1 00:00:17,199 --> 00:00:21,160 We're back with another edition of The Federalist or Radio Hour. I'm Emily Jashenski, 2 00:00:21,199 --> 00:00:23,760 culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the 3 00:00:23,800 --> 00:00:27,960 show at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at FDR 4 00:00:28,120 --> 00:00:31,600 ls T, make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts, and you 5 00:00:31,600 --> 00:00:36,479 can get an ad free version of our website over at the Premium section of 6 00:00:36,520 --> 00:00:40,520 the Federalist dot com as well. Today, I'm very honored to be joined 7 00:00:40,520 --> 00:00:45,320 by Shannon Thrace. Shannon is the author of a memoir called eighteen Months, 8 00:00:45,520 --> 00:00:50,439 a memoir of a marriage lost to gender identity. She writes at Shannon Thrace. 9 00:00:50,520 --> 00:00:56,439 That's t h r Acee dot substack dot com. Fascinating substack over there, 10 00:00:56,439 --> 00:00:59,520 Shannon, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much 11 00:00:59,560 --> 00:01:02,159 for having me, Emily. I listened to a couple of episodes, and 12 00:01:02,200 --> 00:01:04,000 I think it's a really cool show, and I also think you have a 13 00:01:04,040 --> 00:01:07,959 really great voice. Oh well, thank you. That's so kind. I 14 00:01:07,959 --> 00:01:14,879 want to start actually by reading, just for some context, your publisher's description 15 00:01:14,959 --> 00:01:18,560 of your book, because I feel like it covers so much ground and gives 16 00:01:18,560 --> 00:01:23,000 a lot of helpful background that people might want. Going into this conversation, 17 00:01:23,200 --> 00:01:26,560 it reads Shannon is no stranger to alternative lifestyles. Raised by Christian parents in 18 00:01:26,599 --> 00:01:30,920 bluegrass countries, she fled to the city, scraped together in education, worked 19 00:01:30,920 --> 00:01:36,040 for drag shows, and befriend at poets and anarchists at clothing optional parties. 20 00:01:36,239 --> 00:01:38,640 But the time she settled into her fourteen year relationship with Jamie, she had 21 00:01:38,719 --> 00:01:42,799 dated women and experimented with polyamory. So when her husband begins cross dressing, 22 00:01:42,840 --> 00:01:48,000 she sees no problem. She enjoys flouting the straight world's pointless rules. Trouble 23 00:01:48,040 --> 00:01:51,760 is brewing, though Jamie dives into Jamie's dive into the world of identity leads 24 00:01:51,799 --> 00:01:55,920 to shifting values, sexual dysfunction, and a crippling depression. Still deeply in 25 00:01:55,920 --> 00:01:59,760 love with the kind, outdoorsy folksinger she once knew, Shannon has committed to 26 00:01:59,799 --> 00:02:04,040 work through these challenges, but she's blindsided by the unusual demands of gender dysph 27 00:02:04,159 --> 00:02:07,280 you and there's the hard way that compassion, communication, and even love sometimes 28 00:02:07,520 --> 00:02:15,159 just aren't enough Shannon. This is an incredibly personal memoir. Obviously memoir kind 29 00:02:15,159 --> 00:02:19,280 of inherent in the genre, but this especially in the climate that we're in 30 00:02:19,280 --> 00:02:23,719 today had to have been difficult to write. The Amazon reviews are fantastic for 31 00:02:23,800 --> 00:02:27,759 the book, people are I know, I'm humbled by yes, I mean 32 00:02:27,879 --> 00:02:31,199 wow. I go and look at Amazon reviews sometimes and these were really, 33 00:02:31,240 --> 00:02:35,319 really positive. So folks should check out this book. But can you tell 34 00:02:35,360 --> 00:02:40,560 us just a little bit about the process of putting together this experience or this 35 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:47,639 these this lifetime of experiences into book format. Yeah, that's that's an interesting 36 00:02:47,719 --> 00:02:57,319 question. Certainly, when I got a divorce spoiler, it changed my life 37 00:02:57,360 --> 00:03:00,719 in a lot of ways. I had actually not only lost my marriage, 38 00:03:00,759 --> 00:03:06,000 but we had recently moved, so I was in a new place. I 39 00:03:06,080 --> 00:03:10,319 had lost a lot of friends over some of the politics around the situation. 40 00:03:12,759 --> 00:03:17,360 I had changed jobs, and yeah, just a lot. A lot was 41 00:03:17,400 --> 00:03:22,199 crazy for me, and obviously I wanted to process what I'd been through, 42 00:03:22,319 --> 00:03:23,960 and it was very, very hard to get any kind of support. It 43 00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:30,240 was very hard to find people who would listen to me and really be open 44 00:03:30,280 --> 00:03:32,599 minded about what I had gone through. There was a lot more support for 45 00:03:32,719 --> 00:03:38,360 my ex husband, who I called Jamie, but there wasn't a lot for 46 00:03:38,439 --> 00:03:43,719 me, excuse me. And so one of the things I started to do 47 00:03:43,840 --> 00:03:46,319 was write. And when I started writing, at first, I wasn't sure 48 00:03:46,520 --> 00:03:51,039 if I was going to turn it into a memoir or not. It was 49 00:03:51,080 --> 00:03:54,199 on my mind, but I was nervous. I was nervous about how it 50 00:03:54,240 --> 00:04:00,240 would be received. I was afraid that Jamie would come after me. I 51 00:04:00,280 --> 00:04:03,280 didn't actually want to embarrass him. I did still care about him, and 52 00:04:03,280 --> 00:04:06,439 there's certain aspects of the story that are certainly very embarrassing to him, I 53 00:04:06,439 --> 00:04:12,800 think. But I just dove in and started writing, and as I got 54 00:04:12,840 --> 00:04:15,560 into it, I realized, yeah, there are ways I can solve these 55 00:04:15,600 --> 00:04:18,480 problems. And also I just really want to tell the story, and I'm 56 00:04:18,519 --> 00:04:23,160 going to do it. And it took a while, but in some parts 57 00:04:23,160 --> 00:04:28,519 were definitely much harder than others, just the relieve and the emotions and all 58 00:04:28,519 --> 00:04:30,600 that kind of stuff. But I decided I was going to go through with 59 00:04:30,639 --> 00:04:39,160 it, and I did amazing. Just reliving all of that also must have 60 00:04:39,199 --> 00:04:42,600 been difficult, especially actually, and maybe this is a good question too, 61 00:04:42,800 --> 00:04:46,759 in the political context, because over the course of all of these experiences in 62 00:04:46,800 --> 00:04:48,920 your lifetime, the politics were shifting a lot. And that's one thing I 63 00:04:48,959 --> 00:04:54,160 think is really interesting about your story that you know that it was very normal, 64 00:04:55,199 --> 00:04:59,560 you know, in decades prior for someone who's kind of raised it a 65 00:04:59,560 --> 00:05:05,240 conservative Christian household or area of the country, red state, to rebel by 66 00:05:05,759 --> 00:05:15,879 becoming or by exploring sexual libertine and ideas and lifestyles and all of that. 67 00:05:15,879 --> 00:05:18,600 That's kind of just sort of changing. There's something very conformist now, as 68 00:05:18,639 --> 00:05:26,519 Abigail Schreyer documented in her book about the social contagion of alleged gender dysphoria in 69 00:05:26,600 --> 00:05:30,879 certain cases and very real gender dystoria in other cases. How did that play 70 00:05:31,040 --> 00:05:36,439 into your experience? You're sort of being growing up in a very conservative environment 71 00:05:38,360 --> 00:05:42,160 and then that sort of shifts over the course of your lifetime. That's kind 72 00:05:42,199 --> 00:05:46,759 of interesting to me. Yeah, I think, well, I'm glad you 73 00:05:46,839 --> 00:05:50,360 read that blurb. I didn't actually realize how much of my story is contained 74 00:05:50,360 --> 00:05:54,759 in that blurb, but it gives me some shortcuts where I don't have to 75 00:05:55,839 --> 00:06:00,439 say everything again. But yeah, obviously I did have a bit of a 76 00:06:00,560 --> 00:06:09,920 wild past in my twenties and maybe early thirties. I think that I want 77 00:06:09,959 --> 00:06:13,079 to address whether or not I rebelled. I think there was always a seed 78 00:06:13,160 --> 00:06:17,759 of me that was very open minded and free spirited and all that kind of 79 00:06:17,800 --> 00:06:25,720 stuff. But I was also a very devout fundamentalist Christian, so I had 80 00:06:25,759 --> 00:06:30,079 a lot of conflicts with that. But I did, as you said, 81 00:06:30,680 --> 00:06:36,279 pursue some pretty wild times in my youth. And I think that when Jamie 82 00:06:36,319 --> 00:06:40,519 and I got together, we were maybe still at the tail end of that 83 00:06:40,680 --> 00:06:45,439 phase and he was kind of in it too, But as we got to 84 00:06:45,519 --> 00:06:49,319 know each other, this is something I think maybe isn't represented in the blurb. 85 00:06:49,920 --> 00:06:55,240 We had a really really great, really close relationship and very very loving, 86 00:06:55,360 --> 00:06:58,240 and I think it just grew and as it grew, you know, 87 00:06:58,480 --> 00:07:00,560 and as we aged, maybe that had a little bit to do with it, 88 00:07:00,639 --> 00:07:04,480 But I think more than anything, just our love together had most to 89 00:07:04,519 --> 00:07:08,560 do with it. Was that we just kind of outgrew some of that and 90 00:07:08,639 --> 00:07:14,759 we kind of became more interested in being monogamous and caring and loving and kind 91 00:07:14,800 --> 00:07:17,279 of had felt like we had lived through some of that and that it was 92 00:07:17,720 --> 00:07:24,839 kind of behind us. But it also certainly affects my worldview. And when 93 00:07:24,920 --> 00:07:28,439 Jamie began to cross stress, I didn't have a problem with it because it 94 00:07:28,600 --> 00:07:32,000 just didn't really feel like a big deal. So for me, with the 95 00:07:32,079 --> 00:07:39,199 past I'd had, and with my openness to dating women and my openness to 96 00:07:40,120 --> 00:07:44,319 going to drag shows and going to gay bars and all that kind of stuff, 97 00:07:45,279 --> 00:07:47,600 this didn't seem like a big deal. And at first when he first 98 00:07:47,639 --> 00:07:50,199 began to cross stressed, it wasn't a big deal. So I think that 99 00:07:50,519 --> 00:07:58,360 did help me certainly be the kind of person who could accept that. You 100 00:07:58,439 --> 00:08:03,399 know the story, and I think of it as a sort of erstwhile Kardashian 101 00:08:03,519 --> 00:08:11,199 viewer does have some parallels with probably the most high profile celebrity experience that mirrors 102 00:08:11,560 --> 00:08:18,199 yours in a marriage that was dissolved, and Chris Jenner sort of had known, 103 00:08:18,360 --> 00:08:24,399 we learned Kim had known Kim Kardashian had known that Bruce Jenner at the 104 00:08:24,439 --> 00:08:30,720 time was crush dressing, was interested in that had some possible struggles with dysphoria. 105 00:08:31,080 --> 00:08:37,320 Can you talk a little bit about how specifically the context of being married 106 00:08:37,360 --> 00:08:43,960 to somebody that's experience experiencing some of this how is that because we hear so 107 00:08:45,080 --> 00:08:48,960 much about children, but if you could talk to us a little bit about 108 00:08:48,320 --> 00:08:52,519 what you learned This is a huge question, obviously, but what you learned 109 00:08:54,480 --> 00:08:58,480 being in a marriage to an adult who is experiencing some of these struggles. 110 00:08:58,720 --> 00:09:05,759 I think that would be really helpful. Yeah, so our relationship and our 111 00:09:05,960 --> 00:09:11,480 situation evolved a little bit over time. So the first thing that Jamie did 112 00:09:11,879 --> 00:09:18,440 was begin to cross dress. And this happened after about with looking at porn. 113 00:09:20,440 --> 00:09:24,519 And it was care free, it was sexual, it was fun. 114 00:09:26,240 --> 00:09:31,960 He didn't consider it to be serious. He even started a blog and wrote 115 00:09:31,960 --> 00:09:35,480 a lot about how he wasn't trans, he was a cross dresser. He 116 00:09:35,600 --> 00:09:39,200 was expressing his feminine side. He didn't think it was a big deal. 117 00:09:41,120 --> 00:09:48,720 People should feel free to, you know, cross gender roles or expectations things 118 00:09:48,799 --> 00:10:00,039 like that. And then over time things changed a little. So first it 119 00:10:00,120 --> 00:10:05,200 was almost overnight really that it seemed developed. He actually developed gender dysphoria. 120 00:10:05,360 --> 00:10:09,840 And I think that's something that people don't always know, is that these guys 121 00:10:09,879 --> 00:10:16,120 who are straight and who are older or straight leaning at least, they do 122 00:10:16,279 --> 00:10:22,200 develop gender dysphoria. And so he began to hate his body and hate his 123 00:10:22,360 --> 00:10:26,879 face and all this kind of stuff. And that was a really strange thing 124 00:10:26,960 --> 00:10:31,480 to watch because he had actually been very, very carefree before, really outdoorsy, 125 00:10:33,320 --> 00:10:37,600 really kind of could roll with anything. Didn't seem to care what people 126 00:10:37,679 --> 00:10:43,240 thought, and so watching him develop gender dysphoria was really odd, and then 127 00:10:43,320 --> 00:10:48,120 watching it progress, and I think also it was one thing, just what 128 00:10:48,240 --> 00:10:52,519 he was going through personally, but then it was also augmented by things that 129 00:10:52,639 --> 00:10:56,960 he was reading online. So he was spending a lot of time on social 130 00:10:56,039 --> 00:11:01,639 media, spending time in transgender support group, cross dresser message boards, all 131 00:11:01,759 --> 00:11:07,960 sorts of things like that. And as that progressed, his views started to 132 00:11:07,120 --> 00:11:11,440 change, and his dysphoria actually got worse. In my opinion, I think 133 00:11:11,519 --> 00:11:18,120 that the more he talked about rolling with this and identifying as a woman and 134 00:11:20,519 --> 00:11:24,919 becoming his true authentic self, the sadder he got. The more depressed he 135 00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:30,519 got. He began to cry every single night, literally every night. After 136 00:11:30,600 --> 00:11:33,559 a certain point after about it, about the eighth month mark, he was 137 00:11:33,799 --> 00:11:39,240 crying constantly. He was triggered by things people said, he was unhappy with 138 00:11:39,320 --> 00:11:45,559 how he looked. All of this was really really odd because it just didn't 139 00:11:45,600 --> 00:11:50,240 fit his personality before. So I think that's some of the things that jump 140 00:11:50,279 --> 00:11:56,080 out at me. The watched Out on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski every 141 00:11:56,120 --> 00:12:01,080 day, Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and theomy and how it affects 142 00:12:01,120 --> 00:12:03,919 your wallet before sending your child off there collects six figures in debt at the 143 00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:09,279 age of eighteen. Remember to make sure that school isn't another woke hedge fund 144 00:12:09,360 --> 00:12:13,399 corporation. Elite universities have gone from places of excellence to places of political and 145 00:12:13,519 --> 00:12:16,720 social engineering. Whether it's happening in DC or down on Wall Street, it's 146 00:12:16,720 --> 00:12:20,159 affecting you financially. Be informed. Check out the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast 147 00:12:20,240 --> 00:12:24,559 with Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. 148 00:12:26,960 --> 00:12:33,399 Yeah, that's so interesting, and because again the dysphoria conversation especially and I 149 00:12:33,519 --> 00:12:39,720 just mentioned Abigail Shreier surrounding young women social contagion and this explosion in young women 150 00:12:39,759 --> 00:12:46,759 in particular experiencing gender dysphoria, which is a shift from how gender dysphoria diagnoses 151 00:12:46,799 --> 00:12:52,639 patterns in yours previous have been with a lot of men prior to a higher 152 00:12:52,679 --> 00:13:00,759 proportion of men experiencing gender dysphoria historically. This is another really big question. 153 00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:07,320 But the left gets a lot of really important things wrong about transgenderism gender dysphoria. 154 00:13:07,600 --> 00:13:13,240 The right also gets a lot of important things wrong about gender dysphoria. 155 00:13:13,480 --> 00:13:16,279 And I wanted to ask Shannon, as somebody who's sort of found themselves in 156 00:13:16,360 --> 00:13:22,120 the middle of this giant political issue right now, what you think some of 157 00:13:22,200 --> 00:13:26,919 those things are, you know, from the left and from the right as 158 00:13:26,960 --> 00:13:30,080 it stands today in twenty twenty three. What is kind of everybody getting wrong 159 00:13:30,120 --> 00:13:33,759 about all of this? Yeah, that's interesting. I think I can probably 160 00:13:33,840 --> 00:13:37,679 speak more to the left than to the right, because that's more my world. 161 00:13:41,279 --> 00:13:43,159 I think that if there's anything going on on the right, it might 162 00:13:43,320 --> 00:13:48,759 just be that some people disagree with gender nonconformity, however it presents, so 163 00:13:48,919 --> 00:13:52,639 they don't like it, regardless if the person says their trands or not. 164 00:13:52,919 --> 00:13:58,480 I think that's something I observe. But on the left, I don't even 165 00:13:58,519 --> 00:14:03,639 know where to be, and I think that maybe almost everything is wrong. 166 00:14:03,000 --> 00:14:05,120 I mean, one thing that really jumps out of me, and this is 167 00:14:05,200 --> 00:14:09,759 why I wrote my story, is that there is a myth that people are 168 00:14:09,960 --> 00:14:16,480 unhappy before they transition. They know they're trans they're miserable, they're not living 169 00:14:16,519 --> 00:14:22,360 their authentic lives, and then when they transition, they become happier, better, 170 00:14:24,440 --> 00:14:28,320 healthier, all the things, and I observe the exact opposite. So 171 00:14:28,279 --> 00:14:35,639 before Jamie cross dressed, especially, I never heard a word about being trans 172 00:14:35,840 --> 00:14:39,039 or gender nonconformity or anything like that. He was actually rather gender conforming. 173 00:14:41,600 --> 00:14:46,320 He had a giant lumberjack beard. For a large portion of our marriage, 174 00:14:46,080 --> 00:14:52,519 he was an outdoorsy guy. He wore cargo shorts and flannel, and he 175 00:14:52,639 --> 00:14:56,799 had actually gone through some fashion phases because he was a musician, and he 176 00:14:56,840 --> 00:15:01,360 would sometimes play around with something like cowboy shirts with embroidered birds, things like 177 00:15:01,440 --> 00:15:07,399 that, But by and large, all of these looks were mostly masculine. 178 00:15:07,720 --> 00:15:11,559 Maybe maybe he'd wear a poet shirt, maybe he'd wear ear rings something like 179 00:15:11,639 --> 00:15:22,600 that. But yeah, I'm trying to remember exactly what you asked. Some 180 00:15:22,720 --> 00:15:26,279 of these things like big top line things that people continue to get yeah, 181 00:15:26,360 --> 00:15:33,360 yeah, yeah yeah. So Jamie did not feel gender non conforming before and 182 00:15:33,440 --> 00:15:41,279 then get better afterward. He actually became aware of dysphoria and gender non conformity 183 00:15:41,759 --> 00:15:46,480 during the cross dressing and became worse. And I really felt like he the 184 00:15:46,559 --> 00:15:52,360 more he would maybe put on some eyeliner or put on a necklace, the 185 00:15:52,440 --> 00:15:54,679 more he would notice that, hey, I have a square jaw. And 186 00:15:54,759 --> 00:16:00,759 it's it's manly and now I don't like that, And so that's that's one 187 00:16:00,799 --> 00:16:03,679 big thing. Yeah, that he seemed to get worse instead of better. 188 00:16:03,919 --> 00:16:08,879 I also think, yeah, with kids, of course, you know this 189 00:16:10,039 --> 00:16:11,519 idea that kids know who they are. I mean, I think that we 190 00:16:11,679 --> 00:16:15,320 can see, you know, even with adults, that lots of them don't 191 00:16:15,320 --> 00:16:21,480 know who they are. There's there's famous people who keep changing their identity. 192 00:16:22,799 --> 00:16:26,960 So I don't know why we think that children are better at figuring that out 193 00:16:26,000 --> 00:16:33,159 than adults are. I think that the left is obsessed with transphobia. And 194 00:16:33,279 --> 00:16:37,960 if you you know, if you don't clap and cheer for everything that occurs, 195 00:16:38,519 --> 00:16:45,679 then that's an accusation. You'll hear just the fact that I report on 196 00:16:45,840 --> 00:16:48,879 what happened, the fact that I report on the fact that he was unhappy 197 00:16:49,960 --> 00:16:56,480 that he uh started with porn and that this was a sexual interest. That's 198 00:16:56,519 --> 00:17:00,399 something I'm not allowed to say. I'm not allowed to say that he got 199 00:17:00,480 --> 00:17:06,799 worse instead of better. I'm not allowed to say that our sex life was 200 00:17:06,839 --> 00:17:11,319 impaired, because there seems to be a myth that I don't know, they 201 00:17:11,400 --> 00:17:17,319 live happier, healthier lives in every capacity right, And to me, that's 202 00:17:17,400 --> 00:17:22,839 kind of obvious that if people are modifying their sex organs are seeking to do 203 00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:26,640 so, then that's going to affect sex. And of course it did. 204 00:17:29,319 --> 00:17:33,599 Yeah, just everything. I think there's a lot of myths floating around, 205 00:17:34,880 --> 00:17:45,519 and almost everything I observed was far more unhappy and than it was supposed to 206 00:17:45,519 --> 00:17:48,559 be. Yeah, no, I mean that also brings me to another question 207 00:17:48,599 --> 00:17:53,559 I wanted to ask, because you know, these conversations, especially to the 208 00:17:53,599 --> 00:17:56,680 point you just made, there's a lot of conversations mad about what the left, 209 00:17:57,200 --> 00:18:02,799 which at least culturally is in control of so many institutions at least for 210 00:18:02,920 --> 00:18:10,000 now, gets wrong about dendrysphoria through transideology and all of that. But you 211 00:18:10,079 --> 00:18:15,319 know, there aren't as many people who are able to speak to the pains 212 00:18:15,519 --> 00:18:21,440 that people who are like actually really undergoing, either you know, the traumas 213 00:18:21,480 --> 00:18:26,319 that are inflicted by bad political ideologies that are being mainstreamed, or by extremely 214 00:18:26,599 --> 00:18:32,920 real dysphoria with their body. All of these things are actually very traumatic and 215 00:18:33,359 --> 00:18:36,519 very real, and I think your memoir speaks to that, and I wanted 216 00:18:36,559 --> 00:18:38,240 to see if you could tell us a little bit more about what it was 217 00:18:38,319 --> 00:18:41,880 like watching someone struggle with all of this. I mean, did you have 218 00:18:41,960 --> 00:18:47,920 to sort of find through maybe through research or through the experience itself, the 219 00:18:48,079 --> 00:18:55,240 language even to describe or understand what was unfolding in your own house. Yeah, 220 00:18:55,359 --> 00:18:57,599 I certainly didn't know what was going on. This was twenty fifteen, 221 00:18:57,799 --> 00:19:03,440 and you alluded earlier to this being sort of a time when things were changing, 222 00:19:03,599 --> 00:19:07,519 and from everything I read, this is pretty much the cusp of when 223 00:19:07,079 --> 00:19:11,720 things changed, like he was riding the wave, like right on top of 224 00:19:11,799 --> 00:19:21,440 it. I think that the political you alluded to the political environment or ideologies 225 00:19:21,599 --> 00:19:26,000 affecting people as well as the genuine dysphoria. I think those two things interact. 226 00:19:26,680 --> 00:19:33,119 I think that spending a lot of time obsessing about your identity and how 227 00:19:33,200 --> 00:19:37,279 you look and how you present and what people think of you and whether they're 228 00:19:37,400 --> 00:19:41,519 thinking what you want them to think, is that's an unhealthy state, and 229 00:19:41,599 --> 00:19:47,519 that's a state I think that appeared to exacerbate dysphoria. I don't know why 230 00:19:47,599 --> 00:19:55,880 it wouldn't, but certainly, yeah, I saw I saw Jamie struggling with 231 00:19:56,119 --> 00:20:00,720 things that I definitely had no words for and no experience with. And I 232 00:20:00,759 --> 00:20:06,640 mean one of the things that really was strange for me is that since I 233 00:20:06,759 --> 00:20:11,720 accepted Jamie's cross dressing, and since he was going online saying that he was 234 00:20:11,119 --> 00:20:18,440 cross dressing for fun and that it wasn't a big deal, when that started 235 00:20:18,480 --> 00:20:22,000 to turn it was very very baffling to me. And the fact that he'd 236 00:20:22,039 --> 00:20:26,079 been pretty masculine in the past, so when he started to say that he 237 00:20:26,279 --> 00:20:30,480 was literally a woman, for example, instead of just identifying as one or 238 00:20:30,559 --> 00:20:34,200 dressing as one, this was just out of left field for me, and 239 00:20:34,319 --> 00:20:38,759 I didn't know. I just didn't know where that was coming from. And 240 00:20:40,400 --> 00:20:47,079 it affected our communication because I was interested in continuing as we always had, 241 00:20:47,279 --> 00:20:52,000 was having really personal and real and deep conversations and really being intimate in that 242 00:20:52,160 --> 00:20:56,319 way. And he, on the other hand, had been reading things online 243 00:20:56,440 --> 00:21:03,559 and had started to, you know, sort of think of some things as 244 00:21:03,640 --> 00:21:07,200 dog whistles or as triggering or all this kind of stuff, And so there 245 00:21:07,240 --> 00:21:11,799 were things that I couldn't talk to him about anymore, and sometimes I didn't 246 00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:15,279 understand why, so I would just be like, well, why can't we 247 00:21:15,319 --> 00:21:18,359 talk about this? But what he was hearing was, you know, when 248 00:21:18,400 --> 00:21:22,799 people say this, they mean that, or you know when people say this, 249 00:21:22,880 --> 00:21:26,279 they're transphobic, or when people ask you a question, you don't owe 250 00:21:26,359 --> 00:21:29,920 them an answer, and you know all this kind of stuff, and so 251 00:21:30,039 --> 00:21:37,880 yeah, I was baffled for quite a while. So my book is called 252 00:21:37,920 --> 00:21:41,759 eighteen Months. That's the eighteen months between the moment that he first cross dressed 253 00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:48,599 and the moment of our divorce, And somewhere around month ten I started to 254 00:21:48,160 --> 00:21:57,279 really well. Around month ten is when he went from cross dressing too identifying 255 00:21:57,400 --> 00:22:02,119 strongly as trans and then a little but after that, somewhere between the tenth 256 00:22:02,160 --> 00:22:06,200 and the eighteenth months is when I began to think this may not work out 257 00:22:06,359 --> 00:22:10,720 because I just can't I can't figure out what's going on. And around that 258 00:22:10,839 --> 00:22:15,880 time I also happened to cross an essay by Anne Lawrence on auto gaynophilia. 259 00:22:17,599 --> 00:22:21,400 And I don't actually usually use that word or talk about that much because I'm 260 00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:23,920 not a doctor, and I also just don't like to use a lot of 261 00:22:23,960 --> 00:22:27,759 terminology. I'd rather just report on what I saw, But I will say 262 00:22:27,839 --> 00:22:33,559 that that essay really opened my eyes and really made me understand that what was 263 00:22:33,680 --> 00:22:42,079 happening was pretty big, and pretty irreversible and pretty damaging to our relationship because 264 00:22:42,160 --> 00:22:48,640 Jamie had started to take a bigger interest in himself than in me, and 265 00:22:48,160 --> 00:22:52,319 there's really no way to recover from that, because the relationship is all about 266 00:22:52,519 --> 00:22:56,039 your person, you know, it's reciprocal, and it wasn't going to be 267 00:22:56,160 --> 00:23:03,759 that way anymore. So. Yeah, I kind of learned the language and 268 00:23:03,559 --> 00:23:07,640 gathered information as I went, and a lot of it I really didn't have 269 00:23:07,960 --> 00:23:12,799 until it was all over. Do you think in some I don't know. 270 00:23:12,799 --> 00:23:17,200 I don't want to say parallel universe, but could this have manifested in a 271 00:23:17,319 --> 00:23:23,079 different way in Jamie if the online climate was different, if it hadn't been 272 00:23:23,200 --> 00:23:29,400 sort of put on a silver platter that if you're dealing with X, Y 273 00:23:29,440 --> 00:23:33,160 and Z pains anxiety depression, consider that maybe you're in the wrong body, 274 00:23:33,680 --> 00:23:40,200 Consider that maybe this is a manifestation of gender dys for you, something like 275 00:23:40,279 --> 00:23:42,000 that. It could it have manifested in a different way, in a different 276 00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:48,920 cultural climate. Do you think it was a sort of culturally acceptable manifestation of 277 00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:53,319 anxiety and depression and all of the different struggles with modernity. Yeah, I 278 00:23:53,480 --> 00:24:00,680 think it's definitely a culturally bound situation. Whether he found himself in descriptions of 279 00:24:00,920 --> 00:24:04,680 pain. I don't know. I mean, as possible. I think of 280 00:24:04,759 --> 00:24:10,000 this more as something that began with cross dressing. It began with something lighthearted. 281 00:24:10,039 --> 00:24:15,359 He really didn't seem to be in pain before that. But either way, 282 00:24:15,799 --> 00:24:22,839 certainly what he came to believe about himself was found online. I mean, 283 00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:29,240 I think that's that's really obvious. I mean, I think that the 284 00:24:29,279 --> 00:24:33,480 way people are talking about this is very obviously different from the way it was 285 00:24:33,319 --> 00:24:38,319 maybe ten years prior to that. Yeah, that's really interesting. And there 286 00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:45,119 was a super interesting point you made on your substack recently. You were it 287 00:24:45,240 --> 00:24:47,799 was a quick post, and I imagine you're working on something based on the 288 00:24:47,799 --> 00:24:49,960 post. It sounds like you're working on something about both the Louise Perry and 289 00:24:51,279 --> 00:24:56,759 Mary Harrington books, and you kind of previewed you're thinking of both about both 290 00:24:56,799 --> 00:25:00,160 of these books and a substack post, and Louis and Mary have both on 291 00:25:00,359 --> 00:25:03,079 the show and talked a little bit about their books. You write, to 292 00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:06,039 be clear, there's a coherent argument to be made that most women are best 293 00:25:06,079 --> 00:25:08,559 served by minimizing sex, getting married, avoiding birth control, and having children. 294 00:25:08,839 --> 00:25:11,279 But that's a conservative argument, not a feminist one. If you're a 295 00:25:11,319 --> 00:25:15,799 conservative. It's okay to own that. It goes without saying that sex positive 296 00:25:15,839 --> 00:25:19,079 feminists have gone too far in their enthusiasm for male centric, unsatisfying sex. 297 00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:22,519 But the narrative that women don't or shouldn't want sex until they're ready to start 298 00:25:22,559 --> 00:25:26,279 a family is damaging too, because it isn't true. It's led more than 299 00:25:26,319 --> 00:25:30,799 a few of my friends to neglect birth control, to persist in abusive relationships, 300 00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:33,880 to marry hastily, or to have children with men they shouldn't have accepted 301 00:25:33,920 --> 00:25:36,920 a second date from. I can't help but think that a pendulum has swung 302 00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:41,400 from one unhealthy extreme to the other. As only Fans Superstar Ils said on 303 00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:45,359 a recent Cut The Cut the Whole podcast, there almost seems to be a 304 00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:48,599 conservative idea emerging in feminist circles. If you're having sex, you're losing value, 305 00:25:49,160 --> 00:25:52,880 And the reason you know it certainly is a conservative. I would own 306 00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:56,240 the conservative argument. The reason I was curious to ask you about that is 307 00:25:56,440 --> 00:26:03,440 especially because you've been mentioning pornography and pornography going back to Andrew Dwarkin versus Camille 308 00:26:03,480 --> 00:26:08,880 Paulia has been such a sort of central conversation or a central point of feminist 309 00:26:10,079 --> 00:26:15,759 disagreement. And so as we're kind of questioning the swing of the pendulum and 310 00:26:15,079 --> 00:26:18,440 where it's about to land, which still seems up in the air. But 311 00:26:19,240 --> 00:26:25,079 as we're thinking about those things, how are you working through the question of 312 00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:30,720 pornography and maybe even only fans and all of these things online given your own 313 00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:36,480 very personal experience with them in your own life. Yeah, that's a great 314 00:26:36,559 --> 00:26:40,160 question. I forgot I wrote that. So, yeah, that was neat 315 00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:45,240 to hear that. I think. Yeah, I could have said when you 316 00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:48,000 said, what are some of the things that left is getting wrong? I 317 00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:53,960 could have also added this idea that pornography is just unequivocally fantastic and great for 318 00:26:55,039 --> 00:26:59,519 everyone and always a good thing. I mean, yeah, I think that. 319 00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:06,039 Wow, there's a lot to say about pornography. I have always been 320 00:27:06,279 --> 00:27:14,119 of the opinion that pornography is largely bad, especially for the actors and people 321 00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:18,079 involved in it, but that we're all human and I've looked at it and 322 00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:23,079 okay, you know, forgive myself, move on that kind of thing, 323 00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:29,000 right, That's always been my view. And so another thing that happened in 324 00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:34,119 twenty fifteen at the cusp of all this is that I learned that my view 325 00:27:34,279 --> 00:27:42,559 that pornography is overarchingly not great was controversial among liberals, which I found hilarious 326 00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:49,240 and weird. And it's not like I'm even obviously, it's not like I'm 327 00:27:49,279 --> 00:27:55,599 even a person who's judging people for that, or who's overly obsessed with it, 328 00:27:55,880 --> 00:28:00,200 or who has, you know, shunned it in my own life life 329 00:28:00,279 --> 00:28:04,000 at every turn, right, So, but I was really surprised just to 330 00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:11,480 learn that people are offended if you say that there's anything wrong with it. 331 00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:19,720 People are willing to defend the most vile examples of it. People are willing 332 00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:26,960 to turn a blind eye to the worst aspects of it. You know, 333 00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:30,599 I'll sometimes hear someone say, well, you know not that many of those 334 00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:33,720 women are actually trafficked. Well, I don't think we know that. But 335 00:28:33,839 --> 00:28:37,640 also like what a weird view, Like how many is too many? Like 336 00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:41,480 if some of the women at your local coffee shop were trafficked, wouldn't you 337 00:28:41,559 --> 00:28:47,039 boycott it? Like, you know, if it was five percent, you 338 00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:51,920 probably would, right, So all of those things were really a surprise to 339 00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:56,720 me when I learned them. And for now, I think, you know, 340 00:28:56,960 --> 00:29:00,880 my view is the same as it's always been. I think it's something 341 00:29:00,559 --> 00:29:07,960 that's interesting to people that can be possibly integrated into your life in a healthy 342 00:29:07,039 --> 00:29:14,480 way, especially it's hard to know, but especially if the origins of it 343 00:29:14,559 --> 00:29:18,519 are not exploitative. But I also think that there's a lot about it that's 344 00:29:18,559 --> 00:29:22,200 bad. Obviously, there's a there's a lot of terrible, terrible things depicted. 345 00:29:22,799 --> 00:29:29,599 The things that are depicted are harmful to the people acting in the in 346 00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:36,279 the films or or images much of the time, if not always, they 347 00:29:36,319 --> 00:29:48,720 are uh. They create misogynistic images of women. They obviously uh. Porn 348 00:29:48,839 --> 00:29:55,240 is obviously addictive for especially for some men. There's there's men who I here 349 00:29:55,319 --> 00:29:59,839 cannot perform because of their addiction to porn. Uh. And so there's there's 350 00:30:00,119 --> 00:30:03,000 lots to say about porn, and I think my view on it is very 351 00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:08,039 moderate, if not, I don't know. I don't want to say conservative, 352 00:30:08,079 --> 00:30:14,319 because I don't think that's true. But at the same time, it's 353 00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:17,240 not a great part of our culture, and it's it's really weird to me 354 00:30:17,359 --> 00:30:22,039 that it's controversial to acknowledge that well. And it actually reminds me of another 355 00:30:22,359 --> 00:30:26,720 thing that I thought was very incisive that you wrote on your sub stack you. 356 00:30:26,039 --> 00:30:30,319 You were talking about one of my favorite podcasts, The Rest is History, 357 00:30:30,359 --> 00:30:33,720 and a recent episode they did on the Marquis de Sade. Another person 358 00:30:33,759 --> 00:30:37,079 that Apolia. I'm a huge Palia fan who wrote about in Sexual Persone and 359 00:30:37,519 --> 00:30:41,680 you wrote about you say, the French author and sexual degenerate from whom the 360 00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:47,359 turn Sadism is derived. Sad was known for his libertine novels and imprisonment for 361 00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:52,279 sex crimes, blasphemy and pornography. I knew from Sexual Persone that Sod had 362 00:30:52,319 --> 00:30:56,880 written of eviscerating a buoy a girl and swapping their genitals and uncanny, canny 363 00:30:56,960 --> 00:31:00,400 image and our social and medical landscape. What I didn't know is that Sod 364 00:31:00,519 --> 00:31:04,960 was an enthusiastic cross dresser. Shall we call him trans? We mustn't suggest 365 00:31:06,119 --> 00:31:08,119 that gays or the gender just work are perverts, of course, but is 366 00:31:08,160 --> 00:31:12,680 there any reason to believe that perverts indulge in everything but homosexual and transsexual behavior? 367 00:31:14,039 --> 00:31:17,880 And one of the slow normalization of fringe sex via porn it's caused an 368 00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:22,400 increased in surprise choking, Why couldn't it cause an increase in queerness? Can 369 00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:26,920 you talk a little bit about that, especially with what you were just talking 370 00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:32,599 about in pornography misogyny that in some sense it reminds me a lot of what 371 00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:37,119 you're saying about, Jamie, that there's something being given to us online that's 372 00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:45,920 almost like a template and almost like a prescription for pains or indulging in you 373 00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:52,480 know, previously sort of stigmatized sexual appetites that just sort of allows you to 374 00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:59,599 normalize it. There's something very strange about that. Yeah. I think one 375 00:31:59,680 --> 00:32:05,319 thing that has happened is that I actually tweeted a diagram about this recently. 376 00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:15,400 We used to say let's accept benign diversity something like that, such as gay 377 00:32:15,480 --> 00:32:20,680 people who are in adult relationships with other consenting adults. Then we begin to 378 00:32:20,759 --> 00:32:27,839 say let's celebrate benign diversity, which I never thought was necessary. I know 379 00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:31,200 a lot of LGB folks think that was never necessary. You know, we 380 00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:35,640 kind of just want to live our lives and be able to show up at 381 00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:37,680 the work Christmas party with our partner. It's not about, you know, 382 00:32:38,240 --> 00:32:44,000 throw confetti for me or you know, design a flag for me. So 383 00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:47,920 that was a weird shift, and not an obvious bad one, I guess, 384 00:32:49,039 --> 00:32:54,400 but just unnecessary. And then there was a parallel effort to accept all 385 00:32:54,519 --> 00:33:00,480 sexual diversity, even if it was maybe a little more on the whole harmful 386 00:33:00,599 --> 00:33:06,720 side or on the troubling side. And so then between the effort to accept 387 00:33:07,039 --> 00:33:14,319 more kinds of unusual sexual behavior and the effort to celebrate instead of accept, 388 00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:19,640 we've come to a point where we celebrate harmful sexual behavior. So it's like, 389 00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:27,480 all come to this point where you really can't say anything bad about anything 390 00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:35,079 or you'll be some kind of something fobe. I don't know. Yeah, 391 00:33:37,279 --> 00:33:45,680 I do think that is that has contributed to a culture where being sexually different 392 00:33:45,039 --> 00:33:50,759 is popular, just as being any kind of diversity is popular right now, 393 00:33:52,079 --> 00:33:58,400 and sexual diversity or gender identity diversity is acquirable, or at least you can 394 00:33:58,519 --> 00:34:00,319 say you have it. You know, you can't say or another race, 395 00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:04,279 because we can look at you and we can tell. But you can say 396 00:34:04,319 --> 00:34:07,160 that you're queer, you can say that you're non binary, you can say 397 00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:09,440 that you're trans, and all you have to do is say it, and 398 00:34:09,559 --> 00:34:15,360 now you're in. And so there's a lot of cultural cachet to be gotten 399 00:34:15,440 --> 00:34:19,000 from saying that. And I don't think there's any way that that hasn't entered 400 00:34:19,039 --> 00:34:24,960 in to the explosion of trans identities and to Jamie's identity. I mean, 401 00:34:25,079 --> 00:34:29,119 I think that when I look back, there are a lot of things I 402 00:34:29,199 --> 00:34:34,679 didn't see coming. One thing I do know about Jamie is that he did 403 00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:37,199 have a bit of an ego. He did enjoy attention, He did enjoy 404 00:34:37,199 --> 00:34:43,239 applause. He was a musician, and so when he began to get applause 405 00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:46,679 for cross dressing and maybe a little bit more applause for saying he was trans, 406 00:34:47,280 --> 00:34:53,199 I definitely think that was a factors sort of like Christopher lash culture of 407 00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:59,239 narcissism and our currency changing, and then you have social media coming into the 408 00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:04,079 mix and making that a very material kind of currency and immediate kind of currency. 409 00:35:04,599 --> 00:35:08,840 And that actually is another thing you wrote about in this point about Marquis 410 00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:15,079 de Sade, and you know, questions about as Polly has written the Roman 411 00:35:15,119 --> 00:35:19,239 Empire and decadence and all of that, and as we're kind of trying to 412 00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:22,800 think about what the line might be between LGB and the t you know, 413 00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:29,760 what is where's the tipping point and what's causing some of this and what's giving 414 00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:35,199 you know, what's making this template suddenly so alluring for people who are maybe 415 00:35:35,320 --> 00:35:38,880 narcissistic, or have those tendencies of their personalities, or are in pain emotionally, 416 00:35:39,039 --> 00:35:45,119 whatever it is, how is this sort of what is it? From 417 00:35:45,159 --> 00:35:52,000 your perspective deeper in our culture? That's the is it? Do describe a 418 00:35:52,039 --> 00:35:54,880 lot of this to a decadence? Is it a high tech decadence? Is 419 00:35:54,960 --> 00:36:00,840 it a wealth decadence? Is it all of it? What sort of was 420 00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:07,239 the catalyst for something that happened so quickly here? Yeah? You mean culturally, 421 00:36:07,519 --> 00:36:13,400 right? Yep? Yeah, yeah, certainly I wrote about decadence and 422 00:36:15,039 --> 00:36:22,039 that article that you're talking about. It came to my attention recently that the 423 00:36:22,159 --> 00:36:27,679 Roman empire that fell, they were wealthy, and so they were probably bored. 424 00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:32,800 And so I had always kind of wondered what sexual decadence or gender diversity 425 00:36:32,920 --> 00:36:37,159 had to do with the fall of an empire, because I certainly don't think 426 00:36:37,239 --> 00:36:44,840 that like, well behaved of adult gay people are bringing down the empire or 427 00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:46,320 anything. So it's kind of like, well, what is it then? 428 00:36:46,519 --> 00:36:51,400 And it seems to be that thing I talked about where it's not that gay 429 00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:59,719 people are getting perverse, it's that perverse people are accepting gayness and clearness and 430 00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:07,960 transsexualism is something to do because they're too comfortable. Yeah, I think that 431 00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:16,840 I've heard it said that LGBU those are sexual orientations and those are just realities 432 00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:22,079 about a person, whereas the T and Q are political positions. Really, 433 00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:30,119 and so I think that it's really a big topic. But obviously postmodernism post 434 00:37:30,119 --> 00:37:38,000 structuralism in academia has filtered out into the wider culture, and that kind of 435 00:37:38,039 --> 00:37:45,840 stuff just kind of repeats a lot of really bad ideas like tear it all 436 00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:54,159 down, and yeah, all systems are corrupt and all systems are sexist and 437 00:37:54,280 --> 00:38:01,800 racist and intrinsically so and you know, defund the police and all that kind 438 00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:05,119 of stuff. And so, I mean, one thing that I think is 439 00:38:05,199 --> 00:38:09,800 wrong with those ideas, beyond the obvious, is that they don't have any 440 00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:15,000 solutions that can replace them. So it's not defund the police and instead, 441 00:38:15,119 --> 00:38:17,480 let's lower crime by doing X, Y and Z. Is just tear it 442 00:38:17,599 --> 00:38:22,400 down, let's see what happens. And so it's very anarchists, and I 443 00:38:22,519 --> 00:38:29,679 do think that material wealth and comfort and privilege is entering into that. I 444 00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:35,320 think that people who think that you can tear it all down are blessedly unaware 445 00:38:35,559 --> 00:38:38,480 of what it would be like if we did that. Yeah, there's a 446 00:38:38,599 --> 00:38:43,360 lot, there's a lot contributing to those views. That is a big topic. 447 00:38:44,559 --> 00:38:47,280 Yeah, And I also wonder again, as somebody who grew up in 448 00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:53,800 a religion and a special religious but especially a conservative Christian environment, you know 449 00:38:54,960 --> 00:39:00,000 what declining religiosity has meant for this trend. If I don't mean that to 450 00:39:00,039 --> 00:39:06,760 be a leading question, there's genuinely curious as to how you think that factors 451 00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:10,559 into it, or even overbearing religiosity. And this is just another possibility in 452 00:39:10,639 --> 00:39:17,760 red state areas that had a sort of suffocating gender binary or sexual binary. 453 00:39:19,400 --> 00:39:21,920 How did this play into everything and how does it play into it now? 454 00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:29,800 Yeah, I don't know if I feel like the religion, for example, 455 00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:32,920 the religion I was raised with, or the religions that I see around me 456 00:39:34,119 --> 00:39:40,800 per se, are affecting all of this as much as kind of the older 457 00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:46,360 and more general idea of Nietzsche's death of God. So it's kind of like, 458 00:39:47,480 --> 00:39:54,800 as we need God less because we don't need God to explain the cosmos 459 00:39:54,920 --> 00:40:05,960 because we have science, and we don't need God to of moral moral prescriptions 460 00:40:06,039 --> 00:40:09,480 because we can figure those out logically and we can figure out what's best for 461 00:40:09,559 --> 00:40:13,800 the most people, and we can. We can use more secular systems to 462 00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:16,679 determine morality and do a pretty good job at it, and sometimes better because 463 00:40:16,719 --> 00:40:22,639 we you know, there are old Testament statements that say you can beat your 464 00:40:22,719 --> 00:40:24,840 slave as long as the stick isn't too large and things like that. So 465 00:40:25,599 --> 00:40:31,199 so we don't need God as much, We don't believe in God as much 466 00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:37,079 because some of those things that cause us to believe are gone. But with 467 00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:43,760 that, we have also lost the good parts of religion, which are community 468 00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:49,880 and a sense of purpose and a sense of meaning in life, and all 469 00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:57,119 of that definitely undermines people's happiness and purpose and health and makes people not know 470 00:40:57,199 --> 00:41:01,599 what to do. And I think primesome for up doing these sorts of alternative 471 00:41:04,039 --> 00:41:09,159 structures of meaning. It's something that I call the crisis of modernity, and 472 00:41:09,199 --> 00:41:15,400 I write about it a lot in my substack and elsewhere. But yeah, 473 00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:21,559 I think that when I first lost my religion and became kind of an annoying 474 00:41:21,719 --> 00:41:29,840 new atheist, which I hope i'm past, I thought that the idea of 475 00:41:29,880 --> 00:41:32,199 the God shaped hole was really stupid and annoying, and I was like, 476 00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:35,760 I don't feel like I need a God. I don't miss God. But 477 00:41:35,840 --> 00:41:37,679 I think that it's a meaning shape hole. I think it's it's a more 478 00:41:38,239 --> 00:41:44,880 general concept that I was taking it as. I don't think that God shaped 479 00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:51,840 hole means that every atheist is sitting around pining for what they've lost explicitly or 480 00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:59,920 looking for a new God. But it does mean that purpose is no longer 481 00:42:00,039 --> 00:42:05,119 are quite as obvious, and the meaningfulness of the universe, and the maybe 482 00:42:05,159 --> 00:42:07,480 the idea that everything happens for a reason, or the idea that the things 483 00:42:07,519 --> 00:42:12,320 that are happening to you or for a reason you lose sad stuff. And 484 00:42:13,239 --> 00:42:19,480 I think that can make some people feel really unmoored and make them flock toward 485 00:42:20,559 --> 00:42:25,719 belief systems that aren't healthy. And another question of that, maybe another variable 486 00:42:27,039 --> 00:42:31,679 is about class. There's a lot of sort of interesting things going on there. 487 00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:37,000 But do you see that In fact, one of the interesting things, 488 00:42:37,079 --> 00:42:39,760 as I'm stumbling through this question, is that you know, to some extent, 489 00:42:39,920 --> 00:42:44,920 this is across classes. This is affect affected you know, girls in 490 00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:50,880 wealthy suburbs, it's affected people in our inner cities, it's affected people in 491 00:42:51,039 --> 00:42:55,119 rural America. At the same time, I wonder, is there do you 492 00:42:55,199 --> 00:43:00,800 see from your vantage point a class dynamic to this at all? Is it 493 00:43:00,119 --> 00:43:04,960 neutral at what does it look like from that perspective. I mean, I 494 00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:12,199 think that we know that it's a phenomenon of affluent, white, highly educated 495 00:43:12,239 --> 00:43:16,159 people. I think that's known. So I also know I know a couple 496 00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:22,320 of teachers who teach high school in inner city areas. They say they're not 497 00:43:22,400 --> 00:43:30,679 seeing that, They're not seeing people identifying as other things. So yeah, 498 00:43:30,880 --> 00:43:32,760 I do think there's there's some of that. I mean, I don't know 499 00:43:32,880 --> 00:43:37,599 for sure, but my observations would lead me to believe that this is a 500 00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:45,000 very liberal, educated phenomenon. Yeah. No, I think that's very interesting. 501 00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:52,159 It does strike me that there are among people who are engaged in, 502 00:43:52,559 --> 00:43:58,000 for example, prostitution in urban centers, that there are It does seem like 503 00:43:58,079 --> 00:44:02,679 there's been more transgenderism or sort of gender play, but I guess it's also 504 00:44:02,760 --> 00:44:08,440 hard to tell if that's just how things are being described by the advocacy groups 505 00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:14,039 and everyone in that space. Yeah, that's interesting. I think that one 506 00:44:14,119 --> 00:44:21,679 thing that I have found by meeting people is that some of the what I 507 00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:28,840 would call old school transsexuals who are game in who go into prostitution, they 508 00:44:28,960 --> 00:44:34,039 don't believe they're literally women, and so there's an aspect of this ideology, 509 00:44:34,559 --> 00:44:38,719 this liberal elite ideology, that's missing from their experience. So I think that's 510 00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:44,599 notable. Well, maybe you can also speak to as somebody again, it's 511 00:44:44,679 --> 00:44:46,920 it's in the description that I read earlier that is a huge one of the 512 00:44:47,039 --> 00:44:53,440 questions about how drag has become has loomed so large over this entire conversation because 513 00:44:53,480 --> 00:44:58,440 of it's sort of being marketed to kids in a weird way, in an 514 00:44:58,559 --> 00:45:02,519 almost cartoonish way. That was something that originally thrived on this idea of the 515 00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:08,239 sexual binary. There was something sort of underground and subversive about doing drags, 516 00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:15,000 specifically because gender was not fluid, and that's been the impetus for a lot 517 00:45:15,039 --> 00:45:17,760 of weirdness. It seems to me too, in the same way that you 518 00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:22,679 know, as you were saying transsexuals who would never consider themselves are literally women. 519 00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:28,599 That is completely different now and you can see that kind of arc very 520 00:45:28,679 --> 00:45:32,280 neatly play out just on Rue Paul's show. It's just sort of been totally 521 00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:37,599 flipped on its head. Yeah, I mean, I've noticed that there are 522 00:45:37,519 --> 00:45:44,639 trans people who are mad about drag queens and other trans people who consider drag 523 00:45:44,719 --> 00:45:52,239 queens a part of their culture their world. Yeah, there's definitely there's definitely 524 00:45:52,639 --> 00:45:58,559 at least two sets of views going on under the transgender umbrella, one of 525 00:45:58,719 --> 00:46:02,800 which is that gender is innate and you can have a gender identity that you 526 00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:07,719 were born with, and that is kind of that old school world, right 527 00:46:07,880 --> 00:46:16,599 like, and those people with that viewer largely game in. And then there's 528 00:46:16,679 --> 00:46:21,559 this new idea that you can be non binary and that your gender can change 529 00:46:21,719 --> 00:46:27,280 every other day, and that maybe your gender is you know, ELFs and 530 00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:34,559 fairies and whatever, and that view really depends on not being innate and being 531 00:46:34,639 --> 00:46:43,119 playful and being intentional and constructed and all that kind of stuff. So I 532 00:46:43,199 --> 00:46:46,320 do see those two things playing out. I really feel like the latter one 533 00:46:46,679 --> 00:46:54,880 is gaining all the popularity, So I don't know. Yeah, well, 534 00:46:55,119 --> 00:46:58,800 and actually that's just as we're wrapping up. I was also curious to see 535 00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:02,639 what your thoughts were. We're on the movement that has, in some really 536 00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:09,119 remarkable ways blossomed to confront some of these big challenges, to resist some of 537 00:47:09,239 --> 00:47:15,400 the mainstreaming of unhealthy, toxic ideas. You know, no movement is going 538 00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:20,480 to be perfect and harmonious, you know, could you give us a little 539 00:47:20,519 --> 00:47:23,920 bit of your perspective from kind of inside, uh, the group of people 540 00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:30,280 who are pushing back on this, you know, are you guys optimistic? 541 00:47:30,239 --> 00:47:34,719 Are you know, the auto gynophilia for example, as we talked about earlier, 542 00:47:34,719 --> 00:47:39,280 there have been some flare ups at conferences and whatnot that get into some 543 00:47:39,480 --> 00:47:49,000 of these interesting I guess internal disputes or conflicts or what have you. What 544 00:47:50,079 --> 00:47:53,039 are you optimistic about the progress but the state of I guess the resistance to 545 00:47:53,159 --> 00:47:59,800 all of this. Yeah, I have been really unsure whether it to be 546 00:48:00,519 --> 00:48:07,199 optimistic or not. But I think the thing that you're alluding to is I 547 00:48:07,320 --> 00:48:13,480 did go to the Ginspect conference in Denver this fall, and gin Inspect is 548 00:48:13,480 --> 00:48:17,920 an organization that wants to find alternatives for people with gender dysphoria that are non 549 00:48:19,039 --> 00:48:28,719 medical and wants to promote therapy and exploration and different ways of living and dealing 550 00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:32,880 with dysphoria that don't amount to Okay, you said your trans or you feel 551 00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:37,760 like a girl or a boy. Let's get you on puberty blockers right now. 552 00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:40,239 Times of waste and you know, let's get you on some medication. 553 00:48:40,960 --> 00:48:46,519 So that is what ginspect, that's what their view is. What happened that 554 00:48:46,679 --> 00:48:52,920 you're alluding to is that a man showed up to INSPECT in address. He 555 00:48:53,039 --> 00:48:58,880 admitted he was a man. He said he was not trans. He said 556 00:48:58,920 --> 00:49:02,480 that he was an auto I file and that he had written a book about 557 00:49:02,519 --> 00:49:09,519 it. Now, for this guy, his interest in this topic was that 558 00:49:09,800 --> 00:49:15,480 he had found kind of found a way forward that didn't involve medicalization now, 559 00:49:15,599 --> 00:49:19,559 I think, and I think that's why Ginspect also thought, well, this 560 00:49:19,679 --> 00:49:22,440 is interesting. You know, we don't have a problem with this. Although 561 00:49:23,239 --> 00:49:25,880 I was at the conference, nobody seemed to have a problem with it. 562 00:49:27,559 --> 00:49:31,199 What happened later was that Inspect tweeted about it, and a huge number of 563 00:49:31,280 --> 00:49:35,880 people had a problem with it. And so I think, just to try 564 00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:39,519 to keep it brief, that what occurred was a split between people who are 565 00:49:40,519 --> 00:49:46,119 against illiberalism, which I consider myself to be in that group, and people 566 00:49:46,159 --> 00:49:55,559 who are against I don't know, transgenderism perhaps or against gender nonconformity or There 567 00:49:55,639 --> 00:50:00,719 was a large contingent of radical feminists and gender critical peace won that group, 568 00:50:00,159 --> 00:50:06,360 and so their primary concern was this man was doing something sexual, it was 569 00:50:06,599 --> 00:50:10,400 offensive to women. That needs to stop. I think that, for one 570 00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:13,719 thing, that that group didn't seem to be at the conference, so that 571 00:50:13,840 --> 00:50:19,400 seemed to be a group of people who were talking without having seen what they 572 00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:23,320 were talking about. But I also think that the way forward is with the 573 00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:29,840 people who want to fight illiberalism, because I think that what's really going wrong 574 00:50:29,960 --> 00:50:32,400 here, as someone with the background that I have, you know, someone 575 00:50:32,440 --> 00:50:37,559 who stated women and gone to drag shows and all the things, what's going 576 00:50:37,639 --> 00:50:40,519 wrong here is not that some men are wearing women's clothes. What's going wrong 577 00:50:40,719 --> 00:50:44,639 is that they're lying about it. They're asking others to lie about it. 578 00:50:45,360 --> 00:50:51,199 They're invading the privacy of people who don't want them present in locker rooms or 579 00:50:51,280 --> 00:50:58,800 prisons. They're promoting some unscientific views about why they feel the way they do. 580 00:50:59,519 --> 00:51:05,800 There's some myths going around about brain sex, and you know, some 581 00:51:06,159 --> 00:51:09,440 ideas that it's in some way related to intersex, which it's not. And 582 00:51:09,599 --> 00:51:19,719 so for me, if we just pursue liberalism, we will address these issues 583 00:51:19,960 --> 00:51:24,679 without just being offended by particular people and what they happen to be up to. 584 00:51:25,239 --> 00:51:30,920 So I'm optimistic. I do see a lot of community, especially on 585 00:51:31,039 --> 00:51:36,639 substack, that's going in this direction of we don't like illiberalism, what can 586 00:51:36,679 --> 00:51:38,599 we do about that? And I feel like that's a really good way forward 587 00:51:38,719 --> 00:51:44,360 for this problem and all sorts of others, right, And I suppose there's 588 00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:47,159 also a pretty good argument that it prevents the pendulum from swinging too far in 589 00:51:47,239 --> 00:51:52,559 the other direction as well. You know, liberalism as the solution should at 590 00:51:52,679 --> 00:51:58,440 least in theory, prevent you know, the I'm going to make a joke 591 00:51:58,480 --> 00:52:04,079 that's going to offenderman catholically listeners, but the sort of Catholic integral integralist takeover 592 00:52:04,480 --> 00:52:07,360 of you know, all of our institutions or you know, sort of things 593 00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:10,239 that people are uncomfortable with that you know, for example, Ron DeSantis has 594 00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:14,599 done, or anything like that. If they're making the argument that's a liberal, 595 00:52:14,800 --> 00:52:17,719 I suppose that's that's also you know, kind of the comfortable safe space 596 00:52:17,800 --> 00:52:22,239 to land on, because it should help the pendulum find its way back to 597 00:52:22,280 --> 00:52:25,519 the middle. Yeah, I think it really would, because you know, 598 00:52:25,559 --> 00:52:30,119 if we have free speech, then everyone can speak people on both sins, 599 00:52:30,360 --> 00:52:34,360 people on all sides. You know, if we if we have a bit 600 00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:38,559 of a live and let live, and you know, we try to to 601 00:52:39,639 --> 00:52:44,840 have a hands off approach and just tell the truth. I do think that'll 602 00:52:44,920 --> 00:52:49,679 bring us closer to the middle. Well, Shannon Thrace, this has been 603 00:52:49,920 --> 00:52:53,239 fascinating. The book again is called eighteen Months, A Memoir of a Marriage 604 00:52:53,400 --> 00:52:59,960 Lost to gender identity. Shannon Stubbs Substack is Shannon Thrace dot substack dot com. 605 00:53:00,199 --> 00:53:04,159 Thraces T H R A C. E. Thank you so much for 606 00:53:04,400 --> 00:53:06,719 coming on the show and for all of your work, Shannon, I appreciate 607 00:53:06,760 --> 00:53:08,480 it so much. Oh, thank you so much. This has been a 608 00:53:08,599 --> 00:53:13,400 really great conversation. Of course, I hope to do it again. Yeah, 609 00:53:13,440 --> 00:53:15,079 I Emily just showed Ski Culture editor here at the Federal List. We'll 610 00:53:15,079 --> 00:53:19,760 be back soon with more. Until then, be lovers of freedom and anxious 611 00:53:19,880 --> 00:53:32,840 for the fray. I heard the Fame Boy the Reason, and then it 612 00:53:34,039 --> 00:53:34,960 faded away.