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Queer 101
Hosted by LGBTQ+ activist and world-renowned entertainer Miss Peppermint, alongside celebrated queer historian and author Hugh Ryan, this podcast is your weekly deep dive into the untold stories, pivotal moments, and extraordinary individuals who shaped LGBTQ+ history.
Each episode, Pep and Hugh unravel the struggles, celebrate the triumphs, and explore the cultural revolutions that have defined queer identities throughout time. With heart, humor, and a dash of glamor, they guide you through centuries of rich, vibrant LGBTQ+ legacy.
Whether you’re here to honor the past, better understand the present, or ignite change for the future, Queer 101 is your direct line to the stories that matter most.
Queer 101
Pep Talk: The Real Agenda Behind Anti‑Trans Laws
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Hey y’all. It’s me, Peppermint.
This week on Queer 101, Hugh and I are doing what I call a real ‘Pep Talk’— because let’s be honest, the attacks on LGBTQIA+ people (especially trans folks) are escalating, organized, and intentional.
We’re not imagining it.
From the DOJ arguing that queer legal protections are somehow “anti‑Christian,” to the 197‑page blueprint to roll back Biden‑era LGBTQ+ policies, to a counterterrorism strategy that literally labels “transgender ideology” as a threat — we are watching a coordinated attempt to dehumanize trans people and strip away rights.
And yes. We name it.
We talk about:
• Project 2025 and what it actually means for trans rights
• The smear campaign around “transgender ideology”
• Copycat ID laws like Mississippi’s targeting trans people
• Schools like Smith College being investigated for admitting trans women
• Pride censorship — including attempts to block tributes to Marsha P. Johnson
• J.K. Rowling’s ongoing anti‑trans rhetoric and why it matters
• Billionaire power, culture‑war distractions, and destabilization tactics
• Why the Met Gala optics matter (hi Bezos 👀)
• The “Ball Without Billionaires” calling out labor exploitation
And most importantly — what we do about it. (Call the Govenor)
Because this episode is not about doom.
We are not powerless.
We are organized.
We are informed.
And we are not going back.
Let’s get into it.
AND CALL THE GOVERNOR HOCHUL’S OFFICE 518-474-8398
Follow us at:
- @peppermint247
- @hughoryan
- @pridehousemedia
Write to us at:
Hey y'all, welcome to Queer 101.
SPEAKER_03I'm Peppermint and I'm Do the Historian, and we're here to bring you all things queer history that you didn't learn in school.
SPEAKER_00This is a podcast where we dive deep into queer culture, books, and the queer experience, past, present, and future. From the history that shaped us to the culture that keeps us thriving, we have got it all covered.
SPEAKER_03Grab a seat and let's turn a light on queer history because these stories demand to be heard and must be celebrated.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to Queer 101. Class is now in action. Hey y'all! Welcome back to Queer 101, the podcast where we talk about any and everything under the sun, including queer art, queer culture, and queer literature.
SPEAKER_03I'm Peppermint. And I'm Hugh the Historian.
SPEAKER_00Hugh, listen, I was really hoping that I wouldn't have to, you know, do a whole lot of talk about this this week, but unfortunately I do. We do, because and I want to preface this by saying that I do not want to be the bringer of the doom, the bearer of the bad news. Uh in fact, just the opposite, because I am a ray of sunshine and light. Everybody all knows that. Always, always. Uh, and we can discuss all the insanity that continues, but my goal is to communicate really clearly what is going on and the severity of it all, and show that, you know, uh where there's hope. Where there's hope and power that we have to prevent things, make changes. And, you know, I do have a little thing called pep talks, and I think it's time to bring that into the pod. It's been around for quite a while, and I'd like to do that if with your permission.
SPEAKER_03I could not be more looking forward to that. I would love it. I think today is the kind of day where we all need a little bit of a pep talk. I think the news of the world has not exactly been the best, as we've discussed before. There's no question that queer people and especially trans people are under siege in our country right now. And it's our duty to use whatever platform we can and have to call it out. And I agree. It's not about doom, though it can at times feel like we have gotten a little doomy, but that's the world. We are here to share, highlight, and communicate clearly what is happening and how we can make a difference.
SPEAKER_00I agree. So listen, y'all, uh, before we get started, if you're watching this, please make sure you like, subscribe, share, and um, you know, put do your best to construct a set of rainbow hearts to post into the comments as you watch along. Uh and we want to thank you for watching and listening to this. Yes, that's that's the opposite. We're gonna fight them with emojis, darling. Um let's dive right in though. Uh okay, so here's some of the stuff. If you're in the States, then this is probably gonna pertain more to you. But the DOJ in the US says that LGBTQIA plus legal protections are in fact anti-Christian, and they pledge to erode them, which they've been it's this is not like a new like r revelation for for from them or even you know for for those who have been paying attention, but they it's just a doubling down, if you will. Um a hundred a 197-page report was released to uh reverse the policies that were put into place during the Biden administration and and some from even prior. Uh so Trump's new counter-terrorist strategy focuses on combating transgender ideology.
SPEAKER_03Oh god. I bet he can't even spell ideology. He has no idea what that word even means. What is he gonna fight?
SPEAKER_00You know, it's actually not even Trump's policy. That's the thing. You know, this is this is in Project 2025. So I'd say the person the the the VOT is the um VOT or vote, how how he pronounced his last name.
SPEAKER_03I have no idea. Um, yeah. Yeah, I think Trump only really cares about like his ratings and can he put like gold guilt on something. That's like the extent of that man's whatever is left of his brain, considering what's going on with his body these days. I mean, that is like a rotting, shambling hulk who definitely has no idea what transgender ideology is.
SPEAKER_00You know, that is really uh poetic that you said that because uh, you know, I I'm I'm sure you meant mean guilt as in G-I-L-T on everything, but um for for that's gilding everybody for who you know doesn't watch the Gilded Age or whatever, you know, that's all the the um gold leafing that uh historically was put onto things in the Gilded Age uh was named that symbolically because it was looking very opulent, but it was just rotten to the core. Everything was poorly run, mismanaged, corrupt, just like the worst time. And the rich were the richest that they'd ever been in the in the United States and all the all this industry that was booming unnecessarily. But I also get that, you know, with particularly with our president, he is up to no good, he breaks lots of laws, and the people who go down for it all the time are the people who are around him, the things that are around him, the people are around him. So he shifts the blame all the time, so he can actually put guilt, do you, onto other people as well. So I think that's really poetic the way you kind of said that.
SPEAKER_03Oh no, you're 100% right. I didn't intend that. The poetry's coming from you, but yes, he's got like that reverse Midas touch. Everything he touches turns to shit. You know, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_00It really does. Uh and so one of one of the things that uh how you know, like it feels kind of abstract talking about the transgender trans identities, but what they're calling transgender ideology, uh as being a a um terrorist sort of, you know, movement or whatever, is they are first of all dehumanizing, dehumanizing and flattening the trans community into an idea, not a person, uh not people, not human beings with thoughts and feelings. This way it's easier to remove talking about those things because you then suddenly are just talking about a tr an ideology. Um and people will go along with that because they also blame this quote unquote ideology for uh for the ills in life for mass for for mass shootings. Suddenly they're trying to attach. And I think that's the most um tangible piece. Uh of course there are other uh exchanges at the school uh sort of age and in schooling and saying that like, you know, trans people are responsible for their own, like, you know, the they they take the um suicide rate of LGBT people, particularly trans people, and use that against us and say, you know, if you weren't trans, being trans makes you cause to commit suicide. Um but they also you know blame transness on the for grooming and sexual, you know, predation and and and sexual molestation and for all the things they do, basically. Child abuse, all the things that they do, of course. Uh and but then I think most tangibly they're going to try to, and I don't I think they'll be unsuccessful practically, but people might still go along with it. They're gonna try to blame like all gun violence on trans people, and then they will like find a way to use that to fuck with the very sacred um Second Amendment, which ironically, you know, the people who've earned sort of like the um reputation for wanting to get rid of the second amendment has always been the Democrats. Like that's what the Republicans have projected onto. But I think ironically, the people who like fuck with the Second Amendment and make it so that swaths of Americans will not be able to hold or access guns will be the Republicans. Oh, yeah, they're the only ones who could trans identity to do that. Yeah. Yeah. They're the only ones who could certainly now.
SPEAKER_03It's the same way they came after guns when the Black Panthers were suddenly exercising their right to bear arms publicly. Yeah. It's the same playbook. The only time guns are a problem is when they're not held by like white conservative men. Yeah. Absolutely. Um it makes me think about that book. Uh it came out a few years ago. When they call you a terrorist by Patrice Kahn Calors, and she wrote about like being basically like the right wing focusing on her as a leader in the Black Lives Matter movement and and calling Black Lives Matter a terrorist movement. I mean, this is just the the same playbook in in Living Memory, and she is, you know, a queer black woman, and I feel like it's it's so much of what they're doing right now with trans identity and this trans ideology.
SPEAKER_00It's really interesting that you say that because I totally remember, and they still do try to infer and talk about and refer to the Black Lives Matter movement, uh, either instances or in general as just like this vi they flatten it down to this violent, just a violent terrorist thing, even like uh like conversationally, when we hear it referred to by a lot of right-wing people or a lot of conservatives, they, you know, they they only refer to the Black Lives Matter movement as the riots, the the Black Lives Matter riots. That's the only time that I hear them talking about it. Uh, and I think that they tried unsuccessfully because I just think that too, you know, it would have worked if it had been a bunch of people who who no one saw and didn't have their own platform or voice, and other people didn't care about. But I think too many white people were involved in the Black Lives Matter movement to be able to successfully demonize them in a way that would like result in like we're criminalizing all of them and you know, or whatever.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I I think that was just too tough to do. And black folks in general are too much of a um uh too large of a minority group to be able to um criminalize and demonalize in one felt swoop. Uh I think they have to remove more rights first and then just say, oh, well, you lost all your rights, so you standing here as a legal, you're a felon. Now, oh, he's a felon. You know, like they have to do it that way.
SPEAKER_03Um, the registering thing we're experiencing right now is that's exactly what they're doing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because pretty soon it'll be illegal for a black person to be within 20 yards of a voting place. And if they do go to try to protest, then suddenly the violent Negroes attack the voting. You know, they're they're all felons and terrorists. And then the headline is terrorists try to bomb voting. And so they're like, that's no more voting allowed at all. Yeah. Exactly. But they're they're obviously starting that with the with the trans folks first. And I think, you know, obviously with the um the the literal move to try to secretly, quietly, not quietly, but like slyly um remove access to guns for trans folks is what they've already kind of started to put in place. Um with the excuse that we all are shooters of us and assassins.
SPEAKER_03Which if they were gonna do that to anyone, it would be like assist men ages like 16 to 40.
SPEAKER_00Those would be the pan the the pan the the the epidemic of gut mass shootings needs to be controlled by stopping the transgender ideology. And the only way to stop mass shootings is to stop trans people. That's what they think. That's what they're saying. Yeah, that's what they're saying. I don't even think they think that's what they're doing.
SPEAKER_03That's not what they're doing.
SPEAKER_00No, they don't think it, but that's what they're that's what they're that's what they're that's the excuse they're using. And then also, um you know, if we are terrorists, it'll be a lot easier to disenfranchise uh people, especially people who are citizens of this country who are trans, uh disench disenfranchise us from the system, from services, from our identification, from the rights to travel, from like your civil rights, disenfranchise you from the civil because terrorists don't believe don't deserve rights.
SPEAKER_03They don't belong rights. And we're seeing that. I mean, that this Mississippi copycat law, the the Tennessee one, you know, with the the licenses now in Mississippi, if you do not have an ID that matches the gender you're assigned at your birth, cops will not only arrest you from the brought you to ice. Yeah. Fraud. Fraud just for being a fraud. Yep. And it's it's funny. I'm actually uh reading this book uh uh about the 19th century about a trans person named Leon Belmont who who throughout his life took on many different genders and identities and uh and the first laws in the 1800s that he gets prosecuted under are all about fraud. They have nothing to do with his gender. It's that he is dressing as a man in order to defraud women of their marriage rights. And that's it's it's that same that same thing being turned around again and again. It's fraud, it's fraud.
SPEAKER_00Everything's fraud, everything's fraud, and it and it works if the people don't and and if the um the target, the suspect, the alleged terrorist, if you never hear that person's voice, then the people can construct this story about you and convince you all about it. Uh before you even have a chance to ask, well, why really did they do it? Why do they say they're doing it for themselves? Um, and that that is the key portion. That's obviously due process is allowing a person to have the to speak for themselves. But then in the court of public opinion, we should all be very wary of someone saying, some, you know, this person is trying to do this and this and this, and we need to use all these resources and change the laws so that we can get this person who's who did this, and they did this because they because they hate your freedom. No, no one's doing anything, no one's going out of their way to do anything because they care about somebody somebody else's freedom. That is not no that has never happened in the history of anything that has ever been alive. Nothing get nothing's get a nothing gives a fuck about anything else of freedom to go and mess up their own day.
SPEAKER_03They still do this the Patriot Act, you know? It was like, oh no, those evil terrorists, they're coming for your freedom.
SPEAKER_00Nobody cares who are fucking for freedoms. It's a good thing. Yeah. Um Yeah, it's wild. Uh okay, so what else? Smith College is being investigated for admitting trans women in as students, which is so wild. And this is like thing, they're they're like, they keep, they're gonna like the the the 14th time we hear a headline like this, we meaning the public, um, they'll be used to it, so they're not it's not going to alarm them. And then the the bonus will be if all these colleges just say, you know, we don't want to get investigated, so we're not gonna admit any of you.
SPEAKER_03Because it's not even students who are bringing this up. It's like a right-wing group called Defending Education that's the one putting forward all these tribes. So it's not it's not serving the students, it's not serving the faculty, it's not serving the staff, it's nothing about the college, it's nothing. It is entirely that these well-funded, billionaire-funded right-wing groups are using these issues to weaponize the DOJ. It's it's a a Department of Justice that no longer cares about justice, that they can use it just like Trump uses ICE wherever he wants to.
SPEAKER_00It is And it it really is, I think a lot of us have to think like the the world where everybody can like the world we live in now, where you know, like everybody has their own thing and can do their own thing and just like follow the laws and like you know, try to be a good person. That world, you know, and then you know, if you make it rich, good for you, but if you don't, you have to keep trying and and the billionaires will keep getting richer and and will everything will be okay. Like that imaginary world uh that we kind of feel like we live in right now. The billionaires are not happy with that world. The billionaires and trillionaires want the world where everybody is so fucking desperate, and and the billionaires can can suck all the life out of you where ever literally every human being on the planet is indebted to the billionaires, and the billionaires and trillionaires will be very happy for no one to have a single cent but the billionaires, and we're all just desperate. I can't eat, I'll do anything for the billionaires. That's what they want. And so, in order to get us there, they have to change like destabilize everything, ch reverse all the laws, make it so that there's no civil protections for individuals, and so that they can like just dismantle, and that is what they are trying to do.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I read this article a couple of years ago, and I I cannot remember the author, I'm afraid, but it's a historian who wrote about fascism and about populism, and he got this invitation to talk at a conference, and he was like, Okay, you know, what do they want me to talk about? And they were like, Oh, you know, your work in the future. So he shows up, turns out not to be a conference. It is like five billionaires. And they basically wanted to know in the future, when we have our armies of peasants, how do we keep them from killing us? Like, what do we need to do?
SPEAKER_00That's they want they are cre they are ready to create an entire population of just peasants who are just desperate, who who who cost nothing, and if anything totally replaceable at anything and completely replaceable, and they are so desperate just to survive. That they want it to be that all everything goes out the window, and the will to live is j only predicated on I will do anything just to just to be alive, and I live like because your your your soul or whatever won't allow w might not allow you to just like give up and die. So it's gonna be like, well, if I just have to sit here in this dark room and push this button for the rest of my life and not have food, and but it keeps me alive, then I'll do it. And that's what they want. They are perfectly fine with that. I know it sounds so dystopian, but y'all, that is the world they are trying to build. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And it's a good thing. Yeah, and they're gonna buy us enough land that they have a beautiful ranch in Montana while the rest of us live in like an apocalyptic nightmare desert. It's sad that we live in like a bad movie from the eighties now.
SPEAKER_00But that is like literally where we're at. Speaking of bad and eighties, um, so fucking JK the Evil Billionaires author who ha who ha who shall not be named. Um uh no, I'll say her name so the algorithm can at least you know find it. Uh J.K. Rowling. Cannot keep her. What is she? Uh yeah, she came out and basically said that there are no trans kids, which she I think I've heard her say that before. Uh, no child is born in the wrong body. And she says it in the in a really clever way to get people to be like, oh, of course, we don't want kids to feel bad about themselves. So of course we agree with that. You're never wrong. Yeah, you know, because that the implication here is that someone is saying children are born incorrectly and that children are wrong. Children are incorrect just for being born, and that is not what anybody's saying, but um, and and no, and I think that's why the the trans trans people that I've heard of, I've heard from and the trans movement in general has moved away from being trapped in the wrong body. That's legit 1990s speak about the tran about transness. Uh this is just people who are born trans, and I was born that knowing that my my who I am about myself doesn't match with the gender that everybody perceives and that everybody is, you know, like it just doesn't match. It's incongruent. And so that where I'm at odds with my gender. I'm not at at odds. I'm at odds with my sex and you know, perhaps gender, but the gender that I am truly is not that of which people perceive. That's the point. And anyway, you know, that was like last week, and this week she is legit on top of there was a really um there was a brutal attack that seems to be kind of questionable. Um, but there was a stabbing in the UK uh of two Jewish men. Um and a lot of people in the in England are talking about it. Uh and they are framing it as a terrible anti-Semitic attack. Uh, and that the solution to that, much like the solution to terrorism in the United States, is to ban all Muslims from England. And so J.K. Rowling has taken up that mantle. Surprise, surprise, if you go back and look at all of the human beings that J.K. Rowling has attacked over the past three years, it's mostly been brown people, women of color, trans women of color, but even cisgender women of color. And going after the Olympic athletes and yeah, many of them whom are are of Arab uh part of the Arab diaspora, wherever, you know, like brown, um, and you know, presumably Muslim. And so I'm not surprised uh that she has taken this stance. And here, and I've been talking about her anti-transness as white f white feminism, like you know, not like feminism for white w women, um turfy white feminism, which I think turfism is white feminism. Um not all of it, but even even the even the turf turfness, even the women who are TERFs who are b of color, maybe black women, it's still rooted in white supremacy. Um and but all of her beauty standards and all of that are all about like upholding sort of like traditionally European beauty standards, and it's not. Not even traditional European beauty standards. It's a Europe it's a beauty standards that Europeans have painted into the picture. But you know, there of course there are women of all sizes and shapes and body types, even in even from Europe. Um but anyway, so JK Rowling is she's been busy.
SPEAKER_03Uh I just wish. Now there is someone who you're just like, what she wrote a kid's book. Like, do we do we look to most kids' books' authors for what we should do in terms of like immigration policy? Do we care what any of them have to say about it? That is a case of it's simply that she has money. She has tons of money, and so she can do whatever she wants, and everyone amplifies her voice, and it is just it is so infuriating that she thinks that she has all of this like secret information. She sees the world so much more clearly. You wrote a kid's book. Like but still, go away. We don't need this. I don't understand. She has people listening to her.
SPEAKER_00She has no, I mean, she certainly has she certainly doesn't seem to have expertise or knowledge, and for some reason she has like been moved into or granted this position of the authority on what is tran what everything trans. At least from from this side of the ocean, it it appears as though people ru people, the wrong people, listen to her and expect her to be a source of information about the trans community. And it's never accurate, it's never, you know, it's never nuanced, it's never, it's just usually lies and deceptive and misleading and incorrect.
SPEAKER_03The very first statement I rem I remember she posted this long thing about her views. And even in that, you know, when she was at the beginning of her sort of like transphobia journey and and being a public uh turf, she said the trans movement is the most the biggest protector of pedophiles in history. And I was like, that's her what? Yeah. Based on what? And that's her starting position, right? That's where she's coming from. Like everything else is all decorative. Anytime she says, Oh, it's about the children, oh, it's about women, oh, it's about British identity. No, she hates trans people. Like that is the the heart of this. And you're like you said, based on what? She doesn't know anything. She's not an expert, she's not a researcher.
SPEAKER_00She has no proof. There's no there's no information, there's no proof. This is just her like conjecture and like trying to project things on. And it always ends up as white women should be protected because they're beautiful and more beautiful than everyone else. And anyone else who's not a white woman is not beautiful and not natural. Mm-hmm.
unknownYep.
SPEAKER_00That's the end game of J.K. Rowling. She can suck a dick. Uh I don't think she does that. Uh, Wisconsin School may censor a um concert because the song is dedicated to Marsha P. Motherfucking Johnson during pri and all in the year of our Lord 2026, trying to attack Marsha P. Johnson's uh legacy um during uh during the summer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, uh, you know, like get encroaching on pride.
SPEAKER_03And it's a dedication of a song. It's it that is all, and that is enough. That you can't even dedicate something to someone. They're gonna control who you can look up to, who you can honor, who you can, you know, it's it's it's a complete control of the mind.
SPEAKER_00Because they do not want to see our humanity, and they also don't want us to speak for ourselves. And so they're gonna use that to like erase access to being able to have your own platform and speaking. I I wholeheartedly believe. Um because I did another one. And they want to control the schools. Oh, so yeah, of course they want to control the schools. And I did another podcast recently that was um with a really conservative family uh called The Necessary Conversations. And it's uh conservative parents, to say to to put it very politely, um, and they're liberal kids sort of arguing and the kids trying to break through to the parents to see if they'll sort of like talk some sense into them or something. And um, and it's a be they're lovely family, and I love the kids uh uh especially a lot. And um the mother, uh, I think her name's Mary Lou, um is also uh a very sweet lady. Um and we I had a chance to be a guest on there, and she you know, I think she had some very, very strong opinions about the trans community as well, with no experience uh until she talked until I we had had a conversation. She said that there was the first conversation she had ever had with a trans person, and it seemed to really impact her. What did y'all talk about? Uh I basically let her lead the way uh because I wanted to know what she thought. I mean, I was just basically there as a resource, uh, but basically to give my experience and opinions on all the things that she thought was wrong with the trans community. Um, so we talked about sports, which I'm like, this is not my area, darling. Uh we talked about um sort of medical transition, and we talked about sort of what we were talking about with J.K. Rowling, where like, you know, just like how how early did you know? How did you feel? Is this a genuine feeling? Is it real? Did you really feel that way? Um, how what were your experience? She was really interested in my experience as a child, which is you know, really interesting. You know, like, you know, that's fair. Okay, fine. But like, who cares? I'm not saying that we don't care about knowing as a child, but I'm like, I'm an adult, and this is what I'm saying about my life.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I I'm really curious.
SPEAKER_03How can we how can we listen to this? I'd love to I want to listen to this conversation. So where do we go find it?
SPEAKER_00Uh if you go to the necessary conversations, which is that that's the name of the podcast, it's on YouTube and they also are on other platforms, and you can find it. It was two weeks ago was the episode. Uh and uh like the well, the May, like May 1st episode, I guess, something around that was would have been something like that. Early May. Um and it says it says peppermint on the screen, very big, and my face is on it. So if you're looking at the YouTube video, you can't miss it. But it's really good. Yeah, it was a good conversation. And but my point is that like, you know, I know this is we hear this a lot, but it really is important to hear straight from the voice of the the community. And you know, considering how much people talked about the trans community in 2024 and 2025 on news and film and television and podcasts, um compared to how little um they there how few times we were guests on there on any of the the shows. Uh I'm hoping that we can make a change. And so my call is for anybody who has a podcast, large or small, please invite more trans people onto the show. I mean, listen, the entire LGBTQ plus community is under attack, and the queer community is is deserving of the opportunity to speak for themselves. But it's emergent that the trans community is so under attack right now, and it is going to be the key to you can attack many different groups, you can attack civil rights by attacking different groups who have access to those civil rights, but the one that's unguarded, the one that's the most vulnerable, the door that is left unprotected is the trans community. So we need people to like pick up your shift and fucking stand at that door.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and pride is coming next month. If you are listening to this and you are part of a podcast, an institution, a paper, a school that does not have any plans to platform trans speakers that is not doing anything for justice. Now's your last moment. Get this organized, call some people up. You should have already done it, you know? But like, come on, it's time. I don't need another corporate pride where we get like fucking rainbow t-shirts at Target. I need one where like trans people are given rights and the opportunity to speak and organize.
SPEAKER_00So anyway, there's one more that I want to talk about, um, which is the Met uh gala, ball gala, ball gag. Ball gag. Um uh was earlier this month. And, you know, uh it was uh it's a popular event. Uh it's a big event where people from all over the fashion industry and beyond descend upon New York City to go to the Met uh the museum, uh Metropolitan Museum for a gala where they, you know, basically I don't even know if there's any money being raised. Galas are responsible for raising money. Um but if there is, you know, it's it pales in comparison to what was spent on the event where they get a bunch of celebrities to come and wear, you know, like dress sort of outlandishly. And um, and I and I don't mean to insult the um artistry of the creators and the uh people, the fashion people, the um designers, the costumers, the makeup artists, the hairstylists, those people who do work hard to put those looks together and make something like, you know, that's trends and memorable. That's artwork, yeah. But the event uh in general has got started off questionable, um, I would say, and has certainly led astray. At best, it it hyper f is hyperfixated on um the fashion industry, which is exploitative. This is the industry that got 14 year old plucked 14 has plucked historically 14-year-old girls out of their homes, sent them across the world to get uh sexually assaulted and come back home with an eating disorder.
SPEAKER_03And so it either celebrates that or the people who can buy the $40 million gowns, you know. It's like it's less about the makers and more about the product.
SPEAKER_00To to to to take that person, and it's wild, and I don't know, but I do remember in the 90s, you know, the the the certainly the um the aesthetic and the tone was guided by the artists that were creating things, and there were definitely trends and shifts. But the thing that I think was really interesting, and we know hearing from these models, uh, you know, if you listen to any of their stories or whatever, that they oftentimes are, you know, they're not eating this many, not not all the time, but like there are stories, especially when the when tensions and pressures are high, that they don't have the opportunity to take a break and eat. They're working, working, working, they're tired. Some of the some people do have developed eating disorders and talked about it. Some people have spoken about just feeling insecure in their own body and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then snapshot, pose, pose, pose. That's what's on the cover. And then that is what is being said. This is what beauty is. I'm not saying that that model isn't beautiful, but what I'm saying is oftentimes what you can see is the depression, is the eating disorder, is you can that shows up in a picture as well. And then I think that's what was called heroin chic in the 90s, which was then copied and imitated, like literally putting makeup under your eyes to look like you had bags. And I'm like, wait a minute, this this person might have actually been sick. You know? Yeah. I remember Kate Moss's wrists, they were frightening. Yeah. So the industry either celebrates that at best. That's what it started off as, but now what it has devolved into is uh inviting people like Jeff Bezos to be the um the the uh the the host or the um the sponsor, I don't know what he was gonna do. The rich money bags. The yeah, the money behind it, and um and it just really brought brought to light, like, you know, oftentimes in in the past, uh I won't say oftentimes, because I believe that the Met Gala is problematic for many for many reasons, but one of the reasons more more recently is their um obsession, their romanticization of capital and case in point, Jeff Bezos. And so there were lots of um counter met gala events that happened all over the city. I was at one that was called the Ball Without Billionaires that really focused on Amazon and Starbucks uh employees, among many other laborers, um, people who ran and were parts members of labor unions, uh, who were there to show that art labor is art uh at the billion at the ball without billionaires. And highlight walk down the runway. It was a fashion show, highlighting the fashions of designers who were ethical, who were uh sustainable and and um, you know, uh just ethical. Um and uh also highlighting the stories of these models who were also the workers of these big corporations who had either been fired for being pregnant, who'd gotten uh who were there, you know, when you know, I mean, you saw her that story from Amazon where somebody died on the died and they left them on the floor. And they just like get back to work, let them be dead on the work next to a corpse.
SPEAKER_03That's the like vision of Amazon I will have forever after. That's that's what it means to work in the Amazon distribution center. Work next to a corpse.
SPEAKER_00As a matter of fact, don't even work next to a corpse. Now that that one's dead, you better do your work and make up for that. Because I know that's what they're thinking. How are we gonna make up for that productivity? That's where the mind went. Um, and so these were models that were were were there to speak for themselves and talk about the abuses and the experiences that many of them had at these uh corporations, not only Amazon, Starbucks, and and and pretty much every corporation, um, every mega corporation. Uh but my point in all that, how it relates to trans folks, I know I'll be talking for a minute, was that they brought uh Ariane, Ariana Rose Phillips, uh, whose name uh she's this is her her newer name, uh, trans woman. Uh, and you may recognize her, you may know her. We'll put a picture up of her so you can see what she looks like here. Um, but she's been a model and sort of we've been watching her her um her journey, her gender journey over the past few years. And uh she's a wonderful advocate and speaks out not only on trans rights, but then also rights of people who have the experience of being disabled. Um and they sh so what they did was apparently since these ticket sales and the table sales of the Met Gala were very down this year, a lot of people actively boycotted. Um, they gave out a bunch of free tickets to people who've never been before and who would never have the opportunity to go. I would say most of which were queer people of color, um, to go and stand out on that thing and and and take all the questions about the Met Gala and why it's important and why are you here? Uh including Ariana. Um, but the thing that's so ironic and interesting to her to me is that they wheeled her out in her wheelchair, set her on these steps. That the whole piece, and I've heard from people who've been to the Met Gala, is you get all dressed up, you put all this energy into your look, and you walk up this the staircase of the Met uh of the Metropolitan Museum. Famously, there's um there's gotta be hundreds of photographers on either end. And that is the entire event. Then you go inside, you have a dinner, but like people take off their costumes and they go home. Oh, okay. Um, and so all of it is walking up the steps and then meeting the board of the trustees for the event, one of which this year being Jeff Pesos, who does who skipped meeting the uh greeting people at the top of the steps this year. But the thing is about walking up the stairs. Ariana can't walk up the stairs. Yeah. So what do they do? They wheel her out, let her be like basically the force field. And then I guess they brought her in the back. I don't know. They she sh I'm sure she went inside somehow.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh and um, obviously the Metropolitan Museum does have a lift or an elevator somewhere, but n they did not build a ramp, they did not put anything for her, so she couldn't even have that experience of going up the steps and and being walking through the sort of um arcade of or the gauntlet of um photographers. All the photographers, yeah, yeah. I just think that that's like, you know, here we are dangling a trans person who's connected to many different types of uh marginalized identities, uh, out here for you to show that we're diverse. Meanwhile, he's not gonna change shit about what he does for people who experience dis have dis certain disabilities at his at Amazon.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's it's all decorative. You know, it's it's just purely like how can we how can we get out of being in trouble in some way? How can we distract people? How can we, you know, it's such bullshit. I mean, and I I love fashion. I love the Met Costume Institute, I love the stuff that they've kept. It's not to say that these people are not doing incredible things, the models, the designers, all of that, but the the gala itself, like you said, it's just all distraction around these billionaires who are using it to try to garner some goodwill or some uh distraction while they force us to work in their dystopian data centers until there's nothing left.
SPEAKER_00And I mean it would be so w it was so great, or not even great, but like at least you know what? One of the richest men in the world came and he backed this thing and he put all this money into it, and then the result was ten billion dollars, five a billion five hundred million dollars towards immigrant rights, towards anything.
SPEAKER_01Whatever.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, no, they could do anything. You know, it's it's they have I saw something, it was uh the Washington Post that was like they had an op-ed that was like, you know, basically like stop hating billionaires. You could become a billionaire. But the truth is most people can't because to become a billionaire, one, you have to have like so much money and privilege generally before you even get there. But you also have to be kind of a sociopath for the most part. Like the people who get there don't care, and they're never gonna use their money for things that we care about, you know, like Elon Musk saying if someone gave him a plan to solve world hunger, he would do it. And then the World Health Organization was like, here you go, here's a plan, and he just did nothing. And that is so exactly what I expect of them.
SPEAKER_00I mean, of course it was the Washington Post because Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.
SPEAKER_03Um you think that has something to do with it? I wonder. I just thought he cared. He cared so much.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think I think a lot of people, a lot of people we really do need to change this this sort of relationship to like our thought about billionaires because for so long uh what we think about billionaires has a lot to do with what billionaires and and rich people and what we've learned about what it takes to be rich and the dedication to going to going to work and the feeling of being feeling useless and feeling like not a productive member of society. So I think it's important that people ask themselves, what does it mean to be a productive member of society? And what we would normally say is going to your job, going to work for a company is what it means to be a productive member of society. And there's a reason for that. It's not just a coincidence. You weren't born thinking that. And the people who benefit from that are the people who own those companies. And it used to be like some for me, some for you, kind of deal like, okay, you can buy a car, you can buy a house, you can have your healthcare, you can have your things. But as that is slipping away, that was that that is the American dream. Now that is slipping away. And the billionaires, it's going into the billionaires' hands. It's not just like going out the window and up in smoke, it's lit literally going into their pockets. That's why there are more billionaires this year than there were two or three years ago.
SPEAKER_03And so inequality's getting worse. Rich rich people are getting richer, poor people are getting poorer.
SPEAKER_00Even though it feels like it's like the the natural wonders of this world are infinite, there are not the the resources on our planet are finite. There is a certain amount of water, there is a certain amount of land and a certain amount of resources and food and all these things. And there's more than enough for humanity, but there's not more than enough for the the each billionaire takes up more resources than thousands and thousands and millions of people. And they also put less back into the world. And the being uh being getting rich off of capitalism requires every year making more extracting more resources and raising the prices and paying your employees less. That's how you become a billionaire.
SPEAKER_03And poisoning the world. I mean, it is an endless. You know, that's that's what they do. It's all those externals that they don't have to care about that we then all have to live with or around or try to breathe through. And that is these, you know, data centers that they're building. It's like they're building AI, so they won't need artists to do things for them, and instead they will poison the world that the artists live in, and they won't need them anymore. And I don't know. Was this a pep talk? Were we supposed to be pepping people up? Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00All that happened well, no, no, I it it's it is it is a pep talk. Uh it has it is a pep talk, and I all this happened, I'm just saying all that happened in the last week since we last talked.
SPEAKER_03Oh my god. It is a week that felt like a year.
SPEAKER_00It did. It did. But there's more that we can do, for sure.
SPEAKER_03You know, I mean I'll say this. Look, you know, as as miserable as this last week has been, as miserable as this year continues to be, I am still looking forward to June. I am still looking forward to Pride Month. I am still looking forward to seeing more people organizing in the streets, the Rise and Resist uh Pride Liberation Movement. You know, there are still people who are doing the work. You are gonna be out there leading the parade as the Grands Who are the other Grand Marshals this year. It's a great crowd. It's it's uh yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's uh Dominique. Um it is going to be Gays Without Guns, uh Bernie uh go to go to NYC Pride. Lots of some fantastic people. I don't have everybody's last name, so I don't want to screw everything up, but um some great groups here. Yeah. Um and that's exciting.
SPEAKER_03That's something I'm looking forward to.
SPEAKER_00And I think that's and I I'm also energized by the fact that we have we can fight. Like, look, I was trying to do the regular contract, um, social contract where I get up and clock into a job, a proverbial job. And if I don't do that, you know, if I have to fucking fight and pick up a gun and like run and do whatever I have to do, then let's do it, bitch. Like nothing left to live. You know, yes, I want to survive. And but what happens before I'm locked in that room pushing that button is I will get up and I will fight, and I would rather get killed fighting than not. And I think a lot of people have that, and so that's why the billionaires are building their bunkers because they're afraid of us and they're anti-social and they don't know how to be able to deal with human beings, and that's what we have on our side. And so I think what we have to do is wake ourselves up out of the hypnosis that we've been in for so long and realize that, like, you know, the time is ticking, and politically, we have very very little time left where things feel the same. And I don't want things to go back to the way that they were, but anybody who wants things to feel like comfortable in the way that they were better fucking get up and fight now because it is not a good thing. No one's coming to rescue us next year. No one's gonna come and rescue us. And so we have to get involved in your local elections. You have to be very, very loud about like making sure that money is out of politics and that the people who are already in office are not bought and paid and paid and bribed. And you have to do your best to like expose that and get to the bottom of it and ask them the questions and ask, put them on the spot and hold their feet to the fire about that. But then also any new candidates who are trying to get into any type of office, city, local, state, make sure that they take a pledge and a promise that they won't eventually start accepting bribes and things like that, and that they will a hundred percent be dedicated towards the very short term of working hard at a very with very low financial reward for the people. And then you're out, you're not in there for the rest of your life. You're not gonna be in there in that office for the rest of your life. We're done with that. You're in there for three or four years, you might be poor for three or four years while you make sure that we all have healthcare. That's your job.
SPEAKER_03That's it. I think wherever you are, however you can do it, now is the time to make some noise because they are not it's things are not gonna get better. Sitting quietly and hoping your world is gonna suddenly magically improve. That is not where we're at, you know, whether that's by taking up office or by yelling at the people who are already in office or doing totally unrelated things like organizing for community support and mutual aid. Like that's where we're at. That's what I want to see more of this June. That's what I want for pride, more mutual aid, more people in the streets. And that's what I want to do.
SPEAKER_00And what I want people to do is making more phone calls to the governor of New York. I don't care if you live where where you live. Please get your ass. And we're gonna we're gonna post the phone number to the governor's office and 321 on the screen. And please go and call, just pick up your phone and call the governor and tell the governor, Hokel, uh, that we want to tax bit we want to tax the rich. We do not want cuts to because the choice is either the either the rich pay their fair share of taxes or they cut health care, they cut um services to homeless shelters. You like the subway workers and all these different things. Yeah, they cut all the resources, austerity. And so we don't want that. We don't need that. New York is one of the places uh that is considered a bubble, but it's also safe for so many of the types of people that are being attacked by this gov this federal administration. And so tell the governor, do not partner with Trump on his and pass his you know, cuts down to the to the population and to the people of of this city and state of New York. Call the governor and say, look, bitch, you work for us.
SPEAKER_03Give her a call.
SPEAKER_00Call that bitch.
SPEAKER_03All right. You have heard from us. We are marching orders. Please get out there, make those calls, and then come back and join us next Tuesday. We will be here as always. Whether you're watching, whether you're listening, wherever you get this, we will be here on Tuesday. Let us know what you did. Leave us a comment. Five-star review, please. It costs you nothing, and it means so much to us and to the algorithm that controls us all.
SPEAKER_00That's the show. Bye.
SPEAKER_03Bye.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much for joining us today.
SPEAKER_02This podcast is part of Pride House Media, hosted by us, Peppermint and Cube, produced and edited by Josh Rosensweig with original music composed by Nell Balavan.
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SPEAKER_00Thank you for listening. And remember, our history is your history. Stay proud, stay curious, and we'll see you next time on Queer One O One.