SMNTY Classics: SMNTY In Conversation with Margaret Killjoy

Friend of the show Margaret Killjoy joins us to dive into all facets of intersectional feminism and why it is for everyone in this classic episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
I holcome to Stepan Never Told You production of iHeartRadio,
and welcome to another classic. Today we are bringing back
a conversation we had with friend of the show, Margaret Kiljoy,

(00:27):
who came on our show and we talked about all
kinds of things around intersectional feminism. And both Samantha and
I have been on margaret show. So if you haven't
heard us over there, go check that out. If you
haven't listened to Margaret's show, go check it out. We're
hoping to get Margaret on the show soon to talk
about one of her books.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
He's got a couple of books. Yeah, she's busy.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Oh, all of our friends are so cool and they're
so busy. Yes, but in the meantime, please enjoy this
classic episode.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
I don't come to Steffan Never Told Your protection of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 4 (01:16):
And today we are so excited because we get to
have true friends of the show. Like I've already claimed
her as one of my best friends. I said this
a while ago.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Margaret kill Joy to the show.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Yay, thanks for having me.

Speaker 4 (01:31):
I've tried to do like songs and such and people
don't like it, but I still do it.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
It's okay, all.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
Right, don't like it.

Speaker 4 (01:42):
So then I got that you're actually a musician, so
I feel like this is better coming from you.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
But yes, we do have.

Speaker 4 (01:49):
The wonderful Margaret Kiljoy on our show.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Can you introduce yourself for our listeners?

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Sure?

Speaker 5 (01:56):
My name is Margaret Kiljoy. I use she or they
pronounce and I am I'm a podcaster and an author,
and I guess the aforementioned musician. I have another iHeartRadio
podcast called Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, where you
might have heard Samantha talking in back in the Utopian
past before the fall of rov Wade about what might

(02:18):
happen after the fall of Rovy Wade.

Speaker 4 (02:19):
Yes, it was one of those that we had to
come back very quickly to be like, all right, we
have to redo somethings.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Yeah, And we knew it going into it.

Speaker 5 (02:28):
We were like, this might sound utopian and outdated by
the time you hear it, and it was.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
It was.

Speaker 4 (02:34):
But I loved what you had brought because it was
such a hopeful turn and even though it was really sad,
come back to revisit it.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
But at the same time, I.

Speaker 4 (02:41):
Was like at least there's a spotlight, like a nice
light at the end of that conversation.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Yeah, Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 5 (02:51):
There is a lot of hope to accidentally dive into that.
There's a lot of hope for what people can do
even when things aren't strictly legal. There's and we have
a lot We've come a long way in terms of
like what we can do in a post Roe v.
Wade world than what we had access to in a
pre ro v Wade world.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
So right, And for the listeners who may not know
because I've mentioned it before, but yes, I got to
be a guest with Margaret when we talked about the
Jaine Collective and the many people behind I guess, the
rebelliousness of going against the anti abortion people and what
it looked like before abortion was legal at that time,

(03:30):
which we were back to square one. But it was
some amazing stories and I learned a lot. So if
you haven't checked that out, you really should go and
check it out. But we're not necessarily here talking about that, No,
we're talking about the media. Yeah, you have so many
titles under your belt, Margaret, and I looked you up
on the interwebs, which you're everywhere you're I'm like, oh
my god, you're so famous with that, but it has

(03:53):
so many titles between the writer, musician, anarchist, activist, podcaster.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
You are out.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
There doing some things and right now you're actually not
near your home.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Correct, that's true.

Speaker 5 (04:07):
I'm on book tour while I'm on pre book tour,
and I decided to start my book tour on the
West Coast. I live on the East Coast, so I
drove out to the West Coast and in a couple
of weeks. I don't know when this will drop, but
I will be on book tour starting September twentieth talking
about my new short story collection book.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Oh can you tell us about that?

Speaker 5 (04:25):
Yeah, I have a book out coming out called we
Won't Be Here Tomorrow and Other Stories that comes out
from Akpress, and it's a collection of well, I've been
writing short fiction for a long time, and I've been
writing it at I guess I would say a professional
level for a little while now, and so this is
my first collection of the stories that have been published
in various magazines and science fiction anthologies and things like that,

(04:47):
and also some stories that were previous only only available
to I used to have a personal Patreon, and I
had stories that were only available to my patrons, but.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
Now they will be available to everyone.

Speaker 5 (04:58):
And I write a lot of queer punk, radical protagonists
who run around and feed men too mermaids and squat
buildings and try to stop bad things and all of
that live in the apocalypse.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
I don't know. And so yeah, so that comes out soon.
That sounds great.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
Future book club pic. I know, So we do book clubs,
So now we're going to bring your books. And I
know you also did horror as well.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
Am I wrong?

Speaker 4 (05:32):
Did I just pick that us aware because we're a
huge fan and it's coming to the season.

Speaker 5 (05:36):
Oh okay, yeah, No, It's funny because I it's kind
of by accident that I started writing horror, because I
basically I was like, I wrote these novellas. I have
this series of two novellas that Danielle Kine series, and
basically I was like, oh, okay, I'll do this thing
set in basically now, but there will be demons or magic,

(05:57):
you know, And then I'm like, oh, and if there's magic,
it's hard because you know, most of the time, I
think Arben fantasy often way too much, is like and
then the elevators are just run by magic instead of
you know, electricity or whatever, and that's not very interesting.
I think magic has a lot to do with power,
and I think that when you introduce incredibly skewed power

(06:17):
dynamics into the real world, you end up with things
that are horrific. And so I didn't set out to
write the first book is called The Lamble Slaughter of
the Lion, which I suppose does sound like a title
of a horror thing. Yeah, but I actually just set
it out to be like kind of adventure. And then
I was like and the publisher was like, this is
this is horror, and I was like, oh, okay, I
guess that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
I'm very squeamish.

Speaker 5 (06:40):
So and you know, I used to live alone in
a van, and then before that, and then after that,
I lived alone in a cabin.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
In the woods and all of this stuff.

Speaker 5 (06:50):
So I avoided horror for a very long time because
it didn't fit my lifestyle. So but I can read
it and I can write it, although I have also
in myself nightmares with my own before.

Speaker 4 (07:03):
Oh that's a testament right there. If you can give
yourself nightmares when you're writing in a good way.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Then you know you're doing it right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yes, well that's awesome. Congratulations, because writing a book is
no small thing.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
Yes, that's true. Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
I appreciate you've done it multiple times.

Speaker 5 (07:23):
Yeah, and sometimes they get slightly longer than the other ones. Actually,
the longest books I've ever written. I can't I'm legally
not allowed to say that I wrote because they're romance novels.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
I ghost wrote. Oh for a while, I made.

Speaker 5 (07:37):
My living ghostwriting trashy heterosexual romance novels. And it was like,
right after I came out, they were like, can you
write this male protagonist stuff?

Speaker 3 (07:45):
That is fascinating?

Speaker 4 (07:47):
I know.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
At first I was like, it's kind of annoyed. I
just came out.

Speaker 5 (07:50):
But then I was like, well, it kind of makes
sense because male protagonist romance novels are still written for
a woman audience, right, you know, And so I'm like, Okay,
I think I can straddle this divide better than some
other people.

Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Absolutely, you it's very obvious.

Speaker 4 (08:06):
And we've talked about this before, and we're going off subject,
but before we go back to the subject. But how
oftentimes when you see romance and it has specific language,
You're like, this is definitely a woman who wrote this
or someone who are understands that gender level of this
is a male gaze. This is a female gaze. Especially
when it comes to a heteronormative conversations. There's very big differences,

(08:28):
and so it seems very obvious like someone understands, someone
really understands what we're talking about here, and it's not
your cismel dude doing this.

Speaker 5 (08:38):
Yeah, which is why I think that like the Nicholas
Sparks is of the world and stuff are so successful.
Is because if you if you kind of figure out
how to do that while still being like a man
or presenting as a man or I don't know anything
my Nicholas Sparks as a person, you know, I don't
know whether he's ghost written or not.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
I have my suspicions but controversy.

Speaker 5 (09:03):
But but you know, if you can, if you can
tap into that, it's a it's a powerful market. I mean,
that's why I got Hi right. I didn't go straight
Nicholas Sparks.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
But this is about what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
You're heard to hear, Firshell just kidding U.

Speaker 4 (09:23):
But yeah, coming back to what we're talking about and Honestly,
this is kind of all links because this is kind
of how we look at different entertainment that seems just
so blase. And we've talked about romance and how it does,
how it is affected by gender stereotypes or those who
have a bias, what is placed by misogyny, Like our
understanding of romance is laid down by a foundation of

(09:46):
misogynistic ideals based by the patriarchy.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
Like this is about the power.

Speaker 4 (09:50):
And I know again people are gonna be like, you're reaching,
but we talked about how this really does affect uh,
the society at large, and this is kind of your forte.
You've come under this conversation. You have identified as a
feminist for a long time now. I believe before you
came out you were already Yeah, feminism is real, is effective.

(10:12):
Can you kind of talk about your journey with feminism?

Speaker 3 (10:16):
Okay? But can I tangent to talk about romance a
little bit more?

Speaker 1 (10:19):
Really?

Speaker 3 (10:19):
Yes? And I'll type that together.

Speaker 5 (10:21):
Okay, Yeah, yeah, when you're talking about the tropes and
the stereotypes that bleed into it. Since I wrote for
someone else, they told me these rules, and so I
can And I.

Speaker 3 (10:32):
Don't know whether they're like secret or not.

Speaker 5 (10:34):
I mean I can I know they're not in my nda,
I know I can say them. But one the protagonist
has to be over six feet tall. I was told
to write an average size professional football player, so he
was five foot ten and they were like, uh no,
he has to be at least six feet tall. He
has to be dominant in every sexual situation. And he

(10:57):
also which was awkward and one of the ones I
because he was injured, which actually was kind of fun
to write.

Speaker 4 (11:04):
Did he get calls himself more injury because he had
to be dominant no matter, because.

Speaker 5 (11:08):
Well I don't know the age of your all his
usual audience, but he managed to become dominant verbally yeah, sosally.
But and there were just like so many of these
weird rules and like, and some of them actually really
annoyed me, right because you know, I wrote, you know,
in one of these books, he's he's dating a mom, right,

(11:30):
and I wrote that he was like into her stretch marks,
and they were like, no, no, no, no, she doesn't have
stretch marks, And I'm.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
Like, ohare audience right?

Speaker 5 (11:39):
I thought the point of this was to make these
like middle aged moms feel really good right, you know,
and so so that got edited out, and there's all
of these things like that, and then it gets into
like real specific stuff around like the way that you
describe like the bad woman as the following sexual acts
and the good woman is the following.

Speaker 3 (11:59):
It's real.

Speaker 5 (12:02):
It's in some ways I feel dirtier about having written
that than like anything else I've done.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
But I needed the money.

Speaker 5 (12:10):
And I like tried my hardest to make them passibly
feminist and passibly you know, like like write. And there
were like, weren't gay characters in the outlines they give me,
And I'd be like, whatever, he can have a gay
best friend.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
I don't care, you know.

Speaker 5 (12:23):
And then I'm like, oh my god, I'm at the
point where I'm like, oh a gay best friend.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
That's edgy of me.

Speaker 5 (12:27):
And I'm like, I think I understand nineties writers better now,
you know. This is the best that they were like
allowed to do. Right, Okay, your question was about my

(12:49):
journey into Yes, yeah, I'm sorry. I was really excited
because I don't thin get to talk about romance novel
as much.

Speaker 4 (12:56):
We can do a whole section all that, because, like
I said, we've did I think we did a two
parter because we were.

Speaker 5 (13:00):
So I want to go back and listen to that,
because I might have also just told you all things
you already know.

Speaker 4 (13:06):
Well, you went to a whole different we went down
a whole different route.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
Yeah, Okay.

Speaker 5 (13:11):
Sometimes I think about trying to write some really intentionally now,
but life is very short. So you know, I grew
up being told I was a boy, right, And I
have these like early memories of I wish I was
a girl, But all of the early presentations I saw.
I grew up in the eighties and nineties, and all
of the early presentations of trans women I saw were

(13:32):
very monstrous, right.

Speaker 3 (13:34):
They were the butt of jokes.

Speaker 5 (13:37):
Or they were to be pitied, or they were like
they had destroyed themselves or you know, and I just
I have these very early memories of being like I
wish I was a girl, but I cannot become a girl.
I cannot become a trans woman. That is not is
better to be a boy than to be one of
these pitable creatures. And you know, and I held on
too that for a very long time. And it was

(13:58):
very confusing, right because I kept dating gay girls and
we would all be confused, you know, we'd be like,
why am I attracted to you and be like, I
don't know. I honestly couldn't tell you, and you know,
and it's kind of this like thing I've talked to.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
Other trans women and other trans folks.

Speaker 5 (14:16):
About this, where like kind of like on some subconscious level,
people know this when they even don't know this, you know,
and it's not just about like who I would date
or whatever, although it also be you go the other
way and did very confused straight girls who were like,
what this.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
Doesn't work right?

Speaker 5 (14:35):
But I got and I also got really into LGBT
stuff as my first politics.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
You know.

Speaker 5 (14:40):
I joined the Gay Straight Alliance of Maryland when.

Speaker 3 (14:44):
I grew up.

Speaker 5 (14:45):
And actually, one thing I think that people don't realize
is that the gay straight Alliances of the nineties, the
reason they were gay straight alliances was plausible deniability, because
if you don't want to come out, you can still,
you know, join organizations. And the way that we started
Gay Straight Alliance in my school was really funny. I
had these two there were these two teachers who in
retrospect were very obviously lesbians, not dating each other, but

(15:08):
you know, one of them had a hyphenated last name,
and one of them was the super butch gym teacher,
and they just kind of cornered me in the hallway
one day before school started and they were like, did
you know that teachers aren't allowed to start student groups?

Speaker 3 (15:20):
And I was like huh. And they were like, here's.

Speaker 5 (15:24):
A clipboard with a forum that's already filled out to
start against straight alliance. Do you want to start a
gainst straight Alliance? And I was like I do. I
do want to start a gay straight alliance because they
knew that I was involved in regional Gay Straight Alliance
politics and no one was out in our gay straight Alliance,
and in retrospect, we were all almost all queer, and

(15:45):
the random straight guys very actively politically engaged in leftist politics. Now,
so so yeah, I kind of, you know, I was like, okay, well,
I'm really interested in feminism. My oldest sister is a
very active feminist who who currently does clinic escorting, and
you know, it's kind of my hero around a lot

(16:06):
of that stuff still, and so this is always something
I was interested in, and I always as this very
ally position, even though on some level I was like, well,
what is what's going on here? Like why why do
all I care about is like women's issues and gay issues,
you know, And then slowly the category of what counts
as trends started to expand in that people who don't

(16:31):
necessarily medically transition, or if they do, like quote medically transition,
it's you know, not to necessarily the same degree. It's
like it's no longer like you become a woman when
you like undergo surgery. Right, you know, I rarely see
people talk about being like, oh, I'm pre op MDF
or whatever. That is terminology that I'm not trying to
shame anyone who uses any terminology. I don't care, but

(16:52):
it is like terminology that no longer seems to be
the dominant discourse around it. And you know, and the
more I came to understand this work that feminism, feminism
has done for a very long time to draw the
distinction between sex and gender and use that to understand
both sex and gender based oppression, that lens allowed people

(17:14):
to kind of realize that, I mean, basically, if I
am a trans woman, I'm a trans woman already rather
than like waiting to become.

Speaker 3 (17:27):
A trans woman.

Speaker 5 (17:29):
And I don't personally experience much in the way of
body dysphoria, dysmorphia, and so I don't have a strong
desire to quote unquote like medically transition or surgically transition
or whatever language you know people want to use.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
But I have a very strong desire to socially transition.

Speaker 5 (17:47):
And so when that became available to me, when that
was included under the umbrella of trans it's like the
umbrella of trans expanded to include me. For a while,
I identified as like a transvestite, you know, which is
not a word that people tend to use right now.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
But I was like, oh, I'm just a cross dresser.
You know.

Speaker 5 (18:06):
It's like all of this when I'm like, oh, I
was a CIS boy. I was like a cist boy
where I took the name Margaret and published books under
the name Margaret and like war women's clothing almost exclusively.
But but yeah, it kind of expanded to include me.
And I think that there's a lot of people who
that happened to. And then the other really big important

(18:28):
thing is that it stopped being perceived as monstrous by
a large trunk of society. Now things have swung back
the other way, and you know, I feel a little
bit like I'm waiting in my castle for the pitchforks
and torches to show up outside these days, especially living
rural like I do.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
But you know, I don't know.

Speaker 5 (18:51):
That's how I you know, And and it leaves me
in this funny situation where I like, do I look
back and perceive my childhood as a girlhood, you know,
or do I per see it, perceive it as a boyhood,
or do I just perceive it as a childhood. And
the ways I feel about that changed different times. It
helps that, you know. Sometimes, I like, by the end
of high school, like my closest group of friends was

(19:13):
just like the girls, and it was like the girls
and then me, I'm here, you know, and I wasn't
dating any of them, and we'd sit around and paint
her nails and like skip gym class to sit in
the corner and talk about goth bands or whatever, you know.
And I'm still friends with some of those people. One
of my best friends is still from that time. It
was one of the people who really encouraged me to
come out. I remember I was like thirty and I

(19:34):
was like, oh, it was too late. And someone I'd
known since I was like thirteen, was like, why is
it too late, and I'm like, I don't know because
no one will believe me. And she's like does that matter,
and I'm like, I guess it doesn't, you know. And
now I'm kind of rambling. But some people will believe
me and some people won't. And you know, it's like
I don't pass right, but I don't try to. It's

(19:58):
possible that if I transition when I was younger, I
would have put more work into that, but as it is,
and then and then that's the the beautiful, the horrible thing,
right as you realize this, like no one.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
Passes for under sys feminine standards.

Speaker 5 (20:12):
You know, it's like this is feminine beauty standards hurt everybody,
and so so now it's just like, well, you know,
I walk through the world and people perceive me largely
as a man in a dress. And that's fine. I mean,
it's it's fine when it's fine, it's not fine when
it's not fine. But fortunately I'm also a scary punk,

(20:36):
so for the most part, people don't mess with me.
A lot of people say things behind my back, but
not to my face because I also often walk around
with the very large knife.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
That'll do it, So that'll do it.

Speaker 3 (20:49):
I like it.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
I think that's the lesson to be told very knife.

Speaker 5 (20:52):
Yeah, yeah, I mean where it's legal, it is a
useful visual indicator.

Speaker 3 (21:01):
Hey, it's not worth it. It's just not worth it.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
Let's not start. Yeah. I love that.

Speaker 4 (21:07):
I love that conversation about being on a spectrum. I
think we talk about that a lot on the show.
When it comes to gender.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
It's not binary. It is.

Speaker 4 (21:15):
It is a spectrum, and it is fluid, and it
should be. It doesn't make sense that it's not. And
the idea that it has to be in order to
fit a standard, it's absurd. It is when you really
kind of come down on the same thing with love
and relationships and understanding that this is a fluid and
why wouldn't it be if it's emotion, if it's not gender,

(21:37):
but necessarily but like about feelings and who you love
and who, why wouldn't it be the person that you
connect to. That makes the most sense because at the
very least it's honest, and then the very most is
happiness and that's something that we should strive for in
individual individual lives and just for happiness. Again, Yeah, it
has nothing to do with everybody else. It has everything

(21:58):
to do with who you are and coming out to
whether it's with your gender whatever it is, or coming
out and being independent in their political stance. Like that's
even a big conversation understanding that it's for you and
that at any point in time, things change, circumstances change,
events change, and whatever that might be, it doesn't affect

(22:21):
anyone else, so why should you be bothered by it?
That's such a bigger conversation. And again, yeah, this goes
back to what we were talking about with romance novels.
This is like this layout that's existed for years and
years and years and it's not really helpful, and though
people have accepted it, there's no reason to remain in
that habit. I love because when you talk about what

(22:42):
you are going through and you're coming out and what
that looks like for you coming out as trans, but
not only that, realizing the inner person of who you
are has always been there. So whether it's your political stance,
whether it's understanding feminism, whether it's calling your off an anarchist,
which I want to come back to because I still

(23:03):
need an understanding of that for myself. Who understands the
binary liberal and conservative like That's what I know because
my parents throw it in my face often. Yeah, but
all this is a platform for you. Like the reasons
that you are writing books, the reason that you were
in a band, the reason that you are in a
podcast kind of has everything to do with these foundations. Yes,

(23:25):
that was a question that I did in reference as
a question can you kind of expound upon that?

Speaker 3 (23:30):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (23:32):
When I was younger and I was like, I want
to do art, and I was like what kind of art?

Speaker 3 (23:35):
And I was like, I don't know. And I was like,
are you any good at any of it?

Speaker 4 (23:37):
No?

Speaker 3 (23:38):
And I'm like, well, what am I going to do?

Speaker 2 (23:39):
You know?

Speaker 3 (23:40):
And I I tried. I was like, I'm going to.

Speaker 5 (23:42):
Learn how to paint, and I'm I'm okay painting, but
no one's gonna that's not my career path.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
And you know, and writing more than.

Speaker 5 (23:51):
Anything else, writing fiction was something that was more interested
and I asad when I was younger to write poetry,
and I aspire to become good enough to go back
to writing poetry, but I don't write much of it
right now. And so I started kind of, yeah, I
like started doing all of these things and slowly expanding
the list of things that I do the number of
plates I have spent in unfortunately, and usually what I

(24:13):
do is if I have something I want to say,
I think about what the best medium to say that is,
and then go out and try and say it in
that way. You know, there's certain things, certain ideas that
come across in different ways better. And for example, I
think that music is a really good way to put
someone in an emotional space or put yourself in an
emotional space. It's not a particularly good way to be pedantic.

(24:35):
It's not a very good way to teach someone something.
It's not a very good way to express complex political
ideas or interpersonal ideas.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
However, it's not terrible at those things.

Speaker 5 (24:47):
I think that Riot Girl has shown us, and arcopunk
and hip hop and a lot of different very direct
forms of communication have come through from music, right, But
overall I tend to use it when I have something
sort of more emotional to say, and then if I
have something cultural to say, I often write it in

(25:09):
fiction about like how can people interact with each other? Right,
Because a lot of my political ideas they're a little
bit less about, like and here's how the legislative branch
or in my case, it would be like, here's how
the anarchist federation, you know, disseminates goods across the different
collectives that control the work around cooperatives of you know,
these areas or whatever, right, which would be like the

(25:31):
political or economic structure of anarchism as is sort of
understood in the twentieth century at least context. But I'm
much more interested in for me to use anarchism as
the example, because that's what I'm more familiar with. Ways
of relating to each other, ways of creating cultures of
consent and consensus is what's interesting to me. So I

(25:52):
like writing characters interacting with each other more than I
like writing nonfiction, because if I was writing nonfiction, it
would just be like, we should be consensual in our
relationships with each other, you know, And it's much easier
to just like, uh, draw that right, and you can
tell and then you can get into the fun stuff,
like like what does a romance novel look like in

(26:13):
a you know, culture of consent, where like, even if
it's a monogamous relationship, it's monogamous in the context of
polyamory as available to these characters, but they choose monogamy
what does that look like? What does it look like
to consent to that? You know, And in this case,
I'm actually literally quoting Ursula like Gwin is my probably
my main role model of an author, and actually wrote

(26:34):
specifically about that in this book called The Dispossessed about like,
you know, these characters who could absolutely it's even the
norm to be polyamorous, they choose to be committed to
each other and it creates this type of romance that
you're not going to run across. Even though it's a
monogamous relationship, it doesn't it doesn't look like what the
monogamous relationships we get presented with are. So that's why

(26:56):
I like writing fiction. And then with podcasts, you know,
I mean it was different. I have one podcast called
Live Like the World's Dyeing, which is a preparedness podcast,
And my stated goal here is to take preparedness culture
away from the right wing because this individualistic everyone hide
in their bunker and stockpile AMMO and food things is nonsensical.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
It'll get everyone killed, it won't.

Speaker 5 (27:19):
Stop the crisis of the world, and it won't even
help those individuals live very long because unless all of
them are surgeons and have another one around. They're not
going to be able to do anything when they're pendex bursts.
And what I want to be able to communicate to
people is that society is what creates safety, and society
is what allows us to live full and happy and

(27:41):
free lives. Right because freedom, as I understand it, is
not something that exists in a vacuum. Freedom is a
relationship between people. Freedom is something that we give one another.
And so to be totally alone, I'm not free because
I can't do everything I want to do. All I
can do is try not to die if I'm just
totally alone. The only way in which freedom becomes a

(28:03):
liberty is if you're rich as hell, because then you
can hire everyone to do everything for you, so you're
still not actually alone doing things. You're just making all
the decisions yourself. Anyway, Okay, So if I want to
get across that idea, apparently what I do is come
out of your podcast and say it. But in general,
what I do is, you know, I run this podcast
where I interview people about compost or I interview people

(28:25):
about you know, community gardens or you know, activist modes
that are working for them or whatever.

Speaker 3 (28:32):
And then the other one that I do.

Speaker 5 (28:34):
Is called cool People did cool stuff, And it's how
I try to show people that we can have agency
and that we can, you know, because we keep getting
told by society that we don't have agency, that we
can't do what we want. We have to appeal to
other people in power to get things done, and that

(28:54):
is my work as an anarchist. I believe in responsibility
and freedom as the two sort of core concepts, and
so my work is to try to help people understand
we can have agency. And here are all these people
in the past who have taken agency over bad situations,
and they don't always win, right, Unfortunately, they often don't win.

(29:15):
But winning and losing is a really weird concept when
we're mortal, because like, I don't know the difference between
dying trying to make things better or dying in a
world that didn't make things better. I'm still dying, you know, Like,
like we can't have dying be a massive negative in
our lives because we're stuck with it. You know that's

(29:39):
going to happen, And so I just I want to
so if I want to try and get across this
concept of agency, that is the other format I use
for it, and I don't know. I just love all
of the different way all of these different formats work,
and I don't do all of them, right, There's so
many good ideas that are just not you know, I
probably won't write a like.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
I do write nonfiction.

Speaker 5 (30:01):
Actually, now that I say that, I like, as soon
as I start saying that, I'm like, no, but I
want to do everything.

Speaker 1 (30:08):
I was going to say, you do a lot of things.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
Yeah, I get really sad.

Speaker 5 (30:11):
I was watching I was rewatching The Hobbit, which I
like more than almost anyone I know. Yeah, and I
was just like thinking about the elves being like, man,
if I was an elf, i'd be like for twenty years,
I'm just gonna be a blacksmith.

Speaker 3 (30:21):
I'm just gonna make swords for ten twenty years. Oh, okay,
that's done, all right. Now I'm gonna write poetry for
twenty years.

Speaker 5 (30:27):
Like now I'm going to go and like do childcare
for my friends for twenty you know, just specialize in
all these different things anyway, That's okay. Yeah, I love it.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
I get it.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
Samantha's already mentioned it, and you've alluded to it a lot.
Can you explain what being an anarchist is an what
you think that has to do with feminism?

Speaker 3 (31:02):
Sure, so, I understand.

Speaker 5 (31:05):
Anarchism is two separate things that are related, and one
is a sort of ideological movement that came out of
European socialism, and it actually pre dates Marxism and a
lot of the other very specific isms within socialism. It
was basically people who were like, well, the state and
capitalism are bad. They are both oppressive forces, and we
should do without them, and we should do things as communities.

(31:27):
And then the sort of are like sub sects that
come up within that ideological position that was originally kind
of mid nineteenth century eighteen forties or so. There's like
mutualist anarchism, which still uses markets and banks, but they're
like people's banks, and there's no ability to maintain capital
and wield it against other people, versus like a communalist

(31:50):
or a communist anarchism, which are not the same but
are like much more what people imagine of like leftism,
where we all like kind of get together and share.
And it was positioned within the sort of ideological framework
of socialism, which is the general overall capitalis shouldn't run everything,
and overall like society should run things instead, right, Like

(32:12):
the who owns the means of production is the big thing?
Like who owns the factories? Is it the people who
own the factories? Is it the workers who own the factories,
et cetera. And so that is the anarchist sort of
tradition that I come from, and anarchists have are kind
of the most I would claim, probably the most misunderstood

(32:34):
of these different positions because originally we kind of had
this the stereotype of where the people who like throw
bombs and kill kings. I am not embarrassed the fact
that we used to kill kings. Someone says that they're
in charge of everyone else, and someone says, no, you're not.
That's okay by me, right, But you know that if
that is people have this perception of anarchists as only

(32:55):
the people who are trying to destroy the existent, rather
than create a society based on equality, based on non hierarchy.

Speaker 3 (33:04):
And so the largest example.

Speaker 5 (33:08):
Of an anarchist society that is the most that we
have the most information about, at least as a consciously
anarchist society, was during the Spanish Civil War in the
nineteen thirties, when anarchists were the majority, I believe, of
the labor movement in Spain. And so when this war
broke out, when Franco invaded and tried to declare fascism

(33:29):
within and had tried to do a coup, basically anarchists
were on the front lines and prevented that from happening.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
And then in that.

Speaker 5 (33:38):
Lack of the republic having state power, the anarchists started
running everything and they had a lot of organizations in place.
This is the other misconception that people have about anarchism.
So anarchism is not anti organization. Anarchism is purely anti
authoritarian organization where someone tells you what to do in
a way that you don't have a say over, and
they still create ructures, but their bottom up structures instead

(34:03):
of top down structures. So a lot of anarchists talk
about federations and so goods can still be transported everywhere,
and you know, things can be made and things can
be done in society can function, I believe within this
type of framework. And one of the other main distinctions
of it is that anarchists don't tend to separate the

(34:24):
means from the ends, so they so theoretically a state
communist or a communist, Marxist, communist, a Marxist, Leninist, et cetera,
believe in the creation of communism, which is a society
without a state, but they create a state or take
the state in order to do that. Anarchists believe that
the means and the ends are inseparable. And this is

(34:45):
where it ties into feminism. For me, well one, anarchist
feminism has been a large part of the feminist movement
throughout history, and feminism has been a large part of
the anarchist movement. But this idea that the means and
the ends are inseparable, you know, the idea of like
Our goal is to give more people more agency over
their own lives.

Speaker 3 (35:04):
Our goal is.

Speaker 5 (35:05):
To teach consent and teach ways of relating to each
other as equals.

Speaker 3 (35:12):
Whether or not.

Speaker 5 (35:13):
Even like we win and we get an anarchist society.
Our goal is to infuse our interpersonal relationships with this
sense of equality and agency and so and so. Direct
action is often a major focus of anarchism, and so
actually a thing that came up in my research. I
researched the Jain collective, who are amazing and they mostly

(35:34):
come from a socialist position and that allowed them to think,
we don't care about legality, We're going to get this done.

Speaker 3 (35:39):
And you know, Jain collective.

Speaker 5 (35:41):
I presume most people are aware, but as an underground
abortion provider in Chicago that did an amazing work. I
later discovered that anarchists in Germany in the nineteen twenties
and thirties ran three hundred different illegal abortion providers all
across Germany. And they didn't do it in the name

(36:03):
of anarchism. It's just that this feminist movement that was
providing abortion came out of the anarchist organizing tradition. And
because they had that we're good at illegal stuff, we
care about agency, we care about all of these things,
they set up three hundred clinics. I'm going to have
my numbers fuzzy when I say this stuff. I don't

(36:23):
have my notes in front of me. Please don't quote
me direct what you all, but I mean, like anyone
listening at home, you know, don't be like exactly three hundred,
you know. And and I read that, and I was
just so excited, and I want to know more about that,
you know. And I only know the like Cliff Snows
versions because well, because there's a lot of really old

(36:43):
books that I have to read in order to really
understand it.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
Yeah, and so that's what it is for me.

Speaker 5 (36:49):
You know, there's it's a thing that means a lot
of different things to different people. Oh, but at the
very beginning I said, it's two things, and one it's
this specific ideological tradition, and then two it's its own
concept which has existed long before it's had a name.
And there's a lot of people doing work, especially from
non European backgrounds, about anarchic organizing that has very similar

(37:13):
like means and ends, but doesn't come from well this
old dead white guy with a beard said this, and
instead are like our traditions that are coming from North America,
or our traditions that are coming from you know, West
Africa or whatever, like tie in very well to this,
and this is how we see things, you know.

Speaker 3 (37:31):
Yeah, that's I don't know.

Speaker 5 (37:32):
If that was a good one on one or not,
but no, that's that's where I'm coming from.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
Politically, it's very good.

Speaker 4 (37:38):
I love that because yeah, I don't, like I said,
the history is very fuzzy for me because, like I said,
I grew up in North Georgia, where everything's very binary anyway,
and when it comes to politics, either you're with us
or you aren't. Kind of conversations and having this level
of like, oh, anarchists has always been not a bad
word necessarily, but not necessarily a good one either.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
So it's kind of like it's you know, it's with
the foreigners. You just you got to put it out there.

Speaker 4 (38:04):
It's it's not part of the US culture and especially
Mountain culture.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
That's from me.

Speaker 4 (38:09):
But like that's a lot of like learning lessons of like, Okay,
this is exactly where I am and my standpoint. I
didn't know what it was necessarily not necessarily like bombing kings,
I'm not talking about that, but in general, just like
finding out what it is to be autonomous in understanding
that as a group we do things better the societal
aspect of everything.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
And of course, you know we're not going to talk.

Speaker 4 (38:32):
About communism and how that does lie within the patriarchal ideals,
but like what I'm talking about in understanding I became
a social worker because I wanted to work for the collective.
I wanted to be one who did a macro practice
over a micro ideal. And that's a big debate within
social work. When I was in social work. I don't

(38:53):
know if it's changed because it's been a minute since
I've been in school. But that was a big debate
about the macro micro of helping ammunity in society and
what does that look like and what did social work.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
Began to be.

Speaker 4 (39:04):
It came out of a macro practicing helping communities. That's
where it came to. And then it got you know,
dissected into well, I'll be a therapist, which is not
a bad thing, please understand. I believe that helps as
well a community when it's done correctly. But yeah, this
like understanding is like, oh okay, I've been practicing this,
this makes sense.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
Oh okay.

Speaker 4 (39:25):
When we talk about feminism, especially when we talk about
intersectional feminism, which is where we are today, and it's
shifted a lot.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
When we talk.

Speaker 4 (39:34):
About feminism, feminism from the origins of the word to
today has shifted greatly in a good way. I hope
as we are You're right, we have tracked backwards. As
now we can at least differentiate those who are bad
players when it comes to feminism, such as terces such

(39:54):
as the Rawlings fan base that sticks with her with
her stupidity. I like that outlet that, but I think
there's a whole level of conversation when we talk about
politics and understanding our platforms and growing together and what
does feminism look like?

Speaker 1 (40:13):
And we had to revisit that.

Speaker 4 (40:14):
Often any and I honestly probably every year or so,
come back and have a conversation of Okay, this is
the things that we've learned, this is what we see
in society, this is what we know that is changing vastly.
The Black Lives Matter, massage, noir. You know, you have
to revamp that conversation about feminism. And I think as

(40:35):
we are going back to seeing the negativity towards the
queer community, the negativity towards the trans community, we have
to come back and revisit this conversation what does feminism
look like today? So in your opinion, and this is
a big question, and I'm sorry for this, this is
how I do. Do you think when you came out

(40:57):
your perspective of feminism changed in a positive negative manner?
Ale's part one B what do you see as a
positive infeminism today and as a negative infeminism today?

Speaker 5 (41:12):
Yeah, So I'm going to answer the second part first,
I think, I think that intersectionality is the main beautiful
thing that is happening to feminism, you know, and having
people understand the way that well just literally how intersections work,
and how the issues that affect rich white women are

(41:32):
very different than the issues that affect rich black women,
that are very different from the issues that affect you know,
poor people of color, and it allows us to hopefully
be better to one another and to understand that like
instead of this like that we're all fighting in solidarity
with each other rather than as a united mass, right,

(41:54):
because we are all coming into feminism with our own
needs and our own priorities. But we can stand together
because we understand what we do have in common and
what we don't and how we can you know, and
how I can assume that well, like, Okay, for example,

(42:17):
Roe v. Waight affects me, but it does not affect
me bodily, right, I mean, if it destroys the right
to privacy and it gets used to prevent people from
medically transitioning, yes, but like I'm not having an abortion
anytime soon, and less medical you know, less medical technology advances.
And then there's always that joke about like wanting to
be the first trans woman to get an abortion.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
You know, just to fiss off everyone.

Speaker 5 (42:40):
But and while abortion is more than a woman's issue
because it affects people who are not women bodily. You know,
it affects uh, trans people's, certain intersect people, certain non
binary people. You know, it affects a lot of people
right who are not women. It also is gender based discrimination,
and that gender based discrimination looks real similar to the

(43:00):
people who are telling me what I can do with
my body, and even if it wasn't something that affects
most women, affects me, right, And so being able to say,
like this matters to me, and like, I don't know,
it's just like finding these points of solidarity. I think
that this is like what intersectionality is really good for.

(43:21):
I think that especially now, and I think this is
a newer addition. We're starting to see class introduced to
it into this intersectionality as well, and I think that
that's vital. I think one of the problems of the
old left is they reduced everything to class, right, But
one of the problems with the sort of essentially liberal
feminism is that it cuts class out of intersectionality. Sometimes

(43:43):
I don't actually believe the average person who identifies as
a liberal does. But the sort of like the agenda, yeah,
the larger. You know, there's such a difference between like
liberal politicians and liberals right, and so I think that
the introduction of class is very important because it's all
related to power. It all comes back to power as
far as I'm concerned, And class is a very strong

(44:07):
indicator of power. But so is race, so is ethnicity,
so is gender, so is sexual orientation. So that there's
so many other things that also relate to power in

(44:29):
terms of what I think feminism war feminism is like
misstepped or the things that are going badly. Fortunately, I
think the US has like largely avoided this because well,
because the right wing has a monopoly on hating trans
people in the United States.

Speaker 3 (44:45):
You know, it became a culture war thing to.

Speaker 5 (44:47):
Not allow anyone be non binary, not allow anyone to
be trans or whatever within the United States along right
left lines. So, by and large, I don't run across
feminists who are like they then that's awful or whatever,
you know, or like you're not a real woman, you're
a you know, man in drag or whatever. I'm like,

(45:07):
I honestly don't care whatever I'm actually me, my pronouns
are I you know, like but in terms of how
society views me, like I'm finding the best possible, the
most useful description to provide for other people, you know.
But it is a problem I think with feminism internationally
and specifically in the UK right now, and it could

(45:28):
creep in in the United States, and so I really
I feel like I try to, you know, I think,
well kind of have to, but we all try to
kind of like keep that from creeping in.

Speaker 3 (45:38):
Is the turf thing.

Speaker 5 (45:40):
Is the idea that feminism excludes trans people, which is
just historically myopic. You know, all of these things have
all been related. Even if you look at the history
of understanding homosexuality, you know, transness was not a distinct
category for a very long time. Of course, the people
who started to distinguish it were some Germans who then

(46:01):
the Nazis came and burned all their books and killed
the first woman to medically transition. The famous book burning photos.
Whenever you see that famous photo of Nazis burning books,
it was the Institute for Sexual I don't have it
off the top of my head. Is Hirschfeld's Institute where
he studied homosexuality and transness, and you know, was one

(46:22):
of the first medical practitioners to say, like, hey, if
you allow trans people to live as their showsen identity,
everything is better and they are medically healthier, you know.

Speaker 3 (46:30):
Anyway, I don't know.

Speaker 5 (46:31):
I'm rambling about that, but so so I guess I
would say that's like the advantages and disadvantages. I think
feminism is mostly just doing well, and it has more
it needs to do. It has more, especially I think
continuing especially along race lines, there's like way more that
feminism needs to do.

Speaker 3 (46:51):
But what was the first of the two questions?

Speaker 4 (46:54):
I was asking that since you transitioned came out, has
anything changed in your perspective of feminism.

Speaker 3 (46:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (46:59):
It took me a really long time to feel comfortable
eyeing myself in conversations about feminism. I spent a very
long time and put a lot of work into being
like an ally right, Like I used to write scenes
and stuff that were like feminism for men, you know,
and and not taking up conversational space was very important

(47:23):
to me, and so I like very much all of
my attention was focused outward towards like non feminism or
towards particularly towards men, to be like, hey, here's ways
to be more feminist. And so you know, there's like
this outsider syndrome, right that I have around it. And
I actually really appreciate the work that folks like you do,

(47:44):
I mean, even like inviting me here on this, you know,
and and the degree to which like so many you know,
CIS women and a fab people in general have this
this work they've done to be like, no, what are
you talking about, Like, no, it's it's actually totally.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
Fine, you know.

Speaker 5 (48:02):
And I remember the first time I was invited to
like an all women's full Moon circle, you know, and
they were just like, hey, we're and I was kind
of their test case, right they had like they had
actually and actually I really respect them for this.

Speaker 3 (48:17):
They had just split they were all SIS.

Speaker 5 (48:19):
Women like you know, full moon like ritual collective, right,
and they they had this hypothetical conversation about whether or
not they should include trans women, and it got so
heated that it split into two groups. And I really
appreciate the people who were like, this is so important
to me that even though it's a hypothetical, we will

(48:40):
like stand our ground around.

Speaker 3 (48:41):
This, you know.

Speaker 5 (48:42):
And I felt a little bit like recruited where they
were like, ah, like come join us, you know, but
like it was mostly just good like yeah, you know,
so yeah, I guess that's how my my my view
wanted change. This is literally like including myself in a
more direct way and then allow allowing myself to because

(49:02):
I think when you're an ally to a movement, you
can promote the work of people within that movement, but
you generally don't try to like shape it or direct
it or whatever, you know. And allowing myself to feel
comfortable having a say is really interesting and still something
that I like, I still don't totally know, and it

(49:22):
helps that at the end of the day, I'm like,
well I have to say about me, right and my
perspective I'm really not trying to and not. Actually that's
where it comes with intersectionality in a good way.

Speaker 3 (49:30):
Right.

Speaker 5 (49:30):
So because I can't I can't speak to the experiences
of most women, I can speak to my experience, you know,
which is a white trans woman, which is a specific
set of things.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
You know, Well, as we've been discussing throughout this, you
are so so busy, You're doing it so much just
out of curiosity because we like to ask this, is
there anything that you do to kind of balance those
things out, like self care wise, how do you make
sure that it's not too much.

Speaker 5 (50:03):
Well, my idea of relaxing is doing projects. So mostly
I try to do projects that don't make any money.

Speaker 3 (50:11):
It's one of the main ways I do.

Speaker 5 (50:12):
It, or like I don't know, Like right now, I'm
like trying to help my friend is a single mom,
Like make their watering system in their garden work so
that they don't have to work as much. And the
gardening thing just goes and it activates all the parts
of my brain. I like where I'm like puzzles and
like playing. I can't believe it's a part of my

(50:32):
brain that loves plumbing. But I lived in an off
grid cabin for a long time, so I you know,
I like doing things I'm vaguely good at, and.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
So in terms of all.

Speaker 5 (50:44):
Self care, I kind of got to get drag kicking
and screaming into it. I like hiking. I like, you know,
my truck is built out into a camper. My dog
is very needy because he's a puppy, and so I
gotta go on walks with him a lot.

Speaker 3 (50:56):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 5 (50:57):
I actually honestly need to get better at self care.
I have too many plates spinning, But sometimes the thing
that seems fun is setting up new plates to spin.
So maybe my idea of self care is finishing projects
right because then they're done, Yeah, and then you don't.

Speaker 3 (51:13):
Have to do them anymore.

Speaker 5 (51:15):
And then the other thing I did is I I
require all new hobbies to be physical instead of on
the computer, because everything I do for money is on
a computer. So all hobbies, woodworking, gardening, anything like that.

Speaker 3 (51:30):
That is a good tip.

Speaker 1 (51:32):
That's a good one. I'll like it to unplug.

Speaker 4 (51:35):
Yes, we know you need to go on and move
on to the bigger and better projects in the ten
thousand plates you've got going on. But where can our
listeners find you?

Speaker 5 (51:44):
Well, first of all, this is not this is a
bigger and better I am so excited that you all
have me on this show. I'm like, I really think
it's cool that what you all do. But where can
people find me? You can find me on Twitter at
Magpie Kiljoy. You can find me on Instagram at Margot Killjoy.
Instagram is like mostly me posting pictures of my dog
or like instruments I make whereas Twitter is me pretending

(52:06):
like I would never fall into arguing about discourse on
the internet. No, sir, not me. And you can pre
order my book from Akpress. If you pre order it
before September twentieth, you'll get an art print that is
done by my friends, the same person who did the
cover art, and you can order that from Akpress or
a number of participating in bookstores, including cooperatively run bookstores

(52:28):
like Firestorm Books in Asheville or read Emma's Books in Baltimore.

Speaker 3 (52:32):
As I think.

Speaker 5 (52:33):
Cooperatives are cool. Worker cooperatives are awesome, And you can
find me on whatever you listen to this podcast with.
You can find me at cool people who did cool stuff.
And you can go back in time and look up
the Jaine Collective episode and order to listen to Samantha
as well. And you can listen to Live Like the
World Is Dying, which is also on your podcast app.

Speaker 2 (52:55):
Yes, thank you so much for being here with such
a delight, Please come back because there's so much I
was like, Oh, resonating with me, you're also my best
friend as well.

Speaker 3 (53:04):
Awesome.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
I feel like we had three other subjects that we
need to tackle.

Speaker 3 (53:07):
I want to talk about this, but I want to.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
I can't talk about the hobby right now.

Speaker 5 (53:10):
Okay, oh, but but we should sometimes.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
I would love to also preparedness.

Speaker 3 (53:15):
That would be great.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
Okay, yes, well until that date. Thank you so much
for joining us. Come back anytime. Listeners. If you would
like to contact us, you can. Our email is stuffid
You mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find
us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram
and Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks as always to
our superroducer Christina, thank you, and thanks to you for
listening Stuff and Never Told You the protection of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can check

(53:37):
out that I heart radio app. Have a podcast wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.