May 13, 2022 • 51 mins
LGBTQ youth and the people who affirm and support them are being attacked online. Alejandra Caraballo, Clinical Instructor at the Harvard Law Cyber Law Clinic explains why it should concern all of us.
WE’RE DOING A LIVE SHOW in NYC and VIRTUALLY on 5/28! Get tickets: Tangoti.com/live
Donate to the Trevor Project: tangoti.com/trevor
Subscribe to Alejandra’s amazing podcast Queering The Law: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1949544
Follow Alejandra: https://twitter.com/Esqueer_
Find a BansOffOurBody rally near you: Tangoti.com/rally
Join our newsletter: Tangoti.com/newsletter
Want to support the show? (thank you!)
Subscribe, tell a friend, leave a review, or buy some merch at There Are No Girls on the Internet’s store: TANGOTI.COM/STORE
Say hello at hello@tangoti.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Y'all already know that navigating the online world can be
tricky and complicated. That's why here at there are new
girls on the Internet. We just launched a brand new
newsletter where I'll be taking your Internet questions and conundrums.
To subscribe and submit a question, just go to Tangoti
dot com slash newsletter and I can't wait to connect
with you there. You can't pinpoint any violent act to
(00:24):
anything said online, but the overall raising of the temperature
is what allowed it to happen in the first place.
There are no girls on the Internet. As a production
of I Heart Radio and unbloss Creative, I'm Bridget Todd
(00:47):
and this is there are no girls on the Internet.
We are in the middle of a whole blown moral
panic around l g b t Q identity. In schools,
LGBTQ folks are being smeared, pedophiles or being accused of
grooming kids for sexual abuse. And this comes as trans
and queer people are already under attack. According to NBC,
(01:08):
state lawmakers have already proposed a record two hundred and
thirty eight bills that would limit the rights of LGBTQ
folks this year alone. That's more than three per day,
with about half of those bills specifically targeting trans folks.
So what's empowering these bills? Well, in part, it's hateful
online rhetoric, fearmongering, and baseless conspiracy theories about trans and
(01:30):
queer folks. And Alejandra Carbio says we all need to
be paying attention. My name is Alejandra Carravallio. I am
a civil rights attorney, UM and currently teaching at Harvard
Law Schools Cyber Law Clinic as a clinical instructor. Alejandra
has spent her entire life building power for and with
marginalized communities online and off. As we talked, she said,
(01:54):
in her office at Harvard, flanked by posters of historic
power builders like Sylvia Rivera and marsh to P. Johnson.
So you are one of the first trans women of
color to ever teach at Harvard. I guess my first
question is what has that been like for you? And
how did you get here? How did you get to
be doing what you're doing. Yeah, I mean it's been surreal.
(02:16):
I mean I've been very fortunate. I know you said
one of like, I was very fortunate to start at
the same time as my my dear friend Anya Marino
UM who's working at the LGBTQ Advocacy Clinic. We started
within like a day of each other um at you know,
at the clinic, so we kind of both started at
the same time as we're both the first transforman of
color to teach at the clinic or at Harvard Law.
(02:38):
I mean, it's been a quite an interesting experience, Like
I've never been so close to like these kind of
centers of power this way. Like I grew up in
a very middle class like Florida suburb, like you know,
like Harvard just seemed like this like pipe dream out there.
And even then, and I went to Brooklyn Law School
and I did three years of direct legal work doing
(03:00):
immigration family law with trans Latine X immigrants, uh, and
then two years of movement impact litigation at the Transgenerallyal
Defense Education Fund. And then UM, I've always been a
bit of a tech nerd, so you know, this kind
of was a nice way to kind of give myself
a break. I kind of really burned myself out on
movement work after five years, and especially during the Trump administration,
(03:23):
it was just there was a lot. So it's it's
been great. My students are my favorite thing about teaching here,
like they like and one of the things I always
say is that, you know, law students come to school
wide eyed with a lot of hope and enthusiasm for
the law, and a lot of people once they leave
(03:44):
law school and actually packed us law become very jaded
and cynical and like it's hard. I fought it, but
I in very many ways, I've become very jaded and
cinaco about the law. And when I see like the
next generational lawyers and I get to work with them
on projects in cases and really see like how they
developed throughout the semester in terms of their legal writing
(04:05):
skills and everything else, like and just see like the
passionate enthusiasm they have for the for the work and
also just like the diverse backgrounds of the students that
I'm teaching. All of those things, like it just it
fills me with hope. And like this, you know right now,
like to recording, Like I've been doing final evaluations with students,
(04:26):
and this is like one of my favorite times because
it's it's really an opportunity not just for me to
help students improve, but like to help build them up
because I have a lot of students that come from
disadvantaged backgrounds that are not the typical you know, which
you think of what do you think of Harvard Law?
And they are rock stars. Um and as like someone
here who's like not typically represented, I like really realize
(04:48):
the power of visibility, right, Like just even being visible
here means like you know, students that come and tell
me things that like they probably can't tell to like
they're seventy something year old assist, white male professor, right
that just doesn't get it. Um. And so that is
just really huge, like that visibility. And I think also
like I take it to the next step, like I
(05:08):
have my my Sonia poster behind me or my Sounia portrait.
I also have uh you know, I just like Drew
a Parrican Fly, I've Judge Jackson and Marcia and Sylvia
Rivera and then of course bads with compos I call
it like my wall of power. Yes, I love it.
(05:29):
I would be so beyond stoked if I came to
college or came to law school and you were my
professor and I was in your office looking at your
wall of power. That's incredible, Yeah, because you don't see
these faces typically in the Law School, right, Like you
see a lot of older white folks, like you know,
famous alumni and stuff like that. It's rare that you
(05:52):
see like people of color and like in that way.
And it's like I could point that we have two
Supreme Court justice as one who's an alumni of the
school and compos who a lot of people don't know about.
But he was the Puerto Rican independence leader supposed to
be the valuatorian of the class of Harvard Law School
as an Afro Latin X And you know, Harvard couldn't
(06:16):
at that time like stand having a Afro Latin X
man be the valedictorians. So they've withheld his grades to
keep up, to delay him graduating, so he wouldn't be valedatorian.
But you know I have them here and I am
working to make sure he is more visible on this campus. Yes,
carrying that legacy. I love it. I guess one of
(06:37):
my one of the questions I'm so interested to get
into is I know it has been a hard time
for trans folks, and I think something about the Elon
Musk News, this was that much harder on a time
that's already been very difficult. So I want to like
acknowledge that, you know, what is Twitter? The experience of
(06:59):
being on Twitter on social media have been like for
you as a trans woman, Yeah, I mean it's been
it's been something else. Right. So I've been on Twitter
for like twelve ish years, but I didn't really use it.
I mostly just kind of had a Twitter to just
check every once in a while whatever it was trending,
and um when I started running for city council, ultimately
(07:22):
did not obviously, but when I you know, I started
heavily using Twitter as an organizing tool and as an
ability to connect with others in a political way, and
I really started building up. But following like two years ago,
I had like a hundred followers um on Twitter, and
now I'm like at sixteen thousands. So it's like it's
(07:43):
just like it's ballooned. And that experience changes. Right when
you're an anonymous account with a hundred people and you
just kind of interact like nobody really cares, right, But
the minute you start getting a following and you start
getting a lot of engagement and stuff like that, like
the experience changes. You really start getting singled out, um
(08:03):
uh for people that if you like, like for instance,
on Monday, Like I criticized Elon musk Uh buying Twitter
and called it like called in a question, Like a
lot of the things that he does are that come
off as very like white supremacist, like him flashing the
okay symbol on sn L, him having like a segregated
(08:24):
workplace at Tesla, his parents having wealth invested in an
emerald mind in apartheid era South Africa. I mean, I'm
always just skeptical of any wealthy white person from South Africa,
like the only like major flag, major red flag. Yeah,
like yeah, you know that the family's wealth is built
(08:45):
on colonialism like explicitly, um but uh, you know, and
things like that, and then you know, just a history
of of transphobic jokes and statements on Twitter, and you know,
I think like calling it a question that and my god,
I got like hate mail on my personal working email,
which like that almost never happens, and like I had
(09:06):
to go private because like I was getting not just
bombarded because like I have my notifications filtered, so like
if they don't follow me, I don't I don't see it,
you know, so like people can go at me all
they want and do what at ratio whatever the hell
they can. I don't care, Like, I don't see it
that way. But what ends up happening is I do
have my d ms open, so I can usually tell
(09:28):
when something is going sideways when I start getting a
ton of actually hate dms um, and those get filtered
as well, right Like, um, So it's it's just like
message requests, so I don't even see them unless I
like specifically go like, it doesn't even send me a notification.
It just like it's just want to checking my messages,
so I might check them like once a day or
something like that. Um and yeah, and like flooded with
(09:51):
messages on on Monday, and it was just like a lot,
and it was overwhelming, and I was like, you know,
I'm taking this private. And the only other time I'm
I've gotten that dog piled was when I criticized Joe Rogan.
There's something about these like weight men that just like
(10:13):
drives others to just go to all these links to
defend them. I don't understand. They don't need to be defended.
They have Elon Musk is a richest man in the
world with million Twitter followers. Joe Rogan has the most
listen to podcasts in the world at like two million dollars.
Like he's gonna be fine. He doesn't need a personal
army to defend him. Yes, have you ever seen that
(10:36):
meme where it's um, It's like that Simpson's meme where
it's like um, Elon Musk, you know, valid criticism and
like internet weirdos diving in front of the bullet to
save him from any kind of valid criticism. I think
Joe Rogan Elon Musk, they're two. There are two men
who really I feel like people must search on Twitter
(10:56):
for their names to be like, yeah, like someone criticizing
him not on my watch. And if you notice a
lot of people who start criticizing Elon Musk or even
Joe Rogan, like what they'll do is they'll misspell his name,
like I've seen. I was like on my subsequent posts,
I was like using the name melon Husk because like
they would, but they literally that's what they do. Like
(11:18):
how like how much of a loser do you have
to be to sit there and search the name Elon
Musk so that when you see negative criticism you dog
pile that person and you attack them like it's just
it's it's just like ridiculous, like get a life, get
a job, do something. Definitely sounds like the behavior of
someone who calls themselves an advocate of free speech. So
(11:40):
for sure, let's say, quickbreak, there are no girls on
the internet is doing a live show on caveat in
near or city and virtually from wherever you're at. We'll
(12:02):
have amazing guests, a meet and greet, and much much more.
Go to tank dot com, slash live and get your
tickets and I cannot wait to see you there center back.
We've seen increasing attacks on LGBTQ folks using the label groomer,
(12:24):
according to research for Media Matters. On Twitter, the number
of tweets with groomer related language increased by over six
in April, with over eight hundred and seventy thousand tweets
and retweets compared to nearly fivety tweets in March. Now,
grooming is a serious thing. It's used to describe the
actions and adult takes to build a relationship with a
(12:45):
child that makes that child more vulnerable to sexual abuse,
and today, both online and off, extremists and apply that
l g b t Q folks or those who affirm
l g b t Q youth are actually pedophiles who
present a dangerous threat to children. It's a resurgence of
a well worn tactic of extremists. In the seventies, anti
(13:06):
gay activist Anita Bryant ran the Save Our Children campaign
aimed at repealing a local Florida ordinance prohibiting discrimination on
the basis of sexual orientation, and a key component of
her campaign was suggesting that gay teachers were a threat
to the safety of kids. And it's not just French extremists.
Mainstream Republicans have passed legislation attacking marginalized identities, like laws
(13:27):
criminalizing trans youth or Florida's Don't Say Gay bill that
puts vague restrictions on talking about sexual orientation in classrooms.
Florida Governor Ronda Santiss Press Secretary Christina Pushall described the
legislation as quote the anti grooming bill, tweeting that if
you did not support that Don't Say Gay bill quote,
then you're probably a groomer or at least don't announce
(13:48):
the grooming of four to eight year old children. Honestly,
it is not difficult to see the influence of the
q and on conspiracy in her comments and it should
not be surprising to find that this moral panic has
accompanied a way of a violent in real life threats
against LGBTQ people. It's it's already been kind of toxic.
I think that there's definitely been a vibe shift since February,
(14:10):
UM that I've noticed, and it's been on like anything
I've ever seen, um, the kinds of attacks on LGBTQ people,
specifically labeling lgbt people as groomers like and pedophiles, like.
I never thought that would like happen in that way,
and it's just absolutely gross, Like it is one of
the grossest things I've ever seen. UM. And so we
(14:33):
saw in February, like lives of TikTok, James Lindsay, some
of these like right wing trolls, Jack Passovi and eventually
got all the way up, you know. And and then
what really changed was the Santiss Press Secretary Christina Pusha
labeling that don't Say Gay bill as an anti grooming bill, um.
And like that was the first time we had like
(14:53):
a government official put the im premature of like, you know,
this is a government message that like, you know, if
you opposed don't say gay, you're a groomer kind of thing,
and um, it was terrifying, like like I think for
for pretty much all the trans people I know on Twitter,
Like it's like blaring red siren, like this is getting bad,
(15:15):
Like this is going to lead to people getting killed.
And we've already seen someone walk into a barn Brooklyn
with kerosene and set it on a gay bar and
set it on fire. Just like two days ago, someone
through bricks through a Pride center in Burlington, Vermont. And
this comes about two weeks after um, I believe it
(15:36):
was her name is Feather Fern was was murdered in
in Vermont, like a trans woman. Um, and the person
tried to initiate like the trans planic defense, and so
like we've already seen that and like that that the
attacks on like this gay couple on an Amtrak train
in California being called pedophiles and child stealers because they
(15:58):
adopted two kids. Like it's just horrific stuff. And this
is directly as a result of the toxic online discourse
and because of this, like Twitter has generally tried to
do the right thing, but any time is specifically around
trans people, any time they try to make it better
(16:20):
for trans people, though, like right wing echosphere just goes
into overdrive like they just like it is, like they
feel like it's their constitutional right to go on private
companies websites to harass trans people. It's really not surprising
to me that Twitter has emerged as this new battleground
for the so called culture wars. Traditionally, marginalized people use
(16:42):
Twitter to carve out power and a voice for ourselves.
We built movements like me Too and Black Lives Matter
on Twitter, and I think the idea of marginalized people
building power on Twitter is incredibly threatening the people who
have traditionally had all the power. For instance, Elon Musk
said that he was inspired to buy Twitter after the
right wing parody site The Babylon b was suspended for
(17:03):
refusing to delete a transphobic tweet miss gendering Admiral Rachel Levine,
who was a trans woman and the Assistant Secretary for
Health for the U. S Department of Health and Human Services,
And like that's what we saw, Like we saw what
was reported right The Babylon be being suspended for its
joke about Dr Levine was supposedly one of the last
(17:24):
straws for Elon musk and so like they pushed the envelope.
They pushed this hatred. And then when a site tries
to step in and say like this is leading to violence,
this is causing harm, they you know, cry free speech
or whatnot. But what it really is is they want
the free freedom to bully right, Like, because if you
want to say, like I hate trans people, I don't
(17:44):
feeleve they should exist, you can say that to the
cows come home, right, Like, you could just go out
a street corner and yell at that is free speech.
The government cannot stop you from saying that. You can
scream it out a corner. You can write manifestos, you
can like do what, write a novel how much you
hate trans people, knock yourself out right. But a social
(18:05):
media company is different. They are not under those obligations,
and people fundamentally do not understand that the problem is
is like, if you make a social media company hostile
to people, you're not going to stay around very long.
Like we've seen what sites with no moderation are like
four chan, h h chan, a cone um, you know
(18:26):
all these sites like they don't have advertisers, no, Like
typical person goes on there, because it is filled with
racial slurs, anti Semitic slurs, homophobic slurs, like just the
worst of the worst. Like it is literally filled with
actual Nazis, Like posting Nazi means so like we know
(18:48):
what that looks like. And so at some end, like
Twitter has to engage in moderation and it really what
it is is like they're trying to use trans people
as a ledge to base equally destroy a social media
site for daring to protect chance people. The way that
I see it is that you know, in the last five,
(19:09):
ten years or whatever, social media platforms, I would say
all of them, but really Twitter is like a special
platform people who have been traditionally marginalized have been able
to you know, have a little bit of a more
of a voice and have a little bit more power
that institutionally we didn't really get to have. And I
think that that's maybe one of the reasons why we're
(19:30):
seeing this Twitter be this big battlefield right now, because
I think people who are threatened by that, people who
are threatened when they see, you know, people who have
traditionally had a harder time making their voices heard, get
those platforms, get those voices, and even if even if
a platform like Twitter does the bare minimum to make
their platform a little bit hospitable to these voices, that
(19:53):
feels very threatening or threatened. Yeah, that feels very threatening,
and therefore they have to sort of go out of
their way to remind folks know this platform needs to
be hostile toward people who are traditionally marginalized. I want
that status quo back where I can say whatever and
they can't say anything right right, um, And like it's
(20:13):
like the classics saying right when you're all you're accustomed
to is privilege. Equality feels like oppression. Um, and that's
very much what it is. Lives of TikTok it's a
Twitter account run by shier Rycheck with over one point
two million followers that basically exist to spread lies and
fear about teachers grooming children. The account is called public
(20:35):
Schools quote government run indoctrination camps for the LGBTQ, spread
outlandish lies about lgbt Q youth and teachers, also singling
them out for harassment and abuse. It's also become an
influential piece of right wing online infrastructure. Florida Governor Rohnda
Santiss Press Secretary Christina Pushall said the account truly opened
(20:55):
her eyes on the state of LGBTQ education in schools.
I think one of the most illustrative issues of this
was TikTok. Like what it is is it's it's all
about fundamentally power and its power to make sure that
the in group maintains power and society and the out
group is minimized. And in this case, the the in
(21:18):
group is mostly white conservatives, mostly white supremacists and others
and fascists, um. And then what you have is the
out group is like queer LGBTQ people, people of color, women,
others and like that. They want to marginalize. And so
what ends up happening is is like you have TikTok, right,
So like TikTok or not TikTok lives of TikTok is
(21:41):
specifically retweeting videos of LGBTQ teachers that likely have like
maybe a hundred or thousand views on TikTok. This is
these are relatively obscure people that are just posting their
thoughts online. They wriped those videos and the post online
with very leading titles some of them like I've watched
(22:04):
the videos. It's just like a teacher talking about the
students asking them who their husband is, and they came
out to the class and they were like, if anyone
comes out, and if any gay teacher comes out, they
should be fired on the spot. Like that's literally what
lives of TikTok said. And so then they come out
and they're like, you know, they're just exposing liberals for
(22:25):
what they say, and they're just showing up and you know,
that's what they do. And I'm like, meanwhile, like they're
just sending a torrent of harassment towards these people that
are relatively anonymous, and additionally towards school districts. They're creating
a whole panic by like pushing this groomer libel um
(22:47):
and then essentially, you know, they want the power to
do that. And then the minute that anybody steps up
and says, yeah, this is who that person is, shy
a ray check, Like they forgot to use a pseudonym
when they registered their domain name and now that's public information.
Like they went into overdrive to attack Taylor Lawrenz at
(23:08):
the Washington Post, who didn't even expose it, by the
way Internet researchers exposed it. And they were so upset
that this person was like docked or you know, quote
unquote or that they were exposed, and that like it
was so vicious and she's exposed her harassment, all this stuff,
and it's like it's literally what she does. She said
(23:30):
she sends harassment and had like not her directly, but
it's like what's called stochastic terrorism, right, she knows that
by putting somebody on blast on her Twitter, what will happen?
And the fact that she was scared of people knowing
who she was, and the fact that they acted like
it was some big thing to expose that like like
grow up, grow up, Like you have an account with
(23:53):
a million followers. Now you are getting interviewed by Tucker
Carlson and national media and you have an expectation of privacy.
I'm sorry you do not um and you know, and again,
don't use your actual name to register a domain a
domain like just don't do anything. So but but again,
(24:14):
like going back to the dynamic, like this is about
preserving power, right, Like that's what lives with TikTok does, right.
It creates a chilling effect. How many queer or lgbt
Q teachers on TikTok are not going to talk on
TikTok or post a video for fear that they will
be their content ripped and then there will be fired,
(24:37):
or have a mob at a school board meeting talking
about them, to asking for them to be fired. Teachers,
making our our parents making accusations against them, like all
these things just for existing as a queer person, right,
Like it is a moral panic, that is what it
was going on right now. I'm so good that you
brought this up because this is something that I talked
about a lot on the show, and this in general.
(25:00):
So Elon Musk and people like him, they love talking
about free speech, and they from the way they talk,
it would seem as though the people who are likely
facing consequence for the things they say are white, conservative
or libertarian men who just like want to say slurs
or whatever. But the reality is that it's marginalized people
who are much more likely to face consequences for the
things they say, especially online. And so you know, I
(25:21):
guess my question is like, how can we and I
think that just completely gets missed whenever we're happy in
conversation about speech and who who you know, free speech
for who? How can we change that conversation change that
focus so that it is about the reality that it's
queer folks, transpokes, sex workers, activists who are either pushed
out of spaces or silenced or you know, d platforms
(25:43):
for what they say, Like like why do you think
that that when we talked, but when people who seem
so obsessed with talking about speech, why do you feel
like those the marginalized people who we know are the
people who are facing consequences for what they say, like
like why do they get are they able to get
left out so often? Yeah, it's mainly because you know,
(26:06):
it's again it's it's insidious what these people do. Right.
So it again boils down to the difference between equality
and equity. Right, So if everyone has access on Twitter,
that's equality. So everyone so everyone's equal here on on
the site, But that doesn't necessarily mean that there's equity, right, Like,
there's all kinds of things that go into a social
media site, like even having time to be able to
(26:28):
post on Twitter, that's a that's a privilege because a
lot of people do not, Like there are people working
two jobs, three jobs, like doing stuff like they don't
have time to pay a touch on Twitter. They're raising
kids like to doing all this stuff, so like that already,
like you're already creating all these things. But you know
that one of the things I always love to point
out with the difference between equity and quality is like,
let's say you have three children that were different ages
(26:50):
and sizes. One is like three ft, one is four foot,
and one is five ft and there is a four
foot fence covering while they're trying to watch a baseball game. Well,
you could say, I'm going to give them all one
of a one foot like block for them to stand on.
The third child is still not going to be able
to see because but that's equality, right. They all got
(27:11):
the same boost, and the first kid, who didn't even
need it in the first place, is now even higher
up for a better view. But what equity is is
understanding the nature of the situation and giving that first
kid a two foot block, the middle kid of footblock
and then just leaving it and they're there. You know,
that is equity, right, And so understanding that and so
there's an idea here that we you know, we've been
(27:32):
been discussing within the clinic, you know, within our our
course here and our seminars like talking about algorithmic reparations,
like the designs of these sites, because people act like
that these things are designed neutrally, they're not. There's always
conscious bias that goes into the design of these websites,
(27:52):
and so if you're not actively countering it, you are
permitting it um And so that's one of the aspects
of the design of sites like Twitter that needs to
be accounted for. And I think Twitter hasn't necessarily gone
that way. They're just trying to plug holes in everything
that shows up, right, But they're at least attempting. I
think they have like like they're trying so that that
(28:15):
concept of equity, right, that's what they're demonizing. They're demonizing diversity, equity, inclusion.
They're acting like it's this horrible thing. They're banning, you know,
any talk about critical race theory, which like I'm like,
if you want to take critical racory, you have to
like a two all or three all here at Harvard
Law School, Like we're not teaching it to kindergarteners. Like
(28:38):
if that is not what's happening, but that doesn't matter, right,
Like all they have to do is scream it and
that's all of a sudden, that's reality. And like, what
is even more disturbing beyond the critical race theory is
like just the whole sale denial of this country's history.
It's it's all to protect white innocence, right at the
end of the day, Like that's what it's about. It's
(28:58):
protecting white Its more, after a quick break, let's get
right back into it, just in case you needed any
(29:24):
more proof that we're in the middle of a full
blown moral panic. Last month, Florida's education department accused publishers
of trying to indoctrinate kids with math textbooks by trying
to sneak in lessons grounded in emotional and social learning,
which is basically a classroom methodology that helps kids understand
their emotions around subjects and demonstrate empathy for others. For example,
(29:44):
if a math book said that sometimes math problems can
look scary, or if a book said it's good to
work together to solve problems, those would be examples of
social and emotional learning. The Washington Post reports that Florida's
Education department said that it rejected for books the most
ever in Florida's history, even though at least twenty four
of those books scored high marks from the official state
(30:04):
reviewers for conforming to Florida's standards, but were rejected anyway.
And this crackdown happens all will. People like University of
Virginia recent grad Emma camp who published a recent New
York Times op ed about how conservative speech is being
suppressed on college campuses, are uplifted as the face of
attacks on free speech. What's more demious is like this
(30:25):
attack on emotional and social learning, Like this is what
we saw in Florida with like forty books math books
banned for the crime of putting it's sometimes better to
learn together, listen to other people, hear what they have
to say. And it's like, are you trying to raise
a country of sociopaths? Like the I mean, what is
(30:48):
the goal of that? Like literally these people would like
attack Mr Rogers today. Yeah. I saw one of my
favorite books growing up was Babies Everywhere. And it's like
it's like essentially a picture book about how there's babies everywhere,
and it was banned in some state I can't remember where.
And the offending the only like offending image I use
(31:11):
that in scare quotes was one of the babies. Behind
the baby was two men and one of the men
has his hand on the other shoulder. And so it's
like I was reading this interview with the author and
she was like, we don't explicitly say that they're married
or that they have this child. It's like they could
be brothers, they could be friends. Like we don't even
say anything, but under these under in this new climate,
(31:33):
just this suggestion like oh, two men standing next to
each other. No, can't have that in schools. Can't have
anybody seeing that. Yeah, I mean that that's that's part
of it, right, Like it's erasing any sense of queerness.
And this is what is frustrating about mainstream coverage around
this whole debate, right, Like we constantly see OpEd after
(31:56):
opened about I don't feel like I can say what
I want to saying classrooms and like what they mean
in like college classrooms or or like college courses or
college campuses. Like I feel like if I say something,
my my uh classmates might ostracize me. And I'm like, okay,
(32:17):
that's real life. Like I'm sorry, that's a new concept.
You say something unpopular and people will not like it.
I mean, like you can I can't go into my
office and be like, all y'all smell like ship without
my co workers getting up that what's the deal. It's like, yeah,
it's called It's always been that way. You there are
(32:38):
consequences of the things that you say. People can astrize
you when they don't like we have to say. And
I guess I feel like in comparison to the way
that we're seeing this very clear crackdown on marginalized voices,
it just seems so like the whose stories get amplified
of you know, quote unquote having their free speech crackdown on,
where it's like, oh my college classroom when I said
(32:59):
something they didn't like it, compared to you know, people
being five, it's like it's it's it's just really wild
to be in the mainstream coverage. Who gets amplified and
who doesn't. Yeah, Like in that that that story that
was in the New York Times recently, and like the
woman who wrote it like had already just graduated, and
I think it was working for Reason magazine and like
(33:21):
was being pushed up by Fire and which is like
a big or like libertarian orc um and like has
like these powerful people behind her, like performing and she's like,
she went to University of Virginia. I just like already
like one of the top schools in the country, and
so she's like went to a top school, is working
on a national media and it's like I can't say
(33:42):
what I want to say in the college classroom. Meanwhile,
the most banned books in the country are literally is
like literally, um, anything dealing with LGBTQ people. I mean
we're literally talking about like books that feature like two penguins,
Like it's it's insane, like and there are like entire
like there are school boards like saying that books should
(34:03):
be burned. Like I'm sorry, Like on what way is
any of this like on an equal plane? Like that
is a much greater threat because, like you know, as
the cliche goes, like where they burned books, they will
burn people. Like that is far scarier because that is
(34:25):
much more systemic, and that is using the levels of
government to achieve it. It's not a private company deciding
who is coming into their little social media site and
saying stuff like that. Is that they're using the government
and so like that that is on that's explicitly what
the First Amendment was to protect the First Amendment is
to protect us against the government censoring speech. So we
(34:48):
have governments censoring speech, banning books, and like barely a
pip and like all of a sudden, we have like
one white girl on a college campus who feels like
she can't say something, and like that's on the front
page of the New York Times, Like I'm sorry, Like
I'm you lost me. I guess you know, do you
(35:12):
see this kind of climate that we're in that is
so hostile to or we're seeing such a backlash against
marginalized voices? Do that? You know, we know brew online
and brew on social media says, do you see this
as a direct threat to democracy? Yeah, I absolutely do.
We I mean we've seen what social media can do
when it's unchecked. Literally all we have to do is
(35:34):
like ay sixteen, I mean I remember being in the
middle of it on Reddit. Like Reddit was a heavy
site for disinformation in the twenty sixteen campaign, and like
it was I felt like I was losing my mind,
like and like reading similar stories of people in Ukraine
and twenty four teen, like that's what it feels like
when you're subjected to that kind of disinformation, because like
(35:54):
you will talk to people in real life and like
nobody talks that way or believes anything, like uh, and
like there's one thing to be said about social media
bubbles and stuff like that, but it's a whole another one.
It's like this just like completely out of left field
stuff and just the kind of vitriol that gets, you know,
shared online, and like we've seen where that leads right,
(36:15):
Like Trump was most definitely like it's probably not the
only factor, Like there's a million things that went into it,
but a huge reason why Trump was elected is because
of disinformation on Facebook, on Twitter, on Reddit, on all
these sites. And so for people to think that this
doesn't have like a potential threat to democracy, it has
the ability to influence democracy. Like a conspiracy theory on
(36:38):
Twitter got a man to go with a h an
assault rifle to a pizza shop because of conspiracy theories around,
like like the whole pizza Gate conspiracy. There are people
who believe that Wayfair is shipping children in furniture, like
if you and like was the the I feel like
(36:59):
this one's always misquoted, but the Voltaire Um quote, it's
like if you can get people to believe in absurdities,
you can get them to commit atrocities and like that
that's exactly the kind of thing that I think about,
because like if you start labeling like trans people as
this like groomer cult that are going after children and
(37:23):
damaging their bodies quote unquote and doing all these things,
and like all of this, like and just the language
you're using, it is a matter of time. It is
not an if. It is a when someone is going
to take matters into their own hands and they're either
going to go shoot up a gay bar or they're
gonna bomb a gender clinic. I mean, we've seen this
(37:44):
is the kind of stuff that's going on around Like
the organizing around gender clinics is the same kind of
stuff that was happening in the nineties around apportion clinics,
and were like, we've seen what happens around that, and
so like this kind amped up rhetoric, it's it's stochastic terrorism.
Like you can't pinpoint any violent act to anything said online,
(38:08):
but the overall raising of the temperature is what allowed
it to happen in the first place. Yeah, I feel
the exact same way. Um, I live in d C,
so I remember very clearly when that happened at comment
ping Pong the pizza place here in d C. Like
like but and I think I was even before we
just got on the call, just now I was reading that. Um,
I think the FBI arrested a man who was threatening
(38:30):
to attack Miriam Webster the Dictionary because he did not
agree with the way that they were defining man and woman. Um.
And yeah, I just I just feel like we've come
to this place where the temperature has been raised so much,
and I see that as a direct result of things
happening on social media, of social media algorithms really you know,
(38:50):
prioritizing the most extreme content, the the most you know,
inflammatory rhetoric, and just yeah, I guess I really I
I I hadn't intended for this interview to sounds so alarmist.
It's it is, I feel it, so, you know, it's
just a lot. I don't I don't like, I don't
(39:11):
feel good about when I asked, you know, where does
this end? I don't really like imagining what the answer
to that question is, Like where does this end? I
don't know, Probably nowhere good, That's what I'm reading. Oh
my god, you're so you're just like really doing the scrolling,
is what I? UM, so no I held at the
(39:33):
book gaberlin Um, which I talked about like pre Weimar
but also mostly Weimar Republic era Germany, and how you know,
it was a haven for LGBTQ people. Um had like
the first the first surgery gener affirming surgeries that had
some of the first like first administrations of hormones um,
(39:53):
the first serious attempt at a study of queer and
trans people, of lesbians and gays and others like it,
just like by Magnus Hirschfeld, like all those things. And
there was just kind of this like golden era where
it was like that never really existed in that way
in the West of tolerance right in Berlin, and it
all just came crashing down so quickly in but like
(40:17):
if you've been paying attention, like it wasn't a surprise,
Like a lot of people got out like starting in
the late twenties and early thirties, like they saw what
was happening. And so it's like I think people just
think that like these things come out of nowhere, and
like you don't you know. And I always hate, like
I said, Godwin's Law, like bring up the Nazis and
stuff like that, because that that that's kind of we have.
(40:38):
We just have so much media, so that's like it's
made easier to relate to. But I think like if
you you don't need to go far, you can go
to contemporary examples. You have Hungary and Poland. Hungary has
banned the existence of trans people. They've banned all legal
recognition of trans people in the country. They have made
past gay propaganda laws, which the press gre Terry for
(41:01):
Ron de Santis and Florida admitted now that it was
based on the band in Hungary. Like so they're getting
these ideas from these like far right, authoritarian, illiberal countries,
and like Russia just dissolved the biggest LGBT rights or
in the country and they've passed a gay propaganda lot.
Like they see that and they see that as a model,
(41:24):
Like that is their goal, that is their inspiration um
And that's terrifying because like that's exactly the same kind
of stuff, like like like queer people right now are
like that Canary in the coal mind. And I would argue,
like before that, it was it's very much been immigrants,
Like having been in an immigration attorney for three years,
the kinds of stuff that people would say about immigrants
(41:46):
the kinds of policies we have here in the United States, like,
like are the conditions that we hold immigrants in detention
and the rights that they have, like would violate the
genuine convention, Like is atrocious what we do. It is
a human rights like violation and crime for what we
do around immigrants. And like we saw the rhetic rhetoric
(42:09):
with Trump, right, and then now it's it's LGBTQ people,
and we already start to see this, this kind of
massive reactionary backlash to the George Floyd protests, the Black
Lives Matter protests, and like it's it's only a matter
of time, like this is going to get worse. And
it always reminds me of that poem. It's like, you know,
and I posted this and it went viral, and and
(42:29):
you know, some people like we're like, well you was
this group or is acrem And I'm like, that's not
the point. There's not point of being a first group.
That's the point that like if you don't stand out
for a marginalized group, like it's it's not going to stop.
And so I posted the you know, the famous poem.
It's like first they came for trans people, and I
did nothing because I'm not trans. That they came forward
(42:51):
the lesbians and gays, and I did nothing because I'm
not lesbian gay, And I was like, we are here right,
like especially after this like groomer rhetoric, and it was
just like it was mind blowing to me to see
conservative gay men freak out and like, oh, this has
gone too far, Like like Andrew Sullivan was like apoplectic
(43:12):
about the groomer labor being applied to him. Is happy
to talk, happy for that label to be applied to
trans people, but the minute I got applied to him
was like whoa, wow, this has gone too far. And
it's like where did you think this was going? Like
did you think that they could just delineate between trans
people and queer people like that? They can't, like they're
all the same. They think we're all degenerates. They think
we're all like need to be wiped from this planet
(43:34):
like that. It's exterminationist. They're not going to make some
fine distinction for the good ones and be like oh no, no,
he's okay, No, I'm not gonna happen. Well, you know
I always end my interviews with a question, are you hopeful.
I guess I feel I feel like I mean, I'll
ask it. Does it sound like you are aren't when
(43:55):
you look at the state of things today? Are you hopeful?
I posted about this on my Twitter the other day.
I am a pessimist, Like I am a pessimist. I
I love the quote from Uh, I'm a huge marvel
nerd Like I love the m c U. I've watched it.
I just completed a whole rewatch of the m c
(44:16):
U for the fifth time. Um. But there's like a
Zamdais character mj and in Spiderman, and she's talking likeause,
She's like, UM, you know, I always expect disappointment, so
that way, you know, if if it happens, then you know,
I won't be disappointed. Um. And that's the kind of
attitude I have, which I feel like a lot of
people like that that doesn't work for them, and that's fine,
(44:38):
Like some people need to be optimistic. Nothing wrong that
my The way I function in the way that I
cope is pessimism because if I'm wrong, which I always
hope i am, things worked out much better than I anticipated.
And so that's always kind of served me well. And
so like for me, Like I see this going down
a very dark path and I don't think there's anything changing.
(44:59):
It's and it's only accelerating and getting worse. And like
I fully believe, like like by November early, like I
think we'll see like basically collapse of democracy in the
United States and things can go very south, very quickly. Um.
And so I've been starting to prepare. I'm getting my
(45:20):
passport ready, and I'm starting to save up a ton
of money and like getting ready to like, yeah, hey, Europe,
sound isn't good around this time of year, and like
you know what, I know, there's not an option for everyone.
It really isn't. Like a lot of people can't just immigrate.
A lot of people can't get passports, a lot of
people can't get the money to even fly right, So
like that's a privilege in amo itself. But like we've
(45:41):
got time if you can, like you know, save money,
like all those things. I feel like I'm being very
alarmoust and like negative. But hey, if it doesn't, if
everything turns out fine and I'm catastrophically wrong, which I
hope I am. Well, now I've got my passport and
I got a ton of money, and I can go
on vacation. There you go. That's a that's a like,
(46:04):
you know, a little silver lining on this ship sandwich.
That is our democracy and our country. Oh, I mean,
it's it's bad. I used to I used to joke
years ago, back when I thought it was impossible. So
so my organizing background is in the reproductive rights movement,
(46:25):
and I used to joke years ago that like, oh,
if Roe ever falls, I hope I'm i'm I will
be reading about it from the newspaper in a different country.
And now it seems like, oh, well, I'm still here
in the United States and it seems like it's gonna happen.
So I guess that didn't work out for me. So well, yeah,
I mean like ask you know l g pt Q Russians,
right Like I used to have some friends who who
(46:48):
were from Russia, and it was like, when is it
gonna get too bad to go back, right like for
them like to to even visit their family, and uh,
you know, now obviously things have on to a point
where it's like not not really okay, but for a
faus f with you people, like was it in thirteen
In the past, the gay Propaganda Law was it like
(47:08):
seventeen when Czech Tea started a concentration cancer gay men,
Like is it now that they start the words so
like there's always a question of like why is the
right timing? And I don't think there really is. Like
if you left Berlin in nineteen twenty nine, and you'd
be fine. If you left in nineteen thirty two, you'd
be fine. If you even left in nineteen thirty three,
you'd likely be okay. If you waited until nineteen thirty
(47:30):
five or even lanteen thirty nine, you are not gonna
be okay, right Like, And so it's like learning our
history so that you can see the signs and knowing, okay,
this is my red line, like I need to get
out of here, or having an exit plan because things
can also move quickly. I feel that like knowing your
history and knowing history is empowering. I'm I mean, I'm
(47:54):
glad that we have folks like you in our institutions
who are helping you know, the next generation to really
have that power to be empowered by our collective shared history.
Try as conservatives might to make that impossible to study
and know and learn from. Yep, exactly where can folks,
(48:15):
keep up with all of the incredible work that I
know that you are up to. Yeah, you can find
me all. My social media handles are Squeer Underscore so
e s q u e er. It is a portmanteau
of squire and queer. Again. You can find me an
s Square Underscore on Twitter, Instagram. Um, and you can
catch my podcast Queering the Law. Um. We typically released
(48:39):
weekly on Monday's. Um you can find out basically anywhere
podcasts are issued. UM and yeah, thank you so much
for having me. Is there anything that I did not
ask that you want to make sure it gets included? Um? Yeah,
please please donate to the Trevor Project. There is going
to be a massive smear camp pain against the Trevor
(49:01):
Project this week or this upcoming week. UM, this is
how low they've stooped. They're attacking a suicide hotline. UM,
it's it's fucking sick like, That's all I'm gonna say.
So please if you can ten it's life saving work.
Our youth are bearing the bront of this um and
they need to help and support. So please if we
(49:22):
can donate to the Trevor Project. So I try really
hard not to get too negative on this podcast, and
it's been a little bit difficult lately if you're listening
in the United States, where I'm based, It's been difficult
to ignore what feels like a coordinated attack on marginalized
people in the United States, from attacks on l g
(49:43):
B t Q youth and educators to attacks on abortion access.
We are witnessing an anti democratic rollback of our rights.
On Saturday, May fourteen, in cities across the country will
be mobilizing to demand protection of abortion access. I'll be
there in these see so if you see me, please
say hello, and you can go to tangodi dot com
slash rally to find an event happening in your city. Now.
(50:07):
I know it is a hard time. I know it's
so easy to check out and disengage. I feel tempted
to myself sometimes, but I also know that when we
come together, we are powerful, and I believe in us.
I hope to see you there. If you're looking for
ways to support the show, check out our March store
(50:28):
at tangodi dot com slash store. Got a story about
an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi,
You can reach us at Hello at tangodi dot com.
You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangodi
dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was
created by me Bridget Toad. It's a production of I
Heeart Radio and Unboss Creative edited by Joey Pat Jonathan
Strictland as our executive producer. Terry Harrison is our producer
(50:51):
and sound engineer. Michael Amata was our contributing producer. I'm
your host, Bridget Toad. If you want to help us
grow right and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more
pod cast from iHeart Radio, check out the iHeart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. H m
hm
Y'all already know that navigating the online world can be
tricky and complicated. That's why here at there are new
girls on the Internet. We just launched a brand new
newsletter where I'll be taking your Internet questions and conundrums.
To subscribe and submit a question, just go to Tangoti
dot com slash newsletter and I can't wait to connect
with you there. You can't pinpoint any violent act to
(00:24):
anything said online, but the overall raising of the temperature
is what allowed it to happen in the first place.
There are no girls on the Internet. As a production
of I Heart Radio and unbloss Creative, I'm Bridget Todd
(00:47):
and this is there are no girls on the Internet.
We are in the middle of a whole blown moral
panic around l g b t Q identity. In schools,
LGBTQ folks are being smeared, pedophiles or being accused of
grooming kids for sexual abuse. And this comes as trans
and queer people are already under attack. According to NBC,
(01:08):
state lawmakers have already proposed a record two hundred and
thirty eight bills that would limit the rights of LGBTQ
folks this year alone. That's more than three per day,
with about half of those bills specifically targeting trans folks.
So what's empowering these bills? Well, in part, it's hateful
online rhetoric, fearmongering, and baseless conspiracy theories about trans and
(01:30):
queer folks. And Alejandra Carbio says we all need to
be paying attention. My name is Alejandra Carravallio. I am
a civil rights attorney, UM and currently teaching at Harvard
Law Schools Cyber Law Clinic as a clinical instructor. Alejandra
has spent her entire life building power for and with
marginalized communities online and off. As we talked, she said,
(01:54):
in her office at Harvard, flanked by posters of historic
power builders like Sylvia Rivera and marsh to P. Johnson.
So you are one of the first trans women of
color to ever teach at Harvard. I guess my first
question is what has that been like for you? And
how did you get here? How did you get to
be doing what you're doing. Yeah, I mean it's been surreal.
(02:16):
I mean I've been very fortunate. I know you said
one of like, I was very fortunate to start at
the same time as my my dear friend Anya Marino
UM who's working at the LGBTQ Advocacy Clinic. We started
within like a day of each other um at you know,
at the clinic, so we kind of both started at
the same time as we're both the first transforman of
color to teach at the clinic or at Harvard Law.
(02:38):
I mean, it's been a quite an interesting experience, Like
I've never been so close to like these kind of
centers of power this way. Like I grew up in
a very middle class like Florida suburb, like you know,
like Harvard just seemed like this like pipe dream out there.
And even then, and I went to Brooklyn Law School
and I did three years of direct legal work doing
(03:00):
immigration family law with trans Latine X immigrants, uh, and
then two years of movement impact litigation at the Transgenerallyal
Defense Education Fund. And then UM, I've always been a
bit of a tech nerd, so you know, this kind
of was a nice way to kind of give myself
a break. I kind of really burned myself out on
movement work after five years, and especially during the Trump administration,
(03:23):
it was just there was a lot. So it's it's
been great. My students are my favorite thing about teaching here,
like they like and one of the things I always
say is that, you know, law students come to school
wide eyed with a lot of hope and enthusiasm for
the law, and a lot of people once they leave
(03:44):
law school and actually packed us law become very jaded
and cynical and like it's hard. I fought it, but
I in very many ways, I've become very jaded and
cinaco about the law. And when I see like the
next generational lawyers and I get to work with them
on projects in cases and really see like how they
developed throughout the semester in terms of their legal writing
(04:05):
skills and everything else, like and just see like the
passionate enthusiasm they have for the for the work and
also just like the diverse backgrounds of the students that
I'm teaching. All of those things, like it just it
fills me with hope. And like this, you know right now,
like to recording, Like I've been doing final evaluations with students,
(04:26):
and this is like one of my favorite times because
it's it's really an opportunity not just for me to
help students improve, but like to help build them up
because I have a lot of students that come from
disadvantaged backgrounds that are not the typical you know, which
you think of what do you think of Harvard Law?
And they are rock stars. Um and as like someone
here who's like not typically represented, I like really realize
(04:48):
the power of visibility, right, Like just even being visible
here means like you know, students that come and tell
me things that like they probably can't tell to like
they're seventy something year old assist, white male professor, right
that just doesn't get it. Um. And so that is
just really huge, like that visibility. And I think also
like I take it to the next step, like I
(05:08):
have my my Sonia poster behind me or my Sounia portrait.
I also have uh you know, I just like Drew
a Parrican Fly, I've Judge Jackson and Marcia and Sylvia
Rivera and then of course bads with compos I call
it like my wall of power. Yes, I love it.
(05:29):
I would be so beyond stoked if I came to
college or came to law school and you were my
professor and I was in your office looking at your
wall of power. That's incredible, Yeah, because you don't see
these faces typically in the Law School, right, Like you
see a lot of older white folks, like you know,
famous alumni and stuff like that. It's rare that you
(05:52):
see like people of color and like in that way.
And it's like I could point that we have two
Supreme Court justice as one who's an alumni of the
school and compos who a lot of people don't know about.
But he was the Puerto Rican independence leader supposed to
be the valuatorian of the class of Harvard Law School
as an Afro Latin X And you know, Harvard couldn't
(06:16):
at that time like stand having a Afro Latin X
man be the valedictorians. So they've withheld his grades to
keep up, to delay him graduating, so he wouldn't be valedatorian.
But you know I have them here and I am
working to make sure he is more visible on this campus. Yes,
carrying that legacy. I love it. I guess one of
(06:37):
my one of the questions I'm so interested to get
into is I know it has been a hard time
for trans folks, and I think something about the Elon
Musk News, this was that much harder on a time
that's already been very difficult. So I want to like
acknowledge that, you know, what is Twitter? The experience of
(06:59):
being on Twitter on social media have been like for
you as a trans woman, Yeah, I mean it's been
it's been something else. Right. So I've been on Twitter
for like twelve ish years, but I didn't really use it.
I mostly just kind of had a Twitter to just
check every once in a while whatever it was trending,
and um when I started running for city council, ultimately
(07:22):
did not obviously, but when I you know, I started
heavily using Twitter as an organizing tool and as an
ability to connect with others in a political way, and
I really started building up. But following like two years ago,
I had like a hundred followers um on Twitter, and
now I'm like at sixteen thousands. So it's like it's
(07:43):
just like it's ballooned. And that experience changes. Right when
you're an anonymous account with a hundred people and you
just kind of interact like nobody really cares, right, But
the minute you start getting a following and you start
getting a lot of engagement and stuff like that, like
the experience changes. You really start getting singled out, um
(08:03):
uh for people that if you like, like for instance,
on Monday, Like I criticized Elon musk Uh buying Twitter
and called it like called in a question, Like a
lot of the things that he does are that come
off as very like white supremacist, like him flashing the
okay symbol on sn L, him having like a segregated
(08:24):
workplace at Tesla, his parents having wealth invested in an
emerald mind in apartheid era South Africa. I mean, I'm
always just skeptical of any wealthy white person from South Africa,
like the only like major flag, major red flag. Yeah,
like yeah, you know that the family's wealth is built
(08:45):
on colonialism like explicitly, um but uh, you know, and
things like that, and then you know, just a history
of of transphobic jokes and statements on Twitter, and you know,
I think like calling it a question that and my god,
I got like hate mail on my personal working email,
which like that almost never happens, and like I had
(09:06):
to go private because like I was getting not just
bombarded because like I have my notifications filtered, so like
if they don't follow me, I don't I don't see it,
you know, so like people can go at me all
they want and do what at ratio whatever the hell
they can. I don't care, Like, I don't see it
that way. But what ends up happening is I do
have my d ms open, so I can usually tell
(09:28):
when something is going sideways when I start getting a
ton of actually hate dms um, and those get filtered
as well, right Like, um, So it's it's just like
message requests, so I don't even see them unless I
like specifically go like, it doesn't even send me a notification.
It just like it's just want to checking my messages,
so I might check them like once a day or
something like that. Um and yeah, and like flooded with
(09:51):
messages on on Monday, and it was just like a lot,
and it was overwhelming, and I was like, you know,
I'm taking this private. And the only other time I'm
I've gotten that dog piled was when I criticized Joe Rogan.
There's something about these like weight men that just like
(10:13):
drives others to just go to all these links to
defend them. I don't understand. They don't need to be defended.
They have Elon Musk is a richest man in the
world with million Twitter followers. Joe Rogan has the most
listen to podcasts in the world at like two million dollars.
Like he's gonna be fine. He doesn't need a personal
army to defend him. Yes, have you ever seen that
(10:36):
meme where it's um, It's like that Simpson's meme where
it's like um, Elon Musk, you know, valid criticism and
like internet weirdos diving in front of the bullet to
save him from any kind of valid criticism. I think
Joe Rogan Elon Musk, they're two. There are two men
who really I feel like people must search on Twitter
(10:56):
for their names to be like, yeah, like someone criticizing
him not on my watch. And if you notice a
lot of people who start criticizing Elon Musk or even
Joe Rogan, like what they'll do is they'll misspell his name,
like I've seen. I was like on my subsequent posts,
I was like using the name melon Husk because like
they would, but they literally that's what they do. Like
(11:18):
how like how much of a loser do you have
to be to sit there and search the name Elon
Musk so that when you see negative criticism you dog
pile that person and you attack them like it's just
it's it's just like ridiculous, like get a life, get
a job, do something. Definitely sounds like the behavior of
someone who calls themselves an advocate of free speech. So
(11:40):
for sure, let's say, quickbreak, there are no girls on
the internet is doing a live show on caveat in
near or city and virtually from wherever you're at. We'll
(12:02):
have amazing guests, a meet and greet, and much much more.
Go to tank dot com, slash live and get your
tickets and I cannot wait to see you there center back.
We've seen increasing attacks on LGBTQ folks using the label groomer,
(12:24):
according to research for Media Matters. On Twitter, the number
of tweets with groomer related language increased by over six
in April, with over eight hundred and seventy thousand tweets
and retweets compared to nearly fivety tweets in March. Now,
grooming is a serious thing. It's used to describe the
actions and adult takes to build a relationship with a
(12:45):
child that makes that child more vulnerable to sexual abuse,
and today, both online and off, extremists and apply that
l g b t Q folks or those who affirm
l g b t Q youth are actually pedophiles who
present a dangerous threat to children. It's a resurgence of
a well worn tactic of extremists. In the seventies, anti
(13:06):
gay activist Anita Bryant ran the Save Our Children campaign
aimed at repealing a local Florida ordinance prohibiting discrimination on
the basis of sexual orientation, and a key component of
her campaign was suggesting that gay teachers were a threat
to the safety of kids. And it's not just French extremists.
Mainstream Republicans have passed legislation attacking marginalized identities, like laws
(13:27):
criminalizing trans youth or Florida's Don't Say Gay bill that
puts vague restrictions on talking about sexual orientation in classrooms.
Florida Governor Ronda Santiss Press Secretary Christina Pushall described the
legislation as quote the anti grooming bill, tweeting that if
you did not support that Don't Say Gay bill quote,
then you're probably a groomer or at least don't announce
(13:48):
the grooming of four to eight year old children. Honestly,
it is not difficult to see the influence of the
q and on conspiracy in her comments and it should
not be surprising to find that this moral panic has
accompanied a way of a violent in real life threats
against LGBTQ people. It's it's already been kind of toxic.
I think that there's definitely been a vibe shift since February,
(14:10):
UM that I've noticed, and it's been on like anything
I've ever seen, um, the kinds of attacks on LGBTQ people,
specifically labeling lgbt people as groomers like and pedophiles, like.
I never thought that would like happen in that way,
and it's just absolutely gross, Like it is one of
the grossest things I've ever seen. UM. And so we
(14:33):
saw in February, like lives of TikTok, James Lindsay, some
of these like right wing trolls, Jack Passovi and eventually
got all the way up, you know. And and then
what really changed was the Santiss Press Secretary Christina Pusha
labeling that don't Say Gay bill as an anti grooming bill, um.
And like that was the first time we had like
(14:53):
a government official put the im premature of like, you know,
this is a government message that like, you know, if
you opposed don't say gay, you're a groomer kind of thing,
and um, it was terrifying, like like I think for
for pretty much all the trans people I know on Twitter,
Like it's like blaring red siren, like this is getting bad,
(15:15):
Like this is going to lead to people getting killed.
And we've already seen someone walk into a barn Brooklyn
with kerosene and set it on a gay bar and
set it on fire. Just like two days ago, someone
through bricks through a Pride center in Burlington, Vermont. And
this comes about two weeks after um, I believe it
(15:36):
was her name is Feather Fern was was murdered in
in Vermont, like a trans woman. Um, and the person
tried to initiate like the trans planic defense, and so
like we've already seen that and like that that the
attacks on like this gay couple on an Amtrak train
in California being called pedophiles and child stealers because they
(15:58):
adopted two kids. Like it's just horrific stuff. And this
is directly as a result of the toxic online discourse
and because of this, like Twitter has generally tried to
do the right thing, but any time is specifically around
trans people, any time they try to make it better
(16:20):
for trans people, though, like right wing echosphere just goes
into overdrive like they just like it is, like they
feel like it's their constitutional right to go on private
companies websites to harass trans people. It's really not surprising
to me that Twitter has emerged as this new battleground
for the so called culture wars. Traditionally, marginalized people use
(16:42):
Twitter to carve out power and a voice for ourselves.
We built movements like me Too and Black Lives Matter
on Twitter, and I think the idea of marginalized people
building power on Twitter is incredibly threatening the people who
have traditionally had all the power. For instance, Elon Musk
said that he was inspired to buy Twitter after the
right wing parody site The Babylon b was suspended for
(17:03):
refusing to delete a transphobic tweet miss gendering Admiral Rachel Levine,
who was a trans woman and the Assistant Secretary for
Health for the U. S Department of Health and Human Services,
And like that's what we saw, Like we saw what
was reported right The Babylon be being suspended for its
joke about Dr Levine was supposedly one of the last
(17:24):
straws for Elon musk and so like they pushed the envelope.
They pushed this hatred. And then when a site tries
to step in and say like this is leading to violence,
this is causing harm, they you know, cry free speech
or whatnot. But what it really is is they want
the free freedom to bully right, Like, because if you
want to say, like I hate trans people, I don't
(17:44):
feeleve they should exist, you can say that to the
cows come home, right, Like, you could just go out
a street corner and yell at that is free speech.
The government cannot stop you from saying that. You can
scream it out a corner. You can write manifestos, you
can like do what, write a novel how much you
hate trans people, knock yourself out right. But a social
(18:05):
media company is different. They are not under those obligations,
and people fundamentally do not understand that the problem is
is like, if you make a social media company hostile
to people, you're not going to stay around very long.
Like we've seen what sites with no moderation are like
four chan, h h chan, a cone um, you know
(18:26):
all these sites like they don't have advertisers, no, Like
typical person goes on there, because it is filled with
racial slurs, anti Semitic slurs, homophobic slurs, like just the
worst of the worst. Like it is literally filled with
actual Nazis, Like posting Nazi means so like we know
(18:48):
what that looks like. And so at some end, like
Twitter has to engage in moderation and it really what
it is is like they're trying to use trans people
as a ledge to base equally destroy a social media
site for daring to protect chance people. The way that
I see it is that you know, in the last five,
(19:09):
ten years or whatever, social media platforms, I would say
all of them, but really Twitter is like a special
platform people who have been traditionally marginalized have been able
to you know, have a little bit of a more
of a voice and have a little bit more power
that institutionally we didn't really get to have. And I
think that that's maybe one of the reasons why we're
(19:30):
seeing this Twitter be this big battlefield right now, because
I think people who are threatened by that, people who
are threatened when they see, you know, people who have
traditionally had a harder time making their voices heard, get
those platforms, get those voices, and even if even if
a platform like Twitter does the bare minimum to make
their platform a little bit hospitable to these voices, that
(19:53):
feels very threatening or threatened. Yeah, that feels very threatening,
and therefore they have to sort of go out of
their way to remind folks know this platform needs to
be hostile toward people who are traditionally marginalized. I want
that status quo back where I can say whatever and
they can't say anything right right, um, And like it's
(20:13):
like the classics saying right when you're all you're accustomed
to is privilege. Equality feels like oppression. Um, and that's
very much what it is. Lives of TikTok it's a
Twitter account run by shier Rycheck with over one point
two million followers that basically exist to spread lies and
fear about teachers grooming children. The account is called public
(20:35):
Schools quote government run indoctrination camps for the LGBTQ, spread
outlandish lies about lgbt Q youth and teachers, also singling
them out for harassment and abuse. It's also become an
influential piece of right wing online infrastructure. Florida Governor Rohnda
Santiss Press Secretary Christina Pushall said the account truly opened
(20:55):
her eyes on the state of LGBTQ education in schools.
I think one of the most illustrative issues of this
was TikTok. Like what it is is it's it's all
about fundamentally power and its power to make sure that
the in group maintains power and society and the out
group is minimized. And in this case, the the in
(21:18):
group is mostly white conservatives, mostly white supremacists and others
and fascists, um. And then what you have is the
out group is like queer LGBTQ people, people of color, women,
others and like that. They want to marginalize. And so
what ends up happening is is like you have TikTok, right,
So like TikTok or not TikTok lives of TikTok is
(21:41):
specifically retweeting videos of LGBTQ teachers that likely have like
maybe a hundred or thousand views on TikTok. This is
these are relatively obscure people that are just posting their
thoughts online. They wriped those videos and the post online
with very leading titles some of them like I've watched
(22:04):
the videos. It's just like a teacher talking about the
students asking them who their husband is, and they came
out to the class and they were like, if anyone
comes out, and if any gay teacher comes out, they
should be fired on the spot. Like that's literally what
lives of TikTok said. And so then they come out
and they're like, you know, they're just exposing liberals for
(22:25):
what they say, and they're just showing up and you know,
that's what they do. And I'm like, meanwhile, like they're
just sending a torrent of harassment towards these people that
are relatively anonymous, and additionally towards school districts. They're creating
a whole panic by like pushing this groomer libel um
(22:47):
and then essentially, you know, they want the power to
do that. And then the minute that anybody steps up
and says, yeah, this is who that person is, shy
a ray check, Like they forgot to use a pseudonym
when they registered their domain name and now that's public information.
Like they went into overdrive to attack Taylor Lawrenz at
(23:08):
the Washington Post, who didn't even expose it, by the
way Internet researchers exposed it. And they were so upset
that this person was like docked or you know, quote
unquote or that they were exposed, and that like it
was so vicious and she's exposed her harassment, all this stuff,
and it's like it's literally what she does. She said
(23:30):
she sends harassment and had like not her directly, but
it's like what's called stochastic terrorism, right, she knows that
by putting somebody on blast on her Twitter, what will happen?
And the fact that she was scared of people knowing
who she was, and the fact that they acted like
it was some big thing to expose that like like
grow up, grow up, Like you have an account with
(23:53):
a million followers. Now you are getting interviewed by Tucker
Carlson and national media and you have an expectation of privacy.
I'm sorry you do not um and you know, and again,
don't use your actual name to register a domain a
domain like just don't do anything. So but but again,
(24:14):
like going back to the dynamic, like this is about
preserving power, right, Like that's what lives with TikTok does, right.
It creates a chilling effect. How many queer or lgbt
Q teachers on TikTok are not going to talk on
TikTok or post a video for fear that they will
be their content ripped and then there will be fired,
(24:37):
or have a mob at a school board meeting talking
about them, to asking for them to be fired. Teachers,
making our our parents making accusations against them, like all
these things just for existing as a queer person, right,
Like it is a moral panic, that is what it
was going on right now. I'm so good that you
brought this up because this is something that I talked
about a lot on the show, and this in general.
(25:00):
So Elon Musk and people like him, they love talking
about free speech, and they from the way they talk,
it would seem as though the people who are likely
facing consequence for the things they say are white, conservative
or libertarian men who just like want to say slurs
or whatever. But the reality is that it's marginalized people
who are much more likely to face consequences for the
things they say, especially online. And so you know, I
(25:21):
guess my question is like, how can we and I
think that just completely gets missed whenever we're happy in
conversation about speech and who who you know, free speech
for who? How can we change that conversation change that
focus so that it is about the reality that it's
queer folks, transpokes, sex workers, activists who are either pushed
out of spaces or silenced or you know, d platforms
(25:43):
for what they say, Like like why do you think
that that when we talked, but when people who seem
so obsessed with talking about speech, why do you feel
like those the marginalized people who we know are the
people who are facing consequences for what they say, like
like why do they get are they able to get
left out so often? Yeah, it's mainly because you know,
(26:06):
it's again it's it's insidious what these people do. Right.
So it again boils down to the difference between equality
and equity. Right, So if everyone has access on Twitter,
that's equality. So everyone so everyone's equal here on on
the site, But that doesn't necessarily mean that there's equity, right, Like,
there's all kinds of things that go into a social
media site, like even having time to be able to
(26:28):
post on Twitter, that's a that's a privilege because a
lot of people do not, Like there are people working
two jobs, three jobs, like doing stuff like they don't
have time to pay a touch on Twitter. They're raising
kids like to doing all this stuff, so like that already,
like you're already creating all these things. But you know
that one of the things I always love to point
out with the difference between equity and quality is like,
let's say you have three children that were different ages
(26:50):
and sizes. One is like three ft, one is four foot,
and one is five ft and there is a four
foot fence covering while they're trying to watch a baseball game. Well,
you could say, I'm going to give them all one
of a one foot like block for them to stand on.
The third child is still not going to be able
to see because but that's equality, right. They all got
(27:11):
the same boost, and the first kid, who didn't even
need it in the first place, is now even higher
up for a better view. But what equity is is
understanding the nature of the situation and giving that first
kid a two foot block, the middle kid of footblock
and then just leaving it and they're there. You know,
that is equity, right, And so understanding that and so
there's an idea here that we you know, we've been
(27:32):
been discussing within the clinic, you know, within our our
course here and our seminars like talking about algorithmic reparations,
like the designs of these sites, because people act like
that these things are designed neutrally, they're not. There's always
conscious bias that goes into the design of these websites,
(27:52):
and so if you're not actively countering it, you are
permitting it um And so that's one of the aspects
of the design of sites like Twitter that needs to
be accounted for. And I think Twitter hasn't necessarily gone
that way. They're just trying to plug holes in everything
that shows up, right, But they're at least attempting. I
think they have like like they're trying so that that
(28:15):
concept of equity, right, that's what they're demonizing. They're demonizing diversity, equity, inclusion.
They're acting like it's this horrible thing. They're banning, you know,
any talk about critical race theory, which like I'm like,
if you want to take critical racory, you have to
like a two all or three all here at Harvard
Law School, Like we're not teaching it to kindergarteners. Like
(28:38):
if that is not what's happening, but that doesn't matter, right,
Like all they have to do is scream it and
that's all of a sudden, that's reality. And like, what
is even more disturbing beyond the critical race theory is
like just the whole sale denial of this country's history.
It's it's all to protect white innocence, right at the
end of the day, Like that's what it's about. It's
(28:58):
protecting white Its more, after a quick break, let's get
right back into it, just in case you needed any
(29:24):
more proof that we're in the middle of a full
blown moral panic. Last month, Florida's education department accused publishers
of trying to indoctrinate kids with math textbooks by trying
to sneak in lessons grounded in emotional and social learning,
which is basically a classroom methodology that helps kids understand
their emotions around subjects and demonstrate empathy for others. For example,
(29:44):
if a math book said that sometimes math problems can
look scary, or if a book said it's good to
work together to solve problems, those would be examples of
social and emotional learning. The Washington Post reports that Florida's
Education department said that it rejected for books the most
ever in Florida's history, even though at least twenty four
of those books scored high marks from the official state
(30:04):
reviewers for conforming to Florida's standards, but were rejected anyway.
And this crackdown happens all will. People like University of
Virginia recent grad Emma camp who published a recent New
York Times op ed about how conservative speech is being
suppressed on college campuses, are uplifted as the face of
attacks on free speech. What's more demious is like this
(30:25):
attack on emotional and social learning, Like this is what
we saw in Florida with like forty books math books
banned for the crime of putting it's sometimes better to
learn together, listen to other people, hear what they have
to say. And it's like, are you trying to raise
a country of sociopaths? Like the I mean, what is
(30:48):
the goal of that? Like literally these people would like
attack Mr Rogers today. Yeah. I saw one of my
favorite books growing up was Babies Everywhere. And it's like
it's like essentially a picture book about how there's babies everywhere,
and it was banned in some state I can't remember where.
And the offending the only like offending image I use
(31:11):
that in scare quotes was one of the babies. Behind
the baby was two men and one of the men
has his hand on the other shoulder. And so it's
like I was reading this interview with the author and
she was like, we don't explicitly say that they're married
or that they have this child. It's like they could
be brothers, they could be friends. Like we don't even
say anything, but under these under in this new climate,
(31:33):
just this suggestion like oh, two men standing next to
each other. No, can't have that in schools. Can't have
anybody seeing that. Yeah, I mean that that's that's part
of it, right, Like it's erasing any sense of queerness.
And this is what is frustrating about mainstream coverage around
this whole debate, right, Like we constantly see OpEd after
(31:56):
opened about I don't feel like I can say what
I want to saying classrooms and like what they mean
in like college classrooms or or like college courses or
college campuses. Like I feel like if I say something,
my my uh classmates might ostracize me. And I'm like, okay,
(32:17):
that's real life. Like I'm sorry, that's a new concept.
You say something unpopular and people will not like it.
I mean, like you can I can't go into my
office and be like, all y'all smell like ship without
my co workers getting up that what's the deal. It's like, yeah,
it's called It's always been that way. You there are
(32:38):
consequences of the things that you say. People can astrize
you when they don't like we have to say. And
I guess I feel like in comparison to the way
that we're seeing this very clear crackdown on marginalized voices,
it just seems so like the whose stories get amplified
of you know, quote unquote having their free speech crackdown on,
where it's like, oh my college classroom when I said
(32:59):
something they didn't like it, compared to you know, people
being five, it's like it's it's it's just really wild
to be in the mainstream coverage. Who gets amplified and
who doesn't. Yeah, Like in that that that story that
was in the New York Times recently, and like the
woman who wrote it like had already just graduated, and
I think it was working for Reason magazine and like
(33:21):
was being pushed up by Fire and which is like
a big or like libertarian orc um and like has
like these powerful people behind her, like performing and she's like,
she went to University of Virginia. I just like already
like one of the top schools in the country, and
so she's like went to a top school, is working
on a national media and it's like I can't say
(33:42):
what I want to say in the college classroom. Meanwhile,
the most banned books in the country are literally is
like literally, um, anything dealing with LGBTQ people. I mean
we're literally talking about like books that feature like two penguins,
Like it's it's insane, like and there are like entire
like there are school boards like saying that books should
(34:03):
be burned. Like I'm sorry, Like on what way is
any of this like on an equal plane? Like that
is a much greater threat because, like you know, as
the cliche goes, like where they burned books, they will
burn people. Like that is far scarier because that is
(34:25):
much more systemic, and that is using the levels of
government to achieve it. It's not a private company deciding
who is coming into their little social media site and
saying stuff like that. Is that they're using the government
and so like that that is on that's explicitly what
the First Amendment was to protect the First Amendment is
to protect us against the government censoring speech. So we
(34:48):
have governments censoring speech, banning books, and like barely a
pip and like all of a sudden, we have like
one white girl on a college campus who feels like
she can't say something, and like that's on the front
page of the New York Times, Like I'm sorry, Like
I'm you lost me. I guess you know, do you
(35:12):
see this kind of climate that we're in that is
so hostile to or we're seeing such a backlash against
marginalized voices? Do that? You know, we know brew online
and brew on social media says, do you see this
as a direct threat to democracy? Yeah, I absolutely do.
We I mean we've seen what social media can do
when it's unchecked. Literally all we have to do is
(35:34):
like ay sixteen, I mean I remember being in the
middle of it on Reddit. Like Reddit was a heavy
site for disinformation in the twenty sixteen campaign, and like
it was I felt like I was losing my mind,
like and like reading similar stories of people in Ukraine
and twenty four teen, like that's what it feels like
when you're subjected to that kind of disinformation, because like
(35:54):
you will talk to people in real life and like
nobody talks that way or believes anything, like uh, and
like there's one thing to be said about social media
bubbles and stuff like that, but it's a whole another one.
It's like this just like completely out of left field
stuff and just the kind of vitriol that gets, you know,
shared online, and like we've seen where that leads right,
(36:15):
Like Trump was most definitely like it's probably not the
only factor, Like there's a million things that went into it,
but a huge reason why Trump was elected is because
of disinformation on Facebook, on Twitter, on Reddit, on all
these sites. And so for people to think that this
doesn't have like a potential threat to democracy, it has
the ability to influence democracy. Like a conspiracy theory on
(36:38):
Twitter got a man to go with a h an
assault rifle to a pizza shop because of conspiracy theories around,
like like the whole pizza Gate conspiracy. There are people
who believe that Wayfair is shipping children in furniture, like
if you and like was the the I feel like
(36:59):
this one's always misquoted, but the Voltaire Um quote, it's
like if you can get people to believe in absurdities,
you can get them to commit atrocities and like that
that's exactly the kind of thing that I think about,
because like if you start labeling like trans people as
this like groomer cult that are going after children and
(37:23):
damaging their bodies quote unquote and doing all these things,
and like all of this, like and just the language
you're using, it is a matter of time. It is
not an if. It is a when someone is going
to take matters into their own hands and they're either
going to go shoot up a gay bar or they're
gonna bomb a gender clinic. I mean, we've seen this
(37:44):
is the kind of stuff that's going on around Like
the organizing around gender clinics is the same kind of
stuff that was happening in the nineties around apportion clinics,
and were like, we've seen what happens around that, and
so like this kind amped up rhetoric, it's it's stochastic terrorism.
Like you can't pinpoint any violent act to anything said online,
(38:08):
but the overall raising of the temperature is what allowed
it to happen in the first place. Yeah, I feel
the exact same way. Um, I live in d C,
so I remember very clearly when that happened at comment
ping Pong the pizza place here in d C. Like
like but and I think I was even before we
just got on the call, just now I was reading that. Um,
I think the FBI arrested a man who was threatening
(38:30):
to attack Miriam Webster the Dictionary because he did not
agree with the way that they were defining man and woman. Um.
And yeah, I just I just feel like we've come
to this place where the temperature has been raised so much,
and I see that as a direct result of things
happening on social media, of social media algorithms really you know,
(38:50):
prioritizing the most extreme content, the the most you know,
inflammatory rhetoric, and just yeah, I guess I really I
I I hadn't intended for this interview to sounds so alarmist.
It's it is, I feel it, so, you know, it's
just a lot. I don't I don't like, I don't
(39:11):
feel good about when I asked, you know, where does
this end? I don't really like imagining what the answer
to that question is, Like where does this end? I
don't know, Probably nowhere good, That's what I'm reading. Oh
my god, you're so you're just like really doing the scrolling,
is what I? UM, so no I held at the
(39:33):
book gaberlin Um, which I talked about like pre Weimar
but also mostly Weimar Republic era Germany, and how you know,
it was a haven for LGBTQ people. Um had like
the first the first surgery gener affirming surgeries that had
some of the first like first administrations of hormones um,
(39:53):
the first serious attempt at a study of queer and
trans people, of lesbians and gays and others like it,
just like by Magnus Hirschfeld, like all those things. And
there was just kind of this like golden era where
it was like that never really existed in that way
in the West of tolerance right in Berlin, and it
all just came crashing down so quickly in but like
(40:17):
if you've been paying attention, like it wasn't a surprise,
Like a lot of people got out like starting in
the late twenties and early thirties, like they saw what
was happening. And so it's like I think people just
think that like these things come out of nowhere, and
like you don't you know. And I always hate, like
I said, Godwin's Law, like bring up the Nazis and
stuff like that, because that that that's kind of we have.
(40:38):
We just have so much media, so that's like it's
made easier to relate to. But I think like if
you you don't need to go far, you can go
to contemporary examples. You have Hungary and Poland. Hungary has
banned the existence of trans people. They've banned all legal
recognition of trans people in the country. They have made
past gay propaganda laws, which the press gre Terry for
(41:01):
Ron de Santis and Florida admitted now that it was
based on the band in Hungary. Like so they're getting
these ideas from these like far right, authoritarian, illiberal countries,
and like Russia just dissolved the biggest LGBT rights or
in the country and they've passed a gay propaganda lot.
Like they see that and they see that as a model,
(41:24):
Like that is their goal, that is their inspiration um
And that's terrifying because like that's exactly the same kind
of stuff, like like like queer people right now are
like that Canary in the coal mind. And I would argue,
like before that, it was it's very much been immigrants,
Like having been in an immigration attorney for three years,
the kinds of stuff that people would say about immigrants
(41:46):
the kinds of policies we have here in the United States, like,
like are the conditions that we hold immigrants in detention
and the rights that they have, like would violate the
genuine convention, Like is atrocious what we do. It is
a human rights like violation and crime for what we
do around immigrants. And like we saw the rhetic rhetoric
(42:09):
with Trump, right, and then now it's it's LGBTQ people,
and we already start to see this, this kind of
massive reactionary backlash to the George Floyd protests, the Black
Lives Matter protests, and like it's it's only a matter
of time, like this is going to get worse. And
it always reminds me of that poem. It's like, you know,
and I posted this and it went viral, and and
(42:29):
you know, some people like we're like, well you was
this group or is acrem And I'm like, that's not
the point. There's not point of being a first group.
That's the point that like if you don't stand out
for a marginalized group, like it's it's not going to stop.
And so I posted the you know, the famous poem.
It's like first they came for trans people, and I
did nothing because I'm not trans. That they came forward
(42:51):
the lesbians and gays, and I did nothing because I'm
not lesbian gay, And I was like, we are here right,
like especially after this like groomer rhetoric, and it was
just like it was mind blowing to me to see
conservative gay men freak out and like, oh, this has
gone too far, Like like Andrew Sullivan was like apoplectic
(43:12):
about the groomer labor being applied to him. Is happy
to talk, happy for that label to be applied to
trans people, but the minute I got applied to him
was like whoa, wow, this has gone too far. And
it's like where did you think this was going? Like
did you think that they could just delineate between trans
people and queer people like that? They can't, like they're
all the same. They think we're all degenerates. They think
we're all like need to be wiped from this planet
(43:34):
like that. It's exterminationist. They're not going to make some
fine distinction for the good ones and be like oh no, no,
he's okay, No, I'm not gonna happen. Well, you know
I always end my interviews with a question, are you hopeful.
I guess I feel I feel like I mean, I'll
ask it. Does it sound like you are aren't when
(43:55):
you look at the state of things today? Are you hopeful?
I posted about this on my Twitter the other day.
I am a pessimist, Like I am a pessimist. I
I love the quote from Uh, I'm a huge marvel
nerd Like I love the m c U. I've watched it.
I just completed a whole rewatch of the m c
(44:16):
U for the fifth time. Um. But there's like a
Zamdais character mj and in Spiderman, and she's talking likeause,
She's like, UM, you know, I always expect disappointment, so
that way, you know, if if it happens, then you know,
I won't be disappointed. Um. And that's the kind of
attitude I have, which I feel like a lot of
people like that that doesn't work for them, and that's fine,
(44:38):
Like some people need to be optimistic. Nothing wrong that
my The way I function in the way that I
cope is pessimism because if I'm wrong, which I always
hope i am, things worked out much better than I anticipated.
And so that's always kind of served me well. And
so like for me, Like I see this going down
a very dark path and I don't think there's anything changing.
(44:59):
It's and it's only accelerating and getting worse. And like
I fully believe, like like by November early, like I
think we'll see like basically collapse of democracy in the
United States and things can go very south, very quickly. Um.
And so I've been starting to prepare. I'm getting my
(45:20):
passport ready, and I'm starting to save up a ton
of money and like getting ready to like, yeah, hey, Europe,
sound isn't good around this time of year, and like
you know what, I know, there's not an option for everyone.
It really isn't. Like a lot of people can't just immigrate.
A lot of people can't get passports, a lot of
people can't get the money to even fly right, So
like that's a privilege in amo itself. But like we've
(45:41):
got time if you can, like you know, save money,
like all those things. I feel like I'm being very
alarmoust and like negative. But hey, if it doesn't, if
everything turns out fine and I'm catastrophically wrong, which I
hope I am. Well, now I've got my passport and
I got a ton of money, and I can go
on vacation. There you go. That's a that's a like,
(46:04):
you know, a little silver lining on this ship sandwich.
That is our democracy and our country. Oh, I mean,
it's it's bad. I used to I used to joke
years ago, back when I thought it was impossible. So
so my organizing background is in the reproductive rights movement,
(46:25):
and I used to joke years ago that like, oh,
if Roe ever falls, I hope I'm i'm I will
be reading about it from the newspaper in a different country.
And now it seems like, oh, well, I'm still here
in the United States and it seems like it's gonna happen.
So I guess that didn't work out for me. So well, yeah,
I mean like ask you know l g pt Q Russians,
right Like I used to have some friends who who
(46:48):
were from Russia, and it was like, when is it
gonna get too bad to go back, right like for
them like to to even visit their family, and uh,
you know, now obviously things have on to a point
where it's like not not really okay, but for a
faus f with you people, like was it in thirteen
In the past, the gay Propaganda Law was it like
(47:08):
seventeen when Czech Tea started a concentration cancer gay men,
Like is it now that they start the words so
like there's always a question of like why is the
right timing? And I don't think there really is. Like
if you left Berlin in nineteen twenty nine, and you'd
be fine. If you left in nineteen thirty two, you'd
be fine. If you even left in nineteen thirty three,
you'd likely be okay. If you waited until nineteen thirty
(47:30):
five or even lanteen thirty nine, you are not gonna
be okay, right Like, And so it's like learning our
history so that you can see the signs and knowing, okay,
this is my red line, like I need to get
out of here, or having an exit plan because things
can also move quickly. I feel that like knowing your
history and knowing history is empowering. I'm I mean, I'm
(47:54):
glad that we have folks like you in our institutions
who are helping you know, the next generation to really
have that power to be empowered by our collective shared history.
Try as conservatives might to make that impossible to study
and know and learn from. Yep, exactly where can folks,
(48:15):
keep up with all of the incredible work that I
know that you are up to. Yeah, you can find
me all. My social media handles are Squeer Underscore so
e s q u e er. It is a portmanteau
of squire and queer. Again. You can find me an
s Square Underscore on Twitter, Instagram. Um, and you can
catch my podcast Queering the Law. Um. We typically released
(48:39):
weekly on Monday's. Um you can find out basically anywhere
podcasts are issued. UM and yeah, thank you so much
for having me. Is there anything that I did not
ask that you want to make sure it gets included? Um? Yeah,
please please donate to the Trevor Project. There is going
to be a massive smear camp pain against the Trevor
(49:01):
Project this week or this upcoming week. UM, this is
how low they've stooped. They're attacking a suicide hotline. UM,
it's it's fucking sick like, That's all I'm gonna say.
So please if you can ten it's life saving work.
Our youth are bearing the bront of this um and
they need to help and support. So please if we
(49:22):
can donate to the Trevor Project. So I try really
hard not to get too negative on this podcast, and
it's been a little bit difficult lately if you're listening
in the United States, where I'm based, It's been difficult
to ignore what feels like a coordinated attack on marginalized
people in the United States, from attacks on l g
(49:43):
B t Q youth and educators to attacks on abortion access.
We are witnessing an anti democratic rollback of our rights.
On Saturday, May fourteen, in cities across the country will
be mobilizing to demand protection of abortion access. I'll be
there in these see so if you see me, please
say hello, and you can go to tangodi dot com
slash rally to find an event happening in your city. Now.
(50:07):
I know it is a hard time. I know it's
so easy to check out and disengage. I feel tempted
to myself sometimes, but I also know that when we
come together, we are powerful, and I believe in us.
I hope to see you there. If you're looking for
ways to support the show, check out our March store
(50:28):
at tangodi dot com slash store. Got a story about
an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi,
You can reach us at Hello at tangodi dot com.
You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangodi
dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was
created by me Bridget Toad. It's a production of I
Heeart Radio and Unboss Creative edited by Joey Pat Jonathan
Strictland as our executive producer. Terry Harrison is our producer
(50:51):
and sound engineer. Michael Amata was our contributing producer. I'm
your host, Bridget Toad. If you want to help us
grow right and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more
pod cast from iHeart Radio, check out the iHeart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. H m
hm
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!