100th Episode: Gender, Genetics, and Good Grief, with Ben Morton

In this milestone 100th episode of "I Don't Know How You Do It," host Jessica Fein welcomes writer Ben Morton, whose powerful HuffPost essay about discovering he's intersex through a routine ancestry test captivated readers nationwide. Ben shares the phone call that changed everything and how this revelation provided the missing puzzle piece to questions he'd had his entire life.

Ben's memoir-in-progress, titled "Good Grief," explores the complex emotions that followed his discovery. While finding relief in understanding himself better, he also experienced grief over losing the life he'd been raised to expect. His relationship with faith evolved from fear-based performance to choosing inclusion and grace, focusing on loving others rather than proving himself worthy of salvation.

Ben courageously discusses how this revelation provided a missing puzzle piece to questions he'd had his entire life, while also forcing him to navigate grief, faith, and a shifting political identity. His story challenges are black and white thinking about gender and sexuality, reminding us that human diversity is far more complex and beautiful than many of us are taught. 

Key Takeaways from Ben's Story:

1. Creating non-judgmental spaces allows people to be themselves and fosters empathy.
2. Listening to understand—not to respond—builds meaningful connections.
3. Personal stories move hearts more effectively than facts or statistics.
4. Asking expansive questions ("Can you imagine how that felt?") helps broaden perspective.
5. Authentic self-expression creates cracks in rigid thinking and normalizes diversity.
6. If you struggle to empathize with someone, try to understand what led them to their current beliefs.
7. Trust yourself to know that who you are is not wrong—question institutions or people who make you feel otherwise.

Learn more about Ben:

Website

HuffPost Essay 

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Transcript

Jessica Fein: Welcome. I'm Jessica Fein, and this is the “I don't Know How You Do It” podcast, where we talk to people whose lives seem unimaginable from the outside and dive into how they're able to do things that look undoable. I'm so glad you're joining me on this journey, and I hope you enjoy the conversation.

Welcome to the 100th episode of, “I Don't Know How You Do It.” I cannot believe we've had 100 conversations about courage, inspiration, hope, advocacy, adventure, writing, community, and so many other topics as we've delved into the lives of people who hear “I don't know how you do it” every single day. 

I actually started this show as a bit of a creative distraction while my [00:01:00] memoir Breath Taking was in the year-and-a-half-long publication process.

To be honest, I did not have any idea that these conversations would mean so much to so many people, or that I'd become friends with many of the incredible people in this community. I'm so grateful to those of you who have been with me since the start, and also for those of you who may be tuning in today for the very first time.

Thank you so much for being part of this adventure, and now onto today's show. 

Sometimes a story stops you in your tracks and doesn't only make you think, but makes you want to stand up and cheer for the person who wrote it. That's what happened to me when I read Ben Morton's essay in HuffPost a few months ago in his essay, and on today's episode, Ben shares the moment that changed everything for him. When a routine ancestry test revealed something he never expected about his own DNA. Ben thought he was just spitting in a tube to learn about his heritage. Instead, he received a phone call that would [00:02:00] completely transform his understanding of himself.

In our conversation, Ben courageously discusses how this revelation provided a missing puzzle piece to questions he'd had his entire life, while also forcing him to navigate grief, faith, and a shifting political identity. His story challenges are black and white thinking about gender and sexuality, reminding us that human diversity is far more complex and beautiful than many of us are taught. 

Ben is a gay intersex writer currently completing his memoir, Good Grief, which examines the profound loss of a young Christian's expectation for his future in the Bible Belt. His tumultuous dealing with rejection and the resilience required to forge a new identity and sense of belonging.

Without further ado, I bring you Ben Morton.

Hi Ben. Welcome to the show. 

Ben Morton: Hi, so great to be here. 

Jessica Fein: I have really been looking forward to this conversation ever since I read your article in HuffPost. I've [00:03:00] been so captivated by your story and by your honesty and bravery and vulnerability in sharing with the world. 

Ben Morton: That really means a lot to me. I just gave me chills because it felt a little risky putting it out there, but just to know that it has resonated with people like you really means a lot to me.

Jessica Fein: Well, so let's tell people what it is. That article was about in your early thirties, you used one of the online ancestry companies, which so many of us do, to find out, you know, maybe some health information, some genetic testing, and that led to a phone call. Yeah, let's start with that phone call. 

Ben Morton: Yeah, it's wild because as you said, I thought I was spitting in a tube and sending it off to find a little bit about my ancestry, which if people get to see me now, they would see that it probably is not gonna be much of a surprise.

But before I even had a phone call with the ancestry company, I got an email from them that said, Hey, we have a [00:04:00] few questions about the sample that you sent to us. Can you hop on the phone with us? Which. You know, of course I was like, that is not an email that I expected to receive. So of course I wrote back to them immediately and you know, sent them a few times that I could hop on the phone.

And so they did. You know, they responded pretty immediately and we hopped on the phone with one of their customer service reps from the ancestry company, and they had some questions for me about just confirming the way that I had set up my online profile about my name and address and just. My basic questions of what I had answered already online.

And then they had additional questions about, you know, had I shared my spit sample with a roommate or anybody else, or had a bone marrow transplant, and other questions like that, just things that would've messed up my genetic testing results. And so once I had confirmed that there was no reason for the sample to be tainted in that way, they let me know that the way that I [00:05:00] had.

Completed my online profile in their system did not match the DNA analysis that they had done on my sample, and so I had completed my online profile as male as I identify, and their DNA analysis had come back as female DNA, which was a complete shock to me at that point. 

Jessica Fein: That is just so wild. When they said that, did you believe them?

Were you like, no, it must be an error on your side. Like what went through your head? 

Ben Morton: Yeah. I was like, okay, that's not a thing. They were very careful in the way that they said it because it was an ancestry company that I had just done the ancestry part. I had not done like the health panel. They were not advising me on health to be clear.

So they were very careful in what they were saying, but. They were very clear that what had happened was that they were not seeing a paternal lineage in my DNA. So essentially, when they're looking at your ancestral lineage [00:06:00] in these tests, they're looking for markers on your X chromosome and your Y chromosome, and they were able to find on my X chromosome ancestry, but they were not able to find any markers on a Y chromosome.

Because of that, they were like, there either is not enough markers on a Y chromosome or you don't have a Y chromosome. And so when they explained that to me, that made more sense. But I was also like, well, maybe there wasn't enough spit in the two, or, you know, all of these things. And so I immediately questioned it and I asked for them to do it over.

And so I asked them to send me another sample in which they did. They sent me another sample to do it over for free. And test results came back the exact same and proved again that there was no Y chromosome in the sample. 

Jessica Fein: So what did you do then, and how did you understand what that could possibly mean?

Ben Morton: Yeah, so I took some absorbing and I did go down a rabbit hole of the internet, which is probably, you know what a lot of people [00:07:00] do, unsafely and Googled a lot of things that take you to worst case scenario very quickly. So I Googled, you know, what does this mean? And it takes you to the wildest things. Of course, but then I did reach out to some provided geneticists and health counselors that the ancestry company provided to me, which led me to Mount Sinai in New York to do some genetic testing.

And so I. I went in and did some genetic testing with them and did a karyotype test to do some further testing and met with a geneticist and a therapist and a medical student altogether, and they provided me like much deeper education on what this all meant for me personally, which was a much healthier way for me personally to handle it than going down the internet rabbit hole.

Jessica Fein: So for people who are listening and are like, well, what does that even mean? What was that way [00:08:00] that you left that appointment? Understanding it the way that felt more comfortable to you than the internet rabbit hole? 

Ben Morton: Yeah, absolutely. So when I went in to see the geneticist, she was just fantastic. A warm human being that.

Was fantastic at explaining to me what this all meant. So she explained that to me really well and made me comfortable with that and helped me understand why. Up until this point, at least I had thought that I was male. But internally, perhaps there was other things happening. 

Jessica Fein: Many of us have never even heard the term intersex, or we think of it as having both male and female characteristics that we can see.

People who are born with both. What is intersex? What does it even mean? 

Ben Morton: Yeah, intersex is a wide umbrella term that's used to describe a wide range of natural variations on sex that can affect [00:09:00] things like genitals and hormones and chromosomes. Sometimes these characteristics are visible at birth, but sometimes they appear during puberty and sometimes they're not even physically noticeable at all.

But there's virtually endless combinations of expressions that exist in human bodies. That would sometimes be classified as male or female. And when you have different combinations of male and female together, that's what creates different intersex combinations. 

Jessica Fein: Thank you so much for explaining that.

And it makes me wonder how many of us are walking around not knowing that if we were to spit into a vial and send it off to a company, we'd find out that we are intersex as well. 

Ben Morton: Yeah, I think there's an estimated 5.6 million people in the US that may have intersex traits, but only about one in 5,000 of those are thought to be visibly intersex at birth.

Jessica Fein: So you said that you had always identified as male, so let's get to before that phone call. Yeah. How do you have [00:10:00] described your relationship with your body, with your identity before you got that phone call? 

Ben Morton: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, there's a lot of factors on that, but I think ever since I was a little boy, I thought I was different from other little boys.

And I think there's a lot of little boys that feel that way that don't necessarily think that they can say that out loud or perhaps don't know how to express that. And maybe there are some that do feel like they are able to say that, which is fantastic. But I. I was one of those little boys that didn't know how to say that.

I didn't feel like every other little boy, and I don't know what the cause of that was, if it was my DNA or what it was, but I have always felt that my gender was not black and white. I've never been hyper masculine. I've never been afraid of emotions or vulnerability, all these things that we classify as [00:11:00] male or female.

I think that the way that I think is more along the lines of most of the women that I know in my life, more so than most of the men that I know in my life, I've never seen it as black and white, male or female. I've kind of always seen the way that I work is in this gray area, and so. Even before all of this happened, I was a little confused about my body and the way that it worked and the way that it presented itself in the way that I thought and the way that I felt.

Jessica Fein: So then after the call, did it feel like a missing puzzle piece had presented itself? How did your relationship with your body and your identity change was the relief? 

Ben Morton: Yeah, yeah. Uh, that's exactly, I couldn't have said it better myself. It's like I was putting together a thousand piece puzzle and I had that last handful of puzzle pieces and I put 'em in and I stepped back and I saw the big picture and it felt like things just sort of made sense all of the sudden.

Of course, I can't [00:12:00] prove that my DNA is the reason that I love watching rom-coms, but it did sort of feel like this sense of relief to me. It's sort of this sense that like, it's okay that you don't fit the box and that you were never meant to feeling. It was sort of this permission slip that it's okay that you're not macho, it's okay that you don't, uh, gain muscle as quickly as the other guys that you know at the gym.

It's okay. That you'll never be able to father children. It's okay that you're attracted to men. It's okay that all these things that didn't make sense to you before. Like it's okay. It gave me a deeper level of self-acceptance than I'd ever granted to myself before because I had this proof that I was created this way.

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Jessica Fein: You're working on this memoir, which is titled Good Grief, and I'm wondering about the grief process. You went through, because I can understand that on one sense it was a relief and it was clarity, but there was also some grieving because you grew up in a very particular kind of environment. 

Ben Morton: I grew up in a very conservative evangelical household and environment.

I grew up in Middle Tennessee where there's, you know, just as many churches as houses, it feels like. And I grew up in a Southern Baptist church, a Church of Christ schooling. [00:14:00] So I was in, I. A Christian environment, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Wednesday night, Thursday, Friday, and got a day off on Saturday.

Oh wow. Okay. So it was in, you know, in that kind of environment all the time growing up. And so those were the kind of messages that I was surrounded by growing up. 

Jessica Fein: Yeah. And you said that those kinds of messages really shaped your expectations for your future, right? I mean, as our environments do for all of us to a certain extent.

So when you found that the reality you had thought wasn't actually the case, that you had this grief process. 

Ben Morton: Yeah, that's exactly right. And when I started writing this memoir, the title, “Good Grief,” I started based on the, the phrase like, good grief, because you know, that was a phrase I said a lot growing up because we couldn't say the Lord's name in vain.

And that was like an exasperation. And so that's where the title came from. But. You know, [00:15:00] the more that I wrote my memoir, I realized that my process of coming out as gay and then my process later of coming out as intersex, it was a process of grief, of kind of grieving this life that I thought I was going to live and grieving the life that I thought I was going to give to my parents and the life that I had to reinvent for myself.

Jessica Fein: We talk a lot about grief on this show and we talk about how complex it is, how it can be so many things at once. And as I'm listening to you, I'm hearing that this revelation, if you will, that did make you feel like so much made sense, also did carry with it sadness and loss. 

Ben Morton: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's the good part of it, the good grief, right?

It's bittersweet. The good grief. Yes, it's grief. It's been up and down, but I think the [00:16:00] full circle of it is that even as painful as the route has been, I think in the end things have worked out for the better. 

Jessica Fein: In your essay, you mentioned that your church quote didn't teach about this level of diversity in God's creation.

A minute ago we spoke about how your faith was like a six day a week proposition. So I'm curious how your relationship with faith has evolved over these years. 

Ben Morton: Yeah, absolutely. So I think growing up I had no idea how. Wide, a variety and diversity. God's creation could be, I thought growing up that I had to be a certain way, perform a certain way in order to be saved.

Since receiving my diagnosis, I've kind of further separated myself from institutions and people that are so-called gatekeepers of the faith. I'm not as interested, I would [00:17:00] say, in proving myself to people who want to make rules about who can access God or salvation, because I think too often these systems are about control of that.

So I think for me, faith now is about, I've chosen for myself inclusion, and I think my faith now is less about fear. About not being good enough. I'm not being that person that I need to be to be saved. And it's more about like, how can I love other people that aren't being loved? How can I include other people?

How can we make sure that we're mutually in this together, this interconnectedness of humanity and this way that we care for each other? And I would say that my faith now was more of like, how do I err on the side of grace? And love than on the side of fear. 

Jessica Fein: Is there room for organized religion in that framework for you?

Ben Morton: For me, there's not right now. [00:18:00] 

Jessica Fein: Yeah. So you've shared your diagnosis with conservative friends and family who were supportive, and I'm wondering what conversations or approaches helped bridge the gap between their religious beliefs and your reality? 

Ben Morton: This one's been interesting to me because the people in my life have widely accepted me being intersex.

I. Granted, when I tell most of the people in my life, they're like, wait, what's that? Yeah. 

Jessica Fein: As you were by the way, right? When you first heard,

Ben Morton: You're absolutely right. I was also the same way. And then when I explained and they're like, wait, that is wild. I had no idea that was a thing. And then they sort of get it or they don't dispute it, and I guess they can't because there's a piece of paper that says it.

I think there's this like kind of acceptance that comes with it being confirmed by science and it being written down in a piece of paper. But I'll also say that that is a little bit of what frustrates me. [00:19:00] About it all because the same people in my life that have accepted me for my intersexuality are also without issue, have also taken issue with transgender rights.

And so I do like to push back on them on like, why do you believe me, but not my trans friends? And why will you also not? Fight for their rights to healthcare or even to use the restroom that they're meant to use. That is something that frustrates me, that you need a piece of paper to prove yourself rather than just believing me.

Jessica Fein: And it's just getting scarier and scarier. Right? And in fact, I think that what's happening politically informed the timing of your essay. Yes. But given that you are on the, what you call the easy to ignore end of the sex and gender spectrums and that you do have a piece of paper and that your difference isn't quote unquote visible, I'm wondering how that's informed your advocacy, because here you are now speaking up perhaps in a way that you weren't [00:20:00] before.

Ben Morton: Yeah, if I had not told anybody, nobody would know. I think it's a privilege to be able to hide. Right. And I don't take that for granted. Like if I don't tell somebody this, they're not gonna know. And I can fly under the radar all I want. And that is something that not everybody, I. That it's intersex and certainly not everybody that's transgender or has different gender identity or sexuality can say, I.

And so I, I wanna be clear that I know that that is a privilege that I can fly under the radar in that way. The reason that I think it's very important that I step out there and say that I'm intersex is that I think that if people understand that this very, very small technicality that my DNA is female.

That this one gene translated from one chromosome to another. I present as male [00:21:00] externally. Internally, I female. There's varying degrees of hormones and internal structures that vary, that create me to be intersex. I feel like if people understood that. It could create a crack in the way that they view gender.

If they're thinking of it as black and white, we can just create a crack in the way that they think about gender that will allow them just to open their mind just a tiny bit. We can then make some progress, because I just think that people need to know the reality, and I think that people that work in education or research or genetics, like they get this, they're like, this is common sense.

But the average American may not know that this is a thing. Like a lot of people don't know that intersex traits are just as common as redheads globally, which blows a lot of people's minds. Average Americans don't know that, and so I think it's important for me as somebody that could fly under the radar and get by without anybody knowing this, it's important for me to tell [00:22:00] people this.

To open people's minds to the wide variety of gender that exist so that the people that can't fly under the radar that are getting attacked daily know that they have allies and advocates like me that have their back. I. But I do wanna be clear that the people that are getting attacked on a daily basis with their rights taking away, or like with violence daily, I wanna be clear that I understand that I am not facing that kind of attack, and it breaks my heart that they do.

Jessica Fein: Thank you for that. Just as an aside, I imagine that you probably received quite a range of response to the essay that you published in HuffPost. 

Ben Morton: You know, I did not read a single comment. Oh, good for you. I did not. I, I can't bring myself to do it. It's one of those things that it's like, I know I needed to do it based on the executive order that was done.

I knew there was some [00:23:00] factual inaccuracies that were pushing that order, and honestly just cruelty to human beings. I knew that I needed to write that piece, and honestly, I didn't care if a hundred percent of the comments were mean. It was something that I needed to do. I. And so I didn't read the comments.

Luckily, I did get some emails that were very, very kind and supportive, and I'm super thankful for those. 

Jessica Fein: One of the things that you explore in your work is this idea that we need empathy to overcome fear. 

Ben Morton: Hmm. 

Jessica Fein: I agree completely, but how do we encourage empathy, particularly when we're talking about communities that have some level of indoctrination from the start.

Ben Morton: Yeah, I think the first step is like in order to hope for empathy, we have to have empathy ourselves. If we don't exhibit empathy for others, we can't expect for others to have empathy towards us. So for me [00:24:00] personally, I think the way that I've been seeing empathy from other people is first by just creating a non-judgmental space where people feel like they can feel safe being themselves around me.

Whether they have differing opinions or whatever it may be from me, because I obviously have very strong opinions, but I also feel like people should feel safe being themselves around me. So I think first just creating a, a non-judgmental space where people feel like they can be themselves around you or at least have a conversation with you.

So I think that's the first part is like creating that safe space where you can be empathetic towards them. And then secondly, just asking them questions without attacking them and listening, like truly listening to hear their answers, not listening with having a response in mind, to wanting to hear what they have to say.

[00:25:00] And then if the opportunity arises in conversation, sharing your personal story back, not rebutting with facts, but like sharing your personal story. Because sharing your personal story back is like what really is going to trigger those mirror neurons that is going to trigger the empathy in somebody else rather than rattling off facts and being vulnerable with the other person is what creates that empathy.

And then lastly, I would say in order to not trigger the other person, don't come at them too hard with statements in the opposite direction. But if they tell you their story, think about asking them questions. Also extended questions. So instead of, you know, immediately rebutting or telling him a statement opposite of what they've just said.

Think about like, how can you say, can you imagine how that might've felt for her? Or, can you imagine how that might've felt for me in that situation? Or have you ever been in a situation like that or [00:26:00] has someone else, you know, ever been in a situation like that? Just getting them to expand their curiosity in their mind to open it up a little bit.

To keep thinking more and more broadly about other people, I think helps expand that empathy and get them outside of their fear, outside of their defensiveness, and then outside of that conversations with other people. I would say the other thing is that you just have to live authentically. I know that's easy to say, but the more people that are living authentically in the world, in our communities.

The better off that we're gonna be because it normalizes the diversity of different types of people and it's gonna bring so much better acceptance to our communities. If people are out there feeling like they can live authentically with people that support them, I. 

Jessica Fein: Okay. I'm going to make a confession because I love everything you're saying, and I'm like, yes, yes, yes.

Because I'm envisioning as you're talking, being a safe space [00:27:00] for people who are marginalized. For people who feel like they need to hide their true selves, I'm like, bring it on. Come here. Come into my tent. But I have trouble summoning empathy for people who are closed-minded, who are. Racist who don't welcome people who have black and white thinking.

Do I need to sum an empathy for them and get curious? Because it sounds like a terrific prescription, what you've just outlined, but I'm not sure that I have it in me sometimes to sum an empathy for every single set of beliefs. 

Ben Morton: Yeah, I hear you on that. Well, first of all, I think that you have to decide if this person is someone that is worth building the relationship with, at least is what I am talking about.

You know, if this is somebody that you wanna have a relationship with, I don't think you have to engage everybody on the internet that has a closed mind and have try to build, because…

Jessica Fein: I don't have time for that. [00:28:00] 

Ben Morton: It'd be a lot of people. Yes, it's a lot of people. No. In all seriousness, I think that if it's somebody that you want to build a relationship with and you want to have empathy for them, and you feel like they have a closed mind, I think that there might be a reason that they have a closed mind.

What is their experience, you know, that has led them to where they are, if nothing else, even if you cannot get yourself to be empathetic. To them, can you challenge yourself just to learn what led them to where they are? And, and that's a challenge to myself too. I'm saying this to myself 'cause it is hard, especially right now.

It's hard when you feel like you're being attacked every day by different people. It's hard. But I, I wanna challenge myself to, even if it's hard for me to empathize with other people, can I at least push myself to try to understand where they're coming from or just try to [00:29:00] learn how did they get to the spot that they are?

And could that help us at all to grow just a little bit closer? 

Jessica Fein: You wrote in your essay that your diagnosis played a major role in your politics, so I'm getting a clear sense of what your politics are now, but what were your politics before? 

Ben Morton: Yeah, well, so my politics have changed greatly because as, as I mentioned, I grew up in a very conservative evangelical household.

When I was in college, I, you know, started realizing that I was gay and like had all, all of these realizations, and I actually interned in. The George W. Bush White House, like I was all in on conservative politics and you know, was fighting on the opposite side of where I am now coming out as gay. Changed that for me a lot coming out as intersex.

Just continued that down the path. So I would say the diagnosis of being [00:30:00] intersex and the realization that I was gay both have just moved my politics to what we consider the left, because the politics in American society today are personal and in order to have equity in the United States today as who we are, we have to fight for those things.

Jessica Fein: I'm wondering if you have any advice. I mean, you must look back at the, you who was struggling with what you were being taught from such a young age and then feeling different, and then as you first came out as gay and, and then you got the diagnosis. So I'm just wondering, what advice would you have for young people today who are growing up in religiously conservative environments who might be having some of these feelings?

Ben Morton: It's a good question. It's a complicated one because I think every young person is a different, you know, has a different personality and each of our [00:31:00] situations is unique. And I certainly don't wanna sound cliche by saying don't give up and it gets better. And 'cause you know, I. But I guess what I will say is discover yourself for yourself and not for anyone else.

If you're having these feelings or thoughts inside of yourself, start by knowing that you deserve to be here and you are exactly as you should be. I don't have many regrets in my life because as I mentioned earlier, even the bad in quotation marks, things in my life have led to better things in my life.

Like, you know, the good part of the grief. But the one thing that I do wish that I could take back in my life if I were to do this life over is letting shame take root in my mind. I started this talk track in my mind when I was young in church and in Christian school, that I had these bad sinful, in quotation mark thoughts because that's what I've been told that they were.[00:32:00] 

And therefore I thought that I was a bad person because I had these sinful thoughts that I could not get rid of. If I can't get rid of them, then I must be a bad person. And so developing that mindset as an adolescent. Makes it extremely hard to overcome my shame as an adult, and it shows up in inconvenient times, like in relationships at work, in traffic, in all parts of life.

So if I could offer a single piece of advice to someone questioning their gender, sexuality, or identity, I would just encourage you to trust yourself and to know that who you are is not wrong. And if an institution or a person is making you feel wrong simply because of who you are. Really question what their motives are and if you want to be near them or not.

Jessica Fein: Ben, thank you so much again, ending as we started your sharing so openly, so vulnerably is just such a gift to our listeners here today, to your readers, people who read [00:33:00] your essay, people who are going to read your book. So thank you so much. 

Ben Morton: It was truly my pleasure. I really appreciate your time. It was a joy to be here with you today.

Jessica Fein: Here are my takeaways from the conversation with Ben. Number one, in order to hope for empathy, we have to have empathy ourselves, and one way to do that is to create non-judgmental spaces where people can be themselves. I. Number two, listening to understand, not to respond and not while formulating an answer in your mind builds bridges.

Number three, personal stories move hearts more effectively than facts. Ben found that sharing authentic experiences rather than debating with statistics helped others develop true understanding and empathy. Number four, asking expansive questions broadens our perspective. Number five, authentic self-expression creates cracks and rigid thinking and normalizes diversity.

Number six. If you can't get yourself to have empathy for somebody, try to challenge yourself just to learn what might have led them to where they are. And number seven, trust yourself to know that who you are is not [00:34:00] wrong. If an institution or a person is making you feel wrong, simply because of who you are, really question what their motives are and if you want to be near them or not.

Thank you again for listening to this hundredth episode of “I Don’t Know How You Do It,” and to all the episodes that came before this one. If you wanna help me celebrate the anniversary of this show, take a minute to rate, review and follow the show. That means so much to me because it is the single best way other people can find out about it.

Have a great day. Talk to you next time.