Annabelle White by Robert Kneller

Unknown Speaker 0:03 And, um, first of all, like, I do really appreciate you doing this.

Unknown Speaker 0:08 Yeah. Thanks for inviting me. I mean, one thing that's always been true about me is that I love to talk about myself.

Unknown Speaker 0:17 Yeah, I get that understanding. I'm

Unknown Speaker 0:19 happy to help with your project, too. I guess it's a bonus. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 0:23 well, I, I did need to help. And on top of that, it's always great to have somebody from my past that I know. Good person. So anyway,

Unknown Speaker 0:38 let's get started. Okay, so

Unknown Speaker 0:43 firstly, my name is Robert Neller. And today is June 1 2022. And I'm currently doing this interview for the oral history of LGBTQ people in St. Louis, for the University of Missouri, St. Louis.

Unknown Speaker 1:02 And

Unknown Speaker 1:06 I'm currently going to be doing an interview with Did you please state your name?

Unknown Speaker 1:11 Sure. So I'm NFL fight. I don't know what else is useful dimension?

Unknown Speaker 1:18 Well, Could you spell your name for me?

Unknown Speaker 1:21 Yeah, actually, that's a good question. Because I know there's a bunch of variants. I have picked the one with the most possible letters. So I spell it A N N, AB, E L L E, which is annoyingly difficult to sign.

Unknown Speaker 1:42 Thank you for that.

Unknown Speaker 1:44 And just so you know, this is being recorded, we already spoke about that. And, um, I may ask you to sign a release at the end, which basically just is going to be so that way, it can go into academia. Yeah, that makes

Unknown Speaker 1:57 total sense. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 2:01 so um, I guess let's, let's get started. So, how are you currently?

Unknown Speaker 2:07 How old am I currently? I am. I am one week away from turning 25. So I'm currently 24.

Unknown Speaker 2:17 Scary to realize?

Unknown Speaker 2:20 Well, it's only a quarter of the way through iPhone,

Unknown Speaker 2:22 I suppose. So. Hoping for optimistic. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 2:29 And where were you born?

Unknown Speaker 2:31 I was born in St. Louis. I think the hospital by Maplewood, but I can never be sure. Somewhere in that area, not in your city, but pretty close by. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 2:50 And how long have you lived in your current home?

Unknown Speaker 2:53 My current phone? Not very long. I'm here in Durham, North Carolina for a graduate program. It's a two year program. And I just finished the first school year. I moved here at the start of August. And it's now June 1. So I think that's what 10 months. So it's 10 months I've been here. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 3:14 And what about the homes you've lived in? Before that were so impressed that you've stayed in the past?

Unknown Speaker 3:20 Absolutely. Yeah. So

Unknown Speaker 3:24 I spent most of my life in St. Louis and in university city. For most of that. My family hopped around to a few different addresses in my childhood, we eventually settled on a house about a quarter mile from the high school. I don't know how much detail you want here. And then lift in the WashU dorms for about four years while I was taking classes there. And then I moved to an apartment in dog town for two years with some friends, but stayed in St. Louis for a long time. Before moving here.

Unknown Speaker 4:04 Okay, and how do you think, um, St. Louis, specifically as a city has kind of giving you a unique experiences compared to some blazes?

Unknown Speaker 4:17 Oh, gosh. I mean, I could go on for ages about the particular unique ways in which I think St. Was just lays bare a lot of issues that are common to lots of other cities in this country, but not always made as explicit as they are in St. Louis. That's a broad way of saying it. But in general, I think my upbringing in St. Louis, when I compare it to people I've met in undergrad who came to St. Louis from other places and people that I've met here who've never been to St. Louis. I think For one, I was given an early education on the history of colonialism in this country. The history of land theft, and land misuse, and a pretty blistering and unapologetic account of slavery and the ways that racism is still extremely alive today, that was illustrated constantly in my childhood, in ways that I talk to people from other cities, like, I understand Baltimore is a similar city in some ways. But other than from Baltimore, generally, I find that a lot of people from the east or west coast cities, they're completely blown away by some of the stuff that you just see in childhood growing up in St. Louis.

Unknown Speaker 5:47 Um, that was,

Unknown Speaker 5:50 honestly, the main thing I would say is that I feel I got a head start on a head start on a good grounding on race in this country by simply existing in St. Louis, it's hard not to become aware of it. And, of course,

Unknown Speaker 6:12 as we were

Unknown Speaker 6:14 so sarcastically, fortunate to be there in 2014, you know, when a lot of other people got their first wake up call? You know, we've been seeing the warm up act, so that for a while.

Unknown Speaker 6:31 It's very well said, and I have to agree with pretty much everything. Although, this isn't my interview,

Unknown Speaker 6:37 right? No, I mean, I'm sure you could give an incredibly detailed interview yourself, but

Unknown Speaker 6:44 not not my time at the moment.

Unknown Speaker 6:48 Um, well, how would you say,

Unknown Speaker 6:52 your experiences in St. Louis, and maybe University City specifically? How would you say that affected your understanding of your of your own gender identity?

Unknown Speaker 7:10 Right. That's an interesting question. And since you reached out to me, I've been doing some more thinking about it. So I think it's, there's a few things that I think are worth mentioning here. And I think to go to get, I need to start at the foundation of all this. So you and I met in University City Public Schools, I grew up in New City, and I went to the public school district, which is relatively uncommon for white people living in New City. You know, I think the stats are that the district is about 50%, white and 50%. Black, but you wouldn't know it looking from the schools, because so many white people in your city choose to send their kids to other school districts, whether that's private school, or even paying extra money to go to Clayton, which is nearby. And I mean, there's a variety of arguments about that. But when you look at it historically, it's a pattern that started with white flight in the 70s. And so after integration. And so there's a very unique kind of upbringing that results when your parents send you to public school in a district where most kids that look like you are not. And I think that a lot of people can relate to that. But it's relatively uncommon to see a white person in that position, not trying to make myself out to be a really special individual here, just that. It creates interesting conditions. I think. The second part of that foundation is that the kinds of people who are white and live in New York City and to send their kids to public schools tend to be more left wing. We could get into that we'd be here all day. But it's a pretty safe. It's a pretty safe assumption that most families are sending their white kids to school when you city are pretty left wing. The result of that is that then you get into the school district. You spent what like 12 years there. By the time people got to high school, people are starting to become more aware of things you start to become aware also plays that even at a place where people are pretty left wing, and generally have pretty progressive views on a lot of things. There was still absolutely a lot of self enforced segregation in the student body. You see a lot of that whether by who you choose to associate with or just through, who winds up in higher placement classes because of various factors. You But you asked specifically about queer and gender subjects. So I'm trying to make my way back to that.

Unknown Speaker 10:10 The point is that,

Unknown Speaker 10:14 within the broader culture of your city, there was definitely a separate subculture or sort of schism for the white kids and the white marriage there. I don't think it's news to anybody who was there to admit that. But that was definitely a separate group in some key ways. And within that group is kind of what's relevant to talk about here, because that's where I spent a lot of my time. And that group is interesting. It was a very progressive group in many ways compared to time we were growing up. And specifically, within that small subsection of white kids who went to city, and were generally in the advanced courses, that I mostly hung out with a huge proportion of us turned out to be queer of some sort. I don't know if that's news to you. But you know, starting in middle school or high school, I think, we started to see more and more people realize that they were queer, and start gaining speed and momentum with that. And now at this point, when I think back, it's hard to remember too many of the white kids that I knew in high school turning out to not be clear, a lot of them. A lot of them were smart, they haven't gone anywhere. But it's a The interesting thing is that I was one of the most recent members of that group to figure that out. So it gives me an interesting perspective, I guess. I guess, let me take, let me take a step back. There was a further distinction, even within the already segregated student groups by race, even within the white kids, there was definitely a segregation between boys and girls, the white boys and the white girls had classes together, but we did not really talk that much. There was not a lot of exchange between us. And I wouldn't say that we were friends. And I was actually just in Christ, just in St. Louis last week. And I actually arranged to hang out with a bunch of those white girls, who I hadn't really been friends with in high school, it was really interesting. But it got me thinking about these things. You know, I mean, full disclosure here, like, I'm coming to you as a trans woman, at the time were talking about back in high school, I was a white boy. Or I guess the proper terminology is that I was acting as a white boy, you could argue with a few different trans people about what the right language is to represent that phase of your life. But I'll be a little bit fast and loose with my phrasing because I kind of feel like, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, quacks like a duck acts and thinks like a duck, you know, you might as well call it a duck. I was conceiving of myself as a white boy at the time, and definitely acting like it. So I'm not going to, I'm not going to get too much into the metaphysical details of how I should be described at that time. But my point is that that was my sense of identity at the time. And I think high school is always a huge moment for identity, you have to really forge a sense of yourself. And I kind of feel like I got some things right, that I got some things majorly wrong during my high school experience. And I look back now and I can recognize that, you know, I definitely, although I considered myself a progressive, I definitely considered myself a feminist. And I wanted to be, you know, taking the moral and inclusive and empathetic positions on a lot of things. There were so a lot of ways that I was unconsciously racist, unconsciously sexist, and that's the interesting one to talk about with regards to gender. Because I can remember being dismissive of the white girls in our grade, I didn't really view them as competitors in the same way that I viewed white boys. You know, it's it's always a little uncomfortable to remember because like, oh, wow, they used to be a pretty scummy sort of individual, you know, but

Unknown Speaker 14:57 that resonates with me as well.

Unknown Speaker 14:58 So right, yeah. Okay. So we know where we stand on that. But to try and get a little closer to the point here, I know I have a tendency to ramble. There's sort of anecdotal evidence among a lot of queer and trans people that would often wind up finding and befriending one another before anyone or everyone has realized that they're queer. But that's because of, you know, that all subconscious cues, or just personalities that emerge from growing up a particular way. I couldn't say, I can tell you that. There were actually a lot of trans people that I was friends with in high school and didn't know it. I don't know if that's news to you either. But there's like a half dozen people that even I knew in high school who are trans people who have since figured themselves out and transitioned, most of them after high school, I think, I think all of them after high school. And it's interesting to me, that several of us specifically, the ones I know, who are white trans people were in a lot of the same extracurriculars. Together, we had a lot of overlap. You know, groups like the Latin club, Cross Country Club, the musical, of course, and that's it. That's a classic age old stereotype, but happens to hold true in this case.

Unknown Speaker 16:42 It's interesting to me that a lot of the

Unknown Speaker 16:46 a lot of the then white boys who didn't realize that they were actually trans women. Were all in this same sort of like flock, who are all connected to this one particular friend whose she was a white since bisexual girl. I don't know what it is about her that drew people's attention.

Unknown Speaker 17:08 Think that there must have been

Unknown Speaker 17:12 some way that that friendship spoke to people who had an interest in and a desire for femininity in themselves. But didn't quite realize. I don't know, I feel I've kind of lost the thread. Do you have any more specific questions that might help get me back on track?

Unknown Speaker 17:34 Or should I keep frankly,

Unknown Speaker 17:35 frankly, I'm winging it as always. Okay. All right. So um, yeah, I have general questions, but I'm going to tend to ask you specifics based on what I know about you and your responses. So, I mean, from there, I would say, Do you think there are any specific forms of maybe self expression in those groups? Or like any particular activities that really helped you individually? Explore? Maybe your gender identity?

Unknown Speaker 18:10 Yeah, that's a good question. I guess the place to start is theater, because it's a stereotype that a lot of queer kids are into theater. And I think it's a stereotype that holds true in a lot of cases, because I think I think it's true for the same reason that there's a general stereotype that queer people tend to like Halloween. And I think it's because both of them are chances to, you know, wear costumes be larger than life, act in ways that are normally deemed kind of socially unacceptable. Or at least a little unusual that you would get strange looks for doing certain things, you know, any day of the year, but on Halloween, you can do that, you know, that sort of thing. And theater, I think is definitely part of that. I think for a lot of young people theater is a great way to kind of escape some of the some of the decorum of typical societal interactions and try to experiment with larger than life identities. Sorry, I've seen some of my I hear, but for me, specifically, I mean, I remember when I got interested in theater, I didn't think I was going to do it. And then I went to see the musical freshman year, our freshman year with my friend Henry. I don't know if I should name names, but I remember he and I looked at each other afterwards. And we were like, Okay, we got to do the musical next year. I don't remember exactly why that appealed to me. At the time, I couldn't tell you what was going through my head that I was excited I was drawn to the idea of you know, being able to put on costumes and be somebody else for a bit. Maybe that could be a clue that I wasn't really happy playing the part that I did at that time of being, you know, the finest nerdiest boy just person in school. While certainly not the most masculine, even then I should clarify that but I definitely I definitely committed to the role of being a white a nerdy dude in high school. But

Unknown Speaker 20:32 doing the musical I

Unknown Speaker 20:33 think I had a chance to break free of that. I think that's true for a lot of the other trans people who were they right there with me. And with regards to gender, I can remember something specific. There was in sophomore year we did Footloose. And orphan edition of Footloose was a little peculiar. Because, you know, the premise is that it's this conservative Texas town in the middle of nowhere. It's supposed to be like, this white evangelical town that's stuffy that they'll be on dancing, right? But due to the makeup of our school, that's not really, you know, we certainly wouldn't have even if we wanted to do like a totally like white evangelist, Texas hic production, even though I've had enough white kids, do you do that? So our rendition of the town and Footloose wound up being one that was primarily black, Maurice played the preacher and he played the preacher, as more of like this booming Baptist preacher, which he really committed to the role, he had a good time with it. The interesting thing is that I remember I got cast, along with a friend, Grace state slur, um, she and I got cast as this. A couple of adults that work with the minister in that story. They're part of that corrupt town council who wants to be on dancing and all you know, the plot is not really worth remarking on. But it was fun. It was fun to be on the show. The interesting thing is, there's two characters in that couple, right? There's the husband is a gym teacher. He's like an abusive coach. And just like a very macho man, the wife is the head of the town council. She has a housewife. Otherwise, she bakes cookies, etc.

Unknown Speaker 22:31 Those are the roles.

Unknown Speaker 22:33 The wife has fewer lines than the husband, the husband has more lines. The interesting thing is that my friend grace, she was a senior at the time. And the casting director wanted to give her more lines than me as a sophomore, newbie. So what she did was she cast us as a husband and wife, but grace was cast as the husband, I was cast as the wife. And the directors solution to this was to simply change the name switch genders of the characters, and have us play them that way. I remember when we found this out. Grace, and I both were pretty amused by it. We're kind of excited. I remember we went the director and we asked, Hey, can we just play the roles as is like, can we keep the wife, the wife, and the husband, the husband, and we'll just cross dress and play the characters that way. She sought that down pretty emphatically. I remember the director at that time, she was not actually particularly positive on queer people. That was what I had heard. She definitely didn't like the idea of

Unknown Speaker 23:44 playing cross gender roles. That stands out to me specifically, because

Unknown Speaker 23:52 I believe Grace now goes by sheer they pronouns. I'm me. So how an example there have two high schoolers in neither of whom realized that at the time that they didn't really fall within cisgender. Expectations, but both of us, our first instinct was, hey, wouldn't it be fun and exciting to play these characters by cross dressing and play a woman while gaming for all intents and purposes and then at the time, the other funny thing about that though, Director shut us down. She wasn't going to let us cross dress for these characters. But she didn't change any of the characters lines in the script. Which is interesting, because the characters in the script were very much written to be conservative gender roles. So what we ended up with was this really aggressive female gym teacher, being really abrasive to her students and touting this whole thing about masculinity, whereas men character As a town council leader, you know, his first line in the musical was via, I think some of my Toll House cookies. And just being very excited about working in the kitchen and being a domestic staffs. So the end result was that our rendition of Footloose was very,

Unknown Speaker 25:21 uh, we'll say unconventional,

Unknown Speaker 25:29 for the conservative hick town that it's supposed to be, which always amused me. But after having figured myself out that I look back at that moment, and I'm like, I think there was definitely some part of me that I didn't normally listen to some subconscious part of me that would have been really excited, taken out to be able to get up and get dolled up and present as a woman and experiment with that. And I was definitely pretty crushed when director told us we couldn't do that. That's that's an that's an irrelevant anecdote.

Unknown Speaker 26:08 I don't know if that answers your question.

Unknown Speaker 26:11 It certainly doesn't it? It's definitely an open ended question. So don't feel self conscious in any moment about it. So I'm, I'm gonna ask you a few questions about your family background?

Unknown Speaker 26:23 Sure.

Unknown Speaker 26:26 Um, so how many siblings do you have? If any?

Unknown Speaker 26:30 I have one sibling? Yes, my younger brother. Three years younger. Okay. And

Unknown Speaker 26:39 did you grow up in your household with two parents?

Unknown Speaker 26:42 Yeah. And

Unknown Speaker 26:48 what would you say your financial background was?

Unknown Speaker 26:52 So complicated question, because my parents, basically to this day, I refuse to talk finances straightway. And honestly, with me. They're always very vague about their finances. But I feel pretty confident saying upper middle class, at the very least, I don't know, the exact numbers. Okay, and we always lived well, within our means, though. So that's why that's why I don't know the actual numbers that could be higher or lower than

Unknown Speaker 27:27 whatever the benchmark is. That's fine. Um, we'll go Could you Could you

Unknown Speaker 27:35 describe your family dynamic growing up?

Unknown Speaker 27:37 Sure. Yeah, that's fun that I've also been doing a lot of thinking on lately. So I grew up. So we have my dad, my mom, me and my younger brother, were pretty close knit group, we developed a, developed a pretty cohesive dynamic, because we're all very similar people, we have very similar personalities, I think. I think that all of us are very nerdy, inquisitive types of people, we'd often have dinner conversations where someone mentioned the scientific article they saw, and we'd spent the whole dinner conversation, pointing out potential flaws with the experiment design. You know, that's the kind of family dynamic that I had. And we generally shared that pretty shared interests for a while, um, the relevant thing, I think, the most relevant thing, to my development of identity, at least, is gender. Because we had an interesting perspective on that. So you know, with three out of four of the family, identifying as men growing up, it's definitely kind of a boys club. And my mom is, has always been an ardent feminist and very committed to being you know, up to date on justice, social justice, gender equality, that sort of thing. Um, I would say, however, that especially during my childhood, I think she definitely came of age during what's called second wave feminism, which is, I think, primarily concerned with the ways that femininity can be and has been co opted by industry to try and keep women back. You know, specifically this is how this manifests in my life is I feel like my mom's very anti makeup and remain so. until pretty recently, she never wears makeup. And I'm very proud of her. For that, I think that that's a very meaningful decision for a woman to make even today, but that's something I feel proud of. On the other hand, I think she also sometimes sent sent unintentional signals that femininity was not really something worth pursuing, or something that would lead to respect. I think a

Unknown Speaker 30:26 lot of the think a lot of the

Unknown Speaker 30:31 unconscious lessons of my childhood, were that, you know, like, more permissions are allowed for boys and men, that, well, let me back up a moment. My mom is very committed to gender equality and wanted to give us a very egalitarian upbringing. To that end, she was always very careful not to tell us any lessons about gender roles never to teach gender roles as like the state of the world, or how things are she tried not to make pronouncements about girls or like one way with her like another, you know, she also was very supportive of us playing with any toys we wanted. I remember my brother had a phase where he'll kill me for sharing this, but he had a phase where he was interested in Polly Pocket dolls. And my mom was very supportive of that she did not want to shoot that down. Or say that why shouldn't be playing with that. She was very happy to buy him some and let him play with them, for whatever reason he saw on them. That's kind of the upbringing that she proceeded on, I'm happy that we got that generally egalitarian secular upbringing, kind of kind of a skeptical upbringing to she didn't want to raise us religiously. But that's a totally separate conversation right now. The result of that, though, I think that I internalized, at least growing up being treated as a boy this way, but I kind of interpreted was that boys could pretty much do whatever they wanted, that no path was really close to boys generally. That being a boy could really kind of encompass whatever you wanted. And it did definitely did not help me understand girls and women as equivalent in any really bad because I didn't really interact with many for a long, long time. And my mom largely didn't try to act like one. In my conception of her. She generally acted like one of the boys. Though there were now that I recall there were and there are. And there have always been moments when

Unknown Speaker 33:09 even in our for

Unknown Speaker 33:11 nerdy people dynamic. My mom was often the more frequently dismissed or taken less seriously. And I think that there were also ways in which we still fell into some sorts of gender roles, I think she still wound up generally being in charge of domestic tasks. And I regret that because I was not paying attention to it at the time. And I was definitely complicit in just kind of dumping a lot of stuff at her feet. You know, mothers don't get enough credit for the work that they do. But that's not news. And I've gotten a little sidetracked. My point is that for a long time, I didn't really have a conception of what it meant to be a girl or how that was in any way meaningfully distinguished from being a boy. And I wonder sometimes, if that has something to do with why it took me a very long time to conceive of myself as a girl, because I didn't really have

Unknown Speaker 34:19 a point of reference for it. What changed that is that in middle school well,

Unknown Speaker 34:31 I'll back up. I was always involved in choir, this was a this was a St. Louis Children's Choir, it was separate from the school districts. It was a nonprofit that pulled kids from various different schools. In middle school, you know, as everybody started puberty and started to actually be uncultured, these societal gender roles about boys and girls That was when I started to notice, we had a lot fewer boys from the choir at that time. And I wound up being surrounded by girls generally.

Unknown Speaker 35:14 There were not really any opportunities for

Unknown Speaker 35:18 me to continue my historical habit of formally being friends with boys. So I wound up being friends with a bunch of girls. Incidentally, most of those girls have since figured out that there's some flavor of queer, which is, again, I think people find themselves drawn to other people who don't quite fit in with the normative stereotypes. But that's beside the point that was kind of, like age 12, or 13. That was kind of the first meaningful interaction I had with girls as like, people who were comparable to other people I'd known before. You know, I knew about family, I had cousins who are girls, but we didn't see them very often. And they, they felt different from the concept of girls in a more broad sense, you know. And so, you know, I frequently found myself very thankful that I was still involved in choir and was friends with these girls that way, because I think if I hadn't been, it would have been very easy for me to only ever really socialize with boys, and gotten cultured into that. And honestly, I could have become a pretty noxious, like, you remember, like the men's rights advocates of like, the mid 2010s. And all you know, people trying to be a people trying to be wise acids, and to counteract feminism by complaining about how hard it is to be a man and stuff. There's sometimes there are legitimate issues that men face. And believe me, I knew that better than most women, but but, but I'm very glad that because I was hanging out with this friend group of girls in middle school choir, I

Unknown Speaker 37:16 think that is pretty crucial

Unknown Speaker 37:20 in my development into being a more open minded and empathetic person that laid the groundwork, of course, to be friends with more girls in high school and in college, etc. But that was really a turning point. You know, if I didn't have that in puberty, I think we might be looking at a very different person

Unknown Speaker 37:39 right now. Okay, I've forgotten what

Unknown Speaker 37:46 the question was. But I hope that was helpful. I think it was

Unknown Speaker 37:49 family dynamic. But we did. That's you, you're covering a lot of ground and questions that I'm going to ask you or was planning to ask you anyway. So there you go. We're, we're headed in the right direction. Okey doke. So great job.

Unknown Speaker 38:06 Thank you. I could say more about family dynamic, too. So if you want to probe that further,

Unknown Speaker 38:14 I think we've got some more ground to cover. So we, we may have enough time at the end, depending on your schedule, what you've got going on to write

Unknown Speaker 38:23 back to that. So what was

Unknown Speaker 38:33 what was something you really enjoyed doing the most in your free time? During your childhood or your adolescence, like, you know, during recess, how did you spend that, that extra time at school? Or just in your childhood weekend?

Unknown Speaker 38:51 That's a good question.

Unknown Speaker 38:55 Give me I think

Unknown Speaker 38:58 my answer probably has to be that one of my favorite pastimes now, and historically has always been storytelling, or writing, imagining things. That's always been true, from an early age is that I liked creating stories, sharing them with people. So you know, in elementary school, I would spend my recesses generally hanging out with my friends, and we would, you know, go around playing make believe. We have this whole elaborate continuity setup story about basically Jedi with superpowers, you know, standard, standard grade school stuff for that one. Oh, yeah. You remember that?

Unknown Speaker 39:45 Yeah. I think I was a big General Grievous proponent. Oh, yeah.

Unknown Speaker 39:51 I'm a big general greatest proponent to I don't remember if I was at the time, but

Unknown Speaker 39:56 I believe I believe we had some arguments over or who got to be General Grievous. Oh, that sounds right. Yeah, definitely. It was, uh, around the this was grade school. And I'm just cutting in here because I was there for this right? Yeah, you can was there for a lot of it, but definitely fond memories, I was actually thinking of this last night watching the new Obi Wan series and my head. You

Unknown Speaker 40:23 know, I'm honored to be associated with General Grievous always my always my favorite Star Wars character and practical design very cool, very cool character

Unknown Speaker 40:35 sorry, interruption could continue.

Unknown Speaker 40:39 So we would do a lot of make believe and in my free time alone, I would often be daydreaming and imagining these grand fantasy stories and sometimes writing them down. And I still often find myself doing that nowadays. Generally my outlook for that is just playing a lot of Dungeons and Dragons, which helps me get ideas straight from like my brain to sharing them with other people, which is often the most important step, I think. So that's basically always been my number one favorite thing to do. I mean, I always like being outside in nature and stuff. But storytelling is a huge hobby of mine. And so, and also reading a lot of books, I spent a lot of grade school doing that. That's why I don't really remember a lot of parts of grade school because I just had my nose buried in a book the whole time.

Unknown Speaker 41:37 Um, so

Unknown Speaker 41:42 being absorbed in these imaginary worlds, I think that also, you know, that also gave me a lot of chances to explore various concepts. Though I don't know that I consciously spent a lot of time exploring the idea of being a girl or anything I do remember, occasionally I would, in the library or in bookstores, I would sneak off and I would read, I would, I would take a book off the shelf for girls, you know, like, the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants or something like that, or the or Dumb Diary or whatever was appealing to me at whatever age I was in the bookstore. And I would like furtively read these books, just to like, get some insight into that mysterious other world. That was girls. And it really spoke, a lot of it really spoke to me, and I didn't really know why. But I was terrified of anybody finding me reading these books, right. So I never bought them or checked them out or anything. I've just read the whole thing while my family was in the bookstore, like perusing.

Unknown Speaker 42:48 Yeah, reading and writing. That's kind of kind of the eternal answer to what I like to do with my free time. Okay, um,

Unknown Speaker 43:01 spoke a little bit in there about being feeling or feeling terrified that people would

Unknown Speaker 43:08 ask

Unknown Speaker 43:11 Could you speak a little bit more specifically on like, what your maybe fears or concerns were, like, what may be pressures or, you know, expectations that society had on you, or the people around you had on you that might make you have those fears?

Unknown Speaker 43:29 Right. Yeah. And I think, at the time this was happening, if you like, traveled back to when that was happening, and you stuck a microphone in your kidneys mouth and asked her to explain that. I don't think I would have been able to verbalize what I was feeling, really. But looking back,

Unknown Speaker 43:50 I think, you know, I

Unknown Speaker 43:53 mean, I just kind of had this profound sense that like boys weren't supposed to be reading that, you know, and that if I definitely had this sense that if you were a boy who liked girl things or was acting like a girl in some way, then that was not how it was supposed to be. And I don't know where I learned that. Because as mentioned, my mom did not really want us to believe that. So I have to assume it probably came up. Excuse me, from probably came about from discussions at school discussions at choir, that sort of thing. And just general like worldviews that other kids had and discussed. I couldn't tell you. You know, who started that or where I remember hearing it first, but I think it's hard to

Unknown Speaker 44:52 fully escape that orbit. Growing up in our culture. Yeah, I don't know

Unknown Speaker 45:02 what I thought would happen if somebody saw me reading these books. I don't know if it I don't know if I even really feared any, like real world consequences as much as I feared, like the shame that I would feel from somebody seeing me like that. I think that was really what was more frightening to me, the moments of being found out was a lot more frightening than the idea that somebody was going to like, I didn't really imagine that people were going to hurt me or bully me for doing that, mainly because I've, I mean, I was pretty lucky I grew up not really being mocked or bullied. Most of my childhood or at least if I was I didn't notice that. So I really, I wasn't that afraid that people were going to treat me poorly because of it. I was just really, I really did not want other people to see that side of me.

Unknown Speaker 46:03 So it's a very internal fear. Okay, thank you for that. Um,

Unknown Speaker 46:19 I guess I'm going to speak a little bit more candidly about some experiences we had together perhaps.

Unknown Speaker 46:28 So

Unknown Speaker 46:31 pretty, I've been reminded of this by other people that were in this course, with me that were in this class with me that you were in as well, this puzzle was class. Oh, yeah. About a very, very frank discussion we had about gay marriage in this resource class. And I made some not good, some, frankly, pretty atrocious comments about gay marriage in front of the whole class. And there was a pretty heated debate about it. With Mr. Zola, do you recall that that day,

Unknown Speaker 47:11 you know, I wouldn't have remembered it until you started speaking. I think I remember it now. Possibly, I just made up the memory. But I think I remember it. Um,

Unknown Speaker 47:26 the I mean, I remember that,

Unknown Speaker 47:29 we got into a lot of political discussions for a bunch of kids who didn't really know a lot better. And I can definitely, I can definitely remember instances where you were unafraid to state some Maverick opinions. So I'll say for the purposes of discussing it that I remember it, but I might not remember any specific details.

Unknown Speaker 47:49 Well, I remember it. Very good. Imagine. I regret it. Right? Um, I remember. Um,

Unknown Speaker 48:10 I believe very specifically arguing against gay marriage. And I believe I called it gross.

Unknown Speaker 48:17 And I, I mean, I've been thinking about that for eight years, probably

Unknown Speaker 48:25 10 years thinking back on it, and, you know, really, really beating myself up about it every day. And, you know, I don't really ask for forgiveness from people because, frankly, everybody says things they regret Exactly.

Unknown Speaker 48:42 But I'm

Unknown Speaker 48:46 learning about the queer people that were in that class. And were around me that I was specifically creating a hostile environment to I really, am sorry for creating. That might have been, you know, made people feel more hesitant to embrace who they really are, be more live live their, their be themselves and around me, and just in that environment, and were there any times in in your upbringing, where you felt like you perpetrated

Unknown Speaker 49:35 a, you know, some sort of view in

Unknown Speaker 49:40 which you you now regret is there anything specifically, that you remember that you think that you shouldn't have done and that is less progressive than you are? No,

Unknown Speaker 49:49 right? Absolutely. Like, I should just say that that's very thoughtful of you. And you didn't ask for forgiveness, but I totally forgive and Forget as the case may be. But I think we all have the chance to grow and revise our opinions. I can say that I probably don't remember that specific font, because at the time, I didn't consider myself to be queer in any way. So I wouldn't have felt personally threatened at the time. But it probably did contributes to a general feeling that I couldn't or shouldn't be queer of some sort. You know, I was hearing that from a lot of cultural messaging at the time, which might have helped me, which might have helped me put that off, you know, so even so I do forgive you for it, because we were all messy high schoolers. And to pivot. Here's something I remember from high school. I remember actually, I think this was maybe the first time I heard about transgender people. I was in the Latin room, I remember this, this is when I remember because I'm a little ashamed of it, too. I remember I was talking with a couple people, including Deanna, who is often she was a year above me, and was often a person who was much more tuned into the queer scene. At the time, I kind of was oblivious and left under a rock. I don't even remember how this was brought up. But somehow I think I had just learned about the concept of trans people. And I was, I was pretty weirded out, I was pretty unhappy about the idea. And I remember arguing that, well, we don't need to do anything drastic like that. We don't need to. That's ridiculous. We don't need to do that. My solution, my proposed solution was we just need to make it acceptable for men to wear dresses, and for women to dress masculine or whatever. And then I'll solve everything. That's, that's all that's really going on here. Which, you know, was a gross reduction of the issue and a total misunderstanding and invalidating of trans people. And the trans experience. I also think it was somewhat illuminating. I think, as to how I felt because I probably was aware on some subconscious level that that might mean something to me. But I was definitely speaking from a place of not wanting to really revise my view of the world. And wanting to just

Unknown Speaker 52:37 I don't know, it's interesting. It's interesting that to remember that, like, my gut reaction was like, well, there's nothing wrong with

Unknown Speaker 52:48 there's nothing wrong with people dressing, or cross dressing in a way that doesn't match assign gender roles. We just shouldn't call them what they're not, I think was I was saying at the time, so I was, I mean, that was obviously a pretty great thing to say. And I regret it as well. Especially since knowing that I was in a lot more room with a bunch of people who would later figure out that they were trans. I'm sure that contributed to creating a hostile environment for them. And for me, I'm,

Unknown Speaker 53:19 like, couldn't tell you exactly what was going through my head. But yeah, that's really the first one that comes to mind. I remember it pretty often.

Unknown Speaker 53:30 I don't think I revised my opinions on trans people until I A couple years later, I think I had been on the internet for a while I wound up seeing a fair few like, essays and posts and tweets and stuff from people of various different backgrounds explaining their experience. I don't remember what changed my mind.

Unknown Speaker 53:51 Ultimately. Even when I did change my mind,

Unknown Speaker 53:55 I still refuse to consider the concept that I might apply to me, of course. That's really, that's really the main incident that I think of there were definitely other extremely problematic. I'll say things that I've said, especially in high school.

Unknown Speaker 54:17 I remember

Unknown Speaker 54:20 unrelated to this topic, but I remember I was once cornered by summer, I think in the gym class to explain a comment I had made that she took us disparaging Black History Month, which at the time, I was so oblivious that it didn't even occur to me that that would be read incredibly as incredibly potentially hurtful.

Unknown Speaker 54:45 But it is what it is, I guess. I can't say something like that and not explain myself. So the the full story of that is that

Unknown Speaker 54:58 she approached me and asked Hey, I heard that someone said that you had said you hate Black History Month, would you care to explain basically. And what I said, which was true at the time, and still pretty true today was that I was complaining that every year since pretty much kindergarten, we, you know, we learned about but about black history month, but we pretty much always kept the same lesson plan with pretty much learned the same thing every year, and they didn't really complexify their teaching of it. And so, I found myself being frustrated when it says, like, I want to learn about African history, and Malcolm X and stuff, not just Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. And that was probably what led me to say that, but so, in retrospect, horrible way to phrase that. And I definitely regret, you know, saying something that could make anybody feel like they had a racist in class room with them, you know,

Unknown Speaker 56:08 a bit of a bit of a foolish moment.

Unknown Speaker 56:10 But I suppose High School is full of those. Well,

Unknown Speaker 56:16 if we're speaking about Black History Month, right, I completely, I would, even back then, and probably now, I probably agree with the statement that I also hate Black History Month, right? Not for, you know, a decision, you know, to disparage black history, but rather because, frankly, the way the public school system treats Black History Month is incredibly false. It makes school and Black History less enjoyable, in my opinion.

Unknown Speaker 56:43 Exactly. Yeah. That's pretty much just the 1960s Black history is one decade. That's it?

Unknown Speaker 56:51 Pretty much. And so it's it's funny, because growing intellectually, I now think back to a lot of the hot takes and arguments that me and you would have these in these classes and these debates. And as many times as I regret saying something, I think back and think I was on the right track, right? Yeah. And I think that right now, we're living in a time in which it's very difficult to say anything. And I think that one thing that I really appreciated about you then as well as now is that you are not afraid to speak, speak your mind, and you're not afraid to be wrong. And I think that, that is probably, in my opinion, one of the greatest, you know, character traits that a person can have is the ability to be wrong. Because people don't do that anymore. It's, it's very, it's very hard to be told to let go of your ego. And in, you know, in a world where information is at your fingertips, if you don't have information, people feel like they're stupid. So it's, um, it's something I really appreciate about you. And yeah, yeah, back back then it was, it was as much appreciated, informing who I am, in my opinion, intellectually.

Unknown Speaker 58:27 Right. I remember that our conversations were sometimes messy, sometimes. Probably. A disaster from the outside, but always engaging and always really intellectually stimulating conversations. So that's definitely that's definitely something that I remember fondly from high school. And I can look back and I can see a lot of progressive politics, you know, developing from goes.

Unknown Speaker 58:56 Yeah, yeah, I think I would definitely agree. And disaster is certainly a word for some of my hot takes din and now, but, um, but I definitely appreciated them. And, you know, I think that if I wouldn't have had them, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be the person I am now.

Unknown Speaker 59:17 Yeah, it's so crucial to have, you know, a space where people can hash out feelings and thoughts that are developing, that aren't finalized and like given the stamp of approval.

Unknown Speaker 59:30 Yeah, completely. I completely agree. And

Unknown Speaker 59:37 I guess um, you spoke at the

Unknown Speaker 59:41 very beginning about how the demographics of University City have created a unique perspective for you. Could you maybe give a little bit more insight into how you think race um, Maybe effects and plays a role in the treatment of LGBTQ people?

Unknown Speaker 1:00:06 Oh, gosh, yeah. No, that's huge. And it's something that I've been saying to some of my friends lately when having conversations about where rights, queer concerns, etc, is that, for me, specifically, the more thinking I do about gender, the more angry I get about race basically, is how I summed it up, that was my hot take recently. Because so much of it is so intensely linked. The ways that the expectations of behavior that are put on white people versus people of color versus people of specific ethnicities, etc. And I could go into a whole treatise on this,

Unknown Speaker 1:00:55 um, I think that's,

Unknown Speaker 1:01:00 I'll try and frame it through a US city lens. So most of the people that I know, and keep up with, from yesterday, who I remember who are queer,

Unknown Speaker 1:01:12 most of them are white. I do remember, several people who I knew in high school who were black and queer, and even black and trans in some cases, and I don't really have continued contact with a lot of them, sadly. But I also know that, you know, as much as some of the white queer folks that I talked to my complaint,

Unknown Speaker 1:01:39 anybody who's

Unknown Speaker 1:01:41 got similar intersecting identities, but as a person of color has it much harder. And not to, like pray not to play oppression Olympics or anything, but I am something I'm increasingly aware of. And it honestly kind of frustrates me sometimes, when I see, you know, here at Duke, or at my undergrad, university, when I see oftentimes a lot of white queer people trying to reduce issues to just what affects queer people the most, and often leaving out

Unknown Speaker 1:02:18 intersections with the race. But I'm kind of kind of losing the thread here. To get back to

Unknown Speaker 1:02:30 you city specifically, I think something that I definitely observed maybe not consciously

Unknown Speaker 1:02:37 was that

Unknown Speaker 1:02:39 it was a pretty progressive space within the white nerdy group. I cannot say that you city high school as a whole was particularly welcoming of queer people. I don't know what it was like to grow up. Outside of the little bubble that I was in that was mostly like white queer kids. And a lot of these advanced classes. I think that from what little I was able to see of the rest of the school body, it would have been a much more hostile space, to be discovering yourself and to be discovering that you were clear. That said, I still wound up knowing quite a few people who felt safe enough to come out and live as themselves. In our high school. I remember I got hit on by one or two of them. There was a guy I only knew because he messaged me on Facebook. Saying this stuck with me was a total tangent, but it's funny to remember. He messaged me on Facebook saying like, Hey, I saw you in the hallway. And I thought you were a girl. Because I have long hair at the time. I found out that you're not but I'm still down. You know, it was pretty proud of being bisexual. And each photo shot I wasn't into it. Still not interested in but I respected it. And of course, I took it as a compliment because I really wanted deep down people to see me as a woman first.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:12 But that's a tangent. The overall effect,

Unknown Speaker 1:04:19 which I definitely felt in high school, I think was that it felt like it was more permissible in that environment for white men to be more effeminate. For them to be more experimental with non conforming with gender. I do not have the feeling that black men in the same position would have been given same grace by a lot of people. I think there were definitely different standards being enforced, whether unconsciously or not by some of the student body. And so I have a lot of well, you know, one brick Got for not being more aware of what people were going through. And also just a lot of uh, I mean, I just have to have a lot of respect for people who are able to endure a lot more hostility and discomfort than I would have had to go through and still ticket themselves out, lift more proudly.

Unknown Speaker 1:05:26 That was kind of the kind of a total ramble. I'll bring it

Unknown Speaker 1:05:34 back, there's something else that I've seen recently was, this was somebody else's heartache. This is not my heartache that I saw somebody

Unknown Speaker 1:05:46 making a case that a lot of issues that affect trans women are shared or overlap with issues that face black women in certain ways.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:02 And for both groups, it's because we're being held to a standard of femininity based around a certain ideal of white cisgender women.

Unknown Speaker 1:06:15 Which, by definition,

Unknown Speaker 1:06:19 some people in these groups are never going to fit into that narrow view of what a woman is. But that cultural construct of womanhood, which is so white in its foundation

Unknown Speaker 1:06:36 kind of it's very, it's a very narrow view. It's a very I know, we've all heard about, you know, like, Karen behavior and stuff, but that is a way in which womanhood is

Unknown Speaker 1:06:53 weaponized, basically. And that sense of womanhood can be weaponized against both people of color against queer people against pretty much anybody that you know, generally how white woman decides she considers threatening or doesn't want to round she can claim to be, you know, endangered by them, and play that and play upon that social construction. And that can have really devastating consequences. And so

Unknown Speaker 1:07:24 we see, nowadays, there are really quite a few,

Unknown Speaker 1:07:33 like quite a few, mostly white woman who have various objections to a lot of transgender rights, transgender causes. And I think a lot of them echo the same sorts of political strategies and underlying views that have been used to hurt black women to hurt black men to hurt other people of color. Throughout history,

Unknown Speaker 1:07:58 I don't know, I guess the

Unknown Speaker 1:08:01 point that I'm kind of stabbing at, like circling around is just that intersectionality is so hugely important to understanding

Unknown Speaker 1:08:13 how to

Unknown Speaker 1:08:14 try and start repairing some of these biases.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:18 And that

Unknown Speaker 1:08:20 a lot of people who try to boil it down to just one factor are really robbing themselves of the chance to make progress on it, because there's just variables that you weren't getting.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:31 Sorry, total ramble there.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:37 No, I think I think you're hitting on a lot of different aspects of the question. And you're going into more detail than I'm even asking for, which is great, that's better. That's better, not worse. And

Unknown Speaker 1:08:54 I think that, um, well,

Unknown Speaker 1:08:58 this class is about oral history. And I think that it's wonderful to explore your, your past, but I think that it's as important that we look at the present, as well. So are you following the amber herd and Johnny Depp trial?

Unknown Speaker 1:09:21 Gosh, I am not perfectly following it. But it's hard to avoid people talking about it. I do see people talking about things sharing, they're sharing their thoughts on it. I generally don't seek out content about it specifically. So I'm kind of one step away from it. Well,

Unknown Speaker 1:09:44 I guess then I can ask you more broadly about a particular movement. Not specifically the me to movement, but the the belief women

Unknown Speaker 1:10:00 Right. And you spoke

Unknown Speaker 1:10:03 very briefly about how womanhood can be weaponized. Do you think that Well, I guess, let me provide some context from why I'm asking this a while back where I'm coming from. I'm, I'm a black man. And I'm a victim of domestic violence, I don't like to admit it. It's, um, I was in the relationship for a very long time. But, and it's very embarrassing, being a man who's a victim of domestic violence. But being a black man in America, I also understand that there's a history of false accusations, specifically with regards to black men,

Unknown Speaker 1:10:48 specifically,

Unknown Speaker 1:10:51 as well as other oppressed groups as well, but very, you know, America has its has probably the most prevalent is, is black men. And so having that perspective, seeing a movement that very clearly defines what is effectively the accusations of women over even potentially, evidence is, I don't know, threatening to my identity, in some ways as a black man and a victim of domestic violence. Do you think that? Um,

Unknown Speaker 1:11:35 do you have any opinions on this particular phenomenon? Right. So

Unknown Speaker 1:11:44 I mean, first, I should say that I'm very sorry to hear of your history with the subject, it's not something that I would wish anyone to experience. Appreciate it, but it is brave of you to share it, and speak openly about it. The second thought that I have is that it's a messy, complicated issue. Because in many cases, if you do have a powerful man who is abusing women, and going to great lengths to ensure that it's difficult to assemble any evidence against him,

Unknown Speaker 1:12:27 then you do reach a situation where that's all you have to go off of. That said, it kind of ties into a

Unknown Speaker 1:12:43 to a different issue, different book related issue that I've noticed, especially on Twitter, and other online spaces, and this is particularly prevalent in queer spaces of, you know, people will call it whatever they want to call Kancil culture or whatever. But specifically, I refer to the pattern of digging up a bunch of complaints against a certain person who has some brand of notoriety, assembling, essentially, an argument that XYZ is an abuser, or XYZ is transphobic, or XYZ, yada, yada, yada. And then making that argument making that a rumor basically, and then co opting the language of repression

Unknown Speaker 1:13:37 to prey off of the idea of like believing victims, to say that basically, no one can dispute that now that the river has caught on

Unknown Speaker 1:13:52 I think that I mean, we look back at the history of like

Unknown Speaker 1:14:00 even just the terminology of canceling you know, that started with our Kelly, by cancel our Kelly and abuses that were going on reported. Um,

Unknown Speaker 1:14:13 I think that

Unknown Speaker 1:14:15 that kind of mob justice essentially, is always dangerous and difficult to control, and it's especially irresponsible to point it towards marginalized groups, members of marginalized groups.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:33 I'm thinking about this specific,

Unknown Speaker 1:14:41 struggling to think of I have specific examples in terms of domestic violence.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:49 But I will say that I mean, you're

Unknown Speaker 1:14:56 quite right in observing that There's an intersection there between gender and race that can create some things really nasty.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:07 Potentially. You know, we don't want to wind up in a situation where I think this is this is kind of indicative of

Unknown Speaker 1:15:20 broader criticism with white feminism in general, right? That oftentimes the rhetorical strategies applied for the purpose of feminism by white women using love, meaning white women produce oppression to a simple access of man and woman, that the man is always the oppressor.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:46 And woman is always the oppressed, that badly oversimplifies the reality of the world.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:56 And completely ignores the ways in which power structures based around race and sexuality and such can totally alter that.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:08 I don't know I don't really have an answer to that, me to movement as a whole, because I think that there is something very real that comes out of that.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:25 And that motivates it, especially for women, who are definitely so often subjected to domestic violence and abuse or behind the scenes,

Unknown Speaker 1:16:39 sexual abuse. But

Unknown Speaker 1:16:42 reducing it to simply women versus men is never going to capture the full variance of a situation, I think. I don't know, it's, it's very tricky for me to comment on because I can, I guess my feelings on it are still evolving, because I know many women who do have those experiences who are survivors of domestic violence,

Unknown Speaker 1:17:08 and don't have many ways other than their word against his to back it up. But I'm also extremely sensitive to the history of white women

Unknown Speaker 1:17:25 victimizing themselves in order to cause harm

Unknown Speaker 1:17:29 to people of color. I think the only

Unknown Speaker 1:17:34 real conclusion I can draw from all of it is

Unknown Speaker 1:17:36 that generalizations such as belief victims

Unknown Speaker 1:17:45 can describe trends, but can never be applied to every situation without any wiggle room.

Unknown Speaker 1:17:52 And that so many cases really just

Unknown Speaker 1:17:59 require really case by case knowledge. And probably a deeper level of knowledge of the events than any of us sitting around on Twitter are going to get, you know, especially when you don't know the person in question besides what movies they started, or what company they run. So, I would be I would be nervous about going on record saying I don't believe victims, because then that becomes a generalization that would be harmful if applied the other way. But I do have to constantly have skepticism for anyone who claims that a situation always 100% follows a certain role, when almost nothing in this world actually does. I know I kind of feel I went back and forth there.

Unknown Speaker 1:18:54 I think. I think that, um,

Unknown Speaker 1:18:57 yeah, it's a it's a tricky thing to say, because the implications of saying that you can't believe all women can be taken

Unknown Speaker 1:19:07 is so easily misused.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:10 But at the same time, saying, believe all women can also be misused. So I feel like maybe believe is the wrong word, you know, the support or a plant or something

Unknown Speaker 1:19:24 credible, at the very least.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:27 Yeah, it's, um, I think that, um, one of the biggest issues is probably the fact that, like, you spoke about mob justice. It's, you know, if we could just deal with just a trial that could lay out the evidence, and we could judge based on that. Things would be a lot better, but what we have is, you know, years and months of speculation, right, and then a trial and everyone's effectively or reforms in opinion. And that's where that's probably where the belief is probably the most important part is that until you get the evidence, you should probably yes, you should probably believe all women, because the the implications of not aren't far more harmful than doing so. In those situations, the perpetrator can be vindicated if if the accusations are, are untrue, but, you know, to to treat a victim as if they are guilty before, you know.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:34 Anyway. Yeah, I mean, definitely, we have to consider, you know, our justice system does place great emphasis on the idea of innocent until proven guilty, and there's a lot to be interrogated about that, especially since, for so many people of color that seems to not that that's brace seems not to be given in courts of law.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:03 That there's often a presumption of guilt,

Unknown Speaker 1:21:08 whether consciously or unconsciously.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:14 Yeah, it's,

Unknown Speaker 1:21:15 I don't know, some, some so many of our ideals are. It's difficult to reach them while being affected by unconscious biases. But similarly, it's incredibly difficult for many people to recognize and reconcile their own internal biases that way. So how, you know, you can convince a courtroom that someone is guilty, but you might have an easier time of it. If the person on trial is a person of color, they've been predisposed to distrust. And it's just such a

Unknown Speaker 1:21:56 messy situation. Ethically, and legally. I don't know it's not

Unknown Speaker 1:22:04 really my area. This is where I would refer you to some of my friends who are on the vaad track or philosophy track to really get a really meaty discussion of it, but I definitely have reservations. I am

Unknown Speaker 1:22:24 I find you to be put it I don't find you to be a moral relativist. I think that you you think scientifically, and I think that right now, we're a lot of the world is missing. You know, it's kind of the Wild West philosophically, people can just throw ideas out there. But um, I think that you think about things more methodically. And I think that it produces a more logical conclusion, and then didn't much of what we see nowadays, which is people's opinions are based on trends.

Unknown Speaker 1:23:06 Right. Well, thank you very much for flattery. Definitely appreciate that. Um,

Unknown Speaker 1:23:13 I guess let's speak for a moment about political affiliations. Do you currently believe in the that the governmental system in America is effective and in which aspects of the American government is probably failed LGBTQ people the most?

Unknown Speaker 1:23:38 That's a tricky question.

Unknown Speaker 1:23:42 Something that I think about a lot, especially since my undergrad major was environmental, political science. So I actually did have some grounding in poli sci classes. Something I have to think about constantly.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:01 I definitely think that

Unknown Speaker 1:24:05 it's something that I've seen repeated and tend to believe is that the US is one of the oldest democracies in the world in the sense that a lot of our contemporaries revised their governing structures after World War Two, or other pivotal moments in history. Were one of the only countries that clings so desperately to the original text of our government and really refuses to consider serious revisions. At this point, even amending the Constitution is considered a pretty extreme action that isn't really considered tenable right now.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:53 And so,

Unknown Speaker 1:24:56 on the one hand, there are there are many aspects of this stuff that I consider certainly, certainly not functioning currently, as intended or, as would benefit more people, or even as with live up to our nation's ideals. But at the same time, it still fills it still fills you with so much hopelessness when you have to reconcile that with how unlikely it is that those things will be changed in a reasonable timeframe? I'm interested in your second question, because I think I can answer it more specifically, if I think about it, of which branch of government fails us most frequently.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:46 But it's still peculiar, I think.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:55 Well, it's interesting, I think the judicial branch can be one of the most extreme and either way, it can either be extremely to the benefit of queer causes, as it has been in the past as it was in 2014. For gay marriage, and as it was a couple of years ago, when Neil Gorsuch of all people, and the majority opinion

Unknown Speaker 1:26:24 that I can't remember

Unknown Speaker 1:26:27 the specifics, but it essentially granted certain protect workplace protections, against firing someone for being, I think either transgender or queer of some sort, based essentially, on sex discrimination, of course, which basically, but for the pretty reasonable argument that if you mistreat someone for dressing or acting a certain way, and you wouldn't mistreat them for that, if their sex were different, then that's sex discrimination. It's pretty straight. It's pretty clear cut honestly. That position, I was very surprised that a conservative justice, who was the darling of conservative courts, organizations,

Unknown Speaker 1:27:19 would feel that way. But I think what that means is that

Unknown Speaker 1:27:25 I mean, the court is the least democratic of the institutions, which means that depending on who's on it, it can be extremely sympathetic to queer causes, or it can be extremely hostile. Currently, we're looking at an extremely hostile court, which is setting.

Unknown Speaker 1:27:47 I think, the one that most frequently. The one that I feel most frequently attacks.

Unknown Speaker 1:28:02 Queer people would be the legislative branch since that is the most

Unknown Speaker 1:28:10 the most directly

Unknown Speaker 1:28:11 affected by the prejudices of you know, constituencies in these various districts in specially deep red districts and states. And it's one of the most vulnerable to gerrymandering, and votes tampering. And all of the other strategies that are used by the opposition to try and reduce our democratic rights and control. I pretty much

Unknown Speaker 1:28:42 just not to interrupt you is just the question was actually, which aspect of government just does not have to be a branch, it could be any facet. You know, any institution, any, anything that's unique about American government that you would say is probably maybe leaves, causes or results in the most harm.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:09 That's, that opens things up about I think, still might have to be. Well, honestly, if we open it up more broadly, then I think what I take most issue with is the two party system, and the way that our elections are structured, because that makes it so incredibly easy for the opposition to interfere to structure, debate and elections and electoral procedures, such that they only need to beat one opponent. And it's comparatively easy to do that, you know, we have a party that supports queer rights in this country and we have a party that emphatically doesn't. And the party that doesn't has used a lot have tools to game the two party system and to gain power and cling to that power and then use that power to hurt us. So that's one of the things that I find most frustrating is that I feel there are fewer protections against you know, essentially a creates a binary choice between a somewhat centrist party, occasionally leaning left and a full on Stranglehold by want to be authoritarians. It's not that a multi party system is perfect, but I think from some time I've spent abroad and learning about political systems there, I think it gives the voters more choice, and can sometimes get a little bit closer to what voters actually feel, which is one of the main problems with our government right now that our democracy is pretty undemocratic. The majority of the country often doesn't feel the way that our Republican overlords to, yet they're able to get a system to get power anyway. Um,

Unknown Speaker 1:31:21 I don't have a solution to how we would

Unknown Speaker 1:31:25 change that, since so much of the two party system is baked into our system of government, but I've not written into it. It's not in the Constitution. And Washington explicitly was against the idea, but

Unknown Speaker 1:31:43 it is the

Unknown Speaker 1:31:45 it is sort of unofficially, the law of the land in this country. I don't know how you would get an alternative off the ground. But that's the aspect that I find most frustrating, I think, is just the sheer vulnerability that that binary choice introduces.

Unknown Speaker 1:32:05 You think that

Unknown Speaker 1:32:06 the inherent cohesiveness of the conservatives in America would threaten a potentially multi party system here in America? Why do you think the liberals would be more susceptible to splintering than the right?

Unknown Speaker 1:32:24 I think that that's probably true to a certain extent, since the Democratic Party is absolutely locked, brought together, several different parties. You know, Alexandria, Ocasio Cortez is on record pointing out that in a multi party system, she would not be in the same party as Nancy Pelosi, and similar. And that's very true. And in some regards, that could make it more difficult, in some ways for say, social democrats are the equivalent

Unknown Speaker 1:33:03 to get power, since there would be more competition from more classical liberals from

Unknown Speaker 1:33:12 libertarians, etc. That said, do still see. I mean, we're seeing fracturing among the Republicans in real time right now. That the whole is Cheney business, the fracturing and we saw it before too, with the Tea Party, but we're definitely seeing it exacerbated with the Trump Ian's or whatever you want to call them. Who are definitely trying to take over and capture that party for themselves. Whereas you have more moderate Republicans, such as Cheney, who resist that who are more, slightly more committed to the ideals of democracy. And it's upsetting to me that

Unknown Speaker 1:34:02 those people are very easily pushed out under the two party system. Whereas under a multi party system, we might be able to exercise a bit more choice, you might see more retention of

Unknown Speaker 1:34:24 Republicans who aren't loyal to Trump, under a situation like that. They might be able to simply hop over one party to the left and continue a pretty successful existence there instead of being forced to capped out or get out. That said, policy isn't my primary focus anymore. I'm more on the science side now. So

Unknown Speaker 1:34:51 this is all kind of a it's all kind of a idealist probably naive idea. As if a how that could work. It's definitely not

Unknown Speaker 1:35:06 an invulnerable system you still see systems like Denmark or comparable multi party systems getting cornered by a plurality or even majority of far right. Elected officials so would not solve all of our problems.

Unknown Speaker 1:35:29 Um, do you currently

Unknown Speaker 1:35:30 participate in any activist organizations?

Unknown Speaker 1:35:35 Currently? No, I think I've been pretty focused on my studies in the past have donated occasionally. That's normally been as far as I've gone. I would like to imagine that once I have a more secure, stable life instead of bouncing around to tool places in schools that I would get involved, but that is again idealist,

Unknown Speaker 1:36:09 idealistically?

Unknown Speaker 1:36:17 Do you have any you have like, any, a distinct value system or like a code of ethics or type of morality that you would consider maybe unique from other people? Maybe even unique to your family?

Unknown Speaker 1:36:34 Right? I think yes. And no, I've never

Unknown Speaker 1:36:43 committed heart rules to writing or anything. So I couldn't

Unknown Speaker 1:36:49 ask explicitly define it. I know, my positions have evolved throughout grade school in high school, I guess. To go back and be more clear.

Unknown Speaker 1:37:06 Neither of my parents are religious. And I was not raised religiously. So I've kind of always been taught an atheistic or agnostic upbringing.

Unknown Speaker 1:37:21 And so rather than

Unknown Speaker 1:37:26 any sort of religious teachings, I've always kind of had to fall back on general philosophy for moral guidance.

Unknown Speaker 1:37:37 I often find myself contextualizing

Unknown Speaker 1:37:42 morality in terms of?

Unknown Speaker 1:37:47 Well, it's hard to say.

Unknown Speaker 1:37:52 Since I've drawn on so many things for bits and pieces of what I do believe that it would probably be, I would probably have to assemble a bibliography of different belief systems that I pull from. But I do know that one thing that seems fairly unique to me is that I place a lot of importance in the natural world, and science and how,

Unknown Speaker 1:38:22 essentially,

Unknown Speaker 1:38:23 essentially how things have evolved and looking at

Unknown Speaker 1:38:25 getting some perspective on morality in general.

Unknown Speaker 1:38:33 This is not to say that I support crude ideas like social Darwinism, like survival of the fittest, or whatnot. But what that means is that I like to try and place things in the context of their surrounding environment, and the incentives that naturally emerge from the positions that people find themselves in.

Unknown Speaker 1:39:07 It's hard to

Unknown Speaker 1:39:08 say exactly how I see that working. But really, I think what I think what it looks like for me is that I really just hope to understand before I judge, I really hope to understand where people are coming from and why they do the things that they do. And that often

Unknown Speaker 1:39:33 affects how I view situations, morally speaking.

Unknown Speaker 1:39:40 Which is not to say that I go out forgiveness just because people

Unknown Speaker 1:39:46 had it hard growing up or whatnot. But

Unknown Speaker 1:39:51 I'd like to try and consider all the variables going into a situation and look for a workable compromise there. rather than really agonizing over, you know, the binary decision of right or wrong, it's really just more of a problem solving approach.

Unknown Speaker 1:40:11 Um, I don't know,

Unknown Speaker 1:40:16 the more spiritual aspect of this mostly is just that the only time I've ever felt spiritual connection or something approaching what other people describe as sacred is generally being outdoors and special sites.

Unknown Speaker 1:40:33 That felt important to me.

Unknown Speaker 1:40:37 And so that's kind of the closest thing I have to any sort of guiding a.

Unknown Speaker 1:40:46 Spirituality is just a general respect for nature and

Unknown Speaker 1:40:55 the environment and the processes that have brought us to where we are.

Unknown Speaker 1:40:58 Yeah, I

Unknown Speaker 1:41:04 have a story related to that. But it's probably too long to tell at the moment. If you remember,

Unknown Speaker 1:41:13 it might have a little bit more time at the end, and we're getting there. So this is a little probably a little bit longer than than most people's interview. All right, sorry. No, there's no reason to apologize. I think longer is better. And I think, really well. What do you think in any way? Science or scientific fields? Or the history of science has failed LGBTQ people? In any ways? And if so, like, Could you elaborate?

Unknown Speaker 1:41:44 Oh, absolutely. So the thing is that science is still a human construct, and the way we construct and conceive of it is so totally subject to our biases. So there have been many ways. I mean, if you just look at the history of the field of psychology, the ways that you know, homosexuality, transgender existence and stuff have been criminalized, or pathologized, or written down with various theories, this is something I don't understand about psychology specifically.

Unknown Speaker 1:42:30 And forgive me, right, psychology, PhD friends. But

Unknown Speaker 1:42:37 it seems to me like, I don't know what the barrier of entry is to the DSM, which is the common like list of psychological conditions that the field refers to it's kind of their Bible. But there are some really messed up theories in there that are pretty heavily discredited, that are just, you know, one psychologists theory that they make up, they describe a disorder for it, and it goes into the DSM somehow, I guess, if enough, other psychologists agree that it checks out. But as an example, there's this is something that the transgender community has to deal with frequently that there was a psychologist or a psychiatrist, I don't know exactly the title for a quack like him. But a couple of decades ago, who basically figured he had a theory for why people transition transitioned or wanted to be another gender. And his theory was, of course, you know, very reductive, and misunderstanding of the trans experience. But his theory was that he was like, Oh, I think I can basically distinguish between trans women based on whether they're attracted to men or two women. And so he basically created a theory that if you find a trans woman who is attracted to men, then his description of what you're looking at is that simply a gay man who is interested in men and has noticed that more men tends to be interested in women, and therefore transitions for that purpose. And, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:44:25 one second, I have to step out for just a moment I do. Sorry, I'll be

Unknown Speaker 1:47:17 back. Sorry about

Unknown Speaker 1:47:18 that. No problem. Give me some time to figure out how to say this a little bit more succinctly. But essentially, not very long ago, a psychologist developed a theory of trans women that basically amounted to calling all trans women to be men who transitioned only for reasons of advancing their own sexuality. Which, obviously, is a complete misunderstanding of the experience and motives behind the transition. Yet, this still made it into the DSM and became a popular and generally accepted theory among some psychologists. And it's still something that because of the way that that field of science was set up, it's still something that a lot of people believe to be true. And we'll use it to try and dismiss trans people. So that's just one way in which science has absolutely failed queer people, queer and trans people. And there's many more to look at. You know, science is only as good as the people who practice it.

Unknown Speaker 1:48:38 And when you have people who are controlling

Unknown Speaker 1:48:44 the power structures in scientific fields, who have their own biases, who aren't sympathetic to marginalized groups, it's very possible for them to encode into accepted scientific truth, things that are outright false and demeaning. So absolutely, science can fail for people.

Unknown Speaker 1:49:12 And yeah, that's so I guess that's what I should clarify that.

Unknown Speaker 1:49:20 There has to be a certain amount of skepticism in science and a willingness to interrogate how other people have arrived at certain conclusions. Before you integrate that into your own belief system

Unknown Speaker 1:49:41 great answer,

Unknown Speaker 1:49:42 um, okay. Um, all right. For a moment we're gonna go back to family life. Are you currently in a relationship?

Unknown Speaker 1:49:55 Not currently.

Unknown Speaker 1:49:58 I have been in the past Uh, recently it hasn't really been a priority.

Unknown Speaker 1:50:07 Um, would you say that marriage is a common relationship status within your family? Hmm.

Unknown Speaker 1:50:17 That's interesting. I'm not particularly in tune with a lot of my family, I think the answer is probably no.

Unknown Speaker 1:50:29 Because I'm thinking of the

Unknown Speaker 1:50:32 family members who I'm closest to. You know, I have grandparents who were married to one another. They had children, including my parents, my parents siblings include one with a happy marriage. One who has never been married, who has had kids had kids out of wedlock, and just had an off again, on again, relationship with that person. And one who is not married, and has had occasional partnerships. Um, my parents themselves got married, but they did so in a simple courthouse arrangements without a lot of pomp and circumstance. I think they did do some wedding paraphernalia for the families benefit. So it's still it's still something that I think people in my family value, but it's not.

Unknown Speaker 1:51:37 It's not something that everybody does. I would say,

Unknown Speaker 1:51:43 do you intend to get married? And do you believe in marriage as a institution so to speak?

Unknown Speaker 1:51:52 It's a good question. It's one I've had to do a bit of thinking on. It's not something that I would be against, it's something that is a little hard to imagine, sometimes.

Unknown Speaker 1:52:06 I would say it's still

Unknown Speaker 1:52:07 not really a priority.

Unknown Speaker 1:52:10 Maybe a hope.

Unknown Speaker 1:52:13 The institution of marriage, it's interesting to

Unknown Speaker 1:52:20 dissect,

Unknown Speaker 1:52:23 since so much of it is essentially a recognition in the eyes of the state and in the eyes of the church or religious authority. And that lends it an interesting element. My particular immediate family not being very religious. You know, marriage is not important to us in that way.

Unknown Speaker 1:52:47 I think

Unknown Speaker 1:52:49 the primary appeal of actually being married, as opposed to simply being in a long term committed relationship is pretty much tax breaks. You know, the various financial benefits that come with it as a result of our society, incentivizing couples to get married. But I think without those incentives, financially, I wouldn't be something I would even really consider. The concept of even being in a relationship right now is, you know, ideally, but that's separate from the question of marriage. I'd say it's not something that's important to me, at the very least.

Unknown Speaker 1:53:37 Okay. Are you planning on having children?

Unknown Speaker 1:53:43 Hmm. That's a waiting question. So when I was

Unknown Speaker 1:53:51 the beginning of after I just figured out that I did want to transition. I actually dragged my feet on it for a while, not because I was afraid to transition. But because I knew that most hormone medication after a while it pretty much makes you infertile.

Unknown Speaker 1:54:17 There's not to

Unknown Speaker 1:54:19 you no hard and fast rule on that, but it's a pretty likely result. I knew that that could happen. And the reason that it caused me to hesitate is because my father is adopted, my brother and I are his only blood relatives, which I suspected he might find that important. And therefore the idea of having biological grandchildren might be important to him. So I knew that if I was going to go on these medications, I wanted to check with him and make sure that Whether he would want biological grandkids eventually, which meant I was going to have to come out to him. And I was very afraid to do that. So it took me like six months, essentially, I did, he confirmed that he would like to keep his options open. So I had to store some genetic material, I still pay the bills, it's not very much, but so I have that option available to me. And it's something that I am keeping. But it's less because I want to add more, because I feel a sort of obligation to at least keep the options open. So I should mention that.

Unknown Speaker 1:55:46 Growing up,

Unknown Speaker 1:55:48 I always thought I very much wanted to have children. And I thought I especially wanted to have daughters. That was very important to me, I actually thought about names that I might name a daughter, and stuff. That was something I looked forward to. As I started to figure myself out, I eventually realized that that was less about the appeal of having children and more about a way I could conceive of taking some part of myself and making it female. And being able to kind of live through that vicariously. After I figured out that I could cut out the middleman and just do that myself. I noticed my desire to have children pretty much evaporated. And so it's something I still have to think about because I like teaching science to kids. I like kids who are curious to learn. And I like talking about stuff with kids who often have a very interesting way of looking at things. But I don't know if I'm somebody who's super eager to go through all the hassle of having him raising kids.

Unknown Speaker 1:56:59 So currently, I'm kind of

Unknown Speaker 1:57:05 kind of counting on my brother to carry the torch for that since he has said a few times that he expects to have children. And I'm kind of hoping that just like being the math kid who my mom could talk about math, but I'm kind of hoping he's gonna take the heat off of me for that.

Unknown Speaker 1:57:26 But, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:57:28 it's all kind of a it's all kind of a maybe. situation right now. But I think the as I'm saying this aloud, I think the the overall theme is that I don't plan to have children unless

Unknown Speaker 1:57:45 things conspire to

Unknown Speaker 1:57:46 make it seem like the right thing to do in that situation.

Unknown Speaker 1:57:55 How has

Unknown Speaker 1:57:57 your gender identity and sexual orientation since your transition affected your relationships?

Unknown Speaker 1:58:09 Ooh, yeah. That's a very big question.

Unknown Speaker 1:58:12 So yeah, I think. So previously, I

Unknown Speaker 1:58:24 identified as a straight man. And I always, people often were like, that seems wrong, you seem like you should be gay, at least I get kind of just like a gay vibe from you. And I was like, Haha, it's funny. But I knew even then, that I was not interested in men. And I was definitely interested in women. I think some of my relationships at that time were, in part motivated by just a desire to like, learn more about femininity, and to have some of that in my life.

Unknown Speaker 1:59:00 The there are a lot of things

Unknown Speaker 1:59:02 that switch over when you start transitioning. And it's interesting to note, both psychological and chemical aspects of that. Because there are some ways in which I started conceiving of myself in relationships that changed. Almost as soon as I realized that I was a woman, it kind of recontextualized how I thought about potential partners. And there are of course, also certain changes that come from switching your hormones that affects the way that you feel attraction, in general.

Unknown Speaker 1:59:38 It's a little difficult to say,

Unknown Speaker 1:59:44 because this is this is I mean, it's a little embarrassing to admit, but since I started transitioning, I haven't had an official relationship. I've been very much focusing on myself, which I think is maybe under sandbar in this context. But I have been doing a lot of thinking about whether it's something I'm interested in. And what interests me about it? If so,

Unknown Speaker 2:00:15 there is there are ways in which I have to reevaluate a lot of things that I previously took for granted. I found myself,

Unknown Speaker 2:00:29 I have never questioned but I'm still interested in women, I have found myself at times questioning whether I could be interested in men or whether that is experiencing something that a lot of queer women have experienced, and call it combat or compulsory heterosexuality, which societally there is kind of an expectation that part of being a woman is to be desired by men and to desire men. And that's a powerful and tempting part of society. So I wonder sometimes if I feel that, I think that is probably the explanation. Because I generally don't find myself thinking about men and women in the same way. But at the same time, I have to admit that the idea of dating a man would definitely make me feel like a woman primarily through conformance to gender roles. Conformance compliance, either way, conformity, that's the word. There's a lot of aspects that have to be reassessed, I guess, I described this to a friend recently, it's kind of like having a graph of data points, and then realizing you have x and y. And you have data graphed on those two axes. And then realizing that there's a third dimension, that there's the Z axis. And that totally recontextualizes all of the points because now you don't know whether that's really an indication of one particular truth about yourself, or whether it is

Unknown Speaker 2:02:17 whether it was simply seen that way,

Unknown Speaker 2:02:20 in the context of conforming to your original gender role.

Unknown Speaker 2:02:29 The other aspect of it, is that I mean, being lesbian is tricky.

Unknown Speaker 2:02:40 I don't know how to describe it. Other than that, there are a lot of ways that it can be a lot harder to understand flirting and attraction between women than it is to do the same thing in a situation between a man and a woman. Because there are certain expectations for how men and women behave around one another, that

Unknown Speaker 2:03:05 can sometimes offer clues about interest and attraction. And between women, it's sometimes a lot more open ended.

Unknown Speaker 2:03:18 There's a lot more complexity. i That feels like such a reductive thing to say honestly, such a gender essentialist thing. But what I mean to say is that society allows for a wider range of expression in female friendships, I think,

Unknown Speaker 2:03:38 which can make it more likely to overlap with romantic elements. I don't know. It's all very curious. In general, I haven't found myself

Unknown Speaker 2:03:56 attracted to very many people since transitioning, but I also haven't met a lot of new people since transitioning. You know, I met a bunch last fall when I started this grad program, and pretty much nobody since then, because I've stayed with them grad program.

Unknown Speaker 2:04:14 And before that,

Unknown Speaker 2:04:16 I was locked down in an apartment that same two people had already pretty firmly established that I was not interested in. So it kind of feels like I haven't

Unknown Speaker 2:04:29 tested the new version of me on very many variables, you know?

Unknown Speaker 2:04:38 So it's a very good question, and it's one that I'm still processing and trying to answer for myself.

Unknown Speaker 2:04:47 But it's hard to it's hard to give a specific answer. I think it's a I think the simplest answer I can give. Is that Previously, I

Unknown Speaker 2:05:05 thought a firm answer is pretty simple in pretty simplistic terms.

Unknown Speaker 2:05:11 And oftentimes, it was comprehensively, fairly shallow.

Unknown Speaker 2:05:18 of just like, well, this person appears pretty to me and has good chemistry. So I guess that means that we're a good fit for a relationship. And now I feel like there's a lot more that I would want to consider before entering into a relationship with someone. But whether that's due to thinking about myself as a woman, living as a woman, having female friendships, shifting my sexuality or any number of other things, I can't really say yet. So I kind of I'm kind of untested on that.

Unknown Speaker 2:05:53 I'll just say that it got more complicated. Okay, how would you um

Unknown Speaker 2:06:08 Are there any things that you do to stay healthy physically or mentally at the moment? And how would you describe your, your health in both

Unknown Speaker 2:06:16 cried? Yeah, well, probably I don't do enough to stay healthy is my reaction to that.

Unknown Speaker 2:06:26 I have noticed, let's say two things really, that

Unknown Speaker 2:06:38 are important to me, I try to be I try to get outside at least 30 minutes each day, I don't always succeed. But that's something that I think is very important for me. For my mental health. Specifically. I noticed that definitely deteriorates if I stay indoors the whole time. And when I go between, here on campus, I try to I try to walk as long distance and if I can, I like to bike, which keeps me a little bit more fit than I would be otherwise. But I'm really bad about doing exercise. So I do not currently have any sort of exercise regiment, which is unfortunate. I know, I should inquire more, but I haven't gotten around to it. The other thing that's on my mind is that since coming here, it's become very clear to me how important social interaction is for my mental health. There have been a couple times when, again, I've wound up just like, staying a lot of spending a lot of time indoors, not going to events, going outside much and not talking to people. And inevitably, if that happens, no, I need your late mentally crash. afterwards. It's a terrible mental health situation. So for my own benefit, I try to eat proactive in scheduling, get togethers with friends, and having a meet ups and Hangouts and weeknights, and calling people and stuff. It's something that I didn't realize was important to me beforehand, but has become pretty essential now, especially post pandemic. I don't know how much that affected my need for this, but it's something I am very aware of now. But yeah, unfortunately, my exercise and my food system right now, it's that's not healthy at all. That's the short answer. Well,

Unknown Speaker 2:08:47 um, I think that resonates quite well with the way a lot of people are feeling during COVID. I think, um, you know, not getting outside not communicating with people convey a lot of issues.

Unknown Speaker 2:09:04 Is there anything

Unknown Speaker 2:09:05 you specifically would like to talk about? And let's imagine that you had an audience of 10 million people. And you had five minutes and they wanted to hear what you wanted to say, what would you say?

Unknown Speaker 2:09:23 Oh, that's a lot. I think

Unknown Speaker 2:09:30 probably the most relevant thing I could say in that situation. The most relevant thing I would want to share is something that I alluded to earlier at the idea of nature in the environment, affecting things. And story time storytime, that I wanted to mention earlier, is that if you look at some maps, you can look at it. You can look at a map of the state of Alabama Um, two maps of it specifically. And you can look at a map of land and water coverage in the Jurassic period, millions and millions of years ago in Alabama, and you can look at the 2016 congressional district election results, presidential election results now for Alabama. And in the Jurassic land cover map of Alabama, you see this, most of it is land. And then there's a little stripe through the middle that's covered in water. For the 2016 election map, most of Alabama's read, and there is a strike of congressional districts through the middle that's blue that voted Democrat.

Unknown Speaker 2:10:45 And

Unknown Speaker 2:10:48 you see this and you're immediately like, that's the same

Unknown Speaker 2:10:51 picture. Why is it the same?

Unknown Speaker 2:10:55 You know, what is going on there? How could this possibly be related. And the explanation that I've found for this, is, you look back at the Jurassic period, those parts of the land which were covered with water that was an ancient sea, it was an ocean. And that deposited a bunch of fossils, a bunch of sediment, a bunch of nutrients, which over the millions of years since it came compacted, became condensed and converted into very fertile land. This creates soils that are conducive to growing crops, and specifically conducive to growing cotton. So the result is that during the colonization of America, those wound up being areas where people created cotton plantations, and where people brought a lot of enslaved persons to work this plantations. Looking at further history, you see that after the Civil War, after emancipation, and during Reconstruction, a lot of fried persons were unable to move very far from where they had been enslaved for generations. So a lot of these places, these old plantation heavy districts, wound up with pretty substantial black populations. The result of that is that to this day, those are pretty heavily black congressional districts. And for a variety of factors, black constituencies tend to vote more democratic. And the result is that that's essentially why this stripe of Jurassic ocean influences the shape of the 2016 election map, which seems completely unconnected at first glance. And the reason this is meaningful to me is that everything you can think of really, everything comes down to environmental factors, to geology and ecology, to processes that were in motion, millions of years before the first human existed, and yet still inform so much of our society today.

Unknown Speaker 2:13:19 And this is really the thing that I

Unknown Speaker 2:13:24 would want to emphasize to any, to any audience of millions is that there's this pervasive notion that humans are so kind of separate from nature, that civilization in nature are opposites and enemies. When humans are absolutely just a part of nature. Every attempt to define humans as being unique among animals has failed. Other animals use tools, other animals use language, other animals care for their young, et cetera, you can find an exception to every rule

Unknown Speaker 2:14:00 that you create to try and establish that humans

Unknown Speaker 2:14:04 are distinct. And similarly, you can find an exception to every rule that you use to try and define a woman or various genders. But that's a separate conversation. The fundamental thing that I've read wants to communicate is that human and non human nature are not as separate as people like to believe that this dualism was essentially invented by colonial Western European mindsets, and has been encoded into our conception of ourselves ever since.

Unknown Speaker 2:14:40 And that taking apart dualistic notions like that into really a decoupling

Unknown Speaker 2:14:52 those ideas starting to see ourselves as part of a broader and richer history. diversity and difference in defamation, I think would go a long way towards combating a lot of harm

Unknown Speaker 2:15:09 Orpheus today.

Unknown Speaker 2:15:10 So that's basically what I would want to share. I think given the audience prompt, that's a story that's meaningful to me and I think illustrates some things that are important to my belief system more eloquently than I do myself.

Unknown Speaker 2:15:31 So yeah, that's basically my five minute elevator pitch. Well, I

Unknown Speaker 2:15:41 think that's an awesome story. And I think it would do great on NPR. And it'll do great here. And I think that is pretty much all for today. I think that you covered a lot of stuff. And I think it's been great. I think you're a bright mind. And I look forward to keeping in touch after this is over. Yeah. Let me thank you again, I, I think this is an awesome interview, and I've had a blast. And every time I do an interview up to two interviews, every time I want to give somebody a hug afterwards, because I feel 1000 times closer to knowing you. And I think it's a really special thing. I didn't really believe in this whole oral history thing. Before I started, I still have my criticisms about its, you know, the, the implications of, you know, just hearing stories and calling it history, but I think that there's definitely more to it than I thought. And it's definitely what I would say is a more spiritual, you know, relative of history, maybe even because it does create a different kind of connection that other kinds of histories don't. So thanks again, and I'm gonna cut the recording here. And then maybe afterwards, we can chat about stuff that isn't on a sheet of paper. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 2:17:09 thank you so much. All right.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai