00:07:10.420And I think adds credence to my sort of overall point
00:07:13.600about this is that this just happened.
00:07:16.780You know, you and I are recording on Friday, August 29th.
00:07:19.280This just happened. And I think as investigators do their jobs, more will become clear. We might get more information. But I think it's the online rush to zero in on this one part of this person's identity to say, and that's why she did this thing.
00:07:37.160And I mean, I know the people who are doing that are doing it with intention. So I'm not telling that I'm not saying anything I would say that they don't already know that they're doing.
00:07:44.780but it just goes to show how we can't have a full conversation about what's happening with this
00:07:51.380tragedy. Two kids are dead. And I think that we owe it to those kids and their communities and
00:07:56.700their families and people who love them to have a full accounting of what happened here,
00:08:01.400not just zeroing in on one tidy, convenient narrative, which it sounds like even that
00:08:08.480narrative is more complicated than the people who are boosting it would have you believe.
00:08:13.460right and it's like every time this happens there's always you know the conversation about
00:08:19.640gun regulation and how like in gun violence and gun culture and that also is also like
00:08:25.100always immediately like no no no we can't talk about that and it's like interesting that it's
00:08:29.440like of all of the things that it aspects of this conversation that we should be having
00:08:33.220we're gonna end up having to dedicate so much unnecessary airtime to the fact that this person
00:08:41.300identified as trans at one point maybe still did again yeah still story is still developing this
00:08:49.320is something that i read like literally a couple hours ago so who's to say what we'll know in a
00:08:54.280week but yeah there's just there's so many different elements here and i feel like i want
00:08:58.660to emphasize the point that it's like we're talking about the fact that she may or may not
00:09:02.920have been trans because we're kind of forced to have that conversation that is a great way to put
00:09:09.980We're forced to have that conversation and not have conversations about all the I mean, a good place to start might be gun regulation.
00:09:17.740I don't know. What? No. And so the mayor of Minneapolis has been urging the public to avoid scapegoating trans folks in the wake of this tragedy.
00:09:27.660The mayor said, quote, I've heard a whole lot of hate directed at our trans community.
00:09:31.580Anybody that is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community or any other community out there has lost their sense of common humanity.
00:09:38.040we should not be operating out of a place of hate for anyone we should be operating out of a place
00:09:42.900of love for kids kids died today this needs to be about them and so kind of like what you were
00:09:47.800saying joey it is unfortunate that the shooter's identity has been thrust in the forefront in this
00:09:55.060way to the point where we need to be even making this episode kind of debunking the way that people
00:09:59.600on the right online have been talking about this because it really obscures the fact that these
00:10:05.060kids who were, you know, had parents who loved them or part of a community that loved them,
00:10:10.740that this should be about them. But because of the way that extremists have talked about this
00:10:17.020shooting and amplified narratives about this shooting and amplified narratives about other
00:10:20.520incidents in the past that had nothing to do with trans people, we are kind of forced to be
00:10:24.320debunking this idea about sort of trans terror. And so according to police, we don't even really
00:10:31.460know much yet today when we're recording this about the motive, but that does not stop the FBI
00:10:36.440from labeling the shooting as both an act of terrorism and a hate crime against Catholics.
00:10:42.280And in extremist MAGA online circles on social media, the term that they are circulating is
00:10:48.920the deepest of air quotes on this one, trans-terrorism. And I've heard other iterations
00:10:55.180of it like trans tifa essentially this false idea that trans people are more likely to commit public
00:11:03.620acts of violence that is constantly repeated online have you seen i i have but trans tifa
00:11:10.800this is the first i'm hearing of trans tifa okay i actually know i was about to be like i do believe
00:11:16.480the trans community could have come up with a better name than that but actually i'm not sure
00:11:20.020about that um trans tifa though that is okay god i'm linking on what who it was specifically that
00:11:28.480said this but it was like some right-wing figure they literally said something where they were like
00:11:33.700the the trans terrorism that's like the most dangerous homegrown terrorism right now and i
00:11:40.700was like i'm so sorry have you met like a single trans i mean obviously not because you wouldn't0.99
00:11:47.280be saying this shit if you had but i was like the idea of like this trans shadow terrorist group0.99
00:11:55.380that's operating in this country like what the hell are you talking about i don't know it's it's1.00
00:12:01.280ridiculous every barista in this country is actually a sleeper agent yeah i mean in the in0.93
00:12:09.100their fantasy every barista maybe like everybody with blue hair or something is yeah it's like a0.95
00:12:16.500sleep a sleeper agent that is just one bad tip away from going full joker or something truly
00:12:24.180that is how people talk about the trans community online i'm sorry i think you mean the walker i'm
00:12:30.200i really want to take this seriously and not make jokes about this but i was reading through so much
00:12:34.580about this and i was like oh god like this is where we're at this is where we're at or this is
00:12:38.980the yeah so none of this i mean i don't need to tell you none of this is new according to a report
00:12:45.260from GLAAD, social media accounts with a clear history of anti-trans rhetoric frequently and
00:12:50.780importantly, falsely accused trans people of crimes, particularly mass shooting events before
00:12:56.840facts are known. And so just like in this case, the day that the shooting happened, people were
00:13:02.280already circulating this sort of trans terror claim. But the fact is there is no evidence of
00:13:09.560escalating violence committed by LGBTQ people and extremism and domestic terrorism experts
00:13:15.080told PolitiFact there is no widespread threat of growing radicalization or violence from the trans
00:13:20.540population. Now, accusing folks from a small and likely vulnerable community of being responsible
00:13:27.340for mass shootings is just clearly like you're trying to dehumanize them, other them, demonize
00:13:34.220them, and generally promote fear around trans folks and non-binary folks. And I think the
00:13:39.780important thing for folks to know is that we're talking about a situation where the shooter it
00:13:45.160sounds like identified as trans at one point or another oftentimes this happens whether or not a
00:13:51.040trans person had anything to do with it at all yeah um this was also making me think about i mean
00:13:58.360again before kind of learning this now i expect that maybe they now don't identify as trans before0.72
00:14:04.440learning that i was thinking about the fact that it's like the problem with so much of this like0.99
00:14:08.100just idiotic misinformation around trans people around queer people around gay people is that0.99
00:14:14.620like there's always going to be the one person that amplifies that thing like i was talking to1.00
00:14:20.240a friend recently about like all of the you know when when right-wing weirdos want to be like oh0.98
00:14:25.660yeah gay people are all like pedophiles are all predators and it's like okay and then you can find0.78
00:14:30.220like the one person to point to to be like they're like there was a like director we were talking1.00
00:14:35.320about where we're like oh yeah i remember like they came out and then it immediately was revealed0.99
00:14:39.800that they were like a pedophile and all this shit and it was like it sucks because you're always0.98
00:14:43.660going to be able to find the one person but then at the same time it's like right because people1.00
00:14:48.460are just people and they're shitty people no matter what you identify as like for that one0.96
00:14:53.320like there's also a bazillion like straight people that are pedophiles or straight people that are0.99
00:14:58.460going to do mass shootings when you look at the actual numbers most you know mass shooters most0.99
00:15:04.280school shooters they are white cis heterosexual men so like but yeah but the problem is like0.91
00:15:11.860at the end of the day you're always going to be able to find like the one person that is like
00:15:16.780doing the really bad thing and you know it's easy for if you're trying to demonize a group of people
00:15:25.560point to that one person as like representative of an entire group this happens for literally
00:15:31.980every marginalized group. You know, this is like what's at the root of like, you know, Islamophobia
00:15:37.260and racism. And you could always find the one person to be like, see that that is what the
00:15:42.080problem is. And I think that is like the thing that makes me nervous about this. Absolutely.
00:15:48.480I was thinking the same thing, but you put that so well, because I definitely feel this as a Black
00:15:53.540person where I have to be the representative of Black people everywhere. Right. And so it is
00:16:00.740dehumanization and that you it's what you are not judged by what you do your behavior you are judged
00:16:08.220and scrutinized by the behavior of others and so you know and i it's interesting to me because
00:16:12.820as the research shows and we'll talk about it in a moment but the researchers could not be clearer
00:16:17.760that the majority of mass shootings are as you said perpetrated by white cis men that is just
00:16:22.980a fact and i don't think we have a culture that demands that white men writ large need to answer0.67
00:16:30.400for the behavior of the men who are largely behind these instances of mass violence. Yet,
00:16:37.320I think that when you do have, you know, one-off marginalized people who unfortunately do things
00:16:44.760like this, the entire group is judged by those one-off people's actions and behavior. Does that
00:16:51.820make sense? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's when you have any sort of marginalized entity, you are
00:16:57.160always not seen as an individual you are seen as a representative of that group versus like if you
00:17:03.320are obviously if you're a cis white man but honestly like anybody like I'm somebody who like0.94
00:17:08.060I'm white if I do something stupid nobody's gonna be like see this is proof that like white people0.99
00:17:13.680are like that as a trans person if I do something stupid that will probably be seen as oh see1.00
00:17:19.180y'all are crazy um but it's like yeah like it is like if you have any sort of marginalized identity0.98
00:17:25.920You are kind of seen as exemplifying that community, where if you are part of the kind of more privileged side of that, you don't experience that.0.73
00:17:35.420You are seen as an individual. You're seen as, you know, these like lone wolf shooters that nobody knows why it happened.
00:17:41.760Again, it feels like I feel like I've had this conversation so many times because it's like it is the same story.
00:17:50.120I think it's just like right now it is we're having this again because this really is one of the first really prominent stories where it has been like a trans person that has been at the center of this.
00:18:00.860And the point I want to make about this is that this is identity based disinformation.
00:18:05.760It might not look like it. It might not be the kind of thing that traditionally disinformation researchers would call out as disinformation.
00:18:11.600But the way that trans people are baselessly blamed and connected to tragedies, mass shootings, instances of mass violence, that is, to me, identity based disinformation.0.70
00:18:22.800And I see it over and over again. And I would be willing to bet that if you spend any time on social media, you have probably seen this kind of thing play out online already,
00:18:32.160Because there is a particular image that I can see it in my head of a kind of person with blonde, shaggy hair holding a rifle that often circulates online, claiming that it shows the perpetrator of whenever there's a shooting or a tragedy or an instance of mass violence.
00:18:49.180And it claims to show this person who the comments say is trans. But it is actually a very well-worn image to the point that it's almost a meme.
00:18:58.600it's an image of this guy sam hyde who is an extremist comedian and youtuber he has his we
00:19:04.340can do a whole episode on him yeah there's a lot to say about him but let's just that's who it is
00:19:08.500kind of also like taking a wider look at this issue i do think it's really interesting that
00:19:13.600that photo is a cis man yeah because like i've seen that photo a million times too and i'll be
00:19:19.400real like i always kind of just assumed it was some random trans person um until like listening
00:19:24.920to the episode that you did with um stuff mom never told you about this where you talked about
00:19:28.660this same image and i think it just goes to show again like taking a sort of wider look at what
00:19:35.640happens when this sort of transphobic rhetoric becomes so normalized is it's like oh you see
00:19:41.640somebody with long hair and you're immediately going to be like it is narrowing the gender roles
00:19:47.060again like if you were looking at all of this through like a very transphobic lens it's like
00:19:50.860yeah you're we're going back to these like very very strict gender roles where like you can have
00:19:55.240a cis man with long hair and use that image to be like see they're trans or they you know the the
00:20:03.000way that these people are gonna say it is gonna be like they think they're a woman or whatever
00:20:07.360I'm not saying that I agree with that rhetoric but it's like I don't know I find it kind of
00:20:11.560cis people I think like if you want to make it about yourselves if you really want to like0.84
00:20:15.960not have to human out whatever like think about the fact that it's like all of this bad rhetoric
00:20:20.900is going to come back to just make gender roles more strict and more restrictive and just bad
00:20:26.800for everybody regardless of you know whether you're trans or cis or whatever don't even get
00:20:31.140me started on this because this is the the drum that i beat this is a tangent but it's a drum that0.97
00:20:36.540i beat all the time so as you said if you are someone who doesn't give a fuck about the humanity0.86
00:20:42.300of trans people and you're like I only care about me and that's that's your orientation fine okay0.98
00:20:47.440I don't share that orientation but got you when you get into a place where you are so strictly1.00
00:20:52.860policing the gender of other people along this very narrow understanding of gender that shit0.95
00:20:59.120always comes back around right exactly it is especially disappointing to me when I see this0.99
00:21:05.140from other black cis women who will say like oh well you know well where they will say they will
00:21:11.260say things that are very transphobic and i always think like nobody who is cisgender gets
00:21:16.720transphobically compared to men like black cis women that is like when you want when people
00:21:22.420wanted to insult michelle obama that go-to insult was oh she's really a man she looks like a man1.00
00:21:27.820if you can't see the the clear line from policing the gender of other people to that shit coming0.99
00:21:35.440back around to you i don't know what to tell you and so if you're someone who doesn't care about1.00
00:21:40.180the humanity of trans folks and are only caring about yourself when you I mean it's like Beyonce
00:21:45.440said when you play me you play yourself when you when you play those games it comes back around to1.00
00:21:50.740us and so exactly I just have to say that like it is it especially hurts coming from other cis black
00:21:58.360women because I just know that like our gender is so scrutinized the way the way that the whatever
00:22:05.860we've got going on with gender wherever we're at that is so scrutinized and it's like why would you
00:22:10.820want to participate in that kind of climate for somebody else when like when you know like you
00:22:14.860know what i'm saying it's just yes i'll move on yeah no absolutely though i mean it's and yeah and
00:22:21.580i i not yeah not to go on too much of a tangent but like literally every issue where like trans
00:22:26.960phobia is through the conversation about sports right now and like trans people's uh participation
00:22:32.360in sports it's like that is maybe the most obvious way we're seeing it come back around and like also
00:22:37.700hurt cis people but it's like yeah like just be just because you're going after us is like your
00:22:44.380top target like y'all are next yes not if we get to the point where we're starting to police people's
00:22:49.740gender like this it's it's not gonna stop it because it hasn't we've seen this like we've0.91
00:22:55.620been seeing this for years now and it's insane we're at the point where like yeah again there
00:23:00.000was that story a couple weeks ago about like a cis woman who like was being sexually harassed in
00:23:07.440like a buffalo wild wings bathroom because the like server didn't believe that she was like1.00
00:23:12.540quote unquote really a woman and like it was like yeah this should be a wake-up call0.64
00:23:18.120to the rest of you if you really like do not care about us at least care about yourselves i don't
00:26:26.800So we're talking about what happens when trans people are baselessly blamed for instances of mass violence or tragedy online.
00:26:33.580So in 2023, a fact checker and journalist named Bill McCarthy described that whenever he sees a mass shooting, his heart does not just sink for the victims and their families and their communities, but it also sinks because he knows that other completely blameless people will be falsely accused of being the killer with their pictures splashed all over the Internet.
00:26:53.140But in a piece called Mass Shootings, The Other Innocent Victims, McCarthy really shed light into this, where after a mass shooting in Nashville, that picture of Sam Hyde, who is not trans, was misidentified as both being the perpetrator and trans.
00:27:08.320McCarthy writes, shortly after police said they responded to a shooting, I opened Twitter and ran a simple keyword search, Nashville shooter identified.
00:27:16.000According to dozens of results, the city's officials had already singled out a perpetrator. It was a trans woman named Samantha Hyde, the post claimed.
00:27:23.140Now, that image at this point, it's I mean, I think of it as a meme, but like it actually did originate as a meme on 4chan.
00:27:29.800So when a shooting happens or a tragedy happens, it's like a meme to circulate this image of Sam Hyde and say that it's a suspect and that they're trans.
00:27:38.840Internet users have been trying to trick people into believing that Hyde was behind so many tragedies over the years.
00:27:45.860There was also an attempt in that Nashville shooting to pin the attack on Clara Sorrenti, a trans activist and video game streamer that people might know as Keppels, who folks might recall we did an episode on this kind of a while ago, was forced to flee her Canada home after being targeted by an online harassment campaign.
00:28:03.920After the Uvalde shooting in Texas, this photo of an actual trans woman named Sam, so not the cis comedian named Sam, different Sam, actual trans woman, was circulated on social media claiming that she was the perpetrator.
00:28:17.920She had to actually post an image of herself saying like, hey, I am alive because the shooter in that attack was killed by police.
00:28:24.260And, you know, she had to say like, I've never even been to Texas.
00:28:28.260I mean, the way that people have to prove to strangers on the Internet that they're not involved in these crimes when they had nothing to do with it.
00:28:38.520I mean, I just can't imagine what that would be like.
00:28:40.340But that has not stopped these claims from going viral, from harming innocent trans people.
00:28:45.880And then also just creating this false idea, I would say intentionally so, that trans people are linked to violence and are dangerous.
00:28:53.880yeah i mean like you said again it's all just part of this narrative of trying to
00:28:58.480paint this picture of trans folks as as dangerous as like it's somehow you know like it's it's
00:29:07.120because of like quote-unquote mental illness it's these are coming from folks that already0.92
00:29:11.560see being trans as like a again like quote-unquote mental illness not as like a real way of identifying
00:29:18.120and plenty of cis people are mentally ill and somehow that's never like i don't know again it0.81
00:29:24.420is just it's scapegoating it is like a convenient excuse to say like the problem isn't like the0.97
00:29:30.460fact that we live in a country that just has a deep history of violence that like we have had
00:29:35.960you know problems with gun violence that like gun regulation is just kind of like non-existent in
00:29:41.700this country it's like no no it's this specific thing that we also don't like for other arbitrary
00:29:46.740reasons. And it's just easy and convenient for us to tie them together when that's not what's
00:29:52.380happening most of the time. So this actually brings me to something that happened in D.C.,
00:29:57.940where I live, which was the plane crash that happened earlier this year. There is a great
00:30:02.420piece in Wired that we'll link in the show notes that folks should read. A trans pilot was falsely0.91
00:30:07.120blamed for a plane crash. Now she's fighting the right wing disinfo machine. It was published0.99
00:30:11.400earlier this summer that really unpacks this issue in a great way. So in January, there was
00:30:16.400this deadly plane crash in D.C. where a helicopter crashed into a plane. Both of them landed in the
00:30:22.420Potomac River. 67 people all died. It was a very dark time in D.C. I remember I folks might know
00:30:29.760this that I work part time for a D.C.-based podcast called CityCast D.C. And D.C. is a pretty
00:30:36.260small community. And so the way that this really just loomed large at a time when D.C. was our
00:30:44.540I mean, we continue to be going through a lot, but at a time we were going through a lot was really rough.
00:30:49.380And I think what made it even rougher was that and I promise I won't get on my D.C. soapbox.
00:30:54.860But because people are so used to disrespecting D.C. and discounting D.C. and not thinking of D.C. as like a real place where real people live, it's just like a seat of national power to a lot of people.
00:31:06.960I think the way that this was a hard tragedy for our local D.C. community to take was really ignored.
00:31:13.340And I think that's why Trump and his administration really felt OK. Literally, I mean this literally, they were bodies still in the river while these people were lying about what happened with this plane crash.
00:31:27.340And I think that one of the reasons why that was OK is not just because it's not just because these people are ghouls, which they are, but also is because people in D.C. are not seen as real Americans or real people the way that other parts of the country are.0.87
00:31:43.520So, you know, it really sucked. And as much as it was a dark time for D.C., it also became a dark time for this woman named Joe Ellis, who is a transgender National Guard pilot who was falsely blamed for the deadly D.C. crash.
00:31:58.480Now, to be super clear, Ellis was not involved in this in any capacity, was just simply not
00:32:05.700involved. However, a few days before this crash, Ellis published an essay about what it's like
00:32:11.760being a trans pilot in the National Guard. So this and this alone was enough for right-wing
00:32:17.160influencers with millions of followers across the internet to baselessly accuse her of being
00:32:22.140responsible for this crash. So basically what happened is that Ellis wrote this piece called
00:32:27.740Living to Serve, Living as Myself, a Transgender Service Member's Perspective,
00:32:31.960where she describes growing up in a family of service members and then joining the Virginia
00:32:37.180Army National Guard in 2009. In her piece, she describes sending an email to her command,
00:32:43.500giving them notice that she intended to start transitioning under the current in-service
00:32:48.040transition policy. That policy has since been rescinded by the Trump administration. And she
00:32:52.640talks about how when she gave them that notice, she was met with overwhelming support from her team
00:32:57.440what's interesting about this piece it's just an interesting side note is that it's clear that
00:33:01.140she's trying to debunk some pretty well-worn myths about how trans people get all this free stuff
00:33:07.120like if like because she was in the military the military is paying for all of this stuff and she
00:33:12.660was like oh no i i paid out of pocket for all of my all of my care i i paid for it all so even that0.91
00:33:19.340even in that piece i feel like she's true do you do you ever hear this that like trans people get
00:33:23.560so much oh yeah which i'm like where is this free stuff why am i not getting any of it i mean yeah
00:33:30.880any sort of trans health care related thing people hear it in their like free health care and it's
00:33:35.220like nobody said free like it operates the same way every health care thing in this country operates0.53
00:33:42.180which is terribly uh you know like this is what really like pisses me off especially when we talk
00:33:49.440about again kind of a tangent issue but i don't know where these free handouts are i would if
00:33:56.640somebody knows if somebody could get me like some connections please let me know uh i love free stuff
00:34:02.480so uh i this is it is another example of like unfortunately like the right wing just thinks
00:34:09.660that like the left is way cooler than we actually are like yeah i wish joe biden was like a communist
00:34:16.020who was just giving people free trans health care.
00:34:19.260But that was absolutely not what was happening.
00:39:33.900He said, this is apparently the first account who reported what we now know is false.
00:39:37.600It seemed credible because Joe Ellis wrote an article calling out Trump's trans military ban only a few days ago.
00:39:43.760And of course, he goes on to misgender her in this post, saying that he had been wrong about her causing this deadly crash in an act of trans terror, because apparently the man just can't help himself.0.87
00:39:56.960Yeah, I mean, they don't they don't care.
00:39:59.860At the end of the day, they don't see us as human beings.
00:40:03.180it so yeah i am curious if it's supposed to be this fake or this account that was suspended if
00:40:09.340it's like fake gay politics or if it's like fake and gay politics like is it is it fake
00:40:15.380politics about gay people or is it politics that is both fake and gay uh but you know i
00:40:23.200it's just like this is the world we're living in god this reminds me of i what's this but i can't
00:40:31.760remember this was last week or two weeks ago whatever anyways there was a story we did in
00:40:35.380the news roundup recently about the chris formo getting got by an aoc like ai video where she was
00:40:44.320like talking about sydney sweeney or something i don't know whatever yeah yeah and like his response
00:40:51.600was basically like oh i guess it was ai my bad but also it seems like something she would say
00:40:58.400Maybe we should talk about that. And it's like, so you're just saying, but like, I believe in my fantasy world. This is true. So I think we should be we should be mad at her about like, it's like this thing where they're like, but it seems like something that would happen. So it's an issue. Yeah. But it's not happening.
00:41:18.260Any random thing I make up, you need to be held accountable for.
00:41:23.060But still, in Matt Wallace's follow-up tweet being like, well, you know, as you were saying, it sounds like something.
00:41:28.300She was talking about being depressed and, you know, da-da-da-da.
00:41:31.000I actually read her article, and it actually doesn't.
00:41:34.180She talks about being depressed before she was able to transition.
00:41:38.160But she describes, like, getting a lot of support, feeling that she has a good support system, being really happy, da-da-da-da.
00:41:46.000I think, I mean, it goes back to what you were saying about this default assumption that anybody who is trans or gender nonconforming is automatically mentally ill, depressed, deeply unhappy, because her piece is very much her describing that she feels really good, feels really solid, wants other people to feel as good and as solid as she does.
00:42:07.160And still he says, oh, she's describing, you know, she sounds depressed.
00:42:12.560She's like, you know, it's just I think it really comes back to that underlying assumption that nobody who is trans or non-binary could also be happy, stable, you know, you know what I'm saying?
00:42:24.680Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I think it's interesting because I think like even 10 years ago, obviously there are still families and places where this probably is also the rhetoric around gay people.
00:42:34.600but I like I'm I'm thinking like 10 years ago I have so many friends now that grew up with this
00:42:39.220sort of rhetoric about gay people that were like oh if you're gay you're gonna be unhappy and
00:42:42.840depressed versus like now as adults I don't know like again I'm lucky where like I live in New York
00:42:50.080City I am in a fairly like progressive environment but like listen I am depressed I have depression
00:42:59.200that has nothing to do with the fact that I am gay or trans or whatever that like I know plenty
00:43:04.180of cis people that are depressed i know plenty of most people i know these days are depressed
00:43:08.980because we live in a really messed up world right now um but yeah it is like also like yeah shocking
00:43:17.120if you are living a life that is like not authentic to yourself if you are unable to be your true self
00:43:24.680you're going to feel depressed and if you're in a place where you're able to transition you're able
00:43:29.020to be the person that you really are like on the inside obviously you're gonna feel better you're
00:43:34.840gonna feel happier than you were before and it is like yeah if you if you go back and read that
00:43:40.000actual article that she wrote that's what she's talking about is the fact that it's like at the
00:43:45.720end of the day all of what these people want is for trans people to just stay in the closet and
00:43:50.340stay as their assigned gender at birth and it's like great that is you're creating these like
00:43:55.080depressed just like like the the things that you think are gonna happen if people transition that's
00:44:01.360just what's gonna happen if you continue to stay repressed you're gonna you're gonna not you know
00:44:05.180the terrorism part but like the people are gonna be depressed and miserable and like that is what
00:44:09.900leads to suicide in a lot of cases uh not the fact that people are trans the fact that people are not
00:44:16.140allowed to express themselves and to be like the person that they are you know exactly it is0.91
00:44:24.700oppressive systems and lack of access to meaningful support systems that makes people unhappy and
00:44:31.140makes people unwell and this idea that like oh well and again but but trans people and queer0.76
00:44:35.700people should not have to i mean yeah let trans people be depressed and sad like they should not
00:44:41.200have to be like oh i'm super good i'm super good because nobody's super good all the time but what
00:44:46.480creates dynamics where it's not it's not it's not transness or queerness that makes people
00:44:52.000depressed. It is lack of access, lack of resources, lack of support. Like we've created a system that
00:44:58.260allows us to blame people for the things that our system denies them.
00:48:06.500So we're talking about Joe Ellis, this trans pilot who extremists on the Internet falsely accused of being responsible for the deadly plane crash in D.C. earlier this year.
00:48:15.840Figures like Matt Wallace accused her of waging a trans terror attack, even though she had absolutely nothing to do with this crash.
00:48:24.220So from this point, Ellis basically went from being unknown in public to being somebody who felt like she could not even go out in public because of her fear of her own safety.
00:48:33.700She told the New York Times, my life was turned upside down at that point, adding that her employer sent armed bodyguards to protect her family and that she started carrying a loaded weapon as a precaution.
00:48:43.880Forever, I'm known as that trans terrorist, she told the Times.
00:48:47.220So we've talked about this in a few other episodes of the podcast, but when online right wing influencers, individual influencers spread lies about people, we're seeing more and more that the people that they defame are fighting back via defamation lawsuits targeted at the people who spread demonstrably and hurtful lies about them.
00:49:10.360In April, she filed a defamation suit against Matt Wallace, saying that he was behind a destructive and irresponsible defamation campaign.
00:49:18.080The lawsuit against Wallace, filed in the U.S. District Court of Colorado, was a way for Ellis to seek damages for the harm that he caused to her reputation, privacy, and safety.
00:49:27.140Ellis said that Wallace has not counter-filed.
00:49:29.520And the lawsuit was filed by the Equality Legal Action Fund, which is a group of volunteer attorneys and advocates who help members of the LGBTQ community fight online defamation.
00:49:37.180It does sound to me like when I looked into this, that it might be a little bit of a tricky gray area legally to individually sue an individual online influencer for what they've said about you.
00:49:49.420Parents of kids who died in the Sandy Hook shooting did successfully sue Alex Jones for defamation after he repeatedly claimed that the shooting that killed their kids was basically a hoax.
00:49:59.640And folks might remember that Dominion Voting Systems got a seven hundred and eighty seven million dollar settlement from Fox News for claiming that their voting systems during the election were rigged against Trump.
00:50:10.040So there is some precedent for suing businesses or business entities for defamation.
00:50:16.280But that's a little bit different than these one off individual influencers on on Twitter who spread damaging lies about people.
00:50:23.720And, you know, I hate that the only recourse for this kind of thing is suing people and taking it to the courts. But especially for marginalized people, there has to be some kind of accountability for this. There has to be some sort of like cost for spreading these kinds of damaging lies because these kind of lies can hurt people.
00:50:43.120You know, we've talked about Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss, the two black women in Georgia who were vote counters, who Trump and Giuliani baselessly said that they had rigged the they were hiding votes and rigging the election for Biden.
00:50:56.520People showed up at their house and tried to force their way into their home to make a citizen's arrest because of that.
00:51:03.660So like, this is not something that just happens online. This translates to actual real world harm where people are putting their lives at risk because of the lies people spread about them online.
00:51:14.320yeah totally agree i mean it's i wish there was another like like i wish there was something that
00:51:22.540could happen before having to like literally sue these people but good for joe alice i hope that
00:51:29.580that case goes in you know her favor but yeah it really i think it's important to emphasize the
00:51:37.980fact that it's like this isn't just like oh I'm getting a bunch of hate comments online you can
00:51:44.820just turn your phone off and not pay attention to it it's like this is affecting people's like
00:51:50.040actual livelihood it is affecting their ability to exist in public and that should not be happening
00:51:57.940because that shouldn't be happening to anyone but it's hard enough to exist as a trans person
00:52:03.480as, like, a person of color, as a queer person, as anybody with any sort of marginalized identity
00:52:08.300right now. Like, there shouldn't be an extra layer of being this level of, like, a target.
00:52:15.540And I hate that this is such a commonplace thing now, because blaming trans folks for incidents
00:52:21.420that they literally had nothing to do with is not an isolated thing. The fact-checking database
00:52:26.700claim review shows that since 2022, there have been a dozen incidents where a transgender person
00:52:31.220was wrongly blamed for a tragedy or violent incident.
00:52:34.260After the tragic deaths of Minnesota State Representative
00:52:37.020Melissa Hortman and her husband, who were assassinated,
00:53:43.080Research shows that trans people are four times more likely to be the victims of violence compared to cis people.
00:53:47.800According to GLAAD, between May 2024 and May 2025, there have been at least 26 injuries and one death reported among trans and gender nonconforming people, a 14% jump from the previous year.
00:54:00.220Meanwhile, claims that trans folks are behind mass shootings just does not add up.
00:54:05.020Per the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 4,400 mass shootings in the past decade, of which fewer than 10 known suspects were trans.
00:54:13.160That's 0.11%. And we know that things like far-right extremism surpasses terrorism committed
00:54:19.600by others. This is according to PolitiFact. And it needs to be said that these groups do tend to
00:54:23.860engage in violence that often targets LGBTQ people and promotes LGBTQ views. So making the targets,0.71
00:54:32.360the people who are the most targeted of this kind of domestic terror, flipping that around and being
00:54:37.220like, oh, they're the perpetrators, it's really blaming people for something bad that they're
00:54:42.680already at the center of yeah people actually um don't know this but uh the lee harvey oswald
00:54:50.240actually used she they pronouns uh they covered this like kidding i'm not even honestly i feel
00:54:58.860like we're like two steps away from somebody transvestigating like yeah like a deep dive
00:55:04.480but this exactly exactly like what you were saying i mean glad has a lot of really great studies um
00:55:12.120You know, shameless plug for a second.
00:55:15.300If you want to learn more about violence against the trans communities, you should check out another show that I work on that's called Afterlives.
00:55:22.700Our first season was about this woman, Lailene Polanco, who passed away at Riker's prison due to kind of a series of just things that should not have happened, situations she should not have been in, largely because of the fact that she was a black trans woman.
00:55:39.420But something that we talked about in that show that we did a lot of research around was this idea that when you look at the way that trans people, the few instances of trans people being portrayed in TV and film, even before trans people became the scapegoat for mass shootings and this kind of thing, the way that trans people were portrayed as murderers and criminals, looking back at Silence of the Lambs and stuff like that,
00:56:07.240Or there's like this whole history of trans folks being portrayed as violent, being portrayed as like unstable when it's like at the same time we are disproportionately and particularly trans women and particularly trans women of color are disproportionately the victims of this kind of violence.
00:56:26.800And it is sort of like, again, pulling back, it is frustrating to have to keep having this conversation, have to keep being like, no, we are not the ones that are doing this.
00:56:37.240When it's like also at the same time our community is being targeted in this way where like people are dying, people are like being murdered, people are like anti-trans hate crime, like those anti-trans hate crimes are happening.
00:56:51.700people are dying because they're trans and at the same time like the way that trans people are
00:56:57.980oftentimes like portrayed by these like right-wing groups but also in a lot of like mainstream1.00
00:57:03.200entertainment it's makes it appear as if we're the ones that are doing this violence it's so true
00:57:10.000and i wish i could say that we have that we have because like you go back and watch movies like pet
00:57:15.940detective and not not to like spoil the movie but i okay that one's funny because i've never
00:57:21.640actually seen that movie but i i feel like every like trans mask person at some point is like i
00:57:28.000look like a semester and it's like at the same time that movie is so trans and it's funny we
00:57:34.180have not like we it's i wish i could say that we had moved beyond that that like portrayal from
00:57:39.360like 1992 or whatever but you're right we really have it when you look at the way that and i i
00:57:44.220guess it's why it's so important that work like your work with afterlives you know it's very
00:57:49.960important that we have depictions of trans folks in ways that are thoughtful and loving and real
00:57:56.100and aren't and out of like yeah we we need the work that you all are doing thank you yeah i0.77
00:58:02.960get shapeless plug go listen to afterlives um works very hard on that show but um on the tangent
00:58:10.420just about fran's people and and how we're portrayed both like in news media and entertainment
00:58:17.900media i think there was there was an interview with jinx bonsoon recently where she was talking
00:58:22.180about like she like play she played like a villain in like doctor who recently and she was talking
00:58:27.640about like being as an actress like getting to play roles where she is like a villain as a trans
00:58:35.760person and how like it's almost kind of liberating because it's like she's able to do like kind of
00:58:39.420regain control of that narrative like it was sort of she was talking about the fact that it's like
00:58:43.980we're all like villainized so much all of this stuff is put on us and it's like almost kind of
00:58:47.720fun to be able to like twist that around and get to play you know into like being like an evil
00:58:53.400character that has nothing to do with being trans anyways tangent has nothing really to do with this
00:58:58.280but yeah i think there is something to be said about the fact that it's like the stuff that we
00:59:02.660consume shapes the way that we think about people and that means you know that means news media that
00:59:08.520means entertainment media that means these that means twitter you know yeah that means social
00:59:12.920media and that like is why these sort of things are dangerous more after a quick break
00:59:21.020get bell pure fiber internet with crave netflix and disney plus from 94 a month price guaranteed
00:59:32.620for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit visit bell.ca for details
01:00:36.060Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.
01:00:40.500I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.
01:00:45.060I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
01:00:52.020They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
01:00:56.500But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
01:00:59.960They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
01:01:03.040Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:01:12.000If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
01:01:17.920This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
01:01:30.400I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books,
01:01:34.100the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
01:01:37.520I'm going to have to look up this story.
01:02:25.160without talking about the media apparatus that facilitates it.
01:02:29.140One of the biggest parts of this story is that
01:02:31.520the way that they have really built an effective media apparatus
01:02:34.800where these claims might start in more fringe pockets of the internet
01:02:38.100like 4chan or some random extremist's Twitter page,
01:02:41.480but they then pretty quickly get boosted by right-wing politicians,
01:02:45.080media figures, and even bleed into mainstream media
01:02:48.400where they just become part of people's conscious.
01:02:50.940Like they just like become a part of how people understand trans folks.
01:02:53.640And then it's all made worse by the fact that social media platforms have really, mostly all of them, loosened whatever rules they did have that prevent people from really being ugly and horrible to trans and queer people, right?
01:03:07.800Like earlier this year, Facebook loosened rules around hate, speech, and abuse.
01:03:11.800LinkedIn recently changed their policies.
01:03:14.540It's a little bit of a complicated thing, but it does seem that they are making it easier for folks to misgender and deadname people on LinkedIn of all places.
01:03:22.420no yeah that that like with that I was like are you kidding me like LinkedIn like what it's not
01:03:28.680first of all the people that use LinkedIn like it's an actual social media platform like that
01:03:34.660to me those are the people we should be concerned about like that's a sign that something is
01:03:39.360something's going on um but like I don't know I was like I I check LinkedIn when I absolutely
01:03:47.860have to like i i was like this isn't literally just how i show what my job is i don't like this
01:03:54.320has nothing to do with i don't know come on linkedin i could do a whole better do better
01:04:00.280it's like yeah i don't i i want to do i i could talk i have a lot to say about linkedin
01:04:06.580i'm a linkedin hater i will you know so all of this becomes a bigger problem when you look at
01:04:14.900how algorithms amplify harmful content and platforms like Facebook and X have really just
01:04:20.940scrapped fact checking. There's not really meaningful fact checking happening on these
01:04:25.040platforms anymore where people could push back and say, hey, this person is not a trans terror
01:04:30.260suspect or whatever. And like I was saying, you know, all of this just becomes another system
01:04:36.360that dehumanizes trans people, justifies violence against trans people who are already targets of
01:04:41.860violence as we talked about you know continues to to dehumanize trans people and i think it kind of
01:04:48.040goes to what we were saying earlier like to me the whole thing really shows just how eager people are
01:04:53.520to use anything even if it is outright lies to paint trans people as mentally ill or violent and
01:05:00.200it's like it's like they're trying to build a world where trans people never just get to exist0.85
01:05:05.060as their selves whether that is someone who is depressed or sad or happy or a meaty villain or0.93
01:05:11.560whatever like you never get to just be who you are instead they're being like constantly held0.53
01:05:17.040responsible for not just what other trans people do but for things that never even actually happened
01:05:23.280in the first place this kind of reminds me i was talking with a friend recently about like
01:05:27.740because again like i i'm looking out for like i i have a pretty solid like trans community where i
01:05:34.420am and like queer community and i was talking with a friend recently about how we were like0.89
01:05:38.240it's always annoying when like we have like stupid like interpersonal beef with people0.95
01:05:44.760um that also just happen to be like trans or queer or whatever and being like yeah like they0.99
01:05:51.100suck they did all of this stuff I don't like them but also like at the end of the day we're all being0.96
01:05:56.920attacked right now so like I hope that they you know like I don't want them to get hate crimed0.97
01:06:03.060i don't want them to get like i i hope that none of this awful stuff happens like it's like oh great
01:06:09.540i have to defend the worst person i know because um we're all being attacked right now and it's
01:06:14.860like i should be able to just be a hater in peace uh that is the biggest crime here uh but
01:06:20.760no but yeah it really is like crazy people are such a like small portion of the population even
01:06:27.740if we weren't who cares like even if we weren't because that's something people always like
01:06:32.400emphasizes like oh it's such a small percentage of the population but it's like yeah we're just
01:06:37.840people like it doesn't affect how like how someone else is presenting how somebody else
01:06:43.760is identifying how they're living their life has nothing to do with you and like we're at this
01:06:48.260point with politics where it's like this has like so much of the noise is just this kind of stuff
01:06:54.340because it takes away from like the actual issues and again like people have died like there are two
01:07:00.620children that are dead right now there's gun violence in this country has become so normalized
01:07:05.540that like i heard school shooting at the top of this kind of when this story was breaking and and
01:07:11.880like it bear like barely batting an eye over it it's just be it's become that normalized that
01:07:16.200should be the thing that we're talking about but we're not we're getting roped into these like
01:07:20.440arbitrary conversations that have nothing to do with like the larger issue here whether this person
01:07:26.260was trans or not the fact that they identified as trans at one point clearly there was other stuff
01:07:30.880going on like there's so many other things that should be the focus of the story and unfortunately
01:07:35.600that's not what it's going to be well actually no apparently it's going to be i i saw something
01:07:40.700that like it was like fox news is now like oh the left is mocking people for saying that we should
01:07:47.220pray for blah blah blah and it was like no the mayor of minneapolis just said like don't say
01:07:54.000thoughts and prayers they were literally like praying this is insane like i don't know yeah
01:07:58.620we are in some dark times but joey i i really appreciate you being a light in these dark times
01:08:05.700with all your thoughtful work where can folks follow you listen to what you've got going on
01:08:12.720tell us all the things yeah um so if you want to listen to other things that i've worked on you
01:08:20.100should definitely check out afterlives uh like i mentioned our first season was about leiline
01:08:25.600blanco who is a transgender woman who passed away at rikers prison we uh go into a lot of the
01:08:32.300systems that led to her death because she really should not have died there so many things went
01:08:38.980wrong that should not have happened and then the second season uh we took a little bit of a
01:08:43.920different route it was about marsh p johnson uh whose 80th birthday was recently uh we definitely
01:08:50.180recommend checking that out if you're interested in queer history or just kind of like i will say
01:08:56.000like tangent as uh you know a queer person as a trans person i think like and as somebody who's
01:09:02.360also like just kind of like a history nerd i find it really comforting to look back at these like
01:09:08.100stories of these like trans-trail lasers like marsh b johnson and the like looking at stonewall
01:09:15.660looking at what actually happened looking at like how people rallied around people in the aids
01:09:19.160crisis i think that gives me a lot of hope to be like we're gonna make it through this at the end
01:09:23.720of the day like our community is stronger than like the people they're trying to to take us down
01:09:31.020are we're gonna make it through it but yeah uh check out afterlives uh you can also hear me
01:09:38.500occasionally on stuff mom never told you um i did an episode back in june about being non-binary
01:09:46.060uh and some of like misconceptions around that uh if you want to listen and yeah if you want to
01:09:53.340follow me online you can find me at pat not pratt that's p-a-t-t-n-o-t-p-r-a-t-t uh i that's my handle
01:10:03.040on instagram and twitter i barely use twitter anymore um i think it is also my blue sky but i
01:10:08.300honestly don't even think i have that downloaded anymore for blue sky uh but yeah yeah uh find me
01:10:14.520online woo follow joey on all the places thank you so much for listening i will see you on the internet
01:10:23.340Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi?
01:10:29.300You can reach us at hello at tangody.com.
01:10:31.560You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangody.com.
01:10:35.020There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd.
01:10:37.760It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
01:10:40.480Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.
01:10:42.520Tara Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.
01:10:45.140Michael Amato is our contributing producer.
01:10:48.960If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.
01:10:52.000For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:11:22.000Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
01:11:30.580These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
01:11:34.420Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:11:42.360If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
01:11:47.760Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
01:11:56.420Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators and plenty of overthought opinions.