Erin Reed / Anthony Reed II / @ErinInTheMorn / @ErinInTheMorning / @ErinInTheNight / _supernovasky_ / beholderseye / realitybias / AnonymousRabbit - post-op transbian Twitter/TikTok "activist" with bad fashion, giant Reddit tattoo. Former drug dealer with felony. Married to Zooey Simone Zephyr / Zachary Todd Raasch.

Apologies for double-posting, but our boy Zac was on The View today:
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@TheView, tweet 1664304641771749380 (archive)


Zac is referring to the Tordoff et al study, which is a complete turd. Jesse Singal has an excellent write-up about it: Researchers Found Puberty Blockers And Hormones Didn’t Improve Trans Kids’ Mental Health At Their Clinic. Then They Published A Study Claiming The Opposite (archive)

Edit: Having now watched it, he also (get your bingo cards!) downplayed the significance of social transition, which can cement a child's belief they are the opposite sex, as well as claimed that medical transition is done "slowly, carefully", when we have plenty of cases of doctors prescribing puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones after a single appointment.

I've said it before bit Zac is definitely being Astroturfed to be the Tranny AOC. He was at all those DC events before he ever had attended first legislative session. He's a random state representative that 3000 people voted for, now he's on the view?

Good thing Zac is uncharismatic & unpleasant to look at, so the Astroturf can only go so far.
 
And why in the world is this dipshit citing a "media bias" website as a retort to published scientific paper?
the same reason he will bitch if a study doesn't have a control group, if it doesn't back up his views, but also bitch about the control group if the study doesn't back up his views. he advocates for a massive uncontrolled study on children because of how difficult it was for him to go through the "wrong" puberty (the only one he was ever gonna get), he knows best, he has no anecdotes, only data.

i just looked up the journal he refereces and was entertained to read that it now has a Wall of Shame to highlight "unethical behaviour, academic dishonesty, blatant plagiarism, data falsification, payment fraud and peer review fraud." it does suggest that maybe something went down there.

in general him referencing any media bias aggregator is hilarious cos he has the most biased filter on everything, we should enjoy his projection. Cureus may have an MBFC rating of "low credibility" (which is NOT the same as accuacy Tone) but if they rated twitter accounts his would be "no credibility."
 
Get your barf bags ready!

from Tony's Twitter feed:
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Except that it is peer reviewed Snaggle Tooth.
Not the holy "peer review"! From religiously reading Tony's tweets, I thought "peer-reviewed science" was the ultimate truth, a truth that stands untouched by any heathen "systematic review".

Legislative researcher that doesn't know all legislatures sit as a committee of the whole and that all committees are empowered only by the entire body is my fetish.
Don't mean to kink-shame, but uh, Tony is not a "legislative researcher"! He is a "independent journalist"! No, anything he might have published on Twitter saying otherwise was posted by "old Erin", whose skin he has sloughed off.

Shit retorts aside, I bring an interesting podcast interview with both Tony and Zac: Trans Resistance & Pride with Rep. Zooey Zephyr and Erin Reed, Abortion AF, Nap Activism - V Interesting with V Spehar - Omny.fm (archive)

Here's the audio edited down to just the Zac & Tony segment:


And here's an AsssemblyAI transcript lightly edited for accuracy. Timestamps refer to the edited audio above, not the full episode.
[00:00:01]
V Spehar: Hey, friends, it’s June 2, 2023. Welcome to V Interesting. I’m V Spehar. Today I want to highlight two amazing people who are among the fiercest defenders of trans rights. That’s Rep Zooey Zephyr of Montana and her fiance, Erin Reed. Zooey is Montana’s Democratic State Representative for the 100th District, which includes the city of Missoula, and she’s the state’s first transgender lawmaker. You may remember her name from earlier this year when Zooey was barred from the Republican controlled House for the remainder of the 2023 session after she spoke out against a Republican bill banning gender affirming care. Erin is a trans activist and writer who covered Zooey’s story along with other vital reporting on antitrans legislation around the country. And we’re definitely going to dig into those issues. But we’ll also cover their hobbies outside of work, what TV shows they binge, and how they’d frame the political moment we’re in. Oh, and we’re also going to talk about their recent engagement in what queer love means to them. I am personally really excited to have both of them on the show, and I think you will get a lot from this conversation. And with that, let’s bring on Zooey and Erin. First question how are you?

[00:01:18]
Zac Raasch: I’m feeling great. I feel busy, super busy. But I feel light in the work. I feel like we’re doing what we should be doing right now.

[00:01:28]
Tony Reed: I concur. It feels like the work never stops, that’s for sure. It feels like every single time I think there is going to be a pause in legislation or news or cultural environments that are going on, we enter into a new phase and we’re going into pride. So that’s a good thing.

[00:01:46]
V Spehar: I know. Are you guys big Pride month, folks? Because I sometimes get a little scared around Pride time. I have a lot of insecurity. Do you feel really confident always with Pride?

[00:01:58]
Tony Reed: I love Pride. I think for me, the way in which I get refilled and the way in which I get rejuvenated is being around other queer people partaking in queer joy. And so the work gets hard and there’s a lot of reporting on really bad legislation all the time. But it’s whenever I can then go and see all of the people that are listening in on this and that are fighting and that are also enjoying themselves and doing amazing things in and of themselves that I just sort of get refueled. And so Pride is like the ultimate culmination of that. That’s where I get all of that energy.

[00:02:32]
Zac Raasch: When I gave a speech last year at my hometown, Missoula Pride, the speech I gave, I said, pride is two things. Pride is sanctuary and pride is protest. And to me, as we see the escalating attacks, it becomes more and more important to recognize both aspects of those things. So do I care a ton about a corporate float or sponsors or et cetera? Not really. But what I care about is that the community comes together and both shelters everyone from some of the attacks that we’re seeing, provides that sanctuary. And also people leave Pride ready, ready to go on and face the attacks that our community is under and do something about it. And that, to me, Pride will always have a place.

[00:03:19]
V Spehar: See, this is why I love you gals, because you guys can be on the front line, and I am literally such a coward. I’m under my desk. And we got to give it up for the shy gays, too, during Pride. If Pride is something that you feel anxious or nervous about, participate in the way that makes you feel most comfortable. Because after all, it is a celebration about you, about your queerness in whatever way that manifests for you in your life. And before we get more into all of these issues that are facing trans folks, you all got engaged recently. There it is. There’s the ring for people who are listening. Tell me, Zooey. You proposed at Queer Prom, an event in Missoula back in May. Can you paint the scene of how the proposal went down and why it was important to do it at Queer Prom?

[00:04:03]
Zac Raasch: Yeah. Erin and I had talked that a proposal was coming. The plan was later this summer, and then the ring actually showed up two days before the legislature concluded wow. In Montana. And I remember Erin and I both feeling in the midst of all of that, feeling a desire to be close to one another through what was a difficult time. And when the ring came in, I felt like, okay, I don’t think I’m going to make it to July. What’s coming up? And someone reached out and was like, will you speak at Queer Prom? And I went, yes, and do you want to help me do a thing? And one of the organizers of Queer Prom said, oh, my gosh, absolutely. And so once the legislature ended, Erin flew out along with her son to be in Montana with me. And when prom came up, it felt like the perfect time to be surrounded by, again, that queer joy, and also to really plant the flag of Queer Joy and say, listen, there are these harmful bills coming, there are attacks in our communities, but you cannot take queer love, you cannot take queer joy away. And that is something I feel deep in my heart, and I feel blessed to share in that.

[00:05:22]
V Spehar: Were you surprised, Erin?

[00:05:23]
Tony Reed: It was a big surprise and it was a wonderful surprise. I said, I think the first thing that I said to her was, you tricked me, kissed her and hugged her and told me that she tricked me. And then I told her that I loved her and obviously yes, and all the fun things. It was a very joyful moment, and I am really glad that we got to share it with a lot of people. Who have had a hard year in Montana. Montana has had a rough year. And to be able to share a lot of joy with everybody was, I think, just what we needed.

[00:05:58]
V Spehar: I agree. After the prom, Zooey, I think it was you that said it was vital to uplift and cherish queer joy. What does that mean to you?

[00:06:07]
Zac Raasch: Queer joy, queer love, queer community is, in my heart, the reason we’re going to win these fights in the end, because we know what we are centering, we know what our lives are about. And in the face of all of those attacks, if we hold on to that, both at the personal level and the interpersonal level, that will be what gets us through the storm. And as we grow to be, as people recognize us as part of their communities and see and share in that love and joy, the appetite for this kind of hateful legislation has to diminish.

[00:06:42]
V Spehar: So often when we’re talking about the hateful legislation, there’s this term that seems to have been coined this year, which is parental rights. And those rights apparently only belong to cis, heterosexual, conservative parents often. But in fact, you, Erin has a child, and Zooey, you’re about to become a stepmother. How does that feel? Have you guys talked about what parental rights will mean to you?

[00:07:05]
Tony Reed: So it’s kind of hilarious because my son is seven years old and he was really excited whenever he saw that we were getting engaged and we had talked about the potential of that in the future. And he kind of understands the idea that step mom is a thing. But here’s what he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand that it’s like when you get married, she becomes a step mom. So he’s already calling her now? Yeah, she’s already stepmom now. He says it. It’s wonderful. It’s so innocent and gorgeous and it’s great to see her. She is so amazing with him. I think that being trans and having a kid and being able to be his mom, and that’s the way that he relates me and interacts with me and has used that word for me for, like, four years now. It’s been a very loving experience for me. It’s been a wonderful experience for me. There is no person on this earth that has been a more fierce defender of mine than my seven year old kid. He is there for me 24/7. He saw Zooey in Montana doing her thing and he was cheering her on. It was kind of it was really, really wonderful. I took a picture of him watching her give her a speech and sent it to her afterwards and you could see him just lit up.

[00:08:23]
V Spehar: How does it feel for you to be walking into a family right now? Like, all of a sudden you’re going to have a seven year old child? Zooey, there’s a lot of women right now listening who are like, oh, my gosh. I remember when I got into a blended family and probably have a lot of tips for you. Is there anything you’ve done to prepare for motherhood?

[00:08:41]
Zac Raasch: When Erin and I first were chatting and we’re getting serious about our relationship, I told her that I wanted a love that felt like home. And when I visited in December of last year, which was the first time I got to meet Andy, I was only supposed to be here for like, three days, and I was only going to get one night with Erin. And on the night before I was supposed to leave, we were hanging out with Andy, and he goes, I don’t want Zooey to go. And I went downstairs and I changed my ticket to be two weeks later, and I spent the next two weeks with them. And I left knowing that this is where I wanted to be, that this is a family that I felt welcomed into and blessed to be a part of someday.

[00:09:34]
Tony Reed: And we’ve been great to have her, and she’s been an enormous help and a wonderful person, and it’s so nice to have another person in the house. And he loves her and she loves him.

[00:09:44]
V Spehar: You’ve been single mom and for a while. This must be quite the relief. Somebody else can help.

[00:09:50]
Tony Reed: No, I have. And it’s hard to do the work that I do to do any work, really. And, I mean, I think that there are a lot of single moms out there that would probably understand the idea of being the sole provider while also building a career, and in my case, working on activism and stuff like that. I’ve had to balance a lot. And she understands, she knows what that life is like. But it’s also really nice to see. I told her that what was key is I fell in love with her and I knew that I was in love with her, but I told her that my son has to as well. And it’s really important that a relationship that my son is in this. He sees her as just the light of the world. It’s great. I love it.

[00:10:41]
Zac Raasch: Yeah. Brush your teeth, when Erin says it, it’s no, but when Zooey says it, it’s yay.

[00:10:48]
V Spehar: Oh, my God.

[00:10:49]
Zac Raasch: Enjoying that while it lasts.

[00:10:50]
Tony Reed: Yes.

[00:10:54]
V Spehar: The work that the two of you do is so incredibly emotionally laborious, not to mention the education that you’ve had to give yourselves on legislature, lawmaking, constitutional law, all the different things. And it feels like this came on so quickly, this heavy attack on trans people and on the silencing of trans people. Erin, how did you prepare to begin this work on TikTok? And just to give folks a little background, if you’re not aware, Erin is ErinInTheMorn and basically is the go to source for all things happening for trans people as far as, like, laws across the nation and reports sometimes three and four times a day on different things that are happening. How did you prepare yourself? When did you feel called to be that person?

[00:11:43]
Tony Reed: Four years ago, I made a map of healthcare clinics for trans people, and it was because I, even living in a very liberal state of Maryland, I would have to drive a six hour round trip into Pennsylvania to get my medical care, to get my gender affirming care. And I had heard that there were these things called informed consent clinics that I could go and get care easily at. The thing is that all the information about these clinics were disjointed all over the Internet. And so I gathered them all together, put them in one map, like, went to all the Planned Parenthoods and mapped out where you could get your care, released it to the general public, and it ended up getting viewed like 5 million times. Now, what happened as a result of that was over time, I started getting emails DMs about laws that threaten that care, and I learned how to effectively just read these laws, work with activists on the ground, got to know the organizations, and started reporting on the legislation. Originally, this was all done on Twitter, and I did it on Twitter for a long time, but I wasn’t reaching all of the audiences that I needed to reach. So whenever Elon Musk had stated that he was going to buy Twitter, I knew that that was going to be potentially like a danger zone. And so I had to change my platform. I wanted to learn how to use new platforms. And so I got some lights. I put like, some green and some multicolored background lights and started posting on TikTok. And it took off because I think I was reaching an audience. I am reaching an audience that isn’t as used to getting all this information.

[00:13:13]
V Spehar: Yeah. For me, it was truly, like, rendered me speechless when I started watching your content because I saw you a couple of times and I was like, oh, that’s interesting. Maybe like once a week she’ll have a little update and it’s like, oh, no, this is for trans folks, making up such a small percentage of the overall population, the amount of legislation that is coming at them, it far outsizes any other population. I mean, it’s truly next level obsessive, I would call it. Zooey, when did you decide to run for elected office? Did it have to do with these attacks on trans folks or was it for another reason?

[00:13:50]
Zac Raasch: Yeah. So I had been doing activism behind the scenes in Montana in a variety of capacities, from helping people file antidiscrimination claims to helping draft policy for the city of Missoula, where I’m from, to doing deescalation work at, like, tracking armed counterprotesters at the George Floyd protest to make sure that they would leave protesters alone and that kind of work. And then from that work, I got invited to testify at the Legislature and meet with the governor’s office on the antitrans bills in 2021, including the sports ban. I was a high level athlete prior to my transition and was able to come in there and speak about the importance of sports, what it means, et cetera. And I watched them both in those hearings, feeling like I was speaking to an audience who did not want to hear, and then watched several pieces of legislation pass by one vote. And I remember thinking to myself, if we’re going to change hearts and minds, we need to be in that room. And so I made some post that day that said, we need trans representation in government. I’m going to get in that room. And then I did. What any person who really is serious about this work does is I had my 100 cups of coffee with politicians, activists, organizers across the state, and I said, Is this a room where my voice can do good in? And over and over again, I heard, not only is it a room, it’s the room you need to be in right now.

[00:15:26]
V Spehar: And about two months into… You Won, which was great. You and Montana has a non binary representative as well, the very first non binary representative for the state. Now we’ve got two representatives who don’t subscribe to the gender binary in there. Montana has a very short legislative session, and you only meet, like, every two years or something, right?

[00:15:48]
Zac Raasch: Yeah. Montana’s Legislature is unique in that we meet for 90 days. Maximum 90 working days every two years. So we have a 2021 session, 23, 25. And so our sessions tend to run from January 2 to early May, late April, depending on how many Saturdays we work.

[00:16:11]
V Spehar: And you were there for about two months before you raised your hand. We saw that iconic photo of you with the microphone in the air, and you were protesting some antitrans legislation that was happening. And this is when the Montana Legislature decided that in fact, they were going to silence and shut down a duly elected representative. Can you talk about that day?

[00:16:32]
Zac Raasch: Yeah. So it’s important to note that that moment with the microphone raised above my head was already partway through the silencing. So I spoke out against the governor’s amendments to Senate Bill 99, which is a bill that banned gender affirming care across a spectrum of care. And in his letter, he used cruel language like he called gender affirming care, quote Orwellian newspeak. In his letter where he was removing care from trans people. He called for compassionate kindness towards trans people. And in my speech, I said, we don’t need your words of kindness. We need the care that lets us live happy, fulfilling lives. And at the end of that speech, I said that legislators who voted for that legislation would have blood on their hands, speaking about very real harm that had come to my community including stories of suicide attempts that we had in direct response to the bills that came forward. And after that, the speaker of the House said, I’m not going to allow you to speak on any legislation going forward. They kept doing that for a handful of days. And that’s when people came to the Capitol to rally in support of me and stood watching the events and watching the hearings. They waited for 2 hours until I punched in on a bill. And when I did and wasn’t allowed to speak, that’s when they stood up peacefully, enchanted, let her speak. That’s when I raised my microphone, after which Republicans banned me from the House floor.

[00:18:06]
V Spehar: Was your heart just racing out of your chest at that point or what did it feel like?

[00:18:10]
Zac Raasch: It felt like I was doing a moral and just thing. Someone said, people said we took so much courage, it took so much bravery. And to me it was so clear that what we had been seeing was stripping away the very first principles of our country. If we do not have representative democracy, if our citizens do not get their representatives elected to the House to speak on their behalf, we are on a fast track to authoritarianism. And so in that moment, seeing my community of Montana stand up in defense of democracy, it was the easiest decision that I made. And I felt a sense of calmness and a sense of frighteness in the moment.

[00:18:57]
Tony Reed: I mean, my heart was racing because I was covering it. I was watching the woman that I love and all of that happening, but I was proud of her again. My son was watching and was like clapping.

[00:19:11]
Zac Raasch: I will say the one moment where my heart actually began racing and I think you see from a raised microphone at one point, I outstretch a hand at another point, and in that moment, it was when the riot police batonned someone who was sitting in their chair. That, seeing that happen, it made me worry for the safety of the people who were up there and were being hit by police.

[00:19:38]
Tony Reed: I cried, I cried watching her. And it was crying just out of just the sheer emotion of it all, because there was so much that I knew she had been going through. Our community has been going through so much that her constituents have been going through. And just to see that all come to head, it was a very moving moment. But I was so proud of her. I am so proud of her. I always will be.

[00:20:04]
V Spehar: What do you think makes people so afraid of gender affirming care? I mean, this is something that’s been going on for so many years, and now we’re seeing people, like you said, riot police coming in and literally beating people because they’re standing up saying that we need gender affirming care. We’re seeing this foaming at the mouth like completely out of their minds, rage towards trans people who are simply saying, like, this doesn’t concern you. I need to be able to get the care that I need to be the person I am. And yet folks are coming so incredibly strongly with such chaotic hate.

[00:20:42]
Tony Reed: Before I completely answer that question, I want to point out that this is part of a thread that has run through American history for a long time, and we’ve seen this come bubble up to the surface a few times in the past. I mean, even world history, you know, you can go back to 1932 when the very first book burnings were happening in Germany at the institute of Sexology, which was an institute where the first transgender research was conducted for 30 years and 1969, Stonewall the use of drag bans and three articles of clothing laws to target gay people and LGBT people in their clubs and in their places that they held dear. And we’re seeing the revival of drag bans today. The AIDS crisis, where people had to stand in front of churches and yell in the ACT-UP era to say, we are worth researching, protecting, defending, caring for. The 90s, the early 2000s, where we saw 32 states pass constitutional amendments against gay marriage, it looked just as bleak then as it looks now. And, yes, it’s coming on hard and strong, and trans people are the target, the main target of this particular iteration of this long standing history of targeting the LGBTQ community and demonizing us and calling us unsafe to be around kids. I think that there’s been a fear campaign that’s been waged by some of the same people that played in some of those previous incidents, and if not, they are the ideological inheritors of that regressive ideology. And to be frank, there’s a lot of information out there about the orgs that do this. The Alliance Defending Freedom, the Family Policy Alliance that are trying to bring about Christian nationalism like a society where we are living in a theocratic society, where the laws of their interpretation of the Christian god are the things that are in effect in America. This is something that’s existed for a long time, the use of sort of this sort of religious justification in order to attack the LGBTQ community and to bring American society to what they feel was an idealized past where we were no longer allowed to be out in public.

[00:22:51]
Zac Raasch: I say about this, it’s important. What they’re trying to do when they go in with a bathroom ban, when they go in with a sports ban, is they are trying to get you to accept an asterisk on trans women’s womanhood they’re saying, yeah, trans women are women, except for in this instance of sports, except when it comes to bathrooms, except for when they’re 16 or 17, maybe. If we get you to accept asterisk after asterisk, ultimately they can get you to remove care and remove trans people entirely. And that’s why we guard so carefully against all the attacks across the spectrum. We’re talking about the attacks on trans rights and the attacks on LGBTQ people more broadly, but we’re also seeing this across marginalized groups. This is one instance in which we have very specific lenses, but these attacks anytime a marginalized community has risen up and said, hey, actually, you’re getting our community killed or hurt with these laws, whether that’s abortion rights, whether that talks about indigenous rights, whether it talks about the impact of police brutality on black communities. There was around Coronavirus, we talked about AAPI and the struggles that their communities were facing. Every time a group rises up and says, hey, these policies get us hurt, there is a faction that looks to other them and use them as a victimhood to accelerate horrible policies across the gambit.

[00:24:18]
V Spehar: Yeah, it’s always the boogeyman, right? When I talk to my parents retirement community in Florida about these types of things, there’s always this idea of like, yeah, but men are stronger than women. So I think in the sports thing, that’s kind of unfair. I’m like, who are you picturing right now? You’re picturing a person that doesn’t exist. You’re not picturing the factual folks within these circumstances. The way that the right and oftentimes paints who a trans athlete is, they’re picking like the most possible brute of a man who’s going to trick everybody into being on the girls swim team. And it’s like, that is not what’s happening, you all. And that’s what is making people feel like they’re protecting women. And for women to be a class of folks who for so long have been begging for protection, oftentimes I feel like they’re getting tricked into thinking, well, if I align with men on this particular issue, maybe they’ll protect me on a different issue. And the fact is they will not love you, they will not protect you. This is one leads to the next, to the next, to the next, and they end up taking all of us under.

[00:25:16]
Tony Reed: And it’s clear that they don’t truly care about protecting women. If they did, they would pass so many other sorts of policies. If they cared about women’s sports, they would fix the criminal pay gap in women’s sports. The criminal amount of investment that we have, in women’s sports at the high school and collegiate level. Like, if they cared about protecting women, they wouldn’t be passing all of these regressive abortion laws, anti abortion laws. If they cared about protecting kids, they would outlaw child poverty and not gender affirming care.

[00:25:47]
Zac Raasch: Right. We also have, you look at sports, you look at certain scandals within the US women’s gymnastics team and the abuse that they face. You look at also, I just want to call out, it’s important to note that the people saying if you go through if you’re a trans woman and you went through a male puberty, you’re forever too X, Y, or Z. To compete in women’s sports are the same people banning gender affirming care for people. They’re saying, we’re going to force you to go through that puberty, and then we are going to use the fact that you went through that puberty to deny you access to things like sports. It’s also worth noting that there are only 35 trans athletes in NCAA. They are vastly underrepresented. If trans people were represented proportionally, we would see many, many more. And in instances where trans people have been successful, you think you mentioned swimming, you think Lia Thomas, her record was broken the next year. But importantly, even if it wasn’t, I want to celebrate athletes who work hard, cis athletes, trans athletes. I know, as someone who was a five time state wrestling champion in my youth, I know what it takes to be successful as an athlete, to work hard. I know the lessons you learn, and I know the hardships and struggles that come with it. I want to celebrate athletes at every stage of their career, whether they’re playing in the Peewee League or whether they’re an NCAA or Olympic athlete.

[00:27:15]
V Spehar: So there’s folks at home right now who are trying to think of, like, how can I support trans people? How can I support trans youth? A lot of my audience isn’t even queer. I have a pretty heavily conservative audience out there, and this is what I call my common sense conservatives. Folks who really get it, they can see big picture. They maybe were legacy raised, Republican or conservative, but they don’t subscribe to all of the ideology. And there are honestly many of them waking up to the fact that the party that they felt aligned with no longer aligns with who they are as people. Now, especially after social media, after TikTok, when a lot of folks who just grew up in communities where there wasn’t any diversity now live such diverse lives, have they had the opportunity to meet folks like yourself and people outside of what they grew up with? And they’re wondering, like, what can I do? What are maybe three direct actions that the average person can do to support trans folks and youth?

[00:28:07]
Zac Raasch: I think what you have to do is you have to have the courage to stand up in whatever rooms you are in. I’m standing up in the legislature, Erin’s tracking this stuff and posting things on things on socials. But if you’re in your work, if you’re in the coffee line, if you’re at an awkward dinner conversation, find the spaces that you’re in that maybe our community isn’t there in that moment and stand up for what’s right, it just takes a little bit of courage.

[00:28:34]
Tony Reed: I want to add to, since you’re speaking to a broad audience that might be at various different phases in learning about trans people, queer people, like, how they relate to them politically, how they relate to them socially, culturally, is that the biggest step for, I think, everybody, for myself included as a trans person, but also for the many allies. And to be allies that are out there is to include more LGBTQ people in your media diet. And I think that your audience is going to have a good leg up on this. But the idea is that a lot of the way in which we conceptualize trans people or queer people comes from the movies and the songs and the readings that we were brought up with as children and as teens and young adults. And if you go back to before 2011 and you watch just about any comedy out there, trans people were either the butt of a joke or the victim or perpetrator of a crime. And so it’s no wonder that whenever we see the political body discussing trans people right now, that this goes into trans people are dangerous. There’s so much at work there with our media diet that feeds into that. And thankfully, in recent years, there have been more opportunities to engage in learning more from LGBTQ content creators, actors, writers. The books are out there, the movies are out there. The TV shows are out there. Whether it be Jeopardy and watching Amy Schneider rack up the high score or whether you’re watching Laverne Cox, you could listen to Kim Petras. There are so many content creators, writers, actors, singers that are out there that are doing good work. And as well as getting to know trans people in your daily life, I think that it’s something like 45% of people know a trans person directly, which is a good number that’s almost half the country knows somebody who’s trans, or everywhere. That number needs to be even higher. Get to know somebody as a person, not just for their transness or their queerness, because you’ll find that a lot of trans people are also just regular human beings that have their own really fun interests. Zooey is trans. She’s in politics, all this stuff. And you know what? She’s also really good at a Rubik’s Cube.

[00:30:50]
V Spehar: I saw it. And that’s what I love about you gals. And that lesson is your activism as a person can be just as simple as somebody’s talking poorly about trans people or saying something awful, and you could go, I’m sick of hearing about that. Why do we even talk like that anymore? You could be just that level. It could be shutting down conversation. You don’t have to be on the front lines the most exactly, perfectly politically correct person. It could be as simple as saying, I don’t like when you talk like that, or that’s not funny to me, or I don’t want to hear about it anymore. Shutting down this obsession with trans people in conversation. And like you said, getting to know trans folks, play some video games, watch some anime, we do all the stuff that you like to do we play disc golf. We do everything. Thank you both so much for being here. Is there anything we didn’t get to talk about that you really wanted folks to know before we leave?

[00:31:37]
Zac Raasch: The only thing I think I would touch on is towards the end of your previous question, you talked about, it can be as simple as shutting down a conversation. And I want people to parallel. I draw. There is when I stepped into the legislature, what I said, my goal was to try to move the needle. And there are 150 different legislators that you’re trying to move the needle on. Some of those were in my party, making sure that they understood the issues and could speak eloquently on them in committee and on the floor. Other times, I flipped some votes from yes to no. But sometimes it was someone who, maybe a session ago stood up and said something really harmful. This time, they stayed down. And that’s one thing that a community did not have to hear, did not have to listen to, even though they still voted yes. There is some harm reduction there, and the harm comes now to our communities. And so we feel the sense of urgency. Erin and I both feel that daily, but also moving the needle takes time. And so just making sure that you are perpetually working on moving that needle. If you’re doing the work in the rooms you’re in and we’re doing the work in the rooms are in, that’s how ultimately, we get bills like these to go away, and we let our community live the happy lives and have that pursuit of happiness we’re all chasing.

[00:32:59]
V Spehar: Erin, final thought.

[00:33:02]
Tony Reed: I’m so glad to be able to be at her side and to do the work that I do, with her. I think that we are so good for each other, and I’m really thankful that you’ve had us on today.

[00:33:14]
V Spehar: I’m really grateful that you girls were here today, too. I appreciate you both so much. I love watching you all everywhere. Tell people where they can find you.

[00:33:20]
Tony Reed: erinmorning.com or at erinthemorn on Twitter and TikTok and Instagram, where I cover all the LGBT legislation that’s out there.

[00:33:32]
Zac Raasch: I am @ZoAndBehold. Z-O-A-N-D-B-E-H-O-L-D on Twitter, TikTok, Insta, Bluesky if you got it.

[00:33:40]
V Spehar: Thank you all for being here so much. I appreciate you keep up the great work. We’ll keep following and supporting. You are welcome back here. Anytime you have anything at all you want to say, just jump on in and we’ll be here for you. Happy Pride. And we will, I’m sure, see a bunch of Pride content from you as well.

[00:33:54]
Tony Reed: Absolutely.

[00:33:55]
Zac Raasch: Have a good one.

I encourage you all to at least read the transcript, as it contains some very interesting portions. Here’s some of the things I noticed:
  • Tony seems to have flown Kiddo to Montana with him for "Queer Prom". Was his son actually at "Queer Prom"?
  • Kiddo, sadly, appears to have been fully brainwashed by Tony.
  • Zac was once again asked what "queer joy" means and, despite this being the "safest" possible space for him to give an honest answer, he couldn’t, just saying that "queer joy … is … the reason we’re going to win these fights … we know what our lives are about … that will be what gets us through the storm". I’m not making this up! Go to the paragraph marked [00:06:07]!
  • Zac claims to have been a "high-level athlete" and (later) that he was a "5-time state wrestling champion". I think he is lying. Zac moved from Montana to Washington state about age 10, staying there until well after he graduated from the University of Washington. He graduated high school in 2006, and I’ve managed to find records of him placing 3rd in 2006, 5th in 2005, not even top 8 in 2004, and nothing before then. I’ve also found no record of him wrestling while at university (though I’m less certain on this front). Where are the five years where he was state champion? Washington has a list of 3 and 4-time boys state wrestling champions (presumably there are no five-time champs) and there is no Zac Raasch listed.
  • Tony can’t even get the year of the looting of the Hirschfeld institute and the subsequent book-burnings correct. It’s 1933, not 1932 as he says, which you would think would be pretty obvious given what was true of Germany in ’33 and not true of Germany in ’32.
  • Zac has this weird bit where he says:
    What they’re trying to do when they go in with a bathroom ban, when they go in with a sports ban, is they are trying to get you to accept an asterisk on trans women’s womanhood
    :story: None of the people proposing those restrictions thinks you’re a woman, Zac.
  • Also on sport, the host says this:
    The way that the right oftentimes paints who a trans athlete is, they’re picking like the most possible brute of a man who’s going to trick everybody into being on the girls swim team. And it’s like, that is not what’s happening, you all.
    Porn addict Will / Lia Thomas is brute compared to the women he’s competing against, but why should it matter that "in reality" the trans-identified males competing against women aren’t "brutes"?
  • The host (a self-hating they/them woman) then suggests that women don’t have brains of their own, and that they’re being tricked by nefarious men:
    And for women to be a class of folks who for so long have been begging for protection, oftentimes I feel like they’re getting tricked into thinking, well, if I align with men on this particular issue, maybe they’ll protect me on a different issue.
  • Tony says that if the people restricting women’s sport to women actually cared about women, they would "fix the criminal pay gap in women’s sports", or if they cared about kids, "they would outlaw child poverty". Not actively working on X? Then you also don’t care about Y!
  • Zac says that rules excluding males from female sport are hypocritical because the same people are restricting puberty blockers. (Nevermind that 9-year-old boys are significantly faster and stronger than 9-year-old girls.)
  • More missing the point about protecting women’s sports from men: "trans athletes are underrepresented" but why should it matter if it’s 1 man or 1,000; Will / Lia Thomas’s "record was broken the next year", so we should just let men compete against women(??).
More generally, for all three of them, it’s clear that they’ve made no attempt to understand their opponents’ positions. They’re entirely content to live in their own little world where opponents of "gender-affirming care" are irrational zealots. They are certainly not among the Stephen Whittles of the world.

Apologies for double-posting, but the beach pictures were posted while I was drafting the podcast post.

Get your barf bags ready!
Thank you, these have made me immensely happy. But, my sister in sneed, archive your shit. You never know when Tony's going to reconsider whether he should have posted something hilarious.
ErinInTheMorn-1665063787051769867-thread.png
@ErinInTheMorn, tweet 1665063787051769867 (archive)
Erin Reed (@ErinInTheMorn) · Jun 3, 2023 · 6:31 PM UTC
Zooey and I on the beach in Florida - we are here to speak about Pride and resilience at Pride On The Block in the heart of the state where the worst laws have passed.
Yet here we are, happy, standing up for those affected.
Our joy is resistance.
See you soon!
@ZoAndBehold

Remember when Tony was talking about how big his boobs were on reddit? So big he had to apparently hold them while going down the stairs? :lit:
I do! In fact, I have it right here:
2019-10-28-tony-bouncing-boobs.png
October 2019: Comments on Felt my boobs bounce for the first time!! (archive)

This was almost 2 years before Tony posted (in July 2021) about taking "big-boob pills":
No, no, you don't understand, bIgOT, progesterone was "literally invented" to make Tony's moobs bigger (source, archive):
Tony Reed said:
The fact that science literally invented a pill to make my boobs bigger is wonderful.

To quote myself from that post:
But Tony why did you need to take a magic boob pill in July 2021, when in December 2019 you said they were "C cups and growing, probably gonna be D cups"?

For reference, here are Tony's Sports Illustrated pics from last weekend:
 
Whipped up a Tony titty comparison, to see how his "probably … D cups" have fared since summer 2022:
those are probably not even an a cup.

their desire for big boobs just confirms their pornified, superficial, view of women. boobs are great for enhancing sexual pleasure regardless of size but apart from that they're an inconvenience. bras are uncomfortable, even when properly fitted,going braless is uncomfortable and pretty taboo. having bigger boobs doesn't make you more of a woman and in extreme cases causes back pain to the extent reduction surgery is necessary.

their estrogen isn't going to develop the machinery women have to breastfeed. like their horrible vaginoplasties, its just about creating something that looks like a vague approximation of the real thing with no regard to the complexities relating to the actual functions of female anatomy.
 
Whipped up a Tony titty comparison, to see how his "probably … D cups" have fared since summer 2022:
View attachment 5147950
If that mole on his left-hand-side is cancerous, it probably has a good chance of being bigger than his "boobs".
I know troons lie all the time, but this lie is the funniest. Claiming he has big ol tiddies that are so big they bounce without a bra, yet wearing a bikini top that clearly shows he's flat as fuck. I think he legit had bigger boobs before he trooned out.

What puzzles me is that he's looking fatter these days yet his tits haven't grown at all.
 
In the last month, Tony has declared both Florida and Montana to be the two most dangerous and genocidal places on planet earth. He then promptly went and larped in both places in full AGP mode. Not a single one of the terminally online autists in his cult or media bobble-heads called him out for this stunning hypocrisy.
 
I can be such a child sometimes.
You can still see the Duper's Delight in the eyes, where this disgusting freak knows exactly how repulsive he is, yet is reveling in the fact that he can force normal people to pretend he's anything other than the abomination he is.
 
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