Tourmaline: What Is Your Freedom Dream?

What does it mean to celebrate freedom in a country where so many are still fighting for it? This July 4th, HIGHKEY! welcomes legendary activist, filmmaker, and author Tourmaline for a conversation that reclaims joy, protest, and the radical legacy of Marsha P. Johnson. The hosts unpack Black queer history, trans resistance, and the messy truth about who gets remembered—and who gets erased. Tourmaline shares what she’s learned from elders like Miss Major and Marsha, and why dreaming big is not a luxury, but a survival strategy. Come for the queer history lesson, stay for the nail art, revenge fantasies, and glitter-fueled joy that fuels our fight.

 

If you’re HIGHKEY! vibing with us, come hang with us on Patreon! We’re dropping bonus content, behind-the-scenes tea, exclusive group hangs — basically, the HighKiKi.

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HIGHKEY! is a production of iHeartPodcasts, as part of the Outspoken network. The show is created and executive produced by Ben O’Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, Yvie Oddly, and Spoke Media.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
That's the freedom dream that I think about, why we
have a Marshall, why we have a buyer resting, why
we have so many that came before us.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
And I think that goes in tandem of that reminder.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Of like girl like if I if I just want
to watch here, I just want to watch love Islan,
I want to watch love.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Onunch An episode is my queer joy.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
I got it.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
It is.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (00:30):
Hello, and welcome to HIKEI.

Speaker 5 (00:35):
Oh my god, I have ran Michel and I am
evy oddly now ahead of July fourth, today we are
going to talk about America kind of with the one
and only Tomaline.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Now, if you don't know, she's an artist, activist and
author of Marcia The Joy of Defiance of Marsha P.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Johnson.

Speaker 4 (00:54):
But first, let's have a little hike key shall we?

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Hi?

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Hi, everybody, guys.

Speaker 4 (01:01):
I'm so sore. I have like such a wild day.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
My partner got t boned, like someone ran a red
light and like t boned the car and it happened
like two miles from where I live, and I didn't
want to wait for an uber. So it was the
hottest day of the year, one hundred degrees and I
literally ran two miles without stopping and I've never ran
two minutes And I was like, who is this superhero

(01:26):
queer that came out? So like I get to the
ambulance and I'm like, hey, are you okay? And my
partner's like, yeah, I'm good. I was like, I just
ran two miles. You're like, get it and move over.
I need I need some space in this bed. She
was like, do you do you need the ice pack
that I have? It's like I might, I really might.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Actually everyone on the street was like, is that the flash? No,
that's just some gay boy running.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
I didn't even have underwear on, so I don't know
what that looked like in my life.

Speaker 4 (01:51):
Oh, the thing was thanging. You were running the dinosaur.
That's why everyone was staring.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
It's like, oh my gosh, well I remember when you
told us that was happening, and like you were like
literally rushing over there, and I was like, oh my god,
like hopefully everything's okay. But then, like even made a
great point in the meeting that we were in, like
having a car in New York just feels wild like
it does that. It feels like it yet another reason
to not have a car in New York because of
the possibilities of that.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
We got our.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Car at the beginning of the pandemic. We drive just
to Prius, you know, twenty thirteen hybrid, and I do
love the freedom of having it, and I love taking
road trips. We just got back from Vermont. Like I do,
think more people in New York have a car than
you realize. They just don't live in Manhattan.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Is your car in the shop? Because sea bone was
t bone.

Speaker 4 (02:34):
Mean That means she like got she got, took it
to the side. It's like the top was coming back.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
That's what I thought. So is your now? Is your
car in the shop? Now? Not?

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Yeah, it's a whole thing because not only did she
do that, but then this woman was not well okay,
and so this is what we learned later on. So
my partner rolls down the window because the woman comes
up to her window and she slaps her across the face. Okay, wait,
that woman that hit her, that ran the red light
slapped her across the face. Wow, okay wild. This gets

(03:03):
wild and then leaves the scene and then calls her
family who lives in the area, and they all come back.
And then that's why I was running because my partner's like,
the family just showed up, and I was like, oh shit,
I'm gonna have to fight, Like so I'm like running.
She's like hiding out in the back of the ambulance.
But the family comes and they're like, yeah, unfortunately, like
this is something she does. And she had two kids

(03:25):
in the back seat, both unrestrained, and you could just
tell her they were really struggling. So unfortunately it was
wild and someone called the police. The police never showed up,
so the EMT is just like, we're hiding her in
the back seat.

Speaker 4 (03:39):
So's yeah, it.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Was a lot, and I'm like, that's police on every
corner in New York City, Like why did they not
show up?

Speaker 4 (03:45):
Do you know why?

Speaker 3 (03:45):
So we end up going to the police station the
file police report because our insurance company told us we
had to, and we show up and they're all just
sitting in there. Apparently like half the cars didn't have
a c so they just decided they weren't gonna work.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
Oh girl, get your ass on the street, Like bring
back some lieutenant dangle ass shorts. You better put on
your little thigh slappers, and you better fucking walk the street.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
And that's annoying.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
You have a billion dollar budget and your cars don't
have AC, but you're paying these people, you know, eighty
dollars an hour. Get out of here. And the sergeant
was like, we're busy. I was like, no, you're not.
I'm not one of these people. I'm gonna carrying you
right here. You're about to take my please statement, thanks
very much.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
I like that. This whole story starts though with like,
I'm so sorry. You're like your partner got slapped in
the face and t boned in ninety degree weather, nearly
podcast exhausted.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
I immediately clocked that too. I was like, yeah, were
you in the car?

Speaker 3 (04:40):
All right, let's wrap this up because today we have
a very special guest, Ryan.

Speaker 4 (04:44):
Do you want to tell us who's joining us when
we get back?

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Oh my god, we have the legend in the moment.
She is an author.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
She was also in the Times one hundred Most Influential People,
but recently she's coming on the show to talk about
her new book, Marsha, The Joy and Defiance of Marsha.
P Johns can't wait to have Tourmaline on the show, and.

Speaker 4 (05:03):
I says, stay tuned, we'll be right back.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Hike you All right, y'all, welcome back.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
To hikey Okay, So listen, you know, there's been so
much conversation around Americana recently, you know, shout out to Beyonce,
but we have some complicated feelings around this holiday and
we've been asking ourselves is there really anything to celebrate?
And so I guess today we're going to dig into
some big ideas right around America, and specifically, I think

(05:36):
we should talk about black America, our America, queer America
and really what that means, because it's all these things
at all these different intersections.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
And so I'm excited right then, Yeah, exciting.

Speaker 4 (05:49):
Yes, And we're not doing it just us.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
We have someone really special here to help us dig
in as well.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
You know, this person needs no introduction.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
This person is one of times one hundred most influential
piece people. I mean, they have worked with organizations from
the Silvio rivera law project of Queers for Economic Justice,
and I mean they're an author, they're just kind of
iconic eighties out of people.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
Who's about to be here? All right?

Speaker 4 (06:14):
Well, please welcome to the show. Welcome to Hike Tourmaline.
Thank you so much for having me for the big ideas.
My brain is feeling smooth but ready to dive in.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
I've never heard of brain being described as smooth.

Speaker 4 (06:31):
So you haven't heard of smooth brain.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
No, I've never heard it. I immediately thought about a
baby though.

Speaker 4 (06:38):
Yes, you know, I like that. We've had Tourmaline, We've
had you on for two seconds, and already, even with
smooth brain, you are still teaching the kids some important shit.

Speaker 6 (06:48):
Thank you, Thank you, Like what's smooth to the occasion, Well,
we're going to talk.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
About a little more than smooth rain today. You know,
we're so excited to have you here today because when
we talked about we're like, oh man, we have an
episode coming out the day before July fourth, and we
knew we wanted to have a bit more of a
nuanced conversation around the state of our country right now,
in this very unique and difficult moment, but especially as

(07:16):
we think about it through the lens of queer history
and our queer Black history. And of course, because we
were talking about queer history in queer Black history, you
were the first person who came to mind.

Speaker 4 (07:29):
You are a queer.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
Historian in your new book, which I will hold up
right here is called Marcia The Joy in Defiance of
Marcia P.

Speaker 4 (07:37):
Johnson, which I just finished myself.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
It was so incredible to read it as a black
queer person, as an activist, and as a New Yorker
to read this book that is such a love letter
to a real beginning of the queer liberation movement as
we know it today. And I know for a fact
that you are a Marsha P. Johnson, you know historian,

(08:02):
and I have followed your work for so many years.
And I, you know, was right outside at the Brooklyn
Museum when we were you know, it's fifteen thousand of
us there celebrating, you know, screaming for Raquel and all
these other incredible leaders. So I know there's been a journey.
But how did this book really come to be?

Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (08:20):
So I have been blessed to be hot on the
heels of Marsha P. Johnson's spirit for about twenty years.
I moved to New York when I was nineteen in
two thousand and two, and soon after found my life
on the Christopher Street peers right. I was hanging out
in all sorts of hours with other young people, and
I joined this group Fierce, which was about young lgbtqia

(08:42):
plus people of color taking up space loudly and proudly
despite resident harassment, police intervention, a proposed curfew, like we
were supposed to leave even though we were breathing life
into this place. So for me, it was in that
kind of organizing art contacts because we were fabulous, like
we still are, but in that moment, like I was

(09:04):
learning about our fabulousness. You know, people were talking about
Marcia this and Marcia that, and I wanted to know
who is this person Marsha. So I started to get
close to the people who knew and loved her over
a period of twenty years now, whether it was al Michaels,
who is her nephew who I met in twenty eleven,

(09:26):
or before that, Randy Wicker, her roommate and dear friend,
or Augusta Machado who was a street queen in Times
Square in the early sixties alongside Marcia. To me, it
was amazing to find this constellation of people who knew
Marsia in different elements of her life. Jimmy Kimichia, who

(09:46):
was her director in Hot Peaches and who was in
my film Happy Birthday, Marcia and I was just hot
on the heels, and then I started to do some
things like write about her and do teachings for my community.
And I wrote for when I was at the Selvi
Vera Law Project, we did legal services for incarcerated members
of our community. So we had this newsletter called Insolidarity,
and I was typing away, you know, I learned this

(10:08):
about Marcia. I learned this about Marcia. And I would
get letters back from our community who are incarcerated and
they'd be like, girl, we knew Marcia. Just let us
tell you about Marcia, right, yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
Just press record on the refore sid to just let
us talk, let ours talk.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
And so it was this beautiful exchange.

Speaker 6 (10:26):
And what happens when you have that kind of a
liveness is it's captivating for everyone. So what we're finding
ourselves doing is reveling in the spirit, the full aliveness
of Marcia. And so I started to make a film,
Happy Birthday Marcia, about Marcia, and it really culminated in
twenty twenty with the starting of writing of this book

(10:48):
because I wanted all of that information. Marcia as performer,
Marcia as organizer, Marcia's spiritual leader, Marcia as Jersey girl, right,
She's from Elizabeth, New Jersey. I want it all to
be in one place that feels accessible, right, and also
to move through the world in that profound way like

(11:08):
Marsha moved through the world and continues too in a
really deep play.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
I feel like the first time I found out about
Marsha P. Johnson probably was like when I really started
to be around more black queer folks specifically, right, it
was never at the intersection of like finding out about
it because, like I don't know, I watched Bros. Or something,
and they were trying to do the straight to one
on one and let every straight person know who Marsha was.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
And so like, when I think about Marsha P.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
Johnson, and especially at the time that she existed, black
queerness is so different in the ways that we discuss
it now, and I think oftentimes I think about Marsha P.
Johnson from a queer historical perspective of it oftentimes feels like,
you know, white people have kind of claimed her as theirs,
and I always just wonder, to everybody, how does she

(11:55):
show up for you all when it comes to like
black queer history, because I essentially think of her as
a black queer, Like, that's right person that we celebrated,
that we should always like she's ours versus anyone else's first.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
So part of the problem is that there are so
many myths around Stonewall and around Marcia. And that's what
I loved about the book is it was like an
opportunity to be like, look, actually, some of what Marcia
probably didn't throw the first brick.

Speaker 4 (12:21):
There might not have been any bricks at all.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
But you're not allowed to say on the internet.

Speaker 4 (12:26):
Girl, be careful, I know, be careful.

Speaker 3 (12:28):
But in reality, it's like she did so much, actually
a lot more than I even realized. And it's not
that I don't want her to be remembered for the
immense impact she made at the Stonewell Riot, yeah, but
it also is just like to me, there was so
much more to her, and so yeah, I do think
she's ours, but like I think we are sorely missing

(12:49):
an opportunity to not just know her, but to know
so many queer leaders from our past and to learn
from them. So like we're talking about all these problems, Oh,
we gotta get our rights back. There were no trans
bathroom bills because we didn't even have the word transgender
at that time, right, And so for me it's complicated.
I do think that it is black queer history, yes,

(13:10):
but I also think queer folks of color have a
responsibility to do some more research, to.

Speaker 4 (13:15):
Learn a little bit more.

Speaker 3 (13:16):
And I'm thankful to people like you Tourmaline who are
making it more accessible to do so.

Speaker 6 (13:21):
Well, you know, just for the Stonewall part too. It's
so many people saw Marcia play a huge role at Stonewall,
and Marcia herself talked about Stonewall in two very different ways.
So she talked about being in the backroom bar, which
she often called the black room bar, because that's where
people of color, black queens were, you know, pushed.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
You know, there was the white stone wall.

Speaker 6 (13:46):
Where there was gilded cages and go go dancers, right,
and it was a mafia owned bar, so they funneled
more affluent white people to the front room. And in
the back room there was a jukebox, there was circle dancing,
there was Marcia getting her life when they would let
her in the Stonewall. So Marcia remembered with complete recall
the song that was playing on the Stonewall Riots night,

(14:11):
Marvin Gay heard it through the grape vine on the
jukebox at Seymour Pine. The NYPD officer led the raid
at one twenty am, and then a lot of people
saw Marcia being among the first to fight back. Right,
there's just person to person after person brick or not right.
And then Marcia later in the eighties talked about not

(14:32):
getting to Stonewall later, right until two am, and in
part the context of those comments was Stonewall happened. This
is Marcia. Stonewall happened in August on my birthday. I
didn't get there till later, and they moved the date.
I don't know why they moved it to June to
celebrate it.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah, she said, Oh, my birthday is quite disrespectful because
I'm trying to celebrate me, y'all.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
I know she was there, that would be like, how
dare you fa?

Speaker 6 (15:01):
So it's this beautiful way that she is, like, No,
Stonewall was in August, right, And most of us know
and remember Stonewall is in June. So there's a level
of well, why is she talking about Stonewall being in August. Well,
by the time that she was making those comments, she
had lived a lot. She had a bullet in her
back for eleven years. Right, she was living a life

(15:23):
filled with yes, thriving and glamour and beauty, but she
was surviving trauma every day. The world outside for Marsha
was quite a harsh place. That's why she had to
dream so big. It wasn't because she had borne into
the lap of luxury. It was because she needed to
dream beyond the harsh condition she was immediately met with

(15:45):
by the time she was eighteen, moving to Times Square
in nineteen sixty three and getting a thirteen year old
Silvia Rivera up into an hourly hotel to have a
little bit of space of relief from the police.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
Right.

Speaker 6 (15:56):
Yeah, So Marcia was speaking through time this malleable thing,
and I think, to me, the book is about, well,
let's dive in the lore and let's also have a
kind of disability justice lens, right and understand that like
Stonewall wasn't a sane event.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
It was a maddening event.

Speaker 6 (16:15):
We need to love our mad queens, including our mad
queens like Marcia, who's like, no, Stonewall was in August,
I'm a virgo or yes, I was in the back room,
you know, dancing of Marvin gay, All of it needs
to be this expansive thing. And to me, that's who
Marcia was, right, and that's what the joy and part
of writing this book was. It was about telling black

(16:35):
queer history, right, black trans history for our people, for
our audience, and also saying, like, we also get to
be maddening and mad and incoherent and complicated and contradicting,
and that's actually part of the beauty of us.

Speaker 4 (16:50):
I really, I really appreciate that aspect of visiting a
story that I would otherwise say is easily glossed over,
you know, to go back to an earlier point. I
learned about Marsha P. Johnson in the same fashion that
I learned about Martin Luther King, which is there was
this person who did exist, and they did great things
and then they died, right, And that's like, that's what

(17:12):
you get of the story, and the part of their
greatness is cemented in everything that happened from this one
point and then going forward. So how do you encourage
people to look at our historical figures more three dimensionally,
especially since queer history is something that has to be
sought out and passed down.

Speaker 6 (17:33):
You know, there's this incredible writer Sadia Hartman, who writes
a lot about the Transatlantic slave trade. Right and the
archive and how you know, our archives aren't these neutral
places oftentimes, you know, for those of us who are
descendants of enslaved people, we aren't in those archives, right,
or our names might only be on the ledger of
an insurance book that was ensuring a slave ship that

(17:54):
went down right.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
And so what we need.

Speaker 6 (17:57):
To do is breathe life into our lineage. And sometimes
that means channeling right. Sometimes that means accessing all of
our spiritual tools. And also for Marcia, you know, I
was blessed to know people who knew her, so I
got to learn about how you know, Marcia showed up
for and learned from the Black Panther Party. She took

(18:17):
over New York University, did an occupation two weeks after
the Revolutionary People's Convention in nineteen seventy September in Philadelphia,
largely organized by the Black Panther Party that inspired her.
So that connection between black liberation and Marcia has always
been there. And so to me, part of the joy
of learning more about Marcia is like, oh, I see you,

(18:41):
like you have been creating this space for me and
I see the imprints. You know, she was born in
Elizabeth in a time when they were organizing around the
segregation of Howard Johnson. She took her last name Johnson
from Howard Johnson. She was deeply influenced by black liberation,
the civil rights movement, and she knew exactly what was
going on.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
Do y'all think back in that time, especially because you
see these like archival clips of Marcia and Sylvia and
them on this stage. Do y'all think they had to
like code switch to make their message accessible to like
actually get people to hear them. I just I think
about how black queer folks, especially us who are behind

(19:22):
a mic, and it can have approximity to whiteness oftentimes
that can push us forward and give us access and
all these things.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
I think about it from a Marsha P. Johnson's lands,
where I'm like, is that something you think she had
to worry about or did she think about that?

Speaker 4 (19:35):
Didn't she do the opposite?

Speaker 3 (19:37):
Like I kind of think of her as someone who
actually like understood the performance that she was giving every
single day when she like stepped out into the world,
but she like leaned the other It's like evilby she
leaned the other way. She like leaned into it, so
like instead of code switching, it felt to me almost
like she was more intentionally like sort of ratchet to

(20:00):
be like, I'm not going to code switch, I'm going
to like lean into the absurdity. And it was like
sort of its reclamation of like, we don't have to
be the perfect queer image. There's that famous video of her,
and it's just like she's not trying to impress this,
you know, interviewer.

Speaker 4 (20:16):
She couldn't care less. And so I know, I know what.
We'll play it right here, producer Jenna will throw that
in for you.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
What do you say to your pay How will this
effective in your job?

Speaker 7 (20:30):
Darling, I don't have a job.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
I'm on welfare. I have no intention to get in
a job.

Speaker 6 (20:35):
As long as this country discriminates against Tom is sextual.

Speaker 3 (20:39):
I almost feel like looking to the leaders of our
past is more permission because they weren't trying to live
within these structures. They weren't trying to pass and change
laws necessarily, like they were trying to survive.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
Depending on which leaders you're thinking about, I do think
there were leaders were actually thinking, like in a very
you know Sarah McBride type of way that we've discussed
on this show. So we have to make sure everyone
else is kind of comfortable so we can get into
the space and get into the room and then pursue
what we're trying to do.

Speaker 4 (21:06):
I would I would argue that there definitely were leaders,
but I think the more important thing about how culture
worked differently is every person out on this planet, and
especially in these disenfranchised communities, definitely did not feel like
you had the ability to be a leader, whereas I
think social media has given all of our voices some purpose,

(21:27):
some strength. It's why it's kind of hilarious to me
that we're in another swing of the cycle where you know,
trans hate is growing and I'm like, you, guys, realize
you did this by allowing me to have a camera.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
Am I right?

Speaker 4 (21:42):
It was like you actually gave me the visibille girl,
and you can't stomp us out anywhere like anymore.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
We're not going anywhere.

Speaker 6 (21:51):
That is so smart, Like your kid is going to
see trans people. Literally, your kid is going to see
trans people. One of my favorite you know, audio clips
of Marcia kind of within this conversation is when it's
nineteen seventy one, and she has recently started going on
hormone replacement therapy, right, and a few years later she
was identifying as a pre op transsexual woman. That's her words, right,

(22:15):
And in nineteen seventy one, she's like, oh, you know,
she's onest. She's like, oh, I got a handful. She's
talking about her brest.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
So it's not a big handful, but it's still a handful,
and you can like hear the joy. It's a small bus,
but it's a nice handful.

Speaker 6 (22:31):
And then Sylvia is in the background being like, because
Marsha's talking about you know, I always used to know
how to be a woman because my mother was you know,
taught me how to sew and to do domestic work.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
Like I could walk on, I cook, I could sew.

Speaker 6 (22:48):
And Sylvia is like, that's so disrespectful, and Marsha's like, actually,
my mother was a poor black woman, Like she had
to do these things.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
She didn't have other people.

Speaker 6 (22:56):
And I modeled my womanhood after my mom, Right, I'll
Berta Michael, Well, some.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
Women don't do that, but my mother was poorsy I
had to do it all it sow.

Speaker 7 (23:06):
I as a person don't believe that a transvestite or
a woman should do all the wash and do all
the cooking and do everything that was forced on by
the bourgeois society.

Speaker 6 (23:17):
And you can hear that they're having an argument, you
know what I'm saying, Like, it's not you hear the tension.
You hear the tens, the dollar, the dollar, the dolls
are dollars. And then you know, a couple of years later,
in nineteen seventy three, they did another it's with WBAI,
which is a local New York radio station. They did
another radio and this one's like two hours long, and

(23:39):
they're talking about just being evicted from Star House. You know,
they made this organization Street transvest Side Action Revolutionaries, and
it was profound, Like they wrote a manifesto fighting for
childcare alongside gender affirming care, alongside free tuition at universities
like NYU. And that was right after the Revolutionary People's Convention.
They were really inspired by the Black Fans Party, right,

(24:00):
and the Young Young Lords. But so in the conversation,
you know, they were just evicted and they were talking
about their trials and tribulations about not being able to
live together, and Marsha's like I will never live with
any of y'all ever again. Like I'm sad we were evicted,
but hell no, you like I'm gonna have my own

(24:22):
place you none of y'all are going to live with
me ever again.

Speaker 4 (24:26):
If that is not a part of the universal queer experience,
I swear she's a argo at the end of the day,
exactly said.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
Decades later, we still hate our fucking room mate. I
ask you though about the star. Yeah, because street transvestites
for gay Power. You talk about that manifesto they wrote
I'm just gonna bead like a tiny little blurd from
October nineteen seventy because they titled it gay power.

Speaker 4 (24:49):
When do we want it?

Speaker 7 (24:50):
Or do we?

Speaker 3 (24:51):
And I just like have been so they wrote, this
is the question that runs through our minds. Do you
really want gay power? Or are you looking for a
few laughs, maybe a little excitement. We're not quite sure
what you people really want. If you want gay liberation,
then you're gonna have to fight for it. We don't
mean tomorrow or the next day. We're talking about today.
We can never possibly win by saying wait for a

(25:12):
better day or we're not ready yet. If you're ready
to tell people that you want to be free, then
you're ready to fight.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
Yeah, And.

Speaker 3 (25:21):
I just my question to you is do you feel
like and I'm not talking about everyone, because there are
queers in the streets every single day, But when I
think about the community, do you feel like we fight anymore?
Or do you feel like we just think that like
things are gonna change just because we ask them to,
Like I feel like we've I feel like we've lost
the fight.

Speaker 4 (25:38):
I'll say it.

Speaker 6 (25:39):
Yeah, No, I mean that makes so much sense, especially
because you can't in this moment like open a screen,
turn on the news, go outside without being really confronted
by the harsh conditions that are our community is facing right,
like it is abundant in terms of, you know how
intense of a landscape that we have to navigate, right,

(26:01):
And that's not different from from Marsha's moments. And that's
why she had to dream so big, like we were
talking about like in those hourly hotels they call them
hot spring hotels, you know, like she was forced to
dream of a world that was big enough to show respect,
put some respect on her name, right, for her to
know her beauty every time she walked outside, because other

(26:24):
people knew it too. So to me, I think now
when we're faced with similar conditions, like it is so
important that we know that we're in a landscape that's malleable, right,
like we can change it, Like these are just because
we arrived at this moment and it is what it is,
doesn't mean that we can't collectively organize. And I think

(26:44):
for me, I was blessed to be in organizing spaces
since I was, you know, moved to New York as
a teenager, whether it was fearce or cours of economic
justice or sillovera law project, Like I really learn from
the leaders how you change things. You gather together, you
harness your energy, you make your demand, you disrupt business

(27:06):
as usual. You make it really clear that you're not
going anywhere. My chosen trans mother, Miss Major Griffin, Gracie,
you know, is always saying I'm not going any fucking where, right,
We're still fucking here.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
This is all the time. It's so profound and so
to me, that's the kind.

Speaker 6 (27:21):
Of energy that we need right now, right that like
we're not going anywhere, We're abundant, and how we are
facing and showing up and showing out, and part of
its streaming. Part of its organizing. Part of it is
nurishing each other. Part of it's learning about our leaders
and making sure that our elders are still feeling cared for.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
You know.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Yeah, yeah, so yeah, I would.

Speaker 4 (27:45):
I would go out on a lemon and say, I
think that our elders are possibly the key to having
a successful queer future. I know, every conversation eventually has
to turn to how not only our government, our country,
but kind of world handled the first queer epidemic. And
we did lose an entire generation right after, you know,

(28:08):
beginning to make strides and fighting for queer liberation. We
lost a vision of how the future looks. So my
question for you is, with an aging queer population that's
still here and still killing it, like, what do you
think we should seek out from our elders and how?

Speaker 6 (28:25):
You know, one of the things that I've been blessed with,
and it's just abundant like of knowing about the past
is hearing stories from you know, like Miss Major. So
Miss Major was a firm leader in the emerging HIV
AIDS crisis. Right she started this group called Angels of
Care because trans people weren't being employed, right, Black trans

(28:47):
women were not being employed, and also people were living
with and dying from HIV AIDS and needed care. So
she was like, well, I'm going to make sure that
my girls are hired to be care takers for people
who are you.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
Know what I'm saying. So she created this organization stone
that's right, and it was so profound, except.

Speaker 4 (29:08):
We were keeping them alive instead of killing them.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
That's right, important, distinct important.

Speaker 6 (29:19):
And so to me it was really beautiful to think about,
you know, to just learn at every moment how someone
like miss Major really rose to the occasion. She had
a desire to offer a greater care. She had a
desire to make sure that her girls, her sisters were
also able to live, you know, alongside everybody else. And

(29:40):
so she was an innovator, just like Marcia, and she's
doing it all the time. She didn't stop, you know.
Then she created in Little Rock, Arkansas, a retreat space
for the community to go to and just be able
to have, just like those hot spring hotels, those hourly hotels,
a little bit of safety right from the violence that's
going on, so that we can arrive at a different

(30:02):
vantage point like oh, you know, I am powerful, I
am I really learned that from her, and then there
was like the day to day stuff that I learned
from her, Like you know, this is about twenty years ago.
She's like a group of us are all gathered to
listen to her, and she's like, you know, things like
if you're being chased down the street, Yeah, it might
be scary because everyone's looking at you, but do not

(30:23):
go into an alley because you actually need to be
where all the other people can see what's happening, so
that that one person that might be available to intervene
can intervene. And that really meant a lot to me
because at the time, you know, early on, I was like,
so clocking, who's noticing what?

Speaker 2 (30:40):
Like when am I safe?

Speaker 6 (30:41):
And wanting to shrink myself and make myself small, and
she was saying, like, actually, for your survival in this moment,
you need to be in a like a crowded place
where hopefully that one person will intervene.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
Don't go split off from the group. And so it's
just those concrete stories, but also those concrete life less
that our leaders, our elders hold all the time, and
so the kind of care that we want to be
showing for our leaders who are elders is immense right
because she continues to innovate, She continues to approach a

(31:16):
world as like that problem is creating a solution, And
I'm going to tell each and every one of you
what the solution is.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
You mentioned freedom earlier in Dreaming, and in twenty twenty
of July or July twenty twenty, you actually wrote an
article about freedom dreaming in Vogue, and I wanted to
know one, could you explain what that is? And in
two how has that changed five years later when you
think about the current states of where we are currently.

Speaker 2 (31:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (31:48):
So when I was a student at college, this is
over twenty years ago. I was lucky to have an advisor,
a professor, and be the research assistant of Robin DG. Kelly,
who really coined the term free dreaming right as a
term that people in the Black Liberation movement also sometimes
known as the Civil rights movement used in order to
look at conditions and arrive at strategies to change the world.

(32:11):
Freedom dreaming we know we don't want. That gives us
clarity about what we do want. Let's imagine a world
filled with what we do want and organize to get there.
That's kind of the basic premise of freedom dreaming. Sometimes
it can be really small, right, it can be like,
I know that I'm not feeling very beautiful. I want
to be around a community because I'm feeling really isolated

(32:33):
right now, that knows like trans black beauty. Right, it
can be as simple as that. Right then we realize
that's pretty profound in this landscape. That's actually a huge
freedom dream to have our beauty reflected in a real way,
in a consistent way, And how does it show up? Like, well,
let's create some strategies respeech, right, like Black Pride at Respeech.

(32:54):
I remember in like two thousand and five when we
that changed my life Black Pride at Respeech that was
so powerful, or like Soul Summit in those early days
in Fort Green Park. And I don't know, so to me,
it's just been a consistent practice that we've all we
all do all the time, maybe without even noticing it.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
We know we don't want.

Speaker 6 (33:15):
We have a little bit of clarity then about what
we do want, and then we can start to imagine
a world filled with that and move in the direction
of it. And so Robin DG. Kelly, really, he wrote
a profound book about freedom dreaming, and to me, I
wanted to make sure that my communities, like my sisters,
my siblings, we all had access to this framework and

(33:36):
we start to implement it every day. And so today
the conditions are even more intense, right Like, so our
dreams need to be even larger, and we need to
make sure that we're not just doing them in isolation,
We're doing them in community. So it goes back to
the elder conversation, right like, I can learn from Miss
Major because Miss Major continues to offer with them and

(34:01):
accept care, and the care needs to increase for Miss
Major as she ages, right, so that we can continue
to revel in her spirit and just basking all of
who she is. So that's part of freedom dream Yeah, yeah, yeah,
what's your freedom dream for America?

Speaker 4 (34:17):
Tormally?

Speaker 2 (34:18):
Yeah, what's your freedom dream for America?

Speaker 3 (34:21):
Liberation in all of the sense you know. I remember
I first learned dream name after Leileen Polonka was killed
in Riker's Island and a friend of yours and I
were talking about just we have to tell this story,
we have to do something, And I bring up the
criminal legal system because I think it's such an immense
example of what's wrong with our system that's right is

(34:44):
that we punish and we create punitive responses to systemic issues,
that's right, And we don't solve problems. We keep pushing
people down. And so when I freedom dream for America,
I think of a world in which, like everyone just
can get by without the fear of getting by. And

(35:04):
I think about how Marcia died, and for so long
they tried to pretend that she wasn't murdered. But we
know black trans people and trans folks of all races
truly are at risk. I have a white transwoman partner,
and she is also at risk, right, And so I
just dream of a world in which, like we don't
have to live by fear. I feel like fear motivates

(35:26):
almost everything that we do. And I often say, if
you can make someone feel, you can make someone do anything.
And I just want to start moving from a different
feeling that's not fear. And maybe it's anger, But like
you've said in many interviews, that anger can lead to
our joy and can lead to our prosperity.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
That's right.

Speaker 6 (35:44):
Anger can give such profound relief from fear. It's so
important to not disregard anger, right, Like a lot of
times when the conversations around joy, we put joy on
a pedestal and every other emotion, but you know, as
less than there is literally no hierarchy if we're feeling fear,
I really encourage people to.

Speaker 2 (36:04):
Like have some revenge fantasies. You don't have to act
on all of them, but at least let yourself have
some because you're.

Speaker 4 (36:12):
My mid well not you talking about my sex life
in this bitch.

Speaker 6 (36:15):
Yes, literally, but it's so important, Like you need relief.
You don't deserve to live in fear, right, So what's
a great tool to give yourself some relief from it?
Have a revenge fantasy. You don't need to act it out,
but it can give you a feeling of empowerment, right,
it can help inspire a new desire that might take

(36:38):
you to a greater place of clarity. And so to me, absolutely,
the freedom to not live in fear is primary. I
think that is that's something that Marsha was doing, you know,
and leading around all the time.

Speaker 4 (36:51):
Or at least like the freedom to live in fear
of the same stupid shit that everyone else is.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
You know.

Speaker 4 (36:57):
Oh no, those kids are hanging out on my lawn.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
Those are the.

Speaker 4 (37:00):
Fears we deserve.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
Who has a lawn?

Speaker 4 (37:03):
Oh yeah, I forgot. You're like solidly in New York City.
You've never even seen grass? Have you grow?

Speaker 3 (37:09):
But also like I can't. But you look at housing
and you look at all of these other systems, and
you know, you were talking about the permission that Marcia
created for so many others. I also look at Zorah Mamdani,
not a trans person, not a queer person, but is
still a result of the organizing of black queer people,
is still a manifestation of what New York has been

(37:33):
and will become. And like, Marcia created space for so
many other folks, and it's time we start putting some
respect on her damn name. And you do it so beautifully,
and I'm just I also want to talk about miss
Majors because you were talking about how she was saying,
don't hide in the alley. One interpretation of that is
like your safety is your visibility. Like how do we

(37:55):
build safety for queer folks is by being visible, even
if that's visibly watching me get my ass beat. I'm
gonna do it well queer, and I'm gonna be visible
because that is the only thing that can actually bring
our safety.

Speaker 4 (38:06):
It won't be the fear, and it won't be hiding.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
Yeah, it's a shame is counter to it.

Speaker 4 (38:10):
It will be finding our bricks and throwing.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Them exactly exactly.

Speaker 6 (38:14):
She was really helping me leave a place of shame
because I was just I was so every day would
wake up feeling so ashamed of myself, right, And part
of that was just like receiving so many messages about
about who I was and and you know, taking them in,
taking like that as truth. And she, you know, like
she and Marcia and so many really helped unlock that

(38:36):
for me.

Speaker 4 (38:36):
So how do we and this might sound rude, but
how do we as queers, as queers of color? Yeah,
remind people that our lives are fun and way better
than theirs, and that if they join us, they can
have some of this fun too. Because Marsha said, nobody's
straight girl.

Speaker 6 (38:54):
Doney, homosexuals bisexual.

Speaker 4 (38:57):
Then try sexual dollar and had.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
Bisexuals.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
And that was also to your earlier point about what
is your freedom dream? That's actually a part of my
freedom dream. Please tell is this world of like us
not having to be like I mean activists, I'm not
a essentially our war, Like those are war wounds, and
like I'm like there needs to be a moment in

(39:25):
time where all of us, at our different intersections can
just simply exist and like walk through this world and
and actually not have it informed of like our trauma
informed the way we walk through the world. And like
that's the freedom dream that I think about. Why we
have a marshall, why we have a buyer resting, why
do we have so many that came before us?

Speaker 2 (39:46):
And I think that goes in tandem of that reminder
of like.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
Girl, like if I if I just want to watch
Here we Go, Yeah, if I just want to watch
Love Island, I'm going to.

Speaker 4 (39:57):
Watch Love I Once an episode that is my queer joy.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
I got it?

Speaker 4 (40:03):
Well, okay, can I ask another question for the group
that kind of building off of that, since you know,
a lot of representation isn't just saying I'm here to
represent It's about beings. So what is bringing your queer
ass some queer joy right now? Like when you see
it and you're like, oh my god, that just brought

(40:25):
me so much like seenless feltness, I wish I could have.
I love this, Like what is giving you queer euphoria.
What's making you queer?

Speaker 2 (40:33):
Come? Oh, yes, but we get your mind queer climax.
That's it. That's that's that's the Yeah, that's what it was.
When you bring to the present.

Speaker 4 (40:50):
I'm not going to go first because I already know
my answer is like porn and that's such a lame
place that that's such a low bar.

Speaker 2 (40:57):
That's not lame at all.

Speaker 1 (40:59):
I'm if I'm being honest, Like, and this might sound cliche,
but literally I had my first weekend that wasn't tied
to work, that wasn't tied to like having an obligation.
It was just simply like hanging out with friends and
getting drunk. It's like I hadn't experienced that, especially during
a month that is Pride Month, and like it's kind

(41:21):
of like you know, when your corporate gaze or when
you're like Pride gays, you are always kind of this
is a part of the job. It was just simply
nice to just like look around me and be with
like people that I just loved, and like even playing like,
you know, my video games at nights, like that is
all giving me like joy when I can simply like

(41:41):
close this laptop turn off my phone and just like
think of something completely different than what's actually happening in
the world. And that's not necessarily saying, you know, disconnect
and not keep up because I think we have a
sort of a duty about it. But I no longer
feel shame or guilt around dissociating. Yeah, I'm taking some
Space't make me feel that into.

Speaker 4 (42:06):
That's actually I really like that because let me let
me Pg. Thirteen up my answer from before. It's not
pornography as much as it's I like the act of
taking time to literally ask myself what is going to
feed my desire right now, and it's usually some really
queer ship. Like a lot of the times it's you know,

(42:27):
paint my nails or caps. Oh is that really yours?

Speaker 2 (42:32):
Okay? I want then, no painting your nails nails?

Speaker 6 (42:36):
Yeah, no, I'm just I think right now, like I'm
because I'm on book tour, there's a lot of moving around,
so finding the moments of queer joy like I do
a lot of I play a lot of Mario Kart
Taste so okay, So like I have a Nintendo Switch
Lights yes, yes, okay, and I just play on my
there's a version on the phone. So I just every

(42:58):
day I'm like literally playing or a Mario Kart and
it makes me so happy, like honestly, and so I
feel like a lot of Mario Kart. I love like
having my nails really long right now, getting them done iridescent,
you know, like the opulence of them, having them packing
up a lot of space. I remember I did learned

(43:18):
about Marcia going to the uptown beauty department stores and
bringing all the dolls with her. This was at a
time when that was completely unheard of, right, But they
would go from counter to counter like a Macy's when
this is like the early seventies, and they'd be like, no,
you're gonna beat my face, like we're gonna find out
what colors work for what, Like we're gonna try on
all the lipstick. And it's that you know, that's not

(43:42):
being in the streets organizing activism or the petition. But
to me, like that is one of the most profound
things that Marcia did is like brought people to a
place that was about enhancing their understanding of beauty through
makeup and glamour through glitter, and having everyone leave that
place filled with more pleasure and a deeper knowing of

(44:05):
their own value. Like to me, that's what happens when
I get my nails done, or I get my makeup done,
or I just I'm like, oh wait, I like Sarah,
I'm like, oh, I'm really beautiful. Like I didn't know
like putting on some lashes would change my life.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Actually a moment in your book where you talked about
and it kind of came up for me earlier when
you were talking about Miss Major and there retreats and
how Marsha P. Johnson they would like go to the
hourly hotels just to get off the streets so they
could just relax. And I feel like that is all
a part of that lineage, right, Like at that time,

(44:39):
it was her way of you know, thinking and dreaming
of a bigger future while also connecting with the community
around her that also like put in for this hourly hotel,
you know as.

Speaker 4 (44:48):
Right, celebrating resting queer rest, queer rest, transrest exactly their
beauty and queer joy.

Speaker 3 (44:59):
Like my, the thing that's bringing me the queer happiness
are all the people in my neighborhood who are just
like being themselves, who're just dressing queerly who are expressing
themselves in very queer ways. And then I love when
you give each other the look. And I'm not talking
about the cruising looking, but it's very similar where you're.

Speaker 4 (45:15):
Just like, oh, you're queer too, Hey, hey, y'all do
you When I was like, I see you, sister, and
the other eyes like, but I can see even more
of the follow me. He's pointing with the eyes. I'm saying,
hey girl, I see yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:31):
I Actually I wanted to ask one more question, and
we kind of got to it because we were talking
about future dreaming. But I'm just thinking, like, let's future
dream for queer specifically, because that's really like at the
end of the day, I like, who are going to
be the leaders?

Speaker 6 (45:47):
Is it you?

Speaker 4 (45:47):
Tormaline?

Speaker 3 (45:48):
Like, who are going to be the leaders that lead
us into the future? And what does like what could
that future look like for queer people?

Speaker 2 (45:54):
And do you even want to do that.

Speaker 4 (45:57):
Of anxiety?

Speaker 3 (45:58):
Who's the next Marsha? Like where does that legacy? Who
continues that legacy?

Speaker 6 (46:02):
Well, part of what I thought Marcia's teaching was, you know,
she used to talk a lot about the voice in
her head and be in conversation with God. And I
know for a lot of us who are queer and
we have different relationships with you know, faith and faith
institutions that could make us feel horrible or maybe we
still practice inside them. And but Marcia used to talk

(46:23):
really specifically about following the voice in her head. Like
she said, she almost didn't graduate high school, and then
she got in a big fight with her mom and
then she you know, made an agreement with God. She said,
you know, if you let me finish high school, I'll
go out into the queer community and learn what really
is going on. So she couldn't even imagine a God
that didn't want her to do that right at such

(46:44):
a young age.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
She was eighteen. That's the conversation she had with God.

Speaker 6 (46:48):
And then she said, you know, a different moment, like
something in my head just told me to, you know,
go into Times Square and go into the queer community.
And that's where she met like the people that she
would know for decades to come, like a be right,
Times Square really was the place to be in that moment,
and then something in her head led her downtown right
to the West Village and then she followed that stream

(47:10):
all the time. And so to me, I think what
that's saying is like Marcia had a connection to her intuition,
to ancestor to spirit, to God that I think we
all have access to. I firmly believe there's not like
one leader. I think we all are connected to this stream,
this limitless stream that we can tune to, and we

(47:32):
can tell how close we are or how far we
are based on how we feel. When we're feeling a
lot of clarity and enthusiasm, like this conversation right now,
I think we're really tapped in, right, That's why the
questions are flowing and the answers are flowing. So I
think it's not one person. But I really believe like
part of the mission of the book, like the secret mission,

(47:53):
is for people to understand like, oh, we all have
this connection. I too can calibrate to this greater sense
of who I really am and offer answer and have
great timing and also be funny and also take a
break and also be all of who I am by
being glamorous if I want, being demure, if I want,
like all of it.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
We all can do that.

Speaker 6 (48:14):
And so my real true hope with both Marcia the
adult book and One day in June. The children's book
is for us to know, like there doesn't have to
be a leader. When you look at the sky and
birds are flying all together, there's not a leader bird.
They're all just tuned to the same like stream of intuition, right, Like,
we don't have to have a leader bird. We can

(48:34):
just be like in our own little flock.

Speaker 4 (48:36):
Right, you know what I mean, Let's just flock together.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
Let's flock together, right, and learn from each other while
doing It's like, that's the formation of the birds.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
Really clings for me.

Speaker 3 (48:44):
You kind of ate that, yeah, because that's instinctual. They
just fly like that in that formation. And while were energy,
people are on the transition. Yeah, and people are always like, oh,
the chemistry of high key is so strong. It's like, yeah,
because we're tapping into our bird energy.

Speaker 4 (48:58):
Baby, that's it.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
That's the whole thing.

Speaker 4 (49:01):
You got burflu because we are sick.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
Yeah, we got energy.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
We really appreciate you. Thank you so much for coming
on the show. This will not be the last moment
that you come on this show. I think that's for sure.
This will not be the last moment you queer climax
on the show.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
Thank you, Thank you.

Speaker 3 (49:25):
For everyone listening. The bestseller Marsha, The Joy and Defiance
of Marsha P. Johnson is available wherever you get your
books or audiobooks, and truly it is worth every second
of the read. And there's some pictures in the middle too,
if you like pictures. It was fun to see a
young Marshia P. Johnson.

Speaker 4 (49:44):
So there you go, the archives, the archives.

Speaker 2 (49:48):
Oh thank you.

Speaker 6 (49:48):
I'm really, actually really emotionally moved by this conversation. This
has been like the pinnacle conversation that I've had in
this entire time since putting out the book, Like this
really means a lot to me that you would make
space to include me and that we could also just
like get into you know, not just the activism, but
our dreams and not just our dreams, but like what
are we doing for fun? And and remember, like you know,

(50:11):
we are all flying together. So thank y'all for making
the invitation for me.

Speaker 1 (50:15):
Ah, just now we are obsessed with you. I'm using
we statements for that because it's all true. It's so
important the work that you do and you simply existing,
and so thank you for being the example, thank you
for being a historian, and just thank you for being you. Seriously,
we are best sies. We're locked in locked and thanks y'all, thank.

Speaker 4 (50:37):
You, all right, welcome back.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
F words.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
Oh my god, speaking of that, actually not even to
throw it off. I was listening to an arm Chair
Expert episode and Brad Pitt was on there and around
thirty because I time coded it around thirty minutes fifty seconds.
He was talking about growing up in the Ozarks and
how like at that time when he was growing up,
like like it was all about masculinity and boys should

(51:10):
be boys. He casually says, fag.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
What's that happening? Then?

Speaker 4 (51:14):
Was there like a lot of calling yes, don't cry, yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
Don't be gay?

Speaker 4 (51:18):
Fag? That was that era error, that era but e and.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
No one said anything.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
And I was like, Brad Pitt just iconically saying fag
right now, and no one's going to react to it.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
It's kind of crazy.

Speaker 4 (51:32):
No one's gonna react to it because they're not trying
to draw attention to it. It's like yelling about like
about like piss porn on the Internet and being like,
everybody look at this piss porn when really you're like,
oh my god, I can't believe I have this piss porn, Like,
who isn't wanting to get called a fag by Brad Pitt?

Speaker 1 (51:50):
Well even I mean, I've just kept thinking about, like
it was such a huge deal when fucking Gail King
said fagotory and she was quoting a joke back to
midteo Lane.

Speaker 2 (52:01):
And like bragman.

Speaker 1 (52:03):
Because no one even in the comments said anything, I
was like, I had to listen to it, like thirty
times did you hear this? I heard it and I
sent it to a couple other people and they were like, yep,
he said it. I was like, okay, work, yeah, it's.

Speaker 4 (52:16):
Not blowing up because then everybody would have to blow
up their likes on Twitter again. They'd have to be
like okay. So actually I watched this video over and
over again, and that was my queer climax for that.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
I don't even know. It was kind of crazy. I
was so conflicted by that.

Speaker 4 (52:30):
Is that your high key moment of the week, Rob
Hitsang fat?

Speaker 1 (52:33):
Oh that's not even I'm gonna actually give my high
key moment of the week to someone that actually deserves.

Speaker 2 (52:39):
It, not him, So my high key goes to heightened Screwinty.

Speaker 1 (52:45):
It's a doc from Sam Vader that follows Chase Strangio's
scotis fight for trans riots and access to healthcare.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
What you're asking the court for is heightened scrutiny. You
want the court to shift the scrutiny from the oppressed
group to.

Speaker 4 (52:59):
The government, but also the ways in which the media
has scrutinized trans people in particular so intensely, and.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
As we all know, we if you have been paying attention,
I believe on the twenty second is when they actually
came out with the response to this journey in Fight.
But I went to the LA screening premiere and I
finally got to see this documentary and it's a follow
up to Disclosure too, which is on Netflix, and so
I Disclosure was about trans representation in media and television.

(53:27):
Heighten Screwty really looks at it from a media in
journalism perspective, and so many where and trans journalists are
narrating and being talking heads to kind of guide us
through the history of like when it all flipped on
its head. And then you see Chase Strangio on this fight,
in this journey, there's just a direct line that's much
faster between the discourse about our communities and the policymaking.

(53:50):
And I'm just so impressed and so happy that i
live in the same timeline as a Chase Strangio because
he just is so smart. And the fact that he
mentioned in the documentary and this isn't like a spoiler,
but he said, you know, for folks that like do
this work and who are lawyers, their whole entire like
dream is to like talk before the Supreme Court. And

(54:13):
he was like, I actually never wanted to do this,
and I hate that and to know that, but that
actually is what it takes to do this fight and
to lead. And this documentary was just so beautiful. There's
so many beautiful folks that are a part of it.
Treviall Anderson is one of them. And I'm just very,
very touched and obsessed with that documentary. And even though

(54:35):
we knew the outcome, it did not take away from
the fights and the courage and the hope to move forward.

Speaker 2 (54:41):
So that is what I'm hike obsessed with this week.

Speaker 4 (54:43):
Hikey okay, bitch. Well, then I guess to follow that
was something equally touching and deep. That's my job.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
What I know.

Speaker 4 (54:53):
I'm sorry, I'm stealing your prayer, But like, what I'm
really hike obsessed about this week is twenty eight years later.

Speaker 1 (54:59):
Yeah, I have no clue when you because you brought
this up before, I had no clue what that was,
and so I looked it up recently and saw that
all it was a zombie movie.

Speaker 4 (55:08):
You've never watched the franchise?

Speaker 2 (55:10):
No, I've never seen the franchise.

Speaker 4 (55:11):
Yeah, Ryan, you don't strike me as a horror girly
like you don't.

Speaker 2 (55:15):
Thank you so much. I take that as the highest
of compliments, because I am most certainly not.

Speaker 3 (55:19):
I wasn't either, but Maddie got me into horror movies.
I've seen every horror movie you could think of.

Speaker 4 (55:24):
That's exactly the vibe, though, right. You have like the
vibe of somebody who's like, hell, no, I'm not like
scaring myself for fun, and Ben, you have the vibe
of like, no, I don't really want to scare myself
for fun, but I do have a partner.

Speaker 3 (55:36):
Who loves that chaotic shit exactly and wants to watch
me scare it and cry.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
I mean, the closest to that for me is the
last of us is why and that guy I did
I finish?

Speaker 4 (55:47):
I couldn't finish season two. It was too hot. Kind
of yeah, it was kind of hard. But honestly, That's
the Last of Us really has a lot of the
precedent of the vibe of why I loved Twenty eight
Years Later so much. It's it's amazing to see something
that is as overdone as zombie movies in general, like

(56:09):
where we go in with these expectations. There's gonna be
a father trying to save his kids, There's gonna be
lots of scary zombies. It's more about the zombies, and
I think what twenty eight Years Later has done is
kind of what The Last of Us did, and it
puts you in a world where there are zombies. But bitch,
it is not about the zombies. It's about like these
deeply human stories that make you cry.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
Said, still keep quiet and do not move from this spot,
little bit.

Speaker 4 (56:37):
I don't want to spoil anyone who hasn't seen it
by now, but I am going to get my next
neck tattoo because of that movie. So get ready, I'm
gonna Memento Mori and then Memento of Morris all upon
my throat right over the viv O m But yeah, yeah,
because going from fagotry to zombie to like yeah to

(56:57):
Latin zombie references.

Speaker 1 (56:59):
As the franchise always been twenty eight years Like is
it just we're even so into like twenty eight years
later from.

Speaker 4 (57:06):
The last twenty eight years, So this is being held
is kind of the beginning of a new trilogy, even
though this is the third movie that's come out under
the same title. Sort of Yeah. So the first one
was like twenty eight days Later, and it looked at
one guy's journey moving through this initial zombie outbreak in
twenty eight days, and then there was twenty eight weeks Later,

(57:28):
which was this story about society trying to rebuild after
a crazy zombie epidemic, and then we've gotten to twenty
eight years later, which is society functioning. What's really interesting,
no spoils about it, but like what's interesting is it
does a really good job of setting us where we
are right now, Like it explains how there could be

(57:49):
phones and like people chilling and tiktoking at a time
where there's also somewhere in the world where zombies are
just running wild. So go see it if you like
crying or laughing. And it's not even that scary. Okay,
so this is for you. It is not even that scary.
You are going to cry more than you scream.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
I mean, that's just a piece of culture that I'll
let you all tell me about. Oh come a girl,
I'm so sorry, or maybe we do it together.

Speaker 2 (58:16):
I don't watch The Purge.

Speaker 4 (58:18):
Do you watch anything that's in that realm.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
Uh not really? I have seen The Purge halfway through.

Speaker 1 (58:26):
The scariest movie that I ever saw, if I'm being
quite honest, was insidious and the conjuring.

Speaker 2 (58:31):
But I was dragged to the theaters for that.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
Like my friends all wanted to go, and I was
gonna have way too much fomo if I didn't go.
That's kind of like the extent of horror movies for me,
Like I just can't do it because I'm screaming.

Speaker 4 (58:44):
I need you to see this though, Ay the scream
is whatever, Like we can get some pillows, but like,
I mostly just want I want to show you the
beauty in horror, like what And I like it when
a horror movie can actually be tailored for people who
or not into horror. And that's what I loved about
this movie is it was an action movie. It was

(59:05):
a romance. In parts, it was a love story. It
was about humanity. There was centers every now and yeah,
it was sinners and every now and then they'd be like,
look at that scary thing over there. Don't worry. You
can choose to look away right now. This is a
scary part. It wasn't like some jump scare, like boo,
this is happening right now. And because you watch this movie,
you're dying in seven days.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
Well yes, okay, all right, well I'll think about it.
I'll think about it maybe for your birthday or something.

Speaker 2 (59:31):
I'll watch it.

Speaker 3 (59:32):
Well speak, my high key is just me being high
key excited for my thirty first birthday, which is going
to be I think three days after yea, when people
are actually listening to this. But I'm turning thirty one,
and I'm just like having complicated feelings.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
I know.

Speaker 4 (59:48):
This is the small overlap of time where we're the
same age for like a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
Just by a few weeks, all of.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
Us, all of us will be thirty one for like
a moment. So maybe that will be like a time
where we have all of our newrological power. Also, by
the way, speaking of numerology, I talked about Zoa on
I'm Donnie and how I hoped that he would win
the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor. He has
at this point, and I'm really really, really really excited

(01:00:18):
about it, and I'm feeling like very inspired by that
as well, maybe Hike inspired. I'm like, should I run
for office? Because there was a time where I was
going to run for office. I remember when I was
working on the Warring campaign and she didn't go and
do fundraisers, so they would send people out, and so
I went out and I did the fund raiser in
Los Angeles. I did my little stump speech about growing
up poor and my fridge break in whatever, and Adam

(01:00:40):
Scott and Elizabeth Banks fucking come corner me after this
event and they're like, we decided he're running for office.

Speaker 4 (01:00:47):
And I was like, I don't think I'm gonna do that.

Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
And now I'm like, I don't know, maybe I should,
Like maybe if you could be Zorah' mom, Donnie and
run as a democratic socialist and have this like economic
populist agenda, like.

Speaker 4 (01:00:58):
I could do that, I could actually do that, So
I don't know. Wow, it's kind of funny because I
like I hella see that for you in general. You know,
we've talked before about how I totally see you as
like a TRL host in the year two thousand and five,
and you're like, what's up, guys, it's been and this week, hey, guys,
been to keep here for MTV exactly like I.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
See that guy that was me and it was almost me.
I see that for both of you.

Speaker 4 (01:01:27):
I see that for both of you, but also specifically Ben.
For you, I do see you just in the way
that like you are so politically minded, You're so like
passionately motivated about big ideas, Like I see you being
a politician. Thank you and thank you. I see you.
I see you like going after this though, when you

(01:01:48):
when you learn how to stop bugging people. I just
you know the thing that politics is bugging people.

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
Don't you still get text message fro Kamala Harris ask
if a cooin Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
But it's hard to because you don't get to bring
your full self. You have to play this character. And
that's what I didn't want to do, is I didn't
want to like talk with my thumb Sasha, Michelle Malia
and I we you know, like all this fun like,
you know, I remember Warren. I knew Warren before she
ran for president and I loved her. And then like
when I was working with her on the campaign, and
it's like my.

Speaker 4 (01:02:17):
Mama and my dad. It took me down to the
park and when you've done, I was like, who are you?

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
But wasn't this the mayor, I mean the mayor nat Well,
the prime like.

Speaker 4 (01:02:25):
Zohan zoron Zorn, our future mayor.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
A future mayor. Okay, here's the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
Didn't he like become like really big because he was
rapping and taking untraditional routes exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:02:35):
And I think that is the key for Democrats. Yet
they're pushing all the way back. So both Republicans and
Trump he's our new boogeyman. But the Democrats are like,
how do we stop this? And I'm like stop what winning?
Do you want to stop winning? Because we just saw
how to win, and it's by putting people first. It's
by telling people that we believe they should be able
to pay their bills and eat food and go to
school and take the bus.

Speaker 4 (01:02:56):
Like it's not that hard. It's really not that hard.

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:02:59):
Well, and I think specifically it's like about speaking to
what you said, which is like some sort of authenticity
that breaks through politics because we are smart people now,
in the fact that we have the Internet at our
fingertips the whole time, we can know how every candidate
ever won, what they did, and what they used that

(01:03:20):
power for. So I think, I mean not even I
think we've we as a country, the majority of our
country voted Donald Trump in at least once. At least once, yeah,
specifically because people wanted to see something that wasn't politicians
lying and telling them the same things. I think that's

(01:03:40):
what's really hard is there's this idea of like having
to play the game once you get your foot in
that door, having to do what is right for the
mass amount of people. But what is really inspiring to
people now is somebody who's also just sick of the bullshit.
What if I didn't Yeah, And even if they don't
get it right all the time, even if they're a

(01:04:01):
little too radical in some ways or a little too
light footed in others, people are hungry to have somebody
address them at a human level and be like, you
know what, instead of just using all my words, atchia,
I'm gonna be like look at this, here, look at
this here and.

Speaker 3 (01:04:18):
Say something that's just true and real and we can
all identify it and it's not jargon and it's not folks. Hey, folks,
I want you to come it. Just let's be real
people again. And I think what he's proving is that's
what people want.

Speaker 4 (01:04:32):
And uh yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:04:32):
Anyways, I think that's all we have time for today.
I think we want to go have our little July
fourth barbecues and listen to Beyonce and pretend that America
is great.

Speaker 4 (01:04:42):
Whatever. I love it. I want to I want to
reclaim America. My incentive for this month is, faggots, let's
take over red, white and blue. Let us make them
hate red, white and blue because of how much we
love it. You're like, you know what, like we really
did take the rainbow.

Speaker 2 (01:04:57):
You have that back.

Speaker 4 (01:04:58):
We're gonna take red white and thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:05:01):
I'll see y'all all month in the stars and spangles.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
Well, I mean, I'm very, very excited for when we
do come back.

Speaker 4 (01:05:07):
Though.

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
We have a special guest, don't we meebee. I'm literally
so excited.

Speaker 4 (01:05:13):
I can't believe I get to say this. Okay, y'all,
next week I'll be interviewing one of like my soul inspirations,
somebody whose music actually really did keep me rooted to
myself in a time when I needed it most, and
somebody that you love for not having to slap a
bitch today Freaco Nasty. I know that's gonna be a

(01:05:37):
fuck that up. I'm actually gonna do my homework, And
by that I mean just like smoke a blunt and
put on her album and be like, yeah, that is
the way to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
That is the way to do it. That is yeah,
all right, Well until next time, y'all, stay messy, stay obsessed,
and of course stay hikey.

Speaker 4 (01:05:54):
Bye body else.

Speaker 3 (01:05:57):
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 sis.

Speaker 1 (01:06:06):
And of course, if you want to keep the high
key key going, join us on Instagram and takes time
at high Key here and on Patreon, where we're dropping
you bonus content every single wake see there.

Speaker 3 (01:06:20):
Kai 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, P v Odley and
Spoke Media. Our showrunner is Tyler Green, Our producers are
Jenni Bernette and Tess Ryan. Our video lead is Bo Delmore,
and our audio engineer is Sammy Siret. Executive producers for
Spoke Media are Travis Samon Balinger and Aleah Tabacolian.

Speaker 4 (01:06:43):
Our iHeart team is Just Crime chicch and Sierra Kaiser.

Speaker 1 (01:06:47):
Our theme music is by Kaiane Hersey, and our show
art is My Work by Work, with photography by Eric Carter.

Speaker 4 (01:06:52):
Our marketing lead is Jerome Ware from Shorefire Media