Harry Potter Is Being Banned. Why? - Megan Phelps-Roper

generally it is the Republicans who are saying men cannot get pregnant and then you have somebody generally a Democrat saying men can definitely get pregnant nobody in this conversation nobody's confused but it is females who are getting pregnant but the Battle Is Over The Language what we are willing to say whether we're willing to make these changes and make these accommodations for this very small minority of people and for some people it feels like so much is at stake on both sides Harry Potter is one of the most banned books of the 21st Century why well um I mean for a lot of people it was it was originally Christians there was a certain and not all Christians but there was a certain kind of of Christian who who believed that they were losing the culture in the 90s um and I think I think Harry Potter was it became like it was the biggest target um but there were many things if you if you look back we We examined this in our show um you look back there as Sabrina the Teenage Witch and the craft and uh Charmed and just many many um different examples of Witchcraft in the culture and and so Harry Potter became a huge Target because because a lot of people really loved it how many Bannings has there been in the last couple of years has there been any movement to try and get Harry Potter itself rebound there's been some it's not a lot it's definitely I mean that I think it was it was a product of that moment in in time um so it's it's definitely not been um I don't think the same kind of a Target in the same way there was in the 90s for sure what got you interested in the JK Rowling story well if you I mean you can't you can't have watched what happened in the summer of 2020. I mean that for me that was really the um you know she tweeted in the summer of 2020 June of 2020 and there was this massive backlash and I think to a lot of people who hadn't been really following the conversation surrounding sex and gender the the nature of that backlash the the heated nature of it um it seemed almost incomprehensible so for me it was I was coming from a place of of ignorance and curiosity um and we're just really wanting to understand what was going on and the more I started to look into it the more I mean the more it seemed like the nature the fact that the conversation was happening largely on social media was not serving anyone um it was it definitely seemed to me to be inflaming um inflaming that conversation to say the least um and so I ended up writing this letter to JK Rowling to try to find a better way of having that conversation and really just again to understand what exactly was going on what the nature of the controversy was and why it seemed like everyone involved felt both embattled um and and just like like so much was at stake what did the Tweet say let's say that someone isn't as terminally online as me or you are um okay so which which tweet um the the original tweet actually was December of 2019 um and it came across as I mean I think to a lot of people as as quite innocuous it was something like dress however your dress however you please call yourself whatever you like sleep with any consenting adult who will have you live your best life in peace and security um but Force women out of their jobs for saying that sex is real #i stand with Maya hashtag this is not a drill so that was actually JK Rowling's first um tweet that was stepping into this publicly stepping into this conversation around sex and gender and like I said to a lot of people that that seems like a really innocuous thing even to many um and even to many trans people initially like they read that as as support but pretty quickly um that that changed it was it was How Deeply do you want to get into this right now tell us tell us what tell us the Uproar that it could um so it was it was seen as you know that she was kind of giving lip service to supporting trans people but really she is a you know what is what is called a Turf a trans-exclusionary radical feminist um right yeah it is it is um somebody who excludes I mean it's again it's in the term it is you're excluding trans women specifically from your feminism and so you know people like JK Rowling who were concerned you know she says that she supports trans people and then she wants them to be be free to live their lives as they will but that there are essentially that there are places where the interests of um natal women as she would say people who are you know biologically or assigned female at Birth is the term um that their interests conflict with the interests of trans women so and you know we in in the series we identify we basically split it up into three categories um women's sports women only spaces and then youth transition those are you know the concerns of somebody like JK Rowling um and and part of the reason I mean JK Rowling herself and her story are fascinating and they you know that was um that was it's a big part of the series but part of the reason that rolling is interesting too is that and why it's worth digging into her views is that uh her views are shared by a lot of people um and so it's it's worth wrestling with those views just for that reason I can't imagine how many letters JK Rowling gets whether it be from a very enthusiastic 11 year old or a very irate trans activist or a well-meaning journalist investigative reporter that wants to find out her views on something why did she reply to you um well she said that she had read my book um unfollow which kind of Chronicles my upbringing in the Westboro Baptist Church um I I've basically for the it's been a little over 10 years since I left Westborough this um very you know it's seen as kind of a cult um is is what a lot of people call it um it's largely my family and and the short version is I left um I left the church and there thereby lost my family a little over 10 years ago and in that time I've talked about how um it was conversations with Outsiders civil discourse you know people who took the time to understand where I was coming from um and to essentially help me find you know to sort of build a bridge from where I was to to where they were um and to find my way out of that um that kind of very radical hard line um Paradigm ideological Paradigm um so I you know in spending that time and I I don't I don't demonize my family I I very clearly you know I've disavowed you know the things that we did and which I think were very harmful it could be extremely cruel and destructive um but I don't demonize them because I I understand that basically everybody there was born there they were born into this and and sort of indoctrinated into it and so I mean I think I've made a very you know um you know public in a very public way talked about the nature the the importance of of that kind of conversation and and that I was interested in trying to find that kind of a space for that kind of conversation in this public conflict on sex and gender right so that is what forms the basis for your passion around this yeah definitely it's interesting it's interesting to consider you know you being a part of a movement a while ago that would have seen JK Rowling and perhaps some of her work as a dangerous influence on the youth and there is now a new movement that sees JK Rowling as a dangerous influence on a different portion of the youth which is the Witch Trials of JK Rowling this sort of multi-headed sort of not a joke but a lot of references going on in one title I suppose okay so yeah yeah well I was gonna say like there's another way to read the title as well because you know that was the I think the original you know those those parallels was the original reason for the title um and then the more we looked into it the more we realized oh my God like we can't call it that you know people are going to be really angry like this is it's already the conversation is already extremely inflamed we don't want to add to that but then we realized you know pretty quickly people on all sides of that conversation use the language of witch hunts and Witch Trials like they see themselves so some people see rolling as the victim of a Witch Hunt and some people see her as the prosecutor of one they think that she is Prosecuting or persecuting this this uh very small minority of people who are already the target of a lot of other people and so how why why would she add to that essentially so the title is you're right it's extremely multi-layered much more complicated I think than a lot of people give a credit for rolling a letter surprisingly she responds and says come and see me talk to me about what it's like to go and sit down with JK Rowling I imagine that the number of interview requests especially for this kind of a topic must have gone through the roof and you are just some lady who's got a very extraordinary origin story but in the nicest way possible like just some lady that wants to go yeah yeah and have and have a conversation you know like what what's the trip to go and see her light what's she like in person and and what did that feel like to to actually do it um it so I actually had never inter conducted an interview before I sat down with her a little over a year ago now um and I was I was really anxious I mean it like luckily a few I mean a few things first it was more akin to a conversation than an interview which was really helpful for me personally um but secondly I think you know she has a reputation of being extremely you know kind of you know controlling and like wants to control the conversation things like that um you know there's there's a lot of stuff in the media about that and I had read all those things and I had you know watched um and listened to a lot of interviews that she'd given um and I was I was really nervous for a lot of reasons and I mean I mean I'm really grateful for the fact that she was incredibly kind generous warm very easy to talk to there was nothing there were no ground rules there wasn't anything like you know you can't ask about this and you know when I very first started asking those you know questions I I again I had the impression that she didn't want to go back to the early days you know the early 90s you know when she's writing Harry Potter and um you know she had eluded in her um in the an essay that she wrote in June of 2020 um to her history as a survivor driver of domestic abuse and she hadn't really given details about those things and and again I just got the impression that she didn't want to talk about them and but almost immediately I think I got maybe half a question out and she just completely opened up and and you know I think it just spoke to the fact that she was really ready to talk about all those things um and so yeah I I feel like I got I got very lucky I mean she she just was a very easy person to talk to and and very warm and open with me for sure having spent a good bit of time with it was it nine hours in total yeah so a large chunk of time more than any of us are going to spend with JK Rowling what have you come to believe about what's motivating her to take the stance that she is about this I mean I think there's a few things I mean there are moments in our Series where um she identifies specific things that that caused her to speak up one of them you know some of them are like the specifics of um the conflict run sex and gender you know um you know that she is concerned for um the fairness you know fairness of um in women's sports she's concerned about young people and specifically I mean particularly young females medically transitioning as minors um you know and so there are some very specific concerns that she has but I think one of the things that seemed to be a a big part of her decision to speak up was the way that other women were being shut down um and the fact that there was very little space um to be had in the public conversation um without women having to fear for their safety or their livelihoods um or even just like their public reputations um and so in other words it's the the no debate aspect of the conversation and since she has money she has influence she has um you know would she suffer has she suffered as a result of speaking up on these issues absolutely but it's it's suffering that she can withstand so she's I think she sees herself as you know she has the privilege if you will um to do that and so that you know I think she felt that she had to it's so hilarious to me and kind of tragic I suppose that as I was walking around Universal Studios LA in Harry Potter World a couple of years ago and it was just after JK Rowling had been popped for a lot of this stuff and as I was walking around I realized that there was expansions going on and there was live demonstrations and they were pretending to do Wizardry and all sorts of stuff and Organics are you going to Orlando there's a new ride that's opening up there in Harry Potter World over there and it made me realize that so much of the performative empathy and virtue signaling that you see especially from the capitalistic class that own these kinds of corporations that would quite happily change the display photo of their Twitter profile to a rainbow colored flag during pride month but won't shut down Harry Potter world because it makes them money and fundamentally this is the protection that JK Rowling is afforded not only because she is Rich so she has the sort of monetary resources herself to give herself security and and safety and not be able to be canceled quote unquote in that regard but all of these people need her all of these people need her to keep on signing the checks that say yep that's another Universal Studios Orlando ride that's been opened up this is part of the Harry Potter Canon someone some Harry Potter legal expert that she probably employs somewhere who's like this is within the prescribed rules or whatever it is and yeah it's it's a it kind of like it does satisfy me in some regards the fact that you're seeing a woman retain so much IP and so much power that she isn't regardless of what she's saying regardless of what you think about what she's saying it's really cool to see somebody who has who's unfuck-withable basically yeah I mean that that Concept in general is intriguing to me because it I mean you can kind of see it on both sides you can see it as like you said unfuck with a bull like because she has all this power very different kinds of Power a lot of different kinds of Power um and but I think a lot of people who are in that same situation those are all things that they can lose and the sense you know the idea of loss aversion right it's it's you know kind of central to to human beings you know we don't want to lose the status and the influence and the power that we have and so even people that you might consider you know they they might be unfuckwithable maybe but they're not really willing because they're not willing to lose that they're not willingness so much higher up the mountain is further to fall right exactly exactly and so it was that's it is an interesting aspect of this story for sure because you know and asking her about that and specifically what was it that made her take that stand and you can hear it I mean in in the story that we tell and we go back and you hear that she you know suffered in a lot of ways that a lot of women suffer you know a lot of women are victims of domestic violence a lot of women are are survivors of um sexual assault and things like that and so you can hear the ways in which her past and her history um influenced her decision to to speak up on those issues what does she think about people who say that she's ruined her Legacy with the stance that she's taken well this was something it was it was a line that really stood out to us you know she said um you know you basically you don't understand me and you never understood me because I do she said I do not walk around my house thinking about my legacy whatever I'll be dead I care about now I care about the living so she's not thinking about those things um she's thinking about how are women and girls being affected and children being affected by these um these ideas in the here and now and and what responsibility does she have um to to speak up about it has she got personal security concerns oh definitely yeah I mean I think I think that's been a consistent um thing for her since Harry Potter became huge but it's definitely um been also um you know the last few years it's been particularly bad I that was my impression I should say yeah the one of the most interesting things that I learned was this um you could almost say it's a a full circle that's occurred there was a landmark case of Harry Potter books being removed from being out front in a library and they were kept behind the librarian's desk for children who were of the right age to read them but they had to get parental consent to go and read them then there was a basically like a freedom of speech request that was made and this particular case was one which meant that children were allowed to access books that were of the age that was appropriate for them and even if you were worried that they were being indoctrinated into the the occult it had to be upfront and they were allowed to read it and the parents didn't they didn't need to jump through all of these extra Hoops however it seems like full circle looking at some of the concerns that the right now has around LGBT books being placed in children's libraries that some of the same legislation the tangentials similar parallels can be drawn between what was happening with Harry Potter books being permitted that is now permitting LGBT books to be in children's libraries there's an odd odd sort of uh horseshoe going on there yeah it was it was really interesting um you know we interviewed these uh lawyers who on both sides of that case um both the lawyer who was arguing against those um you know against those restrictions and the lawyer who is arguing for it for them um and it was really fascinating to hear them describe how that you know Harry Potter those Harry Potter cases you know part of the legacy of those cases was that they were now protecting LGBT books especially obviously in this current moment it it seems a little bit ironic yeah it's strange so you spent some time with historians and internet historians as well what what did you learn there um we we were you know part of the story that we were trying to tell is kind of how how the internet became this you know kind of much more judgmental cruel place because you know and I also interviewed a lot of people you know those interviews didn't all make it into the series um because we we did so many of them and you know many of them were incredibly fascinating and but one of the things that I think was very sad to me as I was kind of going through all of this is is how the kind of Internet that existed you know in the 2000s um and that was a place I mean like it was for me I was again essentially a member of a of a cult I had been born and raised into this environment that was very um you know we saw is this very Us Versus Them environment we saw Outsiders as evil and they were hell-bound and I couldn't trust them and I was able to form these communities on on Twitter and I'm my experience was typical I think of a lot of people who did not have those kind of um you know weren't able to make those kind of Connections in their physical space um and it's kind of very sad to see the way that the internet has changed um over the past especially the last decade or so um so we went through in episode three of our series um to kind of track how those changes took place over time um and and essentially we ended up talking about these two we zeroed in on these two um forums um fourchan on on the one hand and then Tumblr on the other and and what you see I mean Angela Nagel is one of the women um you know she's one of the internet historians I spoke with um and she was basically she used those two as exemplars um you know 4chan is more male um more right-leaning more kind of you know chaos um and then Tumblr like um leans more female you know both young um and and kind of I don't know if virtue signaling is quite the right term there but it's kind of like very you know trigger warnings and safe spaces and things like that like we're we're um kind of ascendant there um and you're seeing the the interplay Within These communities and then also between them um you know it's part of uh it partly explains how those things came to be um if that makes sense what role do both of these play in the story of how we get here um so with Tumblr like that was really the one that JK Rowling described as being something that she um she was very interest and she said she was very interested in the use of the word identify and Tumblr was a place where people could go and play with identity um and you know as I said you know they this whole kind of sensitivity culture where you know you're trying to be very careful in the way that you talk to and about um you know yourself and other people you can play around with identity so this is where you know like I think it was like 70 some different genders or something um and you know for a lot of people we didn't see a lot of those things until it became like a news a news clip right talking about the way that Facebook was was um uh having those things so it became this this news clip right Facebook is introducing you know 70 some gender identities and you could you could you know choose whatever you um and so but but again there were many aspects of Tumblr like I think one of the one of the big ones too was there was this blog called um or this account called your fave is problematic and it's kind of it embodies and exemplifies this this trend that I think again really took hold about a decade ago and it's essentially you're showing your righteousness by pointing out others unrighteousness so um somebody you know they're they're digging through your old tweets they're looking at all of um all of your behavior like trying to find the thing that shows that you are a bad person and because I you know I I can identify those things that makes me a good person um and so you know this there there's it's so funny because like as I'm describing some of these phenomena like this was absolutely representative of my experience at Westborough we were constantly scouring during the news and the media like looking for things that we that that show that other people were bad and wrong and going to hell and it we saw it as our duty like this was this was again a way to show that we were on the right side um and so I I don't you know see any of these things as you know I'm not trying to like condemn people for engaging these kinds of behaviors I think I I understand and and can see where it's coming from and even that it's coming from an attempt to you know be a good person yourself um and yet in the prosecution of those um of those ideas and and trying to tear down other people you know there's this amazing line from one of the contributors to the show Natalie Wynn where she says um you're you're trashing people but you feel like you're crusading and I think that's very much representative of of you know this aspect of of Internet culture that I think has made things so much uglier and certainly Less Pleasant that righteous retribution I think JK Rowling brings up as well that this is a central theme within some of the books that some of the most atrocious things that have been committed throughout all of human history have been done by people that were thinking that they were the good guys very interesting people actually do bad things in full knowledge of the fact that they're the baddies there's that um famous sketch from a British sketch show where it's two Nazis and they're talking to each other and they turn toward the end and they say hang on are we the bad guys and it's just that sort of they realize oh my God maybe we're on the other side and then they cast it off and then they realize it's not okay so and I think I mean to me that that is a very hopeful thing because when the the fact that it's like to my mind I mean I think it's it's unless you are a literal psychopath or sociopath most people like really think that they are doing the right thing and the fact that their intentions are good to me like I said is a hopeful thing because it means there's something that you can tap into like if you can help them you know reframe the situation or introduce you know the kind of complicating factors and you know alternate perspectives there's there's Hope for Change and Improvement how is it that One account on Tumblr and even Tumblr itself I don't know how many users were on that social media platform but I wasn't no one that I know was much that might be because I didn't have many girlfriends like when I was younger how can that be sufficiently influential as to move culture a decade later um so the way that it was described in the show by the but and it was the really interesting thing was you know as we as we were interviewing these people and all three of them all three of these internet historians were telling the exact same story which is you know these these kind of um Norms were taking hold on places like Tumblr um but it was when they migrated from Tumblr to Twitter which again another amazing line from Natalie Wynn in that show um she says Twitter is politics full stop and like so it is when you when when these Norms migrate to a place where there's a lot more users and a lot more you know people like influential people people in the media journalists politicians um that's when it really takes off and becomes kind of ascendant in culture much more broadly what's the role that Photon plays 4chan so the way that Angela Nagel described it she's essentially saying like when you have these two groups um so you have there's the interplay within the group right work that kind of like pushes people to double down and become more and more extreme within their group and then it becomes like um this feedback cycle between the groups so in seeing the extreme nature you know and and especially like so you have um extreme sensitivity on Tumblr and extreme anti-sensitivity on 4chan seeing the what is happening on the other site and and the extreme nature of it in your eyes um it causes you to think that I mean it helps you kind of pushes you into this idea that your political it helps persuade you that your political project is necessary is how she put it and so again being among all these people who are um confirming your values and then seeing what what's happening on the other site is is does that make sense it's like it's it creates like a recursive antagonistic feedback loop right exactly and then when you roll into it trolls who use pose law to basically ruin the entire game you know the number of trends that have come out of Fortune I'm actually friends with who was he no longer is but the only guy that was a public moderator a 4chan and um yeah he's got a few interesting stories Anna yeah it's just it's it's such a Hydra head to even try and get that to work one of the interesting things that I kept on thinking about and you touched on it with how many people became friends and probably got married because uh they bonded when they were kids or late adolescence over the Harry Potter books there's such a difference between whatever 25 years ago when the Harry Potter books came out and the internet was burgeoning and the story that we're talking about now which is much more familiar to everyone that's listening which is no longer about this sort of nostalgia for the internet of making friends but it's the internet of making enemies now and um again that trajectory which I think a lot of people who are you know Millennials will be able to feel because they would have remembered what life was like before then they would have remembered what life was like maybe during the you could call it the brief golden years of the internet and then the very quick pivot into whatever the world is that we're in now yeah it's defining it's like we used to define ourselves by what we were for and now on the internet we are defining ourselves by what we are against and I think that's Again part of the interplay between seeing you know each each side seeing what's happening on the other on the other platforms you've got this great quote the language of public life has lost the character of generosity so yes um that's actually it's not my quote I should say that's my um one of my favorite authors Marilyn Robinson um and I just I was reading something um something of hers and when I saw that quote I was like that is it's the understatement of the century but it is that the loss of the ability to recognize that other people are human beings who are also on a journey like we recognize that about ourselves that you know our we kind of are able to recognize that you know we are not who we were yesterday and the ways that we screwed up in the past you know we can we can learn better we can do better we feel that hope for ourselves um but again that the language of public life has lost a character of generosity like we we feel like we have to judge people you know based on who they are right now and the sense that that there is no hope for them and you know that like that again to me that that loss is um we've lost something real and valuable and good you know the the epigraph of my book is this line from The Great Gatsby that um goes reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope and to me that is just the encapsulation of this idea of Grace right that the willingness to see other people as being on a journey and that there there's hope for them to grow and change we have that same hope for ourselves and and that we can contribute to their lives and their understanding of the world in a way that that could actually um help them so again the loss of that generosity I think is part of what leads to this like incredibly judgmental condemnatory um mindset that I recognize so well from my upbringing continuing to track the journey or the the um propagation I suppose of this this world view it seems like the impositions on language have really been a flash point for a lot of this stuff that that moment when language began uh there were proposals to change it the accusations that it was being perverted or it was being miscarried that seems to have been something that why do you think that it why is why is language being such a important Ground Zero for this conversation do you mean specifically in Sex and gender yes because we're because it's representing like what how how we see reality right like that's that's the whole point like can we talk in a way can we communicate in a way that we can I mean so this is why like just imagine for a second like I think we've all seen the video clips of politicians who are fighting over the idea like whether whether men can get pregnant and when these people are having these public battles you know and you know you have the generally it is the Republicans who are saying men cannot get pregnant and then you have you know some um somebody generally a Democrat saying men can definitely get pregnant nobody in this conversation I think nobody's confused about whether like that it is females who are getting pregnant but the Battle Is Over The Language right and like what we are willing to say whether we're willing to make these changes and make these accommodations for this very small minority of people um and for some people like again it feels like so much is at stake on both sides they think we are being asked to change or to alter our understanding and our ability to talk about reality like that's that's almost excuse me that's almost exactly what rolling you know is saying in episode seven when we talk about that this question um and and then on the other side again it feels like I'm trying to think what like because maybe a succinct way of putting it is like one side thinks this is such a small change that we're asking and it's not it's not that like why is this a problem why can't you just alter this and accommodate these people um it is just the kind and right thing to do and the other side is saying we have to be able to talk about reality we have to be able to say clearly what is happening you know and and we shouldn't alter we shouldn't have to alter um what we how we understand the truth and reality and so yeah it it's it's like it's a very kind of frustrating place to be I think for people because one side is saying it's not that big of a deal just you know like you think about it like think about like um misgendering or something like like misgendering is not that big of a deal like why why do you take this as such a huge thing and they're asking it's not that big of a thing why can't you just do it do you understand so like they both are kind of like minimizing the the negativity like experience by the other side um and that's again it's a very it's a very hard place to be this has been propagated a lot by journalists both traditional media and New Media as well what did the journalists that you spoke to contribute to this discussion what did they have to say about why this had taken hold so much um I mean I think one of my really um most interesting conversations I had was with his journalist Michelle Goldberg who's been covering this for a long time I mean more than a decade I think at this point um and you know the way that she described was essentially that again everybody everybody can go both sides both the you know trans people and you know the quote unquote turfs right like JK Rowling um you know feel very embattled these are people um who who feel like so much is at stake right um and and again when that is the case like it's very hard for people to let go of their pain long enough to hear what the other side is experiencing um and because I think a lot of people have opted out of the conversation um because of how toxic it is um what you're left with is kind of the people who feel the strongest on both sides um and who have taken kind of the hardest lines in the most extreme positions um that like those are the people who those are the voices that you hear and again that feedback cycle is incredibly destructive it feedback feedback in a very strange way as well that if there is an increasing sensitivity on both sides to anybody who seems to see ground to the other as being accused of being whatever or whatever that causes fewer and fewer people who aren't 100 absolutely Ardent about their view to wade into the topic Because unless you're unbelievably compelled to do it why would you bother to step foot into this absolute Cesspool which creates an incentive to push this out only to the absolute edges it's only the people who are the most ardently for or the most aren't your games that are going to step into this conversation because get if you think that the moderate person is going to do it because they're just going to get caught in a ton of Crossfire yeah no exactly and that it is that exact that's absolutely part of the dynamic that led me to write that letter to JK Rowling like there there has to be a way of articulating these things and and talking to people and hearing what they actually believe and again not the most extreme versions of all these positions because that's you know you essentially get strong strawman just over and over again um and and yeah that you we you hear so many people articulate that exact thing why would I step into this when the stakes are very high it doesn't seem like it affects me personally and and there's there is no upside here there is no upside is it that's that's a good an interesting question why has this become such a huge issue that is uh spread across corporations news commentators reactionary Talking Heads all of that stuff when it's only an issue that affects if we do one percent of the population something like that it's a very small number of people compared with this huge huge amount of attention that's being given to it what's going on I mean I think it's it's because it's become a moral flash point like it is a discerner like are you on the right side or are you on the wrong side um and when I think when that is the case and especially you know one of the um one of the things that's come up a lot is essentially with LGBT rights you know when same-sex marriage was one in in this country um you know it's like all these organizations essentially you know that were that were existing to um try to ensure that that we we got that right one in this country um they still exist and it like LGBT so the T part of it right like the trans rights essentially was like then the next frontier people saw it as the next Frontier like this is just this kind of besieged minority and we need to take care of these people um and so I think because people saw that as the natural extensions it's the next uh battle um you know it it it's it has become the flashpoint is the trans Rights Movement any different to the gay rights movement well that's I mean this is what people are having these kind of major battles over at this point because there are people who say no absolutely not it is the same the same kind of persecution the same kinds of arguments are being made against trans people as were made against gay people and and bisexual people um and but then you have people on the other side who are saying No this is actually fundamentally different and in fact this was actually one of the complicating factors um that ultimately led me to um you know take on this project because you know I'm also not immune to the kind of um the fear you know I mean ultimately um when I first went down this path my my friend Andy Mills was the one who um who called me with this idea for this show a couple years ago and you know I was really interested I immediately started you know researching um and you know sending all these things like oh my gosh you have to include this in the show it's it's really fascinating um and then when he asked me to um to host uh I definitely I took a while before I said yes um and I spent that talking to to trans people and two um but also I mean to gay and lesbian people um and it was really fascinating to hear them describe um I should say not not all of them but they were they were describing an element of homophobia in the trans Rights Movement which is essentially if you are same-sex attracted um if you are a lesbian and you are um excluding trans women from your dating pool then you are transphobic and that there there's something wrong with you um and you know hearing these kinds of things from gay and lesbian people in my life and hearing kind of this um anguish I would say you know essentially saying they had fought people like my family me and my family for a very long time um you know who had been telling them there's something wrong with you for being same-sex attracted and now they were getting it you know very similar um kinds of criticism from the progressive left and it was wrong with you being same-sex attracted there's still something wrong with you being same-sex attracted yeah it's what's a genital fetishists typical fetishes exactly I mean and it's you know obviously like not all trans people feel that way or or try to you know take those positions but there are you know some who who are but again that's what was so fascinating like the series is you know we have seven episodes it's it's you know essentially you know about seven hours of material um there was so much more there are so many like it is one of the most fascinating incredibly Rich topics and the fact that so many people opt out the conversation because of um oh and I I'm not I don't just mean this from like from a curiosity perspective I mean like real people's real lives are affected by by the answers that we will eventually come to um you know in these conversations around sex and gender um and and it's like yeah we I I'm still absolutely persuaded that we have to be able to have these conversations um as calmly and kindly and civilly as possible because again people do feel like so much is at stake so many um really important aspects of who they are and the way that they live their lives what did the clinicians have to say when it comes to clinicians there's a lot of different um you know kinds of opinions um about it well I think one thing though that is clear from everybody that I spoke to um and that includes people like Dr Mercy Bowers who's the head of wpath the world professional association for transgender Health um and you know essentially all of them agree that we do not have enough information there is not enough research um Dr Bowers told me that I think it was like 80 of the research that has been done with youth medical transition has been done in the past 10 years so it's very recent you know a lot of these professional associations in other countries like uh Sweden Norway Finland um the UK actually just in the past few days um you know have really pulled back um some of these treatments things like puberty blockers and now they essentially are not going to be using them outside of research contexts so a lot is changing um but I think the kinds of you know concerns that a lot of people had including JK Rowling um you know they're not completely unfounded absolutely not um did you read time to think by Hannah Barnes I I've read part of it yes and I've seen a lot of her and and everything that she talks about that is exactly the kind of thing that um that Rowling was worried about and I think a lot of people who are concerned about youth gender transition um I don't know if you've seen um you know Helen Lewis actually had a um I interviewed her in the series um she will actually be in the epilogue that'll be out um later this month um you know she she wrote a thing for the Atlantic a piece in the Atlantic um and essentially said neither the um you know the attempts to compel you know you know youth transition or to completely ban it neither of those things is the answer is essentially where she comes to um and I think it's a it's a really fascinating argument Hannah was on the show and for the people that didn't see it uh she basically present I couldn't believe how carefully she tried which I thought was very impressive it's super super gentle anything where she was out over her skis where there wasn't evidence she was she was pushing back against um but she basically said puberty blockers and that the book's called time to think because that's what puberty blockers were advertised as being that it just puts a pause pause on puberty you get rid of the blockers and then puberty will be re-begane and everything ends up being the same but it's an ironic title because it doesn't give you time to think and there is an unbelievably high percentage of children who go on puberty blockers who end up essentially on a set of train tracks that results in gender reassignment surgery in their late teens and you know there is an interesting question are these young children mentally disturbed because they're trans or are they trans because they're mentally Disturbed how many people that are suffering with autism spectrum disorder with obsessive-compulsive disorder with a number of other issues uh coping with them especially as a girl because it's the increase is rapidly rapidly occurring in F to M as opposed to M to f I'm now a girl I am being seen as a sexual object by my peers I wasn't previously my body's changing this is scary I don't know what's going on I have uh more than ever comparative uh views of what feminine femininity is supposed to be on the internet whether that be hypersexualized or whether that be like inverse or reverse mimises negative mimesis of being a tomboy and maybe I don't fit into this and maybe I've got autism spectrum disorders I'm already not very ladylike uh maybe I'm just a boy or maybe I just want to take time but that time to think isn't time to think it's time on a set of train tracks that ends up with you getting into transitioning and um yeah it's it's pretty scary and you know I'm UK anymore but the gender identity thingy service at the Tavistock Clinic yeah didn't do a good job yeah I mean that's Dr Erica Anderson who I also interviewed for the show you know each of these things it's a very individualized like we have to be able to look at and examine and have each of these you know young people um actually be examined and go through it I think what you call it um a bio psychosocial profiler I think that's what she called it um and places like you know what we're at the gender identity service at Tavistock um were overwhelmed essentially with patients and not really following those protocols um I think is is you know one of the one of the findings of the cast report so you know in the absence of those things well I mean I should say though too I interviewed this wonderful um trans boy named Noah who had Top surgery as a 16 year old um I interviewed uh him shortly after he turned 17 and um he's an incredibly smart emotionally intelligent like if you listen to that like you know he is somebody who really deeply like I I think one he definitely got care that was um much better than kind of what was described at the Tavistock um but also again just just an incredibly smart and emotionally intelligent like you know person who really wrestled with all of the you know potential consequences you know you know thought about like what if I eventually come to detransition um and when I asked him about that he basically said if I eventually you know decide to detransition I I will have lived to regret my transition like he basically was saying if he had not transitioned he would have committed suicide so you know it's it's it's an incredibly complicated um you know set of circumstances and I I really feel for the parents who are trying to figure out like what is what is the best way forward and it's an you also hear you know one of the criticisms we got from people on the show is um you know why didn't we talk to a d transitioner but then you also have you know people who wish we would have talked to somebody who was not allowed to transition as a minor who didn't have the kind of um you know a trans person who did not have the kind of support that Noah had from his parents um and essentially were forced to go through what they describe as the wrong puberty so you know a trans girl who was forced through male puberty because they didn't get treatment and now as an adult has to kind of undo all of those things and you know it's it's like I said it's it's a really complicated and and um it's a really complicated thing to try to figure out from a policy perspective like what is what is the right way what is the right thing to do and even more more complicated from a publishing perspective on how to say these things without putting your foot on some sort of tripwire for one side or the other ultimately I I think when it comes to the conversation which is you know there are a number of different layers to what you're talking about the the um history of where this has come from the implication for why it is happening the experience of the people that are going through it the consequences for society and for other groups are infected affected by the people who go through it the conversation and why that's become so polarized you know it doesn't matter how terminally online you are even if it's as much as me or you with regards to this kind of an issue there are so many unseen Holes in the Floor that you can just stick your foot through but you did spend a good bit of time on the show talking to critics of uh JK Rowling talking to activists from the LGBT movement etc etc what did you learn from spending time with them because I think at least as far as I can see a lot of people are very familiar with the pushback with the well-meaning pushback especially uh against these sorts of policies it is pretty self-evident why biological men invading women's spaces whether they be bathrooms or prisons or um psych wards or hospitals or whatever could cause complications downhill uh what were your eyes open to when you spoke to critics of JK Rowling well when I talk to no I mean Natalie and Noah are the two primary critics we actually featured in the show um because I really felt like their um their description their ability to I think um help people understand where they're coming from because you again online you get a lot of this kind of um very it seems like hyperbolic overstated um and you can really hear the pain you know frankly from from people like Natalie and Noah um they don't and again Noah especially he basically was saying he didn't want JK Rowling to not express her um her opinions her concerns over all the things that we just described the youth you know youth medical transition you know children transitioning too young before they have a real ability to um understand the permanent in many cases changes that they are making to their bodies um so it's not that they you know think that her they basically think that she's not engaging in good faith that's what that's what Natalie said um and then with Noah again basically saying the story that is told because she has such a massive platform and because she has been um you know the victim of this kind of again overstated kind of hyperbolic um um the threats and things that she has received have been highly publicized um and basically she was saying I mean um sorry basically Noah was saying that that those things are true and they're real but they essentially take the focus off of the fact that trans people people are highly marginalized they are often excluded from society they are treated like outcasts in many situations many people don't have again Noah's the support that Noah has from from his family from his parents you know you know as you know Natalie was saying these people are you know cast out by their families cast out by Society targeted by the government you know their their health care being um banned and and in some cases criminalized um that the fact that rolling essentially takes up so much air in that conversation um even though the things that are being said about her are true they are essentially giving the a view of something that is um of the situation that is false does that make sense because the because the scale is not is not fairly um does that make sense yeah it does I'm I'm thinking about how even within that even within JK Rowling's contribution to this conversation even that's multi-layered right so so uh her concern about uh some of the extreme and very dangerous uh implications of self-id of men and women's spaces biological men and women's spaces etc etc that captures a portion of the conversation which I'm going to guess that uh Contra points uh and and Noah um don't you know a biological man who hasn't gone through who doesn't have gender dysphoria who hasn't decided that they're going to try and make any effort to transition something tells me that neither of them would say yes to that too because that makes their own case for legitimate trans people weaker or at least it's not going to be you know first thing that they're going to charge out of the gates trying to get they're going to try and help people that they think are genuinely suffering and could do with some treatments that are going to assist them but because that's what JK Rowling has kind of captured as part of the conversation and then the backlash to JK Rowling which has been from the more militant part of the LGBT movement also captures and J AIDS both sides it Riles up the opposition and says see that I thought you were supposed to be for tolerance and inclusion you this is complete rank hypocrisy or evidently you evidently don't care about this thing and then that bad mouths the people on their own side because they think no no they don't represent us and yeah it's the ever escalating uh Echo chamber incentive causes people on both sides to misrepresent both their own and each other's and it's that sort of recursive antagonism that ever ever worsens and escalates yeah I mean and again this is exactly exactly the kind of situation that I was seeing when I wrote that letter to Rowling like there there just has to be a better way and I I really think that we you know you described all the landmines that it's very easy to step in completely unwittingly just based on the terminology that you use and so I mean it's it's it's really wild actually how much time we spent trying to get the language so that it is intelligible right because even for people like to say trans women a lot of people even you know like I would say like Lefty people that I know um you say trans women and they would say like oh is that a man who wants to be a woman or a woman who wants to be a man like I mean it is it is very hard to parse a lot of this language because sex and gender are so kind of central to our understanding of the world and so so yeah like trying to figure out exactly how to speak in such a way that you are intelligible um but also not showing that you are you know have your thumb on the scale for one side or the other it is it is quite and this is again one of the many reasons that many people opt out entirely did Contra points do that video with the same title before or after you spoke to them after yeah how do you feel about that video I mean I am really um I really wish um I could have talked to Natalie again because I really really like Natalie um I watched that video that she made the Witch Trials of JK Rowling um and I mean honestly for several weeks beforehand she was teasing that she was working on a video and I I was really um I was like oh God it's gonna be it's gonna be about us and I you know I mean I will say though like as I watched the video there was there were a lot of things that I was you know I'm really trying to you know follow um follow her argument and try to understand where she's coming from and and you know obviously I hate the fact that she regrets talking to us because I think we we really so many people see episode six that features her so heavily um like that was really challenging I think for a lot of people who thought they were just you know essentially unquestioningly on JK rowlingside um and the kind of um you know she just I think represented herself really really well in that conversation I mean it was really powerful um but when I was watching the video that she made after the fact um you know there were several things that really stuck out to me and I'll just like go into one of them maybe right now um she just was describing this um anti-gay activist named Anita Bryant in the video and what she said was Anita Bryant like she's basically attacking my you know my view that as I was saying earlier that that having civil conversation open dialogue with people who think differently than you like that is the way forward to my mind and I think it is the most effective way to change hearts and minds and find a way forward when we live in a pluralistic society so that's that's the idea of mine um that I think that she's attacking in this part of the video and one of the things that she said was JK role I'm sorry she said Anita Bryant didn't need to be persuaded she needed to be defeated and that really stuck with me because I was thinking like but what does that mean what does it mean for Anita Bryant to be defeated I mean I think what it means is that her for it's for her ideas to be defeated right and what does that mean it means that people are persuaded that her ideas are wrong so it still comes down to persuasion we still have to engage with these ideas particularly once as I was saying earlier particularly these ones that are so that that are so mainstream that so many people share and if we don't engage with those ideas I don't know how how will she win I guess is my question and the really interesting thing is that Natalie herself says this in the series realistically that is the trajectory like how you know same-sex marriage was one because gay people came after their family and friends and said you know we are not groomers we're not trying to like you know indoctrinate your children we're not trying to you know turn them gay like we're just people who happen to love people of the same sex so yeah it was one of the things for me watching Natalie's videos like I actually don't think that we are so much at odds when it comes to um exactly how in how to move forward from all of this I wonder whether or how much of that could have been uh silenced would have been like defeated is another way to have said that would have just been uh not given a platform at all um I don't know the the I I understand why she wasn't advocating that in the series though I mean or sorry she wasn't navigating that in the video though I just don't understand how you square the circle of allowing somebody to speak but also saying that it was wrong to let them speak like if defeated means ideas defeated but you can't hear the ideas how are you supposed to defeat them right I mean again in this in her video she was describing a lot of like particular things that um gay activist gay and lesbian activists did in the 70s and 80s um you know they put Anita Bryant's face on toilet paper and they made fun of her and they you know she kept going back to this moment where somebody smashed a banana cream pie into Anita Bryant's face during this like live TV interview or whatever and she keeps going to that moment going back to that moment and I'm just saying it's like she's saying that I like my position is never make fun of people never you know you should never you know show that you are angry disgusted I never said any of those things what I said was that I think that the most compelling the most effective way to create change is to engage to really engage with the ideas right civil conversation that makes where people feel like their ideas are being heard and addressed um again like this is something that completely changed the trajectory of my life and I was absolutely I was so hardcore I mean I I was raised in it from the age of five and in spite of myself and in spite of every intention that I had of you know preaching this this message and and certainly it might I was never going to change my mind about any of it um and in spite of all those things the power of civil conversation again changed the course of my life and it meant that I lost my family I mean I I left you know I left everything that I and everyone that I knew and loved as a result of those conversations um and I don't think that I am unique I think that when people when you when you engage with what they actually believe and actually um you know treat them like a human being it it I I don't think that the way that I responded was like I said I don't think that was unique I think I responded in a very human way to people who treated me like a human being I've got a quote from a friend here that says when punishment for what people say becomes widespread people stop saying what they really think and instead say whatever is needed to thrive in the social environment thus limits on speech become limits on sincerity and you know it's the reason that censorship doesn't work fundamentally that you don't actually change people's minds you just drive those opinions underground and yeah yeah it's got to the stage now where two things perhaps one being that we must win at any cost whichever side you are from suggests that if you can create an asymmetric Battlefield by censoring the other side whilst allowing yours that gives you a particular advantage and the other one being that there is sort of a generalized risk aversion at the moment anyway the three out of ten gen zedders support the installation of cameras inside the home to surveil for wrongdoing that just came out from the Cato Institute last week which again if you have got into a routine of giving up your privacy on the internet in return for access to Google or YouTube or whatever then what what really is the difference between doing that in the online world and doing that in real life it's not all that different right the lines begin to get blurred for the person that's been natively online since the age of whenever they can remember being alive so I wonder whether protecting people from Bad opinions protecting people from dangerous ideas which I'm sure both sides you know use during this discussion I wonder whether that contributes a little bit to you know the ideas should be defeated uh it's a strange one I I didn't realize that you didn't know that that video was going to come out until after you guys had spoken and all the rest of it that must have been yeah difficult yeah I mean I like I said I really like Natalie um and I think you know I've watched you know some of her videos and I mean I learned I mean her cancel culture video like she even described like this um Witch Hunt impulse and I I think there's a lot of things that she that she says but you know I I also recognize you know she she disavowed the series um even before the video like basically you know from the very before a single episode actually had had come out yeah before the video but also before you had released anything yes exactly presumably at that time all that was known about what you were going to publish was what you had spoken about during your conversation but did you during the conversation did you think like it had gone badly no I mean no I mean like it was it was quite long I mean like this was like I think it was like a right shortly before I I gave birth so I think I was there was a fever dream you're right yeah um but no I mean like like I said I I really like her I thought it was a really good conversation it was really interesting and um and and I was really I was really grateful and I mean I remain grateful because I think her Inc the the inclusion of her voice in the series um is such a um it is exactly the kind of thing that I think is is missing so much like it's a very thoughtful considered critique not again this kind of hyperbolic um very loud or threatening um and she wasn't you know attempt attempting to to shut down the conversation which I think even though she's disavowed it after it happened does that change your opinion at all um I it's really funny because like I I I'm I've really tried hard to understand where she's coming from and I think but I do think part of part of it is the dynamic that you just described and actually she described um in the series you know this this sense of a lot of trans people you know rely on other trans people for support and I think I think she saw that people in her community saw our show even or you know even before again even before a single episode had aired um as like they knew what the show was gonna say they were sure that it wasn't going to be you know what they what they wanted um and so it became a Target immediately and so I think you know maybe in part she was responding to to that I think in part she was probably responding to a in understandable misreading of the title but again I I really feel like I actually don't think we are that far off actually when you know even you know watching that video I I yeah I still really like her I still you know really disagree with some of the points that she made there but you know I I think again we live in a pluralistic society I'm very glad that she has the ability to describe her disagreement and then that I can respond it seems to me from the conversations I've heard with you previously and today and the show as well that you're doing an awful lot of work almost twisting yourself Inside Out In A desperate attempt to be as unbiased as you can to be able to play Both Sides to be able to do all of these things despite the fact that nobody everyone can agree on it's not that easy to step through this Minefield without triggering one of the tripwires on either side right so the amount of effort that you've had to go through I don't know the same with Hannah Barnes Hannah Barnes was like almost offensively delicate yeah with the way that she spoke when she came on the show it was outrageous how Softly She was treading we the evidence would suggest it seems that so and so on so I don't know I mean you know I spent enough time watching stuff on the internet to know when somebody has an ulterior motive and it doesn't seem to me like you all or her do and um especially given the background that you're coming from which is open and honest communication on the internet saved you and brought you into a life which you now very much appreciate and value um and imagine the kind of knots they taught I mean like Westborough by almost any view of what we were doing at the church you know people saw us as inhumanly cruel and just just absolutely monsters essentially and the people who took the time in spite of all of that sometimes I go back and look at old videos of myself and you should see the way I used to communicate uh I mean this is the kind of just the condescension and the arrogance and just the again horribly cruel things that I would say the fact that people were able to look past that and recognize that I was a human being who was the product of my upbringing um and their willingness to you know as you said tie themselves in knots to try to to try to show me that kind of Grace I mean like I I absolutely feel an obligation to to do that as much as possible the show could have been a a lot of different things but really I think what it is an attempt to do is to really understand where people are coming from in as good faith as possible because again unless people really feel heard and understood um I don't think the the willingness to listen is obviously a lot less um but then also like there's just you you have to be able to wrestle with the very best arguments on the other side um and if you're going to find a way forward and that's really what I I hope ultimately this is one step down that path how much backlash have you faced since it's come out um so um some but honestly much less than I anticipated like when we started this two years ago I I was pretty terrified that how that was gonna go um but I mean honestly Natalie's criticism is is the one that that like I think Hurts the Most um because like I said I I we really really tried to do um Justice to her position um and I I think we succeeded again based on based on the um the kind of responses we got from a lot of people um so it hasn't been that bad actually um and it's actually been pretty incredible to hear from a lot of people including a lot of trans people who who um who see the series as as a real attempt at being even-handed a real attempt at helping people understand each other um and I mean honestly like it's one of the earliest responses I got was from um an employee at a diversity Center who was like oh my God like we we need this conversation so badly like kind of essentially again seeing it I don't think we weren't trying to litigate the issues in this series I don't think I'm the person to do that I don't think I'm I don't think I'm qualified to do that um but again even even that like the willingness of people to listen to really hear the other side and to wrestle with the the best versions of their arguments instead of these Straw Men that seem to come up so much on social media um I don't know I I feel a lot of Hope a lot of Hope what do you think about what is a woman Matt Walsh's documentary because they released that on Twitter a couple weeks ago and I saw online that that is now potentially the most watched documentary in human history because of how much it got signal boosted in the space of four days which is insane uh but have you did you speak to anybody about that have you you know you're somebody that is absolutely knee-deep in this conversation doing something that's not like a ridiculously dissimilar finding out what's going on broadly asking questions although maybe with less of an agenda than uh Matt Walsh had what did you learn from people about that or what what have your Reflections been on how that contributes to the conversation um it's been a while since I saw it I mean there were definitely some moments I think some clips that that um were on this is like a year ago I honestly haven't been I was um um but yeah I mean I remember um I remember seeing those clips about a year ago I think actually when I was flying home from that first set of interviews with JK Rowling um and you know it I think so it's really interesting for you know he's asking them to articulate the world view and in some ways some of it seems like it can be pretty incomprehensible for especially for the uninitiated I think and you know you can win cheap points that way but I think again for me you know we could have done something like that we could have but the point isn't to make it harder to understand it's again to present the very best versions of their of their arguments and what they're trying to achieve and and how they understand the world and make that comprehensible to the other side if you're only talking to people who already agree with you there will be no progress and so I I mean I just I understand where he was coming from I do think he was mostly talking to his own side um and you know again I I understand I think why he would do something like that but I it's not the kind of thing that I want to engage in because I I really do aim for Mutual comprehension instead of mutual antagonism what do you think the future of this discussion has in store you might not have a crystal ball and Divinity is apparently some form of a cult witchcraft in any case um but yeah what do you think is going to happen does the volume get turned up get get turned down I think it's I I like I said I I do feel a lot of hope I think I mean even over the past few months there's been quite a bit of change there's I think more I mean I don't think it's going to be like a straightforward trajectory where everything suddenly gets better and people are able to understand each other and and are you know suddenly you know willing and able to talk to each other but I I do see already a change in the public conversation and the ability to say more honestly what you actually think I think fewer people are opting out I still think it's probably too many um are self-censoring but I I do hear more people willing to ask the questions in good faith um and to really try to engage um and again for me that represents hope because that's I do believe that that is the way forward have you spoken to JK since the series came up um I actually have not but I'm I will be interested to hear what she thinks I I do know that she hates the sound of her own voice so I don't know she might have skipped all of the episodes yeah yeah we'll see Megan Phelps are open ladies and gentlemen I really appreciate the work that you've done it's been an incredibly effortful task to do and probably one that largely carried an awful lot of personal risk so I very much appreciate the fact that you decided to step into this if people want to keep up to date and check out my stuff where should they go and when's the epilogue out I think the epilogue should be out in a couple of weeks um it's taken a little longer than than I expected because I did finally take maternity leave after my my baby was born which is nice um but yeah I don't know keep up with me um I'm on Twitter I I I've actually been what do I even say what do I say Chris I'm on Twitter at Megan Phelps and on Instagram at Megan Marie what's happening people thank you very much for tuning in if you enjoyed that episode then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks and don't forget to subscribe peace