Transracialism: We Have Questions...Still (w. Dr. Rebecca Tuvel)

This is exactly right. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you saw it was.

“Your identity is formed by a secret history.”

I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring the 14th season of family secrets. He kind of showed me out of the way and said move. And he went, help the front door, and he jumped in a car,

and drove off, and that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of family secrets. On the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your 20s can be so exciting, but they

can also be really overwhelming, confusing, and honestly, just kind of lonely. May is mental health awareness month. And the psychology of your 20s is breaking down the science behind the biggest roadblocks we face.

I was six years into my career, the 80-hour weeks,

and just the first one in the last one out.

And I ended up burning out. There was a large chunk of my 20s that I was just so wanting to be out of that phase out of my skin. And I just really regret not living in the present more. You don't need to have everything figured out right now.

You just need to understand yourself a little bit better. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the I-Heart Radio app. Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get, your podcasts. Sometimes a suspect is found guilty before a verdict is ever read in court.

On the wicked words podcast,

“I talk with the writers who dig deep into the cases that changed history,”

including Marsha Clark, who went from prosecuting one of the most famous murder cases to writing crime fiction. It doesn't matter that you didn't take part in the murder. If you were at the scene at all, you're guilty of murder. Every week, the real story is revealed.

Join us every Monday for new episodes of "Wicked Words." Listen to "Wicked Words" on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. (upbeat music) - Welcome to "Break Free" Says I'm Michael Foot.

- I'm Melissa Malbranch. - Today we're gonna be talking about being baby crazy. The woman who sent 1800 lemons to her ex-boyfriend. How messed up our healthcare system is, especially in light of the Matt Gala and Jeff Bezos

and all the celebrities who went, we're gonna talk about Tucker Carlson's bucket of wigs. We interviewed Dr. Rebecca Tvela about transracialism, which was a little bit wild for me. And we're gonna answer all your burning questions

from my DMs, so stick around. I've got a freaky, diki wicked and wild matter that you sent me, so you better sit your ass down. (upbeat music) - You get to the phone with me.

Like I've called you when you were driving with your mother.

- And I always tell people to be careful

about what they're saying. - You didn't even say hello. - So I never do. I'm like, "Hey, my mom's in the car." - Because, because, I mean,

because usually, like, you'll say something. - Be like, "Yo, man." - And then, you know, and then my mom will always say something. She was just like, "Yes!" (laughing)

I mean, they go! (laughing) - I love it because I really do only ever call you when... - You're rocking the dog. - Or something horrific has happened, right?

You are-- - That's actually not good. - Not horrific, but like, "No, you call me all the time." - Something funny or crazy. - No, you call me all the time for random stuff. - Yeah, I guess so.

- No, I mean, it's fine, it's fine, but it's not like, I only call you when I've got something to say. - No. - No, you call me when you don't have anything to say. And it's fine. - My friend has a role, don't put Michael on speaker

in front of the kids. (laughing) Girl, don't read out Michael's text. It's like the role in her house.

“- I think that that's probably a good role to say.”

- It's a good role, right? - It's a good role to have. - How are you? - I'm good, I'm baby crazy.

And I've never even cared about kids.

- Okay. - But I've been around a lot of kids lately that didn't suck. They were like kind of cool and fun to hang out with. And that's never happened before.

So like all the kids up until I guess this weekend, if you're a kid and you've known me before this weekend, I didn't like it. - Including Maddie and Zach. (laughing)

His niece and nephew, by the way. I just like, especially babies. Up until this moment, I've just really not been like drawn to them or felt enough energy for them. - Yeah.

- You love babies. - And I always feel like people don't believe me when I say, I always want to see a picture of your kid. I always want to see a picture. - And she really means it.

- I mean it. I really do, like don't feel like, oh, but this is not good, yes she will. - And even if she doesn't know you. - Nope.

- I'll be like, oh, my friend. - Show me the baby. - Show me the baby. - Show me the baby. - And Melissa will be like, send me that shirt.

- And not only that, but like, so if Michael knows somebody who's had a baby and I'm like, come into the baby way and he's like, I don't know. I'm like, how long is the baby? I don't know.

I'm like, how's mom? I guess she's okay.

And like, and then the thing is, I ask these questions knowing that you're not going to know, but I ask you anyway.

So really the problem is me at this point.

- You're never gonna stop asking me. - I'm never gonna, 'cause I really want to know. - And I'm never gonna know. - If there any, do you feel like you might like kids

“enough to have one or just enough to not hate being around them?”

- I think there was no wrong answer. - I think there would have to be something major that happened that changed my life and my perspective that would shift how I feel about kids in my life because right now, there's no place for it

and there's no real desire for it. - Okay. - But I do feel like I like them enough where that could change when they, but I don't feel like it's any time soon.

I don't foresee that happening. - Yeah, do you think that there'll ever be a point in your life where you regret not having a kid? - I don't think so. I also don't really think about my life

in those big sort of platitudes, right? Where I'm thinking, oh, am I gonna, I don't really think about that. It's a little bit, I guess my perspective is a little bit more truncated.

This is Sidebar. Let's get into a personal start from the week. I know that you have a unique family's dynamic, right, with your husband and you have a stepdaughter. Let's get into it a little bit.

“- You know what, I think that there was a point”

where I felt like I really wanna be like, I wanna have a child. And then when I started to realize that time was running out, right? The class was ticking on it.

Look, I feel like I grieved it just for like a minute. But now I don't look back thinking to myself,

oh no, so sad that I never had a child.

And I think that for me, it's because there have been a lot, there are a lot of kids in my life. - I think that's the same for me. - There are a ton of kids in my life. I was lucky enough to marry a man who had a daughter

that I liked and she liked me. - Yeah. - And we get along really well. Her mother is a decent enough person. We get along just fine. - Yeah, that is like the ideal.

- Because, because KP was 11 when on an I started dating, and 11 is a weird age. And I usually gotta tell you, that's the age group that I don't like, like 10 to like 13.

- It's like the age group adapt TV show pen 15 where they're just so awkward. - They're super awkward. They all smell kind of gamey. And like the teeth are too big and the glasses are weird.

The hair is fucked up. They're not that nice and the hormones are weird. I'm good. But I also think that when he and I first started dating, we spent a lot of time alone before I met her.

And then I would only see her like Saturday afternoon for a couple of hours. And then it wasn't until later that we spent a lot, like I was in entire weekends with them, and then I jumped in together.

So I feel like, like, I know that I'm like a bonus mom. And I am everyone's favorite on TV. - Yeah, that's kind of cool though. That's kind of like the best one to be. - Yeah, and I mean, and they also my cousins who have kids,

when they sent their kids to college, they all came to New York, and I was like, "Mom, I'm the ground." - You can buy them beer, you can buy them condoms, you can buy them cigarettes, like you're that.

- Yeah, I used to just always say,

you know, no guns and no knives, like no guns and no knives. He's like, it's a good rule. - I mean, right, I feel like you can, because like if I were to say,

don't drink, that's a be a hypocrite, because they're going to, don't have sex, hypocrisy, I would rather just give you condoms, please wrap it up, wrap it up, keep it clean and tight. Do you know what I mean?

It's not going to stop them. - It won't stop them, and it'll, it'll put them in a place of if God forbid something happens, they will have anybody to talk to. So I want to be the person that you could be like, yes.

- When you tell a teenager, no, don't do that thing. What you're doing is just telling them to be ashamed of it when they eventually inevitably do it. If it's something that's inevitable. - Right, or, I mean, I think, you know,

my parents, I grew up in a really strict household, and my mom and dad didn't want me to do anything. - Yeah. - And so what it did, instead, was that it made me really wily, and it made me super sneaky.

- Yeah. - And I lied incessantly, and they never knew where I really was, because I had always lied about it.

“- And I remember one time I had seen something in it.”

- I mean, which is so much more dangerous. - Of course, it's so much worse. - And I mean, and the funny thing is, is like, and I mean this sincerely,

I told, like, I never did, like, I just was not interested,

but I was 16 years old. I wanted to go out with my friends. - Yeah, I mean, I could have gotten lost or in the wrong place, and no one knows where you are. - Or like, you know, especially, you know,

when you're like a 16 year old girl, and like a 25 year old man, like comes up to you,

“you're like there's a little party that's like flattered, right?”

Like, oh, yeah. - But that's really unsafe, right? It's really unsafe, and I don't know. I was making weird decisions because I felt like I had to lie all the time.

- Did you have older boyfriend's, 'cause I did. - Yeah. - And I think back on that, because I'm the age now. - Are you of the boyfriend? - Mm-hmm.

- And I'm like, that was sick. - Yeah. - That was messed up. - But you didn't know that. - No, but even like back, when I was 25 and I was 16,

when I was 25, I was like, wait a minute. That was not cool. - And like the idea of like, as a grown 25 year old man, looking up at the 16 year old child. - When I was 25, I didn't want to hook up

with the 23 year old. I was like, that is too immature for me. I'm not interested in what they're up to. - Totally. - Yeah.

“- But you had older boyfriend's as well.”

- I did. - Yeah. - And that's all we're gonna say about that. - Okay. - Okay.

(laughs) - May is mental health awareness month. And your 20s, they can feel like a lot. On the psychology of your 20s podcast, we unpack the anxiety, the overthinking,

the heartbreak, the identity crisis, all of it that comes with being in your 20s. Because if you've ever thought, is anybody else feeling this way? They definitely are.

- I feel like my 20s was a process of checking off everything that I was not good at, to get to what I was good at. Oftentimes we take everything a little bit too seriously and we get lost in things that we later on

decide weren't even important to us to begin when. - There was a large chunk of my 20s that I like was just so wanting to like be out of that phase out of my skin. And I just like really regret not living in the present form. - Each week, we break down the science behind

what you're going through and give you real tools to navigate it. Your 20s aren't about having it all figured out. They're about understanding yourself just a little bit better. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the I-Hot Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get, your podcasts. - This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clarke. - When like young people come off to me and they want to be an actor or whatever.

And my first thing is always,

“can you think of anything else that you can do rather big?”

- Because, for today, to do that. - Dennis Leary. - I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bottle. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me like I'm making karate noises.

And here's the tie of the Kardashian family over there. Everybody's going, and the air morse is trying to grab my arms and scream. I immediately know that I've been at Sleepwalk. - David, oh, yeah, the world.

I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships, or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. - Guy Brannam. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Urban.

- Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was gonna wear, not like a life she was gonna leave. - Oh, interesting, I like that. Did you practice that on your way?

(laughing) - Gating moderato from Stranger Things. - Sam, I'm Moju, Camilla Marone at Carrie Kenny Silver. And more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the I Heart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - I'm Kate Winchler, Dawson, host of the wicked words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating

and why it still matters. - He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face. And he knows something happened. His father just grabs him and says she's gone, she's gone.

- These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them changed forever. - Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits

and you'll end up doing things you never thought you'd do.

You know, you look back at it and you're like, I can't believe that really happened. - Join me and step inside the investigation. New episodes drop every Monday on the exactly right network. Listen to wicked words on the I Heart Radio app,

Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. - Let's get into your algorithm as showing.

what's happening in the news. What is all over your timeline because mine is? - Yeah, what's yours. - Okay, because I did want to talk about this because I saw this morning and there are a lot of headlines

right now you guys and there's a lot of breaking news. And there's a lot of noise. And we're not talking about the really important stuff. For example, the Canadian woman who sent 1800 lemons in one at a time over 241 days to her ex-boyfriend.

- Okay. - This is a Uber Eats crime at all. But other that I saw this now is like confused other than being really annoying. - She's just was like, I'm gonna annoy the shit out

of this man for a year and send him one lemon at a time.

- Right, when I first read it, I was like,

oh, I thought she'd sent him like 1800 lemons at once, right? - One at a time, one arrived during a job interview. - But so, so? - I think it's brilliant, right? - No, I think like do we strive to be that petty?

- One arrived at the hospital when he was visiting his father. - So I guess I wonder why, how did she know that he was going to be at the hospital? Visiting, did she poison the dad to make sure

that he was in the hospital? - This is why there are criminal charges because it's like stalking. - But is it though?

“- I think that's what she's being brought up”

on like, uh, actual charges. CJ fact checked me here because I think she did not fully understand it was a problem. - I think I'm on team Brittany based on what based on the information that I have.

It's one lemon a day. Who cares? - Honestly, if he were a pirate, this would be like prepping him for scurvy in a way. Like, truly, it's just got,

she's looking out for him in a certain way. - I just don't understand. I mean, in some of the stuff he's like now, he's got citrus-based distress, give me a fucking break. - The defense argued the deliveries were fruit

and therefore not threatening. (laughs) - This is, but am I wrong? - Right? - No, I agree with you.

I think it's like-- - I think if it was something like more meant, like if she had been sending him like dog turds, it'd be more, 'cause that's disgusting and it's like possibly there's like disease.

- Yeah. - But this is a lemon. - There's a whole side of TikTok that tells you how to get revenge on an ex without breaking the law. Some of them are like throw bamboo seeds on his lawn.

- Oh my, no, 'cause bamboo-- - It's really in face. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - I ended up on bamboo talk after I saw that. One that I thought was evil and brilliant

was you put raw shrimp in the pole that holds up their shower curtain. - Uh-huh. - That way they don't know where the smell is coming from. - Right, right.

- And they can never find it.

- I had a friend of mine, so you know, I don't, Michael knows, but I don't know if people know that I scrapbook, right? (laughs) I won't be judged by you.

- I'm sorry, I'm not. - No, no, no, no, no. - Sometimes people come out with like, oh, without mentioning a hobby. I'm not just already, I'm just already.

- But you've known that I've been scrapbooking since we've known each other. - I know, but you seem so normal up until you mentioned it. And then it's just a really kneecaps knee. (laughs)

So I don't know if I forgot this about you. - So when I first started a lot of the women were significantly older than me, so there was this woman, she actually passed away last year.

“- She, her husband, she doesn't remember getting a divorce.”

And he was moving out. - Okay. - So before he moved out, he was really allergic to fiberglass. She washed his underwear in fiberglass.

Like the, you know, the, - So he got a fiber, a firecrunch. - But he didn't know why. She washed all his clothes with the- - Oh my God, right?

- So he's got a mysterious rash. - And not knowing what the hell happened. - I was like, you know what? - Has someone who's got the mysterious rash from like a hot tub?

That would have sent me spiraling. I would have been on the virtual zoo, the doctor. - I mean, this is, I mean, she did this, I think they were gonna go. - Yeah, yeah, I probably like in the 80s or something.

- God rest her soul. - Wow. - Good for her. - Oh, she was, she was like, she was just like, you know, I was gonna be civil and theta, theta, theta, theta.

He cheated and like kicks his ass out. However. - You know, I'm all about crime and punishment until it comes to an ex-boyfriend. And then everything goes out the window.

For me, I'm like, ah, it's a man. We kind of have to scale this one. We have to, we have to, we have to use the sliding scale for this punishment.

“- Yeah, like, what's, like, what's the sliding scale?”

Like, how bad?

- I don't know, my first boyfriend cheated on me.

So I'm just like, perpetually jaded. So I'm just like, everything I approach is like, if you cheat on me, they will need tweezers to identify the body. Like, it is not gonna be.

- But like, you know, it's... - There'll be no dental records. - Right, no, I hear you. I think once I've had some time, I stop caring.

I do forget pretty much everything. Anyone ever tells me, but like, eventually, I just truly forget what happened. - Yeah. - But that core emotional trauma stays up just like,

yeah, when it comes to like boy from revenge, I just know that. - I mean, there definitely is some people where you're like, you know what?

- I can never be in the same room with you ever again.

Like, I can never see you again. I don't ever wanna talk to you again. But I also have no need to like, I don't know, like, wash your underwear in fiberglass. Like, I just, it's, I'm good.

- For someone who's like, keyed cars, I'm like surprised you've said that. You're saying that. Like, I'm surprised that you are. (laughs)

You're like, I don't need revenge. As someone who was the lookout your friend drilled holes in a man's musta. - No, it was a Ford probe probe. - I was gonna see Pinto.

(laughs) - I'm not that old. - It was a probe.

“- I think there's a little revisionist history here.”

- Yeah, it was a probe. It was a probe, um, I mean, okay.

But like, I wouldn't do that now.

- I know, you're like, I've got shit to do. I got laundry, I got to see. - I got tired. - I'm tired. - I got a boat.

- I don't like it outside. - So like, I'm good. - We barely have voting rights anymore. Let's just just kind of get on to that. - Yeah.

- So yeah, I think that, so back to Brittany, I think that I don't understand what is illegal about this. So she apparently did this. She sent 1,847 lemons in single orders over 241 days, sometimes multi orders per day to her ex.

So like, the one that arrived during his job interview at the job interview itself. And so somebody interrupted the job interview to give him the lemon. - It's probably the door that's sure we're gonna need the pin.

- I like this, it's so, it's so stupid.

- Well, because did you see his name is Cole?

- Yeah. - I'm sorry, he deserves it. People named Cole, I'm sorry. No, I'm sorry, that is not, what do you have against Cole?

- I just, I just think that's one of those names where it's like, he's probably a douche. - What else is it named like that? - Jamison, I don't like anyone named Jamison. - What about you?

- Well, I don't trust any mats. There's that, you are, I am judging mats until proven otherwise.

“- I think what I hate, I don't think there's a name”

that invokes something to me, but I get upset when people spell their names wrong, like Justin with a Y. - Wrong. - Yeah, but it's wrong.

That's not how you spell Justin. It's not, or like, do you know what I mean? Or like, like, and it's not even the person's fault, it's their parents fault, but like, how much does your parents, your parents hate you?

- It's just parents, like, I wanted to be really hard for them to order from Starbucks. - Justin with a Y. Or anything like that. - Did you watch the Mac Gala or like,

see, did it like cross your feet at all? - No. - Your algorithm, not at all. - Well, a little bit, a little bit, but like, I think I was disinterested.

- So, I'm trying to cultivate my algorithm so that I don't get stuck on things that annoy me. - Yes. - And I was not interested to I blast by it. - That's a beautiful, like, New Year's resolution.

- I mean, what I really need to do is get off social media. - Well, because like the algorithm is a reflection of life, and so for you to be like, I'm going to blow right past the things that annoy me and focus on what I like, that's like kind of a life philosophy.

- I mean, I say that. But then you're kicking people on this subway. (audience laughing) - I'm about to kick you. I do end up on like the weird side of TikTok.

Like, I've gotten, I'm on to like, "Pedicure TikTok," "Pedicure TikTok," "Pedicure TikTok," "Pedicure TikTok," which is, people are struggling out there. It's really bad.

- It's, I don't know if I can handle it. - No, I know. And some of it is like so deeply disturbing.

“And I think, and so what I really think,”

it's a reflection of what happens when people don't have access to healthcare. Do you know what I mean? It's like, yes, it's like, oh, but like, it's like that because,

because if you could afford to go to the doctor, to take care of some of the healthcare, if you had healthcare, probably would not wait until you couldn't walk. - Right.

- Right. You probably would not wait until whatever it was on your foot became, "Gangron, do you know what I mean?" - It's like Dr. Pimple Popper.

- Yeah, I watched that. - I can't watch that. - Oh, I watched that, you know what I'll say, I watched, and then this is really disgusting. Like the earwax ones?

- No, I have to go. I can't handle that. I can't, I don't have the stomach problems. - I'm not even ashamed.

This is what I'm gonna, (laughs)

I don't wanna look at AI fruit anymore, but I will look at "Pedicure TikTok," I am a very damaged person. But yeah, I mean, I say that this would have like ties in with what happened with Obamacare, right?

All those things that expired. Okay, well, looking at somebody who was saying that, his premium had been something like $300 a month. - Yeah. - That he was managing to take care,

and it bumped up to $1,800 a month, right? And he was just like, "Well, okay, then." - It drives me insane because it's like, what point do we hold corporations accountable for their activity? Like, and it's just so sick to me.

I mean, every other country in the world, like every modern nation has healthcare. - Yep. - And it's still this hot button issue here, is if it's like debatable.

- Right, that people need this or not. - Yeah. - You know, I was listening to something the other day about the political violence, right? - Yeah. - How people have become sort of really apathetic,

and one of the examples that they mentioned, even though it wasn't really political, was the murder of the United Health Council. - United healthcare CEO. I don't know that it is an indication of bloodlust, right?

But I do think it's like, we understand how somebody could be so frustrated at their healthcare system.

“Like, I was, remember, I think I told you that I needed”

to have a sleep study done, right? - Yes, yeah, we would happen with it. - Nothing happened because my insurance won't cover it. - No. - No.

- They won't cover it. - And you've got like some of the best insurance, like we, yeah. - Yeah, and they won't cover it. And I think the out of pocket of it was something astronomical.

It was like $10,000. - Yeah. - And so, - Wow. - So then, what am I to do?

- Right, because your doctor's saying you need that. - My doctor's saying that I need it. My insurance company is saying that I don't need it. - Right. - This is, and that's, and I think it's things like that.

And at least for me, this is not like, I don't have cancer God forbid. But like, when there are people who have diseases like that,

“illnesses like that, could you imagine being a parent of a child?”

- Yes. - Who has something, and you have insurance. - And also, you and I are so frustrated by this and we are the most privileged people, right? Like, we live in a major city where there exists

just so many different health care providers. - Yeah, and we have good coverage. - Yeah, we have good insurance. Yeah. And still, it's like, just constantly whittling away.

- It's constant. And I mean, and I've been like, and I'm hoping that we get to talk about this another time. But like, just, there's this guy that I follow on social media. And I can't remember his name right now,

but he's a social worker. He's going for his PhD, and his job is, he advocates for people with their insurance company for them to get coverage coverage.

And so we always see, from his perspective,

him talking on the phone, and he's saying, "The doctor said that this person need a, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't." You said, "No, we've been back and forth and now this person is dead."

Right? And the thing about it is that the person who's making the decision is not somebody who is a medical professional, it's like a bean counter, right? And so that is why, right?

That's why I'm on pediatry TikTok, looking at stuff like that,

“and that's why people are not taking good care of themselves.”

- And it's also why people are freaking out on service workers. It's like, no one has access to, or the systems in which they would affect that change with their elected representatives, have failed,

and the only person they have access to is the person getting paid 10 bucks an hour to answer the phone and customer service. And so they're absolutely missing their shit on that person. - And it's not okay to abuse that person,

but I think we're living in a space we're more and more people are so frustrated. - Yes. - We're so frustrated, we're so angry, we're taking things out on other people.

There is a lot of political violence. And I mean, and again, no matter how you feel about the presence of the United States, it's not okay to try and kill somebody, right? And the fact that it's happened to this president,

it happened three times. - Right, whether he staged it or not. - Correct, it occurred. - It is concerning. I was reading that apparently somebody had tried to kill

Obama 11 times, and I remember how old I was,

maybe I was in the third grade,

and Ronald Reagan was shot, this is, I mean, you know, and it's happening more and more. - Right, I was gonna say, I think it's just gonna, - Oh, it works, it works, yeah.

And I think we're just coming to a place where,

like I said, people are just so fed up, especially if you are somebody who's trying so hard to do the right thing. - Yeah. - And you cannot.

- I've been seeing like really interesting expressions of joy in all this turmoil, quote, "Andrely on Talley Drecatude." - All right, Peter, we need "Andrely on Talley" in this "Try Times."

(laughs) - There's all these, like, - There's a documentary about him. (laughs) - It's so good, it's so good.

- Right. - It's the best, but this, in this Drecatude, people are finding ways to find joy, right? And I saw, in response to the Met Gala, which is sponsored by Jeff Bezos,

it's costume, artistry. And it's brought to you by the Bezos, and, you know, they're constantly shutting on their workers and union busting and being billionaires that fund ice.

And a bunch of Amazon workers had their own red carpet Met Gala. - I love it. - It was so great. It was really good, and it's like,

a lot of people boycott it, but a lot of people did in boycott the Met Gala, and a lot of people that you would have hoped boycott it, did in.

“- Well, I mean, I think, also, we are learning”

that people are very disappointing. - Yeah. - You know what I mean? It's a people that you, even if you're not somebody who's a huge fan boy, right?

It's like, but there are people that you're like, that's disappointing. It's disappointing that you didn't say something about this particular thing. It's disappointing that this is your stance

that you're choosing to sort of like, shit on people, like, honestly, like, J.K. Rowling is super disappointing to me. But people like that. People that you feel like they have something

that is good, like a town, and they've got name recognition and power. - And they've got the platform for it. - And the platform and what they're choosing to do is either shit on a population.

- Yeah. - We're saying nothing. So I was reading something about the Metcala and how what it used to be versus what it is right now, right? You used to be invited, come. And now more and more people are paying to come.

So it's framed as a donation to the Met to do whatever exhibit that it is. And, you know, unless fashion is art and art deserves to be.

“- I mean, I think the Met has its own form of problematic.”

- Don't they all? - They all do. - Yes. - They all do. - But I think the Met itself is like not great

towards its workers. The sack learning was all over it. It took a lot to get them to remove it. - What else did you need folks? - I mean, we've got a lot of, you know,

looted antiquities, all sorts of fun stuff like that. It's every institution has its own. Negative publicity. But just disappointed and seeing the people who went to the Metcala, knowing that people who I think

are so quick and easy to repost and anti-IS thing on their Instagram when it suits them, I just like I'm noticing the people who pull in a social justice movement like Black Lives Matter or ISATA VLA, and then they push it away

the second it doesn't suit them anymore.

It's gross and I don't like it. And I don't want you wearing your ISATA VLA pen if you're not gonna put your money where you're mouth.

“It's like, I think that happened with Black Lives Matter”

in 2020, wherever it was like, we're gonna do our black out post. And then they just went back to casting all white casts in their movies and TV shows, right? - Yeah, I mean, think about all the makeup companies

who were just like, oh yeah, we're not gonna have like people of colors and they had like the one. - The one token, Black Lives Matter. - The one token and then it was, that was it. - I'm more disappointed in people like that

because you're actually co-opting a movement, using it to move forward your own agenda, your own success, your own celebrity, and then dumping it the second it's like, and can do what bothers you more.

Does it bother you more to have someone do what you just said like when something is hot, right? They just say, oh yeah, whatever. Black Lives Matter or whatever it is. And then like do nothing later or do you resent the people

who never say anything ever?

- I think I can hate everyone. And I think that's a beautiful thing about my personality. 'Cause that's like, and hate you all each. I think there's something like equally sick about both of you, right?

Like one of you is like performing, one person's performing and using a movement to raise their own profile. And the other person is like, willfully blind.

And that both should be yes and eyes, actually. - I think that Michael, I think that the folks who are performative really, really pissed you off. - More than the people who are silent because if I choose to believe that people do try their best,

we never know what the person who is silent

is actually doing in the background. - You know what this is, I think it's the trolley problem. You know the like, if you pull the lever, it kills 10 people, but if you don't pull the lever, it only kills one person, which one do you do?

Like a famous full of soft alcohol to beat. One is doing nothing. One is doing something and also causing harm. - Yeah, it causes harm, yeah. - Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

I think they're both monsters. I think they both suck and they don't like them. And they should eat and die. And like that's kind of like--

“- And that's what you have to say about that, right?”

- Yeah, like that's kind of like all you get from me. - No, I hear you, I hear you. - Again, I'm tired of being disappointed at almost everyone at every level, right? I'm disappointed in celebrities, I'm disappointed in news people,

I'm disappointed in my government. I'm just totally random thing that just popped into my head and really, what? - I have one last thing to say on this, I'm sorry, before we segue.

- Yeah. - I am so sick of people who just like don't, who just like are not getting involved. We are not at a place in society where you are not a part of it, even with your silence, even with your capitulation,

like you, your silence is causing harm. And it's so obvious down there's so much evidence that that's true that if you're not doing anything that that really does drive me crazy. So like these like Mealymouth celebrities who don't support

anything and who are just like pretty and out there and making movies and TV and on Instagram, like that pisses me off, like use your platform for something. I've become close with SJP and she uses her platform and in this extraordinary way where she was so involved

politically and knows what's going on and it's like well read and well versed in everything, repose everything, reads everything.

I mean, it's just incredible.

The way she's been able to say like,

“she's like one of the most famous women I think.”

- Yeah, no. - In the live today. - And she's like, yeah, hell yeah. Like people like her are just like very inspiring to me and her doing that hasn't diminished her celebrity, right?

We don't see it like it's proof that doing that isn't going to take away from your sort of public profile. So anyway, what was your set quick? - This is really silly thing but so I was listening to an interview that Tucker Carlson gave

and I listened to the whole thing. - What do you think of his wig? What do you think of that wig? - I think he needs to get better lace. I think he needs to get better lace.

I think that the glue that you're using is old and dry. - Your edges are dry. - And it's flaking. - Yeah. - And he's kind of woke now in a weird way.

- So snake hits the tail. - Yes, let me just say that, I mean, there are so many things about him that are deeply problematic but I will tell you what I learned about him that I was floored to hear him say that.

Did you know that he almost never votes?

- I never, I never vote, so that's the truth. - I did not know that. - He said it himself. He was like, yeah, I rarely voted for Trump in 2016. I think he said he voted for him in 2020 and in 2023.

- Oh wow. - But he seldom votes. - That's like seldom votes except for those two times in Trump. - Right, no, right.

“And so that's what he's saying is why he's so disappointed”

in him because he was like, I hardly, but it's like to me, you're one of the people who's responsible, what we've got going on right now. And he didn't admit it, he doesn't admit it and he's like, sorry, but like, you don't vote.

- That's not what bothers me. What bothers me is that like you saw what happened for four years in 2016 and then you were like, - Oh, he thought it was mine, please. - No, because when he said what he's saying

that he's upset about now is like this war that nobody wants. Serious things like that. He's like people who voted for him were doing so because they know for financial reasons

and he's not helping those people, so he's saying that Trump is not doing what he's said out to do. Listen, it's not me. You can listen to it yourself. - What is stupid fucking bitch?

- He's the most annoying idiot. - I know, it gets hit by a boss. He is the dumbest, gay little bitch on earth with ugly ass hair. He's got a suitcase full of wigs.

Take your suitcase full of wigs and move on to the next town, buddy.

- Like you don't vote my guy?

- I'm him, I hate him so much.

“- But like, I was, I was flabbergasted by this.”

And I was like, well, Andre and I were looking to it in the car. And I was like, hang on. Did he just say he doesn't vote? - Driving off the road. - I was livid.

- I have seen some interviews where he is. He really like baits the crap out of the interview to see the interview with Ted Cruz. - No. - Oh my god, it's Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz.

- I heard about it though, it did not go well. - It's like, what is that? - It's like gorilla, this is like Godzilla versus. (laughs) Godzilla versus.

- King Kong. - Fuck, I don't really know who I'm rooting for here, but I am just watching this too. - No, you're just gonna watch this too. - No, you're not like monsters.

- Yeah, I think he's not there. - Oh, it's so stupid. Yeah, I guess this is like political dog fighting. - Well, he was asking, he was like, he said to, I think he said to Ted Cruz,

how many people are in? - I'm in Turkey, you know, Iran. - Iran? - And Iran, I think it was Iran. - It doesn't even matter, right?

- And Ted Cruz was like, we need to invade. - But he was like, well, how many people? And he was just like, well, give me a guess. He's like, I don't know. - He's like, I don't know.

He's like, yes, and he was just like, you know,

eight, and Tucker was his like, 1.7 million.

- How many people live in Iran by the way? - I don't know the population at all. I don't know the population. You don't know the population in the country you see to tople?

- What's the ethnic mix of Iran? - They are Persians, and we're predominantly Shia. Okay, no, no, you don't know anything about Iran.

“- And I remember that some Ted Cruz was like,”

why do I need to know the number? And Tucker's like, you want to invade them. You should at least know a little bit about what you're invading. How many people you're up against? And he was like, oh, yeah, Ted Cruz was going to Iowa

this week to stump for, to get, to start to stump for the midterms. So it's good to know they're sending their best and brightest to stump for the GOP, to Iowa. I did say that that probably means there's like, do you see this every time, every time Ted Cruz

leaves Texas, it's because there's like a storm coming, they're all going to lose power. So if your in Texas just get ready, you might lose power because you did leave the state. - Yeah.

- Anyway, let's take a break. We'll come back with under oath. - May is mental health awareness month, and your 20s, they can feel like a lot. On the psychology of your 20s podcast,

we unpack the anxiety over thinking, the heartbreak, the identity crisis, all of it that comes with being in your 20s, because if you've ever thought, is anybody else feeling this way?

They definitely are. - I feel like my 20s was a process of checking off everything that I was not good at to get to what I was good at. Oftentimes we take everything a little bit too seriously and we get lost in things

that we later on decide weren't even important to us to begin when there was a large chunk of my 20s that I was just so wanting to be out of that phase out of my skin. And I just really regret not living in the present form. - Each week, we break down the sides behind what you're going

through and give you real tools to navigate it. Your 20s aren't about having it all figured out. They're about understanding yourself just a little bit better. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the I-Hot Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or whatever you get your podcast. - This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. - When like young people come off to me and they want to be an actor or whatever.

“My first thing is always, can you think of anything else?”

- Yeah, you can do rather big. - Because for today, do that. - Dennis Leary. - I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bottle and Bruce Jenner is on the aisle

in a karate stance, like he's about to attack me. Like, they can karate noises. (laughing) And he's been tired of the Kardashians and we over there, everybody's going,

"Dude, when you're in it, and the air marsh is trying to grab my arms and scream it." I immediately know that I've been at Sleepwalk. - David, oh yeah, low-level. - I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships,

or religion or sex, or addiction, or you just go straight for the guts. - It's a guy, brand 'em. So anyway, Nicole Komen, broke up with Keith Urban. - Being half of a country couple

was always a hat she was gonna wear,

not like a life she was gonna leave. - Oh, interesting, I like that. Did you practice that on your way? (laughing) - Gating moderato from Stranger Things.

Sayon, I'm Moju, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

- Every story has a point where it's balanced on a knife's edge. That's where we begin.

“For some, it's a confrontation no parent ever expects.”

- They finally admit we're here to take your children.

The department has taken custody and we're here to take your kids. It was just shock and horror and desperation. For others, it's surviving the unthinkable. - As they're having this gun battle,

thousands of feet up in the air, many of the bullets start to pluck your dear craft. That thought we were gonna die then. - The knife is a podcast about real people whose lives were upended in an instant.

We talked to the people who lived it, unpacking what happened, how they got through it, and what came next. And on our off record episodes, we go even deeper into the reporting and answer the questions you can't stop thinking about.

- New episodes drop every Thursday on the exactly right network and to the I-Hart Podcast Network. Go send to the knife on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

- Welcome back to Brief Recess. This is under oath. You may remember a few episodes ago, we talked a bit about transracialism in Melissa. And we thought it would be interesting

if we reached out to some folks who do research in this area, who are scholars. And so we're gonna do a deep dive with our guest, Dr. Rebecca Tovel. She's an associate professor in chair philosophy

at Rose College. Her research addresses topics like Transracialism and Cultural Appropriation. Please welcome Rebecca Tovel. Welcome.

Thank you so much for joining us. - Thanks so much for being here. We really appreciate it. - Where are you located? Are you in?

Where are you? Just so where are you? - I'm in Memphis, Tennessee. - All right, we thought it would be interesting to sort of talk to, we reached out to a few different experts.

So this won't be the only conversation we have on this topic. - Hopefully not. - Yeah, but it has sort of it came up because it was coming across molasses algorithms.

- It was, yeah. It came across my feet and I sort of started digging a little bit into it and I remember when Rachel does all

sort of like first sort of came on the scene

and I remember not realizing that transracialism was like a thing, right? I just thought there was this woman who's caused playing as a black woman. And I just remember being really sort of as a black woman

myself being super offended by the notion of this, right? My race, my ethnicity is not a costume. I don't really, I don't love the idea of somebody appropriating that. And also she was the president of her local NAACC chapter.

And I was like, well, that feels something to me. And also one of the things after she had really come out and we were here learning more and more about her, there was a recording of her having a conversation either in a classroom or in front a group of people.

And she was talking about her hair transition. And as a black woman who did have a hair transition

“that was, I think you need to sort of be a black person”

to understand this, that was challenging and difficult for me for a multitude of reasons to hear this woman talk about how difficult it was for her, only to realize that it wasn't, right? It was something that she said to make herself seem authentic,

right? I found that really upsetting. But that aside, there have been a few other people, more recently, that I have come across my feet. And I remember sort of sitting with myself

and thinking to myself, why is this bothering me? Because when I hear that somebody is transgendered, I accept that as face value, so we should believe that people are who they say that they are. It is not up for me to dictate who you are,

who you are, et cetera. And I could not understand why for me, those two things feel very different. But we often talk about, you know, Michael and I talk about things that are facts versus feelings, right?

This was definitely not based in any fact. This is just a feeling that I have, a feeling of being uncomfortable. So I've so fell into a rabbit hole about this. And so now I know brought it up to Michael

who had never heard of it before.

Yeah, on air, I was like, this is the first I'm hearing about this, I'm able to reach all this. I was really like the only ever on-trade into this. So could you sort of tell us what is transracialism, where is this coming from?

Can you kind of define it for us? - Yeah. - Glad to. And I think, you know, doles all for sure as a figure is complicated.

“And I think it's important to like think about”

transracial theory or transracialism more broadly. And you know, we kind of talk about doles all in particular.

when we can form transracialism.

But as you noted, Melissa, there are many other people kind of started coming out of the woodworks and then the question is, for me, is transracial identity a real identity that people hold?

“And then what can we say sort of metaphysically about it?”

So metaphysically meaning like, is it actually possible to change your race? Those are interesting philosophical questions. So I define transracial identity as follows. Someone has a transracial identity

if they sincerely identify as a member of a race or ethno race with which they have no known recent ancestry. Oh, you know, I define it. And I emphasize ethno race in addition to race

because a lot of the accounts kind of highlight

the importance of kind of ethnicity to racial identification. So if we think about races as picking out large populations of people linked by geographic origins, common ancestry and characteristic physical traits,

ethno races are like the cultural subsets within those races. So things that are, you know, we where we think about like not just appearance, but culture, so language, religion, customs, traditions such that we can say that, you know,

African-Americans and Afro-Curribians are both racially black, but maybe ethno racially distinct. And in looking at the accounts of transracial folks, a lot of them will kind of identify as ethno racial for some foremost, like, and there's one study of 14 self-identified

transracial people that kind of really highlights like the ethnic element, too, to understand. Fascinating. Okay, so I did a lot of internet digging when this came up, Melissa and I sort of talked about it.

And, you know, when we were getting prepared to talk to you,

“I think for me, the rubber really hits the road.”

Well, first of all, I don't like when I'm like a gay man,

and it makes me really uncomfortable when people start comparing community struggles to other community struggles. Oh, the transgender identity, like I get nervous and it makes me uncomfortable when people are like, oh, well, being translick racial is like being transgender,

because it's like, I don't like when we're like A is to B as B as to C. Like, that makes me nervous because it's like, it sort of is reductive. And I think it takes away from each community sort of journey or what they're working through or I don't think we should be

comparing a Haitian person's journey in America to a white gay man's journey in America and saying, oh, well, it's the same persecution struggle. It's not. And it also really bugs me and I think the rubber hits the road

for me when it comes to everyone I was seeing who came up when I was doing this research was a white person trying to be a person of color or saying, I'm transracial and it was a white person transitioning to a person of color.

And that should bug to me because I was like, when you do that, that is an assertion of a privilege. That malice can't turn around and do and pretend to be Michael or say, I am Michael, right? But a lot of the people who identify as transracial

were saying, I am going to be a Haitian woman. And they were white people like me. And that for me for a loop because I was like, that is you asserting white privilege in America. That is you saying that you are going to a common deer,

someone else's culture for whatever purpose, for your journey. And whether that is a true belief, whether I mean, so I want to remove this, oh, well, that is just transgender however it's race because that doesn't feel like an analog to me. It feels like when a white person is like,

I am going to be a Haitian person now. That feels very different to me because it's so linked to community. It's so linked to racial identity. And there's a history, there's a history of slavery, people of color and how the institutions are structured.

“So I think that really freaked me out when that was happening.”

No, this is excellent. Yeah, I just, yeah, I mostly need to. Yeah, and I don't want to be like, I don't want to be like, we're back of fix this for me. Like, I don't, that's not like what I'm trying to do.

Yeah, no, no, I don't think it that way. I mean, I'm a philosopher. I just, I love hard questions. I love thinking about, you know, different arguments and comparing, you know, different kinds of identity claims.

analogies, analogies.

They never compare to identical things, right?

If they did, then it wouldn't be an analogy, right? We would just be talking about the same thing. So analogies, by their very nature, compare two things that have relevant similarities, but also that have certain dissimilarities.

“Again, that's why, you know, they are analogies”

and not just mere identity claims. I do think that it's important to be cautious when we draw analogies. I know at the same time, I think it has been really helpful to like the history of political activism actually

to employees, certain analogies. So you mentioned being gay, you know, the Supreme Court case and defense of gay marriage

had actually borrowed some from the case

and favor of inspirational marriage, right? So I think it's anti-disclination laws. - Loving the Virginia. - Thank you, yeah, loving the Virginia. So there's, at least there's an example of how sometimes

like seeing similarities maybe in different kinds of struggles can be liberating. I can be helpful, let's say, toward certain libertory struggles. I do think when it comes to transgender identity and acceptance, especially like in our current

a political moment, it is risky, of course, to draw analogical comparisons. And I certainly understand like the hesitation that people have around these kinds of analogical comparisons.

You know, it's important too, I think,

when you think about publishing like an article in a journal in philosophy where you're exploring different kinds of arguments versus, you know, taking out kind of like public stance and defense. Like, hey, here's this analogy

and do it with it, what you will write them.

“I think certainly I never anticipated my article being read”

by, you know, more than, you know, a few people. But of course, it was in the cultural side guys at the time, anyway, people were withdrawing those comparison. - And that article, could you tell me, give us a little bit of background on that?

- No, sorry, yeah, yeah. I published the article in Defense of Transracialism in 2017 in the feminist philosophy journal Hi-Pasha. And it was argued that similar considerations in rightful support of transgender identity

and acceptance also extend to transracial identity and acceptance. And, you know, I really, I said that, you know, the paper was less about Joel's all in particular and more so using her and Caitlin Jenner's appearance

on Vanity Fair the same month at Rachel Joel's okay. And that is a sort of opportunity to think through the philosophical questions of, you know, transracial identity. - In your work, have you had an opportunity

to speak to people who were transracial and what has been your, I mean,

“I think that for as many people that there are,”

there will be somebody who looks at it one way or another, right? And I think no two people will look at any one issue exactly the same way. But what did you find and was it, I wonder, sorry, I'm sort of working through this

as I ask you the question, is there a difference do you think in the way that say a white person who is a transracial person to become a black person are they very different than say a black person

being transracial Asian? Do you know what, and what do you think that difference is and where do you think that comes from? I don't know that you can really answer that question but it's just something that I'm thinking about.

- I think it's a great question and I'm glad you asked it 'cause it reminds me that I wanted to say something in response to one of the somewhat known transracial identified people is named Ronnie Blad and Ronnie is actually

a black man who identifies as what they call transracial, both transgender and transracial so like Ronnie identifies as like a white woman and I've had Ronnie come speak to my classes before via Zoom and Ronnie, I'm sure would be very happy

to talk to y'all too, very, very friendly individual. It's interesting that Ronnie's story has kind of flown under the radar, I think, because I think it's sort of challenges the idea that many people have about transracial identified people

which is that it's just like white people

for some sort of like various purpose

or stickings and advantage or something. So that is one thing I just wanted to name.

“I think that there certainly are going to be all kinds”

of different factors that play into why it is that somebody who's born like white or black or Asian or whoever is going to identify as a member of another race, right? I think that familial environment, right? So Doles' all herself had this interesting story

where she like strongly disidentified with her white parents and then strongly identified with her four black adopted siblings and her parents had adopted them, Africa and then she is sort of an interesting kind of racial experience. Let's say, growing up, it's totally plausible to me, too,

that some people could be identifying as members of another race for maybe reasons having to do with internalized oppression. You know, and I think pulling apart the different reasons why we identify as we do is a very messy, messy game.

And honestly, if we get a class to transgender identity, too, I mean, we're not, I think there are all different kinds of ways of being trans, right? Some people argue that like trans is a neurobiological condition for some trans people, maybe it is.

And there's other trans people who identify for reasons that we don't know and it could be that some of those reasons have to do with like a internalized misogyny, not so what some people claim. I mean, I'm not here to kind of adjudicate like a figure out

who identifies, you know, as they do and why. But I think it's just worth stipulating that like identity is really complicated.

“And I think you can acknowledge that there might be”

all kinds of different factors that go in, especially when you're dealing with like members of a historically marginalized group. So I would just like urge caution, I guess, or in general, when it comes to like an identity

that you hold in the same way. - I think if you sort of paid attention

to history and stuff, there have always been people

who have passed, right? And these were usually people who don't know. These were usually African-American people who their phenotype was such that they appeared as white. And they decided to live their lives

or maybe travel as white people as a way of protecting themselves, as a way of protecting themselves, as a way of achieving a better life, being able to earn more money and no longer live with the oppression that have, you know,

sort of dogned African-American people, especially in this country. I feel like those people, again, these are feelings, these are Melissa's feelings, not bags, that I look at those people

and there's a part of me that has tremendous amount of empathy. I understand, right? You are trying to protect yourself, you're trying to save yourself. That is not the feeling that I get when I am

looking at a trans racial person.

Now, I have never spoken to a trans racial person

to get to try and understand, you know, please explain to me why this is what you're doing. But I have to tell you, I would never ask a transgendered person why they were doing this. Do you know what I meant?

“- Yeah, but I think for me, it's like transgender people”

and people of color are in this country fighting to survive. Like the highest rates of murder are trans women of color. So this notion, I think it really raises my hackles and gets me nervous when we talk about this, because it's like, these are two groups of communities

that are fighting for their lives in America right now. And so it feels like when we talk about transracialism, it feels like, and I'm not saying you're doing this for a back on this call, it feels like to do that is to be like a little bit flippant with identity,

to say like, oh, these two are the same or that like transracialism is, it just makes me uncomfortable because I'm like, these communities are already up against so much and this feels like, while some of it may, some transracialism may be valid,

it feels like there is this channel running through it of an opportunity for a mouthpiece or to come in and be like, oh, I'm a white person who wants to kind of play around racial identity. And like that, and we still have

sorority parties where, you know, sorority girls are wearing some braeros and moustaches and just like being very callous and flippant with racial identity, like that is a huge part of American culture, not just,

dressing as Mulan for Halloween.

We still have people who are being very

“appropriative of culture and I think that”

it's not my job to like adjudicate whether someone's valid or invalid with their identity, but it's making me uncomfortable because I'm like, - And that's the thing about this entire conversation is that, you know, for me initially, forget racial goes off

because that was like a different feeling for me, but when I, but when this came through on my algorithm, I really had to sit with myself and ask myself, why is this bothering you? - Yeah.

- Why is this making you uncomfortable? You know, Caitlyn Jenner, you know, she bothers me personally, but like, but her existence does not bother me.

- Well, because her existence as a woman

is not taking away from biologically women who were born cis women, right? The existence of trans people is an at the expense of cis women.

“- So I think a lot of people argue that,”

I think incorrectly, as you noted Michael, that trans women are like posing a threat to cis women's identity in some way, right? And I would argue that that's an mistake and analogously would say the same thing is true

for trans racial individuals. I mean, so the thought that, for instance, like having the category of trans available is gonna make it such that like all of these women are going to like choose to transition to become men

because it's terrible being a woman or something like, we would say that's, that's a completely unfounded kind of concern, and I would argue the same thing when it comes to trans racial identity. I mean, for people who actually hold a trans racial identity

and who like try to align their public racial perception with their internal racial identity, this is like not mirror going Halloween. - Yeah, no, we don't have a costume. Sort of like, you know, integrated into their daily life.

They're like insisting on this identity over time. It's like often costly for them as well because like coming out as trans, right? So I don't think how that's received. So I think I would just challenge the idea

that trans racial identity itself poses a threat to like the welfare of transgender people or people of color. Now I think what does pose a threat is when people like weaponize trans racial identity and against people of color transgender individuals.

I'll just one other thing on this. A lot of the people in the trans racial world so if you kind of are in these online spaces, so called RCTA, race changed to another is often how you can like find out

of the trans-reserved race communities. They are often also people who identify as like gender minorities, too, so there's just quite a bit of overlap in between among like the people who identify this way and like, you know, trans people or other kind of minorities

and that's actually not unique to trans racial identity. There's like kind of more overlap than you'd expect among some of these non-normative identities. And so you could take that for whatever it's worth but I would say that maybe there's more

of like an opportunity for allyship rather than the threat. - I think, you know, this is I'm gonna go back to the crates on this and you both, sorry, both of you are probably way too young to know this movie.

When I was coming up, there was a movie called, I think it was called Soul Man. And it started, C. Tommy Howell, who was a white person and he, I forget what happened, but he ended up needing money to go to college.

He had done something in his parents' wooden pay. And what the only scholarship that was available was a scholarship that was available to African-American students. So I can't remember what he did like super-tanned

or whatever it is. And he took the space of someone. And I mean, and the movie is supposed to be kind of funny, but then of course there's sort of like these sort of cheesy moments where all of a sudden

he's pulled over by a police officer when he's not doing anything and the light goes off for him. And now he understands, I think, you know,

“I think that people are worried about things like that, right?”

You know, like Rachel does all of taking the space as the presidents of her local NAACP chapter. And I know that there are people who are also worried about trans women athletes, right? Taking the space of cisgendered women in athletics.

And maybe this sits with me because I am a black woman.

And I will always be a black woman.

And there isn't anything that I could do, oh frankly, would want to do about it, right? Perhaps that is why this is so concerning to me.

what they had said to us.

And they are also feeling uncomfortable with this, because their their point was that they are simply trying to exist in this world, not trying to take the space of a cisgendered person. - I think all of that's right.

“And I think, you know, that trans racial individuals”

might say precisely the same thing. That like-- - Trying to exist. - Trying to live as they are, they're not trying to, you know, take advantage of things that are intended for them. But this is another thing that comes up,

sometimes people worry understandably about their being a kind of inability to differentiate between, you know, a person who maybe is deserving of a kind of reparation or affirmative action benefit or something like that on account of having been descended

from enslaved black people in America.

You know, we do recognize all sorts of ways that people who have relevant histories might be eligible for different kinds of protections or benefits on the basis of those history. So you could easily say,

well, this is not intended for transracial black people, because the thing we're trying to do here is offer reparations for those who were descended from people, you know, who are enslaved in this country and so now maybe if the claim was like,

well, we're looking to, you know, try to lift up minorities for the sake of diversity. Then you might have a claim to including a transracial person for the sake of advancing diversity.

So it really kind of just depends on the particular argument.

And this applies in the case of gender too, right?

So in some medical context, it will be relevant that, you know, you weren't born like a needle female. And most contexts it won't be relevant, right? But if it's like, are you going to be eligible for, you know, certain kinds of pregnancy related health care

or something like, might be covered by insurance? That's not gonna apply, right?

“If you don't have the capacity to get pregnant, right?”

So in other words, it's like you could sort of have your cake and eat it too in a way. You can kind of grant the identity as legitimate but saying, it doesn't mean that in all contexts, we collapse everything and we just don't recognize

any kinds of differences. And I think Jewish conversion is a good example of this too, right? So like some Jews, like myself included, you know, are descended from like Holocaust survivors

and that might make some people eligible for inclusion in certain things, you know, I don't know. Maybe if there's like, hey, we're doing a study on, you know, we're doing some sort of a genetics study on people who are from Holocaust-desending grandparents

and we want you. But that doesn't mean that like we can't acknowledge and accept Jewish converts even though, you know, they're not gonna be eligible for that kind of study. Let's measure something like that, right?

So it's just a matter of like accepting the identities but also accepting the ways that we have different paths into identities, right? Some via birth and this applies to, you know, like think about adoptive parents,

think about naturalized citizens, like the ways that we come to occupy categories that wasn't merely through birth but was through actually like going through a process. Does this topic come up in your classes?

- I do teach philosophy of racing racism and I recently just recently started talking about it but because students requested it in the past, I really didn't talk about it. We wanted to talk about the transition.

- I was gonna go and ask you, just sort of like what the, what your feedback has been, what the reaction has been

“because this is, I think this is one of these things”

that we're going to, it will come up again and we're going to have to sort of think about this, right? Think about why we're feeling, what we're feeling. - I would say, of course, any semester where there might be, when I've spoken like students about it.

I mean, I think I have, in students to take my classes sort of self-select for philosophy being philosophically minded and so they're often, I think, comfortable with uncomfortable questions

and sort of, you know, thought experiments involved in different kinds of identities and whatnot but certainly I have had African-American students who have a kind of like unease around it or who had like very strong feelings about the whole dole

as I'll controversy when that came out. But I will say that in all my conversations and general undergraduate students seem to be more open-minded to transracialism I would say than a lot of other folks. I speak to you now, that's purely anecdotal.

But I guess I feel like there might be a generational difference too. Also because online, we see so many people occupying identities that are different from their physical identities, right?

to different kinds of questions.

- Oh, that's amazing.

“- Well, thank you so much for joining us today.”

- This has been really interesting and I think this is a conversation that we're going to keep on having. - Thank you so much for your time. It was nice meeting you.

- Thank you, Rebecca. - Let's get into tells from the DMs. These are all the freaky, geeky, wicked and wild things you send us into my DMs photos excluded. - Do you get pictures?

- Oh, I get pictures. - Really? - Yeah, I'll show you later. - Oh, I want to say, yeah, yeah, I want to say. - What do you want to say, Melissa?

- Oh, I was like, what's going on?

Friends, what do I always say?

While Michael is a lawyer, he's not your lawyer. So you should get your own. - Okay, this is, this is from (laughs) - Are we finally going to do it? - We're finally going to do it.

- We're going to do it. - Okay, I hyped this letter last week so hard that I got a lot of messages telling me that I need to read it. The reason why I hyped it is because it is actually wild

and I need to say before we get into this, this is so alleged, this is so very much, this is very alleged.

“Okay, it is a legit, but can we also just have a moment?”

When this first came up, I read it, and I said, huh? - I don't think we can read this. - I don't know if we should do this. - And I said, oh yes, we should.

- And Michael was just like, yeah. - Let's do it. - So, so. - So this is very alleged information.

This is third hand information.

This is an email right after our gay panic episode, which was months ago, where we talked about the case where there was a Jenny Jones show and-- - Back in the '90s and she had a show where it was, you have a secret crush.

And this particular show, it was a gay man who had a crush on a straight man. And that man, he went back to this man's house and he murdered this man after which when he was arrested and was on trial,

he then invoked this gay panic defense. - Right.

“- And said he was the gayness freaked me out so much”

that I-- - It was so gay that I murdered him. - Correct. - And because it was so gay and freaks me out, I should get overdue sentence.

Because I was just freaking out. It was a shit of passion, correct. - Correct. - And so we talked a lot about that. And this guy did go away for prison.

He eventually got convicted of murder. He was very clear, he murdered this guy who went on Jenny Jones Show and was like, "I have a big crush on you." So someone wrote in and said, "This is like so redacted." It is an abstain file at this rate.

There's just like one word that I can really read. But this is a person who was in the state of Michigan penententiary, allegedly, with the murderer of that guy from the Jenny Jones Show. And this person says, "As a gay man of a certain age,

"I was in the same facility as Mr. Schmitz, "to be clear we weren't really friends, "but would exchange hello nods when passing each other. "As we did attend some of the same programs, "we weren't exactly strangers either.

"I was not at all that surprised "when John made a pass at me in the library bathroom one day. "This is turning into some like fan fiction, "heeded rivalry, yeah, however." This is the AI fruit and vegetables.

- That was not what they asked. - However, I was surprised to learn allegedly that Mr. Schmitz was a great bottom. I'm not a huge fan of outing people in the public forum, so I should also mention that most people in our prison

were well aware of his years of quote, "public surface." - Anyhow, love you both to bits and happy to report, I've been crime free for about five years in loving life now. - Love, big gay job.

- Thank you so much, Josh, this made my day to receive the same out. Allegedly, it sounds like you're a service top for the gay panic defense power bottom community in the Michigan Pan-Fender Service.

- Thank you for your service. - Thank you for your service, topping these bottoms. - And again, I don't know how many times you could say that all of this is so legit. - So alleged.

- We don't know if it's real. - It could be someone who's just bucking with us. - Completely. - It read, it read pretty honest to me. And I changed the mordes around,

I moved things around to protect the innocent, and also because I know you thirsty bottom, so out there, just looking for any top. So I did change-- - Did change?

- Yes, and I changed Josh's, yeah, I changed it all.

Because we're gonna out someone,

but then I was like, if I can murder that guy, I'm sorry, you're an anonymity kind of goes out. I know the defense attorney in me shouldn't say that, but you know what? I was comfortable enough reading it

because I was like, this is insane and cheesy.

“- That's what my girlfriend and I did it.”

- That's what I was trying to say. - I was like, bad ol'. This feels like I don't know. (laughing) - CJ loved it.

- He said it. - CJ ate it up, he was sippin' to eat it from me. - He said he's that instigated. - Yeah, he sent it right over to me and he said, "Michael, look at this one."

(laughing)

All right, we got another email, do you wanna read it?

- Hello, Michael and Melissa. I've been a business owner for almost five years now and due to some unfortunate situations that I have occurred with a previous business partner, I've come to believe the Civil Legal System has no team.

In trying to pursue an end with said business partner that had been a lot of money spent just trying to get this person to respond to us. Eventually, my lawyer said they did not believe it was worth putting any more energy into.

When discussing this matter with the friends, she brought up her divorce and how difficult her ex was making things, even though the agreements had been reached up to this side. The message from society is that these legal documents

protect us, but what are people really supposed to do when dealing with a bad faith actor who simply ignores these legal protections and even worse, they get away with it because there are so few ways to enforce legal agreements.

That's actually a really good question. - Yeah. - A person could easily spend a fortune trying to enforce

“these things because it appears to be the only way”

to enforce civil matters. What are people supposed to do when trapped in this cycle? - Girl, eat them up, I love it. Thank you so much for sending this in. Best regards, A, for to not choose my full name.

Okay, of course, this is, I don't think we said, any name at all, so this is totally anonymous. I will say that, I mean, I'm a defense attorney in criminal court and immigration court. I'm not in civil court at all.

And that is, by choice, but I do think that civil litigators and civil lawsuits where we have plaintiffs trying to seek some sort of, retribution, trying to get some damages, it isn't economic question and it really sucks.

Like there isn't, I don't have an answer where I'm like, this is what you should do, especially because the fact pattern is pretty vague, it just says I'm trying to get money out of a business partner. That is kind of like any time someone gets fired

from a job and they seek an employment attorney, it's going to come down to the economics of the case. Is the hours, the lawyer is going to put in on the case, going to equal enough of a settlement to recoup that labor that they put into the case?

And there's right and wrong in there, right? Like these are businesses, we unfortunately all exist in a capitalistic hellscape, but I do think that something that stuck out to me was your lawyer saying they didn't believe it was worth putting time and energy into,

I unfortunately have to have that conversation with people more often than not, is this is not worth your emotional energy and it's really not worth my time. The economics of this case are just not going to work out. This is the best thing to do for you.

Sometimes people come to me, even with an immigration case where I'm like, the amount of money you're going to spend on this, fighting this, working on this, and the likelihood of a positive outcome is so low, you seriously need to be thinking about whether or not

you could pay rent and feed your kids with this money. Versus hiring me to work on it.

I always have to have those really gut on this conversation.

- Yeah, I mean, these are really good questions. Is it in the end?

“I think maybe, again, I'm not a lawyer either,”

but asking yourself, is it worth the time and money? Just to make a point, right? I mean, I understand when you feel he'd been wronged by somebody who you want to get them for, right? But in the end, what will you really get other

than satisfaction is, is bankrupting yourself or the satisfaction of being right? - Yes, I read this thing on, I want to say an article, but I know it was an Instagram, the best revenge is losing access to you.

That is like the best revenge, rather than. - Dig, dig, dig. - Yeah, mailing them a lemon every day. So, I just think like, I mean, it's a conversation to have with yourself again,

there's not a lot of information about your specific cases, I'm like a legal problem to solve here, but I do think it comes down to this, like we use lawsuits for emotional reasons, sometimes.

Many times, these are people with emotions that we are managing when we're dealing with these suits, and that's a very real reality.

So, I think that is a real honest conversation

to have with yourself about whether or not this is right and whether or not this is a good use of your money, time and emotional labor. - It might be, yeah. - And like I'm not saying it's not, but it also might not.

- Right, like how long you've been doing this. You know, and we're having to keep digging this hole. - Right, maybe it's better to take that money and do something that's really gonna help you heal. - Yeah.

- Versus or maybe like, start a different business, like why, you know, ask yourself why you're doing this. I mean, I get it. Sometimes people, they just wanna win so bad. - Yeah.

- And they just keep doing something. - That's right, I would.

- No, no, and I'm not saying

that that's a good thing or bad thing.

“You need to decide if that is a good thing or bad.”

- Exactly. - For you. - That's a good conversation to have myself. - Yeah, it is, that's rough. - Or just meld them 11. - Thank you so much for joining us.

I'll see you next week in court. - Thank you. - 'Cause I'm suing your ass. (laughs) (upbeat music)

- This has been an exactly right production, recorded at I Heart Studios, hosted by me, Michael Foot. - And me, Melissa Malbrant, our producer is CJ Faroney. - This episode was edited by Nicholas Gullucci. - Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain

and our guest booker is Patrick Katner. - Our theme song was composed by Tom Briefogel with artwork from Charlotte Delareo, Mnessa Leilac, with photography by Brad Obono. - Refresis is executive produced by Karen Kilgaris,

Georgia Hardstock and Danielle Kramer. - You can find me on Instagram at Department of redundancy department or on TikTok at Michael Foot. - And I'm on both Instagram and TikTok

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I'm Danny Shapiro and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring. It's a 14th season of Family Secrets. - He kind of showed me out of the way and said move and he went out the front door and he jumped in a car

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