September 2, 2025 • 61 mins
Rightwing media often spread the myth that trans people are violent or dangerous — a false narrative with zero evidence. These “trans terror” stories persist online and in the news, fueling real-world harm against the trans community. In this episode, Bridget and producer Joey Patt unpack the origins of these myths, explain why they stick, and show how the false idea of “trans terror” makes everyone less safe.
A Trans Pilot Was Falsely Blamed for a Plane Crash. Now She’s Fighting the Right-Wing Disinfo Machine: https://www.wired.com/story/a-trans-pilot-was-falsely-blamed-for-a-plane-crash-now-shes-fighting-the-right-wing-disinfo-machine/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this
is there are No Girls on the Internet. Something that
should surprise nobody in America is that school only recently
just started back and already. There was a school shooting
(00:24):
at a Catholic school in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last week that
left an eight year old and a ten year old
dead and injured seventeen others. According to the Minneapolis Police
Chief Brian O'Haras, the three weapons used in the attack
were purchased legally. Police official said, Now, I wanted to
talk about this shooting with my producer Joey. Joey, thank
you so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hey, thanks for having me on Bridget, you know, regardless
of it being sort of a lesson, uh not so
great topic today.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah, and it's kind of coincidental because you and I
had been working on an episode about the way trans
people are constantly and unfairly blamed for tragedies or mass
shootings or mass acts of violence online before all the
details are even really clear. And so I was offline
when this shooting happened, and a friend pined to me
(01:14):
and said, oh, look at this school shooting. It looks
like the shooter was trands. And I said, oh, I'm
very online, I know what's going on here. You know,
this is a familiar trope to me. It's a thing
that happens after a mass shooting online, the internet circulates
to say that the suspect is trans and it turned
out when the when the when more information came in
(01:34):
that this suspect actually was trans. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I had kind of a similar experience where one of
my good friends works in you know, broadcast news, and
she had texted me and was like, well, she'd kind
of she texted like you know, our group chat and
was like this happened. That was the first lie I
had heard of it, and was like, oh, the shooter's trans.
And my immediate response was oh, well, like are they sure,
(02:01):
because like they say this every time, so like I
don't know, and she was like no, I'm literally looking
at like the name change document right now.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
And I was like, oh, well that's a twist.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
I guess if you say it enough times, it will
happen again. Like you said, coincidental timing, I think, like
obviously what happened.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
This is like terrible.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
And even backtracking a little bit, something I was thinking
about this morning or like when we were planning this
episode was the fact that even when I kind of
first heard like, oh, there was this shooting that happened,
something that really I think struck me was the fact
that I was like, it was almost the fact that
I didn't even really feel like I had a response,
Like I was kind of just like, oh, another shooting, okay,
(02:46):
Like this is so standard at this point, it's like
really disappointing to see how much it's like I almost
kind of felt like I was like expecting this, you know,
like this happened so frequently at this point, it like
barely even like registered.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
But yeah, obviously this kind of complicates the situation.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
And you know, glad we're talking about it.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
If anything.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yeah, so here's what we know about the shooter, Robin Westman,
who police said died of a self and inflicted gunshot
wound in the church parking lot after the shooting. I've
seen it reported as a manifesto, but I would not
describe a document like that using the word manifesto because
I think it gives the wrong connotation. I think it's
kind of like what people like this might want. But
(03:31):
even in that regard, when I looked at what they
were calling a manifesto, it really is sort of stream
of consciousness videos and writings where she definitely fixates on violence,
a real obsession with school shooters and guns.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
But even in her writing she says things like, there
is no message, and this is not about religion. It
is certainly not the kind of online presence, and I
think that anyone can really use to paint a clear
portrait of a motive other than and this is clearly
a disturbed person who at times references the fact that
she knows she is disturbed, like she knows she has
these issues. She talks about how I grew up in
(04:09):
a good family with a good support system, and yet
in every situation I've ever been in, every school, and
every job I've ever been in, I've had these kinds
of dark fantasies, right, And so I it's we don't
really have a lot of clarity on motive Jesse yet.
But what we do know is that as a seventeen
year old, Westman filed a Cork document to change her
first name to Robin. The document says that Westman quote
(04:31):
identified as female and wants her name to reflect that identification.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
I also heard this morning that I guess they're also
in her journal or in the shooters journals.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
There's maybe some evidence that this is somebody who was considering.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
De transitioning or like maybe identifies differently now, which again
I think kind of like further complicates this where it's like,
you know, obviously like we're going to have to talk
about the fact that she identified it trans at some point,
but kind of almost going back to what you said
about the like streatment of conscious videos and a lot
of the other stuff that has come out about like
(05:08):
her like fixation on school shooters and stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
Like there's so much other things going on that very.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Clearly I have more to do with the actual motive
than whether or not this person is trans. But yeah,
it does appear that at some point she did identify
as female, she did change that to change her name
and gender marker in.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Some cases to reflect that. So that's really good context
and I think adds credence to my sort of overall
point about this is that this just happened. You know,
you and I are recording on Friday, August twenty ninth.
This just happened, and I think as investigators do their jobs,
more will become clear. We might get more information, But
(05:51):
I think it's the online rush to zero in on
this one part of this person's identity, to say and
that's why she this thing. And I mean, I know
the people who are doing that are doing it with intention,
so I'm not telling them, I'm not saying anything. I
would say that they don't already know what they're doing.
But it just goes to show how we can't have
a full conversation about what's happening with this tragedy. Two
(06:16):
kids are dead, and I think that we owe it
to those kids and their communities and their families and
people who love them to have a full accounting of
what happened here, not just zeroing in on one tidy,
convenient narrative, which it sounds like even that narrative is
more complicated than then the people who are boosting it
would have you believe, right.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
And it's like every time this happens, there's always, you know,
the conversation about gun regulation and how like in gun
violence and gun culture, and that also is also like
always immediately like no, no, no, no, we can't talk about that,
And it's like interesting that it's like, of all of
the things that it aspects of this conversation that we
should be happening, we're gonna end up having to dedicate
(07:00):
so much unnecessary airtime to the fact that this person
identified as trans at one point maybe still did again.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Yeah, still, story is still developing.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
This is something that I read like literally a couple
hours ago.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
So who's to say, well now in a week.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
But yeah, there's just there's so many different elements here,
and I feel like I want to emphasize the point
that it's like we're talking about the fact that she
may or may not have been trans because we're kind of.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Forced to have that conversation. That is a great way
to put it. We're forced to have that conversation and
not have conversations about all that. I mean, a good
place to start might be gun regulation. I don't know what. No,
And so the mayor of Minneapolis has been urging the
public to avoid scapegoating trans folks in the wake of
this tragedy. The mayor said, quote, I've heard a whole
(07:52):
lot of hate directed at our trans community. Anybody that
is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans
community or any other community out there, has a lot
lot their sense of common humanity. We should not be
operating out of the place of hate for anyone. We
should be operating out of a place of love for
kids kids died today. This needs to be about them,
and so kind of like what you were saying, Joey,
it is unfortunate that the shooter's identity has been thrust
(08:17):
in the forefront in this way to the point where
we need to be even making this episode kind of
debunking the way that people on the right online have
been talking about this, because it really obscures the fact
that these kids who were you know, pad parents who
loved them, are part of a community that loved them,
that this should be about them. But because of the
way that extremists have talked about this shooting and amplified
(08:41):
narratives about this shooting and amplified narratives about other incidents
in the past it had nothing to do with trans people,
we are kind of forced to be debunking this idea
about sort of trans terror, and so according to police,
we don't even really know much yet today when we're
recording this about the motive, but that does not stop
the FBI. I'm labeling the shooting as both an act
(09:02):
of terrorism and a hate crime against Catholics, and in
like extremist mega online circles on social media, the term
that they are circulating is the deepest of air quotes
on this one, trans terrorism. And I've heard other iterations
of it like trans tifa. Essentially this false idea that
(09:24):
trans people are more likely to commit public acts of
violence that is constantly repeated online. Have you seen it?
Speaker 3 (09:32):
I have, but trans tifa. This is the first I'm
hearing of trans tifa. Okay, I actually know.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
I was about to be like, I do believe the
trans community could have come up.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
With a better name than that, but actually I'm not
sure about that.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Trans tifa though, that is okay, God, I'm.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Looking on what it was specifically that said this, but
it was like some right wing figure. They literally said
something where they were like the trans terrorism that's like
the most dangerous homegrown terrorism right now. And I was like,
I'm so sorry. Have you met like a single trance?
I mean, obviously not, because you wouldn't be saying this
(10:11):
shit if you had.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
But I was like, the idea of like.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
This transshadow terrorist group that's operating in this country. Like,
what the hell are you talking about? I don't know,
It's it's ridiculous. Every barista in this country is actually
a sleeper agent.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Yeah, I mean the in their fantasy, every barista maybe
like everybody with blue hair or something is. Yeah, it's
like a sleep a sleeper agent that is just one
bad tip away from going full joker or something. Truly,
that is how people talk about the trans community online.
(10:51):
I'm sorry, I think you've mean the woker.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I really want to take this seriously and not make
jokes about this, but I was reading through so.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Much about this and I was like, oh God, like,
this is where we're at. This is where we're at,
this is the Yeah. So none of this, I mean,
I don't need to tell you, none of this is new.
According to a report from GLAD, social media accounts with
a clear history of anti trans rhetoric frequently and importantly
falsely accused trans people of crimes, particularly mass shooting events,
(11:19):
before facts are known, and so just like in this case,
the day that the shooting happened, people were already circulating
this sort of trans terror claim. But the fact is
there is no evidence of escalating violence committed by LGBTQ people,
and extremism and domestic terrorism experts told PolitiFact there is
(11:40):
no widespread threat of growing radicalization or violence from the
trans population. Now. Accusing folks from a small and likely
vulnerable community of being responsible for mass shootings is just
clearly like you're trying to humanize them, other them, demonize them,
and generally promote fear around trans folks and then binary folks.
(12:02):
And I think the important thing for folks to note
is that we're talking about a situation where the shooter
it sounds like, identified as trans at one point or another.
Oftentimes this happens whether or not a trans person had
anything to do with it at all.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Yeah, this was also making me think about, I mean again,
before kind of learning this, now, I aspect that maybe
they now don't identify as trans. Before learning that, I
was thinking about the fact that it's like the problem
with so much of this like just idiotic misinformation or
around trans people, around queer people, around gay people, is
that like there's always going to be the one person
(12:41):
that amplifies that thing.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Like I was talking to a friend recently about like.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
All of the you know, when right wing weirdos want.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
To be like, oh yeah, gay people are all like
pedophiles or all predators, and it's like okay, and then
you can find like the one person to point to
to be like they're like there was a like director
we were talking about where we were like, oh yeah,
remember like they came out and then it immediately was
revealed that they were like a pedophile and all of
this shit, and it was like it sucks because you're
always going to be able to find the one person.
(13:08):
But then at the same time, it's like right, because
people are just people, and they're shitty people no matter
what you identify as like for that one, like, there's
also a bazillion like straight people that are pedophiles or
straight people that are going.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
To do mass shootings.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
When you look at the actual numbers, most you know,
mass shooters, most school shooters, they are white, cis heterosexual men,
so like, but yeah, but the problem is like at
the end of the day, you're always going to be
able to find like the one person that is like
doing the really bad thing. And you know, it's easy
(13:45):
for if you're trying to demonize your people point to
that one person as like representative of an entire group.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
This happens for literally every marginalized group.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
You know, this is like what's at the root of
like you know, onophobia and racism, and you could always
find the one person to be like see that, that
is what the problem is. And I think that is
like the thing that makes me nervous about this.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Absolutely I was thinking the same thing, but you put
that so well because I definitely feel this as a
black person, where I have to be the representative of
black people everywhere, right, and so it is dehumanization and
that it's what you are not judged by what you
do your behavior. You are judged and scrutinized by the
(14:32):
behavior of others. And so you know. And it's interesting
to me because as the research shows, and we'll talk
about it in a moment, but the researchers could not
be clear that the majority of mass shootings are, as
you said, perpetrated by white CIS men. That is just
a fact. And I don't think we have a culture
that demands that white men writ large need to answer
(14:53):
for the behavior of the men who are largely behind
these instances of mass violence. Yet I think that when
you when you do have, you know, one off marginalized
people who unfortunately do things like this, the entire group
is judged by those one off people's actions and behavior.
(15:14):
Does that make sense? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Absolutely, I mean it's it's when you have any sort
of marginalized identity, you're always not seen as an individual.
You are seen as a representative of that group versus
like if you are obviously if you're a cis white man,
but honestly, like anybody, like I'm somebody who like I'm white,
if I do something stupid, nobody's going to be like, see,
this is.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Proof that like white people are like that.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
As a trans person, if I do something stupid, that
will probably be seen as, oh see, y'all are crazy.
But it's like yeah, Like it is like if you
have any sort of marginalized identity, you are kind of
seen as exemplifying that community, where if you are part
of the kind of more privileged side of that, you
don't experience that you are seen as an individu Well,
(16:00):
you're seen as you know, these like lone wolf shooters
that nobody knows why it happened.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Again, it feels like I feel like I've.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Had this conversation so many times because it's like it
is the same story. I think it's just like right
now it is, we're having this again, because this really
is one of the first really prominent stories where it
has been like a trans person that is bet at
the center of this.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
And the point I want to make about this is
that this is identity based disinformation. It might not look
like it, it might not be the kind of thing
that traditionally disinformation researchers would call out as disinformation, but
the way that trans people are baselessly blamed and connected
to tragedies, mass shootings, instances of mass violence, that is
(16:44):
to me identity based disinformation. And I see it over
and over again. And I would be willing to bet
that if you spend any time on social media, you
have probably seen this kind of thing play out online already,
because there is a particular image that I can see
it in my head of a kind of person with blonde,
shaggy hair holding a rifle that often circulates online claiming
(17:06):
that it shows the perpetrator of whenever there's a shooting
or a tragedy or an instance of mass violence, and
it claims to show this person who they the comment
say is trans, but it is actually a very well
worn image to the point that it's almost a meme.
It's an image of this guy, Sam Hyde, who is
an extremist comedian and YouTuber. He has his We can
(17:27):
do a whole episode on him. He there's a lot
to say about him, but let's just that's who it is.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Kind of also, like taking a wider look at this issue,
I do think it's really interesting that that photo is
a cisman. Yeah, because like I've seen that photo million
times too, and I'll be real, like I always kind
of just assumed it was some random trans person until
like listening to the episode that you did with stuff
Mom never told you about this where you talked about
this same image, and I think it just goes to
(17:55):
show again, like taking a sort of wider look at
what happens when this sort of transphobic rhetoric becomes so normalized.
Is it's like, oh, you see somebody with long hair,
and you're immediately going to be like it.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Is narrowing the gender roles again.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Like if you were looking at all of this through
like a very transphobic lens, it's like, yeah, you're we're
going back to these like very very strict gender roles,
where like you can have a CIS ban with long
hair and use that image to be like, see they're
trans or they you know, the way that these people
are going to say it is going to be like
they think they're a woman or whatever. I'm not saying
(18:31):
that I agree with that rhetoric, but it's like, I
don't know, I find it kind of sis people.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I think, like, if you want to.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Make it by yourselves, if you really want to like
not have to human out whatever, like, think about the
fact that it's like all of this bad rhetoric is
going to come back to just make gender roles more
strict and more restrictive and just bad for everybody, regardless
of you know, whether you're trans or SIS or whatever.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Don't even get me started on this because this is
the drum that I beat. This is a tangent, but
it's a drum that I beat all the time. So,
as you said, if you are someone who doesn't give
a fuck about the humanity of trans people and you're like,
I only care about me and that's that's your orientation, fine, Okay,
I don't sh have that orientation, but got you when
you get into a place where you are so strictly
(19:16):
policing the gender of other people along this very narrow
understanding of gender, that shit always comes back.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Around, right exactly.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
It is especially disappointing to me when I see this
from other Black CIS women who will say like, oh,
well you know where they will say, they will say
things that are very transphobic, and I always think, like,
nobody who is CIS gender gets transphobically compared to men,
like black CIS women. That is like when you want
to when people wanted to insult Michelle Obama, that go
(19:48):
to insult was, oh, she's really a man. She looks
like a man. Da da da da. If you can't
see the clear line from policing the gender of other
people to that shit coming back around to you, I
don't know what to tell you. And so if you're
someone who doesn't care about the humanity of trans folks
and are only caring about yourself when you I mean,
it's like Beyonce said, when you play me, you play
(20:10):
yourself when you when you play those games, it comes
back around to us. And so exactly, I just have
to say that like it is. It especially hurts coming
from other sis black women, because I just know that,
like our gender is so scrutinized, the way the way
that the whatever we've got going on with gender wherever
(20:30):
we're at, that is so scrutinized, And it's like, why
would you want to participate in that kind of climate
for somebody else when like when you like, you know
what I'm saying, it's just yes, I'll move on.
Speaker 6 (20:40):
Yeah, No, absolutely, though I mean it's yeah, and I yeah,
not to go on too much of a handship, but
like literally every issue where like transphopia is through the
conversation about sports right now, and like trans people's participation
in sports, it's like that is maybe the most obvious
way we're seeing it come background and like also hurt
(21:01):
sist people.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
But it's like, yeah, like just just because you're going
after us as like your top target, like y'all are next. Yes,
if we get to the point where we're starting to
police people's gender like this, it's not gonna stop because
it hasn't. We've seen this, like we've been seeing this
for years now, and it's insane. We're at the point
where like, yeah, again, there was that story a couple
(21:25):
weeks ago about like a CIS woman who like was
being sexually her breast and like a buffalo wild wings
bathroom because the like serverir didn't believe that she was
like quote unquote really a woman, and like it was like, Yeah,
this should be a wake up call to the rest
of you if you really, like do not care about us,
at least care about yourselves.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
Let's take a quick break at our back.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
So we're talking about what happens when trans people are
baselessly blamed for instances of mass violence or tragedy online.
So in twenty twenty three, a fact checker and journalist
named Bill McCarthy described that whenever he sees a mass shooting,
his heart does not just sink for the victims and
their families and their communities, but it also sinks because
he knows that other completely blameless people will be falsely
(22:27):
accused of being the killer, with their pictures splashed all
over the internet. In a piece called mass Shootings the
Other Innocent Victims, McCarthy really shed light into this where
after a mass shooting in Nashville, that picture of Sam Hyde,
who is not trans, was misidentified as both being the
perpetrator and trans McCarthy writes, shortly after police said they
(22:48):
responded to a shooting, I opened Twitter and ran a
simple keyword search Nashville shooter identified. According to dozens of results,
the city's officials had already sing a lot of perpetrator.
It was a trans woman named Samantha Hyde. Post claim.
Now that image at this point it's I mean, I
think of it as a meme, but like it actually
did originate as a meme on four Chan. So when
a shooting happens, or a tragedy happens, it's like a
(23:11):
meme to circulate this image of sam Hyde and say
that it's a suspect and that they're trans. Internet users
have been trying to trick people into believing that Hyde
was behind so many tragedies over the years. There was
also an attempt in that Nashville shooting to pin the
attack on Clara Sorrenti, a transactivist and video game streamer
that people might know as Kepple's who folks might recall
(23:32):
we did an episode on this kind of a while
Ago was forced to flee her Canada home after being
targeted by an online harassment campaign. It's not just Nashville.
After the After the Uvaldi shooting in Texas, this photo
of an actual trans woman named Sam So, not the
CIS comedian named Sam Different. Sam actual trans woman, was
circulated on social media, claiming that she was the perpetrator.
(23:55):
She had to actually post an image of herself saying like, hey,
I am alive because the sh shooter in that attack
was killed by police. And you know, I have to say, like,
I've never even been to Texas. I live in Georgia.
I mean, the way that people have to prove to
strangers on the Internet that they're not involved in these
crimes when they had nothing to do with it. I mean,
(24:16):
I just can't imagine what that would be like. But
that has not stopped these claims from going viral, from
harming innocent trans people and then also just creating this
false idea, I would say, intentionally so that trans people
are linked to violence and are dangerous.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Yeah, I mean, like you said again, it's all just
part of this narrative of trying to paint this picture
of trans folks as dangerous, as like it's somehow you know,
like it's it's because of like quote unquote mental illness.
It's these are coming from folks that already see being
trans as like a again like quote unquote mental illness,
(24:54):
not as like a real way of identifying and plenty
of SIS people are mentally ill, and somehow that's never
like I don't know again, it is just it's scapegoating
and is like a convenient excuse to say, like, the
problem isn't like the fact that we live in a
country that just has a deep history of violence that
like we have had, you know, problems with gun violence,
(25:15):
that like gun regulation is just kind of like non existent.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
In this country.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
It's like no, no, no, it's this specific thing that
we also don't like for other arbitrary reasons, and it's
just easy and convenient for us to tie them together
when that's not what's happening most of the time.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
So this actually brings me to something that happened in
DC where I live, which was the plane crash that
happened earlier this year. There is a great piece in
Wired that will link in the show notes that folks
should read a trans pilot was falsely blamed for a
plane crash. Now she's fighting the right wing Distanto Machine
that was published earlier this summer that really unpacks this
issue in a great way. So in January there was
(25:54):
this deadly plane crash in DC where a helicopter crashed
into a plane. Both of them landed in the Potomac River.
Sixty seven people all died. It was a very dark
time in DC. I remember, I folks might know this
that I work part time for a DC based podcast
called Citycast DC. And DC is a pretty small community.
(26:15):
And so the way that this really just loomed large
at a time when d C was our when we
continue to be going through a lot, but at a
time we were going through a lot, was really rough. And
I think what made it even rougher was that. And
I promise I won't get on my DC soapbox, but
because people are so used to disrespecting DC and discounting
(26:37):
d C and not thinking of DC as like a
real place where real people live, it's just like a
set of national power to a lot of people. I
think the way that this was a hard tragedy for
our local DC community to take was really ignored. And
I think that's why Trump and his administration really felt okay.
Literally I mean this literally, they were bodies still in
(27:00):
the river while these people were lying about what happened
with this plane crash, right, And I think that one
of the reasons why that was okay is not just
because it's not just because these people are ghouls, which
they are, but also is because people in DC are
not seen as real Americans or real people the way
that other parts of the country are. So you know,
(27:22):
it really sucked. And as much as it was a
dark time for DC, it also became a dark time
for this woman named Joe Ellis, who is a transgender
National Guard pilot who was falsely blamed for the deadly
DC crash. Not to be super clear, Ellis was not
involved in this in any capacity, which is simply not involved. However,
(27:45):
a few days before this crash, Ellis published an essay
about what it's like being a trans pilot in the
National Guard. So this and this alone was enough for
right wing influencers with millions of followers across the Internet
to baselessly accuse her of being possible for this crash.
So basically what happened is that Ellis wrote this piece
called Living to Serve, Living as Myself a transgender service
(28:08):
members perspective, where she describes growing up in a family
of service members and then joining the Virginia Army National
Guard in two thousand and nine. In her piece, she
describes sending an email to her command giving them notice
that she intended to start transitioning under the current in
service transition policy. That policy has since been rescinded by
(28:28):
the Trump administration, and she talks about how when she
gave them that notice, she was met with overwhelming support
from her team. What's interesting about this piece, it's just
an interesting side note, is that it's clear that she's
trying to debunk some pretty well worn myths about how
trans people get all this free stuff, like because she
was in the military, the military is paying for all
(28:49):
of this stuff, and she was like, oh no, no,
I paid out of pocket for all of my care.
I paid for it all. So that even in that piece,
I feel like she's struck. You do you ever hear
this that like oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Yeah, which I'm like, where is this free stuff?
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Why am I not gonna get any of it? I mean, yeah,
any sort of trans healthcare related thing.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
People hear it in there, like free healthcare, and it's
like nobody said free, Like it operates the same way
every healthcare thing in this country operates.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
Which is terribly uh you know, like.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
This is what really like pisses me off, especially when
we talk about again kind of a tangent issue.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
But I don't know where these free handouts are.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
I would if somebody knows, if somebody could get me
like some connections, please let me know.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
I love free stuff.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
So this is it is another example of like, unfortunately,
like the right wing just thinks that like the left
is way cooler than we actually are. Like, yeah, I
wish Joe Biden was like a communist who is just
giving people free trans healthcare, but that was absolutely not
what was happening.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
And yeah, and yet here we are. What's funny about
this is that you can convince people online, especially when
it comes to gender reforming care for minors. You could
convince people like it. It's like a common sense and
just the ability to think for five seconds goes out
the window. People will say like, oh, there's doctors who
(30:21):
are you know, mutilating toddlers, And I swear to you
someone once told me that they have heard a story
where a doctor had given a boob job to like
a five year old, and I was thinking, like, I
cannot believe you believe this think about it for five
facus God.
Speaker 7 (30:37):
That was like back when the all of the Target
stuff was happening, like this was last year I think
where there was like they were like they're selling binders
for children at Target, and it was like, look, but
like toddlers don't need binders.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
You don't have boobs until you hit puberty. Like I
think about it, but it doesn't make any sense. It's
one of those I mean, it's one of those things
where if you've thought about it for five I have seconds,
it falls apart completely if if you just just thought
it through, just think get through. Sometimes I just want
to tell these people just think about it for the
most idiotic claims. But yeah, this is what I'm saying.
(31:12):
When it comes to moral panic around especially my like
gender reforming care for minors, you could convince them of anything.
There's like not there is not anything that is too
far gone for these people to believe, you.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Know what I d I mean, I think the thing
that I keep going back to and like thinking about
the story too, is like, at the end of the day,
none of this is coming because of like logical assumptions.
Like the hard thing is like I think it's really
easy to fall into the trap of like wanting to
like take the logical sign and be like, here, see,
you're obviously all this stuff. None of this is coming
from like a place of logic. This is coming from
(31:45):
the fact that like they want to find escapegoat, they
can say whatever the fuck they want and like just
speak it into being true for people's like the way
that people see the world. I think it is important
to talk about these things. It's important to emphasize the
fact that like this stuff obviously isn't true, because I
do think like at.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
The end of the day, the people that are probably.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Like the most you know, the need to hear these
things are like the parents of trans kids that maybe
are like nervous about the fact that it's like, yeah, obviously,
like we live in a very transphobic world.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Your kid's gonna have to deal with that, You're gonna
have deal with that.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
But it's like helping them not get sucked into these
like conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Theory rabbit holes. But like, at the end of the day,
the people.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
That are that really truly believe this stuff, that are
saying these things, like there's no way to debate them
into admitting the truth, you know, it's the whole like
Ben Shapiro brain rot thing where he's very like, oh, like,
debate me on this whatever.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Like it's like you can't debate them there.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
They just they have their world view.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
They know what's gonna get them the response they want,
and they're gonna say that regardless of whether it's true
or not.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yeah, it's not like you can't debate with somebody who
is committed to misunderstanding you. There's no there's no point
in it. And so with this woman Ellis, so that's
kind of a good segway into what happened with her. So,
after her piece was published, Ellis woke up to messages
from a friend warning her that she had been named
online as the pilot who killed innocent passengers in this
(33:11):
deadly crash. So at first Ellis was like, oh, this
is just some sort of mistake. Somebody has mistakenly connected
me to the crash, probably because of that essay of
describing what it's like being a trans pilot from Virginia
and this accident happened near Virginia. So when she loved
into Facebook, she sees both messages from friends that are like,
oh my god, are you dead, Like I heard that
you were involved in this accident? Are you okay? And
(33:34):
hateful transphobic messages from people saying that they knew that
she had been involved in this crash. So here's what happened.
Right wing influencers were boosting lies that Ellis was involved
in this crash. On x Matt Wallace, who has over
two million followers, put out a post saying that a
trans black Hawk pilot had written a letter about depression
and gender dysphoria the day before the crash. He went
(33:57):
so far as to suggest that it was some kind
of a trans terror attack. There's that phrase again. That
post blew up got almost five million views before he
deleted it. Then Anne vander Steele, who was a pretty
well known QAnon personality with a very big following, jumped
in and pushed the same false claim. Now she eventually
posted a retraction, and it would not be an episode
(34:18):
about transphobia online without mentioning Elon Musk. Musk's chatbot on
xt Grock falsely named Ellis as the pilot, which only
made this rumor spread faster. So before long, Ellis's name
was trending as the second most talked about topic on
X with more than ninety thousand posts about her. She
(34:39):
eventually had to put out a proof of life video
on social media to reassure her community that she was
not dead and to push back against these lies. So
after she published this, Matt Wallace, one of the people
who initially pushed this claim, I will give credit where
credit is due. He did update his post to say
that Ellis was alive and not responsible for the crash.
(35:01):
He did also shift blame to a different account. Wala
said that the account on x called Fake Gay Politics,
which has since been suspended, was where this claim originated.
He said, this is apparently the first account who reported
what we now know is false. It seemed credible because
Joe Ellis wrote an article calling out Trump's trans military
ban only a few days ago, and of course he
(35:22):
goes on to misgender her in this post, saying that
he had been wrong about her causing this deadly crash
in an act of trans terror, because apparently the man
just can't help himself.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
Yeah, I mean they don't. They don't care.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
At the end of the day.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
They don't see us as human beings, they don't see
us as legimate. So third, yeah, I am curious if
it's supposed to be this fake this account that was suspended,
if it's like fake gay politics, or if it's like
fake and gay politics, Like is it fake politics about
gay people or is it politics that is both fake
and gay?
Speaker 1 (35:58):
But you know, I it's just like this is the
world we're living.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Good guy, this reminds me of I's just I can't
remember this is.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
The last week or two weeks or whatever. Anyways, there
was a story we did in the News round.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Up recently about the Chris Formo getting got by an
AOC like AI video where she was like talking about
Sydney Sweeney.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Or yeah, I don't know whatever, Yeah I am.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
And like his response was basically like, oh, I guess
it was a I my bad. But also it seems
like something she would say and maybe we should talk
about that.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
And it's like, so you're just saying but like I
believe in my.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Fantasy world this is true, So I think we should
be we should be mad at her about like it's
like this thing where they're like but it it seems
like something that would happen, So it's an issue.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Yeah, any but it's not happening. Any random thing I
make up you need to be held accountable for Yeah,
I made exact Still in Matt Wallace's follow up tweet,
being like, well, you know, as you were saying, it
sounds like something she was talking about being depressed, and
you know, da da dada. I actually read her article
and it actually doesn't. She talks about being depressed before
she was able to transition, but in it she describes
(37:18):
like getting a lot of support, feeling that she has
a good support system, being really happy. Da da da da.
I think that, I mean, it goes back to what
you were saying about this default assumption that anybody who
is trans or gender non conforming is automatically mentally ill, depressed,
deeply unhappy. Because her piece is very much her describing
(37:38):
that she feels really good, feels really solid, wants other
people to feel as good and as solid as she does.
And still he says, oh, she's describing, you know, be
she sounds depressed. That she's like, you know, it's just
I think it really comes back to that underlying assumption
that nobody who is trans or non binary could also
be happy stable, you know, you know.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
What I'm saying exactly, Yeah, I mean I think it's
interesting because I think, like even ten years ago, obviously
there are still families and places where this probably is
also the rhetoric around gay people. But I like, I'm
I'm thinking like ten years ago, I have so many
friends now that grew up with this sort of rhetoric
about gay people that were like, oh, if you're gay,
you're gonna be unhappy and depressed, versus like now was adults.
(38:24):
I don't know, Like again, I'm lucky where like I
live in New York City, I am in a fairly
like progressive environment.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
But like, listen, I am depressed.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
I have depression that has nothing to do with the
fact that I.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Am gay or trans or whatever that like, I know
plenty of sis people that are depressed. I know plenty
of most people I know these days are oppressed because
we live in a really messed up world right now.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
But yeah, it is like also like yeah, shocking.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
If you are living a life that is like not
authentic to yourself, if you are unable to be your
true self, you're going to feel depressed. And if you're
in a place where you're able to transition, you're able
to be the person that you really are, like on
the inside, obviously you're gonna feel better, You're gonna feel.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Happier than you were before.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
And it is like, yeah, if you if you go
back and read that actual article that you wrote, That's
what she's talking about, is the fact that it's like,
at the end of the day, all of what these
people want is or trans people to just stay in
the closet and stay as theirs signed gender at birth.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
And it's like, great, that is you're.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Creating these like depressed just like like the things that
you think are going to happen if people transition, that's
just what's going to happen. If you continue to stay repressed,
you're gonna you're gonna not you know, the terrorism part,
but like the people are gonna be depressed and miserable,
and like that is what leads to suicide in a
lot of cases. Uh, not the fact that people are
(39:52):
trans the fact that people are not allowed to express
themselves and to be like the person that they.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
Are, you know exactly. It is oppressive systems and lack
of access to meaningful support systems that makes people unhappy
and it makes people unwell. And this idea that like
oh well and again, but trans people and queer people
should not have to I mean, yeah, let trans people
be depressed and said like they should not have to
(40:20):
be like, oh, I'm super good. I'm super good, because
nobody is super good all the time. But what creates
dynamics where it's not it's not transness or queerness that
makes people depressed, it is lack of access, lack of resources,
lack of support. Like, we've created a system that allows
us to blame people for the things that our system
denies them.
Speaker 5 (40:44):
More after a quick break, let's.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Get right back into it. So we're talking about Joel,
this trans pilot who extremists on the internet falsely accused
of being responsible for the deadly plane crash in DC
earlier this year. Figures like Matt Wallace accused her of
waging eight trans terror attack, even though she had absolutely
nothing to do with this crash. So, from this point,
(41:18):
Ellis basically went from being unknown in public to being
somebody who felt like she could not even go out
in public because for fear of her own safety. She
told The New York Times, my life was turned upside
down at that point, adding that her employers sent armed
bodyguards to protect her family and that she started carrying
a loaded weapon as a precaution. Forever I'm known as
that trans terrorist, she told The Times. So we've talked
(41:40):
about this in a few other episodes of the podcast.
But when online right wing influencers, individual influencers spread lies
about people, we're seeing more and more that the people
that they defame are fighting back via defamation lawsuits targeted
at the people who spread demonstrably and hurtful lies about them.
And so that's exactly what Ellis did. In April, she
(42:03):
filed a defamation suit against Matt Wallace, saying that he
was behind a destructive and irresponsible defamation campaign. The lawsuit
against Wallace, filed in the U. S. District Court of Colorado,
was a way for Elis to seek damages for the
harm that he caused her reputation, privacy, and safety. Ellis
said that Wallace has not counterfiled, and the lawsuit was
filed by the Equality Legal Action Fund, which is a
(42:24):
group of volunteer attorneys and advocates who helped members of
the LGBTQ community fight online defamation. It does sound to
me like when I looked into this, that it might
be a little bit of a tricky gray area legally
to individually sue an individual online influencer for what they've
said about you. Parents of kids who died in the
Sandy Hook shooting did successfully sue Alex Jones for defamation
(42:47):
after he repeatedly claimed that the shooting that killed their
kids was basically a hoax. And folks might remember that
Dominion Voting Systems got a seven hundred and eighty seven
million dollar settlement from Fox News for claiming that their
voting systems during the election we're rigged against Trump. So
there is some precedent for suing businesses or business entities
for defamation, but that's a little bit different than these
(43:10):
one off individual influencers on Twitter who spread damaging lies
about people. And you know, I hate that the only
recourse for this kind of thing is suing people and
taking it to the courts. But especially for marginalized people,
there has to be some kind of accountability for this.
There has to be some sort of like cost for
(43:30):
spreading these kinds of damaging lies, because these kind of
lies can hurt people. You know, we've talked about Ruby
Freeman and Shay Moss, the two black women in Georgia
who were vote counters who Trump and Giuliani baselessly said
that they had rigged the elect They were hiding votes
and rigging the election for Biden. People showed up at
their house and tried to force their way into their
(43:53):
home to make a citizens arrest because of that. So, like,
this is not something that happens online. This translates to actual,
real world to harm where people are putting their lives
at risk because of the lies people spread about them online.
Speaker 4 (44:07):
Yeah, totally agree.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
I mean, it's I wish there was another like, I
wish there was something that could happen before having to
like literally sue these people. But good for Joe Alice.
I hope that that case goes in you know, her favor.
But yeah, it really I think it's important to emphasize
(44:29):
the fact that it's like this isn't just like, oh,
I'm getting a bunch of hate comments online, you can
just turn your phone off and not pay attention to it.
It's like this is affecting people's like actual livelihood. It
is affecting their ability to exist in public, and that
should not be happening because that shouldn't be happening to anyone.
(44:52):
But it's hard enough to exist as a trans person,
as like a person of color, as a queer person,
anybody with any sort of marginalized right now, Like, there
shouldn't be an extra layer of being this level of
like a target.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
And I hate that this is such a commonplace thing now,
because blaming trans folks for incidents that they literally had
nothing to do with is not an isolated thing. The
fact Checking Database Claim Review shows that since twenty twenty two,
there have been a dozen incidents where a transgender person
was wrongly blamed for a tragedy or violent incident. After
the tragic deaths of Minnesota state a representative Mussa Hortman
(45:29):
and her husband who were assassinated, Donald Trump Junior said, quote,
the radical transgender movement is, per capita, the most violent
domestic terror threat in America, if not probably the entire world.
And that shooter was not even trans.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
I think that was the quote I was thinking about earlier,
Like I was like, I know there was something where
somebody was like the most violent domestic terror threat. I
was like, well, really, I am sure about that. Yeah, No,
that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
That literally was like a right wing attack. Yeah, that
happened very explicitly and clearly and after two people were
killed in Wisconsin, Alex Jones, who really should not be
lying about anybody, publicly tweeted if the statistical trend continues
with this tragic event, there's a ninety eight percent chance
the shooting is trans or gang related. If it's another
(46:19):
trans whack job or gang shooting, it should be out
of the news in less than twenty four hours. So
it che go without saying that this is all a
complete lie. Trans people are more likely to be the
victims of crime, not the perpetrators. This is from Wired
research those that trans people are four times more likely
to be the victims of violence compared to cist people.
(46:40):
According to GLAD, between May twenty twenty four and May
twenty twenty five, there have been at least twenty six
injuries and one death reported among trans and non and
gender non conforming people, a fourteen percent jump from the
previous year. Meanwhile, claims that trans folks are behind mass
shootings just does not add up. Per the Gun Violence Archive,
there have been four four hundred shootings in the past decade,
(47:01):
of which fewer than ten known suspects were trans. That's
zero point eleven percent, and we know that things like
far right extremism surpasses terrorism committed by others. This is
according to politifacts, and it needs to be said that
these groups do tend to engage in violence that often
targets LGBTQ people and promotes LGBTQ views. So making the
(47:23):
targets the people who are the most targeted of this
kind of domestic terror, flipping that around and being like, oh,
they all they're the perpetrators. It's really blaming people for
something bad that they are already at the center of.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Yeah, people actually don't know this, but uh the Lee
Harvey Oswald actually used gi the pronouns they governed this
lister kidding.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
I'm not even honestly, I feel like.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
We're like two steps away from somebody transvestigating.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Yeah, like yeah, like a deep dive. But this exactly
exactly like why you're RESI. I mean, Glad has a
lot of really great studies, you.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
Know, shameless plug for a second if you want to
learn more about violence against the transcunities. So we should
check out another show that I work on that's called Afterlives.
Our first season was about this woman Leiley and Planco
who passed away at Briker's prison due to kind of
a series of just things that should not have happened,
(48:26):
situations she not had been in, largely because of the
fact that she was a black trans woman. But something
that we talked about in that show that we did
a lot of research around was this idea that when
you look at the way that trans people, the few
instances of trans people being portrayed in like TV and film,
even before trans people became the scapegoat for mass shootings
(48:49):
and this kind of thing, the way that trans people
were portrayed as like murderers and criminal, like looking back
at like Silence of the Lambs and stuff like that,
where there's like this whole history of trans folks being
portrayed as violent, being portrayed as like unstable, when it's like,
at the same time, we are disproportionally, and particularly trans
(49:12):
women and particularly transmomant of color, are disproportionally the victims
of this kind of violence, and it is sort of
like again pulling back, it is frustrating to have to
keep having this conversation and have to keep being like, no,
we are not the ones that are doing this, when
it's like, also at the same time, our community is
being targeted in this way, we're like people are dying,
(49:35):
people are like being murdered, people are like anti transa crime,
Like those anti transa crimes are happening.
Speaker 4 (49:43):
People are dying because they're trans.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
And at the same time, like the way that trans
people are oftentimes like portrayed by these like right wing groups,
but also in a lot of like mainstream entertainment, it's
makes it appear as if we're the ones that are
doing this.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
It's so true, and I wish so I could say
that we have moved that we have because like you
go back and watch movies like Pet Detective and not
not to like spoil the movie.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
But I okay, that what's funny because I've never actually
seen that movie, but I feel like every like trans
mask person at some point is like I look like
a svener Pet And it's like at the same time,
that movie is so transforthing, and it's funny we have.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
Not like we It's I wish I could say that
we had beyond that that like portrayal from like nineteen
ninety two or whatever. But you're right, we really have
it when you look at the way that and I
guess it's why it's so important that work like your
work with Afterlives, you know, it's very important that we
have depictions of trans folks in ways that are thoughtful
(50:46):
and loving and real and aren't out of like, yeah,
we we need the work that you all are doing.
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (50:54):
Yeah, I got shapeless plug.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
Go listen to Afterlives works very hard on that show,
but on the tangent just about friends, people and how
we're portrayed, both like in news media and entertainment media.
I think there was there was an interview with Jenks
Bond soon recently where she was talking about like she
like playing she played like a villain and like doctor
(51:17):
Who recently, and she was talking about like being as
an actress, like getting to play roles where she is
like a villain as a transperson, and how like it's
almost kind of liberating because it's like she's able to
do like kind of reain control.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
Of that narrative.
Speaker 3 (51:34):
Like it was sort of she was talking about the
fact that it's like we're all like Villa and I
so much all of this stuff is put on us,
and it's like almost kind of fun to be able
to like twist that around and get to play, you know,
into like being like an in evil character that has
nothing to do with being friends anyways, tangent has nothing
really to do with this, But yeah, I think there
is something to be said about the fact that it's
like the stuff that we consume shapes the way that
(51:56):
we think about people. And that means you know, that
means dude, media, that means entertainment, media that means these,
that means Twitter, you know, yeah, in social media, and.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
That is why these sort of things are dangerous. More
after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
(52:26):
We really can't talk about the mechanics of how trans
people get falsely linked to violence without talking about the
media apparatus that facilitates it. One of the biggest parts
of this story is that the way that they have
really built an effective media apparatus where these claims might
start in more fringe pockets of the Internet, like for
Chune or some random extremist Twitter page, but they then
(52:48):
pretty quickly get boosted by right wing politicians, media figures,
and even bleed into mainstream media where they just become
part of people's conscious like they just like become as
part of how people understand trans folks. And then it's
all made worse by the fact that social media platforms
have really mostly all of them, loosened whatever rules they
did have to prevent people from really being ugly and
(53:12):
horrible to trans and queer people. Right Like, earlier this year,
Facebook loosened rules around hate speech and abuse. LinkedIn recently
changed their policies. It's a little bit of a complicated thing,
but it does seem that they are making it easier
for folks to miss gender and dead name people on LinkedIn,
of all places. No, yeah, that's like what I was like,
are you kidding me?
Speaker 4 (53:32):
Like LinkedIn?
Speaker 3 (53:33):
Like what it's not first of all, the people use LinkedIn,
like it's an actual social media platform. Like that's to me,
those are the people we should be concerned about.
Speaker 1 (53:43):
Like that's something's going on. But like, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (53:50):
I was like, I check LinkedIn when I absolutely have to.
Like I was like, this is literally just how I
show what my job is. I don't like, this has
nothing to do. But I don't know, Come on, LinkedIn,
I get you.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
A whole better. It's like, yeah, I don't I would do.
I could talk to you. I have a lot to
say about LinkedIn. I'm a LinkedIn hater, I will. You know,
so all of this becomes a bigger problem when you
look at how algorithms amplify harmful content, and platforms like
(54:25):
Facebook and x have really just scrapped fact checking. There's
not really meaningful bactchecking happening on these platforms anymore where
people could push back and say, hey, this person is
not a trans terror suspect or whatever. And like I
was saying, you know, all of this just becomes another
system that dehumanizes trans people, justifies violence against trans people
(54:46):
who are already targets of violence, as we talked about,
you know, continues to to dehumanize trans people, and I
think it kind of goes to what we were saying earlier.
Like to me, the whole thing really shows just how
eager people are to use anything, even if it is
outright lies, to paint trans people as mentally ill or violent.
And it is like it's like they're trying to build
(55:08):
a world where trans people never just get to exist
as their selves, whether that is someone who is depressed
or said or happy or a meaty villain or whatever,
Like you never get to just be who you are. Instead,
they're being like constantly held responsible for not just what
other trans people do, but for things that never even
(55:28):
actually happened in the first place.
Speaker 3 (55:31):
This kind of reminds me. I was talking with a
friend recently about like, because again, like I'm lucky enough
for like I have a pretty solid like trans community
where I am, and like queer community, and I was
talking with a friend recently about how we're like it's
always annoying while like we have like stupid, like interpersonal
beef with people that also just happen to be like
(55:53):
trans or queer or whatever, and being like, yeah, like
they suck.
Speaker 1 (55:57):
They did all of this stuff.
Speaker 3 (55:58):
I don't like them, but all so like at the
end of the day, we're all being attacked right now,
so like I hope that they you know, like I
don't want them to get hate crimed.
Speaker 4 (56:09):
I don't want them to get like I hope that.
Speaker 1 (56:12):
None of this awful stuff happens.
Speaker 3 (56:14):
Like it's like, oh great, I have to defend the
worst person I know because we're all being attacked right now,
and it's like I should be able to just be
a hater in peace.
Speaker 1 (56:24):
That is the biggest crime here.
Speaker 3 (56:26):
But no, but yeah, it really is like trains people
are such a like small portion of the population. Even
if we weren't, who cares, Like, even if we weren't,
because that's something people always like emphasize. It's like, oh,
it's such a small percentage of the population. But it's like, yeah,
we're just people. Like it doesn't affect how like how
(56:48):
someone else is presenting, how somebody else is identifying, how
they're living their life has nothing to do with you.
Speaker 4 (56:52):
And like we're at this point with politics where it's
like this.
Speaker 3 (56:56):
Has like so much of the noise is just this
kind of stuff because it takes away from like the
actual issues in it. And again, like people have died,
Like there are two children that are dead right now.
There's gun violence in this country has become some normalized
that like I heard school shooting at the top of
this kind of when this story was breaking, and like
(57:18):
it like barely bad in an eye over it. It's
just it's become that normalized. That should be the thing
that we're talking about, but we're not. We're getting roped
into these like arbitrary conversations that have nothing to do
with like the larger issue here, whether this.
Speaker 1 (57:32):
Person was trans or not. The fact that they identified
is trans.
Speaker 5 (57:35):
At one point.
Speaker 3 (57:36):
Clearly there was other stuff going on, Like there's so
many other things that should be the focus of the story,
and unfortunately that's not what it's going to be. Well, actually, no,
apparently it's going to be. I saw something that like
was like Fox News is now like, oh, the left
is mocking people for saying that we should pray for
blah blah blah blah, and it was like, no, the
(57:56):
mayor of Minneapolis just said, like, don't say thought some prayers.
Speaker 4 (58:00):
They were literally like praying this is insane, Like I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (58:04):
Yeah, we are in some dark times, but Joey, I
really appreciate you being a light in these dark times
with follow your your thoughtful work. Where can folks follow you?
Listen to what you've got going on, tell us all
the things.
Speaker 3 (58:20):
Yeah, so if you want to listen to other things
that I've worked on, you should definitely check out After
your Lives. Like I mentioned, our first season was about
Lealen Planco, who is a transgender woman who passed away
at Breaker's prison. We go into a lot of the
systems that led to her death because she really should
(58:41):
not have died.
Speaker 4 (58:43):
There's so many things went wrong that should not have happened.
Speaker 1 (58:47):
And then the second.
Speaker 4 (58:48):
Season we took a little bit of a different route.
It was about Marsha P.
Speaker 3 (58:51):
Johnson, whose eightieth birthday was recently. We definitely recommend checking
that out if you're interested in queer history or just
kind of like I will say, like tangent as you know,
a queer person, as a transperson, I think like and
as somebody who's also.
Speaker 1 (59:08):
Like just kind of like a history nerd.
Speaker 3 (59:11):
I find it really comforting to look back at these
like stories of these like trans trailber lasers like Marshby
Johnson and the like, looking at stone Wall, looking at
what actually happened, looking at like how people rallied around
people in the AIDS crisis. I think that gives me
a lot of hope to be like, we're going to
make it through this at the end of the day,
Like our community is stronger than like the people.
Speaker 1 (59:34):
Trying to take us down. Ar We're gonna make it
through it.
Speaker 4 (59:38):
But yeah, check out Afterlives.
Speaker 3 (59:41):
You can also hear me occasionally on stuff Mom Never
Told You.
Speaker 1 (59:49):
I did an episode.
Speaker 3 (59:50):
Back in June about being non binary and some of
like misconceptions around that. If you want to listen and yeah.
If you want to fu follow me online, you can
find me at pat not Pratt.
Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
That's p A T T n O T p r
A T t I.
Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
That's my handle on Instagram and Twitter. I barely use
Twitter anymore. I think it is also my Blue Sky,
but I honestly don't even think I have the app
downloaded anymore for blues side.
Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
But yeah, yeah, uh find me online, woo, follow Jolly
and all the places. Thank you so much for listening.
I will see you on the internet. Got a story
about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to
say hi, You can reach us at Hello at tegody
dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode
(01:00:39):
at tengody dot com. There Are No Girls on the
Internet was created by me bridget Toad. It's a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer.
Tarry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almado
is our contributing producer. I'm your host, bridget Todd. If
you want to help us grow, rate and review.
Speaker 5 (01:00:57):
Us on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
For more podcasts from heart Radio, check out the iHeartRadio
app Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts
There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this
is there are No Girls on the Internet. Something that
should surprise nobody in America is that school only recently
just started back and already. There was a school shooting
(00:24):
at a Catholic school in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last week that
left an eight year old and a ten year old
dead and injured seventeen others. According to the Minneapolis Police
Chief Brian O'Haras, the three weapons used in the attack
were purchased legally. Police official said, Now, I wanted to
talk about this shooting with my producer Joey. Joey, thank
you so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hey, thanks for having me on Bridget, you know, regardless
of it being sort of a lesson, uh not so
great topic today.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Yeah, and it's kind of coincidental because you and I
had been working on an episode about the way trans
people are constantly and unfairly blamed for tragedies or mass
shootings or mass acts of violence online before all the
details are even really clear. And so I was offline
when this shooting happened, and a friend pined to me
(01:14):
and said, oh, look at this school shooting. It looks
like the shooter was trands. And I said, oh, I'm
very online, I know what's going on here. You know,
this is a familiar trope to me. It's a thing
that happens after a mass shooting online, the internet circulates
to say that the suspect is trans and it turned
out when the when the when more information came in
(01:34):
that this suspect actually was trans. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
I had kind of a similar experience where one of
my good friends works in you know, broadcast news, and
she had texted me and was like, well, she'd kind
of she texted like you know, our group chat and
was like this happened. That was the first lie I
had heard of it, and was like, oh, the shooter's trans.
And my immediate response was oh, well, like are they sure,
(02:01):
because like they say this every time, so like I
don't know, and she was like no, I'm literally looking
at like the name change document right now.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
And I was like, oh, well that's a twist.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
I guess if you say it enough times, it will
happen again. Like you said, coincidental timing, I think, like
obviously what happened.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
This is like terrible.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
And even backtracking a little bit, something I was thinking
about this morning or like when we were planning this
episode was the fact that even when I kind of
first heard like, oh, there was this shooting that happened,
something that really I think struck me was the fact
that I was like, it was almost the fact that
I didn't even really feel like I had a response,
Like I was kind of just like, oh, another shooting, okay,
(02:46):
Like this is so standard at this point, it's like
really disappointing to see how much it's like I almost
kind of felt like I was like expecting this, you know,
like this happened so frequently at this point, it like
barely even like registered.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
But yeah, obviously this kind of complicates the situation.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
And you know, glad we're talking about it.
Speaker 4 (03:09):
If anything.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yeah, so here's what we know about the shooter, Robin Westman,
who police said died of a self and inflicted gunshot
wound in the church parking lot after the shooting. I've
seen it reported as a manifesto, but I would not
describe a document like that using the word manifesto because
I think it gives the wrong connotation. I think it's
kind of like what people like this might want. But
(03:31):
even in that regard, when I looked at what they
were calling a manifesto, it really is sort of stream
of consciousness videos and writings where she definitely fixates on violence,
a real obsession with school shooters and guns.
Speaker 5 (03:47):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
But even in her writing she says things like, there
is no message, and this is not about religion. It
is certainly not the kind of online presence, and I
think that anyone can really use to paint a clear
portrait of a motive other than and this is clearly
a disturbed person who at times references the fact that
she knows she is disturbed, like she knows she has
these issues. She talks about how I grew up in
(04:09):
a good family with a good support system, and yet
in every situation I've ever been in, every school, and
every job I've ever been in, I've had these kinds
of dark fantasies, right, And so I it's we don't
really have a lot of clarity on motive Jesse yet.
But what we do know is that as a seventeen
year old, Westman filed a Cork document to change her
first name to Robin. The document says that Westman quote
(04:31):
identified as female and wants her name to reflect that identification.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
I also heard this morning that I guess they're also
in her journal or in the shooters journals.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
There's maybe some evidence that this is somebody who was considering.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
De transitioning or like maybe identifies differently now, which again
I think kind of like further complicates this where it's like,
you know, obviously like we're going to have to talk
about the fact that she identified it trans at some point,
but kind of almost going back to what you said
about the like streatment of conscious videos and a lot
of the other stuff that has come out about like
(05:08):
her like fixation on school shooters and stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
Like there's so much other things going on that very.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Clearly I have more to do with the actual motive
than whether or not this person is trans. But yeah,
it does appear that at some point she did identify
as female, she did change that to change her name
and gender marker in.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Some cases to reflect that. So that's really good context
and I think adds credence to my sort of overall
point about this is that this just happened. You know,
you and I are recording on Friday, August twenty ninth.
This just happened, and I think as investigators do their jobs,
more will become clear. We might get more information, But
(05:51):
I think it's the online rush to zero in on
this one part of this person's identity, to say and
that's why she this thing. And I mean, I know
the people who are doing that are doing it with intention,
so I'm not telling them, I'm not saying anything. I
would say that they don't already know what they're doing.
But it just goes to show how we can't have
a full conversation about what's happening with this tragedy. Two
(06:16):
kids are dead, and I think that we owe it
to those kids and their communities and their families and
people who love them to have a full accounting of
what happened here, not just zeroing in on one tidy,
convenient narrative, which it sounds like even that narrative is
more complicated than then the people who are boosting it
would have you believe, right.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
And it's like every time this happens, there's always, you know,
the conversation about gun regulation and how like in gun
violence and gun culture, and that also is also like
always immediately like no, no, no, no, we can't talk about that,
And it's like interesting that it's like, of all of
the things that it aspects of this conversation that we
should be happening, we're gonna end up having to dedicate
(07:00):
so much unnecessary airtime to the fact that this person
identified as trans at one point maybe still did again.
Speaker 4 (07:09):
Yeah, still, story is still developing.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
This is something that I read like literally a couple
hours ago.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
So who's to say, well now in a week.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
But yeah, there's just there's so many different elements here,
and I feel like I want to emphasize the point
that it's like we're talking about the fact that she
may or may not have been trans because we're kind of.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
Forced to have that conversation. That is a great way
to put it. We're forced to have that conversation and
not have conversations about all that. I mean, a good
place to start might be gun regulation. I don't know what. No,
And so the mayor of Minneapolis has been urging the
public to avoid scapegoating trans folks in the wake of
this tragedy. The mayor said, quote, I've heard a whole
(07:52):
lot of hate directed at our trans community. Anybody that
is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans
community or any other community out there, has a lot
lot their sense of common humanity. We should not be
operating out of the place of hate for anyone. We
should be operating out of a place of love for
kids kids died today. This needs to be about them,
and so kind of like what you were saying, Joey,
it is unfortunate that the shooter's identity has been thrust
(08:17):
in the forefront in this way to the point where
we need to be even making this episode kind of
debunking the way that people on the right online have
been talking about this, because it really obscures the fact
that these kids who were you know, pad parents who
loved them, are part of a community that loved them,
that this should be about them. But because of the
way that extremists have talked about this shooting and amplified
(08:41):
narratives about this shooting and amplified narratives about other incidents
in the past it had nothing to do with trans people,
we are kind of forced to be debunking this idea
about sort of trans terror, and so according to police,
we don't even really know much yet today when we're
recording this about the motive, but that does not stop
the FBI. I'm labeling the shooting as both an act
(09:02):
of terrorism and a hate crime against Catholics, and in
like extremist mega online circles on social media, the term
that they are circulating is the deepest of air quotes
on this one, trans terrorism. And I've heard other iterations
of it like trans tifa. Essentially this false idea that
(09:24):
trans people are more likely to commit public acts of
violence that is constantly repeated online. Have you seen it?
Speaker 3 (09:32):
I have, but trans tifa. This is the first I'm
hearing of trans tifa. Okay, I actually know.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
I was about to be like, I do believe the
trans community could have come up.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
With a better name than that, but actually I'm not
sure about that.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Trans tifa though, that is okay, God, I'm.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Looking on what it was specifically that said this, but
it was like some right wing figure. They literally said
something where they were like the trans terrorism that's like
the most dangerous homegrown terrorism right now. And I was like,
I'm so sorry. Have you met like a single trance?
I mean, obviously not, because you wouldn't be saying this
(10:11):
shit if you had.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
But I was like, the idea of like.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
This transshadow terrorist group that's operating in this country. Like,
what the hell are you talking about? I don't know,
It's it's ridiculous. Every barista in this country is actually
a sleeper agent.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Yeah, I mean the in their fantasy, every barista maybe
like everybody with blue hair or something is. Yeah, it's
like a sleep a sleeper agent that is just one
bad tip away from going full joker or something. Truly,
that is how people talk about the trans community online.
(10:51):
I'm sorry, I think you've mean the woker.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I really want to take this seriously and not make
jokes about this, but I was reading through so.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Much about this and I was like, oh God, like,
this is where we're at. This is where we're at,
this is the Yeah. So none of this, I mean,
I don't need to tell you, none of this is new.
According to a report from GLAD, social media accounts with
a clear history of anti trans rhetoric frequently and importantly
falsely accused trans people of crimes, particularly mass shooting events,
(11:19):
before facts are known, and so just like in this case,
the day that the shooting happened, people were already circulating
this sort of trans terror claim. But the fact is
there is no evidence of escalating violence committed by LGBTQ people,
and extremism and domestic terrorism experts told PolitiFact there is
(11:40):
no widespread threat of growing radicalization or violence from the
trans population. Now. Accusing folks from a small and likely
vulnerable community of being responsible for mass shootings is just
clearly like you're trying to humanize them, other them, demonize them,
and generally promote fear around trans folks and then binary folks.
(12:02):
And I think the important thing for folks to note
is that we're talking about a situation where the shooter
it sounds like, identified as trans at one point or another.
Oftentimes this happens whether or not a trans person had
anything to do with it at all.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Yeah, this was also making me think about, I mean again,
before kind of learning this, now, I aspect that maybe
they now don't identify as trans. Before learning that, I
was thinking about the fact that it's like the problem
with so much of this like just idiotic misinformation or
around trans people, around queer people, around gay people, is
that like there's always going to be the one person
(12:41):
that amplifies that thing.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
Like I was talking to a friend recently about like.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
All of the you know, when right wing weirdos want.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
To be like, oh yeah, gay people are all like
pedophiles or all predators, and it's like okay, and then
you can find like the one person to point to
to be like they're like there was a like director
we were talking about where we were like, oh yeah,
remember like they came out and then it immediately was
revealed that they were like a pedophile and all of
this shit, and it was like it sucks because you're
always going to be able to find the one person.
(13:08):
But then at the same time, it's like right, because
people are just people, and they're shitty people no matter
what you identify as like for that one, like, there's
also a bazillion like straight people that are pedophiles or
straight people that are going.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
To do mass shootings.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
When you look at the actual numbers, most you know,
mass shooters, most school shooters, they are white, cis heterosexual men,
so like, but yeah, but the problem is like at
the end of the day, you're always going to be
able to find like the one person that is like
doing the really bad thing. And you know, it's easy
(13:45):
for if you're trying to demonize your people point to
that one person as like representative of an entire group.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
This happens for literally every marginalized group.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
You know, this is like what's at the root of
like you know, onophobia and racism, and you could always
find the one person to be like see that, that
is what the problem is. And I think that is
like the thing that makes me nervous about this.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Absolutely I was thinking the same thing, but you put
that so well because I definitely feel this as a
black person, where I have to be the representative of
black people everywhere, right, and so it is dehumanization and
that it's what you are not judged by what you
do your behavior. You are judged and scrutinized by the
(14:32):
behavior of others. And so you know. And it's interesting
to me because as the research shows, and we'll talk
about it in a moment, but the researchers could not
be clear that the majority of mass shootings are, as
you said, perpetrated by white CIS men. That is just
a fact. And I don't think we have a culture
that demands that white men writ large need to answer
(14:53):
for the behavior of the men who are largely behind
these instances of mass violence. Yet I think that when
you when you do have, you know, one off marginalized
people who unfortunately do things like this, the entire group
is judged by those one off people's actions and behavior.
(15:14):
Does that make sense? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Absolutely, I mean it's it's when you have any sort
of marginalized identity, you're always not seen as an individual.
You are seen as a representative of that group versus
like if you are obviously if you're a cis white man,
but honestly, like anybody, like I'm somebody who like I'm white,
if I do something stupid, nobody's going to be like, see,
this is.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Proof that like white people are like that.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
As a trans person, if I do something stupid, that
will probably be seen as, oh see, y'all are crazy.
But it's like yeah, Like it is like if you
have any sort of marginalized identity, you are kind of
seen as exemplifying that community, where if you are part
of the kind of more privileged side of that, you
don't experience that you are seen as an individu Well,
(16:00):
you're seen as you know, these like lone wolf shooters
that nobody knows why it happened.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Again, it feels like I feel like I've.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Had this conversation so many times because it's like it
is the same story. I think it's just like right
now it is, we're having this again, because this really
is one of the first really prominent stories where it
has been like a trans person that is bet at
the center of this.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
And the point I want to make about this is
that this is identity based disinformation. It might not look
like it, it might not be the kind of thing
that traditionally disinformation researchers would call out as disinformation, but
the way that trans people are baselessly blamed and connected
to tragedies, mass shootings, instances of mass violence, that is
(16:44):
to me identity based disinformation. And I see it over
and over again. And I would be willing to bet
that if you spend any time on social media, you
have probably seen this kind of thing play out online already,
because there is a particular image that I can see
it in my head of a kind of person with blonde,
shaggy hair holding a rifle that often circulates online claiming
(17:06):
that it shows the perpetrator of whenever there's a shooting
or a tragedy or an instance of mass violence, and
it claims to show this person who they the comment
say is trans, but it is actually a very well
worn image to the point that it's almost a meme.
It's an image of this guy, Sam Hyde, who is
an extremist comedian and YouTuber. He has his We can
(17:27):
do a whole episode on him. He there's a lot
to say about him, but let's just that's who it is.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Kind of also, like taking a wider look at this issue,
I do think it's really interesting that that photo is
a cisman. Yeah, because like I've seen that photo million
times too, and I'll be real, like I always kind
of just assumed it was some random trans person until
like listening to the episode that you did with stuff
Mom never told you about this where you talked about
this same image, and I think it just goes to
(17:55):
show again, like taking a sort of wider look at
what happens when this sort of transphobic rhetoric becomes so normalized.
Is it's like, oh, you see somebody with long hair,
and you're immediately going to be like it.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Is narrowing the gender roles again.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Like if you were looking at all of this through
like a very transphobic lens, it's like, yeah, you're we're
going back to these like very very strict gender roles,
where like you can have a CIS ban with long
hair and use that image to be like, see they're
trans or they you know, the way that these people
are going to say it is going to be like
they think they're a woman or whatever. I'm not saying
(18:31):
that I agree with that rhetoric, but it's like, I
don't know, I find it kind of sis people.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I think, like, if you want to.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Make it by yourselves, if you really want to like
not have to human out whatever, like, think about the
fact that it's like all of this bad rhetoric is
going to come back to just make gender roles more
strict and more restrictive and just bad for everybody, regardless
of you know, whether you're trans or SIS or whatever.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Don't even get me started on this because this is
the drum that I beat. This is a tangent, but
it's a drum that I beat all the time. So,
as you said, if you are someone who doesn't give
a fuck about the humanity of trans people and you're like,
I only care about me and that's that's your orientation, fine, Okay,
I don't sh have that orientation, but got you when
you get into a place where you are so strictly
(19:16):
policing the gender of other people along this very narrow
understanding of gender, that shit always comes back.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Around, right exactly.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
It is especially disappointing to me when I see this
from other Black CIS women who will say like, oh,
well you know where they will say, they will say
things that are very transphobic, and I always think, like,
nobody who is CIS gender gets transphobically compared to men,
like black CIS women. That is like when you want
to when people wanted to insult Michelle Obama, that go
(19:48):
to insult was, oh, she's really a man. She looks
like a man. Da da da da. If you can't
see the clear line from policing the gender of other
people to that shit coming back around to you, I
don't know what to tell you. And so if you're
someone who doesn't care about the humanity of trans folks
and are only caring about yourself when you I mean,
it's like Beyonce said, when you play me, you play
(20:10):
yourself when you when you play those games, it comes
back around to us. And so exactly, I just have
to say that like it is. It especially hurts coming
from other sis black women, because I just know that,
like our gender is so scrutinized, the way the way
that the whatever we've got going on with gender wherever
(20:30):
we're at, that is so scrutinized, And it's like, why
would you want to participate in that kind of climate
for somebody else when like when you like, you know
what I'm saying, it's just yes, I'll move on.
Speaker 6 (20:40):
Yeah, No, absolutely, though I mean it's yeah, and I yeah,
not to go on too much of a handship, but
like literally every issue where like transphopia is through the
conversation about sports right now, and like trans people's participation
in sports, it's like that is maybe the most obvious
way we're seeing it come background and like also hurt
(21:01):
sist people.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
But it's like, yeah, like just just because you're going
after us as like your top target, like y'all are next. Yes,
if we get to the point where we're starting to
police people's gender like this, it's not gonna stop because
it hasn't. We've seen this, like we've been seeing this
for years now, and it's insane. We're at the point
where like, yeah, again, there was that story a couple
(21:25):
weeks ago about like a CIS woman who like was
being sexually her breast and like a buffalo wild wings
bathroom because the like serverir didn't believe that she was
like quote unquote really a woman, and like it was like, Yeah,
this should be a wake up call to the rest
of you if you really, like do not care about us,
at least care about yourselves.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (21:49):
Let's take a quick break at our back.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
So we're talking about what happens when trans people are
baselessly blamed for instances of mass violence or tragedy online.
So in twenty twenty three, a fact checker and journalist
named Bill McCarthy described that whenever he sees a mass shooting,
his heart does not just sink for the victims and
their families and their communities, but it also sinks because
he knows that other completely blameless people will be falsely
(22:27):
accused of being the killer, with their pictures splashed all
over the internet. In a piece called mass Shootings the
Other Innocent Victims, McCarthy really shed light into this where
after a mass shooting in Nashville, that picture of Sam Hyde,
who is not trans, was misidentified as both being the
perpetrator and trans McCarthy writes, shortly after police said they
(22:48):
responded to a shooting, I opened Twitter and ran a
simple keyword search Nashville shooter identified. According to dozens of results,
the city's officials had already sing a lot of perpetrator.
It was a trans woman named Samantha Hyde. Post claim.
Now that image at this point it's I mean, I
think of it as a meme, but like it actually
did originate as a meme on four Chan. So when
a shooting happens, or a tragedy happens, it's like a
(23:11):
meme to circulate this image of sam Hyde and say
that it's a suspect and that they're trans. Internet users
have been trying to trick people into believing that Hyde
was behind so many tragedies over the years. There was
also an attempt in that Nashville shooting to pin the
attack on Clara Sorrenti, a transactivist and video game streamer
that people might know as Kepple's who folks might recall
(23:32):
we did an episode on this kind of a while
Ago was forced to flee her Canada home after being
targeted by an online harassment campaign. It's not just Nashville.
After the After the Uvaldi shooting in Texas, this photo
of an actual trans woman named Sam So, not the
CIS comedian named Sam Different. Sam actual trans woman, was
circulated on social media, claiming that she was the perpetrator.
(23:55):
She had to actually post an image of herself saying like, hey,
I am alive because the sh shooter in that attack
was killed by police. And you know, I have to say, like,
I've never even been to Texas. I live in Georgia.
I mean, the way that people have to prove to
strangers on the Internet that they're not involved in these
crimes when they had nothing to do with it. I mean,
(24:16):
I just can't imagine what that would be like. But
that has not stopped these claims from going viral, from
harming innocent trans people and then also just creating this
false idea, I would say, intentionally so that trans people
are linked to violence and are dangerous.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Yeah, I mean, like you said again, it's all just
part of this narrative of trying to paint this picture
of trans folks as dangerous, as like it's somehow you know,
like it's it's because of like quote unquote mental illness.
It's these are coming from folks that already see being
trans as like a again like quote unquote mental illness,
(24:54):
not as like a real way of identifying and plenty
of SIS people are mentally ill, and somehow that's never
like I don't know again, it is just it's scapegoating
and is like a convenient excuse to say, like, the
problem isn't like the fact that we live in a
country that just has a deep history of violence that
like we have had, you know, problems with gun violence,
(25:15):
that like gun regulation is just kind of like non existent.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
In this country.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
It's like no, no, no, it's this specific thing that
we also don't like for other arbitrary reasons, and it's
just easy and convenient for us to tie them together
when that's not what's happening most of the time.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
So this actually brings me to something that happened in
DC where I live, which was the plane crash that
happened earlier this year. There is a great piece in
Wired that will link in the show notes that folks
should read a trans pilot was falsely blamed for a
plane crash. Now she's fighting the right wing Distanto Machine
that was published earlier this summer that really unpacks this
issue in a great way. So in January there was
(25:54):
this deadly plane crash in DC where a helicopter crashed
into a plane. Both of them landed in the Potomac River.
Sixty seven people all died. It was a very dark
time in DC. I remember, I folks might know this
that I work part time for a DC based podcast
called Citycast DC. And DC is a pretty small community.
(26:15):
And so the way that this really just loomed large
at a time when d C was our when we
continue to be going through a lot, but at a
time we were going through a lot, was really rough. And
I think what made it even rougher was that. And
I promise I won't get on my DC soapbox, but
because people are so used to disrespecting DC and discounting
(26:37):
d C and not thinking of DC as like a
real place where real people live, it's just like a
set of national power to a lot of people. I
think the way that this was a hard tragedy for
our local DC community to take was really ignored. And
I think that's why Trump and his administration really felt okay.
Literally I mean this literally, they were bodies still in
(27:00):
the river while these people were lying about what happened
with this plane crash, right, And I think that one
of the reasons why that was okay is not just
because it's not just because these people are ghouls, which
they are, but also is because people in DC are
not seen as real Americans or real people the way
that other parts of the country are. So you know,
(27:22):
it really sucked. And as much as it was a
dark time for DC, it also became a dark time
for this woman named Joe Ellis, who is a transgender
National Guard pilot who was falsely blamed for the deadly
DC crash. Not to be super clear, Ellis was not
involved in this in any capacity, which is simply not involved. However,
(27:45):
a few days before this crash, Ellis published an essay
about what it's like being a trans pilot in the
National Guard. So this and this alone was enough for
right wing influencers with millions of followers across the Internet
to baselessly accuse her of being possible for this crash.
So basically what happened is that Ellis wrote this piece
called Living to Serve, Living as Myself a transgender service
(28:08):
members perspective, where she describes growing up in a family
of service members and then joining the Virginia Army National
Guard in two thousand and nine. In her piece, she
describes sending an email to her command giving them notice
that she intended to start transitioning under the current in
service transition policy. That policy has since been rescinded by
(28:28):
the Trump administration, and she talks about how when she
gave them that notice, she was met with overwhelming support
from her team. What's interesting about this piece, it's just
an interesting side note, is that it's clear that she's
trying to debunk some pretty well worn myths about how
trans people get all this free stuff, like because she
was in the military, the military is paying for all
(28:49):
of this stuff, and she was like, oh no, no,
I paid out of pocket for all of my care.
I paid for it all. So that even in that piece,
I feel like she's struck. You do you ever hear
this that like oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Yeah, which I'm like, where is this free stuff?
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Why am I not gonna get any of it? I mean, yeah,
any sort of trans healthcare related thing.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
People hear it in there, like free healthcare, and it's
like nobody said free, Like it operates the same way
every healthcare thing in this country operates.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
Which is terribly uh you know, like.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
This is what really like pisses me off, especially when
we talk about again kind of a tangent issue.
Speaker 4 (29:30):
But I don't know where these free handouts are.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
I would if somebody knows, if somebody could get me
like some connections, please let me know.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
I love free stuff.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
So this is it is another example of like, unfortunately,
like the right wing just thinks that like the left
is way cooler than we actually are. Like, yeah, I
wish Joe Biden was like a communist who is just
giving people free trans healthcare, but that was absolutely not
what was happening.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
And yeah, and yet here we are. What's funny about
this is that you can convince people online, especially when
it comes to gender reforming care for minors. You could
convince people like it. It's like a common sense and
just the ability to think for five seconds goes out
the window. People will say like, oh, there's doctors who
(30:21):
are you know, mutilating toddlers, And I swear to you
someone once told me that they have heard a story
where a doctor had given a boob job to like
a five year old, and I was thinking, like, I
cannot believe you believe this think about it for five
facus God.
Speaker 7 (30:37):
That was like back when the all of the Target
stuff was happening, like this was last year I think
where there was like they were like they're selling binders
for children at Target, and it was like, look, but
like toddlers don't need binders.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
You don't have boobs until you hit puberty. Like I
think about it, but it doesn't make any sense. It's
one of those I mean, it's one of those things
where if you've thought about it for five I have seconds,
it falls apart completely if if you just just thought
it through, just think get through. Sometimes I just want
to tell these people just think about it for the
most idiotic claims. But yeah, this is what I'm saying.
(31:12):
When it comes to moral panic around especially my like
gender reforming care for minors, you could convince them of anything.
There's like not there is not anything that is too
far gone for these people to believe, you.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Know what I d I mean, I think the thing
that I keep going back to and like thinking about
the story too, is like, at the end of the day,
none of this is coming because of like logical assumptions.
Like the hard thing is like I think it's really
easy to fall into the trap of like wanting to
like take the logical sign and be like, here, see,
you're obviously all this stuff. None of this is coming
from like a place of logic. This is coming from
(31:45):
the fact that like they want to find escapegoat, they
can say whatever the fuck they want and like just
speak it into being true for people's like the way
that people see the world. I think it is important
to talk about these things. It's important to emphasize the
fact that like this stuff obviously isn't true, because I
do think like at.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
The end of the day, the people that are probably.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Like the most you know, the need to hear these
things are like the parents of trans kids that maybe
are like nervous about the fact that it's like, yeah, obviously,
like we live in a very transphobic world.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Your kid's gonna have to deal with that, You're gonna
have deal with that.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
But it's like helping them not get sucked into these
like conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Theory rabbit holes. But like, at the end of the day,
the people.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
That are that really truly believe this stuff, that are
saying these things, like there's no way to debate them
into admitting the truth, you know, it's the whole like
Ben Shapiro brain rot thing where he's very like, oh, like,
debate me on this whatever.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Like it's like you can't debate them there.
Speaker 4 (32:40):
They just they have their world view.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
They know what's gonna get them the response they want,
and they're gonna say that regardless of whether it's true
or not.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yeah, it's not like you can't debate with somebody who
is committed to misunderstanding you. There's no there's no point
in it. And so with this woman Ellis, so that's
kind of a good segway into what happened with her. So,
after her piece was published, Ellis woke up to messages
from a friend warning her that she had been named
online as the pilot who killed innocent passengers in this
(33:11):
deadly crash. So at first Ellis was like, oh, this
is just some sort of mistake. Somebody has mistakenly connected
me to the crash, probably because of that essay of
describing what it's like being a trans pilot from Virginia
and this accident happened near Virginia. So when she loved
into Facebook, she sees both messages from friends that are like,
oh my god, are you dead, Like I heard that
you were involved in this accident? Are you okay? And
(33:34):
hateful transphobic messages from people saying that they knew that
she had been involved in this crash. So here's what happened.
Right wing influencers were boosting lies that Ellis was involved
in this crash. On x Matt Wallace, who has over
two million followers, put out a post saying that a
trans black Hawk pilot had written a letter about depression
and gender dysphoria the day before the crash. He went
(33:57):
so far as to suggest that it was some kind
of a trans terror attack. There's that phrase again. That
post blew up got almost five million views before he
deleted it. Then Anne vander Steele, who was a pretty
well known QAnon personality with a very big following, jumped
in and pushed the same false claim. Now she eventually
posted a retraction, and it would not be an episode
(34:18):
about transphobia online without mentioning Elon Musk. Musk's chatbot on
xt Grock falsely named Ellis as the pilot, which only
made this rumor spread faster. So before long, Ellis's name
was trending as the second most talked about topic on
X with more than ninety thousand posts about her. She
(34:39):
eventually had to put out a proof of life video
on social media to reassure her community that she was
not dead and to push back against these lies. So
after she published this, Matt Wallace, one of the people
who initially pushed this claim, I will give credit where
credit is due. He did update his post to say
that Ellis was alive and not responsible for the crash.
(35:01):
He did also shift blame to a different account. Wala
said that the account on x called Fake Gay Politics,
which has since been suspended, was where this claim originated.
He said, this is apparently the first account who reported
what we now know is false. It seemed credible because
Joe Ellis wrote an article calling out Trump's trans military
ban only a few days ago, and of course he
(35:22):
goes on to misgender her in this post, saying that
he had been wrong about her causing this deadly crash
in an act of trans terror, because apparently the man
just can't help himself.
Speaker 4 (35:34):
Yeah, I mean they don't. They don't care.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
At the end of the day.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
They don't see us as human beings, they don't see
us as legimate. So third, yeah, I am curious if
it's supposed to be this fake this account that was suspended,
if it's like fake gay politics, or if it's like
fake and gay politics, Like is it fake politics about
gay people or is it politics that is both fake
and gay?
Speaker 1 (35:58):
But you know, I it's just like this is the
world we're living.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Good guy, this reminds me of I's just I can't
remember this is.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
The last week or two weeks or whatever. Anyways, there
was a story we did in the News round.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Up recently about the Chris Formo getting got by an
AOC like AI video where she was like talking about
Sydney Sweeney.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Or yeah, I don't know whatever, Yeah I am.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
And like his response was basically like, oh, I guess
it was a I my bad. But also it seems
like something she would say and maybe we should talk
about that.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
And it's like, so you're just saying but like I
believe in my.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Fantasy world this is true, So I think we should
be we should be mad at her about like it's
like this thing where they're like but it it seems
like something that would happen, So it's an issue.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Yeah, any but it's not happening. Any random thing I
make up you need to be held accountable for Yeah,
I made exact Still in Matt Wallace's follow up tweet,
being like, well, you know, as you were saying, it
sounds like something she was talking about being depressed, and
you know, da da dada. I actually read her article
and it actually doesn't. She talks about being depressed before
she was able to transition, but in it she describes
(37:18):
like getting a lot of support, feeling that she has
a good support system, being really happy. Da da da da.
I think that, I mean, it goes back to what
you were saying about this default assumption that anybody who
is trans or gender non conforming is automatically mentally ill, depressed,
deeply unhappy. Because her piece is very much her describing
(37:38):
that she feels really good, feels really solid, wants other
people to feel as good and as solid as she does.
And still he says, oh, she's describing, you know, be
she sounds depressed. That she's like, you know, it's just
I think it really comes back to that underlying assumption
that nobody who is trans or non binary could also
be happy stable, you know, you know.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
What I'm saying exactly, Yeah, I mean I think it's
interesting because I think, like even ten years ago, obviously
there are still families and places where this probably is
also the rhetoric around gay people. But I like, I'm
I'm thinking like ten years ago, I have so many
friends now that grew up with this sort of rhetoric
about gay people that were like, oh, if you're gay,
you're gonna be unhappy and depressed, versus like now was adults.
(38:24):
I don't know, Like again, I'm lucky where like I
live in New York City, I am in a fairly
like progressive environment.
Speaker 4 (38:32):
But like, listen, I am depressed.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
I have depression that has nothing to do with the
fact that I.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
Am gay or trans or whatever that like, I know
plenty of sis people that are depressed. I know plenty
of most people I know these days are oppressed because
we live in a really messed up world right now.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
But yeah, it is like also like yeah, shocking.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
If you are living a life that is like not
authentic to yourself, if you are unable to be your
true self, you're going to feel depressed. And if you're
in a place where you're able to transition, you're able
to be the person that you really are, like on
the inside, obviously you're gonna feel better, You're gonna feel.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Happier than you were before.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
And it is like, yeah, if you if you go
back and read that actual article that you wrote, That's
what she's talking about, is the fact that it's like,
at the end of the day, all of what these
people want is or trans people to just stay in
the closet and stay as theirs signed gender at birth.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
And it's like, great, that is you're.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
Creating these like depressed just like like the things that
you think are going to happen if people transition, that's
just what's going to happen. If you continue to stay repressed,
you're gonna you're gonna not you know, the terrorism part,
but like the people are gonna be depressed and miserable,
and like that is what leads to suicide in a
lot of cases. Uh, not the fact that people are
(39:52):
trans the fact that people are not allowed to express
themselves and to be like the person that they.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
Are, you know exactly. It is oppressive systems and lack
of access to meaningful support systems that makes people unhappy
and it makes people unwell. And this idea that like
oh well and again, but trans people and queer people
should not have to I mean, yeah, let trans people
be depressed and said like they should not have to
(40:20):
be like, oh, I'm super good. I'm super good, because
nobody is super good all the time. But what creates
dynamics where it's not it's not transness or queerness that
makes people depressed, it is lack of access, lack of resources,
lack of support. Like, we've created a system that allows
us to blame people for the things that our system
denies them.
Speaker 5 (40:44):
More after a quick break, let's.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Get right back into it. So we're talking about Joel,
this trans pilot who extremists on the internet falsely accused
of being responsible for the deadly plane crash in DC
earlier this year. Figures like Matt Wallace accused her of
waging eight trans terror attack, even though she had absolutely
nothing to do with this crash. So, from this point,
(41:18):
Ellis basically went from being unknown in public to being
somebody who felt like she could not even go out
in public because for fear of her own safety. She
told The New York Times, my life was turned upside
down at that point, adding that her employers sent armed
bodyguards to protect her family and that she started carrying
a loaded weapon as a precaution. Forever I'm known as
that trans terrorist, she told The Times. So we've talked
(41:40):
about this in a few other episodes of the podcast.
But when online right wing influencers, individual influencers spread lies
about people, we're seeing more and more that the people
that they defame are fighting back via defamation lawsuits targeted
at the people who spread demonstrably and hurtful lies about them.
And so that's exactly what Ellis did. In April, she
(42:03):
filed a defamation suit against Matt Wallace, saying that he
was behind a destructive and irresponsible defamation campaign. The lawsuit
against Wallace, filed in the U. S. District Court of Colorado,
was a way for Elis to seek damages for the
harm that he caused her reputation, privacy, and safety. Ellis
said that Wallace has not counterfiled, and the lawsuit was
filed by the Equality Legal Action Fund, which is a
(42:24):
group of volunteer attorneys and advocates who helped members of
the LGBTQ community fight online defamation. It does sound to
me like when I looked into this, that it might
be a little bit of a tricky gray area legally
to individually sue an individual online influencer for what they've
said about you. Parents of kids who died in the
Sandy Hook shooting did successfully sue Alex Jones for defamation
(42:47):
after he repeatedly claimed that the shooting that killed their
kids was basically a hoax. And folks might remember that
Dominion Voting Systems got a seven hundred and eighty seven
million dollar settlement from Fox News for claiming that their
voting systems during the election we're rigged against Trump. So
there is some precedent for suing businesses or business entities
for defamation, but that's a little bit different than these
(43:10):
one off individual influencers on Twitter who spread damaging lies
about people. And you know, I hate that the only
recourse for this kind of thing is suing people and
taking it to the courts. But especially for marginalized people,
there has to be some kind of accountability for this.
There has to be some sort of like cost for
(43:30):
spreading these kinds of damaging lies, because these kind of
lies can hurt people. You know, we've talked about Ruby
Freeman and Shay Moss, the two black women in Georgia
who were vote counters who Trump and Giuliani baselessly said
that they had rigged the elect They were hiding votes
and rigging the election for Biden. People showed up at
their house and tried to force their way into their
(43:53):
home to make a citizens arrest because of that. So, like,
this is not something that happens online. This translates to actual,
real world to harm where people are putting their lives
at risk because of the lies people spread about them online.
Speaker 4 (44:07):
Yeah, totally agree.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
I mean, it's I wish there was another like, I
wish there was something that could happen before having to
like literally sue these people. But good for Joe Alice.
I hope that that case goes in you know, her favor.
But yeah, it really I think it's important to emphasize
(44:29):
the fact that it's like this isn't just like, oh,
I'm getting a bunch of hate comments online, you can
just turn your phone off and not pay attention to it.
It's like this is affecting people's like actual livelihood. It
is affecting their ability to exist in public, and that
should not be happening because that shouldn't be happening to anyone.
(44:52):
But it's hard enough to exist as a trans person,
as like a person of color, as a queer person,
anybody with any sort of marginalized right now, Like, there
shouldn't be an extra layer of being this level of
like a target.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
And I hate that this is such a commonplace thing now,
because blaming trans folks for incidents that they literally had
nothing to do with is not an isolated thing. The
fact Checking Database Claim Review shows that since twenty twenty two,
there have been a dozen incidents where a transgender person
was wrongly blamed for a tragedy or violent incident. After
the tragic deaths of Minnesota state a representative Mussa Hortman
(45:29):
and her husband who were assassinated, Donald Trump Junior said, quote,
the radical transgender movement is, per capita, the most violent
domestic terror threat in America, if not probably the entire world.
And that shooter was not even trans.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
I think that was the quote I was thinking about earlier,
Like I was like, I know there was something where
somebody was like the most violent domestic terror threat. I
was like, well, really, I am sure about that. Yeah, No,
that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (45:57):
That literally was like a right wing attack. Yeah, that
happened very explicitly and clearly and after two people were
killed in Wisconsin, Alex Jones, who really should not be
lying about anybody, publicly tweeted if the statistical trend continues
with this tragic event, there's a ninety eight percent chance
the shooting is trans or gang related. If it's another
(46:19):
trans whack job or gang shooting, it should be out
of the news in less than twenty four hours. So
it che go without saying that this is all a
complete lie. Trans people are more likely to be the
victims of crime, not the perpetrators. This is from Wired
research those that trans people are four times more likely
to be the victims of violence compared to cist people.
(46:40):
According to GLAD, between May twenty twenty four and May
twenty twenty five, there have been at least twenty six
injuries and one death reported among trans and non and
gender non conforming people, a fourteen percent jump from the
previous year. Meanwhile, claims that trans folks are behind mass
shootings just does not add up. Per the Gun Violence Archive,
there have been four four hundred shootings in the past decade,
(47:01):
of which fewer than ten known suspects were trans. That's
zero point eleven percent, and we know that things like
far right extremism surpasses terrorism committed by others. This is
according to politifacts, and it needs to be said that
these groups do tend to engage in violence that often
targets LGBTQ people and promotes LGBTQ views. So making the
(47:23):
targets the people who are the most targeted of this
kind of domestic terror, flipping that around and being like, oh,
they all they're the perpetrators. It's really blaming people for
something bad that they are already at the center of.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Yeah, people actually don't know this, but uh the Lee
Harvey Oswald actually used gi the pronouns they governed this
lister kidding.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
I'm not even honestly, I feel like.
Speaker 3 (47:50):
We're like two steps away from somebody transvestigating.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
Yeah, like yeah, like a deep dive. But this exactly
exactly like why you're RESI. I mean, Glad has a
lot of really great studies, you.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
Know, shameless plug for a second if you want to
learn more about violence against the transcunities. So we should
check out another show that I work on that's called Afterlives.
Our first season was about this woman Leiley and Planco
who passed away at Briker's prison due to kind of
a series of just things that should not have happened,
(48:26):
situations she not had been in, largely because of the
fact that she was a black trans woman. But something
that we talked about in that show that we did
a lot of research around was this idea that when
you look at the way that trans people, the few
instances of trans people being portrayed in like TV and film,
even before trans people became the scapegoat for mass shootings
(48:49):
and this kind of thing, the way that trans people
were portrayed as like murderers and criminal, like looking back
at like Silence of the Lambs and stuff like that,
where there's like this whole history of trans folks being
portrayed as violent, being portrayed as like unstable, when it's like,
at the same time, we are disproportionally, and particularly trans
(49:12):
women and particularly transmomant of color, are disproportionally the victims
of this kind of violence, and it is sort of
like again pulling back, it is frustrating to have to
keep having this conversation and have to keep being like, no,
we are not the ones that are doing this, when
it's like, also at the same time, our community is
being targeted in this way, we're like people are dying,
(49:35):
people are like being murdered, people are like anti transa crime,
Like those anti transa crimes are happening.
Speaker 4 (49:43):
People are dying because they're trans.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
And at the same time, like the way that trans
people are oftentimes like portrayed by these like right wing groups,
but also in a lot of like mainstream entertainment, it's
makes it appear as if we're the ones that are
doing this.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
It's so true, and I wish so I could say
that we have moved that we have because like you
go back and watch movies like Pet Detective and not
not to like spoil the movie.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
But I okay, that what's funny because I've never actually
seen that movie, but I feel like every like trans
mask person at some point is like I look like
a svener Pet And it's like at the same time,
that movie is so transforthing, and it's funny we have.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
Not like we It's I wish I could say that
we had beyond that that like portrayal from like nineteen
ninety two or whatever. But you're right, we really have
it when you look at the way that and I
guess it's why it's so important that work like your
work with Afterlives, you know, it's very important that we
have depictions of trans folks in ways that are thoughtful
(50:46):
and loving and real and aren't out of like, yeah,
we we need the work that you all are doing.
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (50:54):
Yeah, I got shapeless plug.
Speaker 3 (50:56):
Go listen to Afterlives works very hard on that show,
but on the tangent just about friends, people and how
we're portrayed, both like in news media and entertainment media.
I think there was there was an interview with Jenks
Bond soon recently where she was talking about like she
like playing she played like a villain and like doctor
(51:17):
Who recently, and she was talking about like being as
an actress, like getting to play roles where she is
like a villain as a transperson, and how like it's
almost kind of liberating because it's like she's able to
do like kind of reain control.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
Of that narrative.
Speaker 3 (51:34):
Like it was sort of she was talking about the
fact that it's like we're all like Villa and I
so much all of this stuff is put on us,
and it's like almost kind of fun to be able
to like twist that around and get to play, you know,
into like being like an in evil character that has
nothing to do with being friends anyways, tangent has nothing
really to do with this, But yeah, I think there
is something to be said about the fact that it's
like the stuff that we consume shapes the way that
(51:56):
we think about people. And that means you know, that
means dude, media, that means entertainment, media that means these,
that means Twitter, you know, yeah, in social media, and.
Speaker 1 (52:05):
That is why these sort of things are dangerous. More
after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
(52:26):
We really can't talk about the mechanics of how trans
people get falsely linked to violence without talking about the
media apparatus that facilitates it. One of the biggest parts
of this story is that the way that they have
really built an effective media apparatus where these claims might
start in more fringe pockets of the Internet, like for
Chune or some random extremist Twitter page, but they then
(52:48):
pretty quickly get boosted by right wing politicians, media figures,
and even bleed into mainstream media where they just become
part of people's conscious like they just like become as
part of how people understand trans folks. And then it's
all made worse by the fact that social media platforms
have really mostly all of them, loosened whatever rules they
did have to prevent people from really being ugly and
(53:12):
horrible to trans and queer people. Right Like, earlier this year,
Facebook loosened rules around hate speech and abuse. LinkedIn recently
changed their policies. It's a little bit of a complicated thing,
but it does seem that they are making it easier
for folks to miss gender and dead name people on LinkedIn,
of all places. No, yeah, that's like what I was like,
are you kidding me?
Speaker 4 (53:32):
Like LinkedIn?
Speaker 3 (53:33):
Like what it's not first of all, the people use LinkedIn,
like it's an actual social media platform. Like that's to me,
those are the people we should be concerned about.
Speaker 1 (53:43):
Like that's something's going on. But like, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (53:50):
I was like, I check LinkedIn when I absolutely have to.
Like I was like, this is literally just how I
show what my job is. I don't like, this has
nothing to do. But I don't know, Come on, LinkedIn,
I get you.
Speaker 1 (54:05):
A whole better. It's like, yeah, I don't I would do.
I could talk to you. I have a lot to
say about LinkedIn. I'm a LinkedIn hater, I will. You know,
so all of this becomes a bigger problem when you
look at how algorithms amplify harmful content, and platforms like
(54:25):
Facebook and x have really just scrapped fact checking. There's
not really meaningful bactchecking happening on these platforms anymore where
people could push back and say, hey, this person is
not a trans terror suspect or whatever. And like I
was saying, you know, all of this just becomes another
system that dehumanizes trans people, justifies violence against trans people
(54:46):
who are already targets of violence, as we talked about,
you know, continues to to dehumanize trans people, and I
think it kind of goes to what we were saying earlier.
Like to me, the whole thing really shows just how
eager people are to use anything, even if it is
outright lies, to paint trans people as mentally ill or violent.
And it is like it's like they're trying to build
(55:08):
a world where trans people never just get to exist
as their selves, whether that is someone who is depressed
or said or happy or a meaty villain or whatever,
Like you never get to just be who you are. Instead,
they're being like constantly held responsible for not just what
other trans people do, but for things that never even
(55:28):
actually happened in the first place.
Speaker 3 (55:31):
This kind of reminds me. I was talking with a
friend recently about like, because again, like I'm lucky enough
for like I have a pretty solid like trans community
where I am, and like queer community, and I was
talking with a friend recently about how we're like it's
always annoying while like we have like stupid, like interpersonal
beef with people that also just happen to be like
(55:53):
trans or queer or whatever, and being like, yeah, like
they suck.
Speaker 1 (55:57):
They did all of this stuff.
Speaker 3 (55:58):
I don't like them, but all so like at the
end of the day, we're all being attacked right now,
so like I hope that they you know, like I
don't want them to get hate crimed.
Speaker 4 (56:09):
I don't want them to get like I hope that.
Speaker 1 (56:12):
None of this awful stuff happens.
Speaker 3 (56:14):
Like it's like, oh great, I have to defend the
worst person I know because we're all being attacked right now,
and it's like I should be able to just be
a hater in peace.
Speaker 1 (56:24):
That is the biggest crime here.
Speaker 3 (56:26):
But no, but yeah, it really is like trains people
are such a like small portion of the population. Even
if we weren't, who cares, Like, even if we weren't,
because that's something people always like emphasize. It's like, oh,
it's such a small percentage of the population. But it's like, yeah,
we're just people. Like it doesn't affect how like how
(56:48):
someone else is presenting, how somebody else is identifying, how
they're living their life has nothing to do with you.
Speaker 4 (56:52):
And like we're at this point with politics where it's
like this.
Speaker 3 (56:56):
Has like so much of the noise is just this
kind of stuff because it takes away from like the
actual issues in it. And again, like people have died,
Like there are two children that are dead right now.
There's gun violence in this country has become some normalized
that like I heard school shooting at the top of
this kind of when this story was breaking, and like
(57:18):
it like barely bad in an eye over it. It's
just it's become that normalized. That should be the thing
that we're talking about, but we're not. We're getting roped
into these like arbitrary conversations that have nothing to do
with like the larger issue here, whether this.
Speaker 1 (57:32):
Person was trans or not. The fact that they identified
is trans.
Speaker 5 (57:35):
At one point.
Speaker 3 (57:36):
Clearly there was other stuff going on, Like there's so
many other things that should be the focus of the story,
and unfortunately that's not what it's going to be. Well, actually, no,
apparently it's going to be. I saw something that like
was like Fox News is now like, oh, the left
is mocking people for saying that we should pray for
blah blah blah blah, and it was like, no, the
(57:56):
mayor of Minneapolis just said, like, don't say thought some prayers.
Speaker 4 (58:00):
They were literally like praying this is insane, Like I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (58:04):
Yeah, we are in some dark times, but Joey, I
really appreciate you being a light in these dark times
with follow your your thoughtful work. Where can folks follow you?
Listen to what you've got going on, tell us all
the things.
Speaker 3 (58:20):
Yeah, so if you want to listen to other things
that I've worked on, you should definitely check out After
your Lives. Like I mentioned, our first season was about
Lealen Planco, who is a transgender woman who passed away
at Breaker's prison. We go into a lot of the
systems that led to her death because she really should
(58:41):
not have died.
Speaker 4 (58:43):
There's so many things went wrong that should not have happened.
Speaker 1 (58:47):
And then the second.
Speaker 4 (58:48):
Season we took a little bit of a different route.
It was about Marsha P.
Speaker 3 (58:51):
Johnson, whose eightieth birthday was recently. We definitely recommend checking
that out if you're interested in queer history or just
kind of like I will say, like tangent as you know,
a queer person, as a transperson, I think like and
as somebody who's also.
Speaker 1 (59:08):
Like just kind of like a history nerd.
Speaker 3 (59:11):
I find it really comforting to look back at these
like stories of these like trans trailber lasers like Marshby
Johnson and the like, looking at stone Wall, looking at
what actually happened, looking at like how people rallied around
people in the AIDS crisis. I think that gives me
a lot of hope to be like, we're going to
make it through this at the end of the day,
Like our community is stronger than like the people.
Speaker 1 (59:34):
Trying to take us down. Ar We're gonna make it
through it.
Speaker 4 (59:38):
But yeah, check out Afterlives.
Speaker 3 (59:41):
You can also hear me occasionally on stuff Mom Never
Told You.
Speaker 1 (59:49):
I did an episode.
Speaker 3 (59:50):
Back in June about being non binary and some of
like misconceptions around that. If you want to listen and yeah.
If you want to fu follow me online, you can
find me at pat not Pratt.
Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
That's p A T T n O T p r
A T t I.
Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
That's my handle on Instagram and Twitter. I barely use
Twitter anymore. I think it is also my Blue Sky,
but I honestly don't even think I have the app
downloaded anymore for blues side.
Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
But yeah, yeah, uh find me online, woo, follow Jolly
and all the places. Thank you so much for listening.
I will see you on the internet. Got a story
about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to
say hi, You can reach us at Hello at tegody
dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode
(01:00:39):
at tengody dot com. There Are No Girls on the
Internet was created by me bridget Toad. It's a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer.
Tarry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almado
is our contributing producer. I'm your host, bridget Todd. If
you want to help us grow, rate and review.
Speaker 5 (01:00:57):
Us on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
For more podcasts from heart Radio, check out the iHeartRadio
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