March 31, 2025 • 53 mins
Meghan Murphy, host of The Same Drugs podcast, joins Aaron Pete to discuss feminism, trans rights in sports, cancel culture, and the importance of free speech. She shares her journey from a committed leftist feminist to a vocal critic of modern gender ideology. Banned from Twitter, blacklisted in Canada, and later invited on The Joe Rogan Experience, Megan explains why she continues to speak out on women’s rights and freedom of expression.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Aaron Pete (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger
Than Me podcast.
Here is your host.
Aaron Peet.
What is going on with thefeminist movement?
Is it growing or fading away?
I'm speaking with a woman whotook a stand for women's rights
when it was difficult to do so.
We discussed the feministmovement, trans people in sports
being invited onto the JoeRogan experience and the
(00:22):
importance of sharing your voiceand your perspective.
My guest today is Megan Murphy.
Megan, thank you so much forbeing willing to join us today.
Would you mind first?
Meghan Murphy (00:34):
briefly introducing yourself.
I'm Megan Murphy.
I'm a writer, I'm the host ofthe Same Drugs podcast, I lived
in Canada for 40 years beforeexiling myself to Mexico and,
yeah, I'm trained in journalism.
I'm very glad to be here.
(00:55):
Thank you for having me.
Aaron Pete (00:57):
Would you mind giving us some of the origin
story?
People might be familiar with abit of your story your
experience with Twitter in 2018,but would you mind taking us
through your journey prior tothat?
Meghan Murphy (01:07):
Yes for sure, it's a long journey.
I launched a website calledFeminist Current back in 2012.
I did a bachelor's degree and amaster's degree in women's
studies.
I I think I'm actually the onlyperson on the planet who ever
(01:28):
made use of that degree by, youknow, criticizing women's
studies and modern feminism.
To the extent that I have, um,I know it from the inside and,
um, yeah, I was.
I was a socialist for most ofmy life, essentially.
You know, I sort of likeoscillated between identities
(01:51):
like Marxist or anarchist when Iwas younger and settled on, you
know, the more moderatesocialist as I was got older.
Um, and, yeah, I was really,really invested in leftist
politics and feminist politicsfor most of my adult life, and
(02:23):
so that's what most of mywriting.
Early on, because of a specificfight that was happening in
Vancouver with an organizationcalled Vancouver Rape Relief and
Women's Shelter, and they wereforced to go to court.
They were dragged through oneof these human rights tribunals
by a man calling himself a woman, and they did win eventually at
(02:50):
the Supreme Court, I believeand they won the right to define
their own membership, which,for them, ensured that they
didn't have to allow men totrain as counselors at this
women's shelter, this shelterfor women who were escaping, you
know, really, domestic violenceand really, you know, horrific
(03:10):
male violence in general, but asa result, they were tarred as
transphobic for all the yearsfollowing.
You know, I think this casehappened back in 1999 or
something like that.
So they were constantly underattack by these trans activists
and by a lot of leftists inVancouver, and I was allied with
(03:31):
these women.
I was very supportive of thework that they were doing for
women and I was defensive ofthem, and so I got schooled in
gender identity ideology, transactivism and defending women's
spaces pretty early on.
So I started, you know, coveringthis, this fight, back in, you
(03:52):
know, around 2012 and so whenthe um, when bill c16 came along
, which was canada's genderidentity legislation, which
passed in 2017.
But when that bill came alongpresented by the Liberal Party,
of course, in 2016, I was one ofthe only people in Canada to
(04:13):
speak out, and certainly one ofthe only people in Canada to
speak out as a feminist and aleftist, and I managed to, after
like a great deal of struggle,publish a piece explaining my
criticisms of the bill at thetime in in the National Observer
.
And, you know, luckily, I hadmy own website, my own platform
(04:36):
and my podcast so that I couldcover this extensively, because
the Canadian media not only, youknow, wasn't covering it not
fairly in any case but theyrefused to even acknowledge that
somebody like me would have acriticism.
You know they would.
They would allow for JordanPeterson to be presented as as a
(05:01):
critic of gender identitylegislation and gender identity
ideology, because they couldframe him happily, as you know,
like this bigot and thismisogynist and all of those
things.
But they couldn't do that to mebecause I was this leftist
feminist.
So they just pretended that Ididn't exist and essentially
erased me from the conversationand blacklisted me.
(05:24):
You know, like I'd, I'd writtenfor a lot of these publications
prior.
I'd written for the CBC, I'dbeen on the CBC before and I
yeah, you know, I I struggledand struggled to speak out about
this in Canada, but it was anenormous challenge.
(05:45):
I mean, I could barely get avenue to speak in.
We would get counseled at everyturn.
I didn't have any resources orany funding.
It was always just me and likea couple of other women just
trying to talk about this, and Itestified against the bill at
the Senate in 2017.
In 2018, at the end of 2018, Iwas permanently banned from
(06:10):
Twitter for essentially forcriticizing gender identity,
ideology and trans activism.
But the tweets in question thathad me permanently banned were
saying men aren't women, and Ireferred to a man named Jonathan
(06:31):
slash Jessica Yaniv as him.
So those were my crimes.
I was banned from Twitter forfour years until Elon took over
and freed me.
Aaron Pete (06:43):
Wow.
The part I want to start withthat stood out to me is where
you started from in yourschooling the perspectives you
had.
What brought that change about?
That's a pretty significantmove and I think what we're
seeing right now, hopefully, ispeople's commitment to movement
on positions that we shouldn'tkind of ground ourselves in one
(07:06):
understanding forever, that weshould adapt to the facts on the
ground, be willing to open ourminds to different perspectives.
That doesn't mean we have toagree, but that that is a part
of living, that is a part of thehuman experience.
What brought that about for you?
Meghan Murphy (07:21):
Yeah, and I think that you know if you're
genuinely interested inunderstanding the world around
you, if you're genuinelycommitted to truth and integrity
as best you can in any case andyou know if you are genuinely a
critical thinker, if you'reinterested in learning, you will
(07:42):
change your mind when presentedwith new information, and
that's what happened to me.
You know, I was very investedin a very particular ideology
for a long time and at a certainpoint, I started listening to
alternate points of view andreading different perspectives.
(08:04):
And you know, really I feelreally blessed to have the
podcast that I do the Same Drugs, because I was able to
interview so many people who sawthings differently than I did
and had different experiencesthan I did.
And I learned a lot from thesepeople and, you know, I've
changed my mind about a lot ofthings as a result.
(08:25):
And it's very amusing to mebecause now people come at me
and they're like oh, you're justthis, like right wing ideologue
.
You know you're just kneejerking, you're obsessed with,
you know, trump, and they callme MAGA and all of these things.
And I'm like call me MAGA andall of these things and I'm like
(08:48):
you guys.
For 40 years of my life I wasthis like uber leftist uber,
like I was more feminist thanthe feminists and I was more
left than the leftists.
You know the NDP wasn't leftistenough for me because they
dropped the word socialism fromtheir platform.
That's what I was, you know.
That's when I think I was quiteunthinking, you know, and I
(09:09):
think that the gift that I wasgiven from that experience is
that I really understand the waythe left thinks and I know what
it's like to be an ideologueand I know how it shapes your
worldview and limits your, yourability to understand the truth
and to understand people.
(09:30):
And to you know, yeah, to toreally understand those around
you.
Um, because I thought thatpeople who didn't think like me,
ie right-wing people orconservatives or whatever you
want to call them I just thoughtthey were either, you know,
stupid.
They just needed to bere-educated, or they were greedy
(09:53):
, or they weren't empathetic,like they didn't care about
other people.
They were selfish.
That's what I thought, and so Iknow that's what the left
thinks about these people.
And now I guess people like me,because people now label me
bright wing and conservative,despite the fact that I don't
know that those labelsparticularly fit.
I don't really.
(10:13):
I'm not super attached to anylabel and I don't know that any
label fits me perfectly, butpeople like to categorize and
label people so that they candismiss them more easily or
decide if they're an ally, Isuppose.
But yeah, I mean I just Istarted to poke holes in my own
arguments and my own politics.
(10:34):
What brought?
Aaron Pete (10:36):
that on Like.
Did you just become interestedin challenging yourself?
Did you get exposed to somebodywho you didn't have an answer
for?
I'm just trying to figure outhow do we replicate that?
How do we help people challengetheir own perspectives over
time?
How do we support them inchallenging their own
assumptions?
Meghan Murphy (10:55):
You know, I think there was a big turning point
for me when Hillary Clinton lostthe election in the US and
Trump won, because I was totallyconfused about how that could
happen.
I didn't know anything.
I thought I knew a lot, but Ididn't know anything.
You know, I bought all of thepropaganda that was being fed to
(11:16):
me around how horrible DonaldTrump was and I thought Hillary
Clinton deserved to win and thatanybody that didn't support her
hated women.
You know, that's what I boughtinto that narrative.
And when she lost, I wasdevastated.
You know, I couldn't believe it.
I cried and I had never votedin an American election at that
(11:40):
point, I don't.
I was just so invested in thisidea that it was like, you know,
men, men versus women and goodversus evil, and the evil man
had won, and I couldn't believeit and I didn't understand it.
But what I did do was that Isought to understand.
I was like, okay, I don'tunderstand anything.
(12:03):
Like I had no idea that it waseven possible for Donald Trump
to win this election because,you know, mainstream media told
us that it was impossible.
They told us, essentially, thatshe was a shoo-in to, and
(12:24):
listening to and reading allsorts of different kinds of
people, and it was around thattime when the so-called, at the
time, intellectual dark web wascoming up.
So I did start, yeah, like now.
I think we kind of refer to itmore as like heterodox, I
suppose.
But I did start, you know,listening to Jordan Peterson,
for example, and I started tosee the way that you know, the
(12:47):
feminists around me that Iworked with and engaged with and
, you know, shared politics withand allied with, you know they
were so unthinking and sounwilling to consider different
points of view and so investedin cancel culture.
And you know, around that thiswas also around the time when me
(13:12):
too was all the rage and Iremember being in Vancouver and
there were men who were gettingcanceled and their lives were
getting destroyed.
And you know, maybe some ofthose men did deserve it, maybe
some of those men were awful menwho were rapists or who were
dangerous in some way, but someof them weren't um, and it
(13:34):
didn't matter.
You know, a woman would saysomething and everybody had to
believe her, no matter what um,and there was nothing that the
accused could do to defendhimself and we couldn't talk
about it.
I remember there was a man whowas the head of the creative
writing department at UBC,stephen Galloway, and he was
(13:59):
accused essentially of abuse,but nobody would explain what
happened.
Nobody explained what the abusewas.
The media covered this story,you know they covered the
accusations but would not reporton the incident or incidences.
And when I would ask, ask otherfeminists online, you know, in
(14:22):
our little Facebook groups orwhatever, when they were, you
tarring Stephen Galloway as thishorrific, abusive, dangerous
misogynist and I would ask, Iwould be like, well, what did he
do?
Nobody would tell me, but I wasexpected to participate in this
mass cancellation campaignagainst him.
(14:45):
I was expected to believe theaccuser, who also no one knew.
You know, this was an anonymousaccuser that we were supposed
to just blanket believe.
And Steve Galloway's life wasdestroyed.
You know, he lost his job, helost his career.
He was a very well-known,successful writer in Canada,
(15:08):
which is not an easy feat, buthe was, and you know he suffered
essentially a mental breakdown.
(15:30):
Um, and these, these women, werejust so committed to a
narrative that they didn't knowanything about this case.
They didn't know, they knewnothing about what happened,
they didn't know anything aboutthe accused or the accuser.
And I was getting, you know,canceled by these women just for
asking what happened.
Does anybody know?
Well, we know, but we can't say.
Or you know some, some peopleknow we, we know he's bad.
(15:52):
How do you know what you know?
And he didn't do anything.
It was a bogus accusation.
Um, and yeah, I, I, you know,like I talked to some people,
journalists, who were coveringthis accurately.
You know my friend, john Kay,who I've known for a long time.
(16:13):
He edited me at the Walrus andthe National Post a long time.
We've been in touch for a longtime and he was one of the only
ones speaking out against whatwas happening to Stephen
Galloway.
And you know, I just was likethis is this is BS.
These, these people don't wantto think, they don't want to
know, they don't want tounderstand.
They just want their mantrasand their ideologies, their anti
(16:37):
free speech.
You know, while we were, thesewere the radical feminists and
the leftist feminists who wereopposed to gender identity
ideology.
So we're all getting cancelledfor saying that men aren't women
and you can't change sex.
We're all being silenced, we'reall being no platformed.
Women are losing their jobs, um, and they still can't bring
(16:59):
themselves to defend free speech.
You know, I was never a hugedefender of free speech prior to
like 2015 or something, becauseI, as a typical progressive
Canadian, just didn't.
I was never necessarily againstfree speech, I just didn't
think about it.
It just didn't seem importantto me.
I think I probably just assumedI would always have it, and
(17:19):
then I didn't.
And then I saw, you know, thesecancellation campaigns
happening to so many otherpeople.
I was subjected to many, many,many cancellation campaigns and
so I became a defender of freespeech and all of a sudden, all
these women were turning againstme because I was talking to
people who I wasn't supposed totalk to, people who were, you
(17:41):
know, sexists or racists orIslamophobic or whatever.
And I was like how can you beon, be a target of a
cancellation campaign, becanceled because you're
supposedly transphobic, becauseyou say this, this thing that's
true but not politically correct, and then still advocate that
(18:03):
others be canceled for the samereasons, because they don't
share your politics and youridea?
I just saw, I saw so muchhypocrisy.
I was so frustrated.
I also just found the wholething really intellectually lazy
.
And I'm a writer and I and Iwrite because I this is how I
process and understand the world, this is how I figure out what
(18:25):
I believe through that processand I was getting kind of bored
of myself.
I was just like I felt like Iwas just repeating and saying
what I was supposed to be saying.
You know I have a feministanalysis, so naturally my view
on this is this expectedfeminist analysis and I was like
(18:46):
I don't want to, I don't feellike I'm thinking this through
fully and I want to.
I genuinely want to understandand genuinely want to understand
, and I want to challenge myselfto know if my ideas and my
arguments and my analysis issound.
Um can?
Aaron Pete (19:01):
I ask a question yeah, in your experience on that
I'm just thinking of, like I.
I've been a fan of jordanpeterson since the beginning and
I I feel like he's gone in adirection in the very recent
past with his partnership withthe Daily Wire, like I, just I
feel like he's.
When I first started listeningto him, the part that I really
(19:24):
appreciated was that he'd talkabout the importance of the left
and he'd talk about theimportance of the right and how
they both have an integral roleto play, and I learned a lot
from that role to play and Ilearned a lot from that and I do
my best to live with thatperspective that right now in
Canadian culture it looks likethe Conservatives are likely
going to win the next election.
They're going to have power forfour to eight years and then we
(19:44):
may be able to reviewpotentially whether or not
they're the right fit duringthat time period that we have to
adjust with the information onthe ground.
Right now, I feel like he's beenat war with so many people for
so long, he's been attacked forso long that it feels like at
the moment not forever, but atthe moment he feels like he's
picked aside.
He's interviewing pierrepolliev, he's interviewing
(20:07):
maxine bernier, he's notinterviewing jeng meet, saying I
know he may have reached out,they may not be interested in
that interview.
I totally understand that, butit just doesn't.
It feels like he's been forcedonto a team for the for the time
being and that he he's alignedhimself with people that he that
have also been put in a similarboat and I I'm just trying to
think through how do you managethat?
(20:28):
Because that's I can't imaginewhat that is as an experience to
have people trying to stop youfrom speaking, having your
twitter account banned bannedlike you're.
That must feel like you're atwar, like everybody's trying to
stop me from speaking.
This is all going on, and soI'm just trying to figure out
how do you digest that duringthese periods, because it's so
easy to go.
It's those people over therenow that are the problem, and
(20:49):
now you're just you could end upon the other side, but it
sounds like you use writing tokind of process where you're
actually at and check thetemperature in the room and try
not to kind of become loyal toone new position over the other
and be dogmatically on a newside.
How do you kind of process that, because there are people
(21:10):
coming after you and trying totake your livelihood, make sure
that you don't have a financialincome.
That is something to takepersonally.
That isn't something to say oh,it's just the internet, like
that's a real experience thatyou would have to carry.
Meghan Murphy (21:24):
Yeah, and it was.
It was exhausting and it wasstressful and it was really hard
for many, many years.
Um, at this point, you know, Ithink I've developed such a
thick skin that there's not muchthat bothers me at this point.
I feel like I've been canceledso many times that I'm like well
(21:44):
, what are you going to do to menow?
Um, and you know, the tideshave turned so it's easier to
speak about a lot of thesethings.
Thank God it's still.
You know, there's still lots ofcensorship to go around and you
know, in Canada I stillstruggled to speak about gender
identity ideology.
You know, I was back in Canadaand BC over the summer and early
(22:09):
fall last year and we weretrying to organize events.
We still lost every singlevenue we booked.
We still get protested, westill get threats.
Um, things are changing a lotin the us, obviously because of
trump's win in large part.
Things are changing in othercountries around the world.
At this point, canada there's abit of pushback, but you know,
(22:30):
they're still really clinging togender identity ideology and a
lot of the woke stuff inparticular.
I guess I just don't see leftand right in the same way that I
used to.
I think I really have rejectedthe left.
(22:51):
I don't see much value inleftist politics or ideology
anymore, and it's because itjust seems phony to me.
You know what leftists say.
We can talk about Canada inparticular.
I suppose you know whatleftists or progressives in
(23:12):
Canada say is almost alwaysrooted in BS, like it's not
rooted in reality.
It's not rooted in facts.
It's regurgitated narrativesthat have been fed to them by
their algorithm or by the media,or by an easy one is that you
know, trans women are amarginalized population.
(23:43):
They're always under threat.
You know they're in danger atall time.
They're.
You know.
There's some kind of oppressedgroup of people that are called
trans people, which I don't buyinto at all because I would like
to know what a trans person is,beyond somebody just announcing
that they're transgender.
You know, there's no such thingas a transgender person as far
(24:06):
as I'm concerned.
You're either a man or a woman,and you can have all sorts of
feelings about gender and genderroles.
You can have, you know,cosmetic surgeries if you want
to.
Um, you can dress however youlike, but you can't change your
sex.
If you're male, you're alwaysmale.
You're female, you're alwaysfemale.
There's no such thing assomebody who's in between or has
managed to cross overbiologically.
Aaron Pete (24:29):
Um so just like to follow up on that, just to make
sure I understand.
Sex has remained, from myunderstanding, the same, but
it's the gender piece thatpeople have claimed has been
more fluid.
And again to your point, this isregurgitated information that
I've heard and my cursoryunderstanding but the gender has
(24:53):
been more flexible throughouthuman history.
That sex, to your point, ismuch clearer and easier to
identify, but that gender pieceis something different than sex
and I think that's where thevulnerability was on this topic.
That's where the complexitystands is because we do have two
different terms.
(25:13):
I'm not exactly sure why or howlong that's existed for, but
for some reason we have twoterms and at one point in time
we realized that there arepeople who are male who like to
dress as females, or females wholike to dress as males tomboys.
We understand that there'sflexibility there, and then that
, from my perspective, has had amicroscope put on it for the
(25:37):
past few years and we've reallybeen trying to figure out why do
we have this term gender andwhy is it separate from sex and
how do we think about theseissues, and that's become a
public, a very publicconversation.
Meghan Murphy (25:49):
Yeah, so gender has been melded with sex in a
really confusing way, thanks inlarge part to this gender
identity ideology debate.
So to me I sort of wish thatthe term gender didn't exist at
all, because I think it justconfuses things.
And you're right, it is sort ofa new term in the English
(26:11):
language.
In any case, in other languagesthe words gender and sex are
kind of the same, or there'sonly one word and it sort of
means gender, but it also meanssex.
So in the English language andin our modern context, gender is
just about gender roles andstereotypes, so masculinity and
femininity.
So, for example, the idea thatgirls like pink and boys like
(26:34):
blue and boys like to play withtrucks and girls like to play
with dolls, and as a woman Ilike dresses and makeup and high
heels and being passive andnurturing, and those kinds of
ideas and you know a lot ofthose things are actually rooted
in evolution, but they're justnot hard and fast rules and it
(26:58):
just doesn't really matter allthat much.
Like whether or not I want towear a dress or whether or not I
like the color pink has nobearing on my biological sex.
I'm female, regardless of mypersonality or clothing
preferences or my haircut orwhatever.
You know, when I was a kid, Iwas a tomboy.
I probably, like still am kindof a tomboy, like I don't really
(27:23):
think of myself as a veryfeminine person in terms of my
personality.
Um, so, yeah, it's just sort of.
It's sort of a useless andconfusing concept, especially
because we've now conflated itwith sex.
And if you talk to transactivists, which is always a
very confusing conversation, youknow the whole ideology is
(27:47):
really incoherent.
But they'll say no, no, no,you're you're confusing sex with
gender.
Gender is fluid.
You're confusing sex withgender.
Gender is fluid.
And I'm like no, you'reconfusing sex with gender
because you're the one sayingthat a trans woman is actually a
literal woman.
You were the one saying that aman who identifies as a woman is
literally female when he's not.
(28:08):
If you want to say this manloves wearing women's clothing,
then fine, this woman, this manloves wearing women's clothing.
This man doesn.
This woman, this man loveswearing women's clothing.
This man doesn't like masculinestereotypes, that's fine and
that's actually something that,you know, feminism fought for
during the second wave, you know, in the seventies and eighties,
was to say you know, boys don'thave to be um, unemotional.
(28:31):
You know, it's okay for boys tocry, it's okay for girls to do
masculine things, it's okay forCan I?
Aaron Pete (28:39):
quickly just ask would you mind clarifying your
position Like where do you standon feminism?
Like, what is your alignment?
I've heard about the first,second, third wave feminism.
Which one resonates with you?
Meghan Murphy (28:52):
I mean, I sort of don't identify with feminism
anymore.
I just say that I advocate forwomen's rights.
You know, women's rights areimportant and will always be
important.
I've always been critical ofthird wave feminism, even when I
was, you know, more invested infeminist ideology, I suppose.
(29:14):
But you know, when I firststarted writing about feminism
publicly in my blog, on mywebsite, in my journalism and so
on and so forth, I reallyidentified more strongly with
second wave feminism, which, andthe aspect of second wave
feminism that challengedpornography and, you know,
(29:35):
domestic abuse, violence againstwomen in general, prostitution
you know, I was invested in likematerial things that were
happening to women I wasn'tinterested in talking about,
like slut shaming andmansplaining and this idea that
you know, a woman is empoweredby any choice she makes at all.
(29:58):
So if she chooses to dopornography, then you go, girl,
that's an empowered choice thatshe made.
Um, I always thought that thirdwave feminism was pretty silly
and actually pretty harmful towomen in a lot of ways.
Um, but yeah, I mean I wouldsay that I'm invested in women's
(30:19):
rights and there's still lotsof places around the world where
women and girls don't haverights.
You know Afghanistan, saudiArabia, and it's yeah, it's just
.
It's interesting how twistedthings have become when modern
feminists are, you know,refusing to criticize Islam, for
(30:40):
example, and are saying thingslike sex work is work and that
you know prostitution is just ajob like any other, when you
know prostitution and sextrafficking is such a massively
harmful, disgusting industrythat hurts women and girls all
(31:04):
around the world.
You know, it's just.
I think that feminism has reallybecome a joke in a lot of ways
in the Western world, so I don'twant to align with it.
And, of course, you know, somany modern third wave feminists
align themselves with thisgender identity nonsense and
it's like how can you callyourself a feminist, how can you
claim to be standing forwomen's rights when you're
(31:26):
defending men in women's sportsand violent predators being
transferred to women's prisonsand allowing grown men to walk
into girls change rooms withtheir genitals out?
You know, it's just.
It's so appalling and andbackwards.
So you know, I don't, I don'twant to align myself with that,
(31:49):
that kind of ideology ormovement.
Aaron Pete (31:51):
it's embarrassing right the, the piece that I'd
like to try and make sure that Itouch on.
In the start you had talkedabout, like how conservatives
typically are seen as lesscompassionate and that that was
your understanding growing up.
The only piece that I just Iwant to hone in on a little bit
more is when you talked aboutlike trans people and how
they're marginalized and how wehave these groups of people and
(32:13):
like that it isn't the case thatthere isn't as much evidence.
The only piece that that makesme think of is that piece that
you talked about, that thatdoesn't sound compassionate when
you say it and I'm not sayingthat you're not compassionate,
it's just when we say thingslike that to me that reminds me
of that sounding of a lack ofcompassion, a lack of compassion
(32:37):
for the maybe very so.
Say there's a hundred transpeople and you and I don't.
We we agree that a largepercentage of them are bad
actors in this process, but avery small few maybe good actors
, struggling young people whoare struggling with their
identity.
They still deserve thatcompassion.
I'm just wondering if you canhelp me square that circle.
Meghan Murphy (32:53):
Yeah, I mean, I feel awful for young women who
are growing up during this timeand who believe that because
they don't like femininity orthey're feeling uncomfortable
with the changes they'reexperiencing during puberty, or
(33:14):
maybe they're young lesbians andthey are told, oh like, maybe
you're a boy, maybe you'reactually a man.
You know these surgeries andthese hormones, these puberty
blockers, will make you feelbetter.
They'll make you feel more likeyourself, as opposed to being
told.
You know you're a teenager andyou're experiencing normal
(33:37):
teenage things and we allstruggled with going through
puberty and our changing bodiesand you know figuring out where
and how we fit in this world.
And you know, and a lot of theyoung women you know who are
being trans or identifying astrans, if you listen to their
(33:58):
stories, so many of them havehistories of, you know,
molestation and sexual assaultand things like that.
And you know it makes a lot ofsense that if you had that kind
of experience, you would want toshed your female body in a way.
(34:18):
You know, shed what youinterpret as being the reason
that you were molested or rapedor whatever it was.
You know your body that'sbecoming sexualized by adult men
as you're going through puberty.
But yeah, you know, I feelawful for those girls and those
girls' lives are being destroyed.
Their lives and bodies arebeing destroyed by this ideology
(34:42):
and this practice.
So it's not that I think thatpeople identifying as
transgender are necessarily bador don't deserve compassion, but
I'm not interested in havingcompassion for men who are, you
know, walking into women'sspaces and making them unsafe.
(35:06):
I don't think that.
You know, being nice is not animportant value to me.
I think that it's moreimportant to have integrity and
to tell the truth and to beethical and to do what's right.
So a lot of things that I saydo come off as mean, and some of
them are mean, but we can'talways be nice about everything
(35:30):
if it means that we have to lieor stand by and watch something
dangerous happen.
And that's what I saw happeningwith gender identity ideology
right away, you know, as soon asit, when it was just a debate,
when we were just arguing aboutit in our feminist blogs, then
that's one thing, but once westart talking about legislation,
(35:52):
things become really serious.
Once we're legislating aroundthis idea that again is
incoherent and that essentiallynullifies women's rights, then
this is a big deal.
And that's when I, when Ireally, really really doubled
down on speaking out and wasreally really quite disappointed
to see how many, how few peoplewere willing to stand with me
(36:15):
in Canada, including feministsand certainly including leftists
.
You know I had a lot of peoplewho I knew agreed with me but
would say you know, but I can't,I can't possibly speak out.
You know it's too dangerousright now and I'm like, well,
you're just, you're waitinguntil it's too late.
And why is your life so muchmore important than my life?
(36:36):
You know I'm losing and riskingeverything.
You know I don't have financialstability, I don't have safety,
I don't have anything here.
But you know, somebody has tosay something before it's too
late.
And it of course, did become toolate.
I wasn't able to stop this fromhappening and hopefully, now
(36:58):
that more people are speakingout, we can turn things around,
but I just can't believe we letthings get this far with this
craziness.
But yeah, I mean in terms ofthe compassion piece, like I, I
I feel compassion for theindividuals, but as a whole,
this practice and this ideologyand this legislation is, across
(37:20):
the board, bad and wrong andunethical and disgusting and
dangerous, and I think that thepeople advocating for men to be
allowed into women's spaces andwomen's sports.
I think they're doing somethingbad.
I think that the peopleadvocating for minors to be put
(37:43):
on puberty blockers and hormonesand have these surgeries that
render them sterile and destroytheir bodies for life are doing
something really bad.
So I don't really see a way tobe nice about that, because I
think it's just such a big, bad,dangerous thing.
Aaron Pete (38:02):
That did clarify that for me.
I appreciate that.
The other piece that I wantedto ask about is how does the
transgender movement impactwomen's rights from your
perspective?
Meghan Murphy (38:23):
hacked women's rights from your perspective.
Well, I mean there when I, whenI spoke at the Senate in it was
either at the end of 2016 orearly 2017, when I testified
against Bill C-16, I talkedabout how this ideology was
really actually quite sexist.
So, you know, saying that beinga woman isn't just about a
(38:44):
biological and material realityof being female, but that it's
inherently attached tofemininity, I saw as a really
regressive idea.
I was like this is what youknow.
This is why women, in part,were prevented from voting.
It's like you don't need tovote, you shouldn't be
participating in public life,you're too delicate for politics
(39:06):
.
Women should be in the home andhaving children and taking care
of their families and sort oflike they should be seen and not
heard, kind of thing.
I was, like you know, sayingthat these, these stereotypes
are what makes me, what definesmy womanhood is, is sexist and
regressive.
(39:26):
So there's that piece.
But you know, women foughtreally really really hard for
the right to compete on fairground in sport, um, and they
won that fight in the U S, in inTitle IX, for example, and all
of a sudden, these men or thesemales are being allowed to
(39:50):
compete and they're winning allthese competitions and these
girls who worked so hard theirwhole lives to compete, to get
scholarships, to getopportunities, um are just being
pushed aside and erased.
Aaron Pete (40:06):
for these, these guys who are essentially
cheating can I ask how, howwidespread is this from your?
That's the what I.
I've heard this, and then thequestion that I get put back to
me is how widespread is this?
We hear about the outlier caseswhere this comes up, but what
would your response be tosomebody who says how widespread
(40:27):
is this?
Is this a real growing issue?
Meghan Murphy (40:30):
I mean, I guess I don't think it's relevant how
widespread it is, because it'shappening and if it happens one
time, that's too many timeshappening.
Um, and if it happens one time,that's too many times.
Um, I mean, I feel like we'rehearing about it pretty
regularly in Canada and in the US?
Um, where men are, you know,competing and winning track
races, or you know, winning inswimming competitions, or you
(40:55):
know, we see, you know, we'veseen um seen men competing on,
like women's rugby teams involleyball, you know, and
there's been, there's been womenand young women, you know girls
who've experienced reallyGaines, have lost competitions
to men.
Leah Thomas, right, you knowit's not.
(41:26):
It's definitely happening andit's widespread enough to matter
.
But if it was just one man, itwould be too many men.
You know women's sports are forwomen, End of story.
Like, there's no exceptionthere.
You're male, you compete as amale.
If you're not good enough, toobad.
Sorry, this isn't about yourfeelings.
(41:47):
This is about sports andathletes and competition and
fair rules, and it's just wildto me that we even need to
explain this and talk about it.
And it does seem to me thatit's happening everywhere.
Like I was just watching avideo on Instagram of a girl who
was in a jujitsu competitionfighting this massive man who
(42:11):
was identifying as a woman, andI was like this is just sick.
Aaron Pete (42:15):
You know there was a you knowma, um, you know it's,
it's, it's dangerous, too rightlike women can be really
seriously hurt, it's just, it'sa huge safety thing, especially,
uh, like, of course, joe rogancame forward when it started
happening in mma and was like,okay, this is not, this is not
(42:36):
the same thing.
These are two people in verydifferent physical conditions.
On that note, we talk about thechallenges and you went through
many of them people trying tosilence your voice and your
perspective on these issues.
Then a person like Joe Rogancomes forward and reaches out
and extends an olive branch,comes forward and reaches out
(43:02):
and extends an olive branch.
Less about the maybe theexperience like I'm just
wondering what does that meanwhen you've been silenced and
pushed to the side so many timesto have somebody reach out and
go hey, I'd love to speak withyou.
Like, what was that experiencelike and what did that mean to
you during during that period?
Meghan Murphy (43:17):
yeah, I mean that was incredible.
Joe Roggan is an incredibleperson.
He's like a highly ethical,really genuinely good man,
despite you know what themainstream media tries to say
about him.
He's a genuinely wonderfulperson and he cares about doing
the right thing and he caresabout the truth.
(43:37):
And when I was banned fromTwitter, we tried to sue.
We lost the case, um, and he hadtalked about it on the podcast
a number of times, um, andactually it's the first time
that I was on Rogan's podcast.
I had reached out and I waslike thank you so much for
covering my case.
(43:58):
I really appreciate, appreciatethat you keep talking about
this Cause.
He just kept talking about howcrazy it was.
I was banned from Twitter forsaying that men aren't women, um
, and I was like I'd love to totalk about my, my case.
So then he invited me on and webecame friends after that.
So the next time I went on, Iyou know, I think I just kind of
(44:19):
happened to be going to Austinhe was like, hey, come back on
the podcast.
But you know, he did so muchfor me.
He supported me, he helped meout when he didn't have to.
He had nothing to gain from me.
I have nothing to offer in thisworld.
I know you know I'm not animportant person.
I have no power Um world.
(44:41):
I know you know I'm not animportant person.
Aaron Pete (44:43):
I have no power.
Um, and yeah, you know he, hesticks.
Meghan Murphy (44:44):
Can I just briefly say that I think it's
tragic that you say that, um,that you don't have anything to
offer after I don't mean, Idon't have anything to offer in
terms of you know, obviously, myvoice and my writing, but it's
like you know, he doesn't gainanything from supporting and
platforming me.
If anything, the first time hehad me on he had something to
lose because you know he wouldbe attacked as transphobic for
(45:07):
having somebody like me on whocalls men he and, you know,
points out that you know a lotof these men who are identifying
as women, are autogynephilesand are men with fetishes and
are perverts.
Like sorry, but you know you'regoing into a girl's change room
with your genitals out.
You're a pervert.
That used to be like a prettyaccepted thing in society,
(45:31):
pretty accepted understanding.
So, yeah, I don't.
I don't mean that in like aself-deprecating way, I just
mean that, yeah, I mean he, hesupported me and helped me out
in a lot of ways when he didn'thave to because, you know, in
part because we were friends andand in part because you know it
(45:53):
was maybe it was the rightthing to do.
Like you said, he was one ofthe ones to speak out against
this early on when Fallon Foxwas fighting a woman in the MMA
and he was like this isdangerous.
Aaron Pete (46:08):
Right.
I'm wondering what advice youhave.
It does feel like we're headinginto a new time.
Freedom of speech, to me, is aresponsibility.
It's's a right, but it's alsoyou have responsibilities with
the rights that you have.
What advice do you have forothers looking to share their
voice and grow into it.
Meghan Murphy (46:41):
I mean, I think you, you, you know, I think
anything goes, I think youshould be able to say anything
you want to say, even if it'soffensive, even if it's mean,
even if it's unpleasant.
I have never enjoyedself-censoring, Um, I just want
(47:01):
to be myself, and I think thatthat's something that a lot of
people in this world, especiallyyoung people, are lacking.
You know, they're scared tospeak, they're scared to say
what they really think, um, andI think that's kind of tragic.
You know, I know a lot ofpeople who, you know they're
scared of their own friends.
(47:21):
You know they're scared of whatwill happen if they challenge
the accepted ideologies orpolitics of their friend groups.
You know, this is a reallycommon thing in Vancouver.
Vancouver is a very progressiveplace, and when I started
speaking out againsttransgenderism, I lost a lot of
(47:44):
friends.
I was ostracized by a lot ofpeople, but I also had a lot of
friends who would tell meprivately that they agreed with
me and they supported me, butthey couldn't possibly say so,
you know, not even to theirwives, and I just can't imagine
(48:05):
living like that, and I think Iwant people to know how good it
feels to speak out and to tellthe truth, even when you lose
friends, maybe even if you loseyour job.
You know, if you get attackedonline, it's okay, it's hard and
it can be stressful, but at theend of the day you come out
stronger and you come out moreconfident and you come out
liking yourself more.
You know to live with integrityand authenticity feels so good.
(48:29):
You know you want to talk aboutempowerment, that it feels
really empowering, um, and it itmakes you brave.
You know people are not bornbrave.
I don't think I don't thinkyou're born fearless or even
courageous.
I think that you gain thosequalities by doing.
(48:51):
You know, I think I becamebrave by doing brave things and
I became much less fearless bydoing things that were really,
really scary.
You know, speaking aboutspeaking out about this stuff
wasn't easy for me.
It was scary.
Putting yourself out there isscary, even just in your writing
(49:12):
, nevermind going out intopublic and into the public and
speaking in public and sayingcontroversial things.
It's scary and it's like you doit anyways and then you realize
you can and that's what makesyou brave, and I think that I
want to encourage people to dothat and to understand that and
(49:34):
not to think oh well, you know,maybe Megan can, but I can't,
that's just not me.
Well, it could be you if you doit, and we have to.
You know Canada has let way toomuch slide and I think we're so
close to a really really bad,scary situation where people
(49:57):
don't have rights and freedoms.
We've already experienced aloss of rights and freedoms.
You know we saw what happenedover COVID and what the
government did to the convoy andsupporters of the convoy, and
we know how far things can getif we don't stand up and speak
out.
(50:17):
And it's now or never.
There's no safe time.
If people are waiting aroundfor a convenient time when it
becomes safe to say something,that's when it's too late.
You do it now and it is a risk.
That's part of it.
Aaron Pete (50:32):
How can people follow along with your work?
Meghan Murphy (50:34):
I would love it if people would go to my sub
stack, which is atwwwmeganmurphyca, or they can
just search for Megan Murphy onsub stack and become a paid
subscriber.
It's just like $5 a month andthat's.
You know, really how I make aliving is just through
(50:55):
subscribers.
You know I'm not sponsored byanyone, I'm not doing ads and
not.
You know I've stayedindependent all this time on
purpose, because it's allowed meto do what I've done all these
years.
I don't think I would have beenable to speak out as much as I
have been able to and to coverthe issues that I've been able
(51:17):
to cover if I didn't have my ownpersonal platform.
You know there was nobodylimiting me, like I didn't have,
thank God, a threat of beingfired.
I had a threat of income lossand you know, as an independent,
it's a huge struggle to make aliving as an independent
podcaster and writer, make aliving as an independent
(51:42):
podcaster and writer.
So, yeah, I hope that peoplewill come to my sub stack and
subscribe.
I hope that people will find myYouTube channel and subscribe
there.
That's really helpful.
It's really easy and helpfulactually to just find the same
drugs podcast on Spotify andclick the follow button.
That doesn't cost anything.
But yeah, yeah, that that wouldbe wonderful.
(52:04):
And I'm, of course, back onTwitter now X, and I'm overly
prolific there.
People want to know my opinionabout every single thing in the
entire world.
That's a great place to followme.
That's at Megan E Murphy.
Aaron Pete (52:22):
Amazing.
Thank you for being willing toshare your time today and your
perspectives.
It takes a lot, as youdescribed, to take a stand or
take a position on somethingwhen it's not popular, and I
learn a lot about the courageand the determination and the
resilience of people throughthose moments and how they're
willing to, and the resilienceof people through those moments
and how they're willing to standup against a mob in those
(52:43):
moments.
So thank you for being willingto share your time and your
story.
Meghan Murphy (52:46):
Of course.
Thank you so much for having me.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you for reaching out.
I enjoyed the conversation.
Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger
Than Me podcast.
Here is your host.
Aaron Peet.
What is going on with thefeminist movement?
Is it growing or fading away?
I'm speaking with a woman whotook a stand for women's rights
when it was difficult to do so.
We discussed the feministmovement, trans people in sports
being invited onto the JoeRogan experience and the
(00:22):
importance of sharing your voiceand your perspective.
My guest today is Megan Murphy.
Megan, thank you so much forbeing willing to join us today.
Would you mind first?
Meghan Murphy (00:34):
briefly introducing yourself.
I'm Megan Murphy.
I'm a writer, I'm the host ofthe Same Drugs podcast, I lived
in Canada for 40 years beforeexiling myself to Mexico and,
yeah, I'm trained in journalism.
I'm very glad to be here.
(00:55):
Thank you for having me.
Aaron Pete (00:57):
Would you mind giving us some of the origin
story?
People might be familiar with abit of your story your
experience with Twitter in 2018,but would you mind taking us
through your journey prior tothat?
Meghan Murphy (01:07):
Yes for sure, it's a long journey.
I launched a website calledFeminist Current back in 2012.
I did a bachelor's degree and amaster's degree in women's
studies.
I I think I'm actually the onlyperson on the planet who ever
(01:28):
made use of that degree by, youknow, criticizing women's
studies and modern feminism.
To the extent that I have, um,I know it from the inside and,
um, yeah, I was.
I was a socialist for most ofmy life, essentially.
You know, I sort of likeoscillated between identities
(01:51):
like Marxist or anarchist when Iwas younger and settled on, you
know, the more moderatesocialist as I was got older.
Um, and, yeah, I was really,really invested in leftist
politics and feminist politicsfor most of my adult life, and
(02:23):
so that's what most of mywriting.
Early on, because of a specificfight that was happening in
Vancouver with an organizationcalled Vancouver Rape Relief and
Women's Shelter, and they wereforced to go to court.
They were dragged through oneof these human rights tribunals
by a man calling himself a woman, and they did win eventually at
(02:50):
the Supreme Court, I believeand they won the right to define
their own membership, which,for them, ensured that they
didn't have to allow men totrain as counselors at this
women's shelter, this shelterfor women who were escaping, you
know, really, domestic violenceand really, you know, horrific
(03:10):
male violence in general, but asa result, they were tarred as
transphobic for all the yearsfollowing.
You know, I think this casehappened back in 1999 or
something like that.
So they were constantly underattack by these trans activists
and by a lot of leftists inVancouver, and I was allied with
(03:31):
these women.
I was very supportive of thework that they were doing for
women and I was defensive ofthem, and so I got schooled in
gender identity ideology, transactivism and defending women's
spaces pretty early on.
So I started, you know, coveringthis, this fight, back in, you
(03:52):
know, around 2012 and so whenthe um, when bill c16 came along
, which was canada's genderidentity legislation, which
passed in 2017.
But when that bill came alongpresented by the Liberal Party,
of course, in 2016, I was one ofthe only people in Canada to
(04:13):
speak out, and certainly one ofthe only people in Canada to
speak out as a feminist and aleftist, and I managed to, after
like a great deal of struggle,publish a piece explaining my
criticisms of the bill at thetime in in the National Observer
.
And, you know, luckily, I hadmy own website, my own platform
(04:36):
and my podcast so that I couldcover this extensively, because
the Canadian media not only, youknow, wasn't covering it not
fairly in any case but theyrefused to even acknowledge that
somebody like me would have acriticism.
You know they would.
They would allow for JordanPeterson to be presented as as a
(05:01):
critic of gender identitylegislation and gender identity
ideology, because they couldframe him happily, as you know,
like this bigot and thismisogynist and all of those
things.
But they couldn't do that to mebecause I was this leftist
feminist.
So they just pretended that Ididn't exist and essentially
erased me from the conversationand blacklisted me.
(05:24):
You know, like I'd, I'd writtenfor a lot of these publications
prior.
I'd written for the CBC, I'dbeen on the CBC before and I
yeah, you know, I I struggledand struggled to speak out about
this in Canada, but it was anenormous challenge.
(05:45):
I mean, I could barely get avenue to speak in.
We would get counseled at everyturn.
I didn't have any resources orany funding.
It was always just me and likea couple of other women just
trying to talk about this, and Itestified against the bill at
the Senate in 2017.
In 2018, at the end of 2018, Iwas permanently banned from
(06:10):
Twitter for essentially forcriticizing gender identity,
ideology and trans activism.
But the tweets in question thathad me permanently banned were
saying men aren't women, and Ireferred to a man named Jonathan
(06:31):
slash Jessica Yaniv as him.
So those were my crimes.
I was banned from Twitter forfour years until Elon took over
and freed me.
Aaron Pete (06:43):
Wow.
The part I want to start withthat stood out to me is where
you started from in yourschooling the perspectives you
had.
What brought that change about?
That's a pretty significantmove and I think what we're
seeing right now, hopefully, ispeople's commitment to movement
on positions that we shouldn'tkind of ground ourselves in one
(07:06):
understanding forever, that weshould adapt to the facts on the
ground, be willing to open ourminds to different perspectives.
That doesn't mean we have toagree, but that that is a part
of living, that is a part of thehuman experience.
What brought that about for you?
Meghan Murphy (07:21):
Yeah, and I think that you know if you're
genuinely interested inunderstanding the world around
you, if you're genuinelycommitted to truth and integrity
as best you can in any case andyou know if you are genuinely a
critical thinker, if you'reinterested in learning, you will
(07:42):
change your mind when presentedwith new information, and
that's what happened to me.
You know, I was very investedin a very particular ideology
for a long time and at a certainpoint, I started listening to
alternate points of view andreading different perspectives.
(08:04):
And you know, really I feelreally blessed to have the
podcast that I do the Same Drugs, because I was able to
interview so many people who sawthings differently than I did
and had different experiencesthan I did.
And I learned a lot from thesepeople and, you know, I've
changed my mind about a lot ofthings as a result.
(08:25):
And it's very amusing to mebecause now people come at me
and they're like oh, you're justthis, like right wing ideologue
.
You know you're just kneejerking, you're obsessed with,
you know, trump, and they callme MAGA and all of these things.
And I'm like call me MAGA andall of these things and I'm like
(08:48):
you guys.
For 40 years of my life I wasthis like uber leftist uber,
like I was more feminist thanthe feminists and I was more
left than the leftists.
You know the NDP wasn't leftistenough for me because they
dropped the word socialism fromtheir platform.
That's what I was, you know.
That's when I think I was quiteunthinking, you know, and I
(09:09):
think that the gift that I wasgiven from that experience is
that I really understand the waythe left thinks and I know what
it's like to be an ideologueand I know how it shapes your
worldview and limits your, yourability to understand the truth
and to understand people.
(09:30):
And to you know, yeah, to toreally understand those around
you.
Um, because I thought thatpeople who didn't think like me,
ie right-wing people orconservatives or whatever you
want to call them I just thoughtthey were either, you know,
stupid.
They just needed to bere-educated, or they were greedy
(09:53):
, or they weren't empathetic,like they didn't care about
other people.
They were selfish.
That's what I thought, and so Iknow that's what the left
thinks about these people.
And now I guess people like me,because people now label me
bright wing and conservative,despite the fact that I don't
know that those labelsparticularly fit.
I don't really.
(10:13):
I'm not super attached to anylabel and I don't know that any
label fits me perfectly, butpeople like to categorize and
label people so that they candismiss them more easily or
decide if they're an ally, Isuppose.
But yeah, I mean I just Istarted to poke holes in my own
arguments and my own politics.
(10:34):
What brought?
Aaron Pete (10:36):
that on Like.
Did you just become interestedin challenging yourself?
Did you get exposed to somebodywho you didn't have an answer
for?
I'm just trying to figure outhow do we replicate that?
How do we help people challengetheir own perspectives over
time?
How do we support them inchallenging their own
assumptions?
Meghan Murphy (10:55):
You know, I think there was a big turning point
for me when Hillary Clinton lostthe election in the US and
Trump won, because I was totallyconfused about how that could
happen.
I didn't know anything.
I thought I knew a lot, but Ididn't know anything.
You know, I bought all of thepropaganda that was being fed to
(11:16):
me around how horrible DonaldTrump was and I thought Hillary
Clinton deserved to win and thatanybody that didn't support her
hated women.
You know, that's what I boughtinto that narrative.
And when she lost, I wasdevastated.
You know, I couldn't believe it.
I cried and I had never votedin an American election at that
(11:40):
point, I don't.
I was just so invested in thisidea that it was like, you know,
men, men versus women and goodversus evil, and the evil man
had won, and I couldn't believeit and I didn't understand it.
But what I did do was that Isought to understand.
I was like, okay, I don'tunderstand anything.
(12:03):
Like I had no idea that it waseven possible for Donald Trump
to win this election because,you know, mainstream media told
us that it was impossible.
They told us, essentially, thatshe was a shoo-in to, and
(12:24):
listening to and reading allsorts of different kinds of
people, and it was around thattime when the so-called, at the
time, intellectual dark web wascoming up.
So I did start, yeah, like now.
I think we kind of refer to itmore as like heterodox, I
suppose.
But I did start, you know,listening to Jordan Peterson,
for example, and I started tosee the way that you know, the
(12:47):
feminists around me that Iworked with and engaged with and
, you know, shared politics withand allied with, you know they
were so unthinking and sounwilling to consider different
points of view and so investedin cancel culture.
And you know, around that thiswas also around the time when me
(13:12):
too was all the rage and Iremember being in Vancouver and
there were men who were gettingcanceled and their lives were
getting destroyed.
And you know, maybe some ofthose men did deserve it, maybe
some of those men were awful menwho were rapists or who were
dangerous in some way, but someof them weren't um, and it
(13:34):
didn't matter.
You know, a woman would saysomething and everybody had to
believe her, no matter what um,and there was nothing that the
accused could do to defendhimself and we couldn't talk
about it.
I remember there was a man whowas the head of the creative
writing department at UBC,stephen Galloway, and he was
(13:59):
accused essentially of abuse,but nobody would explain what
happened.
Nobody explained what the abusewas.
The media covered this story,you know they covered the
accusations but would not reporton the incident or incidences.
And when I would ask, ask otherfeminists online, you know, in
(14:22):
our little Facebook groups orwhatever, when they were, you
tarring Stephen Galloway as thishorrific, abusive, dangerous
misogynist and I would ask, Iwould be like, well, what did he
do?
Nobody would tell me, but I wasexpected to participate in this
mass cancellation campaignagainst him.
(14:45):
I was expected to believe theaccuser, who also no one knew.
You know, this was an anonymousaccuser that we were supposed
to just blanket believe.
And Steve Galloway's life wasdestroyed.
You know, he lost his job, helost his career.
He was a very well-known,successful writer in Canada,
(15:08):
which is not an easy feat, buthe was, and you know he suffered
essentially a mental breakdown.
(15:30):
Um, and these, these women, werejust so committed to a
narrative that they didn't knowanything about this case.
They didn't know, they knewnothing about what happened,
they didn't know anything aboutthe accused or the accuser.
And I was getting, you know,canceled by these women just for
asking what happened.
Does anybody know?
Well, we know, but we can't say.
Or you know some, some peopleknow we, we know he's bad.
(15:52):
How do you know what you know?
And he didn't do anything.
It was a bogus accusation.
Um, and yeah, I, I, you know,like I talked to some people,
journalists, who were coveringthis accurately.
You know my friend, john Kay,who I've known for a long time.
(16:13):
He edited me at the Walrus andthe National Post a long time.
We've been in touch for a longtime and he was one of the only
ones speaking out against whatwas happening to Stephen
Galloway.
And you know, I just was likethis is this is BS.
These, these people don't wantto think, they don't want to
know, they don't want tounderstand.
They just want their mantrasand their ideologies, their anti
(16:37):
free speech.
You know, while we were, thesewere the radical feminists and
the leftist feminists who wereopposed to gender identity
ideology.
So we're all getting cancelledfor saying that men aren't women
and you can't change sex.
We're all being silenced, we'reall being no platformed.
Women are losing their jobs, um, and they still can't bring
(16:59):
themselves to defend free speech.
You know, I was never a hugedefender of free speech prior to
like 2015 or something, becauseI, as a typical progressive
Canadian, just didn't.
I was never necessarily againstfree speech, I just didn't
think about it.
It just didn't seem importantto me.
I think I probably just assumedI would always have it, and
(17:19):
then I didn't.
And then I saw, you know, thesecancellation campaigns
happening to so many otherpeople.
I was subjected to many, many,many cancellation campaigns and
so I became a defender of freespeech and all of a sudden, all
these women were turning againstme because I was talking to
people who I wasn't supposed totalk to, people who were, you
(17:41):
know, sexists or racists orIslamophobic or whatever.
And I was like how can you beon, be a target of a
cancellation campaign, becanceled because you're
supposedly transphobic, becauseyou say this, this thing that's
true but not politically correct, and then still advocate that
(18:03):
others be canceled for the samereasons, because they don't
share your politics and youridea?
I just saw, I saw so muchhypocrisy.
I was so frustrated.
I also just found the wholething really intellectually lazy
.
And I'm a writer and I and Iwrite because I this is how I
process and understand the world, this is how I figure out what
(18:25):
I believe through that processand I was getting kind of bored
of myself.
I was just like I felt like Iwas just repeating and saying
what I was supposed to be saying.
You know I have a feministanalysis, so naturally my view
on this is this expectedfeminist analysis and I was like
(18:46):
I don't want to, I don't feellike I'm thinking this through
fully and I want to.
I genuinely want to understandand genuinely want to understand
, and I want to challenge myselfto know if my ideas and my
arguments and my analysis issound.
Um can?
Aaron Pete (19:01):
I ask a question yeah, in your experience on that
I'm just thinking of, like I.
I've been a fan of jordanpeterson since the beginning and
I I feel like he's gone in adirection in the very recent
past with his partnership withthe Daily Wire, like I, just I
feel like he's.
When I first started listeningto him, the part that I really
(19:24):
appreciated was that he'd talkabout the importance of the left
and he'd talk about theimportance of the right and how
they both have an integral roleto play, and I learned a lot
from that role to play and Ilearned a lot from that and I do
my best to live with thatperspective that right now in
Canadian culture it looks likethe Conservatives are likely
going to win the next election.
They're going to have power forfour to eight years and then we
(19:44):
may be able to reviewpotentially whether or not
they're the right fit duringthat time period that we have to
adjust with the information onthe ground.
Right now, I feel like he's beenat war with so many people for
so long, he's been attacked forso long that it feels like at
the moment not forever, but atthe moment he feels like he's
picked aside.
He's interviewing pierrepolliev, he's interviewing
(20:07):
maxine bernier, he's notinterviewing jeng meet, saying I
know he may have reached out,they may not be interested in
that interview.
I totally understand that, butit just doesn't.
It feels like he's been forcedonto a team for the for the time
being and that he he's alignedhimself with people that he that
have also been put in a similarboat and I I'm just trying to
think through how do you managethat?
(20:28):
Because that's I can't imaginewhat that is as an experience to
have people trying to stop youfrom speaking, having your
twitter account banned bannedlike you're.
That must feel like you're atwar, like everybody's trying to
stop me from speaking.
This is all going on, and soI'm just trying to figure out
how do you digest that duringthese periods, because it's so
easy to go.
It's those people over therenow that are the problem, and
(20:49):
now you're just you could end upon the other side, but it
sounds like you use writing tokind of process where you're
actually at and check thetemperature in the room and try
not to kind of become loyal toone new position over the other
and be dogmatically on a newside.
How do you kind of process that, because there are people
(21:10):
coming after you and trying totake your livelihood, make sure
that you don't have a financialincome.
That is something to takepersonally.
That isn't something to say oh,it's just the internet, like
that's a real experience thatyou would have to carry.
Meghan Murphy (21:24):
Yeah, and it was.
It was exhausting and it wasstressful and it was really hard
for many, many years.
Um, at this point, you know, Ithink I've developed such a
thick skin that there's not muchthat bothers me at this point.
I feel like I've been canceledso many times that I'm like well
(21:44):
, what are you going to do to menow?
Um, and you know, the tideshave turned so it's easier to
speak about a lot of thesethings.
Thank God it's still.
You know, there's still lots ofcensorship to go around and you
know, in Canada I stillstruggled to speak about gender
identity ideology.
You know, I was back in Canadaand BC over the summer and early
(22:09):
fall last year and we weretrying to organize events.
We still lost every singlevenue we booked.
We still get protested, westill get threats.
Um, things are changing a lotin the us, obviously because of
trump's win in large part.
Things are changing in othercountries around the world.
At this point, canada there's abit of pushback, but you know,
(22:30):
they're still really clinging togender identity ideology and a
lot of the woke stuff inparticular.
I guess I just don't see leftand right in the same way that I
used to.
I think I really have rejectedthe left.
(22:51):
I don't see much value inleftist politics or ideology
anymore, and it's because itjust seems phony to me.
You know what leftists say.
We can talk about Canada inparticular.
I suppose you know whatleftists or progressives in
(23:12):
Canada say is almost alwaysrooted in BS, like it's not
rooted in reality.
It's not rooted in facts.
It's regurgitated narrativesthat have been fed to them by
their algorithm or by the media,or by an easy one is that you
know, trans women are amarginalized population.
(23:43):
They're always under threat.
You know they're in danger atall time.
They're.
You know.
There's some kind of oppressedgroup of people that are called
trans people, which I don't buyinto at all because I would like
to know what a trans person is,beyond somebody just announcing
that they're transgender.
You know, there's no such thingas a transgender person as far
(24:06):
as I'm concerned.
You're either a man or a woman,and you can have all sorts of
feelings about gender and genderroles.
You can have, you know,cosmetic surgeries if you want
to.
Um, you can dress however youlike, but you can't change your
sex.
If you're male, you're alwaysmale.
You're female, you're alwaysfemale.
There's no such thing assomebody who's in between or has
managed to cross overbiologically.
Aaron Pete (24:29):
Um so just like to follow up on that, just to make
sure I understand.
Sex has remained, from myunderstanding, the same, but
it's the gender piece thatpeople have claimed has been
more fluid.
And again to your point, this isregurgitated information that
I've heard and my cursoryunderstanding but the gender has
(24:53):
been more flexible throughouthuman history.
That sex, to your point, ismuch clearer and easier to
identify, but that gender pieceis something different than sex
and I think that's where thevulnerability was on this topic.
That's where the complexitystands is because we do have two
different terms.
(25:13):
I'm not exactly sure why or howlong that's existed for, but
for some reason we have twoterms and at one point in time
we realized that there arepeople who are male who like to
dress as females, or females wholike to dress as males tomboys.
We understand that there'sflexibility there, and then that
, from my perspective, has had amicroscope put on it for the
(25:37):
past few years and we've reallybeen trying to figure out why do
we have this term gender andwhy is it separate from sex and
how do we think about theseissues, and that's become a
public, a very publicconversation.
Meghan Murphy (25:49):
Yeah, so gender has been melded with sex in a
really confusing way, thanks inlarge part to this gender
identity ideology debate.
So to me I sort of wish thatthe term gender didn't exist at
all, because I think it justconfuses things.
And you're right, it is sort ofa new term in the English
(26:11):
language.
In any case, in other languagesthe words gender and sex are
kind of the same, or there'sonly one word and it sort of
means gender, but it also meanssex.
So in the English language andin our modern context, gender is
just about gender roles andstereotypes, so masculinity and
femininity.
So, for example, the idea thatgirls like pink and boys like
(26:34):
blue and boys like to play withtrucks and girls like to play
with dolls, and as a woman Ilike dresses and makeup and high
heels and being passive andnurturing, and those kinds of
ideas and you know a lot ofthose things are actually rooted
in evolution, but they're justnot hard and fast rules and it
(26:58):
just doesn't really matter allthat much.
Like whether or not I want towear a dress or whether or not I
like the color pink has nobearing on my biological sex.
I'm female, regardless of mypersonality or clothing
preferences or my haircut orwhatever.
You know, when I was a kid, Iwas a tomboy.
I probably, like still am kindof a tomboy, like I don't really
(27:23):
think of myself as a veryfeminine person in terms of my
personality.
Um, so, yeah, it's just sort of.
It's sort of a useless andconfusing concept, especially
because we've now conflated itwith sex.
And if you talk to transactivists, which is always a
very confusing conversation, youknow the whole ideology is
(27:47):
really incoherent.
But they'll say no, no, no,you're you're confusing sex with
gender.
Gender is fluid.
You're confusing sex withgender.
Gender is fluid.
And I'm like no, you'reconfusing sex with gender
because you're the one sayingthat a trans woman is actually a
literal woman.
You were the one saying that aman who identifies as a woman is
literally female when he's not.
(28:08):
If you want to say this manloves wearing women's clothing,
then fine, this woman, this manloves wearing women's clothing.
This man doesn.
This woman, this man loveswearing women's clothing.
This man doesn't like masculinestereotypes, that's fine and
that's actually something that,you know, feminism fought for
during the second wave, you know, in the seventies and eighties,
was to say you know, boys don'thave to be um, unemotional.
(28:31):
You know, it's okay for boys tocry, it's okay for girls to do
masculine things, it's okay forCan I?
Aaron Pete (28:39):
quickly just ask would you mind clarifying your
position Like where do you standon feminism?
Like, what is your alignment?
I've heard about the first,second, third wave feminism.
Which one resonates with you?
Meghan Murphy (28:52):
I mean, I sort of don't identify with feminism
anymore.
I just say that I advocate forwomen's rights.
You know, women's rights areimportant and will always be
important.
I've always been critical ofthird wave feminism, even when I
was, you know, more invested infeminist ideology, I suppose.
(29:14):
But you know, when I firststarted writing about feminism
publicly in my blog, on mywebsite, in my journalism and so
on and so forth, I reallyidentified more strongly with
second wave feminism, which, andthe aspect of second wave
feminism that challengedpornography and, you know,
(29:35):
domestic abuse, violence againstwomen in general, prostitution
you know, I was invested in likematerial things that were
happening to women I wasn'tinterested in talking about,
like slut shaming andmansplaining and this idea that
you know, a woman is empoweredby any choice she makes at all.
(29:58):
So if she chooses to dopornography, then you go, girl,
that's an empowered choice thatshe made.
Um, I always thought that thirdwave feminism was pretty silly
and actually pretty harmful towomen in a lot of ways.
Um, but yeah, I mean I wouldsay that I'm invested in women's
(30:19):
rights and there's still lotsof places around the world where
women and girls don't haverights.
You know Afghanistan, saudiArabia, and it's yeah, it's just
.
It's interesting how twistedthings have become when modern
feminists are, you know,refusing to criticize Islam, for
(30:40):
example, and are saying thingslike sex work is work and that
you know prostitution is just ajob like any other, when you
know prostitution and sextrafficking is such a massively
harmful, disgusting industrythat hurts women and girls all
(31:04):
around the world.
You know, it's just.
I think that feminism has reallybecome a joke in a lot of ways
in the Western world, so I don'twant to align with it.
And, of course, you know, somany modern third wave feminists
align themselves with thisgender identity nonsense and
it's like how can you callyourself a feminist, how can you
claim to be standing forwomen's rights when you're
(31:26):
defending men in women's sportsand violent predators being
transferred to women's prisonsand allowing grown men to walk
into girls change rooms withtheir genitals out?
You know, it's just.
It's so appalling and andbackwards.
So you know, I don't, I don'twant to align myself with that,
(31:49):
that kind of ideology ormovement.
Aaron Pete (31:51):
it's embarrassing right the, the piece that I'd
like to try and make sure that Itouch on.
In the start you had talkedabout, like how conservatives
typically are seen as lesscompassionate and that that was
your understanding growing up.
The only piece that I just Iwant to hone in on a little bit
more is when you talked aboutlike trans people and how
they're marginalized and how wehave these groups of people and
(32:13):
like that it isn't the case thatthere isn't as much evidence.
The only piece that that makesme think of is that piece that
you talked about, that thatdoesn't sound compassionate when
you say it and I'm not sayingthat you're not compassionate,
it's just when we say thingslike that to me that reminds me
of that sounding of a lack ofcompassion, a lack of compassion
(32:37):
for the maybe very so.
Say there's a hundred transpeople and you and I don't.
We we agree that a largepercentage of them are bad
actors in this process, but avery small few maybe good actors
, struggling young people whoare struggling with their
identity.
They still deserve thatcompassion.
I'm just wondering if you canhelp me square that circle.
Meghan Murphy (32:53):
Yeah, I mean, I feel awful for young women who
are growing up during this timeand who believe that because
they don't like femininity orthey're feeling uncomfortable
with the changes they'reexperiencing during puberty, or
(33:14):
maybe they're young lesbians andthey are told, oh like, maybe
you're a boy, maybe you'reactually a man.
You know these surgeries andthese hormones, these puberty
blockers, will make you feelbetter.
They'll make you feel more likeyourself, as opposed to being
told.
You know you're a teenager andyou're experiencing normal
(33:37):
teenage things and we allstruggled with going through
puberty and our changing bodiesand you know figuring out where
and how we fit in this world.
And you know, and a lot of theyoung women you know who are
being trans or identifying astrans, if you listen to their
(33:58):
stories, so many of them havehistories of, you know,
molestation and sexual assaultand things like that.
And you know it makes a lot ofsense that if you had that kind
of experience, you would want toshed your female body in a way.
(34:18):
You know, shed what youinterpret as being the reason
that you were molested or rapedor whatever it was.
You know your body that'sbecoming sexualized by adult men
as you're going through puberty.
But yeah, you know, I feelawful for those girls and those
girls' lives are being destroyed.
Their lives and bodies arebeing destroyed by this ideology
(34:42):
and this practice.
So it's not that I think thatpeople identifying as
transgender are necessarily bador don't deserve compassion, but
I'm not interested in havingcompassion for men who are, you
know, walking into women'sspaces and making them unsafe.
(35:06):
I don't think that.
You know, being nice is not animportant value to me.
I think that it's moreimportant to have integrity and
to tell the truth and to beethical and to do what's right.
So a lot of things that I saydo come off as mean, and some of
them are mean, but we can'talways be nice about everything
(35:30):
if it means that we have to lieor stand by and watch something
dangerous happen.
And that's what I saw happeningwith gender identity ideology
right away, you know, as soon asit, when it was just a debate,
when we were just arguing aboutit in our feminist blogs, then
that's one thing, but once westart talking about legislation,
(35:52):
things become really serious.
Once we're legislating aroundthis idea that again is
incoherent and that essentiallynullifies women's rights, then
this is a big deal.
And that's when I, when Ireally, really really doubled
down on speaking out and wasreally really quite disappointed
to see how many, how few peoplewere willing to stand with me
(36:15):
in Canada, including feministsand certainly including leftists
.
You know I had a lot of peoplewho I knew agreed with me but
would say you know, but I can't,I can't possibly speak out.
You know it's too dangerousright now and I'm like, well,
you're just, you're waitinguntil it's too late.
And why is your life so muchmore important than my life?
(36:36):
You know I'm losing and riskingeverything.
You know I don't have financialstability, I don't have safety,
I don't have anything here.
But you know, somebody has tosay something before it's too
late.
And it of course, did become toolate.
I wasn't able to stop this fromhappening and hopefully, now
(36:58):
that more people are speakingout, we can turn things around,
but I just can't believe we letthings get this far with this
craziness.
But yeah, I mean in terms ofthe compassion piece, like I, I
I feel compassion for theindividuals, but as a whole,
this practice and this ideologyand this legislation is, across
(37:20):
the board, bad and wrong andunethical and disgusting and
dangerous, and I think that thepeople advocating for men to be
allowed into women's spaces andwomen's sports.
I think they're doing somethingbad.
I think that the peopleadvocating for minors to be put
(37:43):
on puberty blockers and hormonesand have these surgeries that
render them sterile and destroytheir bodies for life are doing
something really bad.
So I don't really see a way tobe nice about that, because I
think it's just such a big, bad,dangerous thing.
Aaron Pete (38:02):
That did clarify that for me.
I appreciate that.
The other piece that I wantedto ask about is how does the
transgender movement impactwomen's rights from your
perspective?
Meghan Murphy (38:23):
hacked women's rights from your perspective.
Well, I mean there when I, whenI spoke at the Senate in it was
either at the end of 2016 orearly 2017, when I testified
against Bill C-16, I talkedabout how this ideology was
really actually quite sexist.
So, you know, saying that beinga woman isn't just about a
(38:44):
biological and material realityof being female, but that it's
inherently attached tofemininity, I saw as a really
regressive idea.
I was like this is what youknow.
This is why women, in part,were prevented from voting.
It's like you don't need tovote, you shouldn't be
participating in public life,you're too delicate for politics
(39:06):
.
Women should be in the home andhaving children and taking care
of their families and sort oflike they should be seen and not
heard, kind of thing.
I was, like you know, sayingthat these, these stereotypes
are what makes me, what definesmy womanhood is, is sexist and
regressive.
(39:26):
So there's that piece.
But you know, women foughtreally really really hard for
the right to compete on fairground in sport, um, and they
won that fight in the U S, in inTitle IX, for example, and all
of a sudden, these men or thesemales are being allowed to
(39:50):
compete and they're winning allthese competitions and these
girls who worked so hard theirwhole lives to compete, to get
scholarships, to getopportunities, um are just being
pushed aside and erased.
Aaron Pete (40:06):
for these, these guys who are essentially
cheating can I ask how, howwidespread is this from your?
That's the what I.
I've heard this, and then thequestion that I get put back to
me is how widespread is this?
We hear about the outlier caseswhere this comes up, but what
would your response be tosomebody who says how widespread
(40:27):
is this?
Is this a real growing issue?
Meghan Murphy (40:30):
I mean, I guess I don't think it's relevant how
widespread it is, because it'shappening and if it happens one
time, that's too many timeshappening.
Um, and if it happens one time,that's too many times.
Um, I mean, I feel like we'rehearing about it pretty
regularly in Canada and in the US?
Um, where men are, you know,competing and winning track
races, or you know, winning inswimming competitions, or you
(40:55):
know, we see, you know, we'veseen um seen men competing on,
like women's rugby teams involleyball, you know, and
there's been, there's been womenand young women, you know girls
who've experienced reallyGaines, have lost competitions
to men.
Leah Thomas, right, you knowit's not.
(41:26):
It's definitely happening andit's widespread enough to matter
.
But if it was just one man, itwould be too many men.
You know women's sports are forwomen, End of story.
Like, there's no exceptionthere.
You're male, you compete as amale.
If you're not good enough, toobad.
Sorry, this isn't about yourfeelings.
(41:47):
This is about sports andathletes and competition and
fair rules, and it's just wildto me that we even need to
explain this and talk about it.
And it does seem to me thatit's happening everywhere.
Like I was just watching avideo on Instagram of a girl who
was in a jujitsu competitionfighting this massive man who
(42:11):
was identifying as a woman, andI was like this is just sick.
Aaron Pete (42:15):
You know there was a you knowma, um, you know it's,
it's, it's dangerous, too rightlike women can be really
seriously hurt, it's just, it'sa huge safety thing, especially,
uh, like, of course, joe rogancame forward when it started
happening in mma and was like,okay, this is not, this is not
(42:36):
the same thing.
These are two people in verydifferent physical conditions.
On that note, we talk about thechallenges and you went through
many of them people trying tosilence your voice and your
perspective on these issues.
Then a person like Joe Rogancomes forward and reaches out
and extends an olive branch,comes forward and reaches out
(43:02):
and extends an olive branch.
Less about the maybe theexperience like I'm just
wondering what does that meanwhen you've been silenced and
pushed to the side so many timesto have somebody reach out and
go hey, I'd love to speak withyou.
Like, what was that experiencelike and what did that mean to
you during during that period?
Meghan Murphy (43:17):
yeah, I mean that was incredible.
Joe Roggan is an incredibleperson.
He's like a highly ethical,really genuinely good man,
despite you know what themainstream media tries to say
about him.
He's a genuinely wonderfulperson and he cares about doing
the right thing and he caresabout the truth.
(43:37):
And when I was banned fromTwitter, we tried to sue.
We lost the case, um, and he hadtalked about it on the podcast
a number of times, um, andactually it's the first time
that I was on Rogan's podcast.
I had reached out and I waslike thank you so much for
covering my case.
(43:58):
I really appreciate, appreciatethat you keep talking about
this Cause.
He just kept talking about howcrazy it was.
I was banned from Twitter forsaying that men aren't women, um
, and I was like I'd love to totalk about my, my case.
So then he invited me on and webecame friends after that.
So the next time I went on, Iyou know, I think I just kind of
(44:19):
happened to be going to Austinhe was like, hey, come back on
the podcast.
But you know, he did so muchfor me.
He supported me, he helped meout when he didn't have to.
He had nothing to gain from me.
I have nothing to offer in thisworld.
I know you know I'm not animportant person.
I have no power Um world.
(44:41):
I know you know I'm not animportant person.
Aaron Pete (44:43):
I have no power.
Um, and yeah, you know he, hesticks.
Meghan Murphy (44:44):
Can I just briefly say that I think it's
tragic that you say that, um,that you don't have anything to
offer after I don't mean, Idon't have anything to offer in
terms of you know, obviously, myvoice and my writing, but it's
like you know, he doesn't gainanything from supporting and
platforming me.
If anything, the first time hehad me on he had something to
lose because you know he wouldbe attacked as transphobic for
(45:07):
having somebody like me on whocalls men he and, you know,
points out that you know a lotof these men who are identifying
as women, are autogynephilesand are men with fetishes and
are perverts.
Like sorry, but you know you'regoing into a girl's change room
with your genitals out.
You're a pervert.
That used to be like a prettyaccepted thing in society,
(45:31):
pretty accepted understanding.
So, yeah, I don't.
I don't mean that in like aself-deprecating way, I just
mean that, yeah, I mean he, hesupported me and helped me out
in a lot of ways when he didn'thave to because, you know, in
part because we were friends andand in part because you know it
(45:53):
was maybe it was the rightthing to do.
Like you said, he was one ofthe ones to speak out against
this early on when Fallon Foxwas fighting a woman in the MMA
and he was like this isdangerous.
Aaron Pete (46:08):
Right.
I'm wondering what advice youhave.
It does feel like we're headinginto a new time.
Freedom of speech, to me, is aresponsibility.
It's's a right, but it's alsoyou have responsibilities with
the rights that you have.
What advice do you have forothers looking to share their
voice and grow into it.
Meghan Murphy (46:41):
I mean, I think you, you, you know, I think
anything goes, I think youshould be able to say anything
you want to say, even if it'soffensive, even if it's mean,
even if it's unpleasant.
I have never enjoyedself-censoring, Um, I just want
(47:01):
to be myself, and I think thatthat's something that a lot of
people in this world, especiallyyoung people, are lacking.
You know, they're scared tospeak, they're scared to say
what they really think, um, andI think that's kind of tragic.
You know, I know a lot ofpeople who, you know they're
scared of their own friends.
(47:21):
You know they're scared of whatwill happen if they challenge
the accepted ideologies orpolitics of their friend groups.
You know, this is a reallycommon thing in Vancouver.
Vancouver is a very progressiveplace, and when I started
speaking out againsttransgenderism, I lost a lot of
(47:44):
friends.
I was ostracized by a lot ofpeople, but I also had a lot of
friends who would tell meprivately that they agreed with
me and they supported me, butthey couldn't possibly say so,
you know, not even to theirwives, and I just can't imagine
(48:05):
living like that, and I think Iwant people to know how good it
feels to speak out and to tellthe truth, even when you lose
friends, maybe even if you loseyour job.
You know, if you get attackedonline, it's okay, it's hard and
it can be stressful, but at theend of the day you come out
stronger and you come out moreconfident and you come out
liking yourself more.
You know to live with integrityand authenticity feels so good.
(48:29):
You know you want to talk aboutempowerment, that it feels
really empowering, um, and it itmakes you brave.
You know people are not bornbrave.
I don't think I don't thinkyou're born fearless or even
courageous.
I think that you gain thosequalities by doing.
(48:51):
You know, I think I becamebrave by doing brave things and
I became much less fearless bydoing things that were really,
really scary.
You know, speaking aboutspeaking out about this stuff
wasn't easy for me.
It was scary.
Putting yourself out there isscary, even just in your writing
(49:12):
, nevermind going out intopublic and into the public and
speaking in public and sayingcontroversial things.
It's scary and it's like you doit anyways and then you realize
you can and that's what makesyou brave, and I think that I
want to encourage people to dothat and to understand that and
(49:34):
not to think oh well, you know,maybe Megan can, but I can't,
that's just not me.
Well, it could be you if you doit, and we have to.
You know Canada has let way toomuch slide and I think we're so
close to a really really bad,scary situation where people
(49:57):
don't have rights and freedoms.
We've already experienced aloss of rights and freedoms.
You know we saw what happenedover COVID and what the
government did to the convoy andsupporters of the convoy, and
we know how far things can getif we don't stand up and speak
out.
(50:17):
And it's now or never.
There's no safe time.
If people are waiting aroundfor a convenient time when it
becomes safe to say something,that's when it's too late.
You do it now and it is a risk.
That's part of it.
Aaron Pete (50:32):
How can people follow along with your work?
Meghan Murphy (50:34):
I would love it if people would go to my sub
stack, which is atwwwmeganmurphyca, or they can
just search for Megan Murphy onsub stack and become a paid
subscriber.
It's just like $5 a month andthat's.
You know, really how I make aliving is just through
(50:55):
subscribers.
You know I'm not sponsored byanyone, I'm not doing ads and
not.
You know I've stayedindependent all this time on
purpose, because it's allowed meto do what I've done all these
years.
I don't think I would have beenable to speak out as much as I
have been able to and to coverthe issues that I've been able
(51:17):
to cover if I didn't have my ownpersonal platform.
You know there was nobodylimiting me, like I didn't have,
thank God, a threat of beingfired.
I had a threat of income lossand you know, as an independent,
it's a huge struggle to make aliving as an independent
podcaster and writer, make aliving as an independent
(51:42):
podcaster and writer.
So, yeah, I hope that peoplewill come to my sub stack and
subscribe.
I hope that people will find myYouTube channel and subscribe
there.
That's really helpful.
It's really easy and helpfulactually to just find the same
drugs podcast on Spotify andclick the follow button.
That doesn't cost anything.
But yeah, yeah, that that wouldbe wonderful.
(52:04):
And I'm, of course, back onTwitter now X, and I'm overly
prolific there.
People want to know my opinionabout every single thing in the
entire world.
That's a great place to followme.
That's at Megan E Murphy.
Aaron Pete (52:22):
Amazing.
Thank you for being willing toshare your time today and your
perspectives.
It takes a lot, as youdescribed, to take a stand or
take a position on somethingwhen it's not popular, and I
learn a lot about the courageand the determination and the
resilience of people throughthose moments and how they're
willing to, and the resilienceof people through those moments
and how they're willing to standup against a mob in those
(52:43):
moments.
So thank you for being willingto share your time and your
story.
Meghan Murphy (52:46):
Of course.
Thank you so much for having me.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you for reaching out.
I enjoyed the conversation.
Popular Podcasts
Cold Case Files: Miami
Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides. Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.