0:04

Hello world , lo here

0:06

. This is

0:08

clearly incorrect .

0:15

Your children are fucking dying because of this

0:17

. I'm

0:24

just trying to see the smiles , the stories . That's

0:26

what made it important . I

0:32

am a woman , and there's no denying this from

0:34

any circumstance , and

0:44

of course , I was the only one on shrimps . Where

0:52

do I go from here ? Daniel

0:57

, derek , kelly , ashley

1:00

and Raymond .

1:08

Hi everybody , it's Lo

1:10

. I'm here

1:13

again . I am so

1:15

excited to have you here today . It's

1:18

a good one . I'm really proud

1:20

of it . I'd actually like

1:24

to credit this episode with getting me back

1:26

on my feet . I was going through a depression

1:28

, a lot of anxiety . If

1:31

you listened to Ray 2.0

1:33

, I talked about some

1:35

threatening phone calls . I answered

1:38

while working at Blush in December of 2022

1:40

. Well , it

1:43

was all around the trial , and twice

1:46

I was with an hour of showing up

1:48

to a courtroom to testify , and

1:50

now it's been pushed back to it

1:52

in half months . So that

1:54

is what it is , but it was all

1:56

very looming . It

1:59

just it added on to a lot of things

2:01

and it made my life really hard

2:03

for a while and I couldn't stop thinking about it and

2:07

people kept telling me

2:09

to

2:11

put out more episodes . Thanks

2:14

, brittany , thank you , thanks everybody

2:16

. Yeah , and so I

2:18

did , and I pulled up this , this episode

2:21

, and it helped me . I

2:24

don't know it . It

2:27

drew me in and

2:29

brought me back . So

2:31

thank you for please

2:34

take a moment to like subscribe

2:36

. Follow rate

2:38

review . Yeah , a review

2:41

would be really helpful . So

2:43

now , with

2:47

a broken heart

2:49

, I

2:51

give you five

2:54

. Alive , hello

2:59

, hello , hello everybody . I

3:01

have this amazingly cute . Human

3:03

beings are going to cross from me . They go

3:05

by Fern .

3:07

Hello there .

3:08

Tell us about yourself .

3:10

My name is Fern . I'm 22

3:13

years old . I was a

3:15

bartender at Club Q In

3:18

the military . I sell tea now I'm

3:21

pretty boring .

3:22

I don't think it's boring . I mean , tea is fantastically

3:25

interesting .

3:26

It is . I could honestly talk about it all

3:28

day , from cultivars to aging

3:31

methods . It's a joy .

3:33

So let's spill the tea on tea . What's your

3:35

favorite one ?

3:36

My favorite one is probably something

3:38

called the Yancha , which means

3:40

a single origin , single

3:42

estate tea . So they're typically

3:45

Oolongs , which means

3:47

that somewhere between a green tea and a black

3:49

tea when oxidation they're

3:51

going to be rolled . So it just kind of

3:53

creates this wonderful roasty , aromatic flavor

3:56

.

3:57

That sounds absolutely wonderful . Thank

3:59

you for the tea interlude . Yeah

4:01

, for sure , we're drinking a little , a

4:04

little mate right now . Yes

4:06

, frida , frida is good , it's good

4:08

Frida's here .

4:09

Do you have any tea that you particularly enjoy

4:11

, or Lately .

4:13

I'm into this because it's got a lot of caffeine

4:15

in it . I do like an Oolong . I'm

4:18

a fan of most tea . There's

4:20

this weird black tea that

4:22

they have in Uganda and

4:24

they grow it there and it's

4:27

I don't know . It's got a unique flavor

4:29

that I really miss . All right , that

4:31

was the bait and switch part done . Bait and

4:33

switch , all right . So

4:36

I guess , yeah , if you're comfortable , let's do it . Trigger

4:39

warning everybody . We're going to talk about something

4:41

you probably know about and it

4:43

is a touchy subject . So we're

4:45

going to talk about Club Q Fern

4:48

. How are you associated with this ?

4:51

So , like I was saying earlier , I was a

4:53

bartender there . I actually started

4:55

bartending at Pride of last year

4:57

Just got brought into

4:59

the community . It was fantastic

5:01

the entire time and then afterwards

5:04

I definitely distanced myself

5:06

from a lot of the drama at Club

5:08

Q , just because there's a lot of

5:10

division within the community after everything

5:13

had happened and you've probably seen some of that on the news

5:15

. I'm notoriously out

5:17

of touch . Okay , what kind of debate

5:19

like . So the owner of Club Q

5:21

, matthew Hans , along with the

5:23

employees and contractors of Club Q so

5:26

that includes bartenders , store security

5:28

, drag queens just had

5:30

a lot of disagreements on how money should

5:32

be distributed and I feel like disagreements

5:34

is a very light term . So

5:37

the owner had

5:39

masked all of the fundraisers

5:42

that had been donated specifically

5:44

for the employees and the contractors and

5:47

this was within like a month after the incident

5:49

and decided to put

5:52

it all into the building instead of giving it

5:54

to the employees and contractors , who

5:56

were obviously out of job , had

5:59

no idea what was going on . And then all of a sudden we're like oh

6:01

yeah , you need to get a job pretty much immediately . Well

6:04

, that's shitty , yeah for

6:06

sure . So that's why a lot of division

6:09

had happened between the community and it was

6:11

horrific the entire time . And

6:13

then you'd have people going over to Matthew's side

6:15

because they thought they could just do

6:17

more change throughout it . But what's

6:20

?

6:21

the dude's name again Matthew Haines . Matthew

6:23

Haines , have a little

6:26

fucking empathy . Precisely

6:29

, you know exactly what these people went

6:31

through because you were part of it too . People

6:33

need time to recover , like I've

6:36

been so touchy about this with

6:38

Fern because I've lost

6:41

people to traffic accidents

6:43

and things , and nothing as violent as this

6:45

and it bugs the shit out of me . I

6:48

just can't imagine where you're coming from

6:50

and I think it's a thing our society really

6:52

doesn't allow for is time to heal and

6:56

like even respect . You know like there's

6:58

probably some deep emotional scarring

7:00

here . How much have you processed

7:02

? This is still pretty new .

7:04

This is still incredibly new . It's hard

7:06

to say where I'm actually at in the processing because

7:09

to certain extent

7:11

, I did have to kind of just immediate be like , okay

7:13

, I need to actually figure out

7:15

how to continue on with life . And

7:17

so I'm sitting down and processing this and this was

7:20

about mid-December . You

7:22

look back on it and it feels like it's a

7:24

century ago , but at the same time

7:26

it also feels like it could happen 30

7:29

seconds ago , and that's trauma

7:31

. It's pretty easily summed up , I feel

7:33

.

7:34

It was less than a year ago .

7:36

Yeah , it was seven months ago . That's it yeah

7:38

.

7:42

It's amazing how you can distance things in your mind

7:44

and forget

7:47

about things , and then sometimes they come back . And

7:49

did

7:52

you hear about the perpetrator

7:54

?

7:55

I did . We were actually celebrating yesterday

7:58

, so that was a lot of the contractors

8:00

of Club Q . So we ended up renting out

8:02

a space in Manitou and the entire time it was just

8:05

tacos beer karaoke

8:07

. It was fabulous .

8:09

Yeah , let's celebrate throwing a hater in a

8:11

hole , and that's all we need to call this

8:13

person , because I don't care

8:15

. Fuck you .

8:16

Oh , absolutely no , it was . This

8:19

was our victory . And that was

8:21

just yesterday , for the listeners of the

8:24

perpetrator did get convicted to , I

8:27

believe , 137 years in prison

8:29

.

8:30

Yeah , it was five counts of

8:32

first degree murder and like

8:34

124 counts

8:36

of attempted murder , and then

8:38

like hundreds

8:40

of other laws regarding

8:43

like regulations

8:45

and things around the weapons and stuff . So , yeah

8:47

, he's not going anywhere .

8:50

Yeah , and then you've also seen some stuff with Polis

8:52

and Colorado government putting some more

8:55

restrictions onto weapons

8:57

after this had all happened , such

8:59

as putting on wait times , putting on more

9:02

age restrictions . So hopefully

9:04

that goes into preventing some

9:06

of this in the future . Unfortunately , it's still

9:08

not 100% there .

9:10

Yeah , let's talk about gun laws . I mean , this

9:12

is fucking Colorado . I live

9:14

in Denver , which is this lovely liberal

9:17

bastion , but this is the

9:19

state of Columbine . This isn't the state

9:21

of the Aurora shooting . And now the state of Club

9:23

Q also , yeah

9:26

, I would say we have a problem .

9:28

Oh , absolutely , and I

9:30

don't know why gun control is this constant

9:32

like left versus right issue , like

9:35

, your children are fucking dying because of this

9:37

. This shouldn't be something that

9:39

conservatives and our liberals should be arguing

9:41

about . It should be something that we band together and be like no

9:43

, this is an actual problem . We need to go in

9:45

and figure out how to stop this at the source

9:48

. Yeah , and then

9:50

if you look at all of the shootings that have happened , even in

9:52

2023 alone , there've

9:54

been well over 100 where people have died

9:56

already . And we're

9:58

what , six months in ?

10:00

That's absurd . It's just it become a thing that people

10:03

do . It's a uniquely American

10:05

phenomenon and it deeply upsets

10:07

me . It goes back to these older ideas

10:09

of American freedom . And to

10:12

quote Bean , who's been

10:14

on this show many times , you're bringing

10:16

a gun to a drone fight . How

10:19

fucking stupid are you ? You're a 50

10:21

caliber . That's why they brought

10:23

tanks into Waco , because

10:25

they had a 50 caliber . That's

10:28

what they're just gonna do to you . You're not gonna fight anybody

10:30

. You pull out weapons that big , they're gonna drop a

10:32

bomb on your house .

10:34

Absolutely . I'm

10:36

all here for weapons being used for self-defense

10:39

if you need it , Like if you have a shotgun

10:41

, whatever . Not for me , but

10:43

if you really need that to feel secure , go for it

10:45

. But why the hell do you need an assault weapon

10:47

? A weapon where assault is the

10:50

first letter has one purpose to

10:52

slaughter humans .

10:53

Yeah , a military grade war

10:56

death machine . That

10:58

is not the 20 caliber

11:00

single barrel single shot

11:03

shotgun . I took trap and skeet shooting

11:05

in my teenage years . That

11:07

was a rather cultural and

11:09

fun , almost wholesome activity , and

11:13

with that gun I could

11:15

barely hurt a person . I

11:17

think you said it best your children

11:19

are dying , and it's not the right's

11:22

children or the left's children or

11:24

the white people and the biopic people

11:26

, it is everyone's children

11:29

.

11:30

And at what point ? What percentage

11:32

do we call this like an

11:34

emergency issue , because

11:36

I would argue Columbine should have been the . What

11:39

the fuck are we doing ? Someone's coming into a

11:41

school and it's continued happening

11:44

.

11:45

If you listen to Dean Mom , one

11:47

of my last episodes I interview

11:49

my mother because we've had two

11:52

very intimate encounters with gun

11:54

violence in our life . And when I was in sixth

11:57

grade there was a shooting at my school two years before

11:59

Columbine . And how

12:01

did a 12 year old get a gun , with

12:04

mental health issues ? And then years

12:06

later , a teacher I worked with somebody

12:08

knocked on his door and shot him , and it was a 19

12:10

year old kid who was just an idiot

12:13

.

12:13

Oh , my God .

12:16

Do you need that power people ? Are

12:19

you so scared ? Why are you scared

12:21

? Fern here and

12:23

I , I guess we're who you're scared

12:26

of , and

12:28

I don't think you should be scared

12:30

of us .

12:31

I'm just scared of you , perfectly

12:34

friendly . Worst thing I'll do is drink some

12:36

tea and do some math maybe

12:38

, maybe touch some pot .

12:40

Whoa , oh , my God . I

12:43

mean , according to Nixon , that would make you evil

12:45

.

12:45

I know right .

12:47

Honestly , I think the math is where you lose most people

12:49

. Have

12:54

you noticed the bizarre coincidence

12:56

of the number of trans

12:59

women in tech ?

13:01

Yes , if you go into a computer science major

13:03

as a cis male , you're leaving as a trans

13:05

female .

13:06

Yes , there's like a reasonable percentage

13:08

chance of that happening . I think it's a lot

13:10

like people with autism and

13:12

social disorders gravitating

13:14

to the sciences . It's not that

13:16

it draws them in , it doesn't kick them out .

13:19

Exactly .

13:20

Nobody cares , as long as you're good enough .

13:22

Yeah , you don't actually have to talk to people if you go

13:24

into this career . You can just sit in a desk

13:27

and do your equations and make us money

13:29

and you're good .

13:30

You know what ? This is going to be a fun interview . We're

13:32

going to go everywhere . We're just going to talk about fun

13:34

stuff . You're not high . This is like a get-in-high

13:37

with low . I love it . Do you want to be high ?

13:39

I am all good .

13:40

Wonderful .

13:41

I feel like I'm just in body

13:44

highness within myself .

13:45

You have a lovely energy . I really

13:48

like it .

13:48

Thank you .

13:49

Yeah , god , I forgot what I was talking about

13:51

Random shenanigans , random

13:54

shenanigans , all right . What do you think about

13:56

this titan disaster ?

13:58

Oh my God , the submarine . Yeah

14:02

Well , two billionaires died

14:04

, so hell yeah , I

14:09

feel like the entire thing is just ridiculous . It's been like

14:11

a real-life soap opera .

14:13

It really has . I think Obama nailed

14:15

it when he talked about the people off of

14:17

Greece who sunk and nobody seemed to fucking notice

14:19

. As far as I'm concerned , this

14:22

was some version of four

14:24

suicides and a murder of a 19-year-old

14:26

, or a suicide and

14:28

four murders . This was negligence

14:31

to the nth degree . It

14:33

was stupid . It proves

14:35

that rich people are dumb . Because that

14:37

stuff looked like shit Carbon

14:40

fiber repeatedly . There's this thing

14:42

called lifespan

14:44

. You can take

14:47

a carbon fiber submarine down one

14:49

time . I

14:55

don't care what people think . Those

14:57

people were stupid . I have all the

15:00

empathy in the world for the family

15:02

members and for the 19-year-old , and especially

15:04

the woman who lost her husband and

15:06

child , but to the adults who got on

15:08

that thing .

15:09

Ridiculous . Yeah , it does go to

15:11

show that you can't just solve all your issues

15:13

with money and the fact that you endangered

15:16

human lives for some stupid exploration

15:18

mission , that there is no value

15:20

being gained from this .

15:22

I heard a lot of people talking about science

15:24

, like , oh , they were trying to push the bounds of

15:26

science . No , it was

15:28

a tourist mission to the

15:30

Titanic . I asked James Cameron

15:33

, he would know . I

15:36

don't know , fern , what you got

15:38

for me .

15:39

What do I got ? You're

15:42

pretty young , I am yes

15:44

.

15:45

When did you know you were queer ?

15:49

There was definitely a lot of hints

15:51

early on of even

15:54

just being like a little five-four-year-old

15:57

me being like why am I not

15:59

allowed to wear dresses ? Why am

16:02

I not allowed to have dolls like

16:04

the other girls ? This doesn't make sense

16:06

to me and

16:08

my family was very hard on like

16:10

no , you were a man and you will do all

16:12

the manly things , and I feel like this is kind of

16:14

a repeated story throughout

16:16

a lot of trans youth .

16:19

I mean they've done 10 million movies

16:21

about the guy getting the girl . I

16:23

think we can tell the same story of coming

16:25

out . I've only done 31

16:27

episodes . There's less than 10 million .

16:30

I think the point that I actually

16:32

kind of accepted , though , was

16:35

probably senior year

16:37

of high school Granted freshman

16:39

year of high school at an amazing friend we'll

16:42

call her Rose and I

16:44

would text her and be like is it possible to

16:46

bring in a dress that I could try on at school

16:48

? And this was freshman year and she was an

16:50

amazing ally . We'll never forget her . But

16:54

senior year I

16:56

had kind of taken a moment to myself . I'm like , no

16:58

, I'm gonna sit down and I'm actually

17:01

gonna focus on who am I and stop

17:03

caring what everyone else thinks , and

17:05

I'm just gonna do that , because why

17:07

would I torture myself to appease

17:10

other people ? That's not living . That's

17:12

having a terrible

17:14

acting career for your entire life .

17:16

It's well put , it's like I don't like Halloween anymore

17:19

and people are like why I only got fucking

17:21

wore a costume for 32 years . Oh

17:24

my God , I've had enough fucking Halloweens

17:26

okay .

17:28

Where are you from ? I've pretty much been in Colorado

17:30

my whole life , so started

17:32

in Denver , moved up to the Springs , then back

17:35

down in Denver Okay , because

17:37

the Springs was traumatizing as hell .

17:38

I have been there like three times

17:41

since I transitioned yes , frida

17:43

, aw , baby girl , and

17:46

every time , walking down the street , I got dirty

17:48

fucking looks . And that is my experience

17:51

with Colorado Springs .

17:53

Oh for sure . I remember during Pride someone called

17:55

me a fag on the shirt . It really that's the best

17:57

you can do , like I would rather not

17:59

get harassed just walking from point A

18:01

to point B .

18:02

I think that's the appropriate response at this point

18:04

. Like really , dude , can

18:06

you at least throw a little flair at it ? Somebody

18:09

called me faggoty and I thought you know that's a new

18:11

one . Hey , a little variety

18:13

, Thanks . You know , it's the spice of life

18:15

, Exactly .

18:17

Yeah , being able to work with dry queens for six

18:19

months was fantastic , because I got all

18:21

of the insults a

18:23

vastly higher level than any conservative

18:25

could ever throw at me .

18:27

Oh yeah , we can dish on each other .

18:29

Oh , for sure it's , great .

18:31

It is . It is one of those things that

18:33

I think straight people will never get

18:35

, or the people who aren't

18:37

like in a small group and

18:40

just you know being a woman is almost enough

18:43

, but like to go to a place that is

18:45

designated for people like you because

18:47

you can't exist anywhere else and be yourselves

18:49

. This is trauma people . This is how you

18:51

deal with it . You make it stupid

18:53

, angry , sick jokes to

18:56

your friends that are violent

18:58

, offensive , but

19:01

you know what . It somehow makes you feel better

19:03

.

19:04

Oh , absolutely , queer trauma is the best .

19:06

Trauma bonding is a real thing . And actually now

19:08

, thinking back to it , a friend of mine passed when I was

19:10

in the Pete's Corp . They were hit by a drunk

19:13

driver Nothing that just

19:15

doesn't happen anywhere . And that

19:18

was largely . Our response was we all huddled

19:20

together and we were just

19:22

kind of crude and

19:24

vulgar for about

19:26

two days . We

19:29

weren't talking about the tragedy , just about in general

19:31

things , and that

19:33

was our process . And now it kind of leads

19:35

me to wonder , like , did you guys do

19:37

something similar or different ?

19:39

The way I had kind of processed through a lot of the

19:41

trauma is any

19:44

of the five that died Derek , daniel

19:46

, ashley , kelly Ray

19:48

. They wouldn't tolerate

19:51

us crying and being sad about them

19:53

. They would want us to harass

19:55

them the entire time . And every time

19:57

I think about Derek I miss the man

20:00

dearly because he was a grumpy ass Italian

20:02

man and was

20:04

just one of the most amazing people you'll ever meet

20:06

. But I'll never stop insulting him because

20:09

I did that in life . So why would I treat him

20:11

any different now that he's gone ?

20:12

I still call my brother . He's been gone for

20:14

six years now as shit head to people because

20:17

he was . If

20:20

he shouted butt head into a room

20:22

I would turn around . You know it's

20:25

. I

20:27

think that's kind of important . Like people , if this

20:29

hasn't touched your life , it's going to . I

20:32

mean , I don't know if there's anybody out there who hasn't lost

20:35

somebody in some kind of horrible

20:37

way anymore these days . And

20:40

it's the thing is you got to keep them alive .

20:43

Oh , for sure .

20:45

Yeah , you can be sad Also

20:47

. Yeah , man , if I was an asshole to you , like

20:49

I died in 20 years later and you remember me

20:51

being a dick , you can go fuck you low

20:54

. You know , keep me alive , keep

20:56

me in your thoughts , and

20:58

I think that's really important . So can you say their five

21:00

names again ?

21:01

Yeah , absolutely , it's Daniel , derek

21:04

, Kelly , ashley

21:06

and Raymond .

21:08

So I would like to dedicate my entire

21:10

show to these

21:12

people , because it's it

21:18

hurts . I just I

21:21

shouldn't know their names , I

21:23

shouldn't know who they are .

21:28

Yeah .

21:31

Oh fuck , now I'm crying .

21:40

I do appreciate that and I know they

21:42

will as well . So I

21:46

know that all of them were just the life

21:48

of a party . I can

21:50

go to all of them and say that some of them are the

21:52

most caring people I had ever met and they

21:54

always had a smile on their face , even

21:58

with , like the rebuilding of the building , club

22:00

queue . I don't

22:03

think it will ever be club

22:05

queue again , because they were core

22:07

people of that bar . You didn't go

22:10

to the gay bar to see a building

22:12

. You went to see the people . You went to see

22:15

the smiles , the stories . That's

22:17

what made it important and

22:19

I do think , looking back on it , if

22:22

Matthew happens to listen

22:24

to this podcast , for whatever reason , if

22:26

you cut out the people from this story

22:29

and you just try to erect a

22:31

monument in a building , it's

22:33

not going to be the same . You need

22:35

the people , the community . That's what's

22:38

going to draw people in , because it was a shitty

22:40

ass bar .

22:42

This is the best ones , oh

22:44

absolutely . I think you're right . People

22:48

get confused . The

22:51

monument isn't the thing

22:53

that's built of stone , it's

22:55

the people and the thoughts and

22:59

being live in memory . That's

23:02

the monument . You put

23:04

the stone there to help people get there , but you

23:07

can't forget . That's

23:09

not it .

23:11

Yeah so .

23:13

So , dude , fuck , you , give

23:15

these people some fucking money . You

23:18

want to come on this show ? We can talk about it . I've

23:20

had fucking beef on here before . I would love it

23:22

. I love it . This is local

23:24

. I'm talking to a lot of people

23:26

who are going to go to your bar . Denver and Colorado

23:29

Springs Queers are like the only

23:31

people that regularly listen to my show . So

23:34

we got a voice to them . You

23:37

fucker . Twice traumatized

23:39

.

23:40

All here for the local queer podcasts

23:42

.

23:43

Yeah , there's like two of us in town , I don't

23:45

know . I think it's great on

23:47

Spotify , so I listen

23:49

to my show just all the fucking time . I

23:51

mean , if you had a show , wouldn't you ? Oh ?

23:53

absolutely . I love the sound of my own voice .

23:55

And it goes do you want to see more like this ? And I go , oh

23:57

god , I'm so curious . And I click it and it goes we

23:59

couldn't find anything . I

24:02

adore that I

24:05

guess

24:08

the next thing I want to talk about is

24:11

um shrooms , shrooms , shrooms

24:14

yeah , okay , so

24:17

my experience with shrooms

24:19

is fairly

24:22

recent .

24:23

I think my first instance of taking

24:25

them was December 13th of 2022

24:28

. It was so incorrectly done

24:30

. You know , I've heard going into the forest is the

24:32

best thing and I was the only one that can

24:34

drive with a group that I went with and , of course

24:36

, I was the only one on shrooms . That's

24:41

amazing . So this is a great start . There's

24:43

no way to get home until I sober up

24:45

and I'm just in

24:48

the woods tripping my ass off

24:50

. It was marvelous .

24:52

I feel the woods is

24:54

truly excellent . My first time tripping , I was

24:56

dragged to the woods

24:58

in New York in the mountains

25:01

and it was like March

25:03

and there was snow and I was new

25:05

to snow and God

25:07

, that was a fun time . But and bring

25:10

them up , because I

25:12

think we've both been using them quite successfully

25:14

lately to help us heal

25:16

from some things

25:19

, and you just

25:21

mentioned that you had used them and

25:23

do you think they helped you with the trauma or with

25:25

? Tell me in your own words .

25:27

I would absolutely say that they've helped me with my

25:29

trauma from quite a few different

25:31

perspectives . Obviously

25:33

, with the club queue incident , it

25:35

helped me process the death of

25:37

a lot of my friends and family

25:40

that had died that night , and I

25:42

just gotten me quicker to that acceptance

25:44

stage of I will duly

25:47

miss these people for the rest of my life

25:49

, but I also do want to carry on their

25:51

stories , their legacy , their

25:53

smiles and that's a

25:56

realization that had helped me grew

25:59

the usage of shrooms along

26:01

with a lot of my depression . My anxiety

26:04

had very quickly cleared

26:06

up . Obviously there's

26:08

still a huge part of me missing and

26:10

that's something that can only be filled

26:13

through time and it's never

26:15

gonna be completely healed . But

26:18

there's going to be different branches from that . But

26:21

I can absolutely say that my perspective

26:23

on the world has just changed more

26:25

towards gratitude since

26:28

initially taking them and I've

26:30

done maybe three sessions with mushrooms

26:32

, but I can say

26:35

that each one has had a positive experience , from dealing

26:37

with gender dysphoria to

26:39

where one of my trips was just pure gender

26:42

euphoria , like my entire existence

26:44

was . Yeah , I am a woman and there's

26:46

no denying this from any circumstance

26:49

to even

26:52

just moving on . I had

26:55

time to settle with the loss of my loved

26:57

ones . Where do I go from here

26:59

? How do I help heal further ? What

27:01

is that healing process ? Is it erecting a

27:03

building or is it carrying on these stories

27:05

as a engaging with my community

27:08

, bringing up the community , giving protections

27:10

to trans women in Florida , texas

27:13

, louisiana , uganda ? And

27:16

how can I help engage that healing

27:19

outside of my

27:21

bubble and helping to reach

27:23

out and heal other people ? And

27:26

that is the legacy that was carried on , I

27:29

feel that's good .

27:30

That sounds really healthy to me like

27:32

you're doing the work

27:35

and they're just helping to

27:37

get there . But you know you still

27:39

have to do the work oh , absolutely , and I've barely

27:42

started on that work .

27:44

It's been small donations from here on out

27:46

. It's been quick Facebook

27:48

post , quick Instagram post , connecting with people

27:51

. There's been some healing on like

27:53

a political scale of looking at

27:55

how does media release

27:57

a video of homicide , and

28:00

that's been more on like local

28:02

within my personal bubble and what I have control over

28:04

, but making sure that a

28:06

video that gets released of clubcube doesn't

28:08

go out to everybody , because what

28:12

harm can be brought from that . So

28:16

I'm trying to see where I can help in

28:18

what I can do . It's a slow process

28:20

. I've started that process and I think that's

28:22

the most important part .

28:24

I think you nailed it on the head

28:26

. Starting it

28:28

is the most important part , and

28:31

I'm just going to tell you that you're broken . Whoever you

28:33

are we all are you have trauma

28:35

you have not dealt with . If

28:37

I'm wrong , you're the healthiest team in being on the

28:39

planet , so I

28:41

think you can handle this . So

28:44

a friend threw a bag of shrooms at me and I won

28:46

and I felt better . I

28:48

didn't trip or anything and I know now that's

28:50

because I was on a fantastic amount

28:52

of antidepressants After

28:55

my brother passed . I went through a couple severe traumas

28:57

and then a couple more and

28:59

my mind broke in half and

29:02

for years if I wasn't on 200

29:04

milligrams of Zoloft and

29:06

like 50 of Abilify

29:09

, I would be

29:11

scared to leave my house or

29:13

do anything . It just existed

29:16

I would . How

29:19

would you crazy shit See over

29:21

there that surveyors pendulum ?

29:23

Yeah .

29:23

I keep that there as a reminder . I used to hang

29:25

those things all over my house

29:28

because they wobble

29:30

when people hit them and you

29:32

can't stop them , so

29:34

I would know just like silly

29:37

things . Because I had so much anxiety

29:39

and somehow a hanging pendulum

29:41

made me feel a little better and so

29:43

I ate one shroom and not much happened

29:45

. And then so a couple days later I tried a little more

29:48

and I felt , you know , I got some , some

29:50

mood enhancement and I think this is the

29:52

part of the didn't trip In vaginistic

29:54

episode I recorded , like back in February

29:57

or something . I probably ate an eighth

29:59

of mushrooms on

30:01

the show and I don't trip . But

30:04

I feel so much better than the next day

30:06

I start decreasing my antidepressants

30:08

.

30:10

Yeah , and I remember earlier , as I was walking in , you were

30:12

talking to your doctor and he was saying that you

30:14

pretty much don't . Oh , she had my

30:16

bad , good old patriarchy making

30:18

assumptions out of myself that

30:20

she was saying that you don't .

30:22

Or you were going to her and saying you don't need antidepressants

30:24

anymore , right , I saw her today actually

30:27

because I am having gastric issues people

30:29

, we don't need to talk about my bathroom habits but

30:31

she was updating my

30:33

med list and go you are in this year . I said , listen , I

30:35

go . No . And she goes . What did you do ? I

30:37

go , well , the increments that they put me on it

30:39

and it upped it . I went down on that and I waited

30:41

a week and reevaluated and then I

30:44

just kept doing that and now I'm

30:46

off of them and after six years

30:48

it's like I forgot that people

30:50

feel this much .

30:53

It's weird . That's a huge step

30:55

. Congratulations .

30:56

Thank you .

30:57

I know that's so significant .

30:59

I had a little emotional bump the other day

31:02

and I handled it . I

31:04

got sad but I dealt with

31:06

it and I'm not sad anymore and

31:08

I think , fuck that

31:11

shit might have worked . It blows

31:14

my mind and I love that my doctor , because

31:16

we're in Denver , one of the only fucking places in

31:18

America where mushrooms are legal and

31:21

her response was well , that's cool

31:23

.

31:24

Mental health . It's a big topic

31:27

. I feel like it's definitely

31:29

a very strong thing in America

31:31

. There's a lot of realization that America

31:34

had kind of suffered a mental health crisis , I

31:36

would say , especially around the epidemic or

31:38

pandemic of COVID

31:40

in 2020 .

31:41

Oh , yeah , anxiety went to

31:43

the roof that year .

31:44

Oh , absolutely , and the fact that people were being locked

31:47

inside , and I think that's created

31:49

a huge upsurge on how therapy

31:51

is respected , the accessibility

31:53

of therapy within America , and

31:55

I think that's a trajectory that's important

31:57

to keep going on . I also think there's

31:59

been a lot more conversations about kind

32:02

of deconstructing this hypermasculine

32:05

view of no , you need to seal all your emotions

32:07

up , and I do feel like there's been

32:09

a little bit of a paradigm shift in that People

32:12

are starting to be like no , emotions are

32:14

important . We need to actually focus on this .

32:17

Yeah , and you brought up something good and something

32:19

I mentioned before . It's actually when my brother passed

32:21

. I still presented mail then and

32:23

the thing I learned actually kind of

32:25

interesting to see how you were treated as

32:28

a male . Your emotions are seen

32:30

as anger , like you're not allowed

32:32

to be sad , you're pissed off . And

32:35

if you're viewed as female , it's exact

32:37

opposite You're not allowed to be angry , you're

32:40

crying and emotional and whining . You

32:43

have to let men be sad . Don't

32:48

assume a man is angry because he's

32:50

upset . Assume

32:52

he's angry because he makes a violent action

32:54

. I'm not saying don't protect yourself , but

32:57

there were times when I was crying

32:59

and people

33:01

that I thought loved me left me because

33:03

they were scared I was going to hurt them , when all

33:05

I had done was cry .

33:09

I definitely felt that growing up as a

33:11

kid , especially as I was in

33:13

high school , I had some unstable

33:16

family stuff but definitely

33:18

the big one was when I would have

33:20

a moment and I would start crying . I

33:23

would have my family get incredibly scared

33:25

and it didn't make sense to me because I'm like I'm

33:28

not doing anything , I'm

33:30

taking time and I'm saying I

33:32

need a space to myself to cry and

33:35

I need to set this boundary , and then I'd get that boundary

33:37

invaded and then it would constantly

33:40

be this no , why are you crying ? This isn't

33:42

okay and this constant denial

33:45

of my feelings and this almost

33:47

fear of those feelings . So , yeah , that's a

33:50

fantastic point that you've made , thank

33:52

you .

33:53

It's a weird one , fern , but I'm liking

33:55

it . We're bouncing all over

33:57

the fucking place . Yeah , you have

33:59

emotions , you do . You got to respect

34:02

them . If you're a man , you have

34:04

those too . If you're not a man

34:06

, and you know , men let them cry

34:08

, because it's better that they cry

34:10

than they hit you or

34:13

me . That's the

34:15

one I'm really worried about people , because people

34:17

throw shit at me walking down the street , sometimes

34:19

Like why ? Because

34:23

they see a representation of manhood they don't like

34:25

.

34:27

Also , people just kind of need to mind their own fucking business

34:29

. If you're not hurting anyone , I feel like there shouldn't

34:31

be . It's actually really funny

34:33

because if someone steals something and

34:35

runs away down the street , most

34:37

people are going to look and be like , oh , someone else is going to solve that

34:40

, whatever . But if you actually see

34:42

someone minding their own business not hurting anyone

34:44

, not really even engaging anyone all of

34:46

a sudden , that's when you're angry . That's

34:49

the confusing aspect , yeah

34:51

that's a very relevant point .

34:53

Our gay bars are very real

34:55

. Well , you push this out of your

34:57

society . You don't want us , so we found our own place

34:59

. And what do you do ? You show up with a gun

35:02

. We're

35:05

not the issue here . We're

35:08

not the ones attacking people . We're

35:10

trying to exist and fucking even left

35:12

you alone . What more

35:14

do you fucking want from us ? But we do exist

35:16

.

35:19

They want us to pretend like we don't , but

35:21

I think that does go back to that . You

35:24

need to let men process , you need to let

35:26

men cry and to have these feelings

35:28

, because if you don't acknowledge it , then you're going to

35:30

take it out on someone else . You're

35:32

going to see a trans woman and reflect

35:35

on them for whatever reason You're like . No , this person can

35:37

have feelings , so they're invalid and that's

35:39

something that I need to err

35:41

, kill .

35:42

Err kill . Yeah , good

35:44

words , sometimes

35:47

the simple ones are the best . Alright

35:49

, you have anything else you'd like to say ?

35:52

I think

35:54

I'm all good Anything

35:56

you want to ask , since we're going on this very

35:58

sporadic kind of conversation

36:00

. Are you on hormones ? I

36:03

am . I am just about to hit

36:05

a gear on hormones .

36:06

Okay , so you have such a slight

36:09

figure that when I met

36:11

you it was rather dark and I didn't

36:13

know you were trans , until you

36:15

walked up to my door and

36:17

I saw you in daylight and I went . Oh , so

36:25

good for you . You

36:28

have such a ladylike energy .

36:32

Thank you .

36:33

And yeah , I just thought I'd drop

36:35

that . Alright

36:38

, everybody , I hope you had a good

36:40

time . I literally laughed and

36:42

cried . I hope you did too

36:44

, and I hope I don't

36:46

know . I just hope you feel better .

36:49

Yeah , it was great being on this podcast

36:51

and being able to tell my story and have

36:53

this great back and forth conversation , so

36:55

thank you .

36:58

Thank you , fern . See

37:00

you everybody . What'd

37:03

you think ? I

37:06

hope you enjoyed it . I

37:08

hope you learned something . Maybe you felt

37:10

something . I really want to thank

37:12

Fern . That was an

37:14

honest and beautiful interview

37:17

. So thank you , fern

37:19

. If

37:21

you enjoyed the show and want to

37:23

leave a tip , hit that support the show link

37:25

and if you haven't already remember

37:28

to like , subscribe , rate

37:31

and leave a review

37:33

. You can always

37:35

send me an email at queerlyincorrectgmailcom

37:39

and , wherever

37:41

you are , wherever

37:44

you are , have

37:47

a good

37:50

one . Thank

38:12

you , queerly

38:39

Incorrect is produced by Queerly

38:41

.