00:02:44.420Wait, actually, Ashley, do you want to read this?
00:02:47.040I feel immense guilt for my role, and even more guilt that the things I have said in the past may have caused my son's sister more pain.
00:02:53.900I don't really know how to make amends for many of these things, but I have been trying incredibly hard privately to learn and advocate for those within the trans community that I've hurt.
00:03:02.380I also haven't said much on this because I have gone back and forth over whether or not my voice would be helpful on the issue, since it will be framed as disingenuous or just turning because I'm scorned.
00:03:12.920Even this reply will become right-wing hysteria, but yeah, I am sorry. Let me know how I can help.
00:03:19.360Today, we'll interrogate all of this together. I could not have imagined saying this one year ago, but welcome to the show, Ashley St. Clair.
00:03:30.860And to help us do this today, I'm also so excited to be joined by the one and only June, who you might know as Juniper or Onion Person or at Can't Ever Die or Pudding Person or any of the online names she's used to avoid Elon's continuous attempt to ban her from his website.
00:03:50.500On her Wikipedia page, she is labeled as being known for Twitter shitposting, which is absolutely
00:03:57.820awesome. But she is also the host of the Kill the Computer podcast and the Ill-Conceived podcast.
00:04:05.120And she was the person that Ashley was writing to in that apology that Ashley just read to you.
00:04:13.460Thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.
00:04:16.840I think first and foremost, before we get into anything, I think both of us have like a little bit of like preface questions for you, Ashley.
00:04:25.260Yeah, so I think I think to start because I didn't expect to be here talking to you at all this having this conversation. Why are you here right now? Like what what brought you here?
00:04:35.000Because when I saw your reply, I wanted to answer it honestly. It is something that I hadn't addressed. And I meant every word in my reply that I had been wanting to address it. But I didn't want it to become the right wing hysteria that it has been. And I was very aware that it would lead to a litany of other issues, which it obviously had. And that's why I'm here, because it was on my heart and I wanted to get it off.
00:05:02.700You read your response to my question, which was about your previous bigotry against trans people.
00:05:10.880I think that was like a pretty brave thing to do.
00:05:15.720You knew that all these people would swarm in.
00:05:18.180And I saw that it was like very heartfelt and very reflective that you had sort of thought about this for a while, that you sort of observed some past behaviors and sort of reconvened.
00:05:55.160And I was well aware that this would not be advantageous to me whatsoever.
00:05:58.640But I also think becoming a mother, I've just, I've really wanted to take public accountability for anything that I feel I've done that's unempathetic or wrong or what role I played in it. And there's certainly a lot more eyeballs on me, whether I like it or not. And I feel like an immense obligation to use that responsibly and show some humility. So that's why I'm here.
00:06:24.900I think this episode is important to make because ultimately, I want to believe that people can change. If I didn't believe that, then what's the point of any of this? And I want to give people space to reflect and grow and maybe see themselves in you.
00:06:41.460And at the same time, many of the listeners of the show are queer. And the turn that this country has taken on queer issues over the last few years is not a thought exercise for us, especially those of us who live in red states, especially those of us who are kids who don't have like legal autonomy. It's a lived experience with consequences. And those listeners are going to have varied reactions to what you say. And I hope that you understand that. And I think that you do.
00:07:08.680And that's totally understandable. And I don't blame anyone. I'm not going to get upset if people have some vitriolic reaction towards what I'm saying right now. That's understandable. And I get it.
00:07:22.600Matt, you and I, if I had to guess, this is the first time we're talking, but I think you and I are both optimists in a sense that we assume that if people see the harm that they cause people, which let's be real, a lot of conservatives, including you in the past, have caused a lot of damage to people that there is like that room to reflect.
00:07:41.500And I'm curious, I don't remember where you said this, but you said that you want to see
00:07:46.120a kinder world for your kid than you saw the world becoming.
00:07:51.940What was the moment that it clicked in your mind that you were like, oh my God, what I
00:07:57.120am doing is contributing to this hate tsunami?
00:08:03.280There wasn't really a specific moment.
00:08:05.100It was just, I think, cumulatively seeing so much vitriol and seeing people within my own life who were being impacted by that.
00:08:14.400And I know, you know, people can be upset by sometimes it's like, well, I had to experience it to feel that empathy.
00:08:20.840But that's unfortunately how it is sometimes.
00:08:24.100And I just I was thinking about my children's reactions to some of these things.
00:08:28.920And if they ever spoke the way that I had spoken in the past, I would be so disappointed in them.
00:08:35.480And especially when I got off of the Internet and people would resurface old tweets of mine or, you know, post quotes from me, I really would read them like with a disassociation because I was like, that's not who I am.
00:08:50.560Like, I can't believe I said those things.
00:13:57.160I don't think it's funny. I really like I know that it's caused harm, but also it's like I'm laughing at my own psychosis that that is the reality that I posted it hundreds of times. But as you can imagine, that that also wasn't very original language.
00:14:16.500So this is actually what I wrote in my notes here that there are so many people who post that sort of content online. It's it's very cruel and it's also incredible for engagement. Did you feel passionately that these people you were posting about and you know we're making fun of like that they deserved the things that you and your followers were saying to them or did you just enjoy like the engagement and attention like take me into the mind of 19 year old Ashley.
00:14:43.240Most of the time when you post a video of some random person at a protest, you're completely disconnected from the personal affect on that individual. I don't know what the affect was on any of the individuals I posted, and that I feel immense guilt over.
00:15:01.400You're completely disconnected. It's just this content machine where you're pointing out
00:15:06.920things that at the time seem absurd and you're very swept up in this machine that makes things
00:15:15.740appear more radical than they are. And so I think that's what it was. I was also very,
00:15:22.760when you're being fed that content, that's your reality. And then when you see that content,
00:15:27.320You're like, oh, my God, it's true. Everything they said is true. You know, this is the way the world is. It's so crazy. And everyone's losing their minds. And we have to stop the radical left. And it's very much this pathology that kind of distorts your own perception of reality, I would say.
00:15:45.820so at the time you would post like I don't know a video of like a flamboyant gay person or or0.83
00:15:53.020what like whatever it might be that the right those days was was melting down about I guess
00:15:58.340I'm just curious because whenever I interact with like most people or just anyone even if it's
00:16:03.860someone that's like politically opposed to me I want to like consider like how they feel just the
00:16:10.020average person you know like we might disagree on some things I guess what I'm curious of is like
00:16:14.220it never crossed your mind for years that you might be harassing or personally harming or
00:16:21.360putting people down in a way that was not helpful? No. And that's something that I had to really
00:16:28.300reflect on for quite some time and recognize that there were so many individuals along the way that
00:16:34.180I hurt. You're within a movement that also frames it as this is evil. They want to corrupt the
00:16:41.320children look there's one person being uh particularly provocative in front of children0.60
00:16:47.780at a pride parade and that's used to characterize everyone under one flag and that to me when you're
00:16:55.820in it i i perpetuated a lot of harm with that and you don't realize it sometimes until you're out
00:17:03.220i guess one thing off of that sorry this might be jumping ahead of your uh outline a little bit
00:17:39.480The one that in particular I cannot understand, are people on the right, especially in these radicalized spaces, do they really care about the word cisgender? Does that actually bother them?
00:17:53.440Yes, they believe it's a slur. And I've repeated at that at times. To me, it was also realizing that there was this hyper fixation on the trans community. And they're always using it under the guise of we care about women and children. And at no other point in any of their other platforms, do they ever care about women and children. In fact, they're incredibly oppressive to women and children.
00:18:17.080So when you do realize that, and you are a woman who has children, you're like, oh, wow, you guys, this is incredibly performative. And you're scapegoating one of the smallest minorities in the entire country to make something a national issue that is not an issue at all.
00:18:38.240actually uh like i said i was going through some of your tweets and and i have to point out
00:18:44.180not entirely on a lighter note but like i said there were so many deranged liberal tweets there's
00:18:49.640this one from july 29th 2019 it's a selfie of you sorry i know you're cringing if you're someone's
00:18:56.000not watching the the video version of this podcast but it is kind of funny you are it's a plain
00:19:00.720selfie uh you're wearing a maga hat you're you're beat you're beat with like real republican makeup
00:19:06.440like this you were in it sister can you tell i've changed my ways and my makeup is better okay
00:19:12.360your makeup is better your makeup is better you're sitting on this plane wearing the maga hat
00:19:18.120and you caption the selfie wore my maga hat on the plane and made it out alive a true accomplishment
00:19:24.480in the world of deranged liberals i wanted to be oppressed so bad well apparently because a few
00:19:30.540months later you are it's a tick tock and you seem to be in a room against a blank wall wearing
00:19:36.760a maga sweatshirt and holding a photo of a stylized portrait of donald trump how did you
00:19:42.240find this i thought that was good baby you gotta you gotta clear your twitter out it says the tick
00:19:48.300tock liberals are mad about this one laughing face american flag emoji and uh also in a similar
00:19:54.560time frame it seemed that you were on a boat a boat tour going around manhattan waving a huge
00:20:00.500Trump 2020 flag from the boat, captioned on a Trump boat driving by NYC with flags
00:20:07.000sure to piss off all the Manhattan liberals. The rioters will have to swim pretty fast to
00:20:13.840catch us laughing face. And anyone listening to this, regardless of whether they've seen
00:20:18.100your specific tweets, they can recognize this content because there's so much of just like
00:20:22.880trigger liberals content. And it seems devoid in and of itself of any particular ideology
00:20:30.420other than wanting to make other people mad.
00:20:33.200Was that something that you like woke up
00:29:01.840Well, I mentioned that because this ecosystem of right wing media has a penchant for young, traditionally attractive right wing women.1.00
00:29:11.760it's also very dominated by white men i don't know like what was the gender dynamic there0.53
00:29:17.960that was one thing that i was privy to very early on that it was very much a good old boys club
00:29:23.700and there were a lot of young girls that i kind of tried to guide and tell them hey you know you're
00:29:31.200in this we're in the good fight but you're in you're in a man's world and you need to be careful
00:29:37.040and you need to just keep your head on a swivel because they'll they'll eat you whole and that was
00:29:44.420that was one of the things that i was always aware of very early on because i very quickly was in the
00:29:51.740room with prominent individuals and the the dynamics i saw in which women were abused or
00:29:58.060they were assaulted and they couldn't speak up because this was you know like the anti me too
00:30:04.920party. And I was someone who had been a victim of sexual assault. So I had been viewing it through
00:30:12.480that lens as well. And I was always really uncomfortable with it. But you're kind of,
00:30:18.580you're convinced out of it. You're convinced out of what your lived reality is. And that your lived
00:30:24.900experience isn't important. What's important is the facts. What's important is the economy.
00:30:29.360And we can't be derailed by this woman's measly experience and put it aside and compartmentalize it. I think that played a big role as well, especially when I had my first son and I'm labeled the single mom as a slur. That played an immense role as well.0.88
00:30:49.200I've watched other interviews you've done. You know, you said that when you started doing conservative activism, you advocated against, for example, like most conservatives do social programs, mainly for the poor, like Medicaid, while you were still on your dad's health care plan. And I think a theme that someone could identify through a lot of your politics and then this arc that you would eventually go on is that, you know, you you didn't really care about certain issues until they showed up at your doorstep.
00:31:17.300That would be accurate in a lot of regard.
00:31:21.680I was going to say in some regard, but in a lot of regard, I also, however, not but,
00:31:26.480but however, I think that's unfortunately how it is for a lot of people, right?
00:31:30.680We see this with Renee Good, and there were a lot of people who didn't necessarily see
00:31:36.120the brutality of ICE until it was an American citizen, and they could see themselves in
00:31:41.700Renee Good's position, and it sucks that that's the way it is.
00:31:46.280And I'm trying very hard to move past that and say, why didn't I see those issues until it impacted me? And I'm sorry for that. What I can say is I do consider myself to be an empathetic person and that I'm trying really hard to understand what I missed before and why I disregarded a lot of those things.
00:32:09.260And I will also say that if I was only self-interested, you wouldn't be hearing from me right now.
00:32:14.780I have taken a lot of arrows in the last year because I have recognized that I couldn't sell my soul because that would prevent me from helping a lot of people outside of myself.
00:32:32.760uh if I just wanted to help myself I'd be very materially comfortable and I wouldn't be speaking
00:32:39.640to you right now and and that's a story that hopefully I can tell at a later time but I want
00:32:45.320everyone to know that at least in my actions I'm trying very hard to make amends and I can't
00:32:51.320discuss that story in its entirety but I've done that because I recognize the broader harm of me
00:32:57.640staying silent and taking certain opportunities that were offered to me.
00:33:03.000For those who don't know, and Ashley can't speak about this in her own words right now because
00:33:07.820she's still in this ongoing custody battle with Elon Musk for her child, but it was pretty well
00:33:13.720documented in a long-form Wall Street Journal essay that Elon, essentially with all of the
00:33:19.460women in his life, uses money as sort of a cudgel for abuse and for people around him to behave in
00:33:27.240way that he likes. And that's advantageous for him. I think a lot of wealthy people do that
00:33:31.360to a certain extent with the people in their life. But you can imagine the richest man in the world
00:33:35.620to the greatest extent. And so, Ashley, when you say, and I know you can't comment on those
00:33:40.280things directly, but, you know, a lot of people I would imagine are going to comment on this
00:33:46.280episode as they have on other tweets that you've made about how, oh, well, she, you know, she was
00:33:51.900kind of ousted from the right because she ended up becoming a single mother and they turned on her.
00:33:56.640and so now she's trying to grift to the left the funny thing about grifting to the left
00:34:01.240is that not a lot of it's not a lot of money in it let me be let me be very clear too i ousted
00:34:09.520myself from the right i was very aware of the consequences of being honest i knew i would be
00:34:17.340in a place where i was maybe in the place i've been most comfortable my whole life being a nomad
00:34:21.820and, you know, finding comfort in that spot.
00:34:26.440This is all to say, like, I believe you.
00:34:29.220And you could be a very convincing talker,
00:34:31.500but you have made a series of decisions
00:34:33.620that lead me to believe that your intentions are good.
00:34:37.660I mean, again, I can't speak to the entirety
00:34:47.880And I was very aware that it wouldn't be.
00:34:53.820And I think just for myself, too, just to be very honest, because back and forth leading up to this interview, you know, we've talked a little bit in the back of my mind.
00:35:04.100I'm like, what if like, you know, what if the intentions are bad?
00:35:07.380What if this is like a like an infiltration or I, you know, I don't know.
00:35:11.480I kept going back and forth but it was it was one of those things where it's like it would be so
00:35:16.280much easier if there was any sort of bad intentions to just sort of sit down and sort of be in that
00:35:21.560sphere still and just sort of not talk you know it also hurts me that you even have to consider that
00:35:27.060and I did to be completely honest I did at first not like personally but like in terms of like my
00:35:33.160broader impact of things that i've done like it just hurts me that um anybody has to feel on edge
00:35:41.680when they receive an apology or like and i contributed to that and like i am so sorry
00:35:49.520it's okay and like i said i i do believe your intentions are are good as well it was just that
00:35:55.020at first i was like oh i know and that's a lot of people are gonna feel that way and again like i
00:36:02.800It's a common story that you, of course, touched on here is that like, you don't understand or sort of switch your perspective on things until it happens to you.
00:36:13.900Because like, from my perspective, for some context, I have been super politically minded and active since I was in high school.
00:36:21.100From a fairly early age, I realized I was bisexual.
00:36:24.120And then shortly after that, I realized I was trans.
00:36:26.640So in the back of my mind, I was always like, and this was before gay marriage was legalized.0.99
00:36:30.660This was when Fox News was was bringing on pastors being like, the Bible says you can't have it's it's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, you know, the classic bullshit.0.97
00:36:42.780So, like, I saw this world around me and, you know, I tried to be being the good politically minded person that I am, the addicted.0.97
00:36:51.440You could you could call me addicted to politics in a sense.
00:36:54.160But like, you know, I would argue I would I would talk to people I disagree with.
00:36:57.420And it's very rare that that would change their minds. What would, of course, change people's minds is having something happen to them. I guess my question is, was there ever like when someone would talk to you, because I'm assuming you had a lot of these conversations, someone would be like, you know, these politics that you support, these politics that you're talking about right now are materially harmful to people in my life, maybe even myself.
00:37:22.840Did that ever like, like it's something in the back of your head ever like twitch?
00:37:27.300Were you ever like, or did you just sort of like, you were in that ecosystem, you were
00:37:31.440in that sphere, you were sort of like, you know, it's, that's not important.
00:37:35.580And I think that's why it's so important to have the conversations and still say it to
00:37:40.520people in a way that they can be receptive to, because even if I was initially defensive,
00:37:45.900when people would say things like that to me, it was in the back of my head.
00:37:50.060And especially once I left it, I would revisit some of those conversations from people who had said, hey, the things you're saying are harmful and revisit those and say they were right.
00:38:04.240And I have to figure out how to make amends for that.
00:38:07.520And I'm very early on, too, in recognizing and deconstructing exactly why I acted that way and said the things I did.
00:38:18.160And it's really painful to unpack that.
00:38:22.140Especially probably in front of multiple people.
00:38:27.380But I also think it's helpful that even if I don't always say the right thing right now,
00:38:32.480that I hope people know that I am on a genuine journey to deconstruct what I was in
00:38:38.220and be responsible with the voice that I'm given now.
00:38:43.220So the least I can do right now is think out loud.
00:38:48.160Yeah. During your time as a right wing influencer, you tweeted passionately about a lot of things. Sometimes you fixated on the queer community. You said that any person who opposes the don't say gay bill looks like they need their search history checked. You can search my history. It's looking for new indie cat food brands.
00:39:09.460it's probably it's guys i'm trying to keep it light here come on your search history is probably
00:39:16.160cleaner than benny johnson's so hey you said of a of a family-friendly event that was taking place
00:39:26.220at the new york city lgbt center that our tax dollars were hard at work grooming kids
00:39:30.500you also said i really was scrolling through your tweets ashley you you said on the night of the
00:39:36.4802020 election when which famously took a very long time to call you know what joke you made
00:39:41.560i do not i don't know that i want to hear it okay so i actually liked i liked this one ashley so
00:39:48.400you can breathe easy i'm like holding my breath you wrote the total gender count might hit 270
00:39:55.020before trump or biden does i gotta be honest not bad that's not a bad joke if you ever wanted to
00:40:01.980do some stand-up that's like something to work with you know if you weren't coming from the
00:40:06.480anti-trans angle there like if we made that frankly like that's a very good joke yeah0.92
00:40:11.100oh man i'm sorry i i don't know i was really stupid i think there's probably also i don't
00:40:27.560know if you've recognized this going through my tweets. And not to say that I didn't tweet
00:40:31.720horrific things, but I think there was at least a mild, mild change in some of my posts after I had
00:40:41.380a child. There was. There was. You started to call into question publicly why there was so much
00:40:48.480fixation on trans issues around 2024, which was when you had your kid, I believe. That was my
00:40:53.560second child that is what i noticed and i think it was even before your second child too okay i
00:40:58.640had my my older son in november 2021 with with a different father yes yes after i had my first son
00:41:06.240there there was a shift and it was kind of like well i'm in this this is my career i dropped out
00:41:12.220of college what do you do from here i think the most notable noticeable shift though was with your
00:41:19.220second child it seems like even before um he was born you started to i i found this one tweet in
00:41:26.480particular just looking through some of your backlog which i thought was really interesting
00:41:30.060because it was before you had your second child you said that the trans day of visibility has
00:41:35.260been on march 31st since 2009 joe biden has also issued a proclamation for it in 2021 22 and 23
00:41:42.700nobody did anything to anger christians easter sunday anybody saying this should not be taken
00:41:48.320seriously now or now or ever and you're sort of going at it with some conservative who what I
00:41:53.800would say grifters and the replies and finding that I was like huh that's interesting because
00:41:57.440that is actually sort of before when I would have assumed you sort of took a little shift
00:42:03.140to like a little pivot away from some of the previous type of posts that we would have seen
00:42:07.840from you it's weird to say because I did the math but this was when I believe you were pregnant with
00:42:11.800your second child. Yeah. And there was a shift over the years that it took me, and not that this
00:42:19.380is an excuse, but it's the reality. It took me a long time to find the courage to even start
00:42:24.940sprinkling some of those realizations because it is a lot to face that backlash. And maybe
00:42:34.220all of us right here are used to it. But a lot of people aren't, and it can be immensely painful,
00:42:42.540and it can take a toll on your mental health, too. And it can be dangerous.
00:42:47.120And there's the pushing back against your own past. It's like, oh, I've spent years committing
00:42:53.440myself to this. It's like a sunk cost fallacy where you're like, well, I've already invested
00:42:58.380all of this time and my public persona into this movement and to go back on it. Well,
00:43:03.300now I look like a fool. It's why so many people, including, I think, Elon Musk and a lot of people0.98
00:43:08.940I talk about on this podcast, J.K. Rowling, they can never concede that they're wrong because it's
00:43:12.880hard to concede that you're wrong. We are back for another ad read with the sleeping princess
00:43:20.380kitty. Hey, kitty, how you doing? That's good, baby. And I want to shout out Rocket Money for
00:43:27.420sponsoring this episode. It is a new year. Trump sure as shit hasn't done anything for affordability.
00:43:32.540And it's time to think about how we can budget responsibly in 2026.0.98
00:43:37.420Budgeting is something that my dad has always instilled in me.
00:43:41.120And even when I thought he was being really annoying about it, he, as always, was right.
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00:44:37.920That is rocketmoney.com slash fruity. Now it is time to put this sleeping princess kitty back to
00:44:45.220bed. Nope, she never woke up and get back to the show. I do want to talk about elephants are not1.00
00:44:53.740birds because this is actually, Ashley, when you came onto my radar. In 2021, you wrote a book.
00:45:01.660called Elephants Are Not Birds, where you put your name on a book that was written called
00:45:04.940Elephants Are Not Birds. I don't know if you wrote it. You can let me know. But Elephants
00:45:08.240Are Not Birds is a transphobic children's book that, according to the description provided by
00:45:14.520the book's publisher, quote, tackles the topic of gender identity. In it, we follow Kevin the
00:45:20.560elephant as he learns that even though he can sing, he is not a bird, even if culture insists
00:45:27.820that he is. One of the phrases on the back of the book says, can a beak and wings make
00:45:32.880an elephant a bird? Pretty clear what that's suggesting about trans issues. This is something0.70
00:45:39.340that you published, profited off of, and has impacted the way that some parents raise their
00:45:45.220kids, which we'll get to in a second. But first, I talk a lot on this podcast about the right-wing
00:45:50.440media ecosystem and how it's primed to financially support and incentivize someone like you to
00:45:56.860stardom with things like bigoted book deals. So from sort of like a business background,
00:46:03.120like peek behind the curtain perspective, can you tell us about how this book came to be?
00:46:08.260I cannot, unfortunately, with the terms I had to come to with the publisher when we removed
00:46:14.260my name with the book. But I can speak to, it's very attractive when you're just getting started.
00:46:23.660it's the same thing as when you get invited to a turning point event. You so want to be validated
00:46:29.760as this intellectual and someone who's respected. And then, you know, you get a podcast deal or a
00:46:37.320book deal. And that is kind of an opportunity for you to solidify yourself as, hey, take me
00:46:43.720seriously. Look, other people take me seriously. I have deals. I, you know, but again, I don't
00:46:50.200really have much to say on it except it was wrong and i've taken steps so that my name isn't on it
00:46:58.100and when the opportunity arises i do plan on making financial amends because i did make money
00:47:06.440off of this and that's that's that's it and i can't unring that bell
00:47:14.440but I can try my best what I will say is I think taking your name off of the the publishing for
00:47:27.300the book is definitely a step though that is that is a good step away from I think the impact that
00:47:32.600this book did have it of course will always have that impact it did have which is really unfortunate
00:47:38.880And I can't unwrite the book. You know, I can't take it off the shelves.
00:47:44.580Like legally or business contract wise, you're not able to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of the
00:47:51.160impact that the book has had on parents, because, you know, this to me and I'm sure to June,
00:47:58.020like we were once queer kids who had to grow up with parents who, you know, when you're queer,
00:48:03.280it's an uphill battle inside your own family.
00:48:05.660it is you have to hide things yeah i mean i had to hide things i had to hide hide aspects of myself
00:48:10.820because i wasn't sure i wasn't comfortable yeah and so i i want to stress ashley oh ashley's cat
00:48:17.360is in the mix okay i have to ask most important question what's what's your cat's name this one
00:48:23.040is leno my son named him i was like leno like jay what do you mean and the other one's name is
00:48:30.180george i don't know where george is oh well welcome welcome leno and if you get uncomfortable with
00:48:34.940any of our questions. You can pass the questions off to Leno, I suppose. So I want to stress that
00:48:39.620I'm not asking this as a gotcha or because I have a fetish for making you feel uncomfortable or
00:48:45.420anything. I really don't. Understandable if you do. No, Ashley, you know that I don't. I'm so
00:48:52.620glad that you've grown, obviously, a lot in your thinking about this. But in getting ready for the
00:48:57.840episode, I was asking myself what meaningful accountability looks like, you know. And one
00:49:04.160thing I think we need to do is grapple with the impact that this book had on parents of queer
00:49:08.860kids, you know, like June and I. So I wanted to read a few Amazon reviews of the book,
00:49:15.620almost all of which are very positive. And here are a couple from Desk Mouse. Review title line,
00:49:24.160this kicks Dr. Seuss's ass, which is high praise for your writing, Ashley, I'll give you that.0.95
00:49:29.020Seriously, as a dad who wants his children to grow up right, this book was right up right, was right my alley. Great job on the story and the visuals. Patriots at Brave Books, you are giving our next generation the tools so long desired by parents in the new right. From Dragon, cute and covert. I bought this book hoping to covertly guide my kids. Things are complicated in this family.0.97
00:49:56.000oh my god jesus christ from cce modern day truth in all caps love this book and all the other ones
00:50:05.440that go right along with helping us teach children true facts from a unnamed amazon customer absolutely0.52
00:50:12.360lovely book i bought this as an adult and i love it that's fucking weird and ashley i don't hold0.53
00:50:18.520you to that one but no there's some odd reviews all talking about like you know this is a covert0.65
00:50:25.840battle against evil. I think some of these are, you know, the same people who were coming up to
00:50:31.840me and saying, you know, good job, soldier. But can I ask you, like, in plain terms, you've
00:50:38.620participated in and profited off a cycle of bigotry that queer people are often tasked with
00:50:44.580breaking in their own families. You know, now you have your own kids and queer people in your
00:50:50.300extended family. And I'm really curious, on like a very human level, what would you say if you could
00:50:56.560to the parents that you influenced with this book or parents, you know, in that world?
00:51:03.380I was no point of authority to be speaking on this issue. And I hope that they take a similar
00:51:10.820journey to me to listening to voices that they have been told are off limits. And I hope that
00:51:17.080they teach kindness and acceptance to their children, and I hope that they find kindness
00:51:21.920and acceptance in their own hearts for their own children. And I'm not quite sure how to make
00:51:27.740amends. I've gone back and forth, privately, publicly, on what the right way to do that is.
00:51:36.600Even just speaking out has cost me much more than any money I made on that book.
00:51:44.820materially, monetarily. What I'm most looking for is voices within the communities that I
00:51:53.640hurt to tell me how I can make amends or what would be helpful, because I don't know how to
00:51:59.700be helpful. For many years, I have obviously not seen reality. And so I really would like guidance
00:52:08.560on how to do that i mean just from a quick gut check i mean i think what we're doing right now
00:52:16.540this conversation having it and subjecting well maybe not subjecting yourself to because i think
00:52:21.740you this is like something you need to do but i think having this conversation and reflecting
00:52:26.320in front of a lot of people i think is helpful i think you know doing what you've done with the
00:52:31.780book taking your name off of it is also really good but i also think it's very important that
00:52:35.580like and this sounds silly but as we've both acknowledged that there is the fear of like oh
00:52:41.720ashley's just doing this to clear her name and then she's going to start a left-wing grift i
00:52:45.440think it's very important that you don't like make like a new youtube channel and you're like this is
00:52:50.180my new world and this is my new like new me new me like i think it's very important that you don't
00:52:54.920like and you've and to give you a lot of credit you have done a very good job of this so far is
00:52:59.380you're not centering yourself you're not centering like your own struggle which you know is you you've
00:53:06.200been from speaking out you have been going through a lot and i think what is respectable is and this
00:53:11.280is just more broadly whenever people sort of go get under attack for whatever reason even outside
00:53:16.420of politics people tend to take the route of getting very defensive and blaming a lot of other
00:53:23.620people and not like reflecting on someone's own actions that led them to this point um and i think
00:53:30.920it's just important to continue that not to center yourself is a very important thing in in in a way
00:53:36.360that like it seems like you're pivoting to something you know my my goal is to use my
00:53:42.600platform to provide a platform to people that i ignored their voice because again i'm you guys
00:53:51.500are propped up on my LSAT study books right now and my law school admissions bible my goal is very
00:53:57.740much to have a career in law and advocacy and I don't I'm not interested in starting a new left
00:54:05.500wing podcast I'm interested in truth whatever the cost is and having a very public struggle session
00:54:15.580because I think it's important to show that humility because so many of these people are
00:54:20.400afraid to and say, hey, here's my genuine struggle with these thoughts within this group that I
00:54:29.200belong to. Something I actually do want to needle in a little bit more is actually your politics.
00:54:35.820I think it's very clear that you've genuinely shifted on trans issues. And the reason I0.92
00:54:41.860prompted you that like back that original reply that you read off at the start of this episode,
00:54:46.220Of course, I'm trans, but the reason I usually start with trans issues with these conversations is we've seen time and time again people who are nominally liberal, and then they become transphobic, and then they become MAGA, and then they get that syntax, and then they appear on Fox News.
00:55:05.440So it's like, for me, transphobia, it's transphobia and, and like a couple other topics that are good tells on someone's overall politics. So I guess what I'm curious about is, obviously, I think you have shifted a lot on trans issues, but what other issues have you shifted on?
00:55:23.780would you say you're like a liberal you've said you said you're like always like a political
00:55:29.940homeless person before you sort of ended up in this world but like what are your politics like
00:55:34.880what's an issue to you that's like you used to be like oh i am like super trump i'm super republican
00:55:41.120that you're sort of now like you know maybe like the left sort of has a point on this is there
00:55:45.400anything like more than like ice or or like trans issues i think there definitely is because what
00:55:52.200the trans issue and they've made it an issue. Absolutely. Yeah. What it's really indicative
00:55:59.460of is how misplaced priorities are because your life is not materially impacted by such a small
00:56:09.100percentage of the population and what they're doing individually. What we are impacted by
00:56:15.440is these levers of powers which for better or worse i had immense access to
00:56:21.040and they don't have anyone's best interest at heart they're destroying this country
00:56:26.440and every one of us is collateral some communities more than others because they're
00:56:33.220easier to scapegoat or make fun of but what i'm very interested is taking back this uber elite
00:56:43.080lever of our country that since the 70s has really come to power and made everyone below them
00:56:52.600in their economic class less valuable. Because politics has inevitably become about how much
00:57:01.760money you have. You have more free speech if you have more money. And we do not have the same
00:57:06.060access to participate in democracy if we don't have the same amount of dollars as everyone.
00:57:11.780And so I guess I've been particularly fixated on the class issue and reading some of the things I wasn't supposed to and recognizing how some of these struggles that I ignored, they're important because they didn't go away.
00:57:29.800And they do apply to those who are ignoring it. And if they think they're not a part of that oppressed minority, they very much are. They hate you just as much as they hate the trans community, as they hate women. And so I think that's been an evolution for me, particularly as it relates to the uber-capitalist.
00:57:53.360I mean, you saying class war now is music to my ears. That's what I love to hear.
00:58:02.520I do. You know, when I was going through this, I think inevitably when you recognize a class issue, a lot of these other issues that are so sensationalized become more clear.
00:58:14.020And more of a distraction because the accounting of the plantation never stopped. The Silicon Valley bros would be very proficient in plantation accounting.
00:58:29.460hmm and that's really important to recognize especially as we get you know not to get too
00:58:35.860meta about it but especially i as i was immersed in this world where ai is taking over it's like
00:58:41.380the final terrain of extraction there's nothing left to extract there's no more labor to extract
00:58:47.860and now they're extracting everyone's thoughts and our desires and our souls and and that to me
00:58:53.780is like incredibly existential and everything is secondary to that that that the system we created
00:59:02.460capitalism is eating its host and it's incredibly suicidal a hundred percent you know a lot of these
00:59:10.340a lot of these rich people the way they use these these wedge culture issues that shouldn't be
00:59:15.500but the way they use them it's once i feel like you are enlightened like just go on twitter you0.94
00:59:21.760can go on Twitter right now and see you know like Mark Andreessen posting some bullshit like it could
00:59:25.780be any I can't go on Twitter I'm being sued by that honestly that's I deep respect well well so
00:59:34.340let's get into that then uh in February 2025 you post on Twitter a statement five months ago I
00:59:43.220welcomed a new baby into the world Elon Musk is the father I have not previously disclosed this
00:59:48.840to protect our child's privacy and safety.
00:59:51.260But in recent days, it has become clear
01:00:17.740That was also Elon's. There was a campaign online by right wing men, including Elon, to smear you as the sorts of things right wing men often smear women as. I watched this happen at the time. That's when I made that episode. It's still ongoing every day. You were called every misogynistic slur in the book by thousands of men at once.
01:00:40.900you were, you know, all these sort of misogynistic allegations that men always make about women. I
01:00:47.220mean, there were conspiracy theories around you plotting to, you know, get this man to have a
01:00:54.940child with you. Like I said, I know you can't speak to specific things relating to that as
01:01:00.520you're still battling for custody of your child, a child which according to publicly available
01:01:04.420information, this is coming from my mouth, not Ashley's, Elon has only seen a total of three
01:01:09.360times, with each meeting being very brief. But when it comes to the harassment situation,
01:01:14.700what was it like facing this onslaught of harassment by a group of men that included
01:01:20.360the audience you spent years building? They're going to have to try harder.
01:01:25.400Someone has recently decided to say on a certain podcast by a certain admin official's wife
01:01:32.620that he believes in the creator and he's all of a sudden religious. And the only thing I have to
01:01:40.420say about that is you should pick a god and pray. I'd be remiss not to mention that you
01:01:48.380have spoken out against single motherhood when you were in your right-wing influencer era.
01:01:54.900In 2023, you applauded Vivek Ramaswamy for, quote, calling out the system for incentivizing
01:02:00.980single motherhood. Three fire emojis. Sorry, Ashley. In 2020, you wrote, if women get to have0.92
01:02:09.020the right, in quotes, to an abortion, men should have the option to not pay child support. Again,0.54
01:02:15.200I'm not trying to bring this up for the sake of having a gotcha. I just want this to be meaningful.
01:02:19.320And I think you have a really powerful testimony in terms of how self-defeating these ideologies
01:02:26.740are yes for anyone who isn't a wealthy white heterosexual man and so with that in mind the
01:02:34.320big question do you ever feel like the leopards ate your face oh yeah they did and especially like
01:02:41.820if you take the abortion and child support tweet that was me trying to be clever and reworking a
01:02:46.740dave chapelle bit you know i was just so unoriginal it's never never a good thing to try to do no and
01:02:53.760you know, I also feel immense guilt because I was raised by a single mother and, you know,
01:02:58.960and she went through so much. And it wasn't until I became a mother that there were other things my
01:03:06.120mother experienced that recently, a few months ago, I called her, I said, you know, we had we
01:03:12.060had lost my younger brother. I'm so sorry. And I called my mom like a couple months ago, because
01:03:20.060You know, I, I've now been through postpartum twice and I said, you know, mom, I'm really
01:03:24.700sorry that no one told you you were doing a good job because you had to go through postpartum