Speaker 1: Welcome to Guys We Fucked Guys We Guys Book. I'm Christina,
Speaker 1: I'm Karrenn. We're sorry about last night the anti slut
Speaker 1: shaming podcast. I never stopped. Hey fucker, Welcome to another
Speaker 1: episode of Guys We It's the anti slut shaming podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Karren, I'm Christina. What's sit in a big gas
Speaker 1: living room? Oh? Yes, Christina's wall has been knocked down.
Speaker 1: When you go to get higher guide to remove the
Speaker 1: fake wall in your living room that separates your bedroom
Speaker 1: in your living room, and then he asked you to
Speaker 1: lift up your mattress so you don't get dust on it.
Speaker 1: And then you lift it up and then you realize, oh,
Speaker 1: the handcuffs that are in each corner of your bed
Speaker 1: are just right there. And you're like, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: say anything. And then he's like I'm not gonna say anything.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, I don't say anything. Shut up. Oh,
Speaker 1: I thought, like, handcuffs aren't that bad. That's like and
Speaker 1: that's a song that was not clean? Did I have
Speaker 1: blood on No? No, it's just like you know that stuff,
Speaker 1: you know secretions, yes, dried and you know it was
Speaker 1: just that part was like it was up. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, I mean I don't care, but I'm
Speaker 1: feel like the type of men who come to do
Speaker 1: like sing and stuff like they don't they don't care. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because part of me was like, did he even see it? No?
Speaker 1: This is saren at it for a while. But I mean,
Speaker 1: if anything could ask me questions, I think he was
Speaker 1: probably like, oh, like, I don't think he was grossed out,
Speaker 1: you know, go home and told my wife what I
Speaker 1: saw it? Yeah, I don't. I just feel like that.
Speaker 1: It's it's like, you know, if you're going into people's
Speaker 1: New York City apartments for a living, you've seen some ships, right.
Speaker 1: One time I saw a pool in someone's living room.
Speaker 1: I mean it was it wasn't just like a thing
Speaker 1: they dropped, but very carefully planned. But they apparently had
Speaker 1: would you use and ship? Oh wow? Yeah, okay, whatever,
Speaker 1: what's fascinating? I like it? Um, I guess sorry, I'm
Speaker 1: holding the microphone with my hand because I realized had
Speaker 1: a look at my calendar. Uh anyway, come see us
Speaker 1: live please, New York City on Friday, January twenty seventh.
Speaker 1: It's the January edition of Nacho Bitches eleven fifteen PM
Speaker 1: at New York Comedy Club use code Nacho for tendall
Speaker 1: our tickets. That's hosted by myself and Blair Saki. And
Speaker 1: then also Boston that weekend after that, the twenty eight
Speaker 1: through Monday the thirty. I'm gonna be in Boston. Wet
Speaker 1: your whistles before we come to do the thing. What come? Oh?
Speaker 1: I was like, what your whistle before we come? I'll
Speaker 1: be at a couple of little bar shows and ship
Speaker 1: come hang out and then also come see us in
Speaker 1: April for the real guys we Fucked experience, also in
Speaker 1: New York City, February Friday eighteen, February eighteenth. What did
Speaker 1: I just say? Did I say that? It just sounded
Speaker 1: like not a word come on in pieces? But it did.
Speaker 1: That's it, I got it. You can understand Christina language.
Speaker 1: Friday February eighteenth at seven thirty pm is my birthday
Speaker 1: edition of Not of Glamour, Puss Nacho Bitch as well.
Speaker 1: Oh can you do that show? I have to check's
Speaker 1: gonna check, but she might be on it. She's available.
Speaker 1: Birthday tradition. Yeah, Zinc party to us Third Tree Coasted
Speaker 1: by myself and Wendy Starling. We got all so far
Speaker 1: all podcast guests were booked Jessica Kerson, Jimmy Fayla, and
Speaker 1: Ryan Reese. Thank god get fun shot right. I'm so
Speaker 1: fucking excited and possibly Corne Fisher. It's very There are
Speaker 1: very few times that I do a show when I
Speaker 1: like everybody else on the show. Yeah, that's my birthday
Speaker 1: present of myself. That's very nut. That's that's gonna be. Guys,
Speaker 1: come to that one. You're gonna be in for a
Speaker 1: treat um and then tour. We leave tomorrow for the
Speaker 1: second leg of our guys we experienced tour Seattle Saturday, January.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be at Parlor Live Comedy Club, San Francisco Sunday,
Speaker 1: January fifteenth. That Cobbs Comedy Club is part of Sketch
Speaker 1: Fest Denver Monday, January sixteenth. At Comedy Work Sportland Wednesday.
Speaker 1: Jane Worr eighteenth that helium uh spoken A Washington. That's right, right,
Speaker 1: is it's cocaine. It's spoken Spana. That that's what I see.
Speaker 1: That's what I was remember, spoken E Washington on Thursday,
Speaker 1: January A lot of talk about pronunciation, not a lot
Speaker 1: of tickets. So true. We really though I'm not doing
Speaker 1: well there, but everyone wants to correct us. So that's
Speaker 1: in that life. Um, Los Angeles, California, Saturday, January one,
Speaker 1: you should march and then you should come to our
Speaker 1: five pm show at the Alleyways part of Right Fest.
Speaker 1: Right geez, that one also needs some Yeah what the fun.
Speaker 1: Everyone's like, time to Los Angeles, and now when we're coming,
Speaker 1: they're like, wait, what can you come after it? Yeah? Please?
Speaker 1: San Diego Sunday, January twenty, We'll be at the American
Speaker 1: Comedy Company. Oh it's company, Yeah, it is Company. On
Speaker 1: Club Boston Thursday April. We're gonna be at the Wilbur Chickapee, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: Friday April fourteenth. At the Hooky Law Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Saturday April fifteenth, We're gonna be at the nine thirty Club.
Speaker 1: That's like really cool. I'm excited. A lot of my
Speaker 1: fewer people live in Washington, d C. Two. Um, awesome, Obama,
Speaker 1: I was thinking of Paul end Gabe. Yeah, those are
Speaker 1: your good friends. Austin, Texas, April the twenty second for
Speaker 1: the Moontower Comedy Festival in Houston, Texas Sunday April at
Speaker 1: Warehouse Live. Come see us. Come, come, come, come. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be a fun fucking show. Oh, it'll be fun.
Speaker 1: Oh ship. I did have a personal story, but we
Speaker 1: can do the hell me, we can do an ad
Speaker 1: and then oh and then, you know, just to keep
Speaker 1: people on their to Oh yeah, I'm not gonna do
Speaker 1: an ad next. Shut up? Have you ever heard of
Speaker 1: Throwing Shade, the critically acclaimed podcast from Funny a Die.
Speaker 1: It's now a new late show on tv Land, hosted
Speaker 1: by a lady and a gay man. Oh man, Oh,
Speaker 1: what kind of fun issue feminasty Aaron Gibson and homo
Speaker 1: sensual Brian Safie Safety Again, I don't know he's homosensual, though.
Speaker 1: Trow and Shade is smart and funny and irreverent, irreverent weekly.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that word means. What is
Speaker 1: ther reverending? It means It's one of those words where
Speaker 1: to define it, I would just say, you know, it
Speaker 1: means a reference. Okay, Well, it's a reverent weekly current
Speaker 1: events comedy talk show. Brian and Aaron look at the
Speaker 1: headlines and politics and pop culture and treat them with
Speaker 1: much less respect than they deserve, just like I treat
Speaker 1: all my partners Entertainment Weekly called Brian and Aaron the
Speaker 1: perfect combination of silly, intelligent, cynical, and charming was that
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. Don't make the ad about you, Christina.
Speaker 1: They're also hilarious and their timing couldn't be better. As
Speaker 1: we begin the President Trump era, thanks for reminding me.
Speaker 1: This is a very large are barking outside my door,
Speaker 1: and I'm afraid for my life. This is the show
Speaker 1: America needs right now. Brian and Aaron don't try to
Speaker 1: make sense of the world. They just make fun of it.
Speaker 1: There's nothing else like it on television. It's an anti
Speaker 1: It's an antidote to the Is it an anecdote, no, no,
Speaker 1: at anecdote is a story. An antidote is like uh uh,
Speaker 1: something that gets rid of something like a wow potion wow,
Speaker 1: learning a lot of new words, ocean to cure something thanks,
Speaker 1: throwing shade to the current. It's an antidote to the
Speaker 1: current insanity and politics and pop culture. It's medicine. Antio
Speaker 1: is a fancy word for medicine. So it's gonna make
Speaker 1: you feel better about how shitty the world is. You
Speaker 1: don't want to miss Brian and Aaron's take on What's
Speaker 1: Happening in the World from Funnier Die It's throwing shade
Speaker 1: while and wildly inappropriate, always funny, occasionally important. Starts Tuesday
Speaker 1: at ten ten thirty nine thirty Central on TV Land.
Speaker 1: Throwing Shade, Shut Up. Oh and also I looked at
Speaker 1: the diction are a definition of a reverence? Uh? Wow?
Speaker 1: That was quick. Well, because anytime I like, I would
Speaker 1: like I can use it to something, you know what
Speaker 1: words mean, but I can't. I couldn't. It's bad that
Speaker 1: I couldn't give you a definition right on the spot.
Speaker 1: So it is. The definition is showing a dumb showing
Speaker 1: a lack of respect for people or things that are
Speaker 1: generally taken seriously. That's like yeah, yeah, So I was like,
Speaker 1: oh like our show sometimes, you know. So that's good. Um, anyway,
Speaker 1: I guess I'll just do this that and then we'll
Speaker 1: get into stories. You know, who cares. I made a
Speaker 1: promise and then I took it back. Welcome to Trump's America. Um,
Speaker 1: you know the background. You know about Lift right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the app that gets you a ride in minutes
Speaker 1: on demand seven for less than the cost of a cab.
Speaker 1: If you've tried Lift, you know what I mean. With lift,
Speaker 1: you just download the app requested driver and they show
Speaker 1: up in three and a half minutes on average. That's
Speaker 1: really fast, really fast. If you're not like how they
Speaker 1: tell us to say, that's really fast, that's really like
Speaker 1: as if some of our listeners don't have a concept
Speaker 1: of time. I guess three minutes is I guess that
Speaker 1: is really fast? Good pulling were so spoiled? Um uh,
Speaker 1: you know you know people always take time very see.
Speaker 1: I thought that was a movie about where DiCaprio gets
Speaker 1: eaten by bears and ship. Irreverend, I don't I know
Speaker 1: what movie you're talking about. I have no idea what
Speaker 1: the title of. I'm about real embarrassed when I looked
Speaker 1: that up. Every lift driver is fully vetted through their
Speaker 1: ten point safety standard, including including criminal and d m
Speaker 1: V background checks. You know you'll get around quickly and safely,
Speaker 1: but you know, still fucking just be aware. Well, make
Speaker 1: sure you're going into the lift with the They gave
Speaker 1: you the license plate number to look out. Make sure
Speaker 1: it's that. That's a great feature, really good point. Always
Speaker 1: you look at that feature. Because I got to say,
Speaker 1: there was one time when I just got into someone's
Speaker 1: car and it was just same here, and it was
Speaker 1: just like I saw, you know, probably some racism involved.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, are you Dominican. Let me just guess,
Speaker 1: because well the picture they show you a picture. No,
Speaker 1: that's not racist. They gave you the picture the guy.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm really trying to make Lemons here. Never
Speaker 1: I had never met him. It was his profile only
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. I just got. Also, we've
Speaker 1: got a remail reasily from a girl who they they
Speaker 1: she got in she didn't check the license plate. Not
Speaker 1: her fault, but she did her raped well I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean by a guy who was posing at No,
Speaker 1: that's not her fault, but you should check the license
Speaker 1: plate exactly, and the and the and the repercussion for
Speaker 1: not checking the license plate should not be rape. It
Speaker 1: should be wouldn't it be nice? It should be Oops, um,
Speaker 1: let me get out of this car. It should be
Speaker 1: wrong car, ma'am. I feel like we should get back
Speaker 1: to this. Every lift driver is fully vetted through their
Speaker 1: ten point safety including criminal n d m B background checks.
Speaker 1: Lift drivers are rated after every Ride's only the best
Speaker 1: stick around. You don't have to worry about getting into
Speaker 1: a filthy car with some creepy dude. And if you
Speaker 1: give them like a lower than something rating, like you
Speaker 1: don't ask you why and you're not matched with that
Speaker 1: person again. Um. So like with Lift, you can tip
Speaker 1: in the app, which obviously leads to happier drivers and
Speaker 1: and a ton Lift drivers get a perfect five star
Speaker 1: reading from the passenger. It's just a better all around experience. Um,
Speaker 1: it's true. Honestly, I use it all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Lift is great, and I do use it more than
Speaker 1: other car services because I was like, well, if I'm
Speaker 1: promoting that, I should use it. Also, we got codes
Speaker 1: for you. Yeah, but it's pretty good, so you should
Speaker 1: do that. Um. And you can get up to three
Speaker 1: free rides of a ten dollar value when you enter
Speaker 1: the code g w f D in the payment section.
Speaker 1: You'll start with the three free rides up to ten
Speaker 1: dollars each, but you can use up to thirty dollars
Speaker 1: and it's promo code g wf I. Also like the
Speaker 1: coveted after you'll start with three free rides of the
Speaker 1: tellers that's up to a thirty dollar value. Right, I
Speaker 1: didn't know. Yeah, they're just you know, they just want
Speaker 1: to let you know lift woman can't do man, just
Speaker 1: kidding left, I'm kidding with you left left left, No,
Speaker 1: but lift and also lift my spirits with this story, Um,
Speaker 1: but with an eye Well no this, No, there's nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with the story I'm going to tell. Basically, I
Speaker 1: forgot what the funk were you calling that guy who
Speaker 1: ghosted me? Well? Do we have a code name for him?
Speaker 1: I meant to look it up before this podcast, but
Speaker 1: that would have been too professional of me. Ghost mcghosters
Speaker 1: like ghost something something like that. I like ghost Mcwhere'd
Speaker 1: you Go? So that will be his new name? So yeah,
Speaker 1: I fucking haven't talked to to ghost Mcwhere'd you Go?
Speaker 1: In like two years because I've been dating James for
Speaker 1: over a year, and then before that I was dating
Speaker 1: someone else and for us a couple of months. So
Speaker 1: before that ghost Mcwhere'd you Go? And I really like
Speaker 1: ghost MC. Where Well, last time we talked about ghost
Speaker 1: Mcwhere'd you Go? On the podcast on not a hell
Speaker 1: of episode. Um, it was after it was fresh off
Speaker 1: the where his name became Mcwhere'd you Go? Because he
Speaker 1: went somewhere We're nowhere? But then where he ended up
Speaker 1: showing up was a holiday party at the comedy club.
Speaker 1: Why do we do? He's here? And then you're like,
Speaker 1: I thought, Isis came in the building, just MC, where'd
Speaker 1: you go? And I was like, that's still a big deal,
Speaker 1: right ye. Your face might not get murder, but your
Speaker 1: heart might. We didn't talk that. We didn't talk there
Speaker 1: at all. And then his girlfriend tried to take a
Speaker 1: picture of us, and we're like, get away from us.
Speaker 1: She knew what she was doing. Don't play with me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we know. For then I remember looking through those They're
Speaker 1: still to gather um for them. No, I'm happy for them. Okay.
Speaker 1: So I hosted the show with Justin Perez fifty one
Speaker 1: worst jokes while you were at the l Hello show.
Speaker 1: Oh do see it? Not inside New York jokes. That's great.
Speaker 1: And so it was weird that he that Justin had
Speaker 1: me and Justin do this every year, and it was
Speaker 1: and you know, it's hard to keep track of how
Speaker 1: many people I'm not talking to in the comedy community.
Speaker 1: So I justin, don't book this person, this person, this person.
Speaker 1: I get it. So it's a long list of men
Speaker 1: and women undecided, you know. So I didn't help Justin
Speaker 1: account able for all the fights that I'm currently in.
Speaker 1: But this person I like, you know, Nick, Where'd you go? Nick?
Speaker 1: Where'd you go? I really liked? And he really liked.
Speaker 1: Hurt hurt my heart so because he acted like he
Speaker 1: won't go and go nowhere, and then he went and
Speaker 1: he went somewhere like where'd you go? Well, and also
Speaker 1: he made he did that thing that we talked about
Speaker 1: where he made me feel like I was crazy for
Speaker 1: the level of feelings. I was like, I don't Facebook,
Speaker 1: gath message for four hours with a fuck buddy every
Speaker 1: day every day for weeks. Yeah, that's more. That's beyond.
Speaker 1: I was losing sleep. I shared my experiences of of
Speaker 1: how sad I was over Robin Williams's suicide, like that,
Speaker 1: don't you don't share that with the buddy. You just
Speaker 1: suck him. That's your buddy. It's a buddy fuck and
Speaker 1: sometimes you dream to talk about the death of Robin
Speaker 1: Williams and how you both feel about it and how Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this so he has he was booked on the
Speaker 1: show and it's fifty one comics, so whatever. Obviously I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna like everyone and you and everyone. That's impossible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I like mostly everyone, So that was great transferred,
Speaker 1: and so he used the books on the show, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, I'm not going to unbook him. I'm
Speaker 1: not a child. Yeah, yeah, I'll just find And I
Speaker 1: saw him and like, you know, you know, I guess
Speaker 1: when you have a comics show with fifty one comics,
Speaker 1: you probably should uh figure out a running order before
Speaker 1: the show. We didn't do that. We just went by,
Speaker 1: who do I see? Well, sometimes that's what happens. So
Speaker 1: we were doing it and I see him there and
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, I purposely want to call him
Speaker 1: like earlier, so he doesn't think I'm like leaving him
Speaker 1: to last out of spite. What do you think that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I would think that if I was on a show
Speaker 1: that that he like booked and he called me last
Speaker 1: out of fifty one comics all right. Yeah, So I
Speaker 1: was like, I want to put him just in the middle,
Speaker 1: so it's like just perfect, you know. And I saw
Speaker 1: him and I and I even announced him myself. I
Speaker 1: didn't say anything snarky, right, I laughed, I looked, I
Speaker 1: looked at him while I was performing and laughed at
Speaker 1: his jokes because they were funny. Um. And then afterwards,
Speaker 1: did you feel did you still have any feelings of
Speaker 1: bitterness or you're just like, dam I don't like that
Speaker 1: I was in the last time you thought about him
Speaker 1: was probably I mean, not bitter, because I'm I am
Speaker 1: so far along into the relationship with James and I
Speaker 1: like and it's like this, he's better for me, and
Speaker 1: I like James more than I would have ever liked
Speaker 1: Mick Ghost Where Mike, Where'd you Go? Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: was a little miffed because Mick Where'd You Go? Looked
Speaker 1: very good, like he had lost weight, so he looked
Speaker 1: even better his uh he had he had a very
Speaker 1: freshly shaved beard, like really perfect. Love that so ship
Speaker 1: I was like, oh god, um. Meanwhile, I was just
Speaker 1: like Paula Pounds don't like on purpose, but still it
Speaker 1: didn't feel sexy. Yeah, when you see a guy, you
Speaker 1: think it's how you dressed like paul Pounds, don't God, damn,
Speaker 1: I don't guess I'll just have to wear my success
Speaker 1: like it's makeup. Um, it's the best a trend of
Speaker 1: them all. Shut up, Christina and so and so he
Speaker 1: came and then so I were said, we're closing up
Speaker 1: the d J booth where me and justin. We're sitting
Speaker 1: after the show and I turned around and he's standing
Speaker 1: there like right in front of me, ready to talk
Speaker 1: and ready to talk. Yeah, And so he just starts
Speaker 1: talking to me like this person has avoided me at shows,
Speaker 1: has blocked me on Twitter. Dodge, You're pretty hard, like gone,
Speaker 1: and I'm pretty hard for someone who didn't give a
Speaker 1: shit about you got out of his way. And sure
Speaker 1: there was that one time when I did a dramatic
Speaker 1: reading of his girlfriend's travel blog that may or may
Speaker 1: not have gotten back to him. Did it, but it
Speaker 1: was I didn't. It was very fun. I gotta say,
Speaker 1: those days where you pissed about MC, where did you go?
Speaker 1: He did some great contest work. So coming so he
Speaker 1: comes out, he just starts talking to me, congratulating me
Speaker 1: on on you know guys we fucked, and he you know,
Speaker 1: asked how you're doing and like and how I'm doing,
Speaker 1: you know, how like I'm doing well, he said, he congratulating.
Speaker 1: But and it was like and it was just one
Speaker 1: of those ones where I was number one, so in
Speaker 1: shock by what this person was doing and because he
Speaker 1: dodged just so hard and I was nice, I was
Speaker 1: totally cold cordially, I wasn't a bitch. I was just like,
Speaker 1: I just had a normal conversation because it's like but
Speaker 1: I was, I was like, and then I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: it's this fucking thing that people do in the early
Speaker 1: part of a year. It just turned two thousands. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to extend in all of branch. Oh is
Speaker 1: that what people do? I really, I just go to
Speaker 1: the gym the only time. Well, now I work with trainer,
Speaker 1: but like I used to just go to the gym
Speaker 1: the first week of January and then never again. Well,
Speaker 1: I feel like I feel like, yeah, people just really
Speaker 1: like this is the second year in a row, and
Speaker 1: you got one last year that we've gotten like an
Speaker 1: apology or some kind of like all of and a
Speaker 1: and some kind of a thing in the new Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: And that was weird because I was like, that person
Speaker 1: wasn't nice to us, right, So it was just I
Speaker 1: just assumed it was all the success that's going on.
Speaker 1: It's better, it's better. It's better to be nice than
Speaker 1: than not nice. Word and if anyone needed to be nice,
Speaker 1: it was him to me, not me to him. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: because he was kind of shitty, like even when I
Speaker 1: called him, when I just basically said like, I'm really
Speaker 1: hurt and I don't this chanics came out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: He was like he kind of just brushed it off, like, well,
Speaker 1: our relationship was never anything and it was never meant
Speaker 1: to be serious. But I talk to you about Robin
Speaker 1: Williams suicide, right, And I was like, well, are you
Speaker 1: hitting me up constantly and like going on real dates
Speaker 1: not just not like it was not just sucking. There
Speaker 1: was cuddling, There was TV watch. There's a whole lot
Speaker 1: of like dating but not dating kind of thing that
Speaker 1: I don't need to put up with. If I don't
Speaker 1: need to go play fucking video games with you, if
Speaker 1: we're just gonna fuck like at an arcade, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't just do that. We can play them in
Speaker 1: you really like to spend time with someone, If you're
Speaker 1: doing that, I don't know. So that was just I
Speaker 1: thought that was yeah, I guess people. I never realized
Speaker 1: that theory of like people being nicer to others because
Speaker 1: of the because the New year, but said, this makes
Speaker 1: sense because the other person you pointed out. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god. Yeah. And it was weird because James
Speaker 1: was at this show too, and then I just like
Speaker 1: and I tried, and then no, because James was another
Speaker 1: miss sucking drinking? Were you kind of pissed? I was
Speaker 1: trying to run out so that James, look what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: so that Ghostie mcgogno. I wanted to make go ste
Speaker 1: mcg you can be like, oh Hi, this is my
Speaker 1: boyfriend and he's utest. Yeah, but James was sucking trying
Speaker 1: to get a beer. Yeah, and god damn it, James,
Speaker 1: and I was like, James, You're never here. What I
Speaker 1: need you to make other people that I just in
Speaker 1: times of emotional turmoil that I don't care about any more,
Speaker 1: feel jealous. That's what you're here for. God damn it.
Speaker 1: I remember when the first time I went somewhere, I
Speaker 1: actually went to his parents house, like very early on
Speaker 1: in dating Steve, and I think this is before we
Speaker 1: called each other boyfriend girlfriend. But I really wanted to
Speaker 1: seal the deal and I was trying to feed out
Speaker 1: strategies to do so, and wow, correctly talking about it,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it was very well because he had to
Speaker 1: do a video shoot where his parents live, so he's like,
Speaker 1: do you want to come home? And I mean you
Speaker 1: of me, my parents, but it's on for though. I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, but uh, I remember we were at
Speaker 1: this bar looking for this old guy who danced called
Speaker 1: Crazy Legs that he wanted to documentary about. I oddly
Speaker 1: remember that it was its fascinating story. It's even such
Speaker 1: a good like documentari. Um, you guys should hire him
Speaker 1: if you're listening. Um, But uh, I remember we're at
Speaker 1: this bar, this like Bowling Alley bar thing and Redding,
Speaker 1: Bensylvania or something, and uh and this guy. I was
Speaker 1: sitting in a booth and this guy came up next
Speaker 1: to me and he put his arm around me. But
Speaker 1: my first reaction was where Stephen has he seen this ship?
Speaker 1: He's got to claim me? And then he didn't see it,
Speaker 1: and I was like where the fund did he go?
Speaker 1: And I couldn't get up, but I wasn't gonna. I
Speaker 1: don't want to leave. I don't want to leave because
Speaker 1: then the guy be like okay. I wanted him to
Speaker 1: keep his arm around me just in time for Stephen
Speaker 1: to see it, and then he did and then Stephen went, hey,
Speaker 1: that's my girlfriend. And I was like, I am nailed it.
Speaker 1: Creepiest dude that guy, but worth it. Get your hands
Speaker 1: off my girlfriend. Um, all right, read some e mails
Speaker 1: now subject trigger warning dislike? Uh that nothing. Nothing makes
Speaker 1: me get up early in the morning with a really
Speaker 1: just sunny disposition more than emails from unhappy listeners. I
Speaker 1: like them. Hello, ladies, I am no, I mean it
Speaker 1: was my I wanted that. I wanted to read it. Hello, ladies.
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of the podcast. I think you
Speaker 1: galls doing amazing job at kicking slut shaming right in
Speaker 1: the balls. I've been listening for a while and I've
Speaker 1: noticed you both seem to have a real dislike for
Speaker 1: trigger warnings. Uh, and with the word triggered itself. And
Speaker 1: I am really curious as to why. I am a
Speaker 1: social worker currently working as a therapist for victims of
Speaker 1: sexual violence, and so often I see people invalidating the
Speaker 1: experiences of survivors because the survivors are triggered, which is
Speaker 1: an actual clinical term, not just something a special snowflake
Speaker 1: made up one day. Uh. There's a huge stigma against
Speaker 1: this concept, as well as against trigger warnings themselves, which
Speaker 1: do exist in the real world. Every disclaimer at the
Speaker 1: beginning of every police procedural is a trigger warning movie
Speaker 1: ratings or trigger warnings required by law. But that's most Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's also mostly for children. Not it's triggering. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a trigger warning is nothing more than a quick he
Speaker 1: the subject might be in the thing you're about to
Speaker 1: watch listen to, and it does exist in quite a
Speaker 1: few places. I can understand why anti feminists mock trigger
Speaker 1: warnings and the concept of triggering. It's another way to
Speaker 1: invalidate victims of sexual violence, who are statistically women, for
Speaker 1: presenting the concept of being triggered or trigger warnings as
Speaker 1: ludicrous as part of rape culture. It's saying to victims
Speaker 1: that their feelings don't matter and probably aren't even real
Speaker 1: I see this every single day in my office, and
Speaker 1: I gotta say I was a little disappointed to hear
Speaker 1: two women I think are total badasses reinforcing the idea
Speaker 1: that the word triggered is kind of dumb, or that
Speaker 1: trigger warnings sense or art. I don't think either one
Speaker 1: of you expresses these thoughts to be malicious or to
Speaker 1: strengthen rape culture. I mean, obviously not many of my
Speaker 1: clients have similar views on the subject. That's the insidious
Speaker 1: nature of rape call sure, it very subtly makes damaging ideas,
Speaker 1: i e. Trigger warnings or censorship. The word triggered isn't real,
Speaker 1: let alone the experience of being triggered normal, and no
Speaker 1: one is immune to it, including me. I had to
Speaker 1: really look at my own beliefs when I started practicing,
Speaker 1: and I think it's so important for everyone to question
Speaker 1: their beliefs and where those beliefs came from. Maybe I'll
Speaker 1: find you feel the same about the subject, and that's okay.
Speaker 1: It's just important to take that first step and critically
Speaker 1: think about why you believe something. Though I am slightly
Speaker 1: disappointed to hear echoes of rape culture in my feminist podcast,
Speaker 1: maybe it's a comedy podcast. It's understandable given the society
Speaker 1: we live in. I think, overall, you both do incredible
Speaker 1: and important work, and I look forward to seeing you
Speaker 1: live in Seattle. Um. Yeah, I like this email. Yeah No,
Speaker 1: I like it too, and I like I like to
Speaker 1: bring up things, and I like to read emails that
Speaker 1: disagree with things that we've said on the podcast, just
Speaker 1: so that people don't think we're only reading complimentary right, right, right,
Speaker 1: Although there was a hell about this episode, we just
Speaker 1: read critiques that I gotta say, it's pretty fun. Oh
Speaker 1: my god. Yeah, yeah, and I and I think it's
Speaker 1: interesting to have a conversation. And I certainly, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not I don't think triggered. Being triggered is not
Speaker 1: a real thing. We were just talking earlier. There was
Speaker 1: a long time when literally, like the word like saying
Speaker 1: the name Frank, even if it wasn't my Frank, like
Speaker 1: would seriously saying I frankly think yeah, it would really
Speaker 1: bother me to the point where I almost bothered me.
Speaker 1: But I just but obviously that is way different and
Speaker 1: less important than my rape experience. Yeah, but it's the
Speaker 1: same thing. And I feel like I just fucking got
Speaker 1: through it. And the reason that we don't use trigger
Speaker 1: warnings is, like we've kind of discussed this before, is
Speaker 1: not because we don't have empathy for victims of sexual
Speaker 1: assault by any means. I mean, that's one of the
Speaker 1: primary things we've been doing, especially in the past, Like
Speaker 1: you know, I would say six months to a year,
Speaker 1: like that's been something that's really really I feel very
Speaker 1: close to that cause first, um, it's just that we
Speaker 1: take it from a different approach where we want our
Speaker 1: listeners to go out into the world being an army
Speaker 1: of fucking strong, invincible women and men. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean mostly women is but yeah, invincible people absolutely who
Speaker 1: no matter what they're doing, if they're out watching a
Speaker 1: comedy show, if they're seeing a play, if they're watching
Speaker 1: a movie, and something comes up that triggers a terrible experience,
Speaker 1: a traumatic experience, a hurtful, painful, physical, emotional, sexual experience
Speaker 1: that they want had that not that they don't feel
Speaker 1: the feelings, but that they know how to deal with
Speaker 1: the feelings in the moment. Absolutely, I agree, because I
Speaker 1: have certainly been triggered before. I've been triggered in the
Speaker 1: middle of a movie or so during someone's stand up set.
Speaker 1: It was a little bit ago. I remember they're talking
Speaker 1: about suicide, and I know, you know, with my mom
Speaker 1: and people that I know that I've I had to
Speaker 1: commit it and stuff. I started having a panic attack,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I guess I gotta go, I
Speaker 1: gotta go. But I wasn't you know, You've said this
Speaker 1: a lot, Karin, of you don't want to. Giving a
Speaker 1: warning about something is almost like assuming that a person
Speaker 1: can't handle it. But even if a person is triggered
Speaker 1: and goes into a panic attack, like a lot of
Speaker 1: people have been for for things like sexual assault or
Speaker 1: just a traumatic experience. That's you know, it doesn't it doesn't.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that that's not happening or that doesn't exist,
Speaker 1: or that's important how you feel. But I think learning
Speaker 1: to deal with it because we're very you and I
Speaker 1: are very anti coddling, and and there have been things
Speaker 1: that we've talked about on the podcast. I forget exactly
Speaker 1: what they were, but we've almost been like, alright, just
Speaker 1: heads up, we're gonna talk about something real dark, Like
Speaker 1: that one email that we didn't even read. We just
Speaker 1: summarized from the woman who was gang raped by her
Speaker 1: father at age ten and her father's friends and escaped
Speaker 1: to a Kroger. Like that was even summarizing it. I
Speaker 1: had a our time. Uh. But then the woman who
Speaker 1: wrote us that email emailed us back after we talked
Speaker 1: about and she's like, guys, I'm okay, Like you didn't
Speaker 1: you know, I'm fine, you don't have to. Well, it's
Speaker 1: more like mentally preparing ourselves to read the emails, giving
Speaker 1: ourselves a pep talk to read. Yeah, And I mean
Speaker 1: you know that's and you know sure, I'm sure we've
Speaker 1: become a little bit jaded two things, because I mean
Speaker 1: when you do, yeah, post a podcast where you get
Speaker 1: a feedback hundred emails a week about people about sexual
Speaker 1: assault and molestation and just read the most horrific, terrible things.
Speaker 1: But it's and it's not that we don't. We care
Speaker 1: just as much as we always did, probably more, honestly,
Speaker 1: way more, because now I know it's happening so often. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. It's just a real thing that so
Speaker 1: many people have shared, and I think, well, it's to
Speaker 1: the point where we a comedian made a rape joke
Speaker 1: on Facebook and you and I both were like, dude, no, yeah, no, man,
Speaker 1: come on, And that was one of our better than that,
Speaker 1: it's one of our really good friends. Um, and it's
Speaker 1: just it's but it was a rape joke about a
Speaker 1: specific person instance. And that was the problem because you know,
Speaker 1: this is going back to last week when we were
Speaker 1: telling a comedian that, yeah, rape jokes happen. And I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, and I've been offended by jokes, Like I
Speaker 1: don't want to feel like some people think that we
Speaker 1: don't get offended by anything. I don't get offended by
Speaker 1: a lot, but I certainly get offended by some things.
Speaker 1: When I do get offended, I go, why was I offended?
Speaker 1: Let me see blah blah blah, And I just do
Speaker 1: some internal dialogue and then I move on. And it's
Speaker 1: not comics choice to do that. I also just feel
Speaker 1: like sometimes a trigger warning is going to make someone
Speaker 1: turn something off that they actually can handle. Yes, And
Speaker 1: actually this is such a weird random memory that just
Speaker 1: popped up in my head, but I remember this very clearly.
Speaker 1: In fourth grade, we had to write down our weight.
Speaker 1: I don't know why. It was like part of an
Speaker 1: info sheet, but it was some project or some some
Speaker 1: something creative, and I remember we had to write down
Speaker 1: our weight and I waited in fourth grade seventy six
Speaker 1: pounds wherever the that meant. But I remember seeing people
Speaker 1: before that point in my life that would get upset
Speaker 1: about their weight or didn't want to talk to people
Speaker 1: about their weight, or didn't want to disclose it, or
Speaker 1: women don't say how much they weigh, or so thing
Speaker 1: like that. Like that idea was presented to me before
Speaker 1: this exercise in fourth grade, and I remember covering the
Speaker 1: seventy six on my paper and my teacher, Miss Nefflin,
Speaker 1: shut up. I really loved her. It was like, Christina,
Speaker 1: why are you covering it? And then I started to
Speaker 1: cry and I'm like, because I don't want anybody to know.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't sad about it. I had I had
Speaker 1: been taught through example that people get upset over that,
Speaker 1: so I should get upset over that. And I know
Speaker 1: that's I was a kid, so that's a lot different.
Speaker 1: But I feel like, I don't know. I feel like
Speaker 1: people do a lot of times get swept away, myself included,
Speaker 1: even as an adult, of feeling this way as a
Speaker 1: reaction because that's what I've been told to how to react,
Speaker 1: and just as special, especially with sexual assault in particular,
Speaker 1: I feel like there's already such a stigma and a
Speaker 1: shame surrounding it, and like, don't talk about that. That
Speaker 1: a trigger warning is just is just even saying reinforcing
Speaker 1: that fact that hey, we're about to talk about something
Speaker 1: really bad. Well, it's to the point where so many
Speaker 1: people of email is going I was raped, and I'm
Speaker 1: kind of fine, is that weird? Like, no, it's not weird.
Speaker 1: I think the reason why they're asking if it's weird
Speaker 1: feeds into that a little bit. But like, obviously, if
Speaker 1: you're speaking to somebody who had just went through something
Speaker 1: extremely traumatizing, like us, we're talking into a microphone. I
Speaker 1: don't know who's listening. We get feedback from audience, from
Speaker 1: listeners and stuff, but I don't when we talk into
Speaker 1: the mic. I'm only looking at Karn and thinking of
Speaker 1: me on my couch talking to Karren, Like I'm not
Speaker 1: thinking of uh, any specific person that might be listening
Speaker 1: that would be upset about it a lot of the time.
Speaker 1: So I think that that's another thing to the reason
Speaker 1: why we kind of say, like, look, we're not gonna
Speaker 1: give warnings like this, yeah, just trigger warning every episode
Speaker 1: of Guys we fund it's gonna have the unexpected elements
Speaker 1: in them, and then just going for if if trigger warning,
Speaker 1: this show is gonna blow your momm trigger um. But
Speaker 1: and it's also like, you know, most times trigger warnings
Speaker 1: are about sexual assault, but there are other things. So
Speaker 1: it's like every one has something that's going to trigger them,
Speaker 1: probably whether it be you know, murder we've had, whether
Speaker 1: it be oh my god, that was crazy. Someone was like,
Speaker 1: I wish you would have given me a warning about
Speaker 1: some story, random story we talked about because the girl
Speaker 1: was like because my dad was blue rude or my
Speaker 1: mom shot herself, and uh that she described a lot
Speaker 1: of things that I don't even want. I'm not even
Speaker 1: gonna say, but you know, I was like, good god,
Speaker 1: I had no idea when we talked about that that
Speaker 1: I wasn't even thinking of that. Sure, and so you
Speaker 1: never know what's gonna pop up. And it's like, I mean,
Speaker 1: if we're gonna be like that, you know, I'm sure
Speaker 1: someone was drowned in a jar of you know, of
Speaker 1: pickle juice one time. So it's like we need to
Speaker 1: do a trigger warning when talking about pickles. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: not the majority. That's not the majority of the trigger
Speaker 1: warning is that people want or not from pickles. But
Speaker 1: it's like we all have that thing that just makes
Speaker 1: us feel frozen when we hear it or when we
Speaker 1: see something about it on TV. And it is just
Speaker 1: our school of thought that we can get past it
Speaker 1: if we conquered it, like face it head on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it. Yeah, you can disagree. And I went through
Speaker 1: something traumatic and now I could certifiably say that because
Speaker 1: when I went to therapy a long time ago, like
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, and they do an intake
Speaker 1: appointment and then they place you with somebody. At the
Speaker 1: end of my first session, as I was like in tears,
Speaker 1: the rapist goes, oh, that's why they placed you in
Speaker 1: the trauma unit. I'm like, wait, what because you were
Speaker 1: crying what I had been? Yeah? Well, because of yeah,
Speaker 1: the the intake, the first initial meeting, they placed me
Speaker 1: with a trauma specialist and I didn't even know what
Speaker 1: I went through was trauma. But looking back, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. But you know, so this next subject, guys,
Speaker 1: you fuck to fish all right, Hi, I'm a forty
Speaker 1: four year old man who listens to your show. One
Speaker 1: of the things I take away is you ladies sometimes
Speaker 1: break galcode and reveal things that most women leave unset
Speaker 1: about being female in the presence of males. Being a
Speaker 1: single parent with almost full time custody of my son's
Speaker 1: I have these five to eight minute breaks in where
Speaker 1: they don't toe in my attention. I use this time
Speaker 1: to amuse myself by commenting online on political news stories
Speaker 1: in the local main paper. Sounds exciting. According to other
Speaker 1: people who disagree with my posted opinions, I am a
Speaker 1: liptard snowflake. Cry baby cook who needs a safe place. Generally,
Speaker 1: the people who write these things have profile pictures of
Speaker 1: themselves with big fishes that I assume they caught themselves.
Speaker 1: Being a musician, I know that holding a guitar can
Speaker 1: be an asset in my game. So I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: you could break gale code and let me know if
Speaker 1: some women get turned on by dudes who can catch
Speaker 1: large fish? Is it a primal thing where she is
Speaker 1: looking for a provider in the wilderness. Does the size
Speaker 1: of the fish count? Generally, most guys do what they
Speaker 1: do in order to get laid. There must be some
Speaker 1: kind of reward to catching and being photographed with a fish.
Speaker 1: Could you enlighten me? Thank you very much. I love
Speaker 1: this email. Absolutely, I am. I don't get my vagina
Speaker 1: does not become sat arrated when I see a profile
Speaker 1: picture of a man with a big fish. Gotta be real.
Speaker 1: But uh, but I know some people do. I lived
Speaker 1: in the South for ten years. A lot of people
Speaker 1: it's profile pictures I'm sure would have been if we
Speaker 1: had Facebook at the time with a deer they just shot,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, yeah, it's hunting was huge because they
Speaker 1: actually gave incentives to hunters because there was an overpopulation deer.
Speaker 1: But anyway people would I mean, God, you see pictures
Speaker 1: with people of the animals they've killed all the time,
Speaker 1: and that's maybe I don't I'm against killing, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I eat chicken, so funck me, But uh,
Speaker 1: killing deer and then showing a picture of it, it
Speaker 1: weirds me out. But I know that there's people that
Speaker 1: get turned on by the provider aspect of a guy
Speaker 1: with a big fish. Yeah, or just like that you
Speaker 1: that you're doing something like athletic or outdoorsy, like that's
Speaker 1: what one thing I really love about James. He's very outdoorsy.
Speaker 1: He can fix cars, he can hang shelves, like that's
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that I like because I need
Speaker 1: someone I can do all the other ship. I need
Speaker 1: help with any of at that's cool to me because
Speaker 1: I need someone almost like different skills of the time.
Speaker 1: I need like a cartoonishly mannish person because I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm such a tomboy already, so I can handle
Speaker 1: anything like business, money, all that ship. I got the handle.
Speaker 1: You can't help me with that, like defending myself, but
Speaker 1: like I can't. I do not know how to change
Speaker 1: the oil in the car, and I would like and
Speaker 1: that you really need to know that simple. You just
Speaker 1: gotta get a paper towel. Oh, I know my mother
Speaker 1: can do it. Yeah, my mother can do all that.
Speaker 1: I love learning that stuff. But yeah, I I when
Speaker 1: I see a profile picture, I mean, when I see
Speaker 1: a profile picture of a man with a fish, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of things that go across my head, and uh,
Speaker 1: I want to fuck you is not one of them.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean because they're usually wearing sunglasses and then
Speaker 1: we're in those overalls that you weighed in, and I
Speaker 1: just can't tell anything about your personality because I know.
Speaker 1: I used to crab in the Chestpeake Bay all goddamn day.
Speaker 1: And that's why I didn't need crabs for most of
Speaker 1: my life, because I fucking cramped way too much. I
Speaker 1: barfed and they were awful. But uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: did that kind of ship and I would go fishing
Speaker 1: all the time. I fucking loved it. It's really fun.
Speaker 1: I'm not turned on by it, but I know that there.
Speaker 1: I know there are women who love guys who hunt,
Speaker 1: and are you know camouflage in his profile that's because
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh that that's cool. That means he goes
Speaker 1: out and does things. He has on trips, he like
Speaker 1: he had, He's been on a boat, concerned about living
Speaker 1: his best life at least a little bit. Hunting disgusts
Speaker 1: me though, But you know, I just can't. But I
Speaker 1: guess it's like the same thing. You kill a fish,
Speaker 1: he killed deer. Is it different? I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: for you, Nietzsche, I think I mean, we'll fish. Do
Speaker 1: you have like smaller like capacity for for feeling and
Speaker 1: stuff like that octopuses? However, pie very signs very very intelligent.
Speaker 1: But Calmari is so good. Okay, I ha hate kill Mari. Alright, Um,
Speaker 1: that's all so yeah, people like girls definitely, I know
Speaker 1: girls who would bang a guy or be attracted of
Speaker 1: to a profile picture such as that. But yeah, the
Speaker 1: fish should be like if a small fish. I was
Speaker 1: just we're just guys. Do everything get laid? Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: just lay lay lamy lamy lamy. Bill couches won't. So
Speaker 1: this week's guest really interesting. Very excited to bring this
Speaker 1: person on. Um. This person is an American author, a playwright,
Speaker 1: a performance artist at Gender Theorist UH and was assigned
Speaker 1: mail at birth and received gender confirmation surgery in really
Speaker 1: ahead of day. In there, ladies and gentlemen, and people
Speaker 1: who haven't decided yet or people who don't need to
Speaker 1: be uh in a box in a box genital gender. Uh.
Speaker 1: Please give a warm welcome to Kate Baranteen. I've leaving
Speaker 1: shadows upon the wall. They all true. I think we
Speaker 1: should sing in that song. Boys, I think we should
Speaker 1: change to the times come or do listen and telling
Speaker 1: stories to the moon. I feel unified when we are dividing,
Speaker 1: and I feel strong and I am wrong because I'm
Speaker 1: a man. Okay, So we're here with Kate Ford. Stein.
Speaker 1: Is that a pronunciation I was going to say? I
Speaker 1: was like, it's always Stein or Stein? What do you say?
Speaker 1: I say both? My My father was insistent on Stein.
Speaker 1: My big brother was insistent on Stein. Is there reasons
Speaker 1: for the choices? Like, I'm I think Stein is more
Speaker 1: the family name. That's how my father grew up. And
Speaker 1: Steen was more gentrified. Okay, les Jewish according to my brother, right,
Speaker 1: he was your brother trying to be less Jewish or
Speaker 1: wanted to be more Jewish. Yeah, yeah, it's one both
Speaker 1: a little so you know, I am a convenient jew.
Speaker 1: Sometimes a jew it up, sometimes a jew it down,
Speaker 1: you know, just whatever you want to do. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: a Jew boo yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, Jewish Buddhist. Oh.
Speaker 1: I love that. The nice our friend and comedian naomiic
Speaker 1: Paragon always has jokes about her fiance now or yeah,
Speaker 1: her fiance. She calls her jew bu right, and it's
Speaker 1: so cute. I love that word. So be worried with
Speaker 1: the mic son. You were talking about how we can
Speaker 1: ask you any type of types of questions except for
Speaker 1: mean ones. Yeah, and you don't strike me as mean,
Speaker 1: but mean is where I draw a line with people.
Speaker 1: I don't hang out with mean people. Um. I don't
Speaker 1: attack them back, but I just don't hang out with them.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, so yeah, so I can I can only
Speaker 1: imagine what your experiences with mean people have been over
Speaker 1: the years. Um, And I was kind of I was
Speaker 1: I was reading, now you've got gender confirmation surgery in
Speaker 1: what a politically correct term? Well, I know, because I
Speaker 1: was like, I know that some people call it gender reassignment.
Speaker 1: But then we were just talking about here's the difference. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how it was the same, Yeah, how it's this technically
Speaker 1: the same? You know process, but obviously confirmation were like, oh,
Speaker 1: that just sounds a lot better. It feels more accurate
Speaker 1: to what's happening instead of reassigning. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: what meaning does that have to you? What I went?
Speaker 1: I had my surgery in nineteen eighty six. It was
Speaker 1: and um, back then, everybody called it a sex change,
Speaker 1: and the political forward thinkers called it sex reassignment surgery SRS,
Speaker 1: which appears on um all air bags and cars, which
Speaker 1: is kind of fun now you oh s RS, we laugh,
Speaker 1: but I don't really call we you know, just call
Speaker 1: it the surgery, right, And what kind of things did you, uh,
Speaker 1: when did you realize that that's something that you wanted
Speaker 1: to do? Oh? And what kind of what kind of
Speaker 1: obstacles were you up against? Because with now, with the
Speaker 1: with trans issues and stuff, it's it's it's really exciting
Speaker 1: to see people paying attention to those issues. But I
Speaker 1: can't imagine the climate of that back then, and even
Speaker 1: at a time where people are like homosexuality is a sin,
Speaker 1: even though let's still gets said, which is crazy to me,
Speaker 1: But it's like, I mean, it just seems like it
Speaker 1: would it was way worse then it was certainly not
Speaker 1: spoken about. There was no one to go to and say, hey,
Speaker 1: what do I do with this feeling that I'm not
Speaker 1: a boy. And that was the first feeling. It's not
Speaker 1: that I'm a girl. I didn't know much, but I
Speaker 1: didn't know what a girl is. Um, but I knew
Speaker 1: I wasn't a boy, and there was only one choice.
Speaker 1: If you weren't a boy, well then you had to
Speaker 1: be a girl. So I went on that proposition. And um,
Speaker 1: that wasn't like kindergarten. You know, you line up with
Speaker 1: the girls of the boys. I knew I wasn't over
Speaker 1: with the boys, and so I loaned up with the girls.
Speaker 1: Teacher said, don't no, dear. Actually yeah, they looked like
Speaker 1: they were having more fun, and more importantly, they weren't
Speaker 1: mean to each other. At that point, I may, no,
Speaker 1: girls can be mean. But now high school, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And it was until high school that I heard about
Speaker 1: the possibility of surgery because I grew up knowing, finally
Speaker 1: knowing that it was all about your genitals. It was
Speaker 1: all about you know, cocks and cunts, and uh, that
Speaker 1: was it. And so that's the school I grew up in.
Speaker 1: And because my father was a medical doctor. I listened
Speaker 1: to doctors. I was very obedient. And Um, when I
Speaker 1: was oh golly, eighth grade, eighth grade or seventh grade,
Speaker 1: I saw a copy of the National Enquirer u x
Speaker 1: GI becomes Blonde, bombshell, and it was a story about
Speaker 1: Christine Jorgensen. Oh my god, pay my dime, that's how
Speaker 1: much it cost in those days. And bought the paper,
Speaker 1: hit it and read it for a week and then
Speaker 1: I burned well, ripped it up and threw it away
Speaker 1: someplace where my parents could and find it. And that's
Speaker 1: when I started looking in the mirror, going maybe that
Speaker 1: could change, Maybe that could change, and wanting to see
Speaker 1: myself in the image of a in the image of
Speaker 1: a naked CIS woman. That's what became my goal. And
Speaker 1: in those days, the procedure for sex change, the procedure
Speaker 1: for s r S or whatever, gender confirmation surgery, gender
Speaker 1: reassignment surgery, whatever you want to call it, the procedure
Speaker 1: was a cattle shoot. You had to do this, this, this,
Speaker 1: and this, and then you went to surgery and then
Speaker 1: all your papers were changed and you were done. Um.
Speaker 1: The only other, the only other possibility for me was
Speaker 1: drag queen and I always have loved to drag queens,
Speaker 1: but I just thought I wasn't cute enough for that. Really,
Speaker 1: really really, I thought, oh, they are so beautiful and
Speaker 1: I would be so fucking ugly, so really and uh
Speaker 1: and so I did that, and six months later I
Speaker 1: didn't regret it. But after the surgery, yeah yeah, and
Speaker 1: thank you for calling it the surgery. That's cool. Uh.
Speaker 1: Six months after the surgery, I was hanging out in
Speaker 1: gay A, a gay alcoholics and is there a special
Speaker 1: gay one? It was then the gay and lesbian meetings. Yeah, sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: so oh that's interesting, sounds way more fun. Oh it was.
Speaker 1: It was a bunch of sad facts of ship. But
Speaker 1: gay A sounds great, Yes, indeedy. But that's where I
Speaker 1: started meeting really cool, smart lesbians and dikes, two totally
Speaker 1: different identities, and they started questioning me. I came out
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia. Five years before my coming out, there was
Speaker 1: a trans woman who came out and immediately tried to
Speaker 1: take over the Philadelphia lesbian seen. So people were glaring
Speaker 1: at me and I'm going, what what what what? And
Speaker 1: they were questioning mail, privilege, mail energy, How could you
Speaker 1: be a woman, you weren't socialized like we were going alright, alright,
Speaker 1: I'm listening, it's it's your identity, and all right, let
Speaker 1: me think about this one. And that combined with the
Speaker 1: realization that as much as I had spent thirty years
Speaker 1: of my life pretending to be a boy and a man,
Speaker 1: here I was pretending to be a girl and a woman.
Speaker 1: And I went, you know, just just neither of these work.
Speaker 1: And that's when I went into neither nor, which was
Speaker 1: a huge, huge step back that no one was talking
Speaker 1: about not right, and well, lots of people were, frankly,
Speaker 1: but not to each other. They were thinking it. But
Speaker 1: the internal that's interesting that that those criticisms, criticisms towards
Speaker 1: you from women about you didn't you weren't You didn't
Speaker 1: go through what I went through, but you went through
Speaker 1: not feeling uh like the body the boxing were put
Speaker 1: in when you were born. Made sense totally different thing.
Speaker 1: I grew up in the fifties and socialization was extremely
Speaker 1: tightly gendered. Boys were socialized with a sense of entitlement,
Speaker 1: there was no getting around it, you're and girls were
Speaker 1: socialized with a sense of domestic how So, because I
Speaker 1: I see that and every time I kind of have
Speaker 1: that theory. I pitched the theory to somebody that I'm
Speaker 1: having an argument with their like, all right, wow, and
Speaker 1: they just think I'm being some hoity toity liberal. But
Speaker 1: but in what ways did you witness that boys were
Speaker 1: socialized to feel entitled? Like what one of the first
Speaker 1: things I was told is that I had the possibility
Speaker 1: to be president of the United States? You know that
Speaker 1: I was a Jew. Of course didn't enter the equation, right,
Speaker 1: you know, but um, there was no question of my
Speaker 1: ability to go to college, my ability to become a doctor, uh,
Speaker 1: my ability to rise through the ranks and be a success, uh, independently,
Speaker 1: independent of a relationship. And girls growing up in that age, No, no, no,
Speaker 1: no great movie Mona Lisa's Smile. Okay, okay, uh oh,
Speaker 1: it's not a great movie. It's it's a lovely Julia
Speaker 1: Roberts movie. And um, she's teaching art appreciation. I think
Speaker 1: it's smith And in the sixties. And in the sixties,
Speaker 1: women going to college were there in order to find
Speaker 1: a husband. Yeah, that was it. And it just started
Speaker 1: to change with the advent of feminist thought. That was new,
Speaker 1: that was totally new in the sixties it wasn't new.
Speaker 1: There's always been ah women who have been fighting for
Speaker 1: women's right, for the right, Yeah, there's always been. But
Speaker 1: the nuance of feminist thought really hit big in the
Speaker 1: sixties and people were calling feminists brob burners because women
Speaker 1: did outside the on the boardwalk, outside of the Miss
Speaker 1: America contest, whole bunch of women. The documentary She's Beautiful Once,
Speaker 1: He's angry about the feminist movement in the sixth season
Speaker 1: and how seeing the women what they were asking for,
Speaker 1: it's just a quality they didn't want to be to exist,
Speaker 1: to get a husband, and everyone's like, whoa calm down, lady,
Speaker 1: And it's like the fact that somebody could have that
Speaker 1: reaction to a thought that it's not radical, it makes
Speaker 1: you feel crazy, It makes there's there's so many instances
Speaker 1: with me personally with feminism and talking to people about it,
Speaker 1: where people's reactions are much stronger to a thought that
Speaker 1: I'm like, but that's just I don't want to maybe
Speaker 1: I don't want to have kids or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: and they're like, are you serious. So that that documentary
Speaker 1: really portrayed the the audacity of these women of Glorious
Speaker 1: Steinham and on all these people and Angela, it's like
Speaker 1: it's it's It was so interesting to to look at that,
Speaker 1: and then us doing a podcast called Guys We Fucked.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I couldn't imagine letters we would get mailed.
Speaker 1: So it's no, no, no, no, no no impossible. Um, you'd
Speaker 1: be at the stake. UM. My mother, as soon as
Speaker 1: I was able to go to school, like first grade,
Speaker 1: UM started going to school herself, got a degree in
Speaker 1: elementary education, and within three years she was teaching first grade.
Speaker 1: This was unheard up. She was a doctor's wife, and
Speaker 1: so my mother modeled strong independent woman for me. So
Speaker 1: I had that going for me. I knew I was.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be. I didn't want to be
Speaker 1: a woman to hang on the coattails of a wife. UM.
Speaker 1: And I understood that I expected a lot more out
Speaker 1: of life than the women my age that I was
Speaker 1: hanging out with. And I went, oh, okay, So now
Speaker 1: I have to question what I expect. And that was
Speaker 1: a process of two three years divesting myself, and I
Speaker 1: don't think I have it anymore because you, frankly, when
Speaker 1: you're a training you divest yourself of most expectations. In
Speaker 1: the real world, on the internet. You get a bumper
Speaker 1: sticker right there. So I mean, what what what were
Speaker 1: your parents reactions? So they seem to be a little
Speaker 1: bit forward thinking, but what were their reaction to your
Speaker 1: to the surgery. Oh, I didn't come out until my
Speaker 1: father died. There's a Jewish tradition if your child is
Speaker 1: extremely disobedient, you turn your back on your child, you
Speaker 1: rend your clothing, and you say I have no child.
Speaker 1: My father told me that's what he would do in
Speaker 1: the case I did something really be really bad. He
Speaker 1: told me this over and over. His idea of bad
Speaker 1: at the time when he was talking to you, like
Speaker 1: if I get you with cocaine, or like yeah, we're
Speaker 1: sexuality and gender ever discussed in the house, Like if
Speaker 1: you if you came out, I mean, I'm sure it
Speaker 1: would be more gay. My father was homophobic, clearly, clearly
Speaker 1: and vocally homophobic. There was no trans except Christine Jordansen.
Speaker 1: Then trans wasn't The word transsexual was a diagnosis at
Speaker 1: the time, really like a like a mental disorder diagnosis. Yes,
Speaker 1: oh yes, um, And calling ourselves transsexual in those days
Speaker 1: was a reclamation of a medical term and we just
Speaker 1: bragged about it. Um. But I would. I knew if
Speaker 1: I started, Dad, I'm really a girl, that would be it.
Speaker 1: That would be it. So I waited till he was dead, frankly,
Speaker 1: and a year later I visited my mom ah and said,
Speaker 1: you know, okay, this is what's going on. Um she says,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, what what what are you telling me?
Speaker 1: What are you telling me? And she said, if you
Speaker 1: go through with this, if you really go through with this,
Speaker 1: don't bother coming back to my house. You're not welcome here.
Speaker 1: How that makes you feel? Oh well, I'm was full
Speaker 1: of myself. I suck you your lost mom, No, not
Speaker 1: fuck you, but oh well, I'm moving on this track.
Speaker 1: I still love you. No no, no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: I didn't say that out loud. I got in my
Speaker 1: car and I left. I drove back to Philly, where
Speaker 1: I was living. My mom was on the Jersey shore,
Speaker 1: and about three or four months later, a huge hurricane
Speaker 1: hit the shore and I called my mom to see
Speaker 1: how she was doing. And she goes, hello, and she
Speaker 1: said she would never call me Catherine. She said, if
Speaker 1: I have to call you Catherine, you call me Mrs Bornstein.
Speaker 1: All right, So hello, I said, hi Mom. She goes
Speaker 1: out butt hello, and I said, I just called to
Speaker 1: see how are you doing. I'm fine, She says, I'm fine. No, no,
Speaker 1: no worries here. And we talked a little bit and
Speaker 1: she said, how are you all? But and I said, well,
Speaker 1: having a rough time at work. People are getting me
Speaker 1: a hard time because I want to be a woman.
Speaker 1: And she told me later she thought to herself, Oh, baby,
Speaker 1: you think you're having a hard time, now wait till
Speaker 1: you are a woman. She didn't say that out loud.
Speaker 1: I just started crying, thou and I can't talk anymore,
Speaker 1: and to hung up the phone. Fifteen minutes go by
Speaker 1: phone rings, I pick it up. I say, hello, it's
Speaker 1: my mom's voice. She says, Catherine, And I said yeah, Ma.
Speaker 1: She says, look, baby, I called to tell you this.
Speaker 1: No matter how, your world falls apart, and that's what happens. Baby,
Speaker 1: you build a world, it falls apart. But no matter
Speaker 1: how that happens, You've always got the lovely heart I
Speaker 1: know you have. And I love you, Catherine, I always will. Oh,
Speaker 1: I know, right. So that's that's the kind of woman
Speaker 1: she was. Her gender really was not woman according to
Speaker 1: definition of woman in those days, but she was a lady,
Speaker 1: and also seemed like your mom really grasps like how
Speaker 1: difficult the challenges that women face socially at the time
Speaker 1: that she was growing up and choosing to get a
Speaker 1: degree and choosing to go into a career. And I
Speaker 1: almost feel like she mama bared a little bit when
Speaker 1: she's like, you're having a bad time, like no one
Speaker 1: makes no one makes fun of my daughter, like exactly,
Speaker 1: and that's really sweet. Exactly. So she kept mixing up
Speaker 1: pronouns son, daughter names. I didn't care. She's trying. Yeah exactly, Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean speaking of pronouns, what what do you go by?
Speaker 1: What do you what are your pronouns of choice? It's
Speaker 1: such a conversation. How do you feel about that? Even too?
Speaker 1: Let's start with that and then I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: pronounces you go I don't think anybody asks anybody else
Speaker 1: what pronouns do you use? I think they're really finding
Speaker 1: trying to say, what the funk are you? You know? Um,
Speaker 1: if you see as someone who looks like assists woman
Speaker 1: and these days I do, I look like a siss
Speaker 1: little old lady and you think, okay, she you just
Speaker 1: you can make an assumption. Um, cis looking man. Okay,
Speaker 1: he but someone you're not quite sure, someone who doesn't match.
Speaker 1: You're defining characteristics for what's a man, that's a woman?
Speaker 1: What's your pronoun? Dear? No? No, no, that sounds that
Speaker 1: sound kind ofcending. That come off, it's kind of sending
Speaker 1: you also your turtles upside down, and I just want
Speaker 1: to make sure that that's okay, okay, self defined challenge.
Speaker 1: He's a masochist like me, he would be in bonded.
Speaker 1: She had a girlfriend for thirty five years. She passed
Speaker 1: on a few years ago. He's probably reminiscent about a
Speaker 1: r So the insistence this is also interesting, the insistence
Speaker 1: people have use my right pronoun. Wait a minute, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, spared no, no, no, no, no no. If
Speaker 1: you've made a change in your life and people have
Speaker 1: known you as one thing, they get big, big leeway.
Speaker 1: If they haven't known you and you do not appear
Speaker 1: to them to be sis. Whether the people think you're
Speaker 1: quote unquote passing or if that's even your desire um,
Speaker 1: what difference does it make if someone respects your decision
Speaker 1: or not. Really, it's just a matter of ego, and
Speaker 1: that's a hard one to swallow. That's a real hard
Speaker 1: one for transfolk to swallow. You know you must and no, no, no, no, dear,
Speaker 1: no no, no, dear. When you try to change anybody
Speaker 1: to anything. If we were trying to change Donald Trump
Speaker 1: to think the way we do, that's violence on our
Speaker 1: part to Donald Trump. We can't change the man. We
Speaker 1: can only attempt to reason with him, or ignore the
Speaker 1: funk out of him, or resistant. We're not going to
Speaker 1: change him. It's so true. Um, But to try and
Speaker 1: change someone, it's a very complicated thing. I'm dealing with
Speaker 1: this in a new book. I'm writing, best title of
Speaker 1: any of my books, trans just for the fun of it?
Speaker 1: And do people think that people are trans just for
Speaker 1: the fun of it? Because I know some people think
Speaker 1: just they just want my attention. That would drive me.
Speaker 1: That's something that we've that we've come and we're like,
Speaker 1: what do you Why would anyone do that for it?
Speaker 1: Did a lot, a lot of a lot of work
Speaker 1: and struggle for attention, not attention. Fun. I'm sorry, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have so much fun. I worked really really hard.
Speaker 1: Finally had a support group that uh got together in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: They kicked me out when I said I was a lesbian,
Speaker 1: so they said, I couldn't be a real trendsection what
Speaker 1: you're getting kicked out everywhere. These are old days. These
Speaker 1: are old days. And interestingly enough, when my mother finally
Speaker 1: got it that, yes, you're a woman, dear, was when
Speaker 1: I told her I was a lesbian. She goes, Oh,
Speaker 1: thank goodness, she goes, if you tried to tell me
Speaker 1: that you attracted to men, I know how much you
Speaker 1: love women, dear. Okay, fine, right, what a gal? She
Speaker 1: was a gal? So which do you have a pronoun
Speaker 1: of reverence or not really anything? I don't like he,
Speaker 1: But the fact of the matter is, in the last
Speaker 1: five or six years, I've become enjoying. I've been enjoying boy,
Speaker 1: which is very different than man. People call you boy,
Speaker 1: my very dear friends who are also boys do ours. Um,
Speaker 1: But that's because I've said, this is what I'm being
Speaker 1: with you right now, you know. And I don't think
Speaker 1: anyone calls me boy or he not not a long time,
Speaker 1: not without a mean intent. But if someone were to
Speaker 1: genuinely mistake me and just nicely referred to me like
Speaker 1: I got to check out canner. Here we are, sir,
Speaker 1: and I go, oh, not really, no, no, no, you
Speaker 1: always give the benefit of the doubt of that the
Speaker 1: person might be trying to struggle with. I don't know
Speaker 1: what you are, but if they look mean and just
Speaker 1: and glare walk away, what importance is it? Um, that's
Speaker 1: taken me a long time. Yeah, that's uh, I have
Speaker 1: that too. Do you think that's something about not ego?
Speaker 1: But um, just with with facing diversity in in in
Speaker 1: such a way and really getting treated, which I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to see how did you get treated when
Speaker 1: you first got surgery or when I mean, because we
Speaker 1: corn and I corindals informs me a lot about like
Speaker 1: violence against trans women and just the rate that especially
Speaker 1: trans women of color and just like getting brutally murdered.
Speaker 1: I'm like it just it It breaks my heart and
Speaker 1: and I'm curious to, um what kind Because people ask
Speaker 1: us to like, have you ever faced sexism in comedy?
Speaker 1: I mean I'm not really you know, does it is everywhere?
Speaker 1: But not it hasn't like held us back or been
Speaker 1: so violent or unbearable that we stopped doing comedy. And
Speaker 1: I just feel like you, um, you know, you're you
Speaker 1: went through this stuff a lot earlier, and it's still
Speaker 1: a hard issue to talk about, and people still seem
Speaker 1: even like progressive people who listen to the podcast. We
Speaker 1: had on a guest who identifies as non binary, and
Speaker 1: people just really really couldn't wrap their minds around it.
Speaker 1: And this is seen now young people in so It's
Speaker 1: just it's weird that when someone doesn't understand something, the
Speaker 1: reaction can tends to be like anger and mean, just nasty.
Speaker 1: I'm like, why are you so afraid of something you
Speaker 1: don't understand? It's okay if you don't get it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: caring what other people think of us is a lifetime lesson,
Speaker 1: a lifetime journey to throw away. I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: everybody should immediately allow people to use whatever pronoun they want.
Speaker 1: I think it's a part of self journey to say no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: I really need to hear you refer to me as he.
Speaker 1: I really need to hear you put it that way.
Speaker 1: I need to hear you refer to me as she.
Speaker 1: I'm still coming to terms with it myself. It feels
Speaker 1: really great and I would appreciate it, not fuck you don't.
Speaker 1: And that's the initial all of us have that initial
Speaker 1: fuck you. I understand it to mean, it's the best
Speaker 1: way to conduct. You have to get over it sooner
Speaker 1: or later. So really, the sooner you start practicing encouragement
Speaker 1: rather than censorship a good way to put that. Uh,
Speaker 1: the sooner the better, that's a great way to put that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, because I would love to hear what advice
Speaker 1: you would have. Because there's a group that I UM
Speaker 1: sometimes work with called New Alter Natives, and it's a
Speaker 1: youth center for the lgbt Q. I a youth UM,
Speaker 1: and I was talking to UM a girl named Christine
Speaker 1: who was in the process of transitioning, and she I
Speaker 1: just felt this rage in her because outside, of course
Speaker 1: she looked like what you or I would be like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're a guy, but she felt and is a girl.
Speaker 1: And I was trying to have a conversation with her
Speaker 1: kind of to be like, sometimes people aren't calling you
Speaker 1: him to be malicious, they just don't understand. So I
Speaker 1: was like, I think maybe you would get a lot
Speaker 1: further if you simply like gently remind people. But you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know what it's like to be her, and
Speaker 1: she's twenty five, and I just I know what it's
Speaker 1: like to be and so fucking angry. So what do
Speaker 1: you tell young people who are going through this. I
Speaker 1: would say, I am so sorry, baby. Oh I know
Speaker 1: how much that fucking hurts, and it will continue to
Speaker 1: hurt for most of your life. Um, what I recommend,
Speaker 1: I recommended, been recommending this for a while. Now. You
Speaker 1: can get cheap business cards printed up, like a hundred
Speaker 1: for five bucks, print up a little I understand you
Speaker 1: think I'm a man and you call me he. This
Speaker 1: isn't the case. I'm transgender and I am in the
Speaker 1: process of transition. It did, it would really help me
Speaker 1: and be a lovely humane thing to do, and we
Speaker 1: could be actually become friends if you understand me to
Speaker 1: be a woman and called me she, and just hand
Speaker 1: that to the person because especially if you're not capable
Speaker 1: of saying that, because you're you're filter when it takes
Speaker 1: your words. Sometimes, Yeah, I of with borderline personality disorder.
Speaker 1: And so what the basis of that is is black
Speaker 1: and white thinking everything good or bad, on or off.
Speaker 1: That's it right or wrong basis. That's one basis and
Speaker 1: the other basis is we have very little control over
Speaker 1: our emotions period. When we're happy, we it's not bipolar,
Speaker 1: it's borderline. We just can't control it. The therapy is
Speaker 1: called dialectic behavioral therapy, where we learn to untrigger ourselves
Speaker 1: and where we finally get to spot the point of
Speaker 1: being triggered. And I'm using I'm PTSD and borderline. So
Speaker 1: I'm using triggered in the old clinical sense of putting
Speaker 1: you right back in the middle of your trauma. Uh. Nowadays,
Speaker 1: triggers redefined to mean I feel very unsafe, I feel uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: I feel in danger. Yeah, we just had a converse
Speaker 1: station about the word trigger. Okay, all right, so that's
Speaker 1: a valid thing to not want. If you don't want it,
Speaker 1: all you have to do is say to yourself, I'm
Speaker 1: being triggered. As soon as you say that, you've stepped
Speaker 1: back from the trigger moment, and you can take a
Speaker 1: moment and breathe and go wait a minute, is this
Speaker 1: person intending me harm? Did this person just slip? Is
Speaker 1: this person really goading me? You get to make these
Speaker 1: decisions once you send back, thank you, once you step back.
Speaker 1: I'll be writing about this in the new book too,
Speaker 1: because if you want to have fun, you're gonna push
Speaker 1: people's buttons. That's very true. Could I ask you a
Speaker 1: question about just your sex life. Do you mind sure?
Speaker 1: Do you like talking about sure thing? Baby? So? What
Speaker 1: what did did you ever have said prior to surgery? Oh?
Speaker 1: My god, I was married three times. I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I love women. I love them when I
Speaker 1: had a penis. I love them when I have a vagina.
Speaker 1: I show gully gee whiz. I love women. Sex was
Speaker 1: a lot of fun with a penis. I just didn't
Speaker 1: like to have a penis, right, And you know you
Speaker 1: see these trucks going around the city snap on tools.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, right, someone is going to eventually make one
Speaker 1: where you get the feelings. Not in our lifetime probably,
Speaker 1: but oh it's great. It's really croageous. Stick. I would
Speaker 1: just hit everything with my penis and just put my
Speaker 1: penis in a jar jelly and jest to see, oh,
Speaker 1: jerking off just one of the funniest things every day.
Speaker 1: And you get this, you get this really speedy orchasm,
Speaker 1: like a speedy who just an eruption. My girlfriend, Barbara
Speaker 1: Correllis teaches sex. Yeah, that's what she does for a living. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I was like, you guys are so much information.
Speaker 1: You want you want to talk with her? She's got
Speaker 1: a school of thought and practice about sex and sexuality
Speaker 1: called Urban Contra. Her book, Urban Country is the first
Speaker 1: sex book ever written with trans people in mind, which
Speaker 1: is really cool anyway. Um, what she says is, look,
Speaker 1: we've all got the same jello down there between our legs.
Speaker 1: It's just in different molds. And really it's all the
Speaker 1: same nerve endings, it's all the same muscle it, you know,
Speaker 1: a few different glands. Sure, but she calls the typical
Speaker 1: quote unquote typical that that quick release male orgasm that
Speaker 1: most men think is their only possibility, or most people
Speaker 1: with penises think is their only possibility. She calls it
Speaker 1: a volcano orgasm exactly. Um, but there's once I had
Speaker 1: the surgery. A week after I was back and from
Speaker 1: the hospital, I had been dating this lesbian woman and
Speaker 1: she gave me my first non penis orgasm. We were
Speaker 1: lying in bed and it was heaven to not rush.
Speaker 1: It was wonderful to explore subtle and more nuanced feelings.
Speaker 1: Most people with penises don't allow that for themselves. They
Speaker 1: don't know that it's possible. And I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: multiple orgasms, although anybody can have multiple orgasm. Uh. Usually Um,
Speaker 1: ejaculation for people with penises is a down tie. After that,
Speaker 1: it's a down time. So some people practice coming right
Speaker 1: close to that, some people practice. There's lots of ways.
Speaker 1: So but oh my golly, gosh, that was wonderful and
Speaker 1: it's just a whole other new way to have sex.
Speaker 1: That's great. And I one of the things that's maybe
Speaker 1: an odd question, but there's so many that I'm learning. Uh,
Speaker 1: so many different types of vaginas. Kart and I have
Speaker 1: talked about this a lot, like I have more of
Speaker 1: than any She has an autie and apparently like I didn't,
Speaker 1: I didn't even realize that people with auti vagina is
Speaker 1: whatever the funk that means feel ashamed. They get uh surgery,
Speaker 1: cosmetic surgery on the vagina that has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with their ability to orgasm and could possibly desensitize something
Speaker 1: like that's so nuts to me. But there is this
Speaker 1: digma that I kind of learned about since like doing
Speaker 1: the podcast. Was the doctor like, what kind of that
Speaker 1: pussy you want? Yeah? They look, there's so many different
Speaker 1: kind Did you get a customized Yeah, we're like, I
Speaker 1: want my pussy too. In my days when I was
Speaker 1: doing it, there was no customizable there was. There were
Speaker 1: like two or three people doctors in the States that
Speaker 1: we're doing it, and you could go to Morocco, um
Speaker 1: Casablanca and have it done. But that was pretty much it. Um.
Speaker 1: The first surgeon and neurology team I went to in
Speaker 1: Philadelphia to ask him, I don't want the surgery. They
Speaker 1: were interviewing me and you know, and well, tell me
Speaker 1: about being a woman, and I told them, and then
Speaker 1: I told him I was a lesbian. They said what
Speaker 1: you said, Well, you want children, right? I said no,
Speaker 1: Don't you want a family and a husband? I said no,
Speaker 1: And they refused me on the grounds that I wasn't
Speaker 1: a real woman. This was back in the day. But
Speaker 1: the funny part about it, I swear by all that's
Speaker 1: holy to me. The surgeon's name was Dr Raizor. The
Speaker 1: urologist's name was Dr Weener. I swear to Guy Razor
Speaker 1: and Leena general side, Jerry, what can we do for you? Wow?
Speaker 1: Do you want us to Razor off? Or what? Anyway,
Speaker 1: it was just and I finally went to a guy
Speaker 1: down in southern Colorado place called Trinidad, Colorado. His name
Speaker 1: was Stanley Biber. He was part of the mash Unit.
Speaker 1: They wrote the book and movie and television series. He
Speaker 1: knew hot lips and some trans woman wandered in one
Speaker 1: day in in the seventies or sixties actually, I think
Speaker 1: it was late sixties, early seventies and said, I want
Speaker 1: the surgery. He know how to do that, So he says,
Speaker 1: he wrote away to Johns Hopkins for the blueprints, and
Speaker 1: um figured out how to do it because it was
Speaker 1: a challenge. It was interesting to him, and he was
Speaker 1: used to doing what they call meatball surgery during the war,
Speaker 1: so he could do anything with any kind of tissue.
Speaker 1: Cosmetics wasn't a strong point, of course, not maybe you
Speaker 1: just really wasn't today, My goodness, gracious, Yes, you can
Speaker 1: customize it. Different doctors produced different kinds of vaginas, and
Speaker 1: some doctors can produce as an assortment of vaginas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a whole new level pickup. So, I mean it
Speaker 1: is the process. I mean it's described kind of like
Speaker 1: to people who don't know anything about the surgery is
Speaker 1: like you like, slit your penis in half and flip it.
Speaker 1: Is that, Yeah, yeah, you open up, you slit your penis,
Speaker 1: pull out all that spongeo corpios some stuff, uh, leaving
Speaker 1: a bunch of it. This is what Dr Biber did.
Speaker 1: He left a bunch of that spongy stuff and braided it,
Speaker 1: put it up through the top of what became the
Speaker 1: opening of my vagina and all those bundled up nerve
Speaker 1: endings because you know when you squeeze a guy's penis
Speaker 1: got home. Yeah, that's because all his nerve endings are there.
Speaker 1: The same nerve endings are there that are in most
Speaker 1: cis gender women's clitter is okay, so I have a
Speaker 1: I have a nice I can get nice clitteral stimulations. Right.
Speaker 1: That was such a relief to hear because I think
Speaker 1: there's like a people think that if they get the surgery,
Speaker 1: they're not going to have the same same sensations that
Speaker 1: they would have won. Yeah, so it's it's different, but
Speaker 1: it's but you can feel it. I don't know. You
Speaker 1: have to sign a disclaimer saying I understand that I
Speaker 1: may never have any feeling in my genitals ever. Again,
Speaker 1: I understand that my labi and might fall off. I
Speaker 1: understand that this could close up. I understand that a
Speaker 1: fissure could open between this, and you have to sign
Speaker 1: away everything um, but most of everything is good, and
Speaker 1: certainly today the techniques are better. But yeah, they split
Speaker 1: it up and then they turn it back in itself
Speaker 1: and pull it up inside, kind of like pulling a
Speaker 1: sock inside out. And so what was the outside of
Speaker 1: my penis is now the walls of my vagina. So
Speaker 1: you're I'm going to assume your clitteresses are much more
Speaker 1: simple sensitive than mine, but the inside of my vagina
Speaker 1: much more sensitive, because oh that's cool. A lot of
Speaker 1: women can't come from just a penis in them. So
Speaker 1: but I'm like, if all those nerventings from the clut
Speaker 1: were up in there, I haven't fucking everyone, well, not all,
Speaker 1: because there's many clitters is the only organ and the
Speaker 1: human body that's only there for pleasure the only organ.
Speaker 1: That's a good point, because I'm like, I guess it
Speaker 1: doesn't really serve any other purpose now. And and the
Speaker 1: roots of the clitterers, oh my goodness, gracious mate, I
Speaker 1: don't have those kind of entanglements and wonderful yum no, no, no,
Speaker 1: So what's so do you visit an O B. G.
Speaker 1: Y N regularly? Or I go to callan Lord Community
Speaker 1: Health Center here and all kinds of trans people are
Speaker 1: patients there. So the regular Um, my primary care physician
Speaker 1: who I picked, who picked by random, and I love
Speaker 1: her with all my heart and I acknowledge her every
Speaker 1: time I can. Um, they just know, okay, alright, So yes,
Speaker 1: do I get an examination for what's that called up
Speaker 1: in the thank you? Yes? Yeah, sure, I get a prost.
Speaker 1: I have a prostate. Mostly it's dry up and gone
Speaker 1: right because I'm old and i've been My body has
Speaker 1: been on estrogen for a long time. Um. Now I'm
Speaker 1: talking a lot about my body, my sexuality, especially my genitals.
Speaker 1: Many many, many trans people. I don't want to do that.
Speaker 1: You were very respectful when you asked, even though I
Speaker 1: had given you blanket permission. No, that's how you proceed
Speaker 1: because not everybody wants to talk like this. Back in
Speaker 1: the day, we had nothing to lose, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to see the surgery, let me start and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and and some of us there they're still
Speaker 1: it's the difference. Queer and straight are redefining themselves as words.
Speaker 1: Queer now more than homosexual, which is what it used
Speaker 1: to mean. Queer now means, in broader terms, a more
Speaker 1: radical left wing view of gender and sexuality. Straight simply
Speaker 1: means a more conservative view of gender and sexuality, to
Speaker 1: the point where most straight people will say, hey, hey, hey, hey,
Speaker 1: none of your business. What's between my legs? None of
Speaker 1: your business what I do when I close my door,
Speaker 1: don't know, that's insulting. And most queer people will go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you want to see my surgery, let's do it in
Speaker 1: the road and um. And of course that's a spectrum. Um.
Speaker 1: But the difference is enough to make LGBT add a
Speaker 1: queue for queer. I know there's another queue for questioning
Speaker 1: and animating, but there is a queue for queer. Why
Speaker 1: because LGBT doesn't consider itself queer in that sense. LGBT
Speaker 1: it's now much more conservative and in gender and sexuality.
Speaker 1: Nothing wrong with that. We all have some queer, we
Speaker 1: all have some straight. I'm mostly queer. My gender expression, however,
Speaker 1: is straight. One of my great joys is going out
Speaker 1: and being h looking like a delightful little old lady.
Speaker 1: That's my great joy. So what are the things that
Speaker 1: bring you joy? Like? Uh, what are the things that
Speaker 1: bring you joy? Just a good question? Well, this is
Speaker 1: this is again the topic of my book trans just
Speaker 1: for the fun of it. Um, there's lots of different
Speaker 1: ways I have fun. There's a way I avoid having
Speaker 1: fun is having fun at someone else's expense. That's no, no, Um,
Speaker 1: they're shot. I mean I love walking down the street
Speaker 1: and smiling at people. That's wonderful. Um. I like watching
Speaker 1: Great British bake Off. That's a lot of love art.
Speaker 1: I think it seems it's I love your collection. Yeah right,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, this is both Barbara and I have built
Speaker 1: all this up over you know, almost twenty years we've
Speaker 1: been together. That's so cool. A lot of times you
Speaker 1: walk into someone's apartment and you don't really get a
Speaker 1: sense of who that person is, and I feel like,
Speaker 1: not the case with you. It's nice. I love like
Speaker 1: the space I live in. I take a lot of
Speaker 1: not pride, but more like I make it a priority
Speaker 1: to like feel good, whatever the funk that means in
Speaker 1: the space I live in. So it's like, let's go
Speaker 1: to a thrift store and just like buy all the weird,
Speaker 1: crappy uh framed photos with weird things that we totally
Speaker 1: disagree on, because that just makes me happy to look
Speaker 1: at that because exactly, Yeah, that's another version of fun.
Speaker 1: And if you want to get into deeper and more
Speaker 1: profound vers all that fun we've been talking about those
Speaker 1: fleeting it's all going to profound, deep fun. I want
Speaker 1: that you have that every day of your life. Um,
Speaker 1: A more profound and deeper fun is loving someone. And
Speaker 1: when someone loves you, that's the fun, one of the
Speaker 1: funniest things ever. But that is also fleeting. That's going
Speaker 1: to change. That's gonna go away. You're gonna change your mind,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be incompatible. You might have a loving friendship,
Speaker 1: which would be a way of deepening that, but it's
Speaker 1: going to change. That's the nature of everything and everyone.
Speaker 1: Everything changes, Everyone changes all the time. The most profound
Speaker 1: fund there is, though, all helping other people to ease
Speaker 1: their suffering and finding their own personal way to happiness.
Speaker 1: That's an indelible fun. That's one you take to bed
Speaker 1: with you at night. That's when you wake up smiling
Speaker 1: with that. One never leaves you. Yeah, that's someone of
Speaker 1: such a great feeling of helping fellow humans. Helping is
Speaker 1: a little different. Yes, we we we provide comfort and aid,
Speaker 1: Yes that's a big deal, but more importantly, asking them
Speaker 1: what's causing them suffering? Asking them what gives them great
Speaker 1: joy and then helping them achieve those things. But yes,
Speaker 1: of course we want people to eat. Of course we
Speaker 1: want people to have shelter, and those things we can assume.
Speaker 1: But the deepest kind of fun is knowing that you've
Speaker 1: eased someone suffering and you've helped them laugh. No, I
Speaker 1: know you've done a lot of work as far as
Speaker 1: like performance artists play, right, So in what ways are
Speaker 1: you most proud of helping people uh ease their suffering.
Speaker 1: Pride is a weird thing. Pride is looking backwards, and
Speaker 1: it has taken me a long time to articulate when
Speaker 1: you say I'm proud of the book I wrote, Hello
Speaker 1: Cruel World, A hundred and one alternatives to suicide for teens,
Speaker 1: freaks and other outlaws. Wow, that's saving lives. I did
Speaker 1: that ten years ago. I'm proud. I'm not proud. Pride
Speaker 1: is also fleeting my darlings. It goes away. Well. I
Speaker 1: think you find new things to do to hopefully be
Speaker 1: proud of. I don't think. Maybe that's not why you
Speaker 1: do them, but you get you feel a sense of
Speaker 1: pride in accomplishing a goal that you really have to
Speaker 1: work hard. For something, just facing adversity in any way,
Speaker 1: but then you kind of want to set new goals
Speaker 1: for yourself. And that's the problem with institutionalized lgbt Q pride.
Speaker 1: This is what sets us at each other's throat intergenerationally,
Speaker 1: because older lgbt Q are pride of what they did,
Speaker 1: proud of what they did, and are suspicious of any
Speaker 1: changes that a younger generation might be bringing to what
Speaker 1: they did. And that's a danger of pride. That's ego.
Speaker 1: There's ego attached to that. I think that bingo, bingo, bingo,
Speaker 1: self serving, grabbing at me, me, me, me me. I mean,
Speaker 1: what are we most take exception to with the President
Speaker 1: elect is that he is such an egocentric me me, me,
Speaker 1: me me, turns everything to himself. That should give us
Speaker 1: an idea of what to avoid in our own behavior. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope. Well this is a good lesson. He's he's
Speaker 1: a great He's here on earth to teach us don't
Speaker 1: be like that. I spent I spent twelve years in
Speaker 1: the Church of fucking Scientology. So far I got in
Speaker 1: damn ninety one and of eighty one I got out.
Speaker 1: I got in pretty close to the beginning of Scientology,
Speaker 1: and I pretty much went right to l Ron Hubbard's
Speaker 1: secret location ship. I was first mate on his three
Speaker 1: d and sixty four ft yacht Did you have to mop?
Speaker 1: And stuff? And that was some of the funnest time
Speaker 1: of my life. Oh. I was in charge of the decks.
Speaker 1: We were off the coast of Portugal and Morocco and
Speaker 1: the and the sun would be out and I'd be
Speaker 1: out on the deck either laying tar between the wooden
Speaker 1: planks or be scrubbing the deck, or I'd be hanging
Speaker 1: over the side fixing up rust pinpoint rust leaks. Uh.
Speaker 1: I did that for close to a year. It was
Speaker 1: the most fun of my life in terms of ah, great, great,
Speaker 1: great great, just going to boat now. Yeah. Um, it's
Speaker 1: when I got into the administrative machinations of scientology that
Speaker 1: that was the deep trap. Um. I don't know why
Speaker 1: did I bring well, I'm I mean I've been following them,
Speaker 1: yeah right, have you been watching that? Yes? But I
Speaker 1: was in scientology before David Muscavage came to Pounds like
Speaker 1: well Hubbard was. Hubbard was troubled. David Muscavage is following
Speaker 1: l Ron Hubbard's policy and amping up the volume of it, Hubbard.
Speaker 1: If he didn't like what you were doing on the ship,
Speaker 1: he'd order you thrown overboard. Oh what he'd order? He ordered, uh,
Speaker 1: a little eight year old children jan and the chain locker,
Speaker 1: which is where the chain for the anchor is stowed
Speaker 1: up in the front of the ship. They pull in
Speaker 1: the chain. It sits in a box up front of
Speaker 1: the ship. He would put a little eight year old
Speaker 1: down there for a whole day. Okay, right, he was
Speaker 1: not go back and get him, or was just people
Speaker 1: you would be throwing a rope, okay, yeah, but you'd
Speaker 1: have to pull yourself up two stories. Basically. One thing
Speaker 1: I noticed with a very few people that I talked
Speaker 1: to that kind of I remember Jones. He was saying
Speaker 1: that he was at a point where in his relationship
Speaker 1: where you kind of questioning himself. I want to get better,
Speaker 1: and somebody recommended taking a class at a scientology center,
Speaker 1: and uh, He's like, for whatever reason, it did help
Speaker 1: me because we're kind of we're I was totally being judging.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what I thought you were better than that,
Speaker 1: And he's like, I was in a tough place. Okay,
Speaker 1: give me a break, all right. But one of the
Speaker 1: things he said was they got dirt on them basically
Speaker 1: by not saying, so what do you go what are
Speaker 1: your secrets, but basically saying what do you want to
Speaker 1: work on your life? What are you ashamed of? What
Speaker 1: do you and then crusping weaknesses. Yeah, did that? That's
Speaker 1: exactly what they do. Um. They enforced disconnection. If you
Speaker 1: leave Scientology, your family and friends have to say I'm
Speaker 1: never going to speak with you and to talk with
Speaker 1: you or right with you again. I have a forty
Speaker 1: two year old daughter and two grandchildren. I haven't seen
Speaker 1: my daughter since she was nine. I never met my grandchildren.
Speaker 1: They believe that it's my big regret that I brought
Speaker 1: her into this world in the arms of Scientology. Oh
Speaker 1: she was raised with that ship and she believes that. Um,
Speaker 1: for some reason, I became evil because you wanted to
Speaker 1: get out of it? Yeah, because I did it? Um
Speaker 1: and um. What's more, when you leave, they have something
Speaker 1: called fair game. By l Ron Hubbard's directive, anybody who
Speaker 1: criticizes or even leaves Scientology subject to fair game. You
Speaker 1: can lie to them, you can trick them, you can
Speaker 1: destroy them. Those are his words, them meaning the people
Speaker 1: who decided to leave. Yeah, you've seen this one absolutely,
Speaker 1: and so I was scared for the fucking longest time. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, like the day after I left, they got
Speaker 1: together the whole crew and announced that al Bornstein likes
Speaker 1: to wear ladies underwear? Was the perceived dit on you?
Speaker 1: Oh they're homophobic and transphobic? Did you know that going in,
Speaker 1: like when you went in grautcha marks is best? Line? Know,
Speaker 1: I'd never joined a group that would have me as
Speaker 1: a member. Yes, line, I wanted to be cured. Okay,
Speaker 1: I did not want to want this. That's a common
Speaker 1: We've talked to people who have. One guy got to
Speaker 1: exorcisms from the church to try and rid himself of
Speaker 1: his homosexuality. And then but there was a point where
Speaker 1: he's like, yeah, I'm just gay. I'm gonna be gay.
Speaker 1: But that's how it's scary, you know, it's I can't
Speaker 1: imagine like want clinging to something or person that can
Speaker 1: offer you perhaps solace and say, well, I can make
Speaker 1: it go away if you want. And even if you want,
Speaker 1: if you want real, you're not going to come join
Speaker 1: us if you if you give in, is that your
Speaker 1: reason for wanting to join? Yeah, I wanted to stop
Speaker 1: wanting to be a woman. That was what was the
Speaker 1: worst thing you saw? Like you went this during your tenure.
Speaker 1: I just I've heard the worst things. I'm like, really, goddamn,
Speaker 1: it's it's uh, the rehabilitation project for us. You treat
Speaker 1: members of that unit as as animals. They're not allowed
Speaker 1: to eat during meal times until everybody else is eaten,
Speaker 1: and then all the only thing they can eat is
Speaker 1: table scraps left over from people's plates. They have to
Speaker 1: run everywhere, they cannot walk, they cannot initiate conversation with anybody,
Speaker 1: they have to call, they have to defer to everybody
Speaker 1: as a as a boss. Basically, uh, And they have
Speaker 1: to spend six hours a day confessing horrible crimes. What
Speaker 1: are they being rehabilitated for nowadays? With David ms Gabbage
Speaker 1: basically at his whim? Okay, just someone who just decides
Speaker 1: is not following the rules the way I like, this
Speaker 1: person is out of line. Yeah, And what would happen
Speaker 1: if you didn't, if you did address somebody, or you
Speaker 1: took a sandwich or something without There's something called the
Speaker 1: RPF is the Rehabilitation Project Force. There's something called the
Speaker 1: RPFs RPF to check and balances. Oh boy, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's even a special RPF for children. Oh wow, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a scary. That's that's that's scary. Well that that
Speaker 1: documentary really highlighted the abuse that the kids went through
Speaker 1: and getting beaten. Like Jesus, now did you You said
Speaker 1: you were married three times? Yeah? Is it? The conversations
Speaker 1: about wanting to be a woman or not feeling like
Speaker 1: a man. Were those things that you had with your
Speaker 1: your X wives? Not the first two, but then the
Speaker 1: third after I got out of scientology, Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: and this all right, this will help, this will help,
Speaker 1: this will this will stop this. I'll make a real
Speaker 1: man out of me, Like, why are you doing this?
Speaker 1: My wife was, you're not transsexual, You're a mama's boy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so I wanted to believe that, and uh we
Speaker 1: were together for how many years, maybe four or five years,
Speaker 1: and then my father died, and this pressure to be
Speaker 1: the perfect son, this pressure to be a man, self
Speaker 1: imposed pressure lifted the funk off of me. I went, Oh,
Speaker 1: and my wife, my third wife, was completely aware of
Speaker 1: this has been something I've been facing since kindergarten. Kid.
Speaker 1: It hasn't gone away. Uh, and I just moved forward.
Speaker 1: We had not an amicable divorce, but a fair one.
Speaker 1: That was what Whens stood on for each other. We
Speaker 1: were fair to each other in dividing a property and
Speaker 1: dividing up and making sure that we were not mean
Speaker 1: to each other. And so and then Uh. I tried
Speaker 1: to get back in touch with her a couple of
Speaker 1: years after my transition, and we met for coffee and
Speaker 1: she said, this is the last time I'm going to
Speaker 1: talk with you. My therapist says, what I need now
Speaker 1: is new friends, not the memory of a dead husband dead. Okay,
Speaker 1: how did that make you feel? Sad? Sad? I go
Speaker 1: to sad before I go to anger. Sad can turn
Speaker 1: into anger if I start justifying. I know you don't
Speaker 1: make me solved. Um, but I yeah, absolutely, and we
Speaker 1: I know you are short on time. But just before
Speaker 1: we wrap, I know we had been talked about the
Speaker 1: first book you wrote, Gender Outlaw? Was that the first one?
Speaker 1: And you said you had something, some goofs you had
Speaker 1: made that you wanted to maybe clear up. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. Yeah. It just came out three months ago
Speaker 1: and updated, new diversion, new version, new edition. Uh. Almost
Speaker 1: twenty five years anniversary. Um, when I wrote Gender Outlaw,
Speaker 1: the book wasn't about transsexuals. It wasn't about being a
Speaker 1: man who wants to be a woman. It was about
Speaker 1: I am not a man, I am not a woman,
Speaker 1: and trying to communicate that there was no word like
Speaker 1: non binary. There was no word like binary. No, there wasn't.
Speaker 1: We and we were kind We had borrowed someone's words.
Speaker 1: Someone had invented transgender, and a bunch of us in
Speaker 1: San Francisco stole the word and used it as an
Speaker 1: inclusive term for any and he's sucking around with gender.
Speaker 1: That was cool. Um. When I wrote the book, I
Speaker 1: was I'm going to use today's language to describe what
Speaker 1: I did. Ah. I was saying, I'm non binary. And
Speaker 1: when we make a pronouncement that we live outside any
Speaker 1: binary or that you're in any kind of way outlaw,
Speaker 1: gender outlaw, and you defend that, which is what I did.
Speaker 1: In the first edition of the book. I laid in
Speaker 1: a new binary and it basically said non binary is
Speaker 1: good and true, and binary is always false and not
Speaker 1: at all doesn't help anybody. And I laid that in
Speaker 1: and that was insulting and dismissive to a whole lot
Speaker 1: of trans people who get great. I wouldn't call it pleasure,
Speaker 1: but they're they're suffering is ease to such a big degree.
Speaker 1: When they finally can say, oh, I'm a woman, Ah,
Speaker 1: I'm a man, that's a huge relief. I had that
Speaker 1: for six months. I know that relief and that book,
Speaker 1: uh and that, and I only recently realized that, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I sucked people over in that book. It was good
Speaker 1: to say there's such a thing as non binary. But
Speaker 1: in this new edition, I'm going, all right, let's take
Speaker 1: a look at what a binary is. A binary. Take
Speaker 1: a circle, put everything about gender in the circle, everything
Speaker 1: everything in. Then divide it in half, and you can
Speaker 1: only be on one side or the other. That's a binary.
Speaker 1: As soon as you enter a third. As soon as
Speaker 1: you question the validity of a binary, it shatters. Same
Speaker 1: circle as there with lots of binaries in it. Man
Speaker 1: and woman, cists and trans butcher and fem ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: boys and girls. Uh, there's spectrums their spirals, is any
Speaker 1: kind of way you want to look at gender. This
Speaker 1: circle is now called a dialectic. The nature of a
Speaker 1: binary is a battlefield, because as soon as you want
Speaker 1: something from the other side, it's perceived as an attack
Speaker 1: and there's no way to get it, Whereas if you're
Speaker 1: in a dialectic and you acknowledge yea, yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I want something from the men's side. But hey, there's
Speaker 1: lots of ways of looking at gender, lots of rights,
Speaker 1: and we can all do this. And people on the
Speaker 1: men's side go, yeah, I get it. You're not taking
Speaker 1: anything away from me. But you can still identify as
Speaker 1: a binary identity. Why not. There are lots of truths
Speaker 1: about gender, lots of them. What do you think is
Speaker 1: a big one? I'm coming to that. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: there's a good question. No no, no, no, it's good.
Speaker 1: It's it's this is kind of the crux of this
Speaker 1: whole new book. Um Three years ago now, I attended
Speaker 1: a three day teaching by the Dalai Lama at the
Speaker 1: Beacon Theater here in New York about three thousand other people,
Speaker 1: and the title of his fucking teaching was Profound Wisdom
Speaker 1: and Vast Compassion The essence of eloquence. Tibetan Buddhists define
Speaker 1: eloquence as the telling of a truth in such a
Speaker 1: way that it eases suffering. M the more suffering is
Speaker 1: eased by your telling of a truth, the more eloquent
Speaker 1: you've been in order to parse this. In the conventional
Speaker 1: day to day world, you know, just getting along. Nothing
Speaker 1: profound of spiritual about it. In the day to day world.
Speaker 1: There's basically two kinds of truths. Binaries are not bad,
Speaker 1: by the way, as long as you're conscious about him
Speaker 1: and don't insist on them and don't try to force
Speaker 1: them down other people's throats. So there's basically two kinds
Speaker 1: of truths. Definitive truth, very simply stated. Most of them,
Speaker 1: they're nothing startling you go, yeah, well everyone dies. That's
Speaker 1: a definitive truth. Okay, good, you can't argue it, and
Speaker 1: arguable truth. And there's the door. Do you want me
Speaker 1: to do you want me to get it? Or do
Speaker 1: you want someone else? Could you kindly as Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: expecting a new suits. I travel for all tours and
Speaker 1: my suitcase is worn out. My girlfriend got me. Well,
Speaker 1: that's very nice. I'm glad that the suitcase is here.
Speaker 1: I think that's what's probably here, or it's just somewhat
Speaker 1: I always imagine like cool people in New York have
Speaker 1: like just random visitors. But that never happens. No, that
Speaker 1: happened a lot in Seattle. Yeah, when I was living
Speaker 1: in Seattle. Yeah, we'd leave our doors open. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: we've we've were going to Seattle this weekend. I've never been.
Speaker 1: She's never been. It's a little different, but at different now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: a little friendly. I mean my favorite place I went
Speaker 1: to this past year was Denver, and just everyone was like,
Speaker 1: I'm now friends with an uber driver who's like coming
Speaker 1: to one of our shows. And that's not me in
Speaker 1: New York at all. I would never do that. I
Speaker 1: would be like, why is the seer driver talking? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I just I think we all shut down
Speaker 1: a little bit in New York. What kind of shows
Speaker 1: to you too? Um, we do comedy shows. We're both
Speaker 1: stand up comedians. And then we just also did this
Speaker 1: podcast together. Will you like, um send me notices? Oh
Speaker 1: yeah absolutely. We're going on tour right now, so we're
Speaker 1: not doing it in New York. But um, we're actually
Speaker 1: I think working on something um for like to raise
Speaker 1: money for one of the groups that I talked about earlier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that doesn't look like a suitcase. It doesn't look like Oh,
Speaker 1: it doesn't say the person, was it true? Ok you
Speaker 1: imagine what this is? Oh you got a present? I
Speaker 1: really hope it's just a box of dildos and then
Speaker 1: we can come full circle. But I hope this isn't
Speaker 1: my suitcase because I was expecting it to be much
Speaker 1: larger than that. Is it a duffle swort? Give me
Speaker 1: a knife as you could cut through? Then we get
Speaker 1: back to the truth of truth and all that ship. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is thrilling, kind doggie, you don't so well behaved?
Speaker 1: Oh this is cat food? Cat food? Alright, alright, good.
Speaker 1: My kitty has terrible, terrible infection on her mouth that
Speaker 1: she got from we tuk her round off the street
Speaker 1: and she we put her on. She had to go
Speaker 1: on steroids to clear it up. That gave her diabetes
Speaker 1: and she's insolently and allergic. So we have to order
Speaker 1: her food special, special, expensive cat. I love her, She's
Speaker 1: my favorite world. Okay, where was I on? Truth? Okay?
Speaker 1: Definitive truth simply stated, usually mostly no need to elaborate,
Speaker 1: and not at all surprising. Arguable truth um set you on.
Speaker 1: Food is the best fucking food you can ever eat. Opinion,
Speaker 1: arguable truth, arguably arguably, but to me it's true and
Speaker 1: to a whole lot of people that's true, and we
Speaker 1: can't deny the fact that it's true. We just say
Speaker 1: it's an arguable truth. Yeah, that's a good way to
Speaker 1: put it, because that's when there's a wall that will
Speaker 1: never be down. And it feels with the election, I
Speaker 1: feel like I get too angry because I'm like, what,
Speaker 1: why isn't everyone freaking out? Not the way to go
Speaker 1: about it's to uh insight change or not even to
Speaker 1: do that, but just to communicate, I feel because I
Speaker 1: always get caught up in anger takes away, in my words,
Speaker 1: a lot. Yes, I'm very passionate. If we can just
Speaker 1: take a moment and breathe. And I've been triggered here,
Speaker 1: I've been set off, I've been someone pushed my button. Um,
Speaker 1: and then you go, wait a minute, that's the truth
Speaker 1: they believe in, and they're entitled to believe in any
Speaker 1: truth they want to believe in. No one is entitled
Speaker 1: to enforce their truth on anybody. Yeah, so it occurred
Speaker 1: to me while I was they're listening to the dial.
Speaker 1: Ala'ma be fucking brilliant, all right, what's going on today
Speaker 1: with lgbt Q is horrible in fighting. I've got the
Speaker 1: real answer to sexuality. I've got the real answer to gender.
Speaker 1: Trans Gender is better than tranny, drag queens are better
Speaker 1: than trans, on and on, and you don't belong under
Speaker 1: the tea and you do a non binary and gender queer.
Speaker 1: And everybody is doing what I did when I came
Speaker 1: out with gender outlaw, proclaiming their own identity at this
Speaker 1: expense of other people. Um, So it occurred to me, Okay,
Speaker 1: is there a definitive truth of gender that people, however grudgingly,
Speaker 1: would have to admit? And there we could start going,
Speaker 1: all right, all right, let's analyze it is your truth
Speaker 1: of truth that eases your suffering at nobody's expense. All right,
Speaker 1: then you're entitled to it. Are you trying to enforce
Speaker 1: your truth? You're not entitled to that. We have to
Speaker 1: narrow down what exactly it is we object to. So
Speaker 1: is there a definitive truth of gender? And I fucking
Speaker 1: found it? I did, I after thirty years. In my
Speaker 1: book will be out next year and then we can
Speaker 1: all find out what it is. I have to know.
Speaker 1: I know, right, I know it's stupid. It's simple. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's not at all surprising. There's two ways you can
Speaker 1: say it, the simple way and the academic way. The simple,
Speaker 1: definitive truth of gender is gender is relative. The academic way,
Speaker 1: which might be more understandable to Western folk in the
Speaker 1: Western mind, is gender is relative to context and point
Speaker 1: of view. The very fact that people have different ideas
Speaker 1: about gender proves it. It can't be arguing as soon
Speaker 1: as someone says, I have another idea about gender. And
Speaker 1: so what we've got is this interesting thing that gender
Speaker 1: is too and two only there's only men and women.
Speaker 1: There's only ever been men and women. And there's a
Speaker 1: lot of peace to be found in understanding this and
Speaker 1: accepting this, embracing this and finding that out about yourself
Speaker 1: and blossoming in this. And that's the truth. Not being
Speaker 1: snarky here, it is the truth. Arguably, gender is whatever
Speaker 1: the funk you wanted to be. Gender can be men
Speaker 1: can be, women, can be gender queer, can be non binary,
Speaker 1: can be trans, can be drag queen, can be cross
Speaker 1: stressor can be street fairy, can be women can be passing,
Speaker 1: women can be he, she's can be chick with dick.
Speaker 1: Everything you wanted to be, and you can change your
Speaker 1: mind any time you want to. And that's the truth.
Speaker 1: And I think there's an arguable arguably that's as arguable
Speaker 1: the truth as gender as a binary. Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 1: And to the degree we can admit that and go wow,
Speaker 1: because the definitive truth of gender, the bottom line, we
Speaker 1: can't argue it. Gender is fucking relative. And as long
Speaker 1: as you embrace an understanding and a truth of gender
Speaker 1: that eases your suffering and gives you an opportunity to
Speaker 1: find some happiness, go for it. You're not entitled to
Speaker 1: step on anyone else's toes with it, though. That's where
Speaker 1: people need to get along. That's where people have to
Speaker 1: grow up. M jim, Um great, great, and I'm old.
Speaker 1: That's what happens when you're old. But that's why we
Speaker 1: were excited, I think to our oldest guest. But that's
Speaker 1: and that's we needed that. I had never interrupted someone
Speaker 1: less because I know I don't do it on purpose.
Speaker 1: I just I'm so anxious to get the thought out.
Speaker 1: But when you speak, I'm just like, tell me everything.
Speaker 1: I just want to absorb it because you're the way
Speaker 1: you talk about topics. It's just so in such an
Speaker 1: elegant way that I've never really heard before, and it's
Speaker 1: like it really it, it's it's soothes my frustration and
Speaker 1: how I feel about so many things, gender sexual assault.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many things that we get emailed
Speaker 1: about every day, those horror stories that you read all
Speaker 1: the time, and it makes me angry. But I know
Speaker 1: in my heart of hearts that anger isn't what's gonna
Speaker 1: help it. But I think you take that anger and
Speaker 1: turn it into encouragement and grace, and that's more powerful
Speaker 1: and it's more fun, and that's what it's all about.
Speaker 1: Um So I want to close it out. And I
Speaker 1: may say that you are too gracious interviewers. I this
Speaker 1: was a stimulating, challenging, fun, free floating conversation. Good when
Speaker 1: you interrupted, when I interrupted, it was just like sitting
Speaker 1: around talking with family. So thank you both. I mean
Speaker 1: so much. Nothing people, And where can we find you?
Speaker 1: On the internet or elsewhere? The best place Right now,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty much withdrawn from social media while I'm writing,
Speaker 1: and I'll be writing for another year, but Twitter, I
Speaker 1: pay attention to Kate Bornstein at Kate Bornstein. Sometimes I'm
Speaker 1: on Instagram, I haven't been for a couple of months,
Speaker 1: but still Twitter. Twitter's the best, or cap Wornstein dot com.
Speaker 1: I've got a blog with I have an updated in
Speaker 1: fucking years. But there's some real fun pieces up there
Speaker 1: that you can prowl. Oh. Yeah, and it doesn't have
Speaker 1: your previous books, your all your previous work. I'm cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: especially interested because I know we didn't talk about it
Speaker 1: a lot today, but you the book you wrote on
Speaker 1: suicide I think would be great for a lot of
Speaker 1: listeners to look into because that's something that we get
Speaker 1: a lot of emails about. Um, and uh, there's always
Speaker 1: more reading to do, and you want to bring your face,
Speaker 1: give people a hunder one alternatives to it. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: I want to we want to provide the best resources.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and I mean I know it goes unfortunately,
Speaker 1: goes hand to hand so much with the LGBTQ community. Um,
Speaker 1: what is anyone to say about that? It's my passion.
Speaker 1: After leven or the day of in the next three days,
Speaker 1: we just stood out on the back fire escape here
Speaker 1: and looked south and we saw the smoke rising. It's horrible.
Speaker 1: And on the third day, if you were in the city,
Speaker 1: you remember the wind change in blew North. It's horrible, horrible.
Speaker 1: I've never smelled anything like it. And my girlfriend and I,
Speaker 1: after a few minutes, looked at each other. We realized
Speaker 1: we were inhaling people, and you know, and then I realized,
Speaker 1: of what fucking value is postmodern gender theory in the
Speaker 1: world as insane as this, And I went to a
Speaker 1: terrible depression and people, what can I write about? What
Speaker 1: can I write about? And I could write. A guy
Speaker 1: an old nickname, Julee Kopperberg wrote a self published pamphlet
Speaker 1: Mimeograft called A thousand and one Ways to Live without working,
Speaker 1: you know, with things like find a five dollar bill
Speaker 1: in the toilet and you're the only one that brave
Speaker 1: enough to flush it out. Next five find a ten
Speaker 1: dollar bill in the toilet, and you're on and on
Speaker 1: and on. Silly Phil, and he thinks I'm going to
Speaker 1: write a thousand and one Ways to Stay alive. And
Speaker 1: they were silly things, and but I thought, wait a minute, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's and I noticed so many kids, our kids are
Speaker 1: queer and kids at risk, oddball kids. Um, we're killing themselves.
Speaker 1: That's my dog having a dream of chasing No I know, kids, kids,
Speaker 1: were killing themselves, and UM, I realized this, this was
Speaker 1: them about two thousand four and I said, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: going to write this book. I'm going to write a
Speaker 1: book about suicide prevention. And I set out to try
Speaker 1: and prevent suicide. I really I look in the library,
Speaker 1: I looked online at Amazon. All the books about suicide
Speaker 1: basically said be good to this line and you won't
Speaker 1: want to kill yourself. Really, that doesn't sound pretty much
Speaker 1: pretty much and um, in one way, shape or form.
Speaker 1: Some of them very warmhearted, loving books, no question, but
Speaker 1: basically they said, here's how to live your life so
Speaker 1: that you won't want to kill yourself. I said, I
Speaker 1: can't do that. I don't know anybody like that. And
Speaker 1: I thought, well, what have I done. I've been suicidal
Speaker 1: majorly six times in my life. I've got scars. I
Speaker 1: have no idea how I got at them. And I
Speaker 1: got scars that I do know how I got them,
Speaker 1: and were fun. But uh, I thought, the only thing
Speaker 1: I can do is give blanket permission. So do whatever
Speaker 1: you need to do to make your life more worth living.
Speaker 1: Here's a hundred and one examples for you, and it
Speaker 1: ranges from um, just keep moving to spend a day
Speaker 1: without using prone, without using nouns. Um. My favorite is moisturized.
Speaker 1: You can't be suicidal your moisture kinda gonna um. But
Speaker 1: it also says, you know, starve yourself. I've been anorexic
Speaker 1: for the majority of my life and it's helped me
Speaker 1: stay alive. That's the most deadly alternative in the book.
Speaker 1: And I say, none of these alternatives are going to
Speaker 1: last you more. They're all gonna lose their potency. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you have to starve yourself, you have to go
Speaker 1: without eating. Do it, stop as soon as you can.
Speaker 1: Ditto take drugs. Fucking take drugs. Don't kill yourself, right,
Speaker 1: Ditto cut yourself. Okay, try and do it without anger,
Speaker 1: learn how to do it with with pride, and go
Speaker 1: and enjoy and eroticize the pain, but without being hateful
Speaker 1: of yourself. Try that. And so there's all these hundred
Speaker 1: and one alternatives and there's only one rule in the book.
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of that. If there's an alternative that says,
Speaker 1: disobey the Golden Rule, go ahead. Everybody else does. Why
Speaker 1: should you be the only damn fool who's obeying it? Um,
Speaker 1: the only rule in the book is don't be mean.
Speaker 1: I love it that common is a common theme since
Speaker 1: we've been talking to you, and I really enjoy that.
Speaker 1: That's great because it's like not that people need permission,
Speaker 1: but that allows them to go places they wouldn't normally.
Speaker 1: But giving them permission to do something like no one
Speaker 1: could even fathom buying a book that is it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you want to starts out, but that that method of
Speaker 1: communicating opens up so many doors within people's own minds
Speaker 1: that they didn't know they could open. Like I'm reading
Speaker 1: a book about how to quit smoking, and the guys
Speaker 1: like usually I teach seminars and stuff and we have
Speaker 1: smoke breaks. You smoke while you're reading this book. I
Speaker 1: don't care smoke. And that that changed me. And I'm
Speaker 1: only a chapter in and I'm like, oh shit, a
Speaker 1: youmay taking the joy ot of smoking for me. It's
Speaker 1: kind of nice, but that freedom, Uh, it's interesting, it's
Speaker 1: effective And what is it? What is it about the
Speaker 1: antarixty that keeps you? Is it like easy because you
Speaker 1: feel so alive when you're hungry used to be. I
Speaker 1: haven't starved myself now. And since I wrote that book
Speaker 1: really since I totally myself. I need a sandwich. Huh,
Speaker 1: how do you? How do you? How do you? It's
Speaker 1: the same thing as masochism and b D s M.
Speaker 1: When someone's hurting you, you hurt them back, you run away.
Speaker 1: But there's a third option, as you take it. M
Speaker 1: not hurting me, I can I can take that. I
Speaker 1: don't have to run away. I can turn that energy
Speaker 1: into something else, same with starving yourself. For me, it was,
Speaker 1: it was, it was great. Uh no, really I felt strong, powerful. Um, well,
Speaker 1: fasting is a thing. I mean, of course I thought
Speaker 1: I looked better. Was there any sort of sense in
Speaker 1: terms of it feeling in control? Was that a factor
Speaker 1: in it? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah because I yeah, because
Speaker 1: I remember after shitty breakup. I remember I uh made
Speaker 1: myself throw up for like six months, and I but
Speaker 1: I was confused by because like, I don't I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to be thinner, I'm not trying to change my looks.
Speaker 1: I'm totally cool with my looks. But then I realized,
Speaker 1: like it's a control thing. I just want something to control,
Speaker 1: and that control felt so good because I felt a
Speaker 1: lout of control. Yeah, this is something I can do. Um.
Speaker 1: The only problem with giving a blanket permission like that
Speaker 1: with one rule don't be mean, is a lot of
Speaker 1: the things you do to improve your life are going
Speaker 1: to get you sent to hell. M hm say what arguably,
Speaker 1: but some people have the truth is you know, if
Speaker 1: I'm queer, I'm going to go to hell. They grew
Speaker 1: up with this. This is whatever. Um, you know, if
Speaker 1: I change my gender, hole is shit, I'm going to hell.
Speaker 1: I've got you covered. Um. I give away get out
Speaker 1: of Hell free card and it works like this works
Speaker 1: like this. You do whatever it takes to make your
Speaker 1: life more worth living. Anything, my babies, all right, anything,
Speaker 1: Just don't be mean. And if you get sent to
Speaker 1: hell for doing something that wasn't mean, hang onto the card,
Speaker 1: give it to Satan. I will do your time. So
Speaker 1: kind of you. Yeah, well, thank you so much. Thank you.
Speaker 1: This has been guys, we fucked the anti slot shaming podcast.
Speaker 1: We'll talk to you next week. Shine to fall asleep, dosn'ing,
Speaker 1: turning on to my sheets, go on a street, let
Speaker 1: the now window feel in that awful neat and need
Speaker 1: to be someone doing a thing. All I want to
Speaker 1: do is like they do, like the winter sky, like
Speaker 1: the window Sky, I'm sob Sunstabb and Sunstart, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening, says today's episode of Guys We Sucked.
Speaker 1: Throwing Shade, the critically acclaimed podcast When Funnier Guy, is
Speaker 1: now a new late night show on TV Land. It's
Speaker 1: a weekly current events comedy show hosted by Feminasty Eric,
Speaker 1: Aaron Gibson and Homo Sensual Brian Safi. Brian and Aaron
Speaker 1: look at the headlines and politics and pop culture and
Speaker 1: treat them with much less respect and they deserve. From
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