We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - Can You Find Gender IN You or Just ON You?

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

Glennon explains what she meant when she said, “I just can't find gender in me. I can only find it on me,” in this beautiful conversation that began with a question from a college freshman named Nick. Please revisit our conversations with ALOK here: Episode 74 ALOK: What makes us beautiful? What makes us free? and Episode 75 ALOK: How do we interrupt trauma? How do we heal? To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. We are grateful for you. We are so glad that you exist and that you're listening. How are you two doing? I'm wonderful just making sure your phone's off. Yeah, it's my phone off. Yeah. That's great. Dean asked me six times, but that doesn't mean every time during the tech check the pod squad should know that we go through this list of questions where they're make where Deena is making sure that we are prepared for the recording like are these things plugged in? Have you done this? Have you done this and My what I do is I just look at Deena and when she asks me the questions, I nod.

Yes. And I just try to look like I'm really paying attention, but I never think about any of the, the answers to the actual question she's asking. You're such a people, please are at the moment that you're like, sure is. Sure is. I plugged in. But really what would please her the most is if you actually plugged it in. I know I just love Tina so much and I just want us to have a moment, but she would prefer I did my

job. I'm sorry. So then she looks at Abby and says, Abby, is is it plugged in? Yes. And Abby does. Yeah, it takes a village. So we're going to do some questions from the pod squad today. These are some of my favorite episodes because I feel like we get to kind of get a little bit looser than usual and just talk directly to the Pod Squad. Lucy Goosey? Lucy Goosey as Lucy Goosey as we get as I get. And so let's go. Let's listen to the Pod Squad's questions and see what happens. And also thank you, Pod Squad, for continuing to just write and call us because this whole thing that we're doing here is just a conversation with you. And it's such a joy to be able to hear what you want to talk about and to be in it directly with you. So thank you for sharing your precious

time by doing that. I mean, so much to us. Okay. I'm going to cue you up with questions. I'm going to cue you up with cues. Great. Oh, oh, shocker. Our first question is on gender. You have you been listening for the past year and a half. Might be tempted to think that we are at the bottom of the pile of gender questions. But to Glenin, there is no bottom of the bottom of the pile of gender questions. So let us continue. God, I love the pods. What all I want to do is talk about gender. Go, go. Let's go. Hi, Gordon. My name is Nick. I'm a 19 year old college freshman. And I just wanted to thank you for being so unapologetically yourself and vulnerable because I've seen you been ever felt more understood and seen by someone across diverse space than had you were you. But my question was in your past podcast with a joke, you said you don't feel gender on the inside, but you feel it all on the

outside. And I'm just curious what you meant by that. Because I feel that it lacks in the way in my soul. But what does that really currently here? I guess. Thank you. Nick, first of all, a freshman in college, Nick, you're a freshman in college. That touches me deeply. That a freshman in college is listening to the pad. And I also, real quick, before we get into gender,

which you know we will, Nick. You never have to wait that long. Just sit tight real quick, we're going to get to gender. Strangers on the street. How are you, Glenin? Well, I'm not a binary. I'll tell you that shit. Nick, real quick, I just want to say this to you because I think this is something that my mom said to our son before he left for college, which I thought was so wonderful. As she said, everybody's going to tell you that this is the best year of your life and to enjoy it.

And users do not listen to that. That is not true. Freshman Year in College is hard and confusing and almost impossible to find your grip, spoiler alert Nick. So is every year coming. Okay, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, double worse. So it's a lot of pressure. It's a lot of pressure, Nick. It's a lot of pressure. Speaking of, I want to say something to that. And you know the book that I'm reading because I read very, very slowly,

called How to Raise an Adult. You might have heard it on the podcast in the past six times because I'm the slowest ass reader in the world. She has this part where she talks about how when parents say, I just want my kids to be happy. And it sounds like that's a very small request. All I want in life is just for you to be happy

that that is an absurd amount of pressure as a kid interprets it. All I want is for you to be happy. So the kid hears it as like, what I need to do for my parent is to be happy. And I think that is so interesting that we can just stop saying that as if it's relieving them of a burden and not putting that pressure on them because that is what they're

hearing. That is if I pretend to be happy, then everyone around me will be happy. As opposed to all I want for you is what you are. Whether that's happy or sad or mad or whatever. So all I want for you is for you to be who you are and what you are. And as an extra bonus, the next level would be is if you would share with me all that you are whenever you are at, when you're sad, when you're angry, when you're confused, and I won't try to fix it, I'll just be honored that you shared it with me. Yeah, that's good. That's good. All right. So Nick, you're referring to the conversation

that we had with our dear friend, Aloke. When we were talking about gender and I said to a loak, I just can't find gender in me. I can only find it on me. So now I will try to explain what I mean by that about not being able to find gender in me. So I can only like deeply and truly understand or grasp or hold on to things that I can feel, like, deeply and truly understand or grasp or hold on to things that I can feel as real.

So, for example, if I say, I love Abby, or I say to Abby, I love you. And Abby says, how do you know what she does all the time because it's just real asians, okay? It's like 16 follow up questions. So I can feel that I love Abbeek's. I can describe it. It's like a magnetic yearning that comes from inside of me.

It's like when I think about losing hers in ache that I feel like crack open in me. It's a directional feeling that makes me lean towards her. I can feel it as sensation sort of inside of me. If somebody asks me how, if I say I'm angry and someone says, how do you know you're angry? I can say, I feel, it feels like fire inside of me. I'm sweating. I know I am.

I feel it. If someone asks me, how do you know you have faith? It's not because of a list of rules. I can point to it's nothing that I know. It's something that I feel inside of me as like a widening or swelling or a yearning or kind of like a faint memory of something that I used to know that I will one day go back to, whatever. I can feel it.

Even if people ask me this is one that I'm pretty sure, some people don't believe in addicts as addicts. I believe that I am an addict. I can feel it. I totally respect people who don't believe in that word because of this and that, and for them, it doesn't work. For me, I can feel it. I know what it feels like to want to devour the entire world. I can feel the addictness in my body. All of those things, there's not a lot of things that I could put after the two words I am and feel certain about it, not many things. One of the things that my whole life people have been telling me I am, and even I have to say I am a girl, a woman, when I investigate that word or concept after the words I am, I cannot find it anywhere inside of me.

If someone says to me, how do you know you are a girl or a woman? And I try to dive in word to dredge up something inside of me that makes that concept real, I cannot find it. When you ask me, how do I know I'm a girl? I would tell you, real, I cannot find it. When you ask me, how do I know I'm a girl? I would tell you, well, I have boobs, I have a vulva and a vagina, I have a uterus, I have long hair, I have a closet full of these clothes, I have a certain voice, I have a certain whatever.

Like Nick, when you said, I feel exactly that way in my soul. What I hear you saying is, the deepest part of me does not understand gender at all because it's not real. So I guess what I can say is, gender is something that I express on the outside of me with makeup and hair and clothes and even personality traits, all of these things, but I don't feel it on the inside at all. It's like I'm playing a role because somebody has handed me a part when I was born. You are a girl and they've given me a character description of what is acceptable for this

role that I'm playing and what will be rewarded and what will be punished and they've given me a costume and they've given me a dialogue and it's mostly an act. And I am a good actor. I look very, very femme. I act very femme in a lot of ways. But that is not because I feel that on the inside. That's because I am good at playing a role. I feel like if when I was born,

if you gave me a bunch of different things and said, boy, man, whatever, I could play that role. I would have nailed that. So maybe it's different for other people, and maybe some other people do feel gender on the inside, but here's my hunch. Okay. Bear with me right now,

because now I'm gonna talk about cigarettes for a second. Right. In a development, I didn't see coming. Yeah. Okay. Virginia Slims or Marble Reds. Well, well, thank you for saying that. It's amazing.

Thank you for saying that. When we first reached first cigarette when we were little, Padsquad, as an aside, I used to smoke. If smoking didn't kill you, which it does, I would smoke cigarettes from the time I woke up in the morning until the time I went to sleep. I do not do that because they will kill you. So don't do that.

See aforementioned, I am an addict. Exactly. The aforementioned, if I were an alcoholic, I would drink also every day from wake up to sleep. Okay. Why do we first pick up a cigarette? Or why do we, it's because we have something on the inside. It's not just something nicotine at first. It's because the second time it is for sure. It becomes that. But it's mixed with this longing to express something on the inside to the outside world. That is why

the cigarette industry spends so much time and did spend so much time. Clasing cigarettes in movies, in advertisements to when a person was trying to express their individuality or their ruggedness, right? The Marburoman. So, people would reach for that to express this like feeling inside of themselves to like be rugged or be whatever. Or if you were gonna try to get it to the women, they would put it in the hands of the Virginia Slims, you've come a long way, baby.

If you wanted to express your feminist side, your version of ruggedness or individualism. When they put them in movie stars' hands, when they were having an angsty moment or whatever, Holly Whitaker does a great job of discussing this in her book, but it's like we have something on the inside that we're trying to express on the outside and the world gives us a kuturimance to express that. So I do wonder if some of these things that when we say, well, I'm wearing these heels and these earrings and this mascara because I'm a girl.

Maybe what we want to express on a deeper level is that we're trying to express human characteristics that the world has told us is girl. So maybe like on the inside, I'm trying to express tenderness and whimsy and vulnerability and softness and nobility and elegance. And I have been told that these certain costume choices express those things. So I say I'm expressing gender, but what I'm really expressing is these bucket of human characteristics that, for example, maybe when I'm wanting to wear that suit or those sneakers, they're whatever, and I'm saying, boy, what I'm trying to express from the inside out is roughness and toughness and scrappiness and invulnerability and the ability to take up space and strength.

But all we have to express those are what we've been told is gender. So we say, I'm expressing boy, I'm expressing girl, but what's beneath that is like, this just desire to express the full spectrum of being human. Is this making sense at all? It is making total sense. That first when you started, I thought you were saying that you couldn't identify

things that were real and of you that were true to you instead of planted in you. Because like when I when I look at myself and think like what is actually true and of me that isn't an act? There are things I can identify like my competitiveness, my intensity, the fact that I feel deeply connected to strangers and like if I see something happening, if someone needs to put their luggage in the car, like I can't stop myself from being like I will help you put your luggage in your car. A sense of real self efficacy, a sense of like, I can accomplish that. Those are real things that are of me and that were born in me.

So that's not an act, but intensity, competition, that would be understood as masculine. But my deeply connectedness to others would be seen as feminine. Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay, yeah. Yeah. I'm Jonathan M. Hevar. I'm a podcast producer and someone who likes fancy things.

But I grew up working class. My parents were immigrants with factory jobs. And because of that, I think about class a lot. And I want to talk about it. That's what we're doing on my new podcast, Classy. And what did you all eat? You know, trailer food. I was like, Girl, we're not doing that anymore. You'll hear from people who told me awkward, embarrassing, and strangely intimate things about what class means to them. She said, you know, for the house cleaner, I hide the tag on the $6 bread.

And I just thought, don't you think she knows that you're wealthy? You're hiding the tags from yourself. Classy. A new podcast from Pineapple Street Studios. Available now. Wherever you get your podcasts. So, maybe when we are deciding what parts of our gender to express, we are expressing deeper and truer things than just what gender we are. And then maybe some of those things that are real and

true inside of us stay dormant because if I was raised in a different environment, maybe my intensity would not have been valued. Maybe that would have been squelched out of me. So I might understand myself only as deeply connected to strangers because that was the only truly real part of myself that would have been welcome since I am understood as a girl. Yes, because the truth of the matter is, I don't find girl anywhere inside of me. Okay, just like-

Yeah, but what we're saying is girl isn't a thing. What we're saying is there are certain things that are true about us that when funneled through the framework of gender, it's like we have this endless list of characteristics inside of us. And when they come through, there's two buckets. It's boy and girl. So all of your things, they come through, there's two buckets. It's boy and girl. So all of your things, they come through.

Psh, bucket A, bucket B. You're only allowed to hold whatever bucket you've been told you are. But it doesn't mean that girl or boys inside of anyone, what you are is inside of you. And when funneled through the lens, they're determined to be either girl boy or girl. I think that might be why you struggle so much,

especially now that you're in therapy with clothes. Totally. I think that because you know this in your head, it's like you're fighting against the role you are told that you need to play your whole life. And so you're like, is this comfortable? Is this what I am? And I don't know. I just think that gender expression is kind of what we're talking about. And that's why I believe that like trans and non-binary people I think that they are the ones who know the most about this. they're the ones who know the most about this. I agree, every time, and I feel like we're talking about the same things and a little bit different in that.

I think what I'm trying to say also is like, yes, the two categories. But since we don't talk about that at all, all people are left with is the language of, I'm girly or I'm masculine in what I wear. It's like we don't even know the depth of what we're really saying or expressing when we only have those two words. I do not think that gender is real. I think it's something we've thrown on top to oversimplify these other very deep things that we're trying to express. Isn't it very weird that we have only these two categories that were allowed to be? It's and it's made up, but we're living in this context and in this world where everyone

else is pretending it's real. And so the way people relate to people, because really when we're trying to decide, are you a boy or girl non--binary all we're trying to really figure out is how should I treat you? How should I treat you? That's the question like how do I treat you? How is this interaction going to grow? So weird. On one level we have to treat it as real because it's really affecting our experience as we walk through the world in legal ways, in safety ways, in our bodies, in our jobs, in the way that the world responds to us. in safety ways, in our bodies and our jobs in the way that the world responds to us.

While knowing it's not real, so in that way, it's just like race. It's like a bunch of people just made it up to create a hierarchy of power. But we have to live in a world where it's being treated as real, where it truly affects us. But I just feel like it's the emperor has no clothes. And that's why like when our friends come to us and say, oh my kid just came out as non-binary. My reaction in my body is never like, oh my god, your kid is non-binary because I think everyone's kid is non-binary. I think, oh, your kid's really smart.

I'm just saying, this is what I think in my body. I could be wrong. Gender could be real, whatever. I don't know. What I'm telling you is what I can figure out is real. I think, oh, your kid for whatever reason is in an environment that's like open and wise enough to look internally to figure out what am I. And they're smart enough to realize there's no there there with gender. So they just figured out the emperor has no clothes. They just figured out something earlier than most of us do, which is gender is not real.

So I can't tell you I'm a boy or a girl because what are you talking about? And I feel like more and more people are going to look deep enough to understand that. Yeah. I think what we're talking about is the way that we express the gender that is assigned at birth. And I do think that there is a fear mechanism in place with not just the generation, like my parents generation, but it's the same thing as coming out as gay or whatever kind of sexuality you are. Parents are afraid that their kid is going to be ridiculed or treated wrong. And so that's where the fear comes in. And I don't know, I just have been a non-good actor

like you said my whole life. I've not been... Well, you're the opposite. I've been a good actor. I'm like, oh, I'm nail this femme thing and you were like, no, I can't act it. Yeah, yeah. And the only thing that feels right to me

because femme clothes and that whole thing, that has never felt real, like feels right to me because, you know, femme clothes and that whole thing, that has never felt real, like good enough to me. And also, I will say that like super masculine clothes don't feel, but it's like the thing that fits my body the best and I'm just like fine. Yeah. I'm like in between somewhere. I think we all are.

What about you? I'm just, I want to know from sister, like, do you feel, how do you feel like you are a woman? Because I feel like, okay, I'm a woman because the world tells me I'm a woman, I look like a woman, I'm a woman fine, woman woman. But I don't feel like that's true. I feel like I don't have a gender, but the truest inside of me.

What about you? I haven't wrestled with it a ton in terms of like, what do I feel like? I think of it sometimes in experiments like where I'm thinking through what would my particular world look like if I was the exact same person, but I was a man. And I think my world would be very different in subtle and not subtle ways. And I think the orientation of my family and my home would look different, I think, instead of being an almost apologetic posture toward the world that I work my ass off and do really well to support my family.

It would be, oh dear God, she's an amazing provider for her family. And what can we as a universe do to accommodate the provision of her bounty onto us? Like the difference, just the, I mean, seriously. Yes. The world would be looking at that in a very different way. If you were a man, Sissy, you'd be the man.

That's what you're saying. And then I think about just like the statistics of the benefit of doubt. I think about it more practical terms, is guess what I'm saying? Like for me, I feel like I have the incredible privilege and the incredible blessing of being married to a feminist of understanding that there isn't a difference in what I am allowed to do and think and what our roles are in The home and I'm surrounded by family on both sides that don't think about that I think about it more from a perspective of my place in the ecosystem of

Community and world and business that I think like God damn. Can you imagine just walking in a room and instead of having to overcome the three doubts that get you to the place, you're walking in with three accommodations before you even open your mouth. I think of it in in that way, you know, in the more practical terms. I think about it when it comes from outside. Yes, I hear you're saying all the things that are of me, I feel like I really do express the way I would express them if I were a man or if I were a woman. And I only think about the world's response to those

and how that is funneled through a world's response, that response to me as a woman, as opposed to how the expression of myself would be interpreted differently if it were coming from a man. Yeah, I get that. It's interesting because we need both ways of thinking all the time. Because there's part of me that thinks that all of that shit

is never going to ever change and lessen until the slow unfolding of the idea that the gender isn't real, like the destroying of that thing, the more and more people say, oh my God, the gender emperor has no clothes, that is the only thing that will slowly dismantle that because the lie of gender is the stranglehold that keeps the world treating the

genders differently. And vice versa, like I think that I would have been knowing my personality, the family that we grew up in, and knowing that like I probably would have gone to a military academy. Right. If I had run a board, that's so true, you would have. And what are the expressions of myself as I am that would have had been able, that's so true you would have. And what are the expressions of myself as I am that would have not been able to come out if that had been my life?

Yes. I think about that all the time. Just what gets squelched in a way I think that women have more external frustration and men have more internal frustration because I can be because of my privileged situation. I can be exactly who I am. And then I'm enraged all the time because I see how exactly who I am is being treated in a way and being paid in a way and being understood in a way that is wildly bullshit. If I were a man, I would contain all the

same things and I wouldn't even be expressing a lot of those things. What I was expressing would be lauded and appreciated and given way more benefits of any doubts than they deserved. But what was inside of me, unexpressed would probably be solely killing me. So you're fucked either way. It's like for men, doors swing wide open on the outside, but there's all these locked doors on the inside. And for women, there can be fewer locked doors on the inside, but all the doors are locked on the outside. I just have to say this because I think it's important for those people who might feel like me more than you two, where you guys are playing a role and there is suffering and

there is hardship there, but I think that people who live in the middle like myself, there are these little things that happen, much like it does for men and women, but they are seen as a breach of this social contract we've all decided to be a part of. And when you are in breach, you then are killed. You are ridiculed. You are looked at.

You are asked at dinner tables about, you know, are you a boy or a girl? And there is much more, I think, and I don't know what I'm trying to say here, but I just, I want to acknowledge that if you do fall in the lines, like, to be in the middle and to make that choice, you are going against something that people are scared of.

It's a grave transgression and you can't pass. Yeah. Being a woman that looks like me, who is competitive and tense, I can very easily switch into playing the role in any circumstance, which is to my benefit in that moment. To be, oh geez, I don't really understand this. Could you help me out? I'm sorry. Like, the officer was I speeding?

Yeah, and that does slowly kill you inside, but it also helps you out a shit ton when you need it. And that's why trans people are killed because it's the ultimate transgression of what we have decided That you are allowed and not allowed to be So if we go back to the metaphor where like there's a director And we're all in a play and the director is all the powers that be and in childhood the director is all the powers that be.

And in childhood, the director hands you a script, girl boy, and some people are fucking like, no, I'm not playing your role, I'm not playing your part. The director is in theory. They take you out of the play. Or they kill you. And I think when we talk about trans people, because we know people who have said, no, it is gender's real for me. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you.

I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you.

I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you.

I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. I'm curious to hear you. about why we both have, and I don't mean any events to non-trans people, but we both have any immediate, like higher level of respect for trans people when we meet them. And so we've talked about what that's about. And it's not just affinity, it's not like, oh, they're queer,

and so we're the square, and we're all queer, and it's not just that. I think it's because, especially in this job, especially for 15 years or however long we've been doing this of really listening to people and their stories and what they want more than anything and what their biggest regrets are

and what they're working towards. It's always, again and again, it's people saying in a million different ways, I just wanna live as who I am, not what the world expects for me. It's like what everyone's desperately trying to do in all of their different lanes of life is like, how do I figure out what my life is? Who I really am? How do I be true to myself instead of like spending my entire life trying to please other people,

you know, how do I not abandon myself? How do I abandon everyone else's expectations of me before I abandon myself? And I think my immediate respect to a trans person is it's like they are living proof of choosing outer conflict instead of inner conflict. And they're wearing it on themselves. It's like, nobody had that easy. Nobody, maybe, will get to the point. So I'm sure we will wear that is an easier

life experience. But for somebody to be living out as trans, it just means that they chose what everyone else wants to do and be, which is like how do I look inside myself and choose real? Choose what's true as to me even when it causes She's what's true is to me, even when it causes conflict, even when I disappoint other people, even when it makes things dangerous for me. I think that's why trans people scare the shit out of people.

Oh yeah, so everyone's just gonna go being who they are. Right. But what about the director? If we have learned anything, it's that only the people with the specific lived experience can talk about that experience. So it's like, you say you can't find the gender on the inside, I believe you.

If someone comes to me and says, I find gender on the inside, I believe you. Totally. I think a lot of trans people would say that. Yes, of course. A lot of trans people are, this is how I feel on the inside. It's like wonderful. Oh my God.

Yeah. And it's not like, okay, so you say you're a man, well, you're acting, because the gender binary is a lie. Oh, but that's ironic, because I'm actually telling you exactly what I am. And I contain this and this and this. And so it's just we believe everyone. Okay, this is hilarious. We've gotten through one question. Nick, thank you so much for that question. You now have us thinking about our dear friend, Aloke, in just recognition of and celebration

of all people who are breaking the director's roles. And in recognition of the increasing violence and resistance those people are having to their decision to live bravely as who they are. We give you one of our favorite parts of our incredible conversation with our dear friend, a loak, if you want to go back and listen to the full episodes with a loak, which you certainly should go back to episodes 74 and 75.

Here you go, Loves, here's a loak. I see my life and my gender as a continuation of a tapestry of women who had the bravery to say no thank you. And for that love to be unreciprocated, I think creates a kind of grief in me that feels so overwhelming and arduous, that it feels impossible to puncture, but we can do hard things, right? Oh my goodness. Can you tell me what, when you say for that to be unreciprocated, can you tell me what you mean by that specifically?

I see so much of what the trans movement being in the world is a love letter that says, I believe in your capacity for transformation. I believe in your capacity for self-determination. And then, in response to that love, we're told that we are wrong, that we're disorderly, that we're foolish, that we're ridiculous, that we're delinquents, that were predators, that were violent. And that's a pain that I continue to face, as my words reach more people, is this extreme and coordinated backlash to tarnish me and by extension,

tarnish the ideas that have been here, they're ancient ideas, because I think what patriarchy does is it makes us publicists, right? And we find ourselves speaking it, doing it, living it, thinking it with such a fierce allegiance that if someone dares say another way of living as possible, people would rather eradicate and extinguish that alternative,

than confront that kind of spiritual nudity of asking, who am I outside of what patriarchy wants me to be? The days that I feel most beautiful are the days that I am most afraid. Can you tell us what you meant by that? Yeah. I've been thinking about this a lot because there's been a lot of negative self-talk in my head recently. When I look at photos and videos of myself, I'm so cruel. The first thought that populates is you look like a freak. You're disgusting. Why do you do that? Why are you wearing that wig? Why are you wearing makeup?

And I think people are surprised to hear that because they see images of me as this like fierce independent and can-desit light. But I want to remind people how insidious misogyny is that as women and trans people, it's going to take our entire lives to develop a self-image outside of what men have taught us to see ourselves as. And so I have to literally sit and love on myself in that moment and remind myself, why am I doing this? Is this fear my own?

Is this hatred my own? And it's not because when I was filming the project that I was filming where I look at the video later, I was so happy and I was so free and I felt so beautiful. And I would catch glimpses of myself in mirrors or iPhone screens and be like, I've come so far to be here and it's so glorious to be here.

And then in the aftermath, I find myself so mean. And I think that that's because I've been punished for my beauty my entire life. And by beauty, I mean looking like myself, which I think most people don't know that's what beauty actually is. And so I've developed a knee jerk response that's actually an antagonistic relationship to my beauty. When I feel most beautiful, I'm most afraid not just because of what other people will do to me, but what I'll do to myself,

how I'll censor myself, how I'll censor myself, how I'll look at that video and say, you are a fool, so tone it down, and how I'll tone it down, and how easy it'll be to blame it on someone else, but to know ultimately I made the decision. If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us.

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