208. Can You Find Gender IN You or Just ON You?

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Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 How are you two doing?

Speaker 1 I'm wonderful. Just making sure your phone's off.

Speaker 2 Yeah, is my phone off? Yeah. That's great.

Speaker 2 Dina 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 making, where Dina is making sure that we are prepared for the recording.

Speaker 2 Like, are these things plugged in? Have you done this? Have you done this? And

Speaker 2 my, what I do is I just look at Dina. And when she asks me the questions, I nod yes.

Speaker 2 And I just try to look like I'm really paying attention, but I never think about any of the answers to the actual questions she's asking.

Speaker 3 You're such a people pleaser at the moment that you're like, sure is, sure is plugged in. But really what would please her the most is if you actually plugged it in.

Speaker 2 I know. I just love Dina so much.
And I just want us to have a moment, but she would prefer I did my job, I'm sure.

Speaker 3 So then she looks at Abby and says, Abby, is it plugged in? Yes. And then Abby does.

Speaker 2 It takes a village. So we're going to do some questions from the pod squad today.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 3 And also, thank you, Pod Squad, for continuing to just write and call us because this whole...

Speaker 3 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

Speaker 3 to be in it directly with you. So thank you for sharing your precious time by doing that.
It means so much to us.

Speaker 1 Okay, I'm going to queue you up with questions.

Speaker 3 I'm going to cue you up with cues.

Speaker 1 Great. Oh, oh, shocker.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 But to Glennon, there is no bottom of the bottom of the pile of gender

Speaker 3 So let us continue.

Speaker 2 God, I love the pod squad. All I want to do is talk about gender.
Go, go, let's go.

Speaker 4 Hi, Glennon. My name is Nick.
I'm a 19-year-old college freshman.

Speaker 4 And I just wanted to thank you for being so unapologetically yourself and vulnerable, because I've seriously never felt more understood and seen by someone across cyberspace than I do by you.

Speaker 4 But my question was, in your past podcast with Alok, you said you don't feel gender on the inside, but you feel it on the outside.

Speaker 4 And I'm just curious what you meant by that, because I feel that exact same way in my soul. But what does that really translate to, I guess? Thank you.

Speaker 2 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 pod. And I also,

Speaker 2 real quick before we get into gender, which you know we will, Nick.

Speaker 3 um you never have to rate that long just sit tight real quick we're gonna get to gender strangers on the street how are you glenn well i'm not a binary i'll tell you that shit

Speaker 2 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 is she said Everybody's going to tell you that this is the best year of your life and to enjoy it.

Speaker 2 And you just 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.

Speaker 1 Okay, so

Speaker 3 let's get through this year and then the one after that.

Speaker 2 One year at a time, Nick. But truly, that is something we need to stop saying to people about anything and everything.
This is the best thing of your life.

Speaker 2 Then when it's not, it just makes it double worse. So it's a lot of pressure.
It's a lot of pressure, Nick. It's a lot of pressure.

Speaker 3 Speaking of, I want to say something to that. You know, the book that I'm reading because I read very, very slowly called How to Raise an Adult?

Speaker 3 You might have heard it on the podcast for the past six times because I'm the slowest ass reader in the world.

Speaker 3 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

Speaker 3 is an absurd amount of pressure

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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,

Speaker 3 if I pretend to be happy,

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 2 So anyway, 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

Speaker 2 share with me all that you are whenever you are it,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's good. That's good.
All right. So, Nick, you're referring to the conversation that we had with our dear friend Alok

Speaker 2 when we were talking about gender. And I said to Alok, I just can't find gender in me.
I can only find it on me.

Speaker 2 So now I will try to explain

Speaker 2 what I mean by that, about not being able to find gender in me. So

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 2 can only like deeply and truly understand or grasp or hold on to things that I can feel as real.

Speaker 2 So for example, if I say, I love Abby or Abby, or I say to Abby, I love you. And Abby says, how do you know? Which she does all the time because just we're lesbians.
Okay.

Speaker 2 There's like 16 follow-up questions.

Speaker 2 So I can feel.

Speaker 2 that I love Abby because I can describe it. It's like a magnetic yearning that comes from inside of me.
It's like when I think about losing her, it's an ache that I feel like crack open in me.

Speaker 2 It's a directional

Speaker 2 feeling that makes me lean towards her. I can feel it

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I know I am. I feel it.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 It's something that I feel inside of me as like a widening or a 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.

Speaker 2 I can feel it.

Speaker 2 Even if people ask me, this is one that I'm pretty sure some people don't believe in addicts as addicts.

Speaker 2 I believe

Speaker 2 that I am an addict.

Speaker 2 I can feel it.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 two words, I am,

Speaker 2 and feel

Speaker 2 certain certain about it. Not many things.

Speaker 2 One of the things that my whole life people have been telling me I am,

Speaker 2 and even I have to say I am a girl, a woman.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 And I try to dive inward

Speaker 2 to dredge up something inside of me that makes that concept real. I cannot find it.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I have a certain voice. I have a certain whatever.

Speaker 2 Like Nick, when you said, I feel exactly that way in my soul,

Speaker 2 what I hear you saying is

Speaker 2 the deepest part of me does not understand gender at all because it's not real.

Speaker 2 So I guess what I can say is

Speaker 2 gender is something

Speaker 2 that I express on the outside of me

Speaker 2 with makeup and hair and clothes and even personality traits, all of these things.

Speaker 2 But I don't feel it on the inside at all. It's like I'm playing a role

Speaker 2 because somebody has handed me a part

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And they've given me a costume and they've given me a dialogue.

Speaker 2 And it's mostly an act. And I

Speaker 2 am a good actor.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I would have nailed that.

Speaker 2 So.

Speaker 2 Maybe it's different for other people. And maybe some other people do feel gender on the inside.
But here's my hunch.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 bear with me right now because now i'm going to talk about cigarettes for a second right

Speaker 3 in a development i didn't see coming yeah

Speaker 1 okay virginia slims or marble reds well well thank you

Speaker 2 thank you for saying that when we first reached for a cigarette when we're little pod squad as an aside i used to smoke if smoking didn't kill you

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 3 See, aforementioned, I am an addict.

Speaker 2 Yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 The aforementioned, if I weren't an alcoholic, I would drink also every day from wake up to sleep. Okay.

Speaker 2 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, it's not the nicotine at first.
It's because the second time it is.

Speaker 2 For sure. It becomes that.
But it's mixed with this this longing to express something on the in the inside to the outside world that is why

Speaker 2 the cigarette industry spends so much time and did spend so much time placing cigarettes in movies in advertisements to show when a person was trying to express their individuality or their ruggedness right the marlborough man

Speaker 2 So people would reach for that to express this like feeling inside of themselves to like like be rugged or be whatever.

Speaker 2 Or, if you were going to 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

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 we have something on the inside that we're trying to express on the outside, and the world gives us accoutrements

Speaker 2 to express that. So I do wonder if some of these things that

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 So maybe like on the inside, I'm trying to express tenderness and whimsy and vulnerability and softness and nobility and elegance.

Speaker 2 And I have been told

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 these certain costume choices express those things.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I say I'm expressing gender, but what I'm really expressing is these bucket of human characteristics

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 But all we have to express those are what we've been told is gender.

Speaker 2 So we say, I'm expressing boy, I'm expressing girl.

Speaker 2 But what's beneath that

Speaker 2 is like,

Speaker 2 this just desire to express the full spectrum of being human.

Speaker 2 Is this making sense at all?

Speaker 3 It is making total sense. That first, when you started, I thought you were saying that you couldn't identify

Speaker 3 things that were real and of you

Speaker 3 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?

Speaker 3 There are things I can identify, like my competitiveness, my intensity, the fact that I feel deeply connected to strangers.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

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Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 maybe

Speaker 2 when we are deciding what parts of our gender to express, we are expressing deeper and truer things than just what gender we are.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 Maybe that would have been squelched out of me.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 3 Because because the truth of the matter is i don't find girl anywhere inside of me okay just 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 this endless list of characteristics inside of us and when they come through there's two

Speaker 1 buckets.

Speaker 3 It's boy and girl. So all of your things, they come through

Speaker 3 bucket A, bucket B. You're only allowed to hold

Speaker 3 whatever bucket you've been told you are.

Speaker 3 But it doesn't mean that that girl or boy is inside of anyone. What you are is inside of you.
And when funneled through the lens, they're determined to be either boy or girl.

Speaker 1 I think that might be why you struggle so much, especially now that you're in therapy with.

Speaker 1 clothes.

Speaker 2 Totally.

Speaker 1 I think that because you know this in your head, it's it's like you're fighting against the role you were told that you needed to play your whole life. And so you're like,

Speaker 1 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,

Speaker 1 I think that they're the ones who know the most about this.

Speaker 2 I agree. Every time.

Speaker 2 And I feel like we're

Speaker 2 talking about the same things and a little bit different in that

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I think it's something we've thrown on top to oversimplify these other very deep things that we're trying to express.

Speaker 1 Isn't it very weird that we have only these two categories that we're allowed

Speaker 1 to be?

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 How should I treat you? That's the question. Like, how do I treat you? How does this interaction?

Speaker 1 Yep.

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 our bodies, in our jobs, and the way that the world responds to us while knowing it's not real. So, in that way, it's just like race.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 But I just feel like it's the emperor has no clothes. And that's why like

Speaker 2 when

Speaker 2 our friends come to us and say, oh, my kid just came out as non-binary,

Speaker 2 my reaction in my body is never like,

Speaker 2 oh my God, your kid is non-binary. Because I think everyone's kid is non-binary.
Like, I think, oh, your kid's really smart.

Speaker 2 I'm just saying, this is what I think in my body. I could be told, 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.

Speaker 2 I think, oh, your kid,

Speaker 2 for whatever reason, is in an environment that's like open and wise enough to look internally to figure out what am I.

Speaker 2 And they're smart enough to realize there's no they're there with gender.

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 what are you talking about? And I feel like more and more people are going to

Speaker 2 look deep enough to understand that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think what we're talking about is the way that we express the gender that is assigned at birth. And

Speaker 1 I do think that there is a fear mechanism in place with not just the generation, like my parents' generation,

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 And I don't know, I just have been a non-good actor, like you said, my whole life. I've not been.

Speaker 2 Well, you're the opposite. I've been a good actor.
I'm like, oh, I'll nail this femme thing. And you were like, no, I can't act it.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
And the only thing that feels right to me, because, you know, femme clothes and that whole thing, that has never felt real, like good enough to me.

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm like in between somewhere. I think we all are.
Yeah. What about you?

Speaker 2 I'm just, I want to know from sister, like, do you feel,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 But I don't feel like that's true. I feel like I don't have a gender at the truest inside of me.

Speaker 2 What about you?

Speaker 1 I haven't wrestled with it

Speaker 3 a ton in terms of like, what do I feel like?

Speaker 3 I think of it sometimes

Speaker 3 in experiments like where I'm thinking through

Speaker 3 what would my particular world look like if I was the exact same person,

Speaker 3 but I was a man,

Speaker 3 and I think my world would be very different

Speaker 3 in subtle and not subtle ways.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I think the orientation of my family and my home would look different. I think

Speaker 3 instead of being

Speaker 3 an almost apologetic

Speaker 3 posture toward

Speaker 3 the world

Speaker 3 that I

Speaker 3 work my ass off

Speaker 3 and

Speaker 3 do really well to support my family, it would be,

Speaker 3 oh, dear God, she's an amazing provider for her family.

Speaker 3 And what can we as a universe do to accommodate the provision of her bounty unto us like the difference just the i mean seriously yeah like the world

Speaker 3 would be looking

Speaker 3 at

Speaker 3 that

Speaker 3 in a very

Speaker 3 different way

Speaker 2 if you were a man sissy you'd be the man is what you're saying yeah

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 And I'm surrounded by family on both sides that don't think about that.

Speaker 3 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

Speaker 3 three

Speaker 3 accommodations before you even open your mouth.

Speaker 3 I think of it in

Speaker 3 that way, you know,

Speaker 3 in the more practical terms. I think about it when it comes from outside of me.

Speaker 2 Yes, I hear what you're saying.

Speaker 3 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

Speaker 3 and how that

Speaker 3 is funneled through a world's response that responds to me as a woman, as opposed to how the expression of myself would be interpreted differently if it were coming from a man.

Speaker 2 Yep, I get that.

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 is never going to ever change

Speaker 2 unless and until the slow unfolding

Speaker 2 of the idea that the gender isn't real, like the destroying of that thing.

Speaker 2 The more and more people that say oh my god the gender emperor has no clothes

Speaker 2 that is the only thing that will slowly dismantle that

Speaker 2 because the the lie of gender is is the stranglehold that keeps

Speaker 3 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

Speaker 3 probably would have gone to a military academy Right.

Speaker 2 If I had grown up. God, that's so true.
You would have.

Speaker 3 And what are the expressions of myself as I am that would have not

Speaker 3 been able to come out

Speaker 3 if that had been my life?

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 3 I think about that all the time. Just

Speaker 3 what gets squelched? In a way, I think that women.

Speaker 3 have more external frustration and men have more internal frustration

Speaker 1 because

Speaker 3 I can

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 If I were a man,

Speaker 3 I would contain all the same things and I wouldn't even be expressing

Speaker 3 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,

Speaker 3 unexpressed, would probably be slowly killing me.

Speaker 3 So you're fucked either way.

Speaker 2 It's like for men, doors swing wide open on the outside, but there's all these locked doors on the inside.

Speaker 2 And for women, there can be fewer locked doors on the inside, but all the doors are locked on the outside.

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Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 1 But I think that people who live in the middle, like myself,

Speaker 1 there are these little things that happen, much like it does for men and women, but they are

Speaker 1 seen as a breach of this social contract we've all decided to be a part of.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 when you are in breach, you then are killed. You are totally, you are ridiculed, You are looked at.

Speaker 1 You are asked at dinner tables about,

Speaker 1 you know, are you a boy or a girl? And

Speaker 1 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, that people are scared of.

Speaker 3 It's a grave transgression and you can't pass.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Being a woman that looks like me, who is competitive intense, I can very easily switch

Speaker 3 into playing the role in any circumstance, which is to my benefit in that moment

Speaker 1 to be,

Speaker 3 oh, geez, I don't really understand this. Could you help me out?

Speaker 2 I'm sorry, officer, was I speeding?

Speaker 3 Yeah, and that does slowly kill you inside, but it also helps you out a shit ton when you need it.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 and in childhood, the director hands you a script.

Speaker 1 girl, boy,

Speaker 2 and some people are fucking like, no, I'm not playing your role. I'm not playing playing your part.

Speaker 2 The director

Speaker 1 is infuriated. They kick you out of the play.

Speaker 2 Or they kill you. And I think when we talk about trans people, because we know people who have said, no, no, it is gender is real for me.
Like I was assigned girl at birth.

Speaker 2 I'm boy and I feel boy in me and I'm expressing boy.

Speaker 2 And Abby and I talk a lot about why we both have,

Speaker 2 and I don't mean this to to any of any offense to non-trans people but we both have an 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 this queer and we're all queer and it's not just that I think it's because

Speaker 2 especially in this job especially for 15 years or however long we've been doing this of

Speaker 2 really listening to people and their stories and what they want more than anything and what their their biggest regrets are, and what they're working towards.

Speaker 2 It's always again and again, it's people saying in a million different ways, I just want to live as who I am,

Speaker 2 not what the world expects from 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?

Speaker 2 How do I be true to myself instead of like spending my entire life trying to please other people?

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 how do I not abandon myself? How do I abandon everyone else's expectations of me before I abandon myself?

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I think my immediate respect for a trans person is: it's like they are

Speaker 2 living proof of choosing outer conflict instead of inner conflict, and they're wearing it on themselves. It's like

Speaker 2 nobody had that easy.

Speaker 2 Nobody

Speaker 2 maybe will get to the point.

Speaker 2 So I'm sure we will, where

Speaker 2 that is an easier

Speaker 2 life experience.

Speaker 2 But for somebody to be living out as trans, it just means that they

Speaker 2 chose

Speaker 2 what everyone else wants to do and be, which is like, how do I look inside myself and choose real,

Speaker 2 choose what's truest to me, even when it causes

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 So everyone's just going to go being who they are?

Speaker 2 Right. But what about the director?

Speaker 3 If we have learned anything, it's that

Speaker 3 only

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 If someone comes to me and says, I find gender on my inside, I believe you. Totally.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think a lot of trans people would say that. Yes.
A lot of trans people are like, this is how I feel on the inside. And it's like wonderful.

Speaker 2 Oh my God.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And it's not like, okay, so you say you're a man. Well, you're acting because the gender binary is a lie.

Speaker 3 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.

Speaker 3 We can do our things is brought to you by Bumble, the app committed to bring people closer to love. I went through it in my first marriage.
I was desperately in love.

Speaker 3 And then in a whiplash of a moment, it was gone. I felt abandoned, betrayed, crushed.

Speaker 3 A while out from the divorce, when a friend asked me whether I was ready to date again, I said, Listen, I love men, but I also love hamburgers.

Speaker 3 And I just had the juiciest burger and it gave me food poisoning. And I don't even want to look at another burger for a very long time.
When I was ready to look, I was terrified.

Speaker 3 How in the world do you put yourself out there after that?

Speaker 3 I don't think there are a lot of people more courageous and cool than those folks who have been through the depths of heartbreak and are brave enough to reveal their heart again.

Speaker 3 It starts with that first step, a shaky voice inside of you that says, I want this even more than I don't want that.

Speaker 3 I want to share life and this beautiful banged up heart with another beautiful banged up heart. These days, that first shaky step often happens online on a dating app.

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Speaker 3 You can be shaky and scared and show up anyway. You can start again.
Bumble helps people do exactly that. Start your love story today on Bumble.

Speaker 2 Okay, this is hilarious. hilarious.
We've gotten through one question.

Speaker 2 Nick, thank you so much for that question. You now have us thinking about our dear friend, Alok,

Speaker 2 in just recognition of and celebration of all people who are breaking the director's rules

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 in

Speaker 2 recognition

Speaker 2 of the increasing violence and resistance those people are having to their decision to live bravely as who they are.

Speaker 2 We give you one of our favorite parts of our incredible conversation with our dear friend Alok.

Speaker 2 If you want to go back and listen to the full episodes with Alok, which you certainly should go back to episodes 74 and and 75.

Speaker 2 here you go loves here's a loke

Speaker 5 i see my life and my gender as a continuation of a tapestry of women who had the bravery to say no thank you

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 1 Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2 Can you tell me what, when you say for that to be unreciprocated, can you tell me what you mean by that specifically?

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 I believe in your capacity for self-determination.

Speaker 5 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 we're predators, that we're violent.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 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, their ancient ideas,

Speaker 5 because I think what patriarchy does is it makes us publicists, right?

Speaker 5 And we find ourselves speaking it, doing it, living it, thinking it with such a fierce allegiance that if someone dare say another way of living is possible,

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 2 Alok, you said,

Speaker 2 the days that I feel most beautiful are the days that I am most afraid.

Speaker 2 Can you tell us what you meant by that?

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 I've been thinking about this a lot because

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 Why do you do that? Why are you wearing that wig? Why are you wearing makeup?

Speaker 5 And I think people are surprised to hear that because they see images of me as this like fierce, independent, incandescent light.

Speaker 5 But I want to remind people how insidious misogyny is, that as women and trans people,

Speaker 5 It's going to take our entire lives to develop a self-image outside of what men have taught us to see ourselves as.

Speaker 5 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?

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 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.

Speaker 5 And then in the aftermath, I find myself so mean.

Speaker 5 And I think that that's because I've been punished for my beauty my entire life.

Speaker 5 And by beauty, I mean looking like myself, which I think most people don't know. That's what beauty actually is.

Speaker 5 And so I've developed a knee-jerk response that's actually an antagonistic relationship to my beauty.

Speaker 5 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 look at that video and say, you are a fool, so tone it down.

Speaker 5 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.

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