shame. It was my power, my strength, my beauty, my dignity. And that was, pulverized out of me. And I was made to feel like feminine things that are associated with femininity, like intuition and like emotion and art and poetry. I wanted to be a fashion designer when I was younger. And then I was told, boys don't do that. I literally censored myself so much to become some hologram of what masculine culture told me to be. So the work that I'm trying to do now in healing my inner child is also developing my own relationship with my femininity to say I choose them. It's not something that men have made me be. It's something that I choose. When I'm wearing heels, when I'm

putting on makeup, when I have a wig, I'm choosing these because I feel powerful in this form. And in our last conversation, we were talking about TERFs, one of the things you see in a lot of turf discourse is anti-femininity. There's a deep femme. of, oh, these nasty, hyper-styled, they think they're women because they have makeup on, blah, blah, blah. And I'm here to say, actually, there's nothing wrong with makeup. There's nothing wrong with the things that we consider feminine. What's wrong is a culture that judges women and trans people for being feminine.

What's wrong is a culture that upholds masculinity as what it means to be a human. Yeah. Okay? Yeah, that's right. Look, we want to get to some of our questions from our pod squad. Let's just hear the first question. My question is, I just finished listening to your podcast on gender, both of them. And even before your podcast, I've been wondering and curious about how are we raising babies and children to move away from the gender norms?

I understand like gender neutral clothing and all of those things. And I'm grateful for all those things. But like, how do you have conversations with your kids? What do those conversations sound like when you're talking about when you want them to know that they can just be who they want to be in the world? And that this boy-girl thing isn't actually a thing, you know, unless they want it to be. I don't really know how to approach this with a child and how to approach parenting in a way that says all of this stuff on the outside world is conditioning and you get to choose what you want and who you want. When I was seven years old, my mom was tucking me into bed and I said, mom, I'm queer. I had learned the word because my dad grew up reading British children's literature, and so I had,

too, and queer was just a word for strange or different. I didn't know its connotation around gender or sexuality yet. And instead of getting curious with me, my mom said, oh, that's interesting, and just let me sleep. Kids are constantly, not just leaving breadcrumbs, but entire like baguettes. And it's the parents who have so much trepidation and anxiety and fear. So it's actually about just creating the pathways for conversation always, hey, what do you want to wear today? How do you feel about this? What do you think? And actually engaging with a young person and co-parenting together. That's a new model of parenting for a lot of people, which isn't you get to determine what your child is, but you collectively get to determine, hey, what, like, what's your

intake and input on this? And then that's how we can attack these gender norms. It's not by requiring everyone to be gender neutral. That's extremely difficult in the society right now. It's about creating the pathways for people to say, here's what being a girl, here's what being a boy,

here's what being non-binary means to me, and always allowing for that self-authorship. It's like we worry less about what we're saying to them and worry more about what they're saying to us. Let's hear from Holly. My name's Holly. Okay.

So I basically have no idea what I'm doing with my life. I am 22 and I graduated college and I just have so many questions. Questions about the world and questions about myself. And I feel like everybody else has such a strong sense of who they are and what they like and what they want out of life and what career they want to go into. And I don't know why that didn't happen to me. It feels very isolating. And Glennon, you talk so much about this sense of knowing that you have when you're at a crossroads and you can just sit there and figure it out.

And I need help doing that in my own life. If you have any tips for tapping into your knowing, I would love that. appreciate it greatly. Yeah, totally. The first thing I would say is that most people are lying and it's a scam when they say like, oh yeah, this is who I am. It's performance art, okay? And actually, they go home and the halo of their phone scrolling just like you being like, is this really what I want? Is this really who I am? So you're not alone. You're just honest. The second, the The second thing, I would say, is one of the joys of being a stage performer is it's one of the few places in the world where experimentation is encouraged. When you're doing improv or when you're doing drag, you start to just try things.

I didn't know my gender was possible. And then I started to dress up for the stage. And then I was like, wait, this was really fun. And I found out, oh, this is kind of who I am. So what I've learned as an artist is that everyone needs experimentation. So maybe create many places with you and your friends where you can just be on a microphone and you can just speak. And then who knows what will come out and who knows and what other people looking at you

speaking will bring up in you, experiment. And then the third point is try it out and it's okay to get it wrong because it's all going to take you closer to where you needed to end up. Authenticity is not a destination. It's an orientation. and what matters more is that you're showing up, not where you're going. Yes. For your child, as the school year continues, patterns start to emerge.

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effective learning program out there at the best price. Let's hear from Brittany. My name is Brittany. I'm a flower farmer, mom with three boys. I've been listening to the podcast since it began.

And I have been thinking a ton lately about gender and color. I have three young boys, seven, six, and three. And the gender norms around color. Like my kids love bright colors. They love pink, they love purple. My son almost got a pink castet too. And I just kind of wanted your thoughts about like gender color norms. Where on earth did that start? Like, I don't know. Yeah. It's a absurd, truly, because the color pink used to actually be a marker of masculinity in this country. And then after World War II, the pink and blue division was actually a marketing scheme to get parents to buy two of the same thing for their different kids. Like the hypergendering of the youth space is a recent construction.

Actually, kids used to just wear the same gown. like it wasn't an issue. But there's a really amazing book called Chromophobia by this art historian who basically says that we have a fear of color in society because we associate color with women, with people of color, and with indigenous people. And that actually when we're taught that professional equals black and white and removing color, it's that same kind of patriarchal idea of being like, you have to be reasonable, not emotional. Color is too emotional.

And so for me, gendering color actually holds people back from emotion in this society. And the reason that we need to move beyond just like pink and blue is and actually allowing everyone to have rainbows and hues is because like an emotion, the way that we have color, color gives us permission to have spectrums, gives us permission to recognize. We would never say there are only two colors. Why do we do that with genders? it allows us to expand our horizons of what is beauty. And the final thing I would say is, as a deep connoisseur of pink as a young person who was a boy and got in a lot of trouble for my love of pink,

it's also really important to create pathways for communication with a young person for them to be able to say to you, hey, people are making fun of me because of my love of this color. And then for you to say, that's not okay. I didn't have anyone in my life tell me that was not okay. And so I started to just wear all black because I was like, I'm opting out of the color game. This is too traumatic for me. So it's really about creating those abilities to teach people.

You don't need to say things like colors have no gender, but you can say things like colors are beautiful. I'm glad that you like them. Me too. Okay. Let's take our last question from Ms. Dimmick. I am Ms. Dimmick. I use she her pronouns, and I am calling from a middle school, and I am in a meeting with our middle school pride club right now. We are six to eighth graders who all identify as LGBT2 plus, as well as some allies.

And we have some questions for you. Here we go. How can school kids confess that out to their parents? What if they don't support? How did you come out? How did it feel? did you get judged how how did you overcome it who are your queer role model

thank you so much we also have a message systemic from president that was amazing I'll try to remember some of those questions so I believe there is how do you come out to your parents and I guess I want to say you don't have to if you don't want to you get to determine what safety looks like for you. And you're not any less than or less valid as an LGBTQ person if other people don't know.

What matters is that you know. And a lot of times people come out before they're ready. And that puts them in situations where it can be uncomfortable. So you get to determine what makes you feel most safe. And no one gets to pressure you. You have your own timeline. Alok, I heard you say one thing about that that I thought was so beautiful. You said that you don't like the term closeted, that you weren't closeted.

You were strategic. And I think that's so beautiful because it's not a shame thing. It's a power. You are knowing what will work in your life for you and you're deploying that correctly. It's beautiful. Yeah. And that goes to my story of coming out as I knew from the time I was like four or five that I was different. But I knew that my difference would get me in a lot of trouble and that I had to protect my

inner light. And so I started to plan. I was like, okay, what do I need in order to express this? I can't be in my hometown because it's too small and I'll be in danger. I have to do this. I have to do this. And so I strategize. I schemed and I planned until I could be in a place where I was independent and that I could

actually be around people who I could be in community with. because I knew that if I came out, I'd be alone. And I wanted to have someone else there who could say I felt the same way. So when I started to go to college visits in high school, when I was thinking about a plan of college, I would come out on those trips and I would meet other people who were LGBTQ and started to develop friendships with them. And they helped me and coached me because I knew that I needed community. I started to come out online before I could in person under pseudonyms. And I met other LGBTQ people.

and I was telling them, hey, like, I'm afraid of coming out in high school right now. And they were like, okay, you've got me until then. And so I reached out and I built community with people until I felt safe enough. And then I think there was something there about like how I deal with guilt or shame, or was that in my head? How did it feel? Did you get judged? How did you overcome it? Oh, got it.

Got it. Yes. So one of my favorite stories is I mean, I've always been, I do things like this. I planned my coming out in terms of like dates, names, people, and escalations on how hard it would be. So I had like 50 different conversations with people when I was 17 years old. And I waited to one of my best friends. So I grew up, I mean, a lot of people don't understand that. I'm from small town, Texas.

They just can't, they can't picture it. But I came out to one of my best friends with blonde, blue eye, double majored in Bible and business at a Christian college in Texas, right? And so we're walking outside together. We've been best friends for so long. And we had kind of like a bromance. They were really close friends. And I knew that this would decimate him. And he tells me that homosexuality is like porn,

something we just don't do. And that if I had told him a few years before, he would have stopped being friends with me. But now that he's friends with me for so long, he'll just tolerate. And I was like, okay. Like this is fine. Like I can deal with this.

And but what I started to do then is, and it's so funny reliving this because it's like an ancient me, what I started to do then is I started to just joke. I would make jokes. And like I would be beeping and being like my gaydar is beeping. And then he started to beep too. And he was in on the joke. And then it just became more relaxed. And what I really realized is it's because I had built such a durn. And that's one thing I have to say about Texas.

My friends from then are still some of my friends now because even if we didn't get each other, there was a deep sense of we're neighbors. We went to the same schools. We know each other's last names. We know each other's yearbook photos. And so it's really about building relationships with people so that they can see you as a three-dimensional person

and not just what they think a gay or a trans person should be. But the final thing I'll let you all know is that when people don't accept you, it's an indication of where they're at, not where you're at. And it has 100% to do with them and nothing to do with you. There's nothing wrong with you. There is other people who have been told that they can't be free or happy. And so when they see you being free and happy, they get really nervous because they have to hold a mirror to themselves and be like, maybe I'm not as free and happy as I thought. So what I always try to remind myself is this is not my fear. I say that to myself.

This is not my fear. And then I go find other people who are investing in love over fear. Thank you for that. And just to Ms. Dimmick, thanks, Ms. Dimmock. Like from the bottom of my heart, thank you, Ms. Dimmick. Let's end this. And also all those little kids who were brave enough to participate in a group in middle school. It's just awesome.

We've come a far away. I could never have done that. Damn. Have you ever hit a point at work where everything just feels heavy? Not just a bad week, but the kind of burnout where you're staring at your laptop thinking, I can't keep doing it like this. You're not alone. Strawberry.me is career coaching that helps you get to the real root of your burnout,

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her hair. So, you know, I just kind of think about Abby and the episode where she was talking about when she cut her hair and it made a huge difference for her and really kind of let her come into her own. So the little five-year-old has this long, beautiful blonde hair and she's seen one one day and said she wanted to cut it all off. And we let her do it. And my husband and I were anxious and a little nervous about what people would say. She cut it really short and shaves the whole side of it and shaved this really awesome rock star design into the side. And anyway, I just wanted to call and say thank you because I think that without listening to that episode and hearing Abby talk about how much just one haircut changed kind of her whole

life, I don't think that I would have had and bravery to let my five-year-old do that. So I just wanted to call and say thank you for teaching me that I can do hard. things and helping me to raise my sweet, amazing five-year-old to be exactly who she is. So you guys are wonderful. Keep up the great work. Megan. Oh, and listen. Get your little one.

Turn up the volume and let me talk to her for just a second. Hey, little one, it's Abby. I got my head shaved too. I got my head shaved on both sides. And you want to know something? sometimes people mistake me for being a boy. I identify as she her. Here's the thing.

When somebody mistakes you based on your haircut, know that it happens to me too. And know that if this is what you feel like you want to look like, you are beautiful and you are perfect. We love you. I love you. And I love you alone. And I love you, sister. I was like, I'm hanging out here with no love. That's okay.

That's okay. Because the one who loves me is me. Thank you, Alok. Yeah. We love you so much, Oloak. Thank you for doing this. You are a fucking revolution. And I want to come see you perform your poetry one day.

Yes, that's actually. That's my new bucket list. Yes. It's like a tsunami. Get ready. I can't wait. Thank you, Alok. To all of you, we love you.

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