0:04

There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production of I Heart

0:06

Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm

0:12

Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the

0:14

Internet. The

0:18

Matrix first premiered in and

0:20

when it did, it was groundbreaking. In

0:23

it, many trans spoke see a metaphor

0:25

for the trans experience and breaking down the

0:27

systems that keep you from knowing your true self.

0:30

I wanted to know more about this, so I

0:32

reached out to Emily Vanderworth, the

0:34

critic at large for Box dot Com.

0:38

Emily's piece, How the Matrix Universalized

0:40

the trans experience and helped Me accept my own

0:43

explores how the Matrix spoke to her own experiences

0:45

as a trans woman. You

0:48

can find the link to the piece and the episode description.

0:51

Now. I was really excited to connect with Emily,

0:54

but while we were going back and forth to confirm

0:56

the details of our interview, I

0:58

could tell something was up. That

1:00

day, Harper's Magazine published

1:02

a letter denouncing what is sometimes known as cancel

1:04

culture, complaining that the freedom

1:07

of speech and free exchange of ideas are being

1:09

stifled by intolerant voices on the left.

1:11

The letter was signed by people like Harry Potter,

1:14

author j. K Rowling, who

1:16

has a history of anti trans speech. The

1:18

letter fits a common pattern in which

1:20

people with power attempt to portray

1:23

public critiques of powerful people as unacceptable,

1:26

even when they use their power to harm

1:28

people less powerful than them. Someone

1:30

who also signed onto the letter works with Emily

1:33

at Fox. Pretty understandably,

1:36

finding out that one of her co workers also signed

1:38

onto this letter didn't sit well with Emily.

1:41

She reached out to her employer to let them know, and

1:43

posted a segment of her response on Twitter. The

1:47

letter, signed as it is by several

1:49

prominent anti trans voices and containing

1:51

many dog whistles towards anti transpositions

1:54

as it does, ideally wouldn't be signed

1:56

by anybody at Fox, much less

1:58

one of the most prominent people our publication.

2:01

She writes, and

2:04

while her colleague signature on this letter made her feel

2:06

uncomfortable at work, she made it clear

2:08

that she didn't want him reprimanded. She

2:11

just wanted to speak her peace and use

2:13

some of that free speech they let her claimed to revere

2:15

so highly. Can you guess what

2:17

happened next? For

2:19

the crime of being a trans woman expressing

2:22

herself online, Emily was harassed,

2:24

threatened, and attacked. Of

2:27

course, she was angling to have this coworker

2:29

fired or punished said critics

2:31

on Twitter, even though she had very

2:34

clearly said otherwise. The

2:36

harassment got so bad Emily,

2:39

someone who makes her living writing online, had

2:41

to leave social media. She

2:43

gave control of her accounts to her friends and

2:46

logged off. Before

2:48

she left, she tweeted the hypocrisy

2:50

of celebrating so called vigorous debate

2:52

only to call out those who offer a counter opinion.

2:55

For offering such a counter opinion, It's obvious

2:57

on its face, but I'll point it out anyway. They

3:00

do not believe in free speech. They believe

3:02

in free speech for them.

3:05

During her time off social media, Emily was

3:07

still down to talk about the matrix, and

3:10

I thought maybe our conversation and subsequently

3:12

this episode would be all about

3:14

the fallout from the Harper's letter. But

3:17

honestly, Emily is so

3:20

much more interesting than any of the points

3:22

made in that letter. But the implications

3:24

of Emily being harassed off of her online

3:27

platform by people who call themselves

3:29

champions of free speech isn't

3:31

lost on me, and it wasn't lost

3:33

on Emily when we spoke about finding

3:35

freedom online. The enduring power

3:38

of telling your story and seeing stories

3:40

like yours told starting with the Matrix.

3:46

Do you remember the first time that you saw the Matrix?

3:49

It just was like it

3:51

opened up doors in my brain. I didn't

3:54

quite realize it was opening up at the time.

3:56

It was kind of one of the first ways I started to understand

3:59

my trans like entity without

4:01

having any clue that's what was happening.

4:04

Um, I just knew that when I went online and

4:06

pretended to be a girl, that felt really

4:08

good in some some way. Pretended

4:11

air quotes are around that for all my transfriends

4:13

listening. Um,

4:16

yeah, I I But the Matrix

4:18

was kind of the first thing

4:20

I saw that really delineated

4:23

that difference between reality

4:26

and the Internet and the ways that they

4:28

kind of feed into each other. Now,

4:30

what's interesting about this is that in

4:33

the Matrix, reality is

4:35

this like gray, horrible

4:38

post apocalyptic landscape, and

4:41

the Internet is this bustling, busy

4:43

metropolis. But the Internet is

4:45

like where things are wrong, where things are not right,

4:48

and reality is like what you have to accept,

4:51

which is a very pre coming out

4:53

like sort of trans experience.

4:56

But it's also you know, the movie is not just

4:58

about trans identities. It's anti capitalist

5:01

it's extremely diverse

5:04

and multicultural. You

5:06

know. Uh, certainly Wowskis didn't

5:09

make all the right steps there, but they were sure

5:11

trying for their early two thousands, late nineties.

5:14

Um, so there's a lot more in there

5:16

than just a story

5:18

about transness. But there's also

5:21

a lot of stuff in there about being trans and

5:23

that's a really

5:25

impressive thing to have pulled off at that

5:27

point in time. Okay, So if you haven't seen

5:29

The Matrix in a while, here is a quick submarine.

5:32

Keiana Reeves has a routine life as a computer

5:35

programmer, known by his alias Neo.

5:38

He has this nagging feeling that something isn't

5:40

right with the world. He's being presented what

5:42

you know? You can't explain. What do

5:45

you feel it? You

5:47

felt it your entire life, that

5:49

there's something wrong in the world. You don't know what

5:51

it is, but it's there, like

5:54

a splinter in your mind. Neo

5:57

meets Trinity played by Carrie and Moss and

5:59

Morpheus played by Lawrence Fishburne, who

6:01

present him with a choice, take the

6:03

Red pill or the Blue pill. If

6:06

he takes the blue pill, the world will

6:08

stay as he's always experienced it, but

6:10

the Red pill reveals the true

6:13

nature of the world. That the real

6:15

world has basically been destroyed,

6:18

and what we think of as the real world is

6:20

actually a computer simulation called the Matrix,

6:23

and unfortunately we humans

6:25

are actually in pods of goo being

6:27

used as human batteries for machines. You

6:31

take the red Pill, you stay in Wonderland,

6:35

and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

6:38

As Emily writes, on

6:40

its most basic level, the movie follows

6:43

characters who break free of their real life via

6:45

the Internet, creating online identities

6:48

that feel more real than their physical ones.

6:51

Once they're they choose new name for themselves,

6:53

their clothes become a whole lot cooler and less

6:55

traditionally gendered. In fact,

6:58

rumor has it the role of Switch, the

7:00

blonde side character in The Matrix, was

7:02

originally meant to be a character who explicitly

7:04

explores gender in the Matrix, but the studio

7:06

ended up cutting in so

7:09

in terms of the character of Switch, um

7:11

there is this rumor that the

7:13

Wachowski Is wanted this character named Switch

7:16

to be played by two different

7:18

actors. I believe it would be

7:21

a man in reality and

7:23

a woman in the Matrix, and

7:25

that was supposed to be kind of an example of

7:27

like how the Matrix could let you explore

7:29

your truest self, because,

7:32

um, there is I believe that

7:34

that Morpheus says at

7:36

some point early in the film that like, who

7:38

you are in the Matrix is like your your brains self

7:41

image. So in that case, switch would

7:43

be like, oh, my self image is a woman, and

7:45

the only place I can be that is in the matrix.

7:47

And that would have complicated the whole clean

7:50

dynamic between reality and the matrix

7:52

so much more. Uh. The rumor is

7:54

that Warner Brothers wouldn't allow The witchowski Is to

7:56

include it. Um, it's been

7:59

very hard for people to track down the source of

8:01

this story. I tend to believe it because

8:03

I have talked to people who heard about it.

8:05

But you know, and

8:08

it also really fits with what we know about

8:10

the Witch how skis now? Which is? I think? Which is?

8:12

I think what might be a little too clean and convenient,

8:14

but it certainly would have been

8:16

cool. I wish it had been in there. I think it would have

8:19

helped me figure some stuff out more quickly.

8:21

Or maybe it wouldn't happen. Maybe I just would have been like, that's

8:23

cool. When Emily saw the matrix,

8:27

she connected with it instantly. Using

8:30

the Internet to become closer to understanding

8:32

your true self is something both Neo

8:34

and Emily have in common. My

8:38

sister and I

8:40

accidentally shared a

8:42

Yahoo Chat account. This is back when

8:44

Yahoo Chat existed, and she

8:47

was she was a cheerleader, so she created

8:49

the name cheer and Chick, and

8:52

I accidentally logged in as that one

8:54

day and it was immediately

8:56

a barrage of people with male

8:58

coded screen names being like Hey A s L,

9:01

Hey sexy, you know all of that. And

9:04

I hated it, but I

9:07

hated it in a way that felt good,

9:10

and I liked that attention in

9:12

a way that I never liked attention

9:15

I got for performing masculinity.

9:17

All I had to do was change my screen

9:20

name, and suddenly, like people were like, oh

9:22

my god, you're pretty. Oh you sound

9:24

really cool. Cheer and ship do

9:26

you cheerlead? M A. S L.

9:28

I'm you know, twenty two male California.

9:31

Nice smile, and like, I

9:35

mean, we were all lying. We were all lying

9:37

in some way. That man probably did not have a nice

9:39

smile. He probably had to get a cold and chilling

9:41

smile that would scare you if you saw it in

9:43

the middle of the night. But I

9:47

was lying and I wasn't lying. You know, I didn't

9:50

realize I wasn't lying, but I that was the truest

9:53

thing I ever did, was pretending

9:55

to be a girl online because

9:57

it was it was it

9:59

was so easy. In

10:02

the Matrix, Neo's journey

10:05

is accepting that he is the One, the

10:07

figure who is meant to save humanity.

10:11

He struggles to accept this identity and

10:13

at times questions if he'll ever

10:15

learn how to be the one, but

10:18

that power was actually within him the whole time.

10:21

He just had to accept it. It's something

10:23

that really resonates with emilyne

10:28

What I often tell trans

10:31

women who are newly out is

10:33

you already know how to do this. You don't

10:35

know you know how to do this, but you are going to

10:37

understand how to operate in women's

10:39

spaces and function as a woman

10:42

in society, both

10:44

in all of the good and bad ways

10:46

that that is implied within the patriarchy.

10:49

You have this knowledge inside of it. You

10:51

don't realize he's there, and you're going to unlock

10:54

it and you're suddenly gonna be like, oh, yeah,

10:57

okay, this makes sense. Um

10:59

talk in two women makes so much more

11:01

sense than trying to do the male bonding thing.

11:04

Um, Like, going

11:06

close shopping was the thing I always hated,

11:09

and that was one of the ways that I was like, oh, I'm probably

11:11

not trans because if I was a girl, I'd like clothes

11:14

shopping, you know, that sort of that sort

11:16

of reductive stereotype. But really

11:18

I didn't like going clothes shopping because I didn't like wearing

11:20

men's clothes. Now, like one of my friends wants

11:22

to go shopping, that's great, it's fun,

11:25

it's a it's a it's a chance to bond

11:27

and hang out with friends, and like, there's so much

11:29

more to womanhood, to gender, to all of that

11:32

than what I'm describing. But like, you

11:34

already have the base source code

11:37

for femininity, for womanhood,

11:39

for hanging out with the girls

11:42

in your brain as a trans woman.

11:44

It just you just need to find a way to unlock it.

11:47

And that was

11:50

what I That was what was happening to me in those

11:52

chat rooms. I was logging in as

11:54

a girl. People were treating

11:56

me like a girl, and I goddy.

12:01

I think I'm remembering. Um,

12:04

there were some intensely validating

12:07

experiences there when like there would be another

12:09

woman logged in and she

12:11

would like message me and be like, oh my god, it's

12:13

crazy in here, and I'd just be like, yes, it is.

12:16

It is crazy in here. We are two

12:18

women talking about our experiences, how

12:20

crazy it is to be a lot of into this chat

12:22

room of this barrage. And then you

12:24

know, we do some small talk or whatever, and

12:26

it would inevitably come to the point where she was like,

12:28

well, you know, who are you, where are you from? And like I

12:31

would kind of freeze up because I've described this girl

12:34

that wasn't real but felt real, and

12:36

I was describing myself. It was the

12:38

late nineties, so I had this super strong attachment

12:41

to Reese Witherson, who who didn't

12:45

a little bit older than me, but like Tracy

12:47

Flick in election, you know, a lot

12:49

of my friends saw her as a villain, and I was like, you

12:52

know, I find her an aspirational figure.

12:54

But we're not going to unpack that. We're just not

12:56

going to think about that. And for

12:59

as annoying as she can p Tracy Flick is who

13:01

I would have been. That's that that girl I

13:03

was always describing the chat rooms like

13:05

kind of driven and type A and

13:07

a little bit annoying and a little bit

13:09

irritating, but inevitably is going to

13:11

like take over the world. Um

13:14

And I think the universe saw how

13:16

potent that energy was within me, was like, we gotta

13:19

tie one hand behind her back. So

13:21

I think that's why. I think that's what happened. And

13:24

my joke was, you know, it's just like

13:26

how the Wachowski's cast Quiana Reeves and

13:28

carry In Mosses trans women, because like they

13:30

are both analogs for trans

13:32

women in this movie. And you know, it

13:34

was a joke, but it's really true, like

13:36

Keanu, like Neo's, Neo's

13:39

journey towards self acceptance is exactly

13:41

what you're describing, and um,

13:45

so honestly, honestly, so is the whole

13:47

thing that Trinity is on. Like Trinity is like

13:49

a trans woman and like her third year of transition,

13:51

who's found this like girl at her support

13:53

group who's like, I don't know what I'm gonna

13:55

do. I'm so scared. And then Trinity

13:57

is like, no, we're gonna fucking run up some walls,

14:00

We're gonna bring helicopters

14:02

down. You have no idea how much power

14:05

you have inside of you, and

14:07

yeah, it's it's a movie about It's

14:10

a movie about what we in the trans community called

14:12

self acceptance, the

14:14

moment when you're like, Okay, something's

14:16

going on here and I need to admit it to myself,

14:19

And maybe you don't even admit your trans but you

14:22

do admit to yourself that like,

14:24

there is this world inside of you

14:26

that you are not exploring, that something

14:28

needs to be done about that. The

14:31

Matrix is really about that, and I think it's

14:33

telling that when it was written both

14:35

Lana and Lily Wichowski it seemed to have

14:37

even been closeted from themselves. The

14:40

recent documentary Disclosure on Netflix,

14:42

Lily Wachowski is interviewed about The Matrix

14:44

and she's like, at the time, I didn't know, but I watched

14:47

it now and I'm like, oh, yeah, okay. Um.

14:49

Laana Wachowski came out sometime in the early

14:51

two thousands, came out to herself. She came out publicly

14:54

in I think two thousand two nine

14:56

somewhere they're in there now.

14:58

She came up publicly around the RelA of Cloud Alice,

15:00

which was two thousand twelve. There were rumors

15:03

about her for like the entirety of the two

15:05

thousand's um

15:08

and they were pretty cruel and nasty

15:10

rumors, and I don't recommend going to look up

15:12

their stories because they are bad.

15:16

The Matrix was directed by sisters Lana and

15:18

Lily Wachowski, who would later both publicly

15:20

come out of strands in Lanna

15:23

gave a moving acceptance speech for the HRC's

15:25

Visibility Award about her journey to self

15:28

acceptance and the desire to imagine and build

15:30

worlds where all people can see themselves

15:32

fully reflected. I am here because

15:35

when I was young, I wanted very badly

15:37

to be a writer. I wanted to

15:39

be a filmmaker, but I couldn't find

15:41

anyone like me in the world,

15:43

and it felt that my dreams were foreclosed

15:46

simply because my gender

15:49

was less typical than others.

15:51

But Lana Wachowski

15:53

was kind of on the cusp of coming out when they

15:55

were making The Matrix, and

15:57

you can see that within that movie.

15:59

It is about taking that journey towards self

16:02

acceptance. And

16:06

honestly, the poor reputation of the Matrix

16:08

sequels, both of which I really like, and the second

16:11

Matrix reloaded, I adore. I think it's one

16:13

of their best movies. Both of those

16:15

sequels are about what happens after you self

16:17

accept and the ways

16:19

that it kind of deconstructs the world in

16:21

ways that you're not ready for that you don't always understand.

16:25

There's this famous meme joke

16:28

in UM in trans Woman

16:30

Circles that's like it's the galaxy

16:32

brain meme. So it starts, I wish I

16:34

was a girl, UM, and the

16:36

second one is I can just be a girl, and

16:38

the third one is I always was a girl, and then

16:40

the final one the Galaxy brain is destroy capitalism.

16:43

Because that's what happens is

16:45

you realize you question the gender

16:47

binary and you're like, oh, wait, I should I just should

16:49

be on the other side of it, or I should not be on

16:52

the binary at all, or I should be totally

16:54

removed from the spectrum of gender, or whatever your

16:56

experience is, and you're suddenly like,

16:58

wait, all systems are kind have made up and

17:01

you're like, oh, we can just you know,

17:03

once you see that you're seeing the matrix,

17:06

you can't unsee it, and suddenly

17:08

are like, how could we build better systems?

17:10

Like if human beings require

17:12

systems to operate and live and evolve,

17:14

how can we do something better, and and that's kind

17:16

of what the Matrix trilogy is about. Let's

17:19

take a quick break

17:28

center back. At

17:30

its core, the Matrix is about

17:32

someone seeking out the framework for understanding

17:34

who they really are and having a hard

17:36

time figuring out what it all means. At

17:39

the beginning of the film, Neo's life

17:41

is quote normal life

17:43

follows a specific routine, but

17:46

online things are different. And

17:48

while the Matrix can be read as a metaphor for

17:50

trans identity, built by two trans

17:52

women, it's pretty interesting

17:54

that the language of the red pill has been latched

17:56

onto by anti feminist, white supremacist

17:59

groups in those

18:01

online spaces, being quote

18:03

red pilled if it means for men to

18:05

open their eyes to all the ways that women and

18:07

the feminists have misled them,

18:09

And it's kind of funny when you think about it. Yeah.

18:12

I think there is this element of

18:15

trying to build careful, scripted

18:17

routines for yourself that I found

18:19

to be often very true of pre

18:22

coming out trans people across the board.

18:25

You don't entirely understand

18:27

the gender you were born into, but you

18:30

can like make rules for yourself. You can

18:32

create a programming language, you can exist

18:34

within it. That's exactly what Neo is

18:36

doing at the start of the movie. He has

18:38

all these routines, he has all these subsystems.

18:41

He's a program working within a program,

18:43

and when he breaks out of the matrix,

18:47

he begins to understand

18:49

the ways in which he was misled and

18:51

the ways in which society um

18:55

the ways in which society did not give

18:57

him a language for who he was. So

19:01

yeah, I think there is I think there is a lot of

19:03

metaphorical power to that

19:05

idea of the red Pill.

19:07

Clearly a lot of people have taken

19:09

different ideas from it, but there is

19:12

metaphorical power to this idea that

19:14

you're being lied to. Your life is a program.

19:17

You do not have free will, you

19:19

need to develop free will by any means necessary,

19:21

etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And

19:25

that is such a beautiful idea

19:28

and a beautiful realization of transidentities.

19:30

That is simultaneously something that apparently

19:33

spoke to the all right, So, which

19:35

is so funny. I mean, you point this out in your piece that the

19:37

Right sees like taking the red Pill

19:40

as this, you know, breaking

19:42

through this lie that you know that

19:45

has been holding down men and were

19:47

so oppressed. But it's like, actually you're lattic onto

19:49

something that trans women like like

19:52

a framework that trans women built for you.

19:54

You know, it's like very it's like almost kind of funny.

19:57

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Um it's uh,

20:02

it's horribly hilariously misguided.

20:05

But at the same time it

20:07

makes sense because, like I said earlier,

20:10

this movie is pretty anti capitalist,

20:13

not like hugely anti capitalist, but

20:15

quite a bit. And there's

20:17

this there's this range of movies from

20:20

the nineties that are sort of about the

20:22

ways in which the quote

20:25

unquote victory of capitalism

20:27

over communism

20:29

and sort of the end of history. Uh,

20:32

the as the the writer Francis Fukuyama

20:35

dubbed it, the end of history had resulted

20:37

in neoliberalism triumphing over

20:39

everything else and capitalism the best

20:41

system and all of this, and

20:45

there's all these movies about

20:47

well, then why does that feel so empty? You

20:49

know? You have um, I think

20:51

an early example that is ground Talk Day. Ground

20:54

Talk Day is about like being trapped in these routines

20:56

that don't really make sense and then learning to become

20:59

a better person through those routines. But

21:01

right in the year the Matrix comes out,

21:03

you have the Matrix, which is about that you have

21:06

fight Club, which is about that. You have American

21:08

Beauty, which is about that you have being John Malkovich,

21:10

which is kind of about that. I

21:12

think the Matrix is the one that's held

21:14

up best of those. I love being John Malkovich

21:16

for American Beauty, let's not talk about that.

21:20

It's kind of movie when you think about it.

21:22

Yeah, My Club is good, but so many

21:24

people have taken the wrong message from it that it's

21:27

it's also harder to defend. At least

21:29

with the Matrix, you can be like, yeah, a lot of people have taken

21:31

the wrong message from this, but it was directed by two trans

21:34

women, so um. But

21:36

yeah, there's this element of

21:38

anti capitalism. So when people

21:41

are like, I need to reject the prison

21:43

that society has placed me in, they're

21:45

so they're so close to

21:47

what this movie is about. They're so close

21:49

to this idea that, like, even

21:52

if you don't want to go so far as to say capitalism is broken,

21:54

to say that consumerism is broken, the idea

21:56

that you can find freedom and

21:59

self identity in things

22:02

like in essence. I think every major

22:04

philosophy, every major religion, rejects

22:06

that idea. Things are not ourselves, we are

22:08

not our things, So like, at

22:10

the very least, that's what the Matrix

22:13

is really talking about. So to talk about

22:15

like to take get that

22:17

far, get that far and grasping

22:19

its message and get to a place

22:21

where you're like, actually, it's talking about how women

22:24

have made the world bad. Like I

22:26

don't know how you make that that swerve. But

22:30

every time I talk about this movie and I talk about

22:32

it as an allegory for trans identities, um

22:35

you know, like vox or someone posted on Facebook

22:37

and the comments are full of people who are like, no, it's not about

22:39

that, it's about this, and like, yes, that's your that is

22:41

absolutely your right to that interpretation. That's

22:43

how criticism works, that's how um

22:47

our, understanding of art and the death of

22:49

the author and all of that works. But

22:52

at a certain point, the fact that it was written

22:54

by two trans women and directed by two

22:56

trans women has to enter

22:58

into your consider oderration of

23:00

what it's all about, and

23:04

that for a lot of people, the idea

23:06

that it's a trans metaphor is mind

23:08

blowing. Like a

23:10

friend of mine, Aaron read another trans

23:13

woman, posted on

23:15

Twitter, you know, the Matrix is directed by

23:17

two trans women, and there's a metaphor for coming out

23:19

somethink that's simple, and like fifty

23:21

thousand people liked it, and we're like, just

23:23

blew my mind and the

23:26

cysts, I just don't know what we're gonna do. Why

23:29

do you think the idea that the matrix is a metaphor for the

23:31

trans experience kind of goes overlook so

23:33

often? I mean, it's it's metaphor.

23:35

Um, Let's take a look at Star Wars. You

23:38

know. Star Wars is the probably the movie

23:40

before the Matrix. Yeah, it's definitely

23:42

the movie before the Matrix that changed the film industry

23:44

at the most. And the Matrix lives

23:46

in Star Wars shadow in the way that everything after

23:48

the Matrix lives in the Matrix is shadow. So

23:52

you look back at Star Wars. Star Wars is a

23:54

movie that George Lucas when

23:56

he started writing, it was like, Okay, America's

23:58

the Empire, the via Cong are the rebels.

24:02

Yet Americans always self identify

24:04

with the rebels, because you know, that's how

24:06

we like to think of ourselves. Our our foundational

24:09

myth is scrappy underdogs

24:11

overcoming this gigantic

24:13

colonial power. But we don't

24:16

think about how the makeup of those scrappy Underdogs

24:18

was all white landowning men, you know, many

24:20

of whom were slave owners, many of

24:22

and even other people you know who weren't slave

24:25

owners have done other horrible things. And

24:27

we were displacing indigenous peoples

24:29

and forcing them to move further and further west.

24:31

And there's a lot to that

24:33

foundational myth that gets written out. So we

24:35

can see ourselves as the rebel alliance

24:37

in Star Wars. But the

24:40

movies continue to make more and more explicit

24:42

that any colonial power like

24:45

the United States is in line with the empire

24:48

and the people who are being colonized are

24:50

in line with the rebels. And yet you know, we

24:52

still continue to be like, yep, we're the

24:54

rebel alliance. Anytime you take

24:57

a story that is based in reality

24:59

and moving in the metaphor, it's going to be so

25:01

many people who are like, yeah, I see this metaphor

25:03

as directly reflecting my experience, and like

25:06

that's fair, that's fine, you know, like

25:08

all of those interpretations are valid. That's

25:11

what happens when you're dealing with metaphor, and science

25:13

fiction is inevitably always based on metaphor.

25:16

In some way, I think it's

25:18

important to take into mind that two trans women made

25:20

this film, but I'm also a trans woman. I like

25:23

the fact that there's this gigantic,

25:25

defining piece of pop pop culture directed

25:27

by two trans women. When I got to interview

25:30

Lily Wichowski, I nearly

25:32

crumbled into dust, Like I almost fell

25:34

into fell onto the floor. And then

25:36

she said she'd read my article, and

25:39

like I, I left

25:41

my body. Uh, I went up

25:43

to heaven for a little bit, came

25:45

back down. I was like, yes, if

25:48

you haven't already guessed, stories have been immensely

25:50

gratifying for Emily's understanding of herself.

25:53

When she publicly came out of trands, she'd

25:56

already made a career out of writing publicly online.

25:59

In a piece for Box, she used the Handmaid's

26:02

Tale as a means of coming to terms

26:04

with and breaking down the walls around

26:06

what it means to be a woman at

26:09

once a kind of freedom and depression.

26:12

What is it about stories and movies

26:14

and science fiction and TV shows that

26:16

really helps you understand the world around you and your place

26:18

in it. Understanding

26:21

womanhood is understanding

26:24

your oppression within the patriarchy.

26:26

That doesn't mean that you yourself are always oppressed.

26:29

There are a million ways well, there

26:31

are three big ways that I have a lot more privilege

26:34

than most trans women. I'm white, so

26:36

I benefit from these societal privileges afforded

26:39

to white people in America. I am upper

26:42

middle class, and I work for a company that covers

26:44

you know, my health expenses. And I

26:46

live in California, which is a state that has

26:49

few structural barriers to transition.

26:51

If you're an adult and you want to take hormones, California

26:54

is like, great, go for it. Um.

26:56

Those are three things I have that a lot of trans women

26:58

in the world, the aask majority of

27:00

trans women in the world do not have those

27:02

three advantages. So that

27:05

has helped me considerably. And I think especially

27:08

when you grow up as a seemingly

27:12

when you as when you grow up seeming to the world

27:14

like a white straight system man, you

27:17

don't encounter a lot of structural oppression. UM.

27:20

One of the ways that film

27:23

and television helps

27:25

us understand ourselves

27:27

better is exposes us to the stories

27:29

of other people. UM.

27:32

For instance, I

27:34

am never going to have the experience

27:37

of growing up that Barry Jenkins

27:39

and Terrell Alvin McCreary did. But

27:42

Moonlight is a movie that

27:44

opens that window. To me, I can't

27:46

completely understand it, but I can empathize

27:48

with it because I've seen through that window. I've seen people

27:51

live those lives. And

27:53

the thing that happens is when the film

27:55

and television are such potent, powerful,

27:59

um, such potent,

28:01

powerful expressions of the self,

28:04

because they're so riveting,

28:06

they draw you in so much. I know

28:08

plenty of trans women who found themselves through like video

28:10

games, which is a similar situation. You

28:13

know, they famously would always play the female character

28:15

and be like this feels good. Um.

28:18

Movies and television give you that

28:20

space to open up and understand

28:22

yourself better. And at some

28:24

point I had to confront the fact that the characters I always

28:27

most identified with were women. Like I

28:29

always identified with Willow on Buffy

28:32

the Vampire Slayer. I always identified

28:34

with Rory on Gilmore Girls. You know, there

28:37

was I just had this

28:39

thing where I was like, Oh, these these girls,

28:42

these teenage girls when I was a teenager,

28:45

these teenage girls just they just speak to

28:47

me on some fundamental level. Um.

28:49

Similarly, Peggy Olsen on Madman.

28:52

When I became an adult, I was like, oh, she's always overlooked

28:54

for her work, and my brain would be like you

28:57

are not overlooked for your work. So

29:00

part of it is understanding the structural

29:02

oppression that women face throughout

29:04

the world, particularly in the United States,

29:06

and coming to understand that within yourself and the

29:08

ways that you see it without in the world. But

29:11

also there's an element of personal

29:14

oppression. I wasn't

29:17

facing the oppression. I wasn't

29:19

facing the roadblocks that

29:21

Peggy Olsen faced to get my writing

29:23

notice, to get things published.

29:26

The second I was like, you know, I think I'd like to

29:28

be a TV critic, Like people were like, here's

29:30

some jobs, white man, and

29:34

kind of like now I look back, and that kind of blows

29:36

my mind. Like my qualification

29:39

was I was a good writer, and I don't want to just march

29:41

out that is a good qualification to have if you want

29:43

to be a writer. But I

29:46

just kind of asked for the job and people gave it to me, and

29:48

like, WHOA, what is that? So

29:52

I was not being kept down like Peggy Olsen, but

29:54

I was. I was keeping myself down. Peggy

29:56

Olson was doing all the writing in the back of my brain

29:59

and this guy was all the credit for it.

30:01

And there

30:04

is an element of yes, understanding structural

30:06

oppression. Yes, Understanding the patriarchy, yes,

30:08

understanding the ways that women are are

30:11

just just the microaggressions

30:13

that women face every day when someone's like, hey,

30:15

sweetie, how you do it, and you're just like, hey, fine.

30:19

But even

30:21

deeper and more powerful is the

30:25

coming to understand and conceptualize

30:27

of yourself as a woman and breaking

30:30

through the layers of oppression

30:32

you have placed upon yourself. And

30:34

the reason the Internet is such a powerful tool to

30:36

do that is because it gives

30:39

that that Peggy Olson in the back of my

30:41

brain an outlet where

30:43

she can keep writing, and she can keep

30:45

leaving the messages in that writing,

30:48

and I can be like, you know, this is really interesting,

30:50

the way that you seem disconnected from yourself, as

30:52

though your true self is someone else, and then be like,

30:55

oh, it's two thirteen. Let's put that on hold

30:57

for a while. Um,

30:59

so yeah, it is. It is a way

31:01

in which the larger

31:03

oppressions of society become

31:05

visited in the personal oppression

31:07

of the self, because you're terrified of the thought if

31:10

I'm trans, that seems

31:12

really hard. Can I just try to not be trans?

31:14

That's what society is asking you to do, is to try

31:17

to not be trans, and you are manifesting

31:19

that within yourself. Film and television

31:22

helps you break through that wall. I

31:24

probably don't need to tell you that being a woman online

31:27

sometimes means dealing with harassment. And

31:29

the fact is, as we're talking, Emily

31:32

has been driven off of her own platforms because

31:34

people don't like that she's speaking up as the authority

31:36

of her own experience. But

31:39

for all the bad experience that she faces online,

31:42

it's also where she builds community with other trans women.

31:45

Every day, I wake up to two or three

31:47

Twitter d m so I leave my Twitter dms open

31:49

because that's how a lot of questioning trans

31:52

women find me, and that is very important

31:54

to me. That is part of what I think is like part of my

31:56

reason to be on this planet is to help those trans

31:58

women find their way. And

32:02

I wake up to two or three d m s from guys

32:04

who are like, hey, you're beautiful, Hey

32:06

you know and it's not even like bad, it's

32:09

just kind of like I don't need this, and I

32:11

just delete them and like, that's

32:13

just become I realized the other day that has

32:15

become a low level radiation hum

32:18

in my life. I'm just like, you know what, this

32:20

is the thing I have to put up with, and

32:22

I shouldn't have to put up with it. It's

32:24

not a thing I should have to put up

32:26

with. But you just getting

32:28

near to it, you're just like, Okay, I'm

32:30

a woman online. This is just how it is.

32:34

And that also goes for you know, being a trans woman

32:36

online. There are people who I

32:39

really don't like trans women, but I tend

32:41

to have them blocked or I tend to have them,

32:43

I tend to not listen to them and just you

32:45

know, immediately get rid of them from my my feed.

32:49

There are just as many people who and

32:52

these are trickier to find. Usually, there are people who fetishize

32:55

trans identities. There's people there

32:57

are there are you know, men who um

33:01

love trans women and like I

33:03

want to, but have turned it

33:05

into kind of a fetish and have turned my identity

33:07

into kind of a fetish. And in the community we call them

33:09

chasers. Um, I don't know if

33:12

I'm like breaking breaking a law saying

33:14

that among the cists, but uh,

33:19

And like they're harder to find because

33:21

they're often just like they reply to you and they're like you're

33:23

great, way to go, and you're like, oh, thank you.

33:25

For your support. Good male ally, but sometimes

33:28

and the problem is sometimes they're what

33:30

we call eggs, you know, which is a trans

33:33

woman who hasn't yet self accepted, but it's knocking

33:35

at that door and like them saying you're

33:37

a great way to go. Like I remember when Laura Jane

33:39

Grace, the cigarettom against me came out, I

33:42

posted a comment on my website, The A D

33:44

Club, where I was writing at the time. I posted a comment

33:46

that was like, good for her, she did

33:49

great, and it's really good whenever anyone

33:51

can overcome, you know, find themselves blah

33:53

blah blah. And if you go find it, it's so

33:56

obviously about myself and I don't know how

33:58

to say that, and it's just but

34:00

at the time I just was like, yeah, what a great

34:03

thing, And like that's

34:05

the problem. You can't always tell the people

34:07

who fetishize you from the people who really do just

34:09

want to celebrate you, or the people who are celebrating you

34:11

because they want to celebrate themselves, because

34:13

there's huge overlap in all of those

34:15

areas. So I

34:19

guess on some level, I just got used to the low level

34:21

radiation home of terrible people. On

34:24

another level, UM. I

34:26

mentioned earlier my best friend and

34:29

she reached out

34:31

to my I

34:35

had a long for a long time, I had a secret

34:37

Twitter account where I posted

34:39

as a girl named Emily and was

34:41

talking about my journey towards transition. I had

34:43

that account for over

34:46

a year before I came out publicly, and I still have

34:48

it. Um, it's a Sandalwood

34:50

Emily. I leave it up so that people who

34:52

are questioning can go back and see my journey,

34:54

go back to the very start in March and

34:57

read all the way through. Um.

35:01

But uh, my

35:04

best friend reached out to me

35:06

in d M there and was like,

35:08

listen, I really love the stuff you've

35:10

written. Because I was writing a newsletter under

35:13

the name Emily Emily sandal Wood, and

35:16

she just was like, I really love the stuff

35:18

you've written. I speak so deeply to me. I'm

35:22

pretty sure I'm a trans woman. It was her like guy

35:24

account. Um,

35:28

I will take one

35:31

million harassing tweets

35:34

for that one DM for that.

35:36

She is my heart.

35:40

She and I have been through so much together and

35:44

I adore her. The

35:48

Internet is a terrible place, but

35:52

it's also a place where you can find the

35:55

people you need. I

35:57

am and I'm in so many communities

35:59

without of trans people that are closed

36:01

you know, they're they're slacks or discords or

36:03

Facebook groups or whatever. And

36:06

those people have found each other over the Internet,

36:08

usually overread it or Twitter, two platforms

36:11

we think of as gross and horrible

36:14

and bad, and yes

36:19

they are, and yes I have been subject

36:21

to Twitter harassment um, both

36:23

on a hugely large scale and on as really

36:26

minor scale where you just learned to tune it out,

36:28

which is maybe not what you should do. The

36:30

second I came out, somebody on four chun Um

36:33

doctored up an article supposedly

36:35

written by me about how white

36:38

babies are white supremacy that

36:41

I had supposedly written this and

36:43

it was obviously fake. It didn't

36:46

use any of Box's typefaces. It

36:48

was written published under the

36:51

my old name and then the last name Van Whirf,

36:53

which is the name I've never viewed. It's

36:59

just easy, Honestly. The thing I respect

37:01

least is the craftsmanship. Like if

37:03

you want to try to like

37:06

get me in trouble with

37:08

people, you can at least like make it

37:10

look real. You google

37:12

it, it doesn't come up. I identify

37:14

myself as a person of color within it when I'm very

37:16

obviously like just milky white.

37:19

Um. I and my friends used

37:21

to call me the Milkman when I

37:22

was like

37:25

like corn fed Captain

37:27

America Midwestern Shocks.

37:30

And so many people have approached me about

37:32

this is you did you do this? And there's so many people

37:34

who like our online and they're just like, yep,

37:37

this is yet another trans woman

37:39

who just thinks, you know, blah

37:41

blah blah blah blah. And it's people project shit

37:43

onto me all the time. Now. People just project

37:45

whatever they want to on me. That's the thing I've realized.

37:48

I'm trying to write about this. I'm trying to write about the harassment

37:52

trans women in in the world. Are our

37:54

phantoms. People hear us,

37:57

they see us, but they don't really. They

37:59

have injured a version of us that they

38:02

believe in so much more strongly. And we can be in the

38:04

same room with them

38:06

and there can be something making

38:09

noise upstairs, you know, rattling chains or thumping

38:11

around on the floor, and people will be like, there's

38:13

that trans woman again, and

38:15

you can be there be like I'm not that, I'm this

38:18

person, I'm someone else, and

38:22

that's all they'll hear. Is the phantom.

38:26

But then you'll find someone who's in the room with you and sees

38:28

you and knows you and says, Hi, you

38:31

are the person I've been looking for my whole

38:34

life. That's

38:36

worth it. It's worth it for that. When

38:39

people have quote intellectual debate

38:41

about trans people, they talk about

38:43

them like they're this abstract concept conjured

38:45

up for the sake of argument. And even

38:48

when media outlet's wrote about the harassment Emily

38:50

phased after speaking up when our coworkers

38:52

signed the Harper's letter, they covered

38:54

it like some kind of petty ideological workplace

38:56

dispute. But this is about Emily's

38:59

actual life and our actual lived

39:01

experience as a trans woman. Gender

39:04

is hard coded into us in a way that I think it's hard persist

39:06

people to understand or imagine. I

39:09

think art is the best way to express that. I can

39:11

tell you all the times until I'm blue in the face that like

39:13

womanhood makes more sense to me. That taking

39:16

estrogen made my brain come alive in the way

39:18

it never had. That having

39:21

that my body increasingly feels like my

39:23

body, and before it was just kind of like the

39:26

substraction that I existed within that

39:28

now I can be like Yeah, it would be

39:30

cool to look like Keanu Reeves for a day, but

39:33

I would immediately want to come back to who I am right

39:35

now because this is home. This is what feels

39:37

like home. I mean, it would

39:39

be cool to look like Kiana Reeves day. He's very handsome.

39:41

He's very handsome. I don't know if you've

39:44

noticed. But more

39:46

after this, quick brain, let's

39:56

get right back to it. Just like

39:58

Neo, use the internet to help understand the

40:00

true nature of identity, Emily

40:03

is hardened to say so many people using social

40:05

media to get closer to who they are too.

40:08

The thing I always tell people who reach

40:10

out to me on Twitter dot com like,

40:13

I just don't feel attached to my

40:16

manhood. It's usually trans women.

40:19

I'm my manhood at all, And I'm like, it's

40:21

worth probing that you might

40:23

just be a cist guy who

40:26

has like these restrictions that have been placed

40:28

on you that you don't feel comfortable with, and learning

40:30

what those are and better defining

40:32

yourself is fine? Is

40:34

good? Is optimal? Everybody

40:37

should have to examine why their gender is the way

40:39

it is, and what about the ways it's been programmed

40:41

in for them work for them, and what don't.

40:44

I'm a very feminine trans woman. I've run

40:46

all the way the opposite direction of

40:48

how I was raised. But I like it. I like

40:50

wearing dresses, and I like, you know, going

40:53

out for for for brunch with my girlfriends

40:55

when we can leave the house. Um,

40:57

I like all those things that you as socially

41:00

it with an extremely basic white lady, because I'm

41:02

an extremely basic white lady. But like that

41:04

feels good, That feels like a home. I want everybody's

41:06

gender to feel like home to them, and I think

41:08

for many SIS people it doesn't, and they don't look

41:10

into it and they don't understand why when

41:13

it might be just one thing. It might be

41:15

just like, okay, yeah, I'm

41:17

a SIS guy. But but this thing where

41:19

we all sit around and you know, um, compare

41:22

notes about women we've had sex with doesn't

41:24

feel good to me. It doesn't feel right to me. I don't

41:26

like this aspect of my gender. Then you could cut

41:28

it out of your life and you'll feel

41:30

better, you'll feel more whole. Or

41:33

maybe you're like me, and you sat there and listened

41:35

to all of that and you're like, oh my god, I feel like really

41:38

uncomfortable right now there's this element

41:40

of I feel like a spy, like

41:42

a spy who's like learning secrets

41:45

about how I behaved. And

41:48

I didn't understand that when I was in high school and all

41:50

my friends were like, um,

41:53

I didn't understand why that may be uncomfortable. At

41:55

the time, I thought it was because I was a good Christian and I

41:57

didn't like to think about, you know, sexuality at all.

42:00

I do like hearing other women referred to

42:02

that way, like it

42:05

is worth examining your gender. If

42:07

you think your sis, you're probably just gonna

42:09

land on yeah I'm a man or yeah I'm a woman,

42:12

but you might go somewhere more interesting, you

42:14

know. I think I see. One of the things that I think

42:16

is really encouraging to me. There's

42:19

a number of people who use he, they or she

42:21

they pronouns, which is like, yeah,

42:24

okay, I'm comfortable being

42:26

identified as a man or a woman, but there

42:28

is this part of me that does not

42:31

fit that binary and

42:33

that is where that they comes

42:36

in. It's somewhere in the mushy

42:38

middle, and most of us live in the mushy

42:40

middle. Like, yeah, I'm

42:42

very feminine, but I have several traditionally

42:45

masculine things. I like, that doesn't make me non

42:47

binary. I don't want to claim that identity,

42:50

so that is worth. That is encouraging to me. This

42:52

idea that like more people are accepting that

42:54

gender is flexible,

42:57

that it can change over time, that it can

42:59

um you can have better understanding of yourself

43:01

over time, that whatever was hard coded

43:04

into you by society is not necessarily what's

43:06

hard coded into you by you. I

43:09

mean, you're seeing so many seemingly

43:11

heterosexual people now be like, you know,

43:13

I think I might be by or I think I might

43:15

be paned because

43:17

that door is open, and

43:20

I think that's going to happen with gender, and I'm excited

43:22

for it to happen with gender, and I hope it happens with gender,

43:25

because I don't think any of us is holy man

43:28

or holy woman. We're all some combination

43:31

of things from those those types,

43:33

and then we just we use words and pronouns

43:36

to describe who we are, and it's always an exact.

43:39

Really early on in transition, I read something

43:42

along line, so there's I don't I think it's eight

43:44

billion people. There's eight billion people on the planets.

43:46

There are eight billion genders, And like it

43:49

seems like a lot, but yeah, genders

43:51

are vastly personal experience, and then we

43:53

create these umbrellas to place them under. And

43:55

we only had two for a long time, and now we have a

43:57

bunch more, and that's good, that's great. I

44:00

think it is an exciting time. I think that in

44:03

the US especially,

44:05

there is a dawning awareness of

44:08

the ways in which trans

44:10

identities are real and

44:12

intersect with other identities, be that,

44:14

you know, womanhood, be that racial

44:18

identities. Um, there's a there's

44:20

a much greater awareness of the ways that trans women

44:22

of color, particularly black and Latino

44:25

Latina, particularly black and Latino

44:27

trans women are hugely at danger of

44:29

violent crime and like. But there is now

44:31

increasingly an awareness of that. Awareness is

44:33

not action. Awareness does not save

44:35

the lives of any of those black trans

44:38

women, but hopefully

44:40

it makes it easier and better and more

44:42

just for future generations, and

44:44

hopefully that life expectancy, you know, raises

44:47

up to a level where, you know, the

44:49

same as any of the rest of us, get

44:51

to lead long and fulfilling lives. And

44:55

we have things we need to work on in the US, where

44:58

it's far worse as the UK. The UK has

45:00

become just a disaster

45:02

area for trans people, these structural

45:05

barriers they face, the degree to which

45:08

folks with very large platforms like j K Rowland

45:10

are making it harder for people people exist

45:12

there. I live in a country,

45:14

the United States, where there's a

45:17

a extremely conservative Supreme Court

45:19

that is making the country demonstrably

45:22

a worst place for equality, and yet they

45:24

enshrined trans rights basically,

45:27

um, like the very baseline

45:29

level of trans right. So it's not crazy,

45:33

like the least they could do. At least they could

45:35

do. They enshrined it because they were like, you know what, the Constitution

45:37

forces us to do this, and like that was piece

45:40

was like, you know what, I don't want to do this,

45:42

but I kind of have to. So thank

45:45

you, thank you neial course

45:48

for that. Um, that's

45:50

not happening in the UK. The UK is increasingly

45:53

run by transphobic people

45:55

for transphobic people, and

45:57

that's going to be a fight we have to win. Um,

45:59

that's going to be a I'm glad to undertake.

46:02

But also I'm not in the UK. I have

46:04

trans woman friends in the UK and they are terrified,

46:08

you know, especially now that the UK is no longer in

46:11

the EU, and they can't just DeCamp for like Germany

46:13

or a country that's better for trans rights. You

46:15

know, Um, I'm going to have to marry

46:17

all of them so they can move to the US,

46:20

where we have the where we have the you know what.

46:23

I don't want to do this, but I have to.

46:26

Well, Emily was offline. Her

46:28

friends took over her social media accounts

46:30

so she wouldn't have to deal with the barrage of threats

46:32

and harassment. Her friends used

46:34

the opportunity to raise money for House of tulip,

46:38

an organization that supports trans and

46:40

gender nonconforming folks experiencing homelessness

46:44

as a way of finding a little light amidst all the

46:46

darkness. So what

46:48

have the last forty eight hours been like for you? The

46:51

thing I found so interesting is when

46:53

I was harassed, it was about forty

46:55

eight hours of the worst I've ever been online,

46:58

and I most through the

47:00

thread about how hard it

47:02

had been and just like how I couldn't

47:04

sleep and how I faced death threats. Now,

47:07

I just kind of wanted to no longer exist,

47:09

not in a self harmy way, just like, oh,

47:13

it's really hard to be alive right now. So I

47:15

posted that and a friend

47:17

of mine who works at Twitter, and then

47:19

people at Box Media who have contacts at Twitter,

47:22

both were like, I think I can. I think I can

47:24

find a way to take care of this instantly

47:27

the harassment dropped. But probably

47:31

and it wasn't because it wasn't happening. When

47:33

I go and look for it, I can still find it, but

47:35

I really have to poke around because it's been hidden

47:37

beneath so many layers, and

47:40

good, I'm glad it's in beneath so many layers.

47:42

That kind of hateful speech

47:45

is I believe, you know, it

47:47

exists within society, but doesn't

47:49

have to be on privately owned platforms. Like if

47:51

somebody wants to stand in the public square and

47:54

yell about how trans women shouldn't exist, I'm

47:56

not going to stop them,

47:58

but they should not be given a bull horn.

48:00

You know, they should not be given a bullhorn. A corporation

48:03

should not come down to that person and hand them a

48:05

bullhorn emblazoned with their their their

48:07

symbol or their logo rather and let them

48:09

just shout into it, like if

48:11

they want to shout in the park whatever. But

48:14

what happens functionally is that online they

48:17

you know, one person becomes five

48:19

people, sometimes literally, sometimes they set up

48:21

five accounts, and sometimes it's just

48:24

like they shout loud enough that other people

48:26

start shouting with their shouting. Other people start shouting

48:28

with their shouting, and like, sometimes

48:30

that's how good ideas spread, but most of

48:32

the time that's how bad idea is spread. We know so much

48:34

about how that takes people from

48:37

maybe have a couple of questions about

48:39

transidentities that they're not sure about, and

48:41

it radicalizes them. It pushes

48:43

them further and further in the direction of transphobia.

48:45

And then there's somebody right there reaching

48:47

out their hand to be like, have you heard about anti semitism

48:50

or you know, have you heard about here

48:53

are some of the other other things you can

48:55

do to make the world the worst place. And that person's

48:57

like, thank you

49:00

know, but now I'm going to try This

49:03

doesn't happened with everybody, you know. I don't think I

49:05

don't think J. K Rowling is suddenly going to, you know,

49:07

start um. I don't think J.

49:09

K Rowling is suddenly going to start like hurling racist,

49:12

racist slurs on Twitter. But this

49:14

is much like like now she's much less likely to examine

49:16

the way she uses characters of color in her books,

49:18

which is almost never good,

49:22

and you know, like like that's just that's

49:25

the the The prevalence of social

49:27

media makes it so easy to not self

49:30

examined, to not ask those questions of yourself,

49:32

and just like find some of those people with bullhorns

49:34

and just be like, I agree with you. So

49:38

my experience with Twitter was I

49:41

think they could make the platform better if they

49:43

really wanted to. For all

49:45

the people on Twitter accusing Emily of wanting

49:47

to crush free speech, she's actually

49:49

really open with free discussion and criticism.

49:53

In fact, she says criticism has been

49:55

helpful for her own understanding of the world and

49:57

her place in it. The nice thing about it

50:00

or is if I say a thing, and

50:03

um, somebody doesn't agree with that thing,

50:05

who's from a different identity

50:07

than my own, and they push back against it, that's

50:10

valid, you know, like they're I don't

50:13

do everything perfectly. People should criticize

50:15

me. I'm not above criticism. People have criticized

50:17

me and I've tried to make

50:19

amends or edit

50:22

the article that they're you know, not happy

50:24

with or whatever, and you know,

50:26

it always feels kind of shitty, you know, You're always

50:28

like I can't believe I screwed up. I wish I

50:30

hadn't screwed up, and you're kind of like taking

50:32

it on yourself. It's a natural human reaction.

50:36

But I've learned to not push that out, you

50:39

know. I've learned to be like I've learned

50:41

to have the self pity that's okay,

50:43

that's a human thing, but also be like, Okay, when

50:45

you screw up, you screw up. A

50:48

lot of people don't learn that, and honestly,

50:50

me learning it was directly tied to come out as a

50:52

trans woman, because you kind

50:54

of have to learn to just deal with you

50:57

realize all of the ways in which society

50:59

is telling why is about you? And then

51:01

you start to be like, well, what are other lives

51:03

I believe about people who aren't like me?

51:07

I think it is hard to escape the lies

51:10

that are told about groups that are not like you,

51:13

but it's even harder to escape the lies that

51:15

you've told about yourself. Um,

51:17

I uh, spent years

51:20

and years and years and years no way.

51:22

I wanted to be a girl, but thinking that

51:24

that didn't make me trans. I hadn't

51:27

known from when I was a little kid, well actually

51:29

I had, I just had those memories forcibly

51:32

taken away from me. I know I

51:34

wasn't in tremendous pain about my gender.

51:36

Well actually I was. I was hiding it from

51:38

myself. I just felt

51:40

like an automaton. And then

51:42

one day I read this interview with

51:45

Daniel Lavery, the trans guy writer,

51:47

and he was like, I felt

51:49

my whole life like I was a brain in a jar, and

51:52

now I don't. I was like, I feel like a brain in a jar.

51:56

And I had known I was

51:58

trans, but I thought

52:00

there was like a like a test I had to pass

52:03

p S a T for transit getting

52:06

in probably elite programs. And right up until

52:08

I published my essay, I was convinced that somebody

52:10

was going to come and say, you're not trans enough. And

52:13

then I published my essay and everyone was like, oh cool, your

52:15

name is Emily. Great, we love it. And

52:17

now I have so many people and this is kind

52:19

of this is kind of a shitty thing to say, but I

52:21

hope people never stopped tout staying I've

52:23

forgotten your dead name, and like,

52:25

I'm sure they have, um,

52:28

but that's also

52:30

kind of great. It's also kind of great to know that like

52:32

Emily makes more sense to the world than my

52:34

old self did. If you go look up videos of me on

52:36

YouTube, they're they're I'm just kind of sitting there like

52:38

a lump, just like gazing

52:41

inarticulately into the distance. And then somebody

52:43

will ask me a question, and I'll speak up

52:45

very you know whatever, I'll speak up very smartly

52:47

about whatever it is I'm talking about, because my

52:51

brain, you know, is still interested

52:53

in the same things and whatever. But there

52:57

were so many lives I've been told my whole life

53:00

that I had internalized about what it meant

53:02

to be trans, about what it meant to be a woman, about what it

53:04

meant to be the intersection of those two

53:06

identities of trans woman, about what it meant to be,

53:08

you know, a gay or straight or whatever.

53:10

All of these sort of spectrums that

53:12

we fall on or fall within. And

53:14

I think one of the reasons that transphobia

53:17

has run so rampant right now. Uh

53:19

So, it's because we're the flavor dure which will

53:21

pass in time, Um,

53:24

I mean never entirely structural inequality

53:26

never goes away, but

53:32

some of it is. Also we symbolize

53:35

of breaking down of that order a little bit.

53:37

We symbolize a breaking down

53:39

of Oh, if this binary isn't

53:41

real, what other binaries aren't real? What other

53:44

systems are inequitable but

53:46

other systems can or should

53:49

even be burned down? How

53:51

is the matrix real and

53:54

how is it false? What does it mean to take a red

53:56

pill? What does it mean to take a blue pill? What are you comfortable

53:58

with that you shouldn't be comfortable with? And what are you

54:00

uncomfortable about that you should examine

54:03

more? What does it mean to

54:05

live in a world that is not entirely real,

54:07

that is built for you by

54:10

people who want

54:12

to maintain their own power in the name

54:14

of everything else and above

54:17

all else? Why is

54:19

that spider drone living in your stomach? Because

54:21

that's crazy. Leave

54:24

it to Emily to send us off with a matrix joke.

54:27

To donate to Healse of Tulip, the nonprofit

54:30

creating housing solutions for trans and gender nonconforming

54:32

people in Louisiana, check the link in

54:34

the episode description. Got

54:38

a story about an interesting thing in tech? I just want

54:40

to say hi. You can be us at Hello at

54:42

tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts

54:45

for today's episode at tangdi dot com.

54:47

There are no girls on the Internet was created by Me Bridgetad.

54:50

It's a production of I Heart Radio and Unboss creative

54:52

Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Terry

54:55

Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael

54:57

Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your

54:59

host, bridget Todd Special thanks

55:01

to Matt Owen. If you want to help us

55:04

grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

55:06

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