August 27, 2025 • 44 mins
In multiple recent instances, trans people have baselessly been blamed for instances of violence or devastation they had nothing to do with. Bridget Todd joins us to discuss how this plays out, why it's harmful, and some ways to combat it.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome to stefone.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Never told you a productive I Heeart Radio, and once
again we are so happy to be joined by the curious,
the charming Bridget Todd.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome, Bridget.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Thanks for having me. I appreciate the c adjective theme.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yes, thank you, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
We were talking a little bit before we started recording.
But I guess here comes a loaded question. How are
you doing, Bridget?
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Oh, I'll just say I've been better for folks who
don't know. I live in Washington, d C. Which you
might know is a crime infested hellhole. No, just kidding.
It's actually a lovely place to live. But President Trump
has taken over our city's police force and has unleashed
(01:06):
the National Guard and with federal agents into the city.
When this first happened, for whatever reason, it was centralized
right on my street, which wasn't my favorite. It still
persists every day is a new surprise I guess that
he has in store for us. If people are listening,
(01:26):
are following what's going on in DC, one of the
biggest I mean, I'll get on my soapbox right now.
The reason why it's happening in DC. It's because DC
is not a state. DC has what's called home rule,
so we we have some ability to make decisions for
ourselves and sort of for like our local leaders are
able to make some decisions for us. But everything that
happens in DC is at the pleasure of the President
(01:49):
and Congress because DC is not a state. And so
the reason why Trump can send not just the National
Guard to DC but also take over our police force
is because DC is not a state, and so advocate
for statehood for DC. The only reason why this is
happening in DC in no other place in terms of
our police force being taken over by Trump, is because
(02:10):
DC is not a state. So advocate for DC statehood.
DC statehood. Now I don't have an elective official that
I can call about this call for me and advocate
for the full self determination of the people of the
District of Columbia.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
That's my soapbox.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
It was a good one. Thank you, yes, yes, thank you,
and I'm we're both so glad you're okay and good
to have you. As always.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Even if the topic you're discussing is a pretty is pretty,
it's one that makes me very angry, and actually this
is a sad state.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Of affairs that we live in.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
But as I was discussing before we started recording, I'm
going to this big event, dragon Con this weekend, and
every year I go, I think I might die in
a mass shooting. Oh, because that's just the world we
live in. And part of what you're talking about here
is it's awful enough that that happens, But it's also
(03:10):
awful enough that so many people in power are so
quick to blame somebody else, anybody else, other than what
is actually happening and what we could actually do to
prevent things like this.
Speaker 5 (03:25):
Oh my god, Annie, you and me both.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
If I am in any kind of a big event,
people who know me in real life know I can't
get comfortable until I'm like, Okay, exit there, exit there,
exit there, Like I need to know where the exits are.
Speaker 5 (03:37):
It is. I'm not comfortable until I do that.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
And as you said, I mean in this country, I mean,
I hate to say it, it feels like we have
just decided we're not going to do anything about the
real cause of mass shootings, which is the guns. Right,
So then we have to start scapegoating things and trying
to blame these issues that are non issues on what
(04:00):
we have shootings, and unfortunately, in today's internet landscape, that
thing is the existence of trans people. I know what
you're thinking, I don't know how trans people are linked
to mass shootings. Well, you would be right, because they're
not linked to mass shootings. But that does not keep
trans people from being baselessly blamed for any kind of
(04:21):
mass shooting, mass tragedy, or mass instance of violence or
bad thing happening by very loud voices online.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yes, and this has happened several times. Correct.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Yes, it is a constant thing, and it's a kind
of identity based disinformation that I see over and over
and over again. I would be willing to bet that
folks listening have probably actually seen this play out at
one time or another. If you spend any time online,
there is this image of someone with blonde, shaggy hair
holding a rifle that often circulates online that claims to
(04:58):
show the perpetrator who Commenters will say, oh, this is
a trans person who was mentally disturbed and they're the perpetrator,
But it's actually a very well worn image of Sam Hyde,
who is not trans and is actually an extremist, comedian
and YouTuber. In Fact, in twenty twenty three, fact checker
and journalist Bill McCarthy described that when he sees a
(05:19):
mass shooting, his heart doesn't just sink for the victims
and their families and communities. His heart also sinks because
he knows, just from doing it for a long time,
that it means that other people who are not involved
will be baselessly and falsely accused of being the killer.
They're pictures shared all over the web by social media users.
In a piece called mass Shootings, the Other Innocent Victims,
(05:41):
he sheds light on this where he talks about a
mass shooting happening in Nashville where Hide was misidentified as
both trans and the perpetrator. He writes, shortly after police
says that they had responded to a shooting, I opened
Twitter and ran a simple keyword search Nashville shooter identified.
According to dozens of results, the city officials had already
singled out the perpetrator. It was a transgender woman named
(06:03):
Samantha Hyde. The post claimed, So this again, like, if
you spend any time at all online when there's some
sort of mass instance of violence, this image of Hide
is probably you can probably picture it like I can
picture it.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
I see it every single time.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
And you know, this person is very familiar to fact
checkers at this point because of all the different variations
of an image of this person showing up. But it's
been this long running hoax that initially originated on four
Chan as kind of like a meme.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Oh I do not like that.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
And the thing is it has such a trickle down
impact of because I'm not hugely online, but I am.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
I'm aware of all of.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
This through like news in quotes, I guess news sources,
and it has horrible impacts on the people who were
not involved at all.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Yeah, So it's it's really not just Nashville. In the
shooting in Texas, a photo of an actual trans woman
named Sam, a different Sam than the one I was
just talking about, circulated on social media claiming that she
was the perpetrator. She actually had to post a picture
showing that she was alive and well, because as we
know that that shooter was killed by police, right, and
(07:25):
so I mean, just imagine not being involved in a
shooting that that that trans woman Sam was like, I
don't even I don't even live in Nashville, right, and
so just imagine having to prove to people online that
you were not involved in something that you had nothing
to do with. None of these people were actually the
perpetrators or even connected to the to the incident at all.
But that does not stop these claims from going viral
(07:47):
and harming innocent, actual trans people and then furthermore kind
of creating this false impression that trans people are violent
or dangerous, just based on nothing like the facts very
really do not back that up. And so the way
that people are able to scapegoat and fear monger around
just the existence of trans people and then somehow link
(08:10):
it to violence is really it's not just it's not
just harmful for the trans people who are targeted, it's
harmful for everybody. Like, it's just a very harmful, dangerous climate.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yes, and.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
You know, when we have these narratives around trans people
in our politics that are so painting them in such
a way as if they're all pedophiles or something like,
it's just ridiculous. These attacks are horrible, they're not backed
up by facts, and it's we know the trans community
faces so much violence and this only makes it worse.
(08:49):
And you have an incident that happened kind of near
you where we saw this play out right?
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Yes, yeah, so this brings me to you. This horrible
plane crash that happened earlier this year. There was a
great piece about this incident and Wired called a transpilot
was falsely blamed for a plane crash. Now she's fighting
the right wing disinformation machine that was published earlier this
summer that really sheds light on this issue.
Speaker 5 (09:16):
So I wanted to shout them out.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
So back in January, there was a deadly plane crash
where I live here in DC, where a helicopter crashed
into a plane. Both of them landed in the Potomac River,
and sixty seven people died. It was a hard way
to start out the new year, and it just was
a really dark time here in DC. However, it also
(09:37):
became very dark for this woman, Joe Ellis, who is
a transgender National Guard pilot who was falsely blamed for
causing this crash. Now, to be super duper clear, Ellis
was not involved in this crash in any capacity whatsoever,
just was not involved. However, days before the crash happened,
(09:58):
she had published this pretty good essay about what it's
like being a transgender pilot. That alone was enough for
right wing influencers, some of which you have millions of
followers across the Internet, to baselessly accuse her of being
responsible for this crash. So in the days leading up
to this crash, she wrote this piece called Living to Serve,
Living as Myself a transgender service members Perspective, where she
(10:21):
describes growing up in a family of service members and
joining the Virginia Army National Guard in two.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
Thousand and nine.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
In her piece, she described sending an email to her
command and giving them notice that she intended to start
transitioning under the then current in service transition policy, and
she says she was met with a lot of support
from her team. It's clear in the piece that she's
trying to sort of push back on some of these
well worn myths about how trans people get all this
(10:47):
free stuff and that you know they're just you just
join the military and the government pay for everything. She
actually describes paying out of pocket for all of her
trans related care. So after her piece was published, just
days later the crash happened. She describes waking up to
a friend warning her that she had been named online
as the pilot who killed all of these innocent passengers
(11:09):
in this deadly crash. At first, she's thinking, Oh, this
is just some weird, isolated claim. Somebody must have mistakenly
connected me to the crash because of this essay I
describe being from Virginia. This happened really close to Virginia.
She's like, Oh, just a mistake. Then she gets on
Facebook and she sees lots of messages both from friends
basically being like.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
Are you alive orre you okay?
Speaker 4 (11:32):
I see that you were involved in this crash, as
well as hateful, really transphobic messages from people saying that
they thought that she had been involved in this crash.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
So again, I can't quite imagine what it.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
Would be like to go to bed just a normal
person and wake up being at the center of this
horrible tragedy that you weren't even involved in in any capacity.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
You know what I really hate with all of this
conversation is that that was part of the point. They
love taking an incident that they know they may have
some liability in because we know what was happening with
the Department of Transportation and the FAA. We knew like
things were happening, and things were slowly like falling apart,
(12:17):
Like we could see things falling apart before this happened.
And if they just like with the shooters, any of
the shooters, when they're like, ooh, this is not going
to be good for our side. So what we're gonna do
is put in as much disinformation and misinformation as we
can and also give them a villain that we have
already used to capitalize on traditional families in order to like,
(12:40):
you know, get our narrative out there. There's so much
to this, and like it doesn't matter if they're wrong.
They've got the perfect victim and they've got someone to
be the villain that that could only help perpetuate their platform.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Right, You're exactly right, Samantha, And I mean that is
exactly what's going on in this case. When initially, like
I remember the day this crash happened, and I also,
when I'm not making my podcasts, there are no girls
on the internet. I also co host a local daily
news podcast called Citycast DC, so I was reporting on
this story and I will never forget literally the day
(13:14):
it happened, you had administration officials essentially blaming DEI. This
was when we didn't even know what the cause was,
and so they were so confident getting up on television
and being like, oh, the problem was DEI. And then
back in March, the administration spent two point one million
dollars on an actual official investigation into whether or not
(13:35):
DEI policies were causing all these recent safety incidents with airlines, right,
And so it's just I don't think I have to
tell anybody that there's just no credence to this, like
you don't need two point one million dollars to study this.
But also the way that even before, like I'm not kidding,
there were still bodies in the Potomac River when Donald
(13:56):
Trump was getting on TV talking about this being because
of DEI, And so you're exactly right that they've just
created this scapegoat that you know, it's horrible for trans
folks on the trans community, but it's also horrible for
everybody because when we're trying to somehow pin deadly plane
(14:19):
crashes on diversity, we're not actually looking at what causes
the deadly plane crashes. So the planes are less safe
for all of us because they're like, oh, it's you know,
how trans people are always causing plane crashes and then
the thing that it's actually causing plane crashes is going unexamined,
and so it's a real problem.
Speaker 5 (14:36):
And I just hate that it's been so effective.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
In my head, this is like it's such a bad
Like when the queer community are involved, I'm like, it's
because they were like dressed too too good, Like they're
they're showing off their fits, you know, Yeah, a little
trend that's happening on TikTok. Yeah, they're showing their office
and so they were being too distracting and caused this
plane crash.
Speaker 5 (14:57):
And that's what it goes in my head.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
I mean, that's essentially it's like a joke, but like
that's essentially what they're saying.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
Sometimes it's so silly. It is beyond.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
This is the part I think you're coming back to,
and I want to make note of that there is
no real liability in this different this information slash just
straight out lies because this plays out on social media exactly.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
So we're starting to see a little bit of movement there,
and I'll talk more about that toward the end of
the episode. But yeah, because it's all happening online, it's
happening in a space where real damage can be done,
and then real accountability can be elusive, and so that's
exactly what happened in this case. Right wing influencers just
(15:53):
started boosting lies that Ellis was involved in this crash
when she wasn't. On Twitter, Matt Wallace, who has over
two million followers, put out a post saying that a
trans Blackhawk pilot had written a letter about depression and
gender dysphoria the day before a deadly crash. So if
you actually read Ellis's piece, she talks about how she
(16:13):
was depressed, but when when she was young, before she
transitioned her her piece is all about how, you know,
I feel like I have a supportive community both professionally
and personally and socially. Her her piece did not make
her sound like she was an unhappy person. It made
her sound like she was a very happy, you know,
solid person.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
So even even that is a lie.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
But he went so far as to suggest that it
might have been some kind of a quote trans terror attack.
That post blew up and got almost five million views
before he deleted it. Then Anne vander Steele, who was
a pretty well known QAnon personality with a huge following online,
jumped in and pushed the same false claim. She did
eventually post a attraction, and of course it would not
(16:58):
be an episode abouts phobia without mentioning Elon Musk. Musk's
own AI chatbot, known as Grock, falsely named Ellis as
the pilot, which only made the rumor spread faster. So
before long, Ellis was actually trending as the second most
talked about topic on Twitter, with more than ninety thousand
posts about her like speculating that she was involved and
(17:22):
that the whole thing was some sort of a quote
trans terror attack. She had to put out a proof
of life video on social media to reassure her community
that she wasn't dead, and also just as an attempt
to push back against these lies.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
I hate that she had to do a proof of
life video just to like save her name. But also
I wonder how many people like this is AI, like
they still refuse to believe in Yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
I mean, that's the thing.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
So we know that in that crash there were no survivors,
and so I almost wonder if someone has to saw
a video of for her being like, well there were
no survivors and here I am, They're like, that's not
that's AI, and that just goes to show how our
digital media landscape is is that some people, when confronted
with the truth that does not align with the reality
(18:13):
that they want to be true, will always reject it.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Right.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
They can meet her in the flesh and it's like, oh,
it's a body double like it does not It truly
does not matter, so I will say. After she posted
her proof of life video, Matt Wallace, one of the
people who initially claimed that she was responsible for this accident,
did post to say, oh, I saw that video. Ellis
(18:37):
is alive and well and not responsible for the crash.
He shifted the blame to another account called fake Gay Politics,
which has since been suspended on x saying this is
apparently the first account who reported what we now know
is false. It seemed credible because Joe Ellis wrote an
article calling out Trump's trans military band only a few
days ago. I have to point out that in this
(18:59):
post where he said, oh, I got it wrong, she
wasn't responsible, he of course also misgenders her because he
can't just he just can't help himself like he has
to even in a post where I don't know he
should maybe be apologizing for baselessly accusing her of committing
a trans terror attack to like millions of people. He
should maybe apologizing, No, he's like I got a missgender
(19:19):
her on the way out also right.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
I mean it's definitely like, you know, gotta less, treat
them less than human type of narrative from him, of
course Wallace, which I can't stand him anyway, But Matt
Wallason himself, he can't. He can't really actually show any
compassion exactly.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
And I think, what what How this moved? How this
claim moved online? I think really shows what an effective
social media and media apparatus folks on the right really
do have, where these claims maybe start in more fringe
pockets of the Internet like four Chan or some random
extremist bloggers Twitter page, but then they quickly get boost
(20:00):
did by right wing politicians media figures, and then bleed
into more mainstream media outlets where they just sort of
become part of people's consciousness.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
Like I would be willing to bet.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
That because that picture of Sam Hyde where it misrepresents
Sam as a trans woman responsible for this attack, I
would be willing to bet that some people out there think, oh,
that image is of an actual trans person who committed
a horrible atrocity, even though it's not because it's just
like part of the ecosystem.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Now, yeah, And I mean that's part of the damage here,
is even with these retractions, which I mean, I guess
I'm glad I did them, but at the same time,
I'm kind of like, yeah, sure, okay, but at that point,
the damage is kind of done, Like somebody has already
been pinned for this, some you know, some people who
(20:52):
digested that information might not ever see the retraction, Like
the damage is kind of done. They might have that
already in their head. And Ellis was someone who went
who experienced this kind of thing.
Speaker 5 (21:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
She described going essentially overnight, going from being unknown in
public to being somebody who felt like they could not
even go out in public for her own safety. She
told The New York Times quote, my life was turned
upside down at that point, adding that her employer sent
armed bodyguards to protect her family and that she started
carrying a loaded weapon as a precaution. Forever on, I'm
(21:30):
known as that trans terrorist. And so as you both
were just saying these claims, they it can be hard
to get accountability because they're happening online. And even though
Matt Wallace did retract his claim that she was involved
in this. I have to imagine that he did that
(21:50):
because Ellis did not take this sitting down. She actually
fought back. And so we've talked about this on my
own podcast a lot. But when online right wing influencers
and figures spread lies about people, we're starting to see
more and more the people that are targeted by their
lives are filing defamation lawsuits against people who spread demonstrable,
(22:11):
harmful lies about them. And that's exactly what Ellis did.
She filed a defamation lawsuit against Matt Wallace in April,
saying that he was behind a destructive and irresponsible defamation campaign.
The lawsuit against Wallace, filed in the US District Court
in Colorado, was a way for Ellis to seek damages
for the harm cause to her reputation, privacy, and safety.
(22:32):
Ellis said that Wallace has not yet counter filed, and
her lawsuit was filed by the Equality Legal Action Fund,
which is a group of volunteer attorneys and advocates who
helped members of the LGBTQ community fight online defamation. And
so I have to imagine that when all these people
were like, oh, looks like I got it wrong and
this person wasn't involved in this tragedy. As I just
said to a million people. I have to imagine part
(22:54):
of that was because they did not want to face
a defamation lawsuit, which yeah, they If you lie about
people in a way that can harm them, harm their career,
harm their livelihood, you might actually be looking at a
defamation lawsuit.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Yeah, and we have seen some cases of this working
out recently.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Interestingly, I don't.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Know if you've been following what happened, what's going on
with the app Tea?
Speaker 5 (23:21):
Oh yes, I have, very very closely.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yes, But we were talking about that recently in an
episode about defamation. Is it can be tricky, but if
you can prove like this demonstrably hurt me, you can
you can get some money from that.
Speaker 5 (23:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
Are you talking about how the women who were had
their information, you know, exposed by Tea are suing.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Yeah, well, we were talking about both because men were
so angry and they were trying to sue for defamation,
and it's kind of tricky when a lot of it
is just well, this is the date you went on
and this is what you posted online. So it's kind
of tricky, but in other cases like it, then the
(24:10):
women were have their information leaked and they're like, well,
this is a bit.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
I When I was covering the t APP, we were
talking about those are we dating the same guy? Facebook
pages that kind of were a sort of precursor to
the t APP, And as you just said, men tried
to sue women who talked about the dates that they
had had that on those pages, and those lawsuits did
not go anywhere. And I remember watching a press conference
(24:39):
of these women who posted on one of those pages
after the case was dropped and they were not going
to be found libel for defamation.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
They basically said exactly what you just said. Annie.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
You know, I'm sorry that you didn't like that what
I said about what happened on our date was not
favorable to you, But that is what happened, and that's
not defamation.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
And I guess the court of reed right.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
And I think the thing about these types of cases
and anything with like civil lawsuits in general, with defamations
and all of this, is that it really does give
an upper hand to victims who can prove what is happening.
We talked about this in the Meet two episode. We
just had an interview with EA Gene Carroll and her
defamation lawsuits, which you were like, yes, girl, get them,
(25:22):
but like, the level of proof is not as deep
as a criminal case. But you still have to prove
it obviously, And it's such a tricky thing because there's
so many unsure ways and this is not as well
known obviously defamation and civil lawsuits. Civil suits are not
as well known as criminal suits. We're not like watching
shows based on that, although we could, and I'm guessing
(25:45):
like this is probably going to be one of those
same things where it's kind of like, uh, how do
we proceed?
Speaker 5 (25:51):
What does this look like?
Speaker 4 (25:53):
Yeah, I mean again, it is this like tricky gray
area legally. Another good example of people successfully suing for
defamation were the parents of the Sandy Hook shooting, who
successfully sued Alex Jones for defamation after he repeatedly and
baselessly claimed the shooting that killed their babies was a hoax,
(26:13):
that their kids were not really dead, that they were actors,
or that the parents were involved in some massive conspiracy,
and that I mean, they were able to prove that
he actually did defame them. Also, it's it's such a
despicable thing. To do, like he deserves every bad thing
that could happen to a person. When you actually look
at the at the le he didn't just say this
(26:35):
offhand once or twice. These people had his listeners showing
up to their houses to harass them in person. Like,
when you actually look at the things that he did,
it's so despicable. And we also know that Dominion Voting
Systems got a seven hundred and eighty seven million dollar
settlement from Fox News because Fox claimed that their voting
systems during the election were rigged against Trump. So there
(26:58):
is some precedent for suing businesses for defamation. You know,
Fox is a business, Alex Jones, it runs a business,
but not really a precedent for suing individual influencers who
spread damaging lies about people. So I think that's what
Ellis is really trying to do. Trying to say, like,
if an influencer with millions of followers says a demonstrably
(27:21):
false claim about me that harms me, I should be
able to seek damages for that. And I think, you know,
especially for marginalized people, there should be some kind of
legal recourse that prevents this. It should not just be
that anybody can say, any harmful, dangerous, damaging lie they want,
and you just have to.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Eat it right, right.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
I mean, when we look at like Giuliani again with Trump,
even the Megan, thee Stallion, recent cases like those are
these are really interesting. Of course we have bigger names
doing these cases. Not the Juliani case. That was a
beautiful suit to see in itself, But there are so
many things that it looks like, you know, this is
the best solution. I say that hesitantly because it's so
(28:05):
gross that we can't people can't get justice in general.
Speaker 5 (28:08):
Yes, but like I guess you know what I.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
Mean, No, totally, and I'm glad that you brought up Giuliani.
So he was sued by two women who probably heard
of Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss Georgia, women who he again,
I guess, I want to bring this up because it's
not like he just casually, offhand said, oh, maybe they
were involved in vote rigging the election for Biden against Trump.
(28:33):
The way that he said this repeatedly, the way that
he I mean, he like. In one instance, he accuses
them of passing back and forth USB files that had
secret hidden votes on them, as if they were doing
a drug deal together, like the way that he it's
not so I just want to make clear because some
people are probably thinking, oh, well, why can't I just
(28:55):
say whatever I want about anybody? But these were not
public figures, right, And it's not just an offhand casual remark.
It is baselessly and repeatedly saying very inflammatory things about somebody,
over and over and.
Speaker 5 (29:09):
Over again to audiences of millions, Like it really is.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
When you think, when you actually look at what some
of these cases involved, it's really clear that you should
not just be able to do this.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
This would it really did.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
Have a clear damaging impact on the lives of the
people targeted, Like people broke into Ruby Freeman and Shae
Moss's home they tried to make a citizens arrest while
her grandmother, her elderly grandmother, was in the house.
Speaker 5 (29:32):
Like that was probably terrifying.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Right, And we know a lot of this as we
started the conversation about mass shootings and shootings in general,
have like a lot of these bases could be on
the misinformation. The CDC shooting literally was based on that
as far as we know. And by the way the
way that was just swept under the rug, can we
talk about that.
Speaker 5 (29:51):
Yes, sorry that was a side note, but.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
I'm just like this miss, this disinformation is what's causing
some of these awful outcomes.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
We are living in a time where somebody can baselessly
disparage really anybody, and that and like in this day
and age, I'm sorry to say that.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
Can have violent outcomes.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
And the fact that we I agree with you, the
fact that the CDC shooting happened and we all just
sort of moved on from it, and the number one
figure of public health and in this country RFK Junior
barely even mentioned it. I mean, I think it really
deeply means that we have reached a new echelon in
this kind of thing that it could be open season
(30:34):
on anybody, like genuinely, today it's CDC workers, or two
black women who are election workers, or a trans pilot.
Tomorrow it could be you, like genuinely, like that is
where we're at.
Speaker 6 (30:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Unfortunately, in this case, we are talking about the damage
done to the trans community, which is already facing so
much violence and this is just exacerbating it.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Yeah, And so as I was saying, blaming trans folks
for incidents they had literally nothing to do with, is
no isolated saying. A review of news reports and fact
checking database claim View shows that since twenty twenty two,
there have been a dozen incidents when a transperson was
wrongly blamed for a tragedy or a violent incident. So
after the tragic death of Melissa Hortman, the lawmaker and
(31:36):
her husband who were tragically murdered by a gunman earlier
this year, Donald Trump Junior said, quote, the radical transgender
movement is per capita of the most violent domestic terror threat,
if not in America, then probably the entire world. And
that shooter was not even a transperson. A trans woman
was initially blamed for the Trump shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania.
(31:59):
After a shooting where two people were killed in Wisconsin,
Alex Jones, who like I said, really should not be
lying about anybody at this point, said, if the statistical
trend continues with this tragic event, there's a ninety eight
percent chance the shooting is trans.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
Or gang related. I don't know where you got that from.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
If this is another trans whack job or gang shooting,
it will be out of the news in less than
twenty four hours. And so I gotta say, this is
just a complete lie. Trans people are far more likely
to be the victims of crime, not the perpetrator.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
This is from Wired.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Research shows that trans people are four times more likely
to be the victims of violence compared to sist people.
According to the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAD, between May twenty
twenty four and May twenty twenty five, there have been
at least twenty six injuries and one death reported among
trans and gender nonconforming people, a fourteen percent jump in
the previous year. Meanwhile, claims that trans people are behind
(32:52):
mass violence doesn't add up. Per the Gun Violence Archive,
there have been four thousand and four hundred mass shootings
in the past decade, of which fewer than ten known
suspects were trans. That is zero point one one percent.
And again, I mean trans people are already not a
huge number of the population in general, so like just
common sense would probably tell you they would not be
(33:15):
statistically overrepresented in mass shootings. And so all of these
claims linking trans people to being the perpetrators of violence
are just bunked.
Speaker 5 (33:23):
They're not true. It's just another way to lie about
this community and demonize them.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yeah, I mean, it's the same similar to the bathroom
argument that there's going to be men and the trans
men are men coming into the bathroom to molest your children.
They're like, what, that's never been a that's never been
a what are you what?
Speaker 5 (33:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (33:47):
And whenever I hear about that when people are like, well,
CIS men are just gonna go into the bathroom with
your little daughters and creep on them, isn't what shouldn't
not beyond the CIS men? Like, if you're saying that
the problem is that sis ana are gonna use this
to sneak their way into bathrooms to harm girls, what
a trans Like, there's not a trans person in the
(34:07):
mix in this scenario that you've paint in, this fear
mongering scenario that you've just painted out, wouldn't.
Speaker 5 (34:12):
That be on the CIS men? Right?
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Also, can we if we're really worried about these young girls,
can we talk about child bride laws? And you're like,
are we gonna talk of nonet me?
Speaker 4 (34:22):
I mean I have said this so often and I
mean it literally, we hate children. We will absolutely be like, oh,
we have to protect the kids, and this really convenient
one instance that aligns with my political policies. But then
in every other instance, it's like those kids. We hate
kids we're not interested to protect. We wouldn't even be
having this conversation about how we allow kids to get
(34:42):
shot when they try to go to school if we
actually gave us about kids.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
We hate kids like we don't care about them at.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
All, feeding kids, giving them lunches, Oh dear God, what
let them starve?
Speaker 5 (34:53):
Put them in the minds. Get a job. Just then
go ahead do your thing. Okay, listen, you're in kindergarten.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
If you don't have a job, and if the rectory
are a mind, I don't want to hear it.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
I love the regressing, and we all have a lot
like the child labor laws, like they need to work
at ten, they absolutely need to be working.
Speaker 5 (35:10):
Let's let's bring them into the fields. I almost feel like.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
We're getting closer and closer to this being explicit because
I at least we don't have to hear the sort
of protect the children rhetoric so much anymore.
Speaker 5 (35:21):
We still hear I'm not saying we don't hear it, but.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
Yeah, I think that people their naked hatred of children
is becoming more and more on display. So at least
we can all just have an honest conversation about it.
We don't have to pretend that you want to protect
kids when you want them to be starving in minds
or whatever.
Speaker 5 (35:36):
Right, give us our batteries.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
Anyway, coming back to so that was just my little
rant about how much you make kids.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
You know how I love going on the side quest
made these conversations with you.
Speaker 5 (35:52):
But yeah, like we do.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Like I said, I've mentioned before about this whole level
of social media and what kind of a role they
are playing.
Speaker 5 (35:59):
Can you kind of bring us back to that.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
Yeah, I mean all of this, all of the things
I've just talked about, it's all made worse when you
look at how most social media platforms have really rolled
back whatever rules they did have that were meant to
prevent trans people being harmed on their platforms. This was
something I personally worked in when I was working for
an advocacy organization called Ultraviolet. We worked with platforms like
(36:22):
TikTok and read It to have them spell out that
behavior like dead naming or misgendering was going to be
called out in their hateful conduct policies. Almost instantly, when
Trump got on office, a lot of that stuff was
rolled back. That was one of the first positions that
Elon Musk rolled back when he took over Twitter. So
like the way that we are living in a less
(36:43):
protected landscape for trans and queer and marginalized people online.
Speaker 5 (36:47):
It's just sad how quickly that became the case.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
And you know a lot of these platforms, even linked In,
have really rolled back whatever protections they did have around
this kind of harmful content and language toward marginalized people
like transpokes, and it becomes an even bigger problem as
algorithms amplify harmful content, while platforms like Facebook and Twitter
really just abandoned fact checking. Earlier this year, Facebook also
(37:14):
loosened its rules around hate speech and abuse.
Speaker 5 (37:17):
And so, yeah, we're just.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
Living in a much less moderated online landscape when it
comes to marginalized people, trans people, queer people, and it's
a problem. And I think all of that relates to
you know why, when Matt Wallace baselessly accuses a trans
pilot of being involved in this crash, not only is
(37:39):
it amplified, but that sticks around. It becomes a trending
topic on a platform even though it's just a complete lie.
And I think at the heart of all of this
is really just shows how eager people are to use anything,
even outright lies, to paint trans people as violent. You know,
(38:00):
it's like they're trying to build a world where trans
folks never get to just exist at the as themselves. Instead,
they're being constantly scrutinized and held responsible not just for
what other trans people do, but even for things that
have never actually happened, Like, how could you ever exist
if that was the climate that you were that you
had to exist under. It just it just really goes
(38:22):
to show how much people want to create a climate
where these folks don't exist.
Speaker 6 (38:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Yeah, it feels very purposeful, and it's frightening in that
it is so effective. And you know, I know we've
talked about this before, but there have been people in
the periphery of my life where I've sort of watched
them fall into this kind of conspiracy world.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Well they'll say something and I.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Just pause, like, wait what, And I've just seen them
go further and further and further down this path, and
it's it's it's.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Frustrating and frightening. And I do.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Think that in some places it's like misinformation, but I
think a lot of it is purposeful. I think they
want to a RaSE.
Speaker 5 (39:21):
Yeah, yeah, I completely agree.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
And you know, I will definitely be following Ellis's defamation
suit because it I don't want. I don't like the
idea that the only recourse is fighting back in the courts.
But I do think having there be a cost for
spreading these kinds of harmful lies online would be a
good thing. I think a signal that says, if you're
(39:45):
going to get on the internet and blast a lie
about a transperson to millions of people, that might be
a decision that comes out of cost for you, so
think twice about it. And so I think I'll be
interested to see where this suit goes and whether or
not it creates a dynamic where folks do think twice
before they get online and lie about trans people because
they should.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Yes, they should.
Speaker 5 (40:07):
I mean you should. You should think twice before you
lie about anybody, but don't lie.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
Yes, I think that would be fantastic for everyone. Uh,
if people thought twice before lying online, It's it's fascinating.
I used to have to answer the comments on YouTube
under our videos, and it was so interesting to me
how many times I'd be like, hi, I'm a real person,
and they'd be like, oh my god, I'm so sorry, so.
Speaker 5 (40:38):
Funny that you say this.
Speaker 4 (40:39):
I made a video of a video on Instagram about
AI and someone let the comment that said, why should
we trust you? Aren't you AI? And I was like,
oh my god, am I AI? I had a moment
where I thought, you know, I thought I had a childhood.
I thought I had blood drawn? But am i AI?
But what would AI? Wouldn't if you were AI? What
(41:00):
didn't you think you were real? Like, it's not like
a I would know they were AI. It really caused
me to go down an existential tailspin. I think I'm real,
but could I ever be? Could I ever be sure?
Speaker 1 (41:11):
I'm thinking about the dude that got engaged to the AI.
I think we talked about before and didn't she admit
she's not a real person. I think she said that
I'm not real, but my feelings, our feelings are real.
Speaker 4 (41:23):
Yes, like that the guy who got who proposed with Aiah.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
I mean, I think it's just not real, but our feelings,
their feelings, the relationship was.
Speaker 5 (41:33):
I was like, wait, my feelings are real.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
I love it was, Oh, we're gonna have a crisis.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Yeah, we're getting into matrix territory.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
You know this, This very question became a huge deal
in the Star Wars fandom a couple of years ago
because they introduced a droid that could use the Force.
So if a droid can use the Force, then you're saying.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
It's alive.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
So they what are we doing with all of these
other troids?
Speaker 4 (42:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (42:08):
Yeah, I've always wondered this. I mean, this is a
whole rabbit hole.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
But and I'm not I don't know a ton about
Star Wars, but I do notice the Stormtroopers Are they
are they? Because when they get killed there it's never
it's never like my body, I'm always Are they are?
Speaker 1 (42:22):
They?
Speaker 5 (42:22):
Are they human?
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Are? Like?
Speaker 5 (42:24):
What's the what's going on with them?
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Well, bridgie, I could go into a long thing, but essentially, yes,
most of them are human and or clones which are
also human.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
But yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, they kind of have like
numbers for names. Yeah, so so.
Speaker 4 (42:43):
They're not like when they're not doing Stormtroopers stuff, it's
not like they're taking off their mask and like going
home to the kids and watching teacher.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
And most of them are not.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
Some of them aren't, but a lot of them are
like grown quickly in a in a tube, so they
like might not have even had a childhood.
Speaker 5 (43:00):
Hot it. Yeah, my god, how deep does this thing go?
Speaker 2 (43:02):
You don't even want to know.
Speaker 5 (43:05):
Yeah, that's not the question. Dangerous unless you got a week.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
Okay, well maybe later welcome back to that, but in
the meantime, always wonderful to have you on. Thank you
so much for bringing this topic and for being here.
Where can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 4 (43:24):
You can listen to my podcast. There are no girls
on the Internet. You can find me on Instagram at
bridget Brie and DC, on TikTok at bridgeant Brie and DC,
and on YouTube.
Speaker 5 (43:32):
There are no girls on the internet.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Yes, and listeners, go check out all that stuff. If
you haven't already. If you would like to contact us,
you can. You can email us at Hello, Stuffhenever Told
You dot com. You can also find us on Blue
Sky at Mom's a Podcast, or Instagram and TikTok at
STUFFE Never Told You for us on YouTube. We have
some new merchandise at Cotton Bureau if you want to
check it out, and we have a book you can
get where we get your books. Thanks as always to
our super produce Christine or executive producer Maya and our
(43:56):
contributor Joey.
Speaker 5 (43:57):
Thank you and thanks to.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
You for listening STUFFE Never Told yous. Action by heart Radio.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, you can check
out the heart Radio app Apple Podcasts, where you listen
to your favorite shows,
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome to stefone.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Never told you a productive I Heeart Radio, and once
again we are so happy to be joined by the curious,
the charming Bridget Todd.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome, Bridget.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Thanks for having me. I appreciate the c adjective theme.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yes, thank you, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
We were talking a little bit before we started recording.
But I guess here comes a loaded question. How are
you doing, Bridget?
Speaker 4 (00:45):
Oh, I'll just say I've been better for folks who
don't know. I live in Washington, d C. Which you
might know is a crime infested hellhole. No, just kidding.
It's actually a lovely place to live. But President Trump
has taken over our city's police force and has unleashed
(01:06):
the National Guard and with federal agents into the city.
When this first happened, for whatever reason, it was centralized
right on my street, which wasn't my favorite. It still
persists every day is a new surprise I guess that
he has in store for us. If people are listening,
(01:26):
are following what's going on in DC, one of the
biggest I mean, I'll get on my soapbox right now.
The reason why it's happening in DC. It's because DC
is not a state. DC has what's called home rule,
so we we have some ability to make decisions for
ourselves and sort of for like our local leaders are
able to make some decisions for us. But everything that
happens in DC is at the pleasure of the President
(01:49):
and Congress because DC is not a state. And so
the reason why Trump can send not just the National
Guard to DC but also take over our police force
is because DC is not a state, and so advocate
for statehood for DC. The only reason why this is
happening in DC in no other place in terms of
our police force being taken over by Trump, is because
(02:10):
DC is not a state. So advocate for DC statehood.
DC statehood. Now I don't have an elective official that
I can call about this call for me and advocate
for the full self determination of the people of the
District of Columbia.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
That's my soapbox.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
It was a good one. Thank you, yes, yes, thank you,
and I'm we're both so glad you're okay and good
to have you. As always.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Even if the topic you're discussing is a pretty is pretty,
it's one that makes me very angry, and actually this
is a sad state.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Of affairs that we live in.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
But as I was discussing before we started recording, I'm
going to this big event, dragon Con this weekend, and
every year I go, I think I might die in
a mass shooting. Oh, because that's just the world we
live in. And part of what you're talking about here
is it's awful enough that that happens, But it's also
(03:10):
awful enough that so many people in power are so
quick to blame somebody else, anybody else, other than what
is actually happening and what we could actually do to
prevent things like this.
Speaker 5 (03:25):
Oh my god, Annie, you and me both.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
If I am in any kind of a big event,
people who know me in real life know I can't
get comfortable until I'm like, Okay, exit there, exit there,
exit there, Like I need to know where the exits are.
Speaker 5 (03:37):
It is. I'm not comfortable until I do that.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
And as you said, I mean in this country, I mean,
I hate to say it, it feels like we have
just decided we're not going to do anything about the
real cause of mass shootings, which is the guns. Right,
So then we have to start scapegoating things and trying
to blame these issues that are non issues on what
(04:00):
we have shootings, and unfortunately, in today's internet landscape, that
thing is the existence of trans people. I know what
you're thinking, I don't know how trans people are linked
to mass shootings. Well, you would be right, because they're
not linked to mass shootings. But that does not keep
trans people from being baselessly blamed for any kind of
(04:21):
mass shooting, mass tragedy, or mass instance of violence or
bad thing happening by very loud voices online.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yes, and this has happened several times. Correct.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Yes, it is a constant thing, and it's a kind
of identity based disinformation that I see over and over
and over again. I would be willing to bet that
folks listening have probably actually seen this play out at
one time or another. If you spend any time online,
there is this image of someone with blonde, shaggy hair
holding a rifle that often circulates online that claims to
(04:58):
show the perpetrator who Commenters will say, oh, this is
a trans person who was mentally disturbed and they're the perpetrator,
But it's actually a very well worn image of Sam Hyde,
who is not trans and is actually an extremist, comedian
and YouTuber. In Fact, in twenty twenty three, fact checker
and journalist Bill McCarthy described that when he sees a
(05:19):
mass shooting, his heart doesn't just sink for the victims
and their families and communities. His heart also sinks because
he knows, just from doing it for a long time,
that it means that other people who are not involved
will be baselessly and falsely accused of being the killer.
They're pictures shared all over the web by social media users.
In a piece called mass Shootings, the Other Innocent Victims,
(05:41):
he sheds light on this where he talks about a
mass shooting happening in Nashville where Hide was misidentified as
both trans and the perpetrator. He writes, shortly after police
says that they had responded to a shooting, I opened
Twitter and ran a simple keyword search Nashville shooter identified.
According to dozens of results, the city officials had already
singled out the perpetrator. It was a transgender woman named
(06:03):
Samantha Hyde. The post claimed, So this again, like, if
you spend any time at all online when there's some
sort of mass instance of violence, this image of Hide
is probably you can probably picture it like I can
picture it.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
I see it every single time.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
And you know, this person is very familiar to fact
checkers at this point because of all the different variations
of an image of this person showing up. But it's
been this long running hoax that initially originated on four
Chan as kind of like a meme.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Oh I do not like that.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
And the thing is it has such a trickle down
impact of because I'm not hugely online, but I am.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
I'm aware of all of.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
This through like news in quotes, I guess news sources,
and it has horrible impacts on the people who were
not involved at all.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Yeah, So it's it's really not just Nashville. In the
shooting in Texas, a photo of an actual trans woman
named Sam, a different Sam than the one I was
just talking about, circulated on social media claiming that she
was the perpetrator. She actually had to post a picture
showing that she was alive and well, because as we
know that that shooter was killed by police, right, and
(07:25):
so I mean, just imagine not being involved in a
shooting that that that trans woman Sam was like, I
don't even I don't even live in Nashville, right, and
so just imagine having to prove to people online that
you were not involved in something that you had nothing
to do with. None of these people were actually the
perpetrators or even connected to the to the incident at all.
But that does not stop these claims from going viral
(07:47):
and harming innocent, actual trans people and then furthermore kind
of creating this false impression that trans people are violent
or dangerous, just based on nothing like the facts very
really do not back that up. And so the way
that people are able to scapegoat and fear monger around
just the existence of trans people and then somehow link
(08:10):
it to violence is really it's not just it's not
just harmful for the trans people who are targeted, it's
harmful for everybody. Like, it's just a very harmful, dangerous climate.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yes, and.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
You know, when we have these narratives around trans people
in our politics that are so painting them in such
a way as if they're all pedophiles or something like,
it's just ridiculous. These attacks are horrible, they're not backed
up by facts, and it's we know the trans community
faces so much violence and this only makes it worse.
(08:49):
And you have an incident that happened kind of near
you where we saw this play out right?
Speaker 4 (08:57):
Yes, yeah, so this brings me to you. This horrible
plane crash that happened earlier this year. There was a
great piece about this incident and Wired called a transpilot
was falsely blamed for a plane crash. Now she's fighting
the right wing disinformation machine that was published earlier this
summer that really sheds light on this issue.
Speaker 5 (09:16):
So I wanted to shout them out.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
So back in January, there was a deadly plane crash
where I live here in DC, where a helicopter crashed
into a plane. Both of them landed in the Potomac River,
and sixty seven people died. It was a hard way
to start out the new year, and it just was
a really dark time here in DC. However, it also
(09:37):
became very dark for this woman, Joe Ellis, who is
a transgender National Guard pilot who was falsely blamed for
causing this crash. Now, to be super duper clear, Ellis
was not involved in this crash in any capacity whatsoever,
just was not involved. However, days before the crash happened,
(09:58):
she had published this pretty good essay about what it's
like being a transgender pilot. That alone was enough for
right wing influencers, some of which you have millions of
followers across the Internet, to baselessly accuse her of being
responsible for this crash. So in the days leading up
to this crash, she wrote this piece called Living to Serve,
Living as Myself a transgender service members Perspective, where she
(10:21):
describes growing up in a family of service members and
joining the Virginia Army National Guard in two.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
Thousand and nine.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
In her piece, she described sending an email to her
command and giving them notice that she intended to start
transitioning under the then current in service transition policy, and
she says she was met with a lot of support
from her team. It's clear in the piece that she's
trying to sort of push back on some of these
well worn myths about how trans people get all this
(10:47):
free stuff and that you know they're just you just
join the military and the government pay for everything. She
actually describes paying out of pocket for all of her
trans related care. So after her piece was published, just
days later the crash happened. She describes waking up to
a friend warning her that she had been named online
as the pilot who killed all of these innocent passengers
(11:09):
in this deadly crash. At first, she's thinking, Oh, this
is just some weird, isolated claim. Somebody must have mistakenly
connected me to the crash because of this essay I
describe being from Virginia. This happened really close to Virginia.
She's like, Oh, just a mistake. Then she gets on
Facebook and she sees lots of messages both from friends
basically being like.
Speaker 5 (11:30):
Are you alive orre you okay?
Speaker 4 (11:32):
I see that you were involved in this crash, as
well as hateful, really transphobic messages from people saying that
they thought that she had been involved in this crash.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
So again, I can't quite imagine what it.
Speaker 4 (11:45):
Would be like to go to bed just a normal
person and wake up being at the center of this
horrible tragedy that you weren't even involved in in any capacity.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
You know what I really hate with all of this
conversation is that that was part of the point. They
love taking an incident that they know they may have
some liability in because we know what was happening with
the Department of Transportation and the FAA. We knew like
things were happening, and things were slowly like falling apart,
(12:17):
Like we could see things falling apart before this happened.
And if they just like with the shooters, any of
the shooters, when they're like, ooh, this is not going
to be good for our side. So what we're gonna do
is put in as much disinformation and misinformation as we
can and also give them a villain that we have
already used to capitalize on traditional families in order to like,
(12:40):
you know, get our narrative out there. There's so much
to this, and like it doesn't matter if they're wrong.
They've got the perfect victim and they've got someone to
be the villain that that could only help perpetuate their platform.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Right, You're exactly right, Samantha, And I mean that is
exactly what's going on in this case. When initially, like
I remember the day this crash happened, and I also,
when I'm not making my podcasts, there are no girls
on the internet. I also co host a local daily
news podcast called Citycast DC, so I was reporting on
this story and I will never forget literally the day
(13:14):
it happened, you had administration officials essentially blaming DEI. This
was when we didn't even know what the cause was,
and so they were so confident getting up on television
and being like, oh, the problem was DEI. And then
back in March, the administration spent two point one million
dollars on an actual official investigation into whether or not
(13:35):
DEI policies were causing all these recent safety incidents with airlines, right,
And so it's just I don't think I have to
tell anybody that there's just no credence to this, like
you don't need two point one million dollars to study this.
But also the way that even before, like I'm not kidding,
there were still bodies in the Potomac River when Donald
(13:56):
Trump was getting on TV talking about this being because
of DEI, And so you're exactly right that they've just
created this scapegoat that you know, it's horrible for trans
folks on the trans community, but it's also horrible for
everybody because when we're trying to somehow pin deadly plane
(14:19):
crashes on diversity, we're not actually looking at what causes
the deadly plane crashes. So the planes are less safe
for all of us because they're like, oh, it's you know,
how trans people are always causing plane crashes and then
the thing that it's actually causing plane crashes is going unexamined,
and so it's a real problem.
Speaker 5 (14:36):
And I just hate that it's been so effective.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
In my head, this is like it's such a bad
Like when the queer community are involved, I'm like, it's
because they were like dressed too too good, Like they're
they're showing off their fits, you know, Yeah, a little
trend that's happening on TikTok. Yeah, they're showing their office
and so they were being too distracting and caused this
plane crash.
Speaker 5 (14:57):
And that's what it goes in my head.
Speaker 4 (14:59):
I mean, that's essentially it's like a joke, but like
that's essentially what they're saying.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
Sometimes it's so silly. It is beyond.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
This is the part I think you're coming back to,
and I want to make note of that there is
no real liability in this different this information slash just
straight out lies because this plays out on social media exactly.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
So we're starting to see a little bit of movement there,
and I'll talk more about that toward the end of
the episode. But yeah, because it's all happening online, it's
happening in a space where real damage can be done,
and then real accountability can be elusive, and so that's
exactly what happened in this case. Right wing influencers just
(15:53):
started boosting lies that Ellis was involved in this crash
when she wasn't. On Twitter, Matt Wallace, who has over
two million followers, put out a post saying that a
trans Blackhawk pilot had written a letter about depression and
gender dysphoria the day before a deadly crash. So if
you actually read Ellis's piece, she talks about how she
(16:13):
was depressed, but when when she was young, before she
transitioned her her piece is all about how, you know,
I feel like I have a supportive community both professionally
and personally and socially. Her her piece did not make
her sound like she was an unhappy person. It made
her sound like she was a very happy, you know,
solid person.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
So even even that is a lie.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
But he went so far as to suggest that it
might have been some kind of a quote trans terror attack.
That post blew up and got almost five million views
before he deleted it. Then Anne vander Steele, who was
a pretty well known QAnon personality with a huge following online,
jumped in and pushed the same false claim. She did
eventually post a attraction, and of course it would not
(16:58):
be an episode abouts phobia without mentioning Elon Musk. Musk's
own AI chatbot, known as Grock, falsely named Ellis as
the pilot, which only made the rumor spread faster. So
before long, Ellis was actually trending as the second most
talked about topic on Twitter, with more than ninety thousand
posts about her like speculating that she was involved and
(17:22):
that the whole thing was some sort of a quote
trans terror attack. She had to put out a proof
of life video on social media to reassure her community
that she wasn't dead, and also just as an attempt
to push back against these lies.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
I hate that she had to do a proof of
life video just to like save her name. But also
I wonder how many people like this is AI, like
they still refuse to believe in Yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
I mean, that's the thing.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
So we know that in that crash there were no survivors,
and so I almost wonder if someone has to saw
a video of for her being like, well there were
no survivors and here I am, They're like, that's not
that's AI, and that just goes to show how our
digital media landscape is is that some people, when confronted
with the truth that does not align with the reality
(18:13):
that they want to be true, will always reject it.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Right.
Speaker 4 (18:16):
They can meet her in the flesh and it's like, oh,
it's a body double like it does not It truly
does not matter, so I will say. After she posted
her proof of life video, Matt Wallace, one of the
people who initially claimed that she was responsible for this accident,
did post to say, oh, I saw that video. Ellis
(18:37):
is alive and well and not responsible for the crash.
He shifted the blame to another account called fake Gay Politics,
which has since been suspended on x saying this is
apparently the first account who reported what we now know
is false. It seemed credible because Joe Ellis wrote an
article calling out Trump's trans military band only a few
days ago. I have to point out that in this
(18:59):
post where he said, oh, I got it wrong, she
wasn't responsible, he of course also misgenders her because he
can't just he just can't help himself like he has
to even in a post where I don't know he
should maybe be apologizing for baselessly accusing her of committing
a trans terror attack to like millions of people. He
should maybe apologizing, No, he's like I got a missgender
(19:19):
her on the way out also right.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
I mean it's definitely like, you know, gotta less, treat
them less than human type of narrative from him, of
course Wallace, which I can't stand him anyway, But Matt
Wallason himself, he can't. He can't really actually show any
compassion exactly.
Speaker 4 (19:37):
And I think, what what How this moved? How this
claim moved online? I think really shows what an effective
social media and media apparatus folks on the right really
do have, where these claims maybe start in more fringe
pockets of the Internet like four Chan or some random
extremist bloggers Twitter page, but then they quickly get boost
(20:00):
did by right wing politicians media figures, and then bleed
into more mainstream media outlets where they just sort of
become part of people's consciousness.
Speaker 5 (20:09):
Like I would be willing to bet.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
That because that picture of Sam Hyde where it misrepresents
Sam as a trans woman responsible for this attack, I
would be willing to bet that some people out there think, oh,
that image is of an actual trans person who committed
a horrible atrocity, even though it's not because it's just
like part of the ecosystem.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Now, yeah, And I mean that's part of the damage here,
is even with these retractions, which I mean, I guess
I'm glad I did them, but at the same time,
I'm kind of like, yeah, sure, okay, but at that point,
the damage is kind of done, Like somebody has already
been pinned for this, some you know, some people who
(20:52):
digested that information might not ever see the retraction, Like
the damage is kind of done. They might have that
already in their head. And Ellis was someone who went
who experienced this kind of thing.
Speaker 5 (21:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
She described going essentially overnight, going from being unknown in
public to being somebody who felt like they could not
even go out in public for her own safety. She
told The New York Times quote, my life was turned
upside down at that point, adding that her employer sent
armed bodyguards to protect her family and that she started
carrying a loaded weapon as a precaution. Forever on, I'm
(21:30):
known as that trans terrorist. And so as you both
were just saying these claims, they it can be hard
to get accountability because they're happening online. And even though
Matt Wallace did retract his claim that she was involved
in this. I have to imagine that he did that
(21:50):
because Ellis did not take this sitting down. She actually
fought back. And so we've talked about this on my
own podcast a lot. But when online right wing influencers
and figures spread lies about people, we're starting to see
more and more the people that are targeted by their
lives are filing defamation lawsuits against people who spread demonstrable,
(22:11):
harmful lies about them. And that's exactly what Ellis did.
She filed a defamation lawsuit against Matt Wallace in April,
saying that he was behind a destructive and irresponsible defamation campaign.
The lawsuit against Wallace, filed in the US District Court
in Colorado, was a way for Ellis to seek damages
for the harm cause to her reputation, privacy, and safety.
(22:32):
Ellis said that Wallace has not yet counter filed, and
her lawsuit was filed by the Equality Legal Action Fund,
which is a group of volunteer attorneys and advocates who
helped members of the LGBTQ community fight online defamation. And
so I have to imagine that when all these people
were like, oh, looks like I got it wrong and
this person wasn't involved in this tragedy. As I just
said to a million people. I have to imagine part
(22:54):
of that was because they did not want to face
a defamation lawsuit, which yeah, they If you lie about
people in a way that can harm them, harm their career,
harm their livelihood, you might actually be looking at a
defamation lawsuit.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Yeah, and we have seen some cases of this working
out recently.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Interestingly, I don't.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Know if you've been following what happened, what's going on
with the app Tea?
Speaker 5 (23:21):
Oh yes, I have, very very closely.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Yes, But we were talking about that recently in an
episode about defamation. Is it can be tricky, but if
you can prove like this demonstrably hurt me, you can
you can get some money from that.
Speaker 5 (23:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:41):
Are you talking about how the women who were had
their information, you know, exposed by Tea are suing.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
Yeah, well, we were talking about both because men were
so angry and they were trying to sue for defamation,
and it's kind of tricky when a lot of it
is just well, this is the date you went on
and this is what you posted online. So it's kind
of tricky, but in other cases like it, then the
(24:10):
women were have their information leaked and they're like, well,
this is a bit.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
I When I was covering the t APP, we were
talking about those are we dating the same guy? Facebook
pages that kind of were a sort of precursor to
the t APP, And as you just said, men tried
to sue women who talked about the dates that they
had had that on those pages, and those lawsuits did
not go anywhere. And I remember watching a press conference
(24:39):
of these women who posted on one of those pages
after the case was dropped and they were not going
to be found libel for defamation.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
They basically said exactly what you just said. Annie.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
You know, I'm sorry that you didn't like that what
I said about what happened on our date was not
favorable to you, But that is what happened, and that's
not defamation.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
And I guess the court of reed right.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
And I think the thing about these types of cases
and anything with like civil lawsuits in general, with defamations
and all of this, is that it really does give
an upper hand to victims who can prove what is happening.
We talked about this in the Meet two episode. We
just had an interview with EA Gene Carroll and her
defamation lawsuits, which you were like, yes, girl, get them,
(25:22):
but like, the level of proof is not as deep
as a criminal case. But you still have to prove
it obviously, And it's such a tricky thing because there's
so many unsure ways and this is not as well
known obviously defamation and civil lawsuits. Civil suits are not
as well known as criminal suits. We're not like watching
shows based on that, although we could, and I'm guessing
(25:45):
like this is probably going to be one of those
same things where it's kind of like, uh, how do
we proceed?
Speaker 5 (25:51):
What does this look like?
Speaker 4 (25:53):
Yeah, I mean again, it is this like tricky gray
area legally. Another good example of people successfully suing for
defamation were the parents of the Sandy Hook shooting, who
successfully sued Alex Jones for defamation after he repeatedly and
baselessly claimed the shooting that killed their babies was a hoax,
(26:13):
that their kids were not really dead, that they were actors,
or that the parents were involved in some massive conspiracy,
and that I mean, they were able to prove that
he actually did defame them. Also, it's it's such a
despicable thing. To do, like he deserves every bad thing
that could happen to a person. When you actually look
at the at the le he didn't just say this
(26:35):
offhand once or twice. These people had his listeners showing
up to their houses to harass them in person. Like,
when you actually look at the things that he did,
it's so despicable. And we also know that Dominion Voting
Systems got a seven hundred and eighty seven million dollar
settlement from Fox News because Fox claimed that their voting
systems during the election were rigged against Trump. So there
(26:58):
is some precedent for suing businesses for defamation. You know,
Fox is a business, Alex Jones, it runs a business,
but not really a precedent for suing individual influencers who
spread damaging lies about people. So I think that's what
Ellis is really trying to do. Trying to say, like,
if an influencer with millions of followers says a demonstrably
(27:21):
false claim about me that harms me, I should be
able to seek damages for that. And I think, you know,
especially for marginalized people, there should be some kind of
legal recourse that prevents this. It should not just be
that anybody can say, any harmful, dangerous, damaging lie they want,
and you just have to.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Eat it right, right.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
I mean, when we look at like Giuliani again with Trump,
even the Megan, thee Stallion, recent cases like those are
these are really interesting. Of course we have bigger names
doing these cases. Not the Juliani case. That was a
beautiful suit to see in itself, But there are so
many things that it looks like, you know, this is
the best solution. I say that hesitantly because it's so
(28:05):
gross that we can't people can't get justice in general.
Speaker 5 (28:08):
Yes, but like I guess you know what I.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
Mean, No, totally, and I'm glad that you brought up Giuliani.
So he was sued by two women who probably heard
of Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss Georgia, women who he again,
I guess, I want to bring this up because it's
not like he just casually, offhand said, oh, maybe they
were involved in vote rigging the election for Biden against Trump.
(28:33):
The way that he said this repeatedly, the way that
he I mean, he like. In one instance, he accuses
them of passing back and forth USB files that had
secret hidden votes on them, as if they were doing
a drug deal together, like the way that he it's
not so I just want to make clear because some
people are probably thinking, oh, well, why can't I just
(28:55):
say whatever I want about anybody? But these were not
public figures, right, And it's not just an offhand casual remark.
It is baselessly and repeatedly saying very inflammatory things about somebody,
over and over and.
Speaker 5 (29:09):
Over again to audiences of millions, Like it really is.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
When you think, when you actually look at what some
of these cases involved, it's really clear that you should
not just be able to do this.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
This would it really did.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
Have a clear damaging impact on the lives of the
people targeted, Like people broke into Ruby Freeman and Shae
Moss's home they tried to make a citizens arrest while
her grandmother, her elderly grandmother, was in the house.
Speaker 5 (29:32):
Like that was probably terrifying.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Right, And we know a lot of this as we
started the conversation about mass shootings and shootings in general,
have like a lot of these bases could be on
the misinformation. The CDC shooting literally was based on that
as far as we know. And by the way the
way that was just swept under the rug, can we
talk about that.
Speaker 5 (29:51):
Yes, sorry that was a side note, but.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
I'm just like this miss, this disinformation is what's causing
some of these awful outcomes.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
We are living in a time where somebody can baselessly
disparage really anybody, and that and like in this day
and age, I'm sorry to say that.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
Can have violent outcomes.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
And the fact that we I agree with you, the
fact that the CDC shooting happened and we all just
sort of moved on from it, and the number one
figure of public health and in this country RFK Junior
barely even mentioned it. I mean, I think it really
deeply means that we have reached a new echelon in
this kind of thing that it could be open season
(30:34):
on anybody, like genuinely, today it's CDC workers, or two
black women who are election workers, or a trans pilot.
Tomorrow it could be you, like genuinely, like that is
where we're at.
Speaker 6 (30:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Unfortunately, in this case, we are talking about the damage
done to the trans community, which is already facing so
much violence and this is just exacerbating it.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
Yeah, And so as I was saying, blaming trans folks
for incidents they had literally nothing to do with, is
no isolated saying. A review of news reports and fact
checking database claim View shows that since twenty twenty two,
there have been a dozen incidents when a transperson was
wrongly blamed for a tragedy or a violent incident. So
after the tragic death of Melissa Hortman, the lawmaker and
(31:36):
her husband who were tragically murdered by a gunman earlier
this year, Donald Trump Junior said, quote, the radical transgender
movement is per capita of the most violent domestic terror threat,
if not in America, then probably the entire world. And
that shooter was not even a transperson. A trans woman
was initially blamed for the Trump shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania.
(31:59):
After a shooting where two people were killed in Wisconsin,
Alex Jones, who like I said, really should not be
lying about anybody at this point, said, if the statistical
trend continues with this tragic event, there's a ninety eight
percent chance the shooting is trans.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
Or gang related. I don't know where you got that from.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
If this is another trans whack job or gang shooting,
it will be out of the news in less than
twenty four hours. And so I gotta say, this is
just a complete lie. Trans people are far more likely
to be the victims of crime, not the perpetrator.
Speaker 5 (32:30):
This is from Wired.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Research shows that trans people are four times more likely
to be the victims of violence compared to sist people.
According to the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAD, between May twenty
twenty four and May twenty twenty five, there have been
at least twenty six injuries and one death reported among
trans and gender nonconforming people, a fourteen percent jump in
the previous year. Meanwhile, claims that trans people are behind
(32:52):
mass violence doesn't add up. Per the Gun Violence Archive,
there have been four thousand and four hundred mass shootings
in the past decade, of which fewer than ten known
suspects were trans. That is zero point one one percent.
And again, I mean trans people are already not a
huge number of the population in general, so like just
common sense would probably tell you they would not be
(33:15):
statistically overrepresented in mass shootings. And so all of these
claims linking trans people to being the perpetrators of violence
are just bunked.
Speaker 5 (33:23):
They're not true. It's just another way to lie about
this community and demonize them.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Yeah, I mean, it's the same similar to the bathroom
argument that there's going to be men and the trans
men are men coming into the bathroom to molest your children.
They're like, what, that's never been a that's never been
a what are you what?
Speaker 5 (33:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (33:47):
And whenever I hear about that when people are like, well,
CIS men are just gonna go into the bathroom with
your little daughters and creep on them, isn't what shouldn't
not beyond the CIS men? Like, if you're saying that
the problem is that sis ana are gonna use this
to sneak their way into bathrooms to harm girls, what
a trans Like, there's not a trans person in the
(34:07):
mix in this scenario that you've paint in, this fear
mongering scenario that you've just painted out, wouldn't.
Speaker 5 (34:12):
That be on the CIS men? Right?
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Also, can we if we're really worried about these young girls,
can we talk about child bride laws? And you're like,
are we gonna talk of nonet me?
Speaker 4 (34:22):
I mean I have said this so often and I
mean it literally, we hate children. We will absolutely be like, oh,
we have to protect the kids, and this really convenient
one instance that aligns with my political policies. But then
in every other instance, it's like those kids. We hate
kids we're not interested to protect. We wouldn't even be
having this conversation about how we allow kids to get
(34:42):
shot when they try to go to school if we
actually gave us about kids.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
We hate kids like we don't care about them at.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
All, feeding kids, giving them lunches, Oh dear God, what
let them starve?
Speaker 5 (34:53):
Put them in the minds. Get a job. Just then
go ahead do your thing. Okay, listen, you're in kindergarten.
Speaker 4 (35:00):
If you don't have a job, and if the rectory
are a mind, I don't want to hear it.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
I love the regressing, and we all have a lot
like the child labor laws, like they need to work
at ten, they absolutely need to be working.
Speaker 5 (35:10):
Let's let's bring them into the fields. I almost feel like.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
We're getting closer and closer to this being explicit because
I at least we don't have to hear the sort
of protect the children rhetoric so much anymore.
Speaker 5 (35:21):
We still hear I'm not saying we don't hear it, but.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
Yeah, I think that people their naked hatred of children
is becoming more and more on display. So at least
we can all just have an honest conversation about it.
We don't have to pretend that you want to protect
kids when you want them to be starving in minds
or whatever.
Speaker 5 (35:36):
Right, give us our batteries.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
Anyway, coming back to so that was just my little
rant about how much you make kids.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
You know how I love going on the side quest
made these conversations with you.
Speaker 5 (35:52):
But yeah, like we do.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Like I said, I've mentioned before about this whole level
of social media and what kind of a role they
are playing.
Speaker 5 (35:59):
Can you kind of bring us back to that.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
Yeah, I mean all of this, all of the things
I've just talked about, it's all made worse when you
look at how most social media platforms have really rolled
back whatever rules they did have that were meant to
prevent trans people being harmed on their platforms. This was
something I personally worked in when I was working for
an advocacy organization called Ultraviolet. We worked with platforms like
(36:22):
TikTok and read It to have them spell out that
behavior like dead naming or misgendering was going to be
called out in their hateful conduct policies. Almost instantly, when
Trump got on office, a lot of that stuff was
rolled back. That was one of the first positions that
Elon Musk rolled back when he took over Twitter. So
like the way that we are living in a less
(36:43):
protected landscape for trans and queer and marginalized people online.
Speaker 5 (36:47):
It's just sad how quickly that became the case.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
And you know a lot of these platforms, even linked In,
have really rolled back whatever protections they did have around
this kind of harmful content and language toward marginalized people
like transpokes, and it becomes an even bigger problem as
algorithms amplify harmful content, while platforms like Facebook and Twitter
really just abandoned fact checking. Earlier this year, Facebook also
(37:14):
loosened its rules around hate speech and abuse.
Speaker 5 (37:17):
And so, yeah, we're just.
Speaker 4 (37:18):
Living in a much less moderated online landscape when it
comes to marginalized people, trans people, queer people, and it's
a problem. And I think all of that relates to
you know why, when Matt Wallace baselessly accuses a trans
pilot of being involved in this crash, not only is
(37:39):
it amplified, but that sticks around. It becomes a trending
topic on a platform even though it's just a complete lie.
And I think at the heart of all of this
is really just shows how eager people are to use anything,
even outright lies, to paint trans people as violent. You know,
(38:00):
it's like they're trying to build a world where trans
folks never get to just exist at the as themselves. Instead,
they're being constantly scrutinized and held responsible not just for
what other trans people do, but even for things that
have never actually happened, Like, how could you ever exist
if that was the climate that you were that you
had to exist under. It just it just really goes
(38:22):
to show how much people want to create a climate
where these folks don't exist.
Speaker 6 (38:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Yeah, it feels very purposeful, and it's frightening in that
it is so effective. And you know, I know we've
talked about this before, but there have been people in
the periphery of my life where I've sort of watched
them fall into this kind of conspiracy world.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Well they'll say something and I.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Just pause, like, wait what, And I've just seen them
go further and further and further down this path, and
it's it's it's.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
Frustrating and frightening. And I do.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Think that in some places it's like misinformation, but I
think a lot of it is purposeful. I think they
want to a RaSE.
Speaker 5 (39:21):
Yeah, yeah, I completely agree.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
And you know, I will definitely be following Ellis's defamation
suit because it I don't want. I don't like the
idea that the only recourse is fighting back in the courts.
But I do think having there be a cost for
spreading these kinds of harmful lies online would be a
good thing. I think a signal that says, if you're
(39:45):
going to get on the internet and blast a lie
about a transperson to millions of people, that might be
a decision that comes out of cost for you, so
think twice about it. And so I think I'll be
interested to see where this suit goes and whether or
not it creates a dynamic where folks do think twice
before they get online and lie about trans people because
they should.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Yes, they should.
Speaker 5 (40:07):
I mean you should. You should think twice before you
lie about anybody, but don't lie.
Speaker 3 (40:12):
Yes, I think that would be fantastic for everyone. Uh,
if people thought twice before lying online, It's it's fascinating.
I used to have to answer the comments on YouTube
under our videos, and it was so interesting to me
how many times I'd be like, hi, I'm a real person,
and they'd be like, oh my god, I'm so sorry, so.
Speaker 5 (40:38):
Funny that you say this.
Speaker 4 (40:39):
I made a video of a video on Instagram about
AI and someone let the comment that said, why should
we trust you? Aren't you AI? And I was like,
oh my god, am I AI? I had a moment
where I thought, you know, I thought I had a childhood.
I thought I had blood drawn? But am i AI?
But what would AI? Wouldn't if you were AI? What
(41:00):
didn't you think you were real? Like, it's not like
a I would know they were AI. It really caused
me to go down an existential tailspin. I think I'm real,
but could I ever be? Could I ever be sure?
Speaker 1 (41:11):
I'm thinking about the dude that got engaged to the AI.
I think we talked about before and didn't she admit
she's not a real person. I think she said that
I'm not real, but my feelings, our feelings are real.
Speaker 4 (41:23):
Yes, like that the guy who got who proposed with Aiah.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
I mean, I think it's just not real, but our feelings,
their feelings, the relationship was.
Speaker 5 (41:33):
I was like, wait, my feelings are real.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
I love it was, Oh, we're gonna have a crisis.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Yeah, we're getting into matrix territory.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
You know this, This very question became a huge deal
in the Star Wars fandom a couple of years ago
because they introduced a droid that could use the Force.
So if a droid can use the Force, then you're saying.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
It's alive.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
So they what are we doing with all of these
other troids?
Speaker 4 (42:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (42:08):
Yeah, I've always wondered this. I mean, this is a
whole rabbit hole.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
But and I'm not I don't know a ton about
Star Wars, but I do notice the Stormtroopers Are they
are they? Because when they get killed there it's never
it's never like my body, I'm always Are they are?
Speaker 1 (42:22):
They?
Speaker 5 (42:22):
Are they human?
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Are? Like?
Speaker 5 (42:24):
What's the what's going on with them?
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Well, bridgie, I could go into a long thing, but essentially, yes,
most of them are human and or clones which are
also human.
Speaker 2 (42:35):
But yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, they kind of have like
numbers for names. Yeah, so so.
Speaker 4 (42:43):
They're not like when they're not doing Stormtroopers stuff, it's
not like they're taking off their mask and like going
home to the kids and watching teacher.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
And most of them are not.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
Some of them aren't, but a lot of them are
like grown quickly in a in a tube, so they
like might not have even had a childhood.
Speaker 5 (43:00):
Hot it. Yeah, my god, how deep does this thing go?
Speaker 2 (43:02):
You don't even want to know.
Speaker 5 (43:05):
Yeah, that's not the question. Dangerous unless you got a week.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
Okay, well maybe later welcome back to that, but in
the meantime, always wonderful to have you on. Thank you
so much for bringing this topic and for being here.
Where can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 4 (43:24):
You can listen to my podcast. There are no girls
on the Internet. You can find me on Instagram at
bridget Brie and DC, on TikTok at bridgeant Brie and DC,
and on YouTube.
Speaker 5 (43:32):
There are no girls on the internet.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Yes, and listeners, go check out all that stuff. If
you haven't already. If you would like to contact us,
you can. You can email us at Hello, Stuffhenever Told
You dot com. You can also find us on Blue
Sky at Mom's a Podcast, or Instagram and TikTok at
STUFFE Never Told You for us on YouTube. We have
some new merchandise at Cotton Bureau if you want to
check it out, and we have a book you can
get where we get your books. Thanks as always to
our super produce Christine or executive producer Maya and our
(43:56):
contributor Joey.
Speaker 5 (43:57):
Thank you and thanks to.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
You for listening STUFFE Never Told yous. Action by heart Radio.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
For more podcasts from my heart Radio, you can check
out the heart Radio app Apple Podcasts, where you listen
to your favorite shows,
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