Navigating the Complexities of Gender and Society | Amethysta Herrick

In this eye-opening episode, Tiffanie sits down with Ami Herrick, a passionate advocate for the transgender community, to confront the harsh realities behind this staggering statistic. Together, they explore the deep trauma, rejection, and societal pressures that push so many trans individuals into despair.
    Ami bravely shares her journey—from battling identity struggles in an unaccepting world to developing a revolutionary perspective on gender that challenges traditional binaries. This conversation is raw, insightful, and essential for anyone seeking to understand the true cost of discrimination.

You’ll learn:
✔️ How society’s expectations fuel mental health crises in the trans community
✔️ The role of fundamentalism (both religious and secular) in reinforcing harmful divides
✔️ Why gender identity is more complex than you think—and how we can reframe it
✔️ The lifesaving power of acceptance, support, and open dialogue

Ami’s candid insights and Tiffanie’s deep-dive questions will challenge your perspectives and inspire you to become part of the solution. This episode isn’t just about awareness—it’s a call to action.

How to contact: 
https://www.amethysta.io/
https://www.youtube.com/@amethystaherrick
https://genderidentitytoday.com/

Transcript

The rate of suicide ideation and attempts in the transgender community is 82%

>> Tiffanie: The rate of suicide ideation and attempts in the transgender community is 82%. That is staggering and very, very sad. Joining me this week is Ami Herrick.

>> Ami Herrick: Hi.

>> Tiffanie: Did I pronounce that right?

>> Ami Herrick: It's close enough. Yeah. Amy. Amethysta. Amethyst Herrick. It works. You did great, Tiffanie.

>> Tiffanie: Oh, Jesus. That is such a scary statistic.

>> Ami Herrick: It is, it is. There's. I looked around at one point because I'm like, 82%. What's a normal, Like, I mean, should we ever say that suicidal ideation and suicide attempts are normal? I don't know. But I looked around, I'm like, what's, what's a normal suicide rate? And it turns out the very worst suicide, rate. I don't know why I just chuckled at that. That's kind of terrible. But the very worst is.05%. Sorry,05%, which is in Greenland. And, you know, you kind of go, well, maybe that's kind of ugly up there. I don't know. But 0.5%, so that's a significant value there, right? 82% is two orders of magnitude higher, right? Greater than two orders of magnitude higher. The reason that occurs is because the transgender community is by failing to fulfill social expectations. And I know that sounded. You go, oh, yeah, sure, yeah. Failing to fulfill, social expectations, but that's a big thing. Like, I don't know when you were growing up if, like, if you liked something your parents didn't want you to like or you didn't like something they wanted you to like, there's a lot of pressure there. So imagine almost everything in your life being like that, where you go, wow, I, I. My whole identity is something that other people don't like. When you reach that point, suicide seems like an adequate solution.

>> Tiffanie: I can understand that you want to be you and you want to be accepted just like everybody else wants to. And unfortunately, some people are just very narrow minded. And the thing is, like, I don't give a fuck who you love, you know, as long as, like, maybe you're not trying to have sex with your car, which actually is a thing, because I've seen it hot on tv, you know. All right, yeah, it's actually on My Strange Addiction or my Strange Obsession. I don't know. One of those shows. Very Strange people.

>> Ami Herrick: Yeah.

>> Tiffanie: With cars, their pool floats. I mean, it goes really down a weird rabbit hole.

>> Ami Herrick: It does give.

>> Tiffanie: You're not hurting anybody. You just want to be happy.

>> Ami Herrick: So it's a good, it's a good point.


Butler says he knew he was transitioning at age 10 or 12

And I want to over the course of the past couple of years I have. Well, actually let me, let me go back even a little bit further because I knew that I was going to transition gender probably by the time I was 10 years old, maybe 12. Because by maybe 4 I would say I was aware that I was different. And my father definitely was not enthusiastic about how I was different. He was physically abusive, et cetera. A lot of trauma there. I know that you talk about trauma. There are some. When I was about 10 or 12 and I don't know the exact age or so, but I heard a joke and I wish I could figure out where I heard this, but there was like, I want to say it was Johnny Carson or something which gives you an idea of how old I was when I was 12, but, or sorry, when it was I was 12 because you probably know how old I was when I told you how old I was. Not bad. But he, there was some joke where I heard about a Swedish vacation and I don't know if Sweden had just introduced some sort of gender affirming surgery. I dunno, but the idea was that you could fly off to Sweden as a boy and fly back from Sweden as a girl. And I'm like 10 or 12. And I went, wow, how hard could that be? Right? Because I just have to get a flight to Sweden. That's probably easy. Early 1980s for a kid, right? I'm sure they'll allow me to do it. Actually come to think of it, I'm Gen X. My parents might have been like, okay, don't forget to write, who knows? But I didn't. So I knew I was gonna do something, but I, but I didn't do anything for, for ultimately for 40 years. And there were a lot of things that happened in between. 40 years is a long time. But once I started thinking about it, I, I, I thought I need to, I need to research this. You know I'm a researchy kind of person, right? I do. You know, my background is biology, especially genetics actually as a result of having been perceived badly because actually I tell that quick story too. I think it was fourth grade and I had a teacher who pushed me really hard and I know he gave me a, like a book about nuclear chemistry. No kidding. It was about uranium 235 and uranium 238 and why radioactivity happens. Yeah, I'm probably nine or ten like you do. But he also gave me a book about genetics and certainly in the early, in the 1980s or so late 70s, early 80s. Like, there was this perception that we can do anything with genetics. And now we look at it and we go, okay, maybe not anything, but that was my understanding. And so I thought, if I just learned genetics, right, that's the way I thought of it. If I learn genetics, I can fix myself. Everybody believes I'm wrong, but I know I'm not. So how, am I going to fix this? Genetics. So I went into genetics as for undergraduate, my undergraduate work, and then moved into chemistry afterwards. So, anyway, a lot of years go by. I started to change, and I thought, I've got to do some research on this, because I thought what I'm experience is experiencing as a personal transgender experience. You know, that came out not well, but. But then I thought, oh, no, it's really kind of an LGBTQ community experience. And then the more I thought about what gender is and what I was experiencing, the more I realized, no, this is a very common human experience, though. The reason I wanted to bring any of this up is that ultimately, in the middle of that, between the time I started transition and now, I developed a theory of identity that sort of sits in the middle of what you. What. What theories are out there now. So if you look in particular gender theory, like, there are two major prevailing ones. One of them is sex is gender. We just got an executive order that. That extremely poorly tries to. To codify, that tries to make it the law of the land. Science, of course, looks at it and goes, okay, no, because these are two words actually defined by biology owned by biology, not by. Not by government and not by philosophy either. Because the other theory of gender is that gender is a social construct. And both of those, which most people actually, for what it's worth, don't understand what a social construct is. Do you want me to give a quick quickie? all right. So Judith Butler, in particular, worked for. Because that. That concept comes from Judith Butler's book gender trouble from 1991. And Judith Butler, worked for. I'm m. Probably going to get his name wrong. Michel Foucault, I believe, is the guy's name. He was a social constructionist in a line of social constructionists, that started in the early 1900s. But some of this concept goes back to, I believe, the 1600s. 1600s. Michel de Montaigne, I believe is the guy's name. Jean Michel de Montaigne, perhaps. hopefully you'll fact check everything here. But it was. But he's. He. One of the things that he said, and I'll probably misquote. It. But he said we should probably interpret interpretations more than we interpret the facts. His point was that even things like scientific data, if I say, Tiffanie, you look like a blonde, well, what's a blonde? You know, what does blonde mean? How much does blonde go? Do you know, is somebody who bleaches her hair blonde? is that still a blonde or is she really something else? You know, there are a lot of social aspects to even just that one stupid piece of data which is relatively small. And so the point is, is that a word or a phrase that gains meaning and context by the, social environment that uses it? The environment actually constructs that meaning. The meaning didn't exist before that. Like, you can go blonde, what's blonde? Who knows? But blond is different. If you grew up in the 1980s in Los Angeles, as I did, I see some people today, they go, oh, look, bleach blonde. And I'm like, oh, no now. You needed to see people with like white cabriolets with a top down and the windows up, you know, singing along to Janet Jackson or something. That was, you know, that was it.


Gender is a social construct that gains meaning through a social environment

So anyway, social construct, it is, it is a word or a phrase that gains meaning through a social environment. Actually, using it doesn't mean it's false, but it does mean that the meaning is socially contextual. So that it has, it has to do with a particular social environment. So when, when we hear people say, well, gender is not a social construct, gender is sex, they're trying to do a bioessential argument. So it says gender comes from biology, there is some truth to that. But when you hear people say gender is a social construct, typically what they're trying to say is that there are characteristics of gender that are contextual to the social environment. Because I mean, if I were to ask you, if I were to give you three characteristics, say long hair, lavish, long lavish hair, you know, beautiful makeup and high heels. Are these masculine or feminine characteristics? What do you think?

>> Tiffanie: Feminine, feminine.

>> Ami Herrick: But I didn't tell you from when or tell you when or where. Pre revolution France, it was a big thing to have a, a lavish wig made you look powerful, made you look rich is what it is. The makeup would make you look more impressive, the heels would make you taller. So those were three very highly masculine characteristics pre revolution France, but not now. And that's part of where Butler ended up developing their theory is that as, gender characteristics can change based on social environment, then gender itself must be socially defined, must be a social construct. I've gone on this big Long tangent. Just to say that I, ended, neither of those two. Feels very comforting, feels very whole. The idea that we are defined only by genetics is kind of disappointing because it takes. It takes, first of all, agency out of it. Not just agency, but also a sense of responsibility out of it. Because you can say, well, it was just my genetics. You know, if I did something wrong, then it was just my genetics. But also, even for accomplishments, if you go, wow, I was able to get this great degree. Somebody could go, well, you had good parents. You know, it diminishes that as well. Having all this be socially constructed is also not very comforting because you go, well, we are given gender by our society. No, how do I. How do. Why is it that I can choose these things? Why is it the gender characteristics change? So I developed a theory somewhere in the middle and all of this, I swear, we were like, this is like 10 minutes worth of tangents that I hope you can actually untangle in, in some way. But the 10 minutes worth of tangents are to say that why does anybody care? People care because there are these two theories of identity that are conflicting. And if you want to be a bioessentialist, you will absolutely negate any effect of society whatsoever. And if you want to be a social constructionist, you're going to try to negate any aspect of biology, what, whatsoever. And if you look at the executive order Trump just wrote, actually, well, signed different, it brings up this idea. It says that gender identity defines gender identity, which is interesting, you know, that. That this has got a definition in it that says that gender identity is this wholly internal sense of who you are, and then basically goes on to say, we don't have that. You just don't get that. If you do have it, it's because of your genetics. So anyway, why do people care? People care because we are humans. We are individuals with, with individual values, individual genetics, individual biochemistry, individual cognition, so thoughts and emotions and individual choices for behavior. But we have to exist in a social environment. And so our theories of identity, this is my opinion, our theories of identity have failed us in explaining the human experience, because we really have a negotiation. As I put it. We have our own set of values, but we have to negotiate with our social environment ultimately for a sense of safety. And so that's really what the transgender. I think this is the human experience. Every human has to do this. Some of us negotiate very successfully, some negotiate very poorly. When I was 4 years old and I wanted to wear a skirt, my parents told me, nope, not going to happen. Because you know why? No other reason. Because now that I'm, you know, older, wearing a skirt, and I've got Trump who says that. That it's. It's actually wrong or not even our governments. There are religions who call me wrong. Why? Because we. We want to place the human experience in one of two categories and not that the two mix. So, anyway, all of this was to say the. I don't think the gender. The experience of gender is only a transgender issue. You developed gender. I mean, you're wearing a blue top there. Looks like a blue sweater. You chose powder blue. You wanted powder blue. You've. You've chosen a, particular form of expression. The way that you speak, the way that you walk. You chose some of these aspects of yourself because they were important to you. You looked around your social environment, you saw what was. What gender characteristics were out there, and you chose the ones that were important to you. Every one of us does this. I did it. I just came to conclusions that my parents didn't want me to make. I don't think we have different experiences, though, and I recognize that was a really long winded way of, answering a question you kind of didn't know. Probably think you were asking, but there you go.

>> Tiffanie: What do you think? No, I mean, absolutely. I think just some people want everyone to be like cookie cutter versions of themselves. And when people don't fit into that mold, oh, you don't belong. Well, who the wants everybody to look the same? That'd be boring as.

>> Ami Herrick: Like, you. It would. Ah, it really would. But there's. See, I think this is. For what it's worth, I think this is a Western phenomenon. And as dumb as it. As a scientist, I'm going to come and tell you this.


There are so many categories in the LGBTQ community, why do we need them

I think science is to blame for that. Sounds ridiculous. Science is to blame because scientists came out and said, well, we can. We can define anything. Like, we know. We can know everything. And that means we want to categorize things. We want to say, oh, well, this person is such and such. And I mean, I. Even in the cause, I'll tell you, when I started interacting more, I mean, I've always been on the fringes of the LGBTQ community because I've always identified as pansexual as well. I didn't know what to call myself in terms of my gender identity for long. A long time that I've always felt pansexual and transgender. But when I first started talking to people like, I'm serious, I met somebody, I go, so tell me about yourself. And they go, well, I am demisexual, non binary pansexual with this and that. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, it was like a scene out of, out of LA Story, when they're like, you know, can I get a double half decaf with a twist of lemon? Make that an oat milk with a such. And, you know, the servers writing it all down is totally fine with it. Right. You know, but in the end, you're like. You're just getting coffee. Like, you know, coffee. Like, don't, you know, do we have to make this quite so difficult? And I don't. There's a certain level of identity that we get from labeling ourselves. When I meet somebody now, if they ask, which, you know, doesn't happen often, but if they ask, I, will call myself a transgender woman, because I want to call out where I started. That's important to me. So I will say I am a transgender woman. But we do want to break people down into about a bajillion categories.

>> Tiffanie: Oh, my God, I'm so glad you said that, because I was gonna ask you, like, why is there so many fucking categories? Like the lbgq. And then you got the plus. Now there's like a square or something, and maybe there's a triangle added and you got like a piece in there.

>> Ami Herrick: I don't know.

>> Tiffanie: But why do we need so many? Just who do you love?

>> Ami Herrick: So it's a good question. Well, so. So it's more than sexuality, though, because there's gender in there now, too, because the two are related in. In my opinion. And I know I've had, It always seems to be older British men. I don't know why this is, but I'll get yelled at by old British men who say, look, I don't know what you're doing, but you're not part of my community. Get out. And I'm like, what? Because gender and sexuality, I believe, are related and we don't have to talk about that. But there are that many categories, because, yeah, you could go pretty nuts. I mean, there's the two S LGBTQIA plus that I can think of is the full. The full acronym. So that's two spirits. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, or interested, depending upon how you're putting that, which Q sort of subsumes. Then you've got the asexual as well, or ally depend, depending upon who you are. Then the plus is to say, like, if we come up with any, more categories, like, they're just in the acronym.


I think we have become a society of labels. We have to label people

Okay, but we already hit eight characters and we're kind of finished. You know, you only get, I don't know how many characters that is. We'll have to count because reality had 12 characters. And that's all TikTok allows for such and such, you know. So anyway, why do we need all the categories? Because I think we have become a society, of labels. We have to label people. I mean, I could ask the same question, you know, how many sects of Christianity there are? I mean, me neither. Crap, I was hoping you'd be like, oh, 12, you know, but I mean, so you've got Catholicism and, and Protestantism, right? In Catholicism there are, there are various ways of, of expressing, you know, various ways of expressing worship. One of them used to be actually feminine based, but, all those people have been excommunicated. I think it was the end of the 1990s that the last feminine, like Mary worship sect was excommunicated. I guess. Thanks, Pope, whoever it was. But then in Protestantism, you've got, you know, the Episcopalian, you've got the Quakers, the shakers, the candlestick makers, whoever else is in there. But, you know, there's a lot of sects of Christianity and you can go, well, why do we have all of these? Because people need to be in categories. We love to label ourselves, it seems. I don't know if it does as much good. My sense is it doesn't always do us much good. What it does is divide us further when unity, I think, would be a better approach. That being said, when you are marginalized, the number one thing you want to do. I mean, gosh, it just struck me, I even just released a video hour and a half ago. Whatever. It doesn't make a difference where I said assert your identity proudly. And I'm just saying, I'm saying it right now. Oh, they're silly people. They're asserting their identity. Oh, wait, did I say that? But we do we, you know, we, we want to tell people, this is who I am. So another long winded answer. But it's why I've come to appreciate the word queer. Because I don't, I don't know if you ever, like, I don't know where you grew up, but in LA, in like the 1970s, 1980s, like you didn't call somebody queer. Like, that was a, it was a really, really bad word to use. And once I started talking to people now in the2020s, you know, it's like, oh, tell me about yourself. And they go, oh, I'm queer. And I was like, don't do that. Like, what are you doing? And then sooner or later, I was like, no. I've come to appreciate that because first of all, it's a word that was reclaimed. Right? It used to be bad, but now the community has claimed it and said, this is ours. Like, you may think that it was a bad word, but what we're going to do is wear it proudly. I don't see it often anymore, but I used to see a lot of people with T shirts that had a, pink triangle on it. The pink triangle was used by, you know, to identify people on their way to Nazi concentration camps long, long ago. So it implied they were gay or. Well, in the. In the community, lgbtq, ultimately. So either transgender gay, something like that. Lesbian. Anyway, you don't see that so much anymore. Maybe for. For good. But, I like queer because what it does is reclaim that. But then it also becomes a very umbrella term, and it just says, I am different from. I am different from what somebody would want me to be. And I think we should all strive to be that. Be different from what somebody else wants you to be. That may be my mic drop moment. Do you want me to thump?

>> Tiffanie: I mean, I think everyone should be able to feel comfortable in their own skin, however that may make you want to look. I mean, I see people who cut their tongues to look like snakes. That's fucking crazy. But if that's what blows your skirt up or whatever, more power to you. You want to get silicone fucking horns.

>> Ami Herrick: You're weird, but. Right.

>> Tiffanie: If that's what you want, go for it. Whatever makes you happy.

>> Ami Herrick: Yeah, I am. You know, I think what's funny is if you look like I'm going to go back to this executive order, I've got to get off of it, but I'm going to go back to the executive order because ultimately, what it does is invoke individual rights. I mean, it. Honestly, it says. I believe the. The phrase is even other. It invokes individual rights for the sake of limiting freedom of expression. Does that seem like a contradiction in terms there? That you go, okay, look, for the sake of freedom of expression, what we're going to do is limit freedom of expression. Well, anyway. Freedom of expression for you, anyway. Weird. It's very weird. It doesn't make a lot of sense.

>> Tiffanie: it depends who decided on. So.

>> Ami Herrick: Well, yes.

>> Tiffanie: Who.

>> Ami Herrick: Whose rights. Yes. I mean. And this is. This is what we've seen in the United States For a long time. Right. Who's.


Scientists were afraid of going against the Catholic Church, right?

Is it white men? Right. Rights. Or is it, you know, are black women included in this? No. Are gay, Are gay men in this now? No. Okay. Are transgender women in this? No. Okay. I mean, it's a crazy thing. I wish there were an easy answer and, and there isn't. Because I think we have a, A, a confluence of how the Renaissance started, which is to say that, you know, coming out of the medieval era, scientists were like, you didn't say anything that didn't correlate with the Catholic Church because you might be burned at the stake. Right. You might be subject to an inquisition for heresy. Like, you didn't. So scientists didn't exactly choose to disagree. And even when we went into the, the Renaissance, I mean, as late as Darwin, if you look at Darwin's the Origin of the Species, he doesn't believe that humans are part of it. Only non human animals are. I mean, he was very cagey about it. I guess he never really says it directly in, in the book, but he's very cagey about it. And it was the mid-1860s that the book came out, right? I mean, it was not like it was middle of the Inquisition, but, but scientists are kind of afraid of going against the church. And scientists now have, I believe, have come to a point where they go, oh, God, does this have to do with humans? Yeah, I don't want to talk about it. If you go to a biologist and you say, what's sex and gender? They go, it's genetics. Like, I'm running. I don't want to know. I'm not getting into the bi. They're running, running out the door. But then you look at the humanities, you look at the arts, you look at social sciences and, and you've got people who go, well, there's not really like, we're humans and that's different from science. Like that can be. We're not math. And it's like, well, truth. But. And this is why we, this is why I think we have all these things. Science, you know, has, has abandoned the, the human experience. The arts have abandoned the idea of, of, you know, any application to reality. And that's why most humans are kind of afloat in a sea where we go, what do we do? So, yeah, I wish we could address it, but it, I think it runs very deep and it goes back hundreds of years. It's not a, you know, kids these days kind of thing. the 2010s, you know, people started getting septum piercings and that's when things went downhill. No, no, especially because I knew septum people with septum piercings in the 1990s. So, you know, if nothing else, I.

>> Tiffanie: Just think it's a shame that. Because some people think that it unnorm or I don't even know the fucking verbiage that I want to use. But it creates so many different issues because now you have people who take the word and they really hold onto it. And now you have crime, you have people being hurt only because of who they love or who they want to be.

>> Ami Herrick: Right?

>> Tiffanie: And.

>> Ami Herrick: Right.

>> Tiffanie: Who are you to say that this person cannot be that or look that way or love that person? Who the fuck are you?

>> Ami Herrick: Well, I mean, and take it a little further because now you have people with a book. They go, look, I got a book. And the book, I mean, I'm talking about the Bible, because they open it up and they go, see, it says right here, God created male and female. Oh, really? Because that's a translation. I mean, what's the, what's the, what's the Hebrew say? You know, what, what did I mean? Because that's part of the, the five books that Moses was purported to have read or written, at least according to, to, you know, Jewish tradition. Those are the five books that Moses wrote. Did Moses know that? Was Moses a geneticist? Was Moses out there, like, you know, cataloging, you know, the sexual reproduction, the mechanism of sexual reproduction? I'm going to go on a, go out on a limb and say, probably not.

>> Tiffanie: I mean, probably then they were wearing dresses pretty much. Like, if you look at the clothes that they put in these books, these men are wearing damn cloaks, dresses. So don't tell me.

>> Ami Herrick: No, I mean, it's a great point, but it, but it's.


We've taken science and stuck religion into it to justify science

I guess where I'm going with this is to say we've now taken science and stuck, sorry, religion, and stuck scientific words in it. And ironically, I think that has made some people go, well, see, look, this justifies science. And it's like, know what you do? Now we have like a full circle, right? We've taken science, stuck it into religion in order to justify science. That got stuck into the religion that's now being used to justify said science. And you go, wow, too many circles. Actually, you brought up an excellent point. I know somebody has said to me, look, this is something we only started caring about in the 1960s when men grew their hair long or whatever. 1960s, you look at John Money, you know, and it turns out the big. The Big answer is no. The quick answer is no. I mean they were actually doing research in Germany, In Berlin actually. 1910s, 1920s, the Nazi regime shut that down. But it was study of, of gender and sexually non conforming people. So it was a hundred years ago. But even then, if you look at stories, if you look at mythology, if you look at Indian stories in the Mahabharata, there are characters who change sex or gender sometimes multiple times over the course of the story. If you look in Celtic myth, there are androgynous characters. There are, are stories of druids who were, were either sexually or, or gender non conforming. And then a great story that I heard from Josephine McCarthy who's a phenomenal British author, she told me that when, when Alexander of Macedon, Alexander the Great, right, he went into Israel. Well in particular Jerusalem I guess I should say went into Jerusalem because he's conquering everything, right? He's like, I've got to make sure that I justify the phrase the great. You don't just get the great, right? Like you're sitting at home or something and somebody comes by, what's your name? Oh, Mammy the Great. And they go, well, what have you done? I'm working on it. I mean, give me. So he figured he should probably anyway going from group from Macedonia, know, went from Macedon up to Jerusalem and apparently one of the first things he did was go to this group of reli. Basically religious. It was a religious set of people who were, who were sexually or gender non conforming because those were the people who conferred sovereignty. The, the people who have stood apart from society, such as I do, and at this point used to be looked at as prophets, as oracles, as healers. Because we straddled the lines between, you know, normal, you know, two normal sets, you know, two binaries of, of male and female, man and woman. We straddled those lines and that made us magical. So it's fascinating now to see a society that doesn't even really understand the science of what we're talking about pretend that we're not in some way magical. And I want to point out too, those binaries, the, they don't even exist. We, we. So each of us, our individual experiences are so magical. Like you're not a, you're not a science project. You are magical. I'm going to tell you Tiffanie, you are magical listener. You too are magical. Ooh, was that another mic drop? Mic drop moment? Should I.

>> Tiffanie: I'm gonna call you Amethyst. Of the Great.

>> Ami Herrick: It's super close to Alexander. Is it like the same number of syllables? Alexander? I mean, it's not bad. ATG. We're both ATGs in the afterlife. At some point I'll be like, yeah, yo, Alex, whoa. We can do a fist bump or something. Yo, ATG. I'm, ATG version 2.0. Way to go, bro. Heard you went to Jerusalem. And he's like, I didn't quite make there. I was still working on it when I got. I said, oh my God, same with me. I was just like drinking a cup of tea. But I thought I had to justify the Great. And Tiffanie called me that. So run with it.

>> Tiffanie: I would just love nothing more than for people to get their heads out of their asses. Worry about what's going on in your own home. How about you take a look in the mirror? You know, because the people who like to throw stones are the people who hate them lives. Let's be honest.

>> Ami Herrick: Yes, yes, yes. I mean, I'm not a religious. Well, I'm not a Christian. I'm. We change that.

>> Tiffanie: I'm not religious at all.

>> Ami Herrick: There's. Oh, well, so, so I, I mean, I'm pagan anyway, but I mean, I have a very strong affinity for the earth.


One of the stories that Jesus was supposed to have told, is moat

But Jesus, you know, one of the stories that Jesus was supposed to have told, you know, was, was. I mean, particularly there was the, the lady. I believe she was a prostitute. Of course now I'm going to screw it up. Let me just get to the quote. I mean, you know, he was the one who said, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Right? There's another. I think this is a Jesus thing where he says, you know, I'm going to mess the quote up again. But something about how can you with a plank in your eye go to. To remove a moat from your neighbor's eye? You know, two of the same, same things or two of two quotes that say the same thing. Like look around your own home, you know, is your house really dirty? Don't go next doors, don't go next door and go, wow, you can stand to mop the floor. I was coming over, you know, get off my moat. What? Right. So I want a moat. I wish I knew what a moat was. There was because, you know, it's a moat in your eye and then there's a plank in your eye. I was like, ouch, that's got to, Because I'm thinking of like a plank, like a two by four or something. You got a tube or a four by eight, some big huge plank that's like stuck to your face in some way. And you're walking places and you have to turn sideways to get through a door, right. Otherwise you go walking up to it and you're like, oh, hey, I've got to go get the door. Ow, shit. Turn sideways to slide through and bow down a little bit so you don't hit the door jam in some way.

>> Tiffanie: I mean, you're killing it. I think you'd get through the door, the way you're moving.

>> Ami Herrick: Well, sure, yes. Well, I have a lot of practice. I have a lot of planks in my eye that was, had. Had planks in my eye for a long time, I guess. I don't know.


Tiffany: I think it's important for us to come together

All right, but yes, I agree with you, Tiffanie. I think it's, it's important for us to first to look at, look around us and go, you know, do. Am I, am I a good example of the, the morality I, I would pretend to exude, and I would say most people, are not. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I don't care if you're immoral, but certainly don't act that you have moral righteousness in your state of immorality.

>> Tiffanie: Right. I would like to judge anyone who is listening to, well, not judge, let's say, what's the word I want, I want to give homework. People who do are listening to this, and you do have a problem with it. I want you to ask yourself, why, why does this bother you? And I want to see how many things you can write down to see why does this actually bother you? And then look back, to see what these reasons are. Because a lot of times it's something within yourself.

>> Ami Herrick: Right, right. Can I add to that just a tiny bit?

>> Tiffanie: Oh, go ahead.

>> Ami Herrick: Because if somebody wants to, if somebody wants to reach out to me and tell me why I'm wrong, I'd love to have that conversation. Not because I like debates, because I don't, I really don't care for. I may have been invited to debates and I'm like. I don't have any desire to, like, make you look bad, make you feel bad. I have no desire for that. I do, however, believe very strongly that when people have met me in person or even if we talked over the Internet, when people have met me, the first thing they come to is realize, oh, this is just a person doing all the same things that I'm doing, just trying to get along. You know, sure. she's got, you know, dyed her hair purple, but that's like, what's more or less the same as what I'm doing, except I'm, you know, fundamentalist Christian without purple hair. But they meet me and they go, okay, this is, like, a person. And. And I think that's important. I think it's important for us to. To meet those, those we. We would choose to hate. I wish I could remember who it was that said it, but, you can't hate your friends or you can't. You can't hate the people, you know? Something like that. Something like that. But. So I'd even invite people to reach out to me because I. I love having conversations. And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I don't care if I change my mind. That's not the point. Call me wrong, but at least meet me where I am. And, Because I'll try to meet you where you are. Maybe we have a conversation, right?

>> Tiffanie: And these are the conversations that can change people's minds and their actions. And that's what we need. We need to be coming together, not drifting further apart. This is ridiculous. We're all in the same hell. Let's get along, you know?

>> Ami Herrick: Right.

>> Tiffanie: We all deserve to be miserable.

>> Ami Herrick: Exactly. Let's be miserable in our own ways. We. We can be united in our misery.

>> Tiffanie: Exactly. and I know, like, one thing that I will not accept on these list listeners is because it's presented in your face, people will say, oh, because I have to look at it. No, you don't. You don't have to look at it. You don't have to be around it. You don't want to be around it. Fine. If you're at the mall and someone's throwing glitter everywhere, you know, go in a store, you're fine. Who gives shit?

>> Ami Herrick: Walk the other way. Right. You know, that's a. That's an interesting point. There was something in that executive order that says forcing reality on other people. I have gotten a whole lot of comments. Many, many, many. I like more than I can count, both on YouTube and on TikTok and in live streams, whatever, where people say, you're a man. Oh, really? I mean, I thought you were forced. Aren't you being forced to accept my reality? Apparently, you're not. Who's being forced here? Do you know how many, you know, mean names had been hurled at me? I think if you were forced, I would feel absolutely comfortable walking on my door and walking down the street. But guess what? I Don't really, Because I know that there are organizations who would be more than willing to show up at my doorstep and, like, give me a good beating. Nobody's forced to do anything. You either choose to be kind and conscious of other people, or you choose not to be. And you know, there's no force involved here. I think I'll just say that and end with it.

>> Tiffanie: Yeah. If you feel that way, then stay home. Like, if you can't be out and accept people how they are and where they are, then you stay the fuck home. Like, nobody told you to come out. Like, you sit in your room and you think about what you've done.

>> Ami Herrick: Exactly. Let. Let your mom let. You got. You just got to get talking to.


Mormon fundamentalism cuts across all of humanity, my community included

From your mom here. Exactly. You sit in your room and you think about what you've done.

>> Tiffanie: I was just so tired of all the hate. And we're hating for the stupidest reasons. Stop it. Just stop it. We gotta come together. Stop.

>> Ami Herrick: Who kisses. you know what, though? I'm actually gonna push. I'm, I will push this even a little farther. Cause I had a psychologist. I won't tell. I won't say his name. It's not that important. But I was mentioning. I thought. I was saying, you know, what the hell is wrong with all these religious people? Right? They want to persecute me. These horrible, horrible people. What's wrong with them? And he said, well, I mean, fundamentalism doesn't have to be religious, right? And I said, yeah. Oh, I. I don't know. And he goes, well, here's a question for you. In your. In your community. How many people do you know that love religious people? And I go, like, none. And he goes, right, so think about that. You know, there's a fundamentalism that can go both directions. I have seen certainly, you know, he gave me the, the example. Wrote an article about this quite a while ago about a. I believe the guy was Mormon. So, you know, Mormonism is a little bit outside of, Of. Of other. Of other, you know, other sects of Christianity. But it was a Mormon guy who came out as. As gay. And the Mormons rejected him because he was gay, and the gay community rejected him because he was Mormon. So he went and killed himself. Like, who won there? Nobody. So the problem isn't conservatives. The problem isn't religious people. The problem isn't executive orders signed by some person who knows nothing about science. The problem is fundamentalism. And. And assuming that somebody else is bad because they're different from you. That cuts across all of humanity, my community, included. Lgbt. I'm not all the. I'm, not all the. The acronym, but enough to say that, that my community is not without its guilt. So. And I'm going to bring up one more time. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. So.

>> Tiffanie: Absolutely. Absolutely.


Tiffany: I'm going through a rebranding process

So if people did want to reach out to you, what is the best way?

>> Ami Herrick: The best way to reach out to me? I have a website, which is amethysta IO. So that's a M E T H Y S T A. I had to think about that. I'm like, what the hell's my name? Oh, I've even got it written on the webpage on the website here. She just read it off, right?

>> Tiffanie: I wasn't gonna point it out.

>> Ami Herrick: Do you remember? I had a hard time getting my. My headphones working, too, so don't. Anyway, amethysta IO that has links, ah. To all my social media networks, as well as, a contact page. So if you want to send me an email, what the heck. Because I think people still do that. And there's also a link to my professional website, which is called Gender Identity Today. And so that's gender identitytoday.com. all of this is actually being integrated sometime in 2025. because I was sort of doing this. Look, I'm. I'm like a person, but then I've got, you know, a professional, professional website where my work, as well as work from contributors, but I'm trying to integrate that all to say that I am actually just a part of a company, which is Purple Paw, actually is the Purple Pot clan. There's more about that, but I'm not gonna. So I'm going through a rebranding, but everything will redirect, you know, appropriately. Did you do a rebranding thing?

>> Tiffanie: I did. My podcast used to be called Crime Over Cocktail.

>> Ami Herrick: Right? Oh, gosh. Okay. Yeah. So rebranding is. You know, I actually worked with somebody. I didn't think that's what I was doing, but I'm working with, like, a PR person. And she goes, oh, you need a rebranding now. What? I don't think I even have a brand. And she goes, what color is your hair? I go, well, oh, okay. I mean, all right, so I have a brand. Fine. So we're. So we're redoing it.

>> Tiffanie: Purple's my favorite color. So, I dig it.

>> Ami Herrick: Right. Yeah. But that's how you get in touch with me. I am. You know, amethysta IO is the Best way at the moment. And there you go. Yeah, but I'd love to talk to anybody. For sure. Love talking to you, Tiffanie.

>> Tiffanie: I've had, a fun conversation with you. I've learned so much that I probably won't fucking remember, but I learned a lot about religion. I just don't have the space to keep it.

>> Ami Herrick: I. You know, I will admit I got a good chance to do to. I felt like a little bit of, standup there. Like, I got to do some improv and some stand up. I mean, you know, that's a lovely thing when you're. I don't get to do that a lot in, you know, in podcasts, usually people go, can you explain the difference between sex and gender? And I'll be like, yeah, sure. Do I hear a joke? No, no, no. After.

>> Tiffanie: All right, so, yeah, that is completely different than good.

>> Ami Herrick: I'm fine with that, believe me.

>> Tiffanie: Absolutely. I'll, make sure I have all of your links in the show notes too. That way it'll be easy for people to find it. And if anyone at home is doing their homework, please feel free to write your little list on my YouTube channel. I cannot wait to see what you have to say.

>> Ami Herrick: Definitely.


Thank you for inviting me on your podcast. I really enjoyed this

>> Tiffanie: Was there anything else you wanted to add?

>> Ami Herrick: No, no, I think I'm okay. I mean, I will say thank you. I mean, I always appreciate a platform. I mean, that sounded. Sounded a little bit like, you know, attention. But I always appreciate, you know, being able to. To talk to other people. So thank you so much for, for everything that you do and, and, for inviting me on your podcast. I really appreciate it.

>> Tiffanie: Of course, this is the stuff that we need to be talking about because things need to change, and they can't change if no one's talking about it. So that's what I'm about. Changing the world.

>> Ami Herrick: we'll see. Doing good work. It's good work.

>> Tiffanie: All right, well, then thank you so much for being here. I really enjoyed this.

>> Ami Herrick: Thank you.