Tess Holliday: On the Body Positivity Backlash

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The reason why it works for Lydia is because she's
like the weird girl. She is showing up however she
wants to show up, and that's what's connecting.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
That's what connects it for Evie when she was on
her season, right, everyone, that's a secret to the show.
Everyone likes that.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
That's the secret to the show. It's the people who
come in and they're like, my catchraise is gonna be
got got gosh or whatever. It's like, that's not how
catchphrays work, like saying what's on your mind, and that
authenticity is what people will love, and that authenticity is
what RuPaul will steal.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Thank you, what's up, everybody?

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Welcome to High Key. I'm ben O Keith, I'm Ryan Mitchell,
and I'm Eviy Oddly. Today we're featuring a very important
conversation with Tess Holliday to sort of piggyback off of
something we've been talking about a lot lately, parasocial relationships.
We're getting into how we perceive and what we expect
of celebrities, from body types to queerness and sexuality, to

(00:58):
how those in the public eye right person causes or
ailments or conditions.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
But first y'all.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
You know what we gotta get into, right, Let's get
into the hikey, key, hikey. I should have more than neutrals.
Everyone's giving neutral vibes, grace.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
We really should coordinate. We never coordinate. We just show up. Ah,
we are not Mary Kaden ash charmed girl. I just
woke up in this and went to sleep in this,
So I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
It does uncomfortable. I'm not gonna lie to you.

Speaker 4 (01:25):
Isn't it smells disgusting?

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Dude? Okay, is it true that drag queen stink?

Speaker 4 (01:32):
Yeah? Yeah, it's like one hundred percent truth. That's why
I was like so butt hurt on my season when
when Raja like called me smelly in a confessional.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
I'm not gagging.

Speaker 4 (01:44):
I mean I'm gagging it from like the smell.

Speaker 3 (01:47):
Bitch, How are you gonna make this seem like a
me issue?

Speaker 4 (01:51):
They breeze the whole workroom every day when we walk
through that bitch like uh oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
Eureka had that controversy. It was while whatever she was
just angry.

Speaker 4 (02:02):
I was angry, But how dare she spill everybody's tea
and make it seem like it's just me because you know,
we are all smelly bitches. That is the thing is
drag queens either smell like two things like just pure
hell or pure hell and cheap Britney spears perfume.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Well, and that's the thing. I remember you being called smelly.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
But then like fast forward to like this past recent
season where everyone was gagged when like Ariette made like
pointed out on your nerves bad brad situation, and everyone
was kind of like, oh my god, that was so mean,
and I feel like with you, it wasn't really giving that.
It was kind of like, oh, yeah, I can see
that she smelled your girls.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
She had a medical condition even just only bathes and
doesn't shower, you know.

Speaker 4 (02:46):
And also it was a big deal because Ariette did
what Raja should have. I think people skipped over the
part where Ariette was like from one smelly bitch to
another smelly bitch. She was like, don't worry, sister, weird
smelly and your bad breath fucking stinks. I hope you die.
You took my crown.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, she did it to her face versus in a
confessional where you saw it later.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
It's kind of hard to defend ARIETI in that moment though,
because Arietti was clearly trying to stab like that was
meant to her. It wasn't. Indeed, it was like, it
wasn't like playful shade. It was it was pretty nasty.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
No, Arieti.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
She has been an example of what being a train
wreck on Drag Race really truly looks like.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
And it sucks because that's your first season.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
That's the way that people are gonna remember you for
the end of time, and just like whatever said on
television for Amya, especially with the bad bread, that's gonna
be brought up for her, and so it's really that
thing that it's like, even if you're on TV this
one time, you're kind of cemented.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
That's literally a part of your legacy. Unfortunately, moving forward,
I don't know how Ariette can bounce back from it.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
Well, and the drag Race fandom is so unforgiving, Like
I'm just like, fully we're now like because we're adjacent
to Evey. Oddly, that was fucking mistake. It's like, y'all
needed to pick a better.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Winner alone alone.

Speaker 4 (04:07):
Y'all should have picked a better queen girl. Y'all should
have picked a better queen. Honestly, if Brooklyn Heights had
won this podcast spot.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Wow, that would have been like we would have had
to leave space for a white person and that just
wasn't gonna happen.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Well, Evie, I was gonna say, like, do you feel
like the fandom is wild? Like I feel like we're
back at it again with all this Ginger stuff.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (04:29):
See, that's what's crazy is I've been heavily invested in
the Ginger stuff all weekend and it's like this two
part problem. And one part of the problem is the
fans can be absolutely evil, absolutely evil, and like not
even realize that they're doing evil things to another human being,

(04:53):
and then a couple of years later they'll turn back
around and be like, ugh, remember when the fans were
so easy Ginger or Rajah or Silky or Evie or
like all the shit I've ever heard or seen. People
love to be nice in retrospect after a girl's gotten
a chance to come back onto the franchise. But the
thing with Ginger is this is like her third or

(05:15):
fourth time there, and so part of the reason the
fans are being so evil, and this is the other
half of it is production keeps making some of the
wackiest like uh, obviously very very biased choices, which they
are completely in their right to do. But you have
to sell it to the people. You have to sell

(05:37):
it to the people. You have to sell it to
the people, got to sell it.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
I just wonder, especially I've always wondered this about the
queens that like return like multiple, like maybe two plus times.
What's the point for them at that stage in their career,
Like are they wanting to be reintroduced to a new
generation of drag race fans are because there's so much
money that goes into vading a package that is just

(06:01):
kind of wild to me of like, Okay, if you
don't win, what are you really getting from it? And
I think for Ginger, she's been one of those ones
that have been like you know, Robs quote unquotes, and
I think that's the reason why we're seeing so much
kind of anger around her and people are just thinking
she's the favorite. She's automatically going a wain like Folis

(06:23):
Edwards and you know so many others who have come
the tricky matails.

Speaker 3 (06:27):
Well, and to unpack for maybe the less queer listeners
is like, you know, we have this new all stars
format Ginger keeps winning, and Ginger is a great drag queen.
Like I know, Ginger, Ginger's a fellow Orlando girl, and
that's finding good. But when the choices being made by
production are so obvious, it's now taking it from like,
let's celebrate Ginger. She should be the one everyone's rooting for.

(06:48):
A big girl, or at least a formerly big girl.
A big girl in this sea is still a big girl,
not anymore. That's a whole conversation.

Speaker 4 (06:55):
We're about to cut off a whole lot of weight
in the finale.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Oh let me see.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
Oh oh yeah, I mean I'm not going to talk
about people's bodies, but I mean her and I have
talked about this a little bit in the DMS, you know,
But it's just to say that the work.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah, bitch, that was the.

Speaker 4 (07:10):
Sound of somebody seeing Gingers before and after. It's like
the same shock people used to get when they'd see
drag queens get out of drag like, oh.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
No, I mean, she's fabulous regardless, but.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
And if she looked like this on the season, maybe
the fandom wouldn't have been so nasty. And I think
that's part of the problem too. It's always the most
marginalized girls that get the most crap from the fandom,
and it's the most you know, twink to drag queen
pipeline girls that are beloved.

Speaker 4 (07:37):
I want to agree with that on one half because
it's like not something you can you can't argue against it.
I'm so sorry. Look at the number of fat winners
we've had.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Right, I mean, what is it? Is it Lauren's chaining,
It's Lauren's training, Lauren's cheney girl.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
And that's not even our country or they were training.

Speaker 4 (07:54):
We are the fattest fucking country ever and we cannot
crown a fat person girl. So on one hand, that's true,
But on the other hand, I think what people are
really frustrated with is seeing something that I know I've
bitched about in the past, but like seeing the judges
whose job is to objectively like choose what they see

(08:16):
as excellence and drags seeing them run to these like
old classic standards. And I want to say that Ginger
is undoubtedly like a phenomenal drag queen obviously is doing
very well in the competition. But a part of that is,
I think Denali said it best at Roscoe's part of
that is due to the fact that it is Rue

(08:37):
Paul's drag race, and so the more Rue Paul is
invested in any drag artist, the more things kind of
just lean in their favorite the whole way. And I
know people would love to say that I'm bitching about
favoritism when I was a favorite and blah blah blah blah. No no, no, no, girl,
let me clear this right now. Because I competed on

(08:58):
a season with favorites twice, I walked into a workroom
with a living Meme and Miss Vangie. It was so
hard every week having a new guest judge automatically know
and love one of us. I walked into that workroom
with RuPaul, who had personally tried to get Brooklyn on
before in the first walk through. She told Brooklyn, Oh,

(09:20):
we've been trying to get you here for a second.
That is favoritism. That's a sort of bias. Girl. I
only won one challenge on each of the seasons I did.
There's no favoritism here. Favoritism is when somebody who has
the power is kind of blind to see what other
people have to offer because of the backstory that they

(09:40):
have with anyone else. And it's funny because the fans
do the exact same thing, Like you were saying with
skinny little white bitches, who can khakity cat death splat
And I'm sorry, but Dnali lost that lip sync.

Speaker 3 (09:54):
Yeah, well that's what we got to talk about too,
because like, look in that specific instant and she was
given all the moves but not given the song. There
was nothing in the face, and look like, it's so
easy to judge from a side, you know what I mean,
and then you have to go and do it. And
everyone loves to be a backseat, you know, drag race watcher.
Unfortunately this is our job to have these conversations. But

(10:16):
I think it because it's like you get up there
and try to do it.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
I think the reason why I get a little frustrated
around kind of the fandom specifically, you know. I mean
there's a ton of reasons, from the racism to their
own favoritism, but I think the thing that I feel
like people forget and something that because I love I'm
a lover of competition shows.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
There's strategy when you're going into this show.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
We saw it on this past season where all the
queens kind of broke the fourth wall and talked about
what works, what doesn't work, and how the game has
kind of evolved in as people who watch the show
and going on the show, how you implement in your
own personal strategy what you're going to do to get
rue Paul's attention. That's what the show is about. I'm
sorry there is a judge's table, but it does not

(10:59):
matter what they are actually saying, because at the end
of the day, when RuPaul says silence, it's ov It's over.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
And so that's I think a lot.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Of times, a lot of the fans, they work themselves
up over nothing because guess what, sister, this show is
going to probably continue, just like Gray's Anatomy in their
seventy two years, and it's gonna be seven thousand drag
race girls coming period, and like, I just I think
we have to. It's it's really difficult when you think about,

(11:32):
you know this layers of favoritism and like, yeah, maybe
Gingerminche is being favorited, but she's why else would she
come back on this show if she wasn't going to
kind of experience and have a conversation with producers being like,
what are y'all gonna do to make this worthwhile for me.

Speaker 4 (11:49):
Right girl. And I think ultimately what's frustrating and what
needs to be like met somewhere is producers need to
find a way to also get the viewpoints of the fans.
And I'm not saying the fans should vote for whoever
America's because that would be terrible. We would never have
a person of color again. There would never be anybody

(12:10):
who weighs over ninety pounds.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
I mean we see it with the when it's like
Team Anya, team and the Well, that.

Speaker 3 (12:18):
Is how they do it at the end. That's why
they film you all all winning the award. People don't
get this is a TV show. So if it was
really a meritocracy you where the best person wins, then
why are they filming alternate endings? Because they want to
see how the fans respawn and it is a strategy. Ryan,
there are archetypes that you will get cast into. You
start to see these recurring characters, the Alexis Michelle type

(12:40):
that this you fall into these archtypes where if you're
not careful, you will be the villain, and if you
are the villain, you actually can't win. Evie was was
very close to being so far like villainized at one
point that she wouldn't have been able to win, like
that is a thing where even if she was had
the best lip saying. And then you look at someone
like Sasha Valora, I manage Sasha the lore and she

(13:00):
had this great moment, you say, why do people come back?
She told me she would never ever do another drag
race thing again in her life. Here she is hosting
the drag Race World Tour because two things. One you
need money and two I remember Aza like crying to
me after her old manager was like, you're gonna be
washed up soon. Don't you see what's happening. This is
never gonna stop. You won't matter in a couple of

(13:22):
seasons because there'll be another twenty five girls, thirty girls,
sixty girls. And she was like, wow, so that's why
she's back. But she's taking that opportunity. She's seizing that opportunity.
You look at a Bosco, you even look at Butthole Collins,
who is like came back six weeks after competing or
something like that.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
But she's new.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
She kind of I mean, she's the one that it
makes sense for her to kind of do a quick
turn around.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
I think it was a similar situation.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
With Monette decided to come back to All Stars right
after her season, right, like it it makes sense, that's
a platform for me.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
But don't you think there's risk if you're not actually
at that next level, Like for example, Lydia had to
put all of her looks together in like seven days
they shut down production.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
There is a risk.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
But I also think if you if you play it
right and you actually you know, show up to that
risk and you actually perform and you actually make more
of a space of being yourself and not trying to
necessarily like be anyone else, I think it works.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
The reason why it works for Lydio is because she's
like the weird girl.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
She is showing up however she wants to show up,
and that's what's connecting. That's what connected for Evie when
she was on her season. Right, everyone likes that's the
secret to the show. Everyone likes, that's the secret to
the show. It's the people who.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
Come in and they're like, my catchphrase is gonna be
got got God or whatever. It's like, that's not how
catchphrays work, Like say what's on your mind? And that
authenticity is what people will love and that authenticity is
what ru Paul will steal.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
I rewatched that argument with you and vangel and your season.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
I did not pop off at you.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
Okay, Okay, when you watch it back, I'm like, this,
this whole thing was really wild because why are they
arguing HER's Like it didn't really make sense.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
But I also think it felt like your season was
the last season that really felt like everyone in the
cast wasn't afraid to like go there, or wasn't afraid
to like really kind of just simply be and it
wasn't like manufactured in the ways that it's manufacturing.

Speaker 3 (15:18):
Weren't thinking about the cameras. It's the same reason like
why Housewives and all these other shows started to fail.
It's because people go in with an agenda to be
famous and to make a lot of money, and reality
TV out its heyday was like stupid people saying stupid
shit on TV.

Speaker 4 (15:35):
Oh icons Honestly, that kind of explains the silky dynamic
of everything. Like I know, I talked about favoritism a little.
She was RuPaul's favorite. If we were living in a
world where favoritism automatically won you at crown, Silky would
have gotten that crown because she just had the best
connection with RuPaul, And what really ended up fucking her

(15:56):
was she felt like she was America's favorite. She kept
seeing that and saying it. So the girls, all of us, clearly,
like by episode one, were already over her bullshit, but
RuPaul was in love with her for a whole season,
so they had to find a way to tell a
story about somebody that Rue Paul likes for an entire season.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
But the guy.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
Yes, people really did like Silkey because they dragged her
when she picked up Miley Cyrus and was excited about
the Holy exactly.

Speaker 4 (16:21):
So that's what I'm saying, from like episode one, from
literally the jump, all the things that Silky perceived as
going to like rocket her into superstardom, and all the
things that RuPaul perceived about Silky that was going to
rocket her into stardom. Yeah, yeah, especially because she was very,
very well aware. I remember a lot of the interviews

(16:43):
that I was getting asked during season eleven airing and
even afterwards, was do you think Silky was putting it on?
And it was always a really hard question because the
answer is one hundred percent yes, But also that was
still authentically what she was and what she was. She
recognized that challenge before her and she did kind of
exactly what ginger Mine is doing, which is just be yourself.

(17:06):
Especially if RuPaul likes it, and if everybody else hates it,
then you're gonna hear about it in a year and
hopefully in another five years people will start to treat
you like a human again.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
Well, and also everybody else saying, given you know, the
winner of this show two hundred thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (17:22):
Like the fans are not I mean that later down
you want to build a fandom enough, but ginger minch
has had her fandom already kind of putting into her work,
so it's like it's not like she's needing any one out.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
And we also have to remember the judges. When you
think of like Michelle Ross, some of these judges are
producers as well, and as they've stepped into that producer role,
which was not always the case, and that's why they
were winning the Emmys now and the things you see
them producing in real time in a way that just
isn't authentic to what's actually happening behind the scenes. And
I think I'm like, watch the dailies guys like you're

(17:55):
missing the narrative and so they're trying to make something.
It's like, stop trying to make thattch happen. It's never
gonna happenah, And maybe that's what's happening with Ginger, and
that is exactly what it is.

Speaker 4 (18:04):
Ginger is fetch and it's not that Fetch isn't cool
and slay and one of the best words that's ever
been made up. It's the bitch We've already been trying
to make fetch happen. You've already tried it a number
of times, and so people are pissedularly. Stop saying that
word of me.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
It's what I think of when I watch like Love Island.
You know, I'm always going to have a moment where
I bring it up. The really big thing that's kind
of been missing from Love Island this year is like
producers cutting too much out where it's like you're cutting
out moments that are actually should be there to help
shape the stories so it makes sense to the viewer
watching it. And a lot of times I think when

(18:42):
you're watching the lip sync of Dnale and Ginger, you're like,
why is RuPaul laughing so much?

Speaker 2 (18:46):
When Ginger didn't really do much. But I think there
might be.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
Something there where it's like, oh, producers are trying to
like match the amount of, you know, however long an
episode is supposed to be, and like they're taking out
valuable things that could be helpful to help shape whatever
the larger picture is. But that's what storytelling is, that's
what being a producer is, and that's why where it
comes into Okay, we have to pick and choose who

(19:12):
we want our story to be around this season, and
if they chose Gingermne over to Nalely, then that's just
kind of simply what it is for this bracket until
we move on and to where everybody is combined.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
They're probably both going to move forward. That's the gag
of the century. It's just not that the half points
in the last bracket where they gave a little half
point away just to make sure their girls were just
that much tipped ahead. We see what's happening. But at
the end of the day, if you give, you're probably
going to make it through or at least find some love.

(19:44):
And some of these people are like really upset that
certain queens aren't getting more love. And I was like, okay,
but I watched what they did and they looked beautiful,
but they really weren't giving and that's okay.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
And it's crazy. Can I also just amit not to
side pivot before we really get into the show.

Speaker 1 (19:57):
I have such a crush to die Diabetty out of dress.

Speaker 3 (20:02):
I was just blurting with Diabety in die so fine,
oh my, just putting that out there.

Speaker 4 (20:10):
See, And I have a crush on Diabetes.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
No, I mean I have a crush on both of them.
But I think when like I see them in their confessionals.

Speaker 3 (20:17):
I'd be like, damn Diabetty kind of fine for a
why boy, you know, and like Diabete is finding herself,
like really, like this season is a great season for Diabety.
You know this new look. That's someone who took all
the critiques, whether they agreed or not, and said, I'm
going to come back as the thing that could help
me win this competition so I can make my two
hundred thousand dollars and then I can make my tricksy

(20:39):
matel money one day. Like you gotta have a vision
because at the end of the day, we're poor black
queers and these ones dress up in dresses like you
know what I mean, Like, no one's paying our bills,
and so I'm like, hustle, play your game, but realize
it is a game.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
It's a game.

Speaker 4 (20:54):
It is a game. It is a game. But my
final thing I want to say on this, because I
thought it unless this morning, is I really would like
production and I think they've done a fantastic job at this,
but I'd like them to pay attention to the culture
that they've created a little bit more. RuPaul has this
infamous saying about if they ain't paying your bills, pay

(21:15):
those bitches no mind. And I think there's this tendency
of people to shit on queens who have come out
of the franchise and have any critique at all for
the show. That's very How dare you bite the hand
that feeds you. I think I would like every single
person on this planet to remember that we are the
ones who paid RuPaul's bills, So pay these bitches some mind.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
Works so that we got Ali having a shower, Evie,
the breaking news in that profound statement was her starting
by saying she showers.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
Honestly, it really was, It really was, all right, So
let's wrap this up y'all. You know, we got a
lot to get into, and I'm very, very excited about our.

Speaker 3 (21:54):
Next guess right, Ben, Yes, I'm so excited. I got
to sit down with the one and only test Holiday.
You know her as a model, an activist, just a
real trailblazer, and our conversation, I'm not gonna lie, it
was really good. We talked about everything from the state
of the body positivity movement to kind of the state
of her life and her new book, Take Up Space. Y'all,

(22:14):
that really, really, really is an inspiring read. So we
will be getting into all of it. I'm going to
tell you it's like a high key, unforgettable interview, or
at least it was for me, So I hope you
guys enjoy it. Thike test Holiday, Welcome to high key.

Speaker 5 (22:31):
Hi, thank you for having me Boo.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
It's so nice. It's been like a year since I've
seen you, at least like December twenty twenty three, I think, So, yeah, yeah,
we have a lot to catch up on. The world
has certainly changed quite a bit since then. But to start,
I saw, first of all, happy Pride. I saw you
were at Pride with some of your chosen family It's funny.
You actually just tweeted this, I think, or you know,

(22:56):
threaded this.

Speaker 5 (22:56):
Are you gonna say what? I literally just posted.

Speaker 3 (22:59):
Right now and it was already on my notes before
you posted. It's so wild, But like, I feel like
a lot of people don't know your queer. And I
was talking about doing this interview and they were like,
I thought you were going to do, you know, really
focus on the first interviews being queer folks. I was like,
what are you talking about? Test Holiday is queer. You
came out as pan sexual in twenty nineteen, twenty eighteen,

(23:20):
twenty eighteen. Do you feel like because you were in
a relationship with someone who has perceived male, that your
queerness was kind of erased?

Speaker 6 (23:27):
Yeah, And it was so frustrating because my ex was,
you know, and I was always very public that they
were queer non binary, and now they've you know, mean,
even though we're not in relationship in any capacity, they
are you know, trans non binary. But that's who I
was married to, and all of my relationships since then,

(23:50):
except for the exception of one little thing, have been
with queer folks. I was actually talking about this because
I was at a dinner last night with a brand,
and I sat beside a very popular queer makeup artist
and they were saying, oh, yeah, I'm cashing those Pride
checks and I was like, slay, not me. I don't
really get to do Pride campaigns. And they were like, oh,

(24:12):
I didn't know you were queer. And I'm just like
it's so frustrating because I feel like I talk about
it a lot. I always show up for a community.
I always have, and I think it's because I've kept
my dating life so private. But it's like, what do
you have to do? Do I have to like post
me just like holl On making out.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
With somebody for that. I don't know. Maybe we need
like a Tila Tequila style TV show or something. You
remember that show.

Speaker 5 (24:39):
I do I do?

Speaker 6 (24:40):
Minus the weird like segue into the Christianity that she
went down the wild downfall.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
She seems to not be doing well, but like hello
queer representation early on.

Speaker 6 (24:52):
Thank you, And it's just like, I I don't want
to be like, there's so many bigger fights for the
queer community than be like, oh it's high fe I'm erasure.
But I just feel like as a highem, I yeah,
people don't give me the respect. I literally started wearing
my these are my natural nails, even though people would
say they're too long.

Speaker 5 (25:11):
I'm like, what do I have to do? I stopped
getting acrylic sop.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
I also wonder, like, you grew up in Mississippi, so
like for me, like growing up in the South, queer identity.
When I finally claimed it was so important to me
because I was like, this was a this was a
risk to come out in this way. You came out
a little bit later, you were already very public, and
so to not feel that risk kind of reciprocated, I
can imagine would be tough. Do you feel like you

(25:39):
always knew you were queer or do you feel like
it really took until twenty eighteen for you to figure
it out?

Speaker 2 (25:45):
Well?

Speaker 5 (25:45):
I knew.

Speaker 6 (25:46):
I knew, which is part of why I married my ex.
You know, I didn't care that they were queer. I
was interested, you know, in like what the would look
like in our relationship. I had, you know, experiment plenty

(26:08):
prior to that. But I think that there is something
very unique unless you've grown up down South that a
lot of people don't understand. And you spend so long
feeling so much shame and everyone around you telling you
you know, you're going to go to hell or you're
gonna you know, your life's going to be horrible if
you are. And so I think that there was definitely

(26:30):
a lot of what a lot of people I hear,
do you know, Oh it's a girl crasher, Oh it's this.
But I never really felt like I just liked girls,
So I felt like it was really confusing, honestly, until
I would say I moved to LA and I got
a huge circle of queer friends and started my advocacy

(26:51):
that I really understood, oh, like, you know, because I
kind of just I didn't really know that there was
anything outside of you know, buy lesbian gay. I didn't
know about that entire world until you know, I lived
in a bubble. So I think it took me kind
of educating myself to later connect the pieces. But twenty

(27:13):
eighteen is when I just kind of couldn't hold it
in anymore. And then my mom and the rest of
the world found out at the same time because ooops,
I forgot to tell her.

Speaker 3 (27:22):
Oh wow, what was that?

Speaker 2 (27:24):
Like?

Speaker 5 (27:24):
She just pissed off.

Speaker 6 (27:27):
She wasn't happy, because you know, it's one thing to
have your daughter very vocal about things that you know,
make a lot of people uncomfortable and put kind of
a target on her. But then adding that into it,
I think, so Lance Bass and I are from the
same small town in Mississippi, Laurel.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
Oh Wow, and so.

Speaker 5 (27:46):
I'll never forget.

Speaker 6 (27:47):
Everyone loved Lance, and then when he came out as gay,
I'll never forget. Our town was kind of like for
a while, now they're proud, but for a while they
were like, oh, we kind of want to distance ourselves.
And so I kind of felt a lot of my family,
including my mom, kind of they were proud of me, adjacent,

(28:07):
But I think adding the queerness in it was just like, oh, great,
it's one more saying.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
You're already the fat one, You're already this, and you
had to throw another label onto it. Yeah, but you've
always been so transparent about yourself and your identity and
the good times and the bad times, and the mistakes
and the triumphs. What I really want to talk to
you about is what I'm feeling on my heart because
you have been one of the loudest voices in the

(28:35):
movement for body positivity, like celebrating bodies of all sizes
often being that body in spaces where like you were
not meant to be, and we're really seeing this space
begin to shrink, I think literally and figuratively. And so
I wanted to just start with a prompt, which is, like,

(28:57):
how do you feel the current state of body politic
is and how is that affecting your career as someone
who built not just a livelihood but a legacy in
this space.

Speaker 5 (29:10):
Well, thank you for that.

Speaker 6 (29:11):
It feels it feels dystopian, It feels very difficult. I
kind of went from being celebrated for being one of
the first, you know, visibly kind of fat. You know,
I would say, like superstar, not to like name myself that,
but I mean no, but for real, you know, and

(29:33):
I mean Beth Diido came before me, and you know,
we had like obviously like Queen Latifa and Missy Elliott
and all of those icons, and then you know, then
Lizzo and so many other people, and I feel I
feel felt very fortunate to I think, be a part
of that group. And then you know, now that things

(29:55):
have shifted, I hear now more than ever. And I
actually almost did like a TikTok about this the other
day and I stopped myself because I don't really know
what to say anymore. But people are like, you know,
thank you for existing. You're kind of one of the
last fat, visibly fat folks out there. And I always
noticed that I was maybe the fattest person in any

(30:18):
kind of room where they would have influencers or models
or artists, et cetera. Now I definitely am and it
feels very isolating, and it almost feels like it's my
first day of school all over again, and where I'm
I'm waiting to be picked for dodgeball and I'm getting

(30:40):
picked last. It feels like it was okay when everyone
was okay with it and it was trendy and popular,
and now that it's not okay, and it's seen as like, oh, well,
you could just get a GOP one, that's your solution.
Why are you still fat? And it's like, have we
just completely lost the plot altogether?

Speaker 3 (31:00):
Now? What goes through your head when someone says that, like,
just why aren't you on a JLP one?

Speaker 2 (31:05):
Well?

Speaker 5 (31:05):
Yeah, I mean I got asked that nine hundred times
a day. I don't really know.

Speaker 6 (31:12):
To be honest, I think I'm still processing it because
I have had many thoughts surrounding it. I myself have thought,
you know, about taking it, especially the pressure, and I
think people so many times they would ask me, you
know in la like.

Speaker 5 (31:28):
What's it like, you must have so much pressure? Lose
weight and do this. I never really felt pressure until now.

Speaker 3 (31:34):
Culturally it's changed so much where it's now become and like, look,
I think like I have to address an elephant in
the room, which is like the last time that I
saw you, I was double the size that I am today, right,
it was December twenty twenty three, and we were both
the fattest people in the room period. Yeah, there's a

(31:54):
picture of us on the carpet, like, and we were
the fattest people in the room and the baddest and
the baddest still and we're still both the baddest, but
I'm no longer the baddest, and that has been a
really interesting shift for me. And I wanted to tell
you well because you know, I helped start a lot
of the re emergence of body positivity when I took

(32:16):
on Abercrombie and Fitch and worked with so many plus
sized fashion spaces, And it's been really hellish because I
felt really scared to exist because I don't know about you,
But like for a while in celebrities I saw them
losing weight. I felt like this personal attack. I felt like,
how dare you? Like, whether it's Sam Smith or Lizzo

(32:39):
or any of these people, it's like you were the
only one. You had to carry the torch, you had
to represent for us. And now I'm on this other
side where I've heard a lot of that and I
feel guilty because I'm like, wait, but isn't body neutrality
like that I get to make my own choices over
my body or whatever. So it's been really a double
edged sword. And I guess I wonder for you, the

(33:01):
question being like for people who are changing their bodies,
like what does accountability look like? And how do you
do that without or can you do that without destroying
the movement for fat liberation?

Speaker 6 (33:17):
Well, not me getting emotional right now, not me tearing
up what you're talking about that.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
The cancers, I know, I'm like, damn.

Speaker 5 (33:27):
To be honest.

Speaker 3 (33:28):
Then I don't know, yeah, because we can't win. That's
like what was so hard for me is like I
felt not like, no matter what I do, you hate
me when I'm fat and then you hate me when
I'm thin, and then you hate me when I'm you know,
in the midst of an eating disorder, and I actually
cannot win because you just hate me. And so I

(33:51):
see someone like you who still has to exist in
the world in a body that is harder to be
perceived in, and then I feel guilty of someone like
me who's like I'm struggling. I was on a billboard
in Times Square and I was like, I didn't recognize myself, yeah,
you know, and everyone's like, oh my gosh, and I'm like,
who the fuck is that? Yeah, that's not me because
I worked so long to love myself in the body

(34:13):
I was in. And so I guess, like you say,
you don't have an answer, and I think that is
an answer, But like, what do you think about the
current conversation? Like Lizo, for example, said like the state
of body positivity is changing, and she's like, let's be
body neutral and like, to me, the neutrality is almost
an issue because we haven't earned neutrality yet. It's like

(34:34):
being colorblind with race, Like yeah, so what, like how
do you respond when you hear something like that?

Speaker 5 (34:40):
I mean, she's always had the body neutrality stance.

Speaker 6 (34:44):
I think, you know, maybe it was body positivity for
a little bit, and this is no Lizo shade. I
love her, but it very quickly when plus as people.
You know, we even had Ashley Graham when she blew
up and this is no shade Ashley.

Speaker 5 (34:58):
I love her too.

Speaker 6 (34:59):
But we have a lot of these celebrities that when
they are plus size and their career is kind of
built on being plus size and being I think body positive,
the words attached to it, it was quite popular during
that era. But I think the shift and what happened
is that and this is their own personal journey, and

(35:20):
I can't speak for them, but I think that if
I had to guess, they were probably both pressured to
shift to a place of body neutrality because people are
afraid of what actual body positivity looks like. And now
it's kind of like a dirty term, like now people

(35:41):
don't like to use it, and people do like body neutrality.
And I said something that blew up on threads a
couple of weeks ago, something along the lines of it's
never been more radical to be fat than it is
right now, and that my body is an act of defiance.

Speaker 5 (35:58):
And people are like, oh, I don't like that.

Speaker 6 (36:00):
You know I'm that and you know it was hurting
my body and I lost weight, and that sounds like
you're giving up or just like all these attacks on me,
and it's like, I'm not choosing to say that. I'm
actually in the throes of still trying to navigate my
disordered eating, which took a really ugly turn when I

(36:21):
spoke about it publicly. And I think I've shared this
with you, like, yeah, I had quite a few moments
where I regretted even saying anything.

Speaker 5 (36:29):
Yeah, but I'm so grateful I did.

Speaker 3 (36:31):
But I do you want to talk more about why
you regretted those moments.

Speaker 5 (36:36):
Like yeah, yeah, we can for sure, because.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
You came out and talked about you're in a large body,
one of the largest high profile bodies they're out there,
and you talked about having a restrictive eating disorder and
everyone was like, what are you talking about your fat? Yeah,
and I remember we talked right after it happened. And
when you share something like this that is so common,

(36:59):
but no one's willing to talk about it. There's such
a stigma put on you, and then you're almost re
traumatized in a way that then makes it like, well,
should I even speak out about my disordered eating because
it's just going to trigger it all over again. Yeah.

Speaker 6 (37:12):
Yeah, because now the comments from people are the critique
or you know, the media. Maybe it's shifted from a
place where I'm promoting obesity to oh, aren't you the
girl that claimed that she was anorexic or you know,
you're you know, like giving us.

Speaker 5 (37:28):
All a bad rap or whatever.

Speaker 6 (37:30):
And I'm like, like, having that type of restrictive eating
disorder is like some trophy to be had by only
people that check that box. Like out of everything in
the world that I could make up and be and
say and do, why in the world would I be,

(37:50):
you know, a nearly four hundred pound human and tell
the entire world that I have a hard time feeding myself.
And it was, you know, and even my team was like,
why didn't you tell us this, you know, before you
shared it?

Speaker 5 (38:05):
And I know you know that, And in my head,
I'm like, I didn't think it was that big of
a deal. And obviously it was a big deal.

Speaker 3 (38:13):
You created permission for so many other people, and that matters,
But I wonder, like and I and I kind of
maybe this is just me projecting my own personal experience.
But when you build your brand around your personal story,
people feel such an ownership over it that sometimes you
almost lose yourself in it. And so looking way back

(38:34):
to like f your beauty standards, the you know campaign
you started for self love against these societal beauty norms
that just didn't represent the vast majority and still don't
the vast majority of people. Do you have regrets or
can you think of moments in your career where you're like,
I shouldn't have done that, or I regret doing that.

Speaker 6 (38:52):
Oh yeah, I mean even like selling my f your
Beauty Sandward shirt, like there's still if you look at up,
people are like, you're scam are you you stoleer shirts
and didn't ship them out? And I'm like, yes I did,
but I also like got so big so quickly. I
wasn't prepared for, you know, the amount of orders. I
didn't have a distribution center. It was a shit show,

(39:14):
and like I sorted it, but people still attached that
to me. I also famously said, you know, things that
I shouldn't have said in twenty fourteen in an interview
that I definitely put my foot in my mouth and
I think that I still had I always have a

(39:37):
lot of work to do around I think a lot
of my privilege as a white CIS woman and how
loaded my words can be. And I had to do
a lot of like, you know, work around that, and

(39:57):
you know, like I am the queen of putting my
foot in my mouth, like I would be lying if
I sat here and was like, no, I haven't I'm
not ashamed, or I'm not whatever, not ashamed.

Speaker 5 (40:10):
I'm not ashamed anymore because it happened. And I've had.

Speaker 6 (40:14):
To kind of like forgive myself because there was a
lot of like grief and pain around kind of those
two moments in my career in life, because you know,
had I had known better and I would have done better,
and I didn't, And I know better now and I
do I do better now. But you know, I had

(40:37):
to learn that not everyone is owed forgiveness, especially me,
and that you only get one chance right to make
a first impression, and unfortunately someone's first impression of me
is always going to be maybe one of my darkest
moments and maybe a moment I'm not proud of. But

(40:58):
I can't I let that shame, I think destroy parts
of me and I had to just push through it
and pick myself up and do the best that I
could do so that moving forward in my career, I
wasn't harming people. I was doing what I felt like

(41:23):
I was meant to do, and that was to help
others and to use my platform and voice to yeah,
to I guess boost others that normally society kind of
turns their shoulder out.

Speaker 3 (41:40):
Yeah, And you said something kind of profound, not everyone
deserves forgiveness, and just saying that's true, does everyone deserve grace?
Because I wonder how we look at, you know, coming
back from cancelation. And I've had a number of friends
be canceled, and there's obviously the discourse on can you
be canceled? It's like, well, probably if you're a cis

(42:00):
white man with enough money. But like, yeah, I also
think we kind of fundamentally lack grace. Like you were
a personality before everyone was on TikTok every second, sharing
every moment of their life. You really helped blaze a
trail for the creator economy as we know it today,
so that you can have a platform where you can
sell shirts that you never even have to touch, you know,

(42:23):
that are drop shipped and done for you and all
the things like is there a specific moment in your
career where you feel like you really weren't given the
grace you actually deserved, whether you fucked up or not.

Speaker 6 (42:34):
So I think I'm definitely my a your Beauty Centers
T shirt debacle. You know, it was well intended, I
you know, and I think a lot of people don't understand.
You know, like I was working in a dentist's office.
I just started modeling. I was still working at the
dentist's office when I kind of like quote blew up
and I was selling these shirts as a way to

(42:55):
make money and also as a victim of domestic violence.
I was like, this would be a good way to
get back and raise some money. And so when I
started navigating, you know, selling them, I wasn't expecting to
get like, you know, thousands of orders overnight. So it
was like me and my older son who was like
Bowie's age, no he was younger than Bowie, and my

(43:18):
best friend Jolene, and like whoever would come over helping,
you know, fulfill these orders and like writing out labels
and like I was so ill equipped and ill prepared,
and where I really bumbled, was you know, I had
set a portion of the proceeds well once people started
getting frustrated about their shirts not arriving on time, or

(43:41):
like some people their orders were missing, because like, it
wasn't a professional setup, and that.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
Was my bad.

Speaker 6 (43:47):
I just didn't know what I was getting myself into.
I think once I kind of went down that slippery slope,
I should have, you know, hired a distribution center, which
I did once I realized that there was an issue or.

Speaker 3 (43:59):
That that was that even a thing you could do exactly,
you know.

Speaker 6 (44:02):
So people were mad that I didn't donate as much
as they felt like I should have. But when I
donated money at the time, I had no money in
my account, and I'll never forget I donated almost everything
that I had. And I think that my life looked
very glamorous and sometimes still does, and people don't always
understand that that doesn't equal money. The glamour doesn't come

(44:26):
with the money. And this isn't me trying to make
anybody feel bad for me. I fucked up. I made
a mistake. I own it, and I would never want
to like harm anyone, especially DV survivors like myself. But
I think that it's very easy for folks to toss

(44:46):
someone away when they already show up othered in so
many ways because they didn't want to like you to
begin with.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
Well, and that's the key. It's like, it's like it
feels like you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.
And so it gets to a point where sometimes people
feel like, well, should I even be doing this good work?
Should I even be should I even still be trying?
Or should I just sell out and make my coin?
You're a mother to two children? Yeah, And so often,

(45:14):
like when you're in the public space, you have to
say the right thing the right way, and make sure
you're not offending anyone, and make sure everyone knows that
I understand that I'm not the worst off. But like
what I hear is like you're a human who's gone
through a lot in a marginalized body, in a marginalized life.
You know, they don't teach you in Mississippi how to
get along in Los Angeles. No, So I look at

(45:34):
someone like you who's had all these successes. You've been
on the covers of magazines, You've lived people's dreams or
at least what they perceive them to be, and like,
I want to know what both what you want your
future to look like and what you think it will
look like given the conditions we're in.

Speaker 6 (45:51):
I think that my future moving forward, it is going
to be right. I'm extremely proud to be putting out
my kid's book later this summer. I'm excited for what
that means. I'm excited just for life. You know, I'm
like dating and you know, very queer, enjoying my life.

(46:16):
My mom flies in today and I get to like
spend time with her, and you know, in the last
few years, I've like reconnected with my family and we
just pretend that they're aligned with how I feel politically.

Speaker 5 (46:30):
But I've had to.

Speaker 6 (46:31):
Also learn you have to kind of meet people where
they're at and as long as I'm speaking true to
my boundaries, which I know is like going off from
what we're talking about, but it's still very much in
the era that we're in with like, how do you
survive in such a dystopian place with people that voted
to harm those that you love?

Speaker 5 (46:51):
How do you love them too? A lot of communication.

Speaker 6 (46:55):
So I say all that to say that I've had
a lot that has prepared me to get to the
moment that I'm in now. And I think for a
long time I allowed everyone's narrative to get in my head,
especially the last two years, and the narrative that played
over in my head the last two years was I
was a failure, I was washed up, I was a loser.

(47:16):
Nobody cared that I already had my moment, and I
fucked it up by being, you know, in an abusive
relationship and not leaving sooner. And obviously that's toxic because
I know that I'm saying, like this is the narratives
I was playing in my head. I don't actually believe
I could have left sooner. I'm lucky to have left

(47:37):
at all. But you know, there's all these things that
I think I would be lying if I said that
I didn't allow to get in my head and fuck
me up. But I have thankfully moved to such a
good place now where I am so hopeful for my
future and for the future of my queer community, our

(48:00):
queer community. And I know that it's scary right now
more than ever, and it probably seems weird me saying
that I am hopeful, but it's been very validating to
see a lot of people and frustrating as fuck coming
around and being like, oh, maybe you guys were right.
I'm like, listen to the gates. You know, we might

(48:20):
be loud, but like we know.

Speaker 5 (48:22):
What the fuck we're talking about.

Speaker 3 (48:24):
We've been telling you, but you know, sometimes you need
that vindication. Sometimes you have to have that I told
you so moment. But then we come together with grace
and say, yeah, I was right, but now let's move
forward together in our rightness. And you brought up your book,
and I'm really glad you brought it up because I
wanted to take some time to talk about it. It's
called Take Up Space, y'all, and I really love it

(48:44):
because it feels like both a call to arms and
like a love letter, yeah, like a soft place to land.
It's really this gift to young people who are navigating
all these complicated times. And what I think you do
so well is you really create this space both workbook,
both book for folks to talk about all these things

(49:06):
that you've just been unpacking, really to share that wisdom.
And so I guess you're a mother of too. For
young people who are facing this swirl of pressures right now.
What are some anchors that you really hope this book
gives them.

Speaker 6 (49:21):
I think that I wanted to kind of show them,
and I know it's very much in the title, but
I want them to know that, like now, more than ever,
take up space because everyone's starting to look the same
and act the same and be the same, and that
is not the.

Speaker 5 (49:41):
Point of life.

Speaker 6 (49:42):
The point of life is that we are all so
vastly different, and our differences are actually what make the
world and our communities and our families special and.

Speaker 5 (49:57):
Unique and different.

Speaker 6 (49:58):
Like I would fucking hate if I know I'm promoting
a kids will go to, oh fucking hate, But whatever
Mom's cuss, I would hate if everyone acted and you know,
was the same way. How am I going to learn
and grow? How am I going to show my kids
how to exist in the world, Because like, I'm so sorry.

(50:20):
What culture do I have from being Caucasian that I
can be proud of sharing with them?

Speaker 2 (50:27):
You know, I'm like, it's bleak.

Speaker 6 (50:30):
We need other cultures and other people and other communities
to make all of us who we are, like full
wonderful individuals, and I think that starts with our youth.
And I am really grateful for this kind of generation
that's come up, and I'm grateful for the.

Speaker 5 (50:49):
Gen xers And god, what are the kids now? I
don't even know? See I sound Oh what are the
kids now?

Speaker 3 (50:55):
What do they call them? Kids?

Speaker 5 (50:58):
Like call them? I don't remember. But I am grateful
for them because they're calling people out. They're calling people
on their bullshit, sometimes maybe loudly and wrongly, but been there,
done that. I'm guilty too. I just I want the
book to empower people. I want it to make them

(51:19):
feel less alone. I want it to be something that
they can throw in their bag and it gets messed
up and like the pages are bent. That's why it's
a paperback. It's consumable.

Speaker 6 (51:31):
I want them to just go through it and dive
in it and circle in and write in it and
do all the things and pass it along and like
have moments where you're like, wow, I didn't I didn't
know that about me, or maybe being able to see
their friends differently, and or maybe even understanding why their
parents annoy the crap out of them and maybe they
do stuff that way. But regardless of all that stuff,

(51:54):
just showing up and being yourself and knowing that there
are so many different diferent ways to exist.

Speaker 5 (52:01):
In the world, and none of them are bad unless
you're an asshole.

Speaker 3 (52:06):
Okay, preach on that. I think that is all the
serious conversation we need to have. But before we go,
we do like to end our conversations with a little
simple question, a little more culture forward. We want to
know what you are high key loving or high key hating,
or high key obsessed with. What is your high key
moment of the moment.

Speaker 6 (52:28):
I'm loving a no makeup moment because it's way too
fucking hot. I'm loving Beyonce more than ever I think,
and my country roots, but not in.

Speaker 3 (52:40):
The maga, you know, a reclamation.

Speaker 6 (52:43):
Yes, I'm also loving like my fortieth is coming up
July fifth, so I've been like thinking, like, what.

Speaker 3 (52:51):
Do I want to wear?

Speaker 5 (52:51):
How do I want to do it?

Speaker 6 (52:52):
And I've decided I'm wearing a red, white and blue dress. Yeah,
because it's Beyonce's America and I'm going to celebrate. So
I've kind of been loving that because I love how
our country has been coming together. So I've been, you know,
high key obsessed with seeing so much community and so
many people getting out and speaking up about what is

(53:16):
going on. So I've been loving, protesting absolutely well, Test holiday.
You have inspired literally millions of people. You're my fellow
Kanserian baby, little cry baby, little feeling loving activist, and
I'm so thankful for your friendship. I'm so thankful for
your presence, and I'm so thankful for this conversation. Likewise,

(53:38):
and I'm so proud of you, you know, larger bodied,
little skin ty body. We love it all because it's
you at the end of the day, and it's how
you show up. And I just have to say that,
I just I love that you are taking up space
and you're being yourself.

Speaker 5 (53:55):
And yeah, I'm very proud of you.

Speaker 3 (53:58):
Thank you. I really appreciate that take up space, y'all.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
II been What the fuck? How great of an interview
that was? I'm very very proud of you. Second interview,
Hi can't. Yeah, it was so interesting. I just I've
always known about Tests through social of course, and to
watch her career and see the good, the bad and
all the.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
Things in between.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
But to hear her reflect in be in this space
right now, in this moment, and you being able to
connect with her in a very raw and vulnerable place.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
Kudos to you both for just that moment. It was
really really beautiful.

Speaker 3 (54:37):
I really appreciate that. Thank you it. You know, at
the end, she said like, wow, I felt so safe,
Like I some of these things I've never talked about before.
And I was like, that's what I want high Key
to be a space for, like just as much as
we laugh in Kei Key, but also it's like, let's
come here and have conversations were not normally having or
that we're afraid to have. And I think she really
went there, and so I thank her for that, and

(54:59):
I think y'all for listening. What what were your favorite parts?

Speaker 4 (55:02):
Ooh, okay, well, y'all definitely digested quite a bit. I
feel like what really struck me the hardest was the
conversation that y'all had about kind of her missteps in
the past, the ways that she's like reclaiming the fact
that she is a human and makes mistakes, and that

(55:26):
like a part of that is acknowledging it and acknowledging
that she could have done better, but also realizing that
like she can't be held to the standard, she can't
hold the shame and guilt for that one fucked up
thing forever.

Speaker 2 (55:40):
A couple of fucked up things lucky.

Speaker 3 (55:42):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (55:43):
I actually I'm not that familiar with the drama because
I'd seen Test Holiday on like Cosmo magazine. That was
my knowledge of Test Holiday. So was it like really bad?
Because the way she handled it made me want to like, well, I.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Mean I did so I did a little digging too.
I was a little nosy and I was curious. Obviously,
there's multiple things she talked about. I think what I
really appreciated in the conversation where she talked about a
moment in twenty fourteen where she did an interview and
she put her foot in her mouth and said something
that was what I look back on. There was a
Daily Mail article that I found apparently she was saying

(56:18):
this happened behind the scenes while she was going walking
with the crew to the shoot.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
They were in the streets of New York and a
black man cat called her and she said in passing
that it's always normally like black men that kak car.
She never gets the same amount of like kind of
attention for white men. And she said that black men
love her, which of.

Speaker 1 (56:40):
Course that entered the and however was relayed in the
article is kind of what dragged it even more, and
so she had to apologize via Facebook, which is a
time because this is twenty fourteen, and she put out
a statement saying in a recent interview from the Guardian
has upset some people and I thought I needed to
address it publicly to try and the air. Firstly, I

(57:01):
apologize for any hurt that my flippant comments has caused.
I'll try to provide some context, which hopefully will change
the way in which it is being viewed. But I
have to also accept that being followed and quoted is
something new for me, and I'm going to occasionally say
or do things that make people unhappy. For that, I'm sorry.
Your opinions are important to me.

Speaker 3 (57:21):
I mean, I think of that comment and I'm like,
I mean a lot of black men like big girls,
and like that was her lived experience of being like, like,
that's what I think when I think of that comment.
Did you you know she apologized for it. It's not
my thing to call her out for. But it's interesting.
We did this interview right after we had finished our
last episode and we were talking about Dojakat and we

(57:42):
were talking about that scenario. I'm about to give my
shirt to Georgia Ka.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
Because she's the Icony girl.

Speaker 3 (57:47):
And I think it actually was illuminating for me, Like
I come into this show like with strongly held opinions
because that's my job, but like also the open mindedness
to like really think more more nuanced, with more nuance,
and it made me think, like, wow, these people get
canceled and shut down. It's often the most marginalized people
who are No one teaches you how to be famous,

(58:07):
No one teaches you how to not say stupid stuff,
or you know, you see athletes like blow all their
money and things like that, because there is no guidebook
to this. And when you're coming from a space she's
from Mississippi, you know, and I'm sure. I mean, I
know for a fact that she was raised by people
who had, you know, racial prejudice, and to unlearn those

(58:29):
things and to unpack those things is real, and to
do it in front of the world is hard, and
so I have to give her some grace for that.

Speaker 1 (58:36):
And that's actually you led perfectly into the question that
I appreciated the most, was you asking about grace and
who is deserving of grace? And I, like you just
mentioned I think everyone should be deserving of grace. But
I do think at some point some people are not
deserving of grace. And I'm not saying she is not
deserving of grace. I think where she's at it this time,

(58:57):
you can tell she has really reflected and has understood
her position as of the privilege that she holds, not
just because she exists in the margins, but she also
is a ciss white woman and she knows that privilege now.
And I think that she's experienced enough of life, and
unfortunately she had to learn the hard way in a
very public moment to like really learn that lesson.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
But I thought about.

Speaker 1 (59:20):
Kind of grace and really what it means at this
point of culture where it doesn't necessarily seem like there
isn't any grace in any parts of.

Speaker 2 (59:31):
This world anymore. I think we've all gotten used to
the echo chambers of like social media and just like
to who has the hottest take who who can you
know drag the person the best, who can read the
person the best, and us amplify that.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
Versus kind of really understand the nuances of someone's life.
And yeah, it's not to give excuses for anyone because
you have to learn from those mistakes. And I love
that she's she mentioned if even in my intentions were good,
that doesn't mean any And I think that was a
really important thing when you are talking about accountability and

(01:00:06):
what that means moving forward.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
And can I ask you Ryan, because you know, she
had said not everyone deserves forgiveness, and so I asked,
does everyone deserve grace? And you're saying not everyone deserves grace?
Does everyone deserve redemption?

Speaker 6 (01:00:18):
oOoOO?

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
Now redemption is what comes after accountability? And this is
where the cancel culture conversation comes up, where it's like,
if some people are irredeemable, then what are we doing?
I don't know, Well, does everyone deserve a cancel culture?

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
Even a real thing?

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Like I don't believe it's a real thing unless like
I can't really think of one person that has like
been successfully canceled with meaning their livelihoods have been kind
of diminished, like they are like completely out of the
public zeitgeist, staying like that. Yeah, I just I don't
know what that looks like because they may go out
and leave for about you know, a year or two

(01:00:52):
and some change, but then they come right back with
a rebrand and like say they've went to some mental
health facility and they've become like all good andy again.
So it's like, I redemption is a different thing for
me because I think with everything, no matter if you've
done the work as far as accountability and understanding, it
does not mean that everyone is going to forgive you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
It does not mean that you are going to like
get back to your rightful place that you once were in.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
I'm sorry. That's a consequence of your action. And I
think a lot of people forget about that. They think, oh, well,
I've apologized, I've done all the things, but okay, what
do I get for that? And that's where I know
you didn't do it for the right reasons. You didn't
learn this lesson for the right reason because you were
expecting to get right back into the seat of power,
our privilege that you were already existing in, instead of

(01:01:41):
realizing that actually a consequence of my action, unfortunately I
have to learn this lesson. But that may mean I
may never have the access that I had at one point.

Speaker 4 (01:01:50):
H girl, I think that's so hot because over the
weekend I listened to the Ezra Klein Show. He specifically
had Sarah McBride on, Oh, I've.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
Been waiting to talk about this.

Speaker 4 (01:02:03):
I cried so hard that entire conversation because I think
she is probably one of the best leaders in how
liberal thinking people should be treating our relationships with grace,
with redemption.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
I believe, I believe so.

Speaker 7 (01:02:22):
I have born witness to change that once seems so
impossible to me as a kid, that it was almost incomprehensible,
not only become possible but become a reality in large
part because of grace in our politics, and yes, because
I was willing to extend that grace to.

Speaker 4 (01:02:36):
Others, because ultimately I believe that not everyone is redeemable,
but it is a far smaller percentage of people who
are completely irredeemable, whose minds you're never going to change,
who are never going to open their hearts, then the
percentage of people who don't align with you on everything,
who ultimately you push out and talking about cancer culture

(01:03:00):
like it doesn't exist in the ways that we thought
it would as a mechanism when we first all started
realizing our power and holding people accountable. It doesn't get
rid of them, it doesn't like close everything off. But
what it does do is, ultimately, if we're not allowing
people the grace to come back and find a pathway

(01:03:22):
on their own. If you're forever canceled, if everybody's gonna
hate you for that one thing you did, you're pushing
somebody further to a train of thought and ultimately right
now a political party, but a train of thought that
exists around Yeah. Are you sick of being told that
you're not right or you're not pure? That's an American.

(01:03:45):
I think there needs to be some balance because we
need to hold people accountable and like Ryan said, those
people need to realize that you're not going to have
the same things that you have before. But I feel
like if we amplify every miss app that every person takes,
we're just playing the boy who cried Wolves with our
own enemies.

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
I think for the Sarah McBride interview of it all,
I appreciated a lot of what she said, right, but
there is a part of me and this is where
it can get a little complicated. White liberalism is a
really interesting thing because I think a lot what she
was saying is actually a really prime example of white liberalism,
and to be honest, a lot of times that has

(01:04:28):
not really worked for us, and I think oftentimes a
lot of the ways that she talked about in that
interview around like using the Civil Rights movement as an
example of what it means to like be strategic is
like the bare minimum of white people in understanding what
a like what that movement actually was. And so for me,
it was like I was able to like hear a

(01:04:50):
lot what she was saying in that moment, but I
also understood a lot of the kind of the backlash
that she received from a lot of trans community, especially
trans community of color, black folks, people who color all
the things of like why that's a little problematic, and
trying to kind of not place the blame, but trying

(01:05:10):
to like tell folks, well, you just got we got
to be a little bit smarter of how we do.
You're blaming the victim, Yeah, you're blaming them in a way.
And I don't think she meant it in that way.
And I don't think it depends on how you are
really viewing her altogether, Like do you even like her?

Speaker 2 (01:05:26):
Is she a representative of you?

Speaker 3 (01:05:27):
I met Sarah McBride. I've interviewed her before years and
years ago at the White House. She was a friend
my friend Jacob Tobia. She was a close friend of
jacob tobia, and she always played, she assimilated. Even the
way she speaks, I always found it personally. And this
is no shade, Sarah. I love you, robotic and inauthentic
and very much like playing politician, and to play politician

(01:05:49):
is to assimilate. And let's play both sides. But this
is life and death. It's no longer life and death
for her because she's a US congresswoman, but for my
trans partner it is. But what I also think about is, like,
you know, this weekend, we were up in Vermont for
my partner's grandmother's celebration of life, and there were all
these people who knew my partner. Yeah, it was great
to be in the mountains, love nature, hello, But it

(01:06:10):
was wild to see all these people who knew my
partner pre transition. And not all of them were great
with pronouns, and not all of them were great with
a lot of things, but they were accepting and they
loved her. And so instead of being like, well, fuck you,
what do you don't use heat pronouns even though you
haven't known me since I was ten, it was like
a gentle correction, or maybe there wasn't even a correction.

(01:06:31):
Because they were talking about how they were accepting her,
and that actually was a great starting point. Not everyone's
going to have the right language, And I think this
is what we did as woke people, as we policed language,
and we stopped allowing And this is where the intention
thing gets tricky too. We stopped allowing intention to mean anything.
Positive intention and negative actions don't cancel each other out,

(01:06:54):
but it does build a foundation of understanding where that
is why redemption is possible because you are trying. I
didn't used to believe redemption was something that everyone deserves,
But the thing is, if they don't, then what's the alternative?

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
It's a yes, and for me because I think it's
a beautiful thing that you're trying. But what does it
mean when the person that is actively trying, still behind
a voting curtain, votes for the president that we currently have.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
What does that mean?

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
Because are you actually trying when you're not thinking of
like the full picture, you're only thinking of a.

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
Pronoun show And they're like, oh, oh, but I still
voted for this man.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
Yeah, you may regret it now because of the actions,
But guess what, it's too late, but isn't too late?

Speaker 3 (01:07:36):
But that's the thing. So should we More than half
of America voted for Donald Trump. So if it's too late,
then we'll never win again, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:07:44):
I mean it's too late in the sense of like
you can't take that back. And I hope you're actively
like learning right now, but a lot of people are
not a lot of times people just stop at well,
I'm gonna try to get your pronouns right, and that's fine.

Speaker 2 (01:07:59):
They stop there. There's no actual movement past that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:02):
And I think just because people are challenging you to
be more and be better and to create a society
that is better, it doesn't just stop at one place.

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
It continues to evolve. But people have to be open
to that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
And I think when you start to realize that people
at the end of the day are only like, well,
I feel like, at my core, I'm a good person
and I don't think I deserve this critique or anything.
I'm going to continue to just shut you out and
then maybe possibly swing the other way. That's a problem
that's not really actually like doing anything that's helping both sides.

Speaker 2 (01:08:34):
It's like, how much are you expecting?

Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
You know, folks who exist in these Margins trans folks
specifically to continue to like try to push and make
space for themselves when the other side is not actively
trying to help them build.

Speaker 2 (01:08:49):
That space for them. They're actually just like why I'm
doing the bare minimum here? I'm trying like, like, what,
how do we challenge people to do more.

Speaker 3 (01:08:57):
I'm excited for our converse we're going to have with Tourmaline,
who just did the Marsha P. Johnson autobiography, because I've
been reading that and it's a great book and it's
making me think about that where it's like, these are
people who, to test his point, took up space, and
it always is incumbent on us to take up space
and to demand to be seen in to demand to

(01:09:18):
be respected. And I don't think that's going to change,
and I don't think it's right, but I don't think
it's going to change. And so if it doesn't change,
and it is incumbent on us to make that change,
like I'm going to do it.

Speaker 4 (01:09:31):
I guess. I want to bring this back to another
point that was brought up in your conversation with Tests,
which was how she was sharing parts of herself with
society that did not fit their perceptions of what she's
allowed to be or do or say. So I want
to acknowledge actually everything that you said, Ryan, I do

(01:09:53):
think as marginalized people, it is so frustrating to have
to constantly fight to take up space to exist. But
it's also very difficult because the best visibility you can get,
the best human connection relation you can make, is by
making this huge impact and sharing parts of yourself with

(01:10:13):
the world. And unfortunately, the more you do that, the
more the world builds up a picture about who you
are and how you should be representing for the people
that you represent. And to bring this back to test holiday,
it was like hearing about her sharing with the world
that she had disordered eating and people being like, you

(01:10:33):
can't be inerrextic if you're fat, or like this is ridiculous,
this is a joke. And it's very difficult because you know,
we all have these perceptions about what makes somebody something
and how they need to represent for a community. When
I think we should all remember that before anybody learned
how to be a brand or a representative, you just

(01:10:56):
learned how to share yourself. That's usually what rockets people
in to this sort of celebrity is just being like, oh, yeah,
by the way, I have bendy bones Like that really
hit hard for me in the conversation specifically because I
have shared parts of myself.

Speaker 3 (01:11:12):
Yeah, And so I mean I got started. The reason
that I do what I do is because I started
a very viral campaign against the clothing company Abercrombie and
Fitch because they had said they didn't want plus sized
people and people of color wearing their clothing. Well, I
was a fat kid who didn't belong in those clothes,
and I knew how harmful that rhetoric was because that
was the rhetoric that had caused me to be innarexic

(01:11:32):
and to be anorexic in a body that people didn't
see as representing the body of an anorexic person. And
the problem was, the more I began to lose weight,
the more people began to celebrate me, and it really
fed into this disordered eating and eating disorder that almost
took my life. And so I remember when Tess opened
up about her eating disorder and her calling me and

(01:11:53):
talking about what it was like to do that, and
I remember feeling for her because it is such a
devil edged sword. Now I'm a person who I spent
most of my life in a large body. We talked
about being the fattest people.

Speaker 4 (01:12:03):
In the room.

Speaker 3 (01:12:04):
We were, you know, we really were. And now I
weigh less than half of what I did when I
saw her last, and that's been tough. And I really
appreciated the conversation we had where she literally I was like,
how do I stay accountable? And she literally said I
don't know. And that was a very telling answer to me.

Speaker 1 (01:12:23):
Oh that was actually a really powerful moment because I,
you know, during that I reflected on my own personal journey, right,
and not even really the fact that she even had
the language to say that she had eating disorder when
I in real time in a therapy session. At one moment,
I remember talking about my relationship to food and like

(01:12:45):
the ways that I would try to detox or try to,
like just for my mental try to like get the
food out of my system. And it wasn't necessarily through
like throwing up or the classic whatever moments that you
would think that are connected.

Speaker 2 (01:12:59):
To eat disorders.

Speaker 1 (01:13:01):
And my my therapist was like, that actually sounds like
disordered eating.

Speaker 2 (01:13:05):
And I was like, what do you what? What? Like
that doesn't girl?

Speaker 1 (01:13:09):
No, I know what disordered eating well, that was on
the grassy when Emma was stuck in fried and her
instead of eating them.

Speaker 2 (01:13:16):
That was not Emma, but it was.

Speaker 1 (01:13:18):
It actually changed so much for me because it really
made me think about how my relationship to food was.
It is very like connected to emotions and connected to
a wanting a feeling that is connected to wanting to
be empty or like emptiness in some ways. And hearing
her talk about that, especially as a fat person, and

(01:13:39):
especially because ED isn't necessarily tied to fat bodies at
all publicly, it brought back these memories around my own
personal experiences with that, which is always very tricky, especially
as now I feel like I am on a specific
journey and I am doing it. I feel like all

(01:14:01):
the times I've tried to lose weight, it was always
because of me thinking that, oh it was going to
be the key to me finding a person, of being
in a romantic or sexual relationship. It was the key
to you know, all these things that in my brain.
And I feel like, now I'm in this moment where
I'm like, I'm doing something for me if I like

(01:14:22):
just to see what happens and if my body becomes
the body that, whatever it tends to be, I'm gonna
let my body just simply exist. And I have never
really just let my body simply exist in my own brain,
I think I publicly it seems like, you know, I'm
like this fat fears person, you know, who dress is
cute and knows all these things. But sometimes there's days

(01:14:44):
where I wake up and I don't feel that way,
and I do look at myself in the mirror, and
I do have to kind of actively tell myself and
even while I'm working out, like why are you doing this?
Like are you doing this to just try to get
rid of these underlying insecurities that you.

Speaker 2 (01:14:59):
Can work through the therapy? Are you actually doing this for yourself?

Speaker 1 (01:15:03):
And it's a constant cycle, and that relationship with your
body is just so so important to and I appreciate
that even for her, it still feels like a journey
that never will stop.

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
It's just ongoing always.

Speaker 3 (01:15:17):
Ryan, We've talked a little bit about this, and I
think you are in a really good headspace about it.
But the last thing I kind of want to say
about the interview is I've been just thinking more and
more about her book, Take Up Space, y'all, and I'm
thinking about this story. When I first moved to New York.
It was like my second day in the city and
I was seventeen years old. Eighteen years old, and I
went to Grand Central Station because I wanted to see

(01:15:38):
the clock and I was super disappointed by it because
it's really small. And I was like, what this has
been like the movies? And so I'm walking out and
this unhoused woman just looks at me and said, take
up space, boy, And I was like, excuse me, And
it was like it was so wild. She just was like,
why do you make yourself so small? You're not a

(01:15:59):
small person. You have light behind you. Take up spacebook.
And I remember I sat and I had this conversation
with her, and I said, like, I asked her how
she was doing. She started crying. She's like, no one's
asked me how I was doing for years. And it
was like she was like some angel that came down.
And for all of these things we talk about accountability,
all these things, transrepresentation, all these things, the best thing

(01:16:20):
that we can do to fight for ourselves is to
be ourselves unapologetically despite what other people might think about ourselves.
To show up for ourselves period first and foremost, because
at the end of the day, this is our life
and we're not just here for ourselves. We have to,
you know, do good work and help others. But at
the end of the day, like if we just show

(01:16:42):
up authentically, what we do is create permission for others
to do it too. And I think that's something the
three of us do so well. Is there's no one
way to be queer, there's no one way to be black,
there's no one way to be anything. And Tess's book
is such a simple but important reminder to take up
space because it's it's more than just about being seen.

(01:17:03):
It's about the permission that that visibility creates for someone else,
and the fact that when we realized that and we
all start to take that permission to be ourselves, we'll
create a better and safer world for ourselves to do it.
And I just want to thank Test for being here
with us this week, and for being so vulnerable and
for sharing in that way. And I'll say this, any

(01:17:25):
nasty comments I'm comming for you, say something nice about
Tests because she deserves it.

Speaker 4 (01:17:31):
Yeah, we're here to take up space, bitches. I'm gonna
double Park for the rest of my life.

Speaker 2 (01:17:36):
The crazy thing is this how you known from the South.

Speaker 1 (01:17:38):
When Ben said that person was like, well take up space, boy,
I was.

Speaker 2 (01:17:43):
My first reaction was to be like she white or black?

Speaker 1 (01:17:48):
I was like, I just need to know.

Speaker 4 (01:17:50):
I need to know the context of that boy tacked
on right there at the end.

Speaker 3 (01:17:56):
It was a black boy like my Like my great
grandmother used to give me. She was born to an
enslaved woman and she would give me that boy, go
get me a switch.

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):
It was that kind of love that only appropriate.

Speaker 2 (01:18:10):
Boy, I'm looking for us from a black grandmother.

Speaker 4 (01:18:13):
And that has to come with a switch.

Speaker 2 (01:18:15):
Aha. Ah, such a great conversation.

Speaker 3 (01:18:18):
All right, when we get back, we'll get into our
high key moments of the week. All right, y'all, it's
time for our favorite part of the show.

Speaker 4 (01:18:29):
What are you high key about? Let's dish. Who wants
to start? Who's the highest key?

Speaker 2 (01:18:33):
Oh? Man, I feel like you got a good high key.

Speaker 3 (01:18:36):
I actually changed my high key from what I told
you it was going to be. I'm feeling high key American, American, American.
I am American, and I'm proud to be voting today.
It's today for me. Not for when you're listening for
the next mayor of New York City, and we have
this incredibly inspiring opportunity to elect a thirty three year

(01:18:57):
old brown man to be the next mayor of our
great city, the greatest city in the world. Soohan Mamdani,
I'm going to say it right, so it don't sound
like Cuomo is running as a Democratic socialist to be
the mayor of New York City. And polling is showing
that because of rank choice voting, if you don't rank Quomo,
and I hope you didn't, he has a real shot

(01:19:18):
of winning. And for a while I've been so turned
off by politics because I'm just so sick of it.
I know these people, I know what they actually stand for,
and I know what they say they stand for. I
know what they really believe, and I know what they
believe when there's money in their pockets, and I'm just
disgusted by the state of progressive politics. I feel like
there is no one who is lighting a fire. And

(01:19:41):
then enter this man and you see for the first time,
young people caring about a mayoral election in this city.
And it reminds me that, like all it takes sometimes
is one person to be the spark, and I think
this man has the potential to be the spark that
reminds people that progressive values are popular, that fighting for
things we believe in is popular, that economic populism is popular.

(01:20:04):
And so I'm like, just hike hopeful that we're going
to have a new exciting mayor because if he wins
the Democratic primaries, he most likely will become the mayor
of New York. It's New York. But I'm also just
hopeful about a wave of people being excited to come
and be authentic again in politics and fight for what
they actually believe in, and not talk like a robot,
but talk like a person, and put the middle class,

(01:20:27):
the working class, the poor people first for once, because
those are the people who make our country great. America
is already great, and it's not because of anything to
do that's with what's happening in DC. It's because of
all the beautiful people. And so I'm really excited and
I that's what I'm hikey about this week.

Speaker 2 (01:20:44):
Awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:20:45):
If you called yourself a cuomo sexual in twenty twenty,
you this is your time to make up for it.

Speaker 3 (01:20:49):
Hah.

Speaker 2 (01:20:51):
Call yourself a cuomo sexual.

Speaker 4 (01:20:53):
Many Americans experienced moments of being at least Andrew curious,
if not fully quomo sexual.

Speaker 2 (01:20:59):
I agree with you.

Speaker 6 (01:21:00):
I feel like I'm a cuomo sexual too.

Speaker 3 (01:21:02):
Yeah, I'm talking to you, lost culturista girlies. Go when
Yang out there, cuomo sexual? All right? I mean no
reduction for you, right, it rolls off the tongue.

Speaker 2 (01:21:15):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 (01:21:16):
It might be my tramps damp.

Speaker 3 (01:21:17):
Oh my god, it's just everything sexual anywhere sexual. Well,
I mean, I guess to take it for my high key.
This is probably gonna be one of the only hi keys.
I don't talk about sex.

Speaker 4 (01:21:35):
That's a lie. Because I just finished Big Mouth Welcome
Back Friends to the final season called big Mouth. It
it's the end of a very gross era and I'm
so hikey about that show. That was such a beautiful
like such a beautiful show altogether. Like what a way

(01:21:59):
to stick a landing about the end of something and
talk about how it's the opening that something else.

Speaker 2 (01:22:05):
I'm watching it, so I don't want to hear. I'm
literally watching it right now. Okay, Okay, I don't want
to hear.

Speaker 4 (01:22:11):
No spoilers. But everybody dies.

Speaker 2 (01:22:14):
I mean, but they've done a ton of episodes like
that where they've all died when they've gotten O.

Speaker 3 (01:22:18):
You know, this show was supposed to stop like four times,
like they keep giving us the new last season. I'm like,
are we gonna get a down to nabby style movie next?

Speaker 2 (01:22:26):
Like?

Speaker 3 (01:22:27):
I need more this. I almost said something I can't
say on the radio. It's said, I need more teenage sex.

Speaker 2 (01:22:40):
We are not.

Speaker 4 (01:22:41):
Meeting the groomer allegations today?

Speaker 2 (01:22:44):
Oh god no, because I have been. I've been like
turning this show on just like his background noise.

Speaker 1 (01:22:50):
And then I found myself actually starting to pay attention,
and I'm like, wait, this show is disgusting but so funny.

Speaker 4 (01:22:57):
Well, and I think it does a really good job
of humanizing a lot of the weird parts that we
all grew out of. Like there's just been so many
episodes that talk about little things that I was like, Oh,
I thought I was the only one who felt that way,
or I thought I was the only one who learned this,
And it's it actually is kind of strange for a

(01:23:19):
cartoon to be doing an adult cartoon to be doing
a better job at exploring sex said and the development
of humanity our relationships than anything I got in the
Civics or sex aid class.

Speaker 1 (01:23:33):
I mean, it's not an explore sex said, but shout
out to Steven Universe, oh because of that act is therapy.
That is a therapy in U or BoJack Horseman.

Speaker 3 (01:23:41):
I love adult like I love adult animation that makes
commentary but like makes it accessible through this format that
feels so nostalgic, but it's actually talking about something real
and like sex education but not just that, but like
also like the openness to have conversations, to say the
words to like think about if we're gonna have kids,
how we're going to talk about those things with our kids.

(01:24:03):
That is a great show and it's so sad that
it's over.

Speaker 4 (01:24:05):
I know, I know, but I just have to be
happy that it's over because I don't want them to
come back with any corny spinoffs that missed the mark.

Speaker 2 (01:24:12):
Well, I mean they didn't like Human Resources.

Speaker 1 (01:24:16):
I liked you wrong.

Speaker 4 (01:24:16):
I really liked it too, but it was obviously like
spinoff teas. It was like, yes, this is great, how
can we fit all these cute, quirky monsters.

Speaker 3 (01:24:26):
And I'm still about it, but big Mouth is my hike.
It's like The Office meets monsters. Inc. It's it's a moment.

Speaker 1 (01:24:32):
Yes, I was just thinking Monsters Inc. What a great reference.

Speaker 2 (01:24:35):
Yes this, Yes, Wait, Ryan, what are you hikey about today? Okay,
So I have a couple of things that I'm hikey about.
So my first thing, I'm gonna start with Noah's Ark
the movie.

Speaker 3 (01:24:44):
One of the things that's carrying me the most about
being gay was the idea of missing out on being
a dead.

Speaker 5 (01:24:50):
Well you always been my daddy.

Speaker 2 (01:24:52):
I'm so so excited.

Speaker 1 (01:24:54):
Noah's Arc is literally, when anyone asks me like representation
on television, when the first time you see it, when's
the time you saw yourself? I always say it's Noah's Ark.
Patrick Ian Pulk, the director of the Creator, is someone
that has been Literally, he's I mean, he's the godfather
or the grandfather of black queer kind of like cinema
and like our stories when you really think about it.

(01:25:16):
But Noah's Ark the movie is back after I mean
such a long time. I think it just started streaming
on paramounts and it's so so good. So many of
my wonderful friends are a part of it, and also
we're a part of the creation of it. Shout out
to Michael Chin, who was an incredible development exec on
it at the time. And then of course some of

(01:25:38):
my friends are a part of the soundtrack The Freaky Boys,
Uh Victor. So many really incredible black queer artists, And
just the beautiful like moment that Patrick has been able
to create with this show and this film, and then
being able to kind of like put other people.

Speaker 2 (01:25:56):
On it's just like type outthing to me.

Speaker 1 (01:26:00):
My second moment is an artist that goes by the
name of Cassandra Coleman. She is someone that literally I
was on my balcony getting ready for an interview that
we have coming up, and I was listening to their album,
but she came on right after them. And she has
this new song called Coming of Age Say, and she's

(01:26:30):
been backed by Jack Attanov and Bleachers and she's a
signwriter out of like Tennessee, and she is just absolutely incredible.
And I always love a folk pop song, anything with
an acoustic guitar. Bitch my Pussy b puran so, you know,
speaking of sex set and so I I just I

(01:26:52):
really really appreciate this song and just this this beautiful moment,
and I don't know, I want everyone to listen to
because I literally wrote her on Instagram it was just
like thank you for this song because I just remember
being like a teenager and at the time it was
like Paramour for me and will sing the Hailey Williams.
But I just remember being like a teenager, like sulking

(01:27:13):
in my bed when anything went wrong and just having
music as my downtrack and being like, I'm the main
character of my story right now. And this song Coming
of Age is foresuore that song, and she's just a
next generation singer songwriter to watch out for for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:27:29):
We love the songs that make you feel like you're
in an indie movie and you have your own soundtrack
you're walking. I mean, Bleachers does that a lot. Jack
does that with so many songs. But like the old
like Ingram Michaelson and Sarah Brellas and all these types
of folks. See women who just make great music, you
gotta love it.

Speaker 1 (01:27:44):
Yeah, And apparently she's going to do a couple of
live shows coming up in the couple months in August
i Lallapalooza and Outside Lands, So if you're around, you
should check her out. I'm really a fan and maybe
I'm gonna DM her and just be like, girl, I
would love to interview you. And that's my thing for
this show, Like I want to be able to like
talk to like those folks before they break out, to

(01:28:05):
really see where their head is, and then like you know,
years later, get reconnected and like have that kind of
full circle moment.

Speaker 4 (01:28:12):
So and then we can be like, yeah, remember when
you came on our show and talked about how black
men always love you.

Speaker 2 (01:28:24):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (01:28:25):
Yes, we're not just following culture, we're making culture period.

Speaker 2 (01:28:30):
And yeah that's what who I'm hikey about. Noah's Ark
and Cassandra Coleman, thanks for doing the work.

Speaker 3 (01:28:35):
Yay, Okay, I think that's our show right. Yeah, I
wanted to be another episode down. And then next week
is the fourth of July Independence Days.

Speaker 2 (01:28:47):
As you just said, I'm American. Yeah, like I'm hikey
about America.

Speaker 4 (01:28:52):
Fuck for the July.

Speaker 3 (01:28:54):
Well, we don't know if we don't know if Zuron's
one yard. So you got to give me a couple
of days to figure out what I really feel about it.

Speaker 2 (01:29:01):
My friends, we have done it.

Speaker 4 (01:29:10):
I will be your Democratic nominee to the.

Speaker 2 (01:29:13):
Mayor of New York City.

Speaker 3 (01:29:16):
But I think there's no one better to talk about
America right now than Tourmaline, who is an amazing artist
and author of the new book Marcia, The Joy and
Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson, And we're going to have
a very great conversation with her. I can't wait.

Speaker 2 (01:29:32):
I'm obsessed. I've been listening to interviews that she's been doing,
like in promotion of this book, and that brain of
hers insane, so otherworldly, and so I'm very very excited
to have her grace her show.

Speaker 7 (01:29:45):
Y'all.

Speaker 2 (01:29:45):
This is gonna be great all of us.

Speaker 3 (01:29:47):
I know we're really gonna have to bring our a games.

Speaker 2 (01:29:50):
I know, I know.

Speaker 1 (01:29:51):
But that's the show for this week, y'all. I hope
you have a wonderful fucking day. Please get out of here.

Speaker 3 (01:29:57):
Yeah, stay messy, stay obsessed, and stay.

Speaker 2 (01:30:00):
Hi key hikeeik.

Speaker 3 (01:30:03):
If you're high key loving our show, then take a
second to follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode.
And while you're at it, rate us, drop a review
and tell your friend Cis.

Speaker 1 (01:30:12):
And of course, if you want to keep the high
key key going, join us on Instagram and TikTok at
high Key here and on Patreon, where We're dropping bonus
content every single wake see there.

Speaker 3 (01:30:26):
Hi Key is a production of iHeart Podcasts as part
of the Outspoken Network. This show is created and executive
produced by Fano, Keith Ryan, Mitchell, e Vey Oddley, and
Spoke Media. Our showrunner is Tyler Green. Our producers are
Jenna Burnett and Tess Ryan. Our video lead is Bo Delmore,
and our audio engineer is Sammy Syrett. Executive producers for
Spoke Media are Travis Laman Ballinger and Aleah Tavicolian. Our

(01:30:50):
iHeart team is Jess Crime, Chicch and Sierra Kaiser.

Speaker 1 (01:30:53):
Our theme music is by Kayan Hersey and our show
art is by Work by Work, with photography by Eric Parter.

Speaker 3 (01:30:58):
Our marketing lead is your own ware from Shorefire Media

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