Shon Faye meets Judith Butler | In Conversation

Well, let's go back to what we were just discussing. — Okay, cool. — Um, — it does strike me that well, I don't actually like talking about generations so much because I feel like when does a generation begin and end? And we have all these — Gen Z, Gen X, all this baby boomer stuff. And I know that it's useful like sometimes to generalize in that way. But um I'm not sure uh that it's altogether helpful because many of us have lived through several times and we carry those times in us but we're also living in the present and we've been transformed by the present. So to be put in a time that belongs to you seems not quite right. Um but you were saying um or one of the things I remark upon is the freeway in which you read radical feminism from the past — and how very different that is from um what we're seeing now under the name of radical feminism. And I feel like that the history of radical feminism has been forgotten, displaced, erased um uh in the name of a radical feminism that uh has um become obviously transexclusionary and um and very narrow. Um so when you look back when you read um some of the early feminist writings, what is it that you look for? What are you what are you seeking to find or what are you surprised by? — I think what I'm seeking to find I think um the reason that I'm interested in perhaps the radical feminism of the past uh an analysis of uh I think the radical feminists of the second wave had a really strong analysis of violence and the mechanics of gender-based violence which they would have termed male violence against women. Right? Because you know when you look at what radical feminism or trans-exclusionary feminism defines itself by now, it's not just transexclusionary. It's quite transfocused. It's — and particularly I think as a trans woman and you realize that you're at the center of this imaginary where all of these displaced anxieties about male violence are like visited upon you. Um, and then what's odd is I look at something like here in the UK where the focus has been so in public discourse, feminist discourse on trans women and now we're perhaps starting to have this big cultural conversation about misogyny amongst teenage boys, — Andrew Tate and this, you know, rise in violent misogynist crime. Yeah. — Um, and I think neither the kind of light millennial pink consumerist feminism of 10 years ago nor the trans-exclusionary radical feminism really have any answers for this crisis that's going on of endemic misogyny. And so for me, I was very interested in going back to — a time where that was the focus um as unpalatable as it was to a patriarchal culture. And so, um, yeah, I was saying whilst I may have quite strong disagreements with someone like Andrea Dawin or, um, Katherine McKinnon or Kate Millet, you know, I I became interested in, well, these are feminists that had an analysis — that was actually about — violence and not about displacing it onto — minority groups who are disproportionately affected by misogynist violence. — Yeah. McKinnon allowed us to see rape differently. Um, even Dwarkin did. Um, although maybe less clearly than McKinnon or more ambiguously, but McKinnon gave us a way to think about the organization of masculine power in violent ways. — So that we needed to see but we needed to ask the question, how is society being organized? Not what anatomical part do you have? How does the anatomical part get invested with social power become an instrument of social power, sexual power, domination? Um, and we were constantly being asked to put the body in context to understand how it's interpreted and organized. That's what radical feminism did. Um, because remember they were also feminists who said biology is not destiny, — right? They didn't want to be reduced to their parts. And they weren't about to reduce men to their parts either. Men that they assumed had parts. Um or trans women that they assume have parts. But the problem of course is that we see a resurgence of biological reductionism and we lose the entire analysis of

power. Uh power and domination both. the trans woman imagined is kind of a like a displacement of something else. And I remember one of one thing from Dwarkin that I found very helpful in her book rightwing women where she looked in the US at and it's very relevant to now given how many women voted for Trump but um she was looking at the anti-lessianism and the similar myths of predation about lesbians um spread by right-wing women in the 1970s in the US and she said that her argument was that uh violence against women is so often in the most intimate sphere. it is husbands, fathers, brothers. And that is such an intolerable reality that for some women um it becomes easier. She in typical Dawkins style, so hyperbolic, sort of says that to stop women from rising up and killing their own husbands and brothers and fathers, they have to displace their rage onto remote targets. And the examples she gives are black people, Jewish people, lesbians in the 70s. And I would argue that [clears throat] — trans people and trans women in particular are kind of just a modern successor to that. Yeah, — I think for me understanding it's easy to kind of dismiss it as bigotry or hate, but to also understand — there is usually something that is people feel they are defending when they are that — energized by a regressive cause. That's right. And I think for me it was much more as a trans woman who was often had this these kind of um you know someone who did work publicly and has certainly received my fair share of hostility for that. It actually is more comforting to me to try and understand what might actually be driving this in terms of um patriarchal trauma. Um — yes. Uh, and I think for me again looking at a breadth of feminist history gave me more of a perspective on that than just writing off the entirety of the past, which is I think what we were talking about this idea of the tendency within feminist intellectual history to kind of to separate people into generations and then to kill — off the previous generation of feminist matricidal — instincts because — Yeah. — And I suppose that's because I still think people think being a good which is being a good feminist is about being a good person — rather than it being an intellectual tradition. And for me feminist doesn't mean — good person. I think that's quite — No, I think that is quite important. I'm interested in this idea of a patriarchal trauma that resides in the midst of patriarchal institutions that many cis women are compelled to defend. um so if you're defending that institution and it's also the sight of your trauma, it uh your reaction to it, your rage, uh your wound um all get displaced somewhere else because you don't want it to become the ground for a full scale critique or dismantling of the patriarchal structure. then you really become, you know, a Dorcin style radical feminist, right? So, in order not to become Andrea Dorcin, you must displace your rage and your vulnerability elsewhere. Um, and I think that's a really good analysis. I have to say that when people come at me uh actually either on the question of gender or the question of Palestine — uh and they are very aggressive and they tell me um that I'm hurting their children or I'm hurting children generally that I'm a danger in society. I find that the only um conversations that tend to work with those people um are initiated by my question. Talk to me about what it is you fear. — Like if I just ask people to talk about their fear. So on a different topic, I had a woman come up to me in France and say, um I'm I'm terrified you're going to harm my children. I said, in what way would I harm your children? Well, they respect you on gender, but now I'm worried that they'll listen to you on Israel Palestine. — Um, and I said, "Well, your children probably can make judgments about what they like and don't like about what I say. " — You know, like I agree here and I don't agree there. — Like that's kind of what we do. — Um, and I would expect your children to do that. You're probably raising them to

be critical and have informed judgments and have point of view of their own. But she was still very frightened and she said, "You know, you're not a European. You don't understand that um that we could die again. There could be another 6 million European Jews to to — to die or choose around the world to die. " — And I said, "Look, you can say I'm not a European. Yes, it's true. I'm from the United States. But if you don't think I come from a an acute Holocaust history, you're making a mistake. If you don't think I studied the Holocaust for most of my first oh 30 years and that was part of my Jewish education and that I didn't listen to the stories about my family being slaughtered from my grandmother, you're making a mistake. I said can we have a coffee at which point, you know, she was she started to weep and her friend said, "Butler asked you for coffee. Are you going to have the coffee or not coffee? " And I said, "Okay, okay. " And but it was a kind of meltdown. It was like a meltdown moment. And I asked her if I could give her a hug and her friend said, "Take the hug. " You know, I did finally, we didn't have the coffee finally, unfortunately. But it was like a little bit of a breakthrough moment. And I've also had it I think on questions of gender where Christians um Christian nationalists in various country get really worked up um and um they're not just anti-trans, they're anti-gay parenting. They don't want their children to become gay. They don't want them to read any literature on gay, lesbian, feminist or trans stuff. — Um non-binary stuff, nothing. Uh and in those cases I actually have to point out um that there's a Christian doctrine of love that they might consult at such a moment — that they could still remain Christian as many progressive Christians do who embrace all kinds of um communities um that are being denounced. by uh institutional religions um especially on the right. — So um but it's very hard to make that connection. But I find that finding out what they fear and reminding them that their own religious tradition gives them another option sometimes opens something. — Sometimes. Well, that's what I was going to ask you is it has if gender has become a fantasm has also Judith Butler become a fantasm to a certain extent because you're sort of a standin for this — this concept called gender ideology well in certain parts of the world I would say in Brazil um but you know there were a group of feminists who were understood as representing gender ideology for the Vatican and in the '9s and I was not prominent among them. Um so I mean I think over time because I have uh started to address the issue I get more and more identified with it. — How does that feel? because I think you chose to be an academic and a feminist philosopher and obviously the career and the profile that you've ended up with is probably I mean at certain turns you may have leaned into it but it wasn't something that you would have set out to or any of your colleagues for example at the University of California would probably expect for their career. Is there do you feel that actually that's a question that I'm interested in is like do you feel that there has been an element of where you decided I'm going to have to step into this role because it's being created for me. — Yes. Well, first of all, let me say that I also I live to the side of the fantas fantasm that maybe I am. So even if Judith Butler has become a fantasm, I'm not in that all the time. — I'm going about my business. I have friendships. I have my, you know, I have my life and I have my academic work that no one's reading. Um, but that I love working on and I haven't given that up. So my actual life is much more complex than these moments in which I emerge as a fantasm. It's like, oh, that there's that again, — but it's not me. — Yeah. — So maybe that's sort of like the difference between, you know, what's in the written form or what's a position and then what's the person. So for me it's really important to hold on to my

life. — Yeah. — Separate from my name. Um uh and that gives me a lot of space to breathe and move and enjoy things. — I imagine that there aren't that are there that many perks that come with the name. It's not because I think um it's a certain form of like notoriety but I don't know if there's any benefit to you and get to jump the line at a restaurant because you're Judith Butler. Yes, I do get to Jeff. — I definitely — Well, I'm glad there. I definitely — You're getting burned in effigy. — I get a lot of perks. No, because but there's also a fandom base which is complicated and I don't always love. But um but no, I think that I'm uh that for the most part I have benefited in all kinds of ways. — Yeah. But um but look the but the main point is um is that because I was named and attacked uh especially in Brazil in 2017 — um and threatened with violence. I really needed to start thinking about what happened to me. Talk about a trauma. Uh and I wanted to make sense of why these people were calling me names. Why were they calling me the devil? Why did they give me horns in the effigy that they burnt? — Why did they start screaming pedophilia when I was giving a talk on Martin Buber and Edward say? — I mean, you know, not even talking on they're in the back of the university setting — yelling pedophilia, right? So, and then I had to see that gender for them, especially in their um churches, which had be have become increasingly right-wing throughout Brazil and Latin America more broadly, they said they were taught that teaching on gender is indoctrination, predation, — harm to children, um uh seduction, and in fact, you know, all the things that the Catholic Church has been doing for a really long time. Talk about projection and displacement. — Yeah. — Is almost everything they attributed to gender was in fact a set of crimes that the Catholic Church had both committed and covered over and failed to redress in an effective way. So, you know, I had to go back and read the Vatican documents and figure out how did this get to Brazil, you know, like track it and then where why is it with Orban now and what's happening in the apostolic churches in in central Africa where the governments no longer provide social services and the churches are providing all the social services and also teaching them that gender ideology will destroy their lives Mhm. — And there's some coordinated efforts um especially among sort of Christian nationalist right-wing movements that have actually produced a global anti-gender ideology movement that is affecting all of us in our everyday lives. Um or many of us at least. So yeah, I did feel like once you're a target um you're given a platform. — Yeah. Oh, call me that. Thank you. I can now speak or I can now learn or research this act of violence and find out who else is suffering from this violence. And I learned a lot about queer and trans people, especially black people in Brazil who have suffered violence for years. Right? So, it's not about me at that point. It's about taking that moment of violence that I experienced and looking at as social structure like how did this become a systemic form of violence against you know what are sometimes called sexual minorities or sexual dissident or LGBTQIA plus people. One thing that I was thinking that we probably might share is uh you know having I wrote a book about trans liberation and I think in the wake of that book being relatively successful I feel this kind of awkward guilt about the fact that um yeah you acquire a platform and yet I'm insulated from a lot of the worst transphobia both in the UK but also globally. You know, there's a whole chapter I write about sex work and sex work for migrants in Europe and in South America and how dangerous that is for trans women of color. And that isn't something that touches my life. Um, [sighs] and I think in some ways the more that I um get a platform for the kind of discursive um work that I produce, the more of a responsibility I feel in private to

engage in some kind of real world activism, no matter yes — how small. And one thing that I think maybe people who only know you through your publish work wouldn't know is that — you've always been around activist circles. What for you is the relationship between real world activism and you know the academic or analytical standpoint? — Yeah, it's interesting. I think um you know I entered the academy as a philosopher and I experienced discrimination um for several years. It was very difficult for me um as a as a Butch Dyke um in my 20s um to get a job given how I looked and how I dressed — and there was just very clear discrimination, horrible things said meet, you know, reported to me from meetings and the rest. It was um and I did join some lesbian gay human rights organizations and I started so the minute I got an academic job I was also in an activist setting. So I was affiliated with certain groups in Washington DC and then international gay and lesbian human rights commission and then I joined the center for constitutional rights in New York and then Jewish voice for peace which I'm still doing active in the academic council — and there's no way I'm not going to be I' I've been a kind of activist since I was a kid, you know. Uh um was trying to tell somebody yesterday, I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and I remember the Kent State shootings and the police coming down against protesters, which we're now seeing again. — Um uh not murders right now, but maybe soon. Um uh but certainly police violence against people who are protesting principled positions on the basis of principled positions. So, I think that I've always had that it's it feeds into some of my academic work, not all of it. And I'm always doing it to the side. And um I'm aware that the conditions of my work and existence, including my rights to adopt my kid, uh depended on social movements changing the law and making my life possible. M — um so you know and I became an advocate for non-violence and wanted to explain what that means although apparently increasingly unpopular position on the left for some reason and um so yeah it's just always been a part of my life. Uh it's not exactly a decision it just comes with me. Yeah, I think for me I think I continue in my I wrote a lot about the importance of friendship and its relationship to politics in my second book because I really wanted to kind of uh document in my public work the fact that for me I think so often um what I struggle with perhaps particularly as someone that I actually don't feel like gender is um a huge focus of my curiosity at this point in my life uh anymore. — I think it was obviously like for many years up until when I transitioned it became pre preoccupying and then — I mean it is but not in the sense that perhaps is assigned to me but this idea that I'm deeply invested in a ideology of some kind. In fact I feel quite — quite agnostic about a lot of ideas about gender more so than perhaps I did when I transitioned. — Yeah. That's interesting. — That's kind of great. — Yeah, I think so. I mean I think because it's something you live and breathe and it and it changes I mean even the fact that I think post the age of 35 and it will continue you know your relationship to gender changes with age it changes with um life experience but one of the things that I find difficult about you know at times feeling somewhat ethically and morally compelled to talk about trans people in particular but gender you can't really talk about trans people without talking about gender more broadly. And I think I've become interested in this question of violence and gender um — again. So I it is still gender but with a different lens. — I think um yeah I was very keen in my second book I wrote a lot about friendship because I think there is this idea that — you know probably even more so for you as an academic that we exist in some kind of echo chamber ivory tower and that I'm not interested or curious about people outside of that. And that's definitely something that I don't feel is true. And I reflected a lot that I

think activism, — which is we still have shared political goals. You know, it's a perhaps I'm mixing with people that I might naturally have more in common with politically, but not necessarily socially. I think those meeting points have become more of interest to me. — Yes. But Sean, I think of you as um anti-toxic, right? Like you're trying to produce a different way of thinking, talking, being with each other that is not based on toxic allegations or hideous caricature. And this is so important in this time. And I know in the UK some of these um debates on trans have um involved actually a lot of hate speech, hateful speech and hateful characterization. And it seems to me you're trying to offer another vision which is not about hatred but actually about love, friendship, connection, — being open to those who disagree with you or who are actually frightened of you. Um, and I'm just wondering if you could talk some more about that. Um, I can understand why it's necessary here, but you do stand out as somebody who has diagnosed the situation and is actively trying to provide an alternative way of being. — Um, well, that's good to hear and I would hope so. I think um you know I'm not perfect in that regard. Certainly I think some of the reason that I have probably as you say adopted that kind of uh anti-toxicity is perhaps because when I was younger I tried the slightly more adversarial um black and white view of the world and it kind of didn't get me anywhere and actually seemed to be quite self-destructive. It's I mean it's it's that kind of old adage of someone like Martin Luther King who said that he just found love easier to bear than hate. That it's that it for me as an individual it's quite selfish that I I find it's quite poisonous to my work to my uh — mental health, spiritual health, whatever you want to describe it. I think um I think the other reflection I have on that is um yeah is that being a trans woman uh and I'm not alone in this it is literally any trans person um but trans women in particular in public life whether it's in social media influencing modeling you don't even have to be an expressly political actor um Sarah McBride in the US or um Uh yeah, any trans woman really that acquires um any degree of public attention is uh I have certainly being in that position uh seen read um heard um things about myself that are so dehumanizing — and so I mean it's like encountering another like a sound like Naomi Klein like a doppelganger that is not me — um and is yeah like is essentially a sort of folk devil. Um I think that is the essence of dehumanization. And what I realized is um as difficult as it is, I cannot combat that intense an intention to dehumanize me with more dehumanization by saying, "Well, these people are just doing it because they're full of hate and they're awful people. " it's unsatisfactory to me as I think about other people because I still think you know these people are people they have motivations like you described fear they have anxiety about something and it doesn't mean that it isn't misplaced it doesn't mean it doesn't cause harm but um I think for me constantly and it's work as well because I wouldn't pretend this is easy and um it's not about becoming completely um detached from the urgency of resistance and fighting back. But definitely for me, I think a kind of commitment to always retaining a view of shared humanity with even with people who hate me — is part of how I think and act as a political um being because — um I just don't think we're going to win. And I want to win. By win, I guess I mean I don't mean um when in the case of some kind of gender ideology. I mean in terms of the cause for human freedom. Yeah. — And I don't think that's possible unless there is a sense of profound human dignity. were existing in a time where um and I think what has happened in

Palestine has demonstrated perhaps to people who a wider group of people than ever before as we've seen what unfolds is that the very concept of human rights inalienable human dignity is — is in tatters. Um, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't and ought not to exist and that there should be and I think it begins obviously it's enshrined in law and protections and it should be upheld in the traditional way that we think of human rights but I think the perspective on humanity that underpins it has to flow in all perspectives. So for me, it's much more interesting to kind of radically rehumanize the people that want to dehumanize me um and start there from a position of curiosity about their humanity. — Um that sounds very noble. It's not always the easiest thing to do. — No, it's a struggle, but I think it is um it's an imperative ideal, you know, for the reasons you say, right? How can we be in favor of the freedom of this group or that group without thinking about freedom as something we want for all people? And if that's what we want, then what are we saying about all people or we're saying all people have that — that capacity or um and they also perhaps uh can want it for one another, — right? That's the hardest thing like wanting what you want for yourself — for the other. — Um turns out, you know, equality is just like a massively difficult obstacle for a lot of people. Um but um one question I guess I have for you is do you I mean I have a a student who came from a very conservative background came up to me at a university. She said, "Look, I'm a progressive thinker, but I go back home in the summers and I sit with all these people in my family who voted for Trump and who have some pretty, you know, pretty terrible views in my view. At the same time, she said, um, I have to figure out how to hold their humanity, — you know, as I speak to them. " In other words, and I love that figure, like holding another's humanity. It's like you're arguing, you're disagreeing, you know they're completely wrong, but you're holding their humanity at the same time. And I thought, wow, that's like this big-hearted way of engaging in antagonism. Can we do that? Can we struggle and also hold each other's humanity? It's a hard one. — I think it's hard, but I think it I think it's in I've been quite inspired. I mean, I remember hearing a talk by Tony Morrison that she gave many years ago where she said, — you know, she had read a lot of uh slave owners diaries because she wanted to understand the impact that slavery had on those who dominated um the enslaved, that she believed it was such a disfigurement of humanity that it disfigured those who benefited, which I believe. — I believe too. Um, and to me that was quite inspirational in the sense that no one would say to Tony Morrison, if you don't have any curiosity, — to know what was in the minds of a slave owner, then that would be fair enough. But I all the same I think that I mean it's there in her work and um and the legacy that she left which has been very inspirational in my own work but I you know and it returns to this question of gender to me it's very interesting to think about you know gender is so often um something that we envision perhaps in our trans people but if not cisgender women so rarely or maybe gay men, but so rarely cis straight men. And for me, um the idea of the harm that gender or gendered socialization and masculinity does to the man — to the patriarchal man — and what parts of that person are disfigured [clears throat] spiritually and psychologically by this system. — Yes. — Um you know is how I think we begin to even unpick — Yes. the violence of misogyny and sexism — and it remains sort of very uninterrogated I think um or only goes so far there's a very huge lack for obvious reasons of political will to truly unpick it — um — and so yeah so to me I think yeah retaining a I guess holding someone's humanity is retaining a I suppose another way of putting it would be retaining a curiosity — curiosity It's a really interesting way. — Yeah.

— It seems to me you're thinking about forms of love. — Mhm. — Can you talk to us about love? Like what's divine love? — Yeah. — Well, what's spiritual love? — Well, that Yeah. Um, it's interesting because earlier on you me you talked about uh reminding people that perhaps come from the more right-wing end of the Christian conservative movement reminding them of love in — yes — um in their own religious and spiritual tradition. I think for me um I grew up Catholic. Um was fervently so for a little bit in my teens and then for obvious well not necessarily for obvious but for the reasons you might imagine um that fell away in my like late teens and early 20ies as I came out as queer and then trans. Um but for me I think when I you know I wrote a book about love because I was interested in um I had written a book about uh trans liiberation and about the ways in which um trans people are often marginalized or made problematic politically and materially. But one of the ways in which I guess being trans had scarred my own life uh perhap in this culture in a transphobic culture it's not inherent to being trans was this feeling of being unlovable — and that's often where you know my starting point was and I looked at it with regards to romantic love sexuality but what I kept coming up against was this idea of how does one heal from this sense of being unlovable and I did a lot of intellectual research as I often do overintellectualize a profound emotional problem and I think what I kept coming up against was this sense of the spiritual and I think in a late capitalist consumerrist culture — whilst there is plenty to um people have understandably rejected particularly queer and trans people about organized religion uh and the organized religions that some of us grew up in. I did think, you know, there is something about a lack of spiritual love, as in a transcendent sense of connection with other people and with a higher purpose of being here — that is missing and into that void is buy more, consume more, and it's killing us and it's killing the planet. And so for me, I think as I've progressed through my 30s, spiritual love for me has been about what can I both from the spiritual forms of love I grew up with, which for me were in a Christian context, although I'm not a Christian anymore. Um, — is that possible? — I think is it possible to extract? — I mean, it's kind of I mean, yeah. Yeah, I accept I accept what you're saying, but I always thought you could leave the church, but still something's inside you that comes from that tradition. — I think No, I think that's true. I mean definitely there are both good and bad. Yeah. But I think what uh I think for me here is what I have taken from spiritual love and I appreciate that for some people they may still it may still operate within a religious context but is this idea and we've talked about a lot of them today is um this shared humanity that is everyone being infinitely worthy of some kind of love because they are human. um a connection to one another. Um an idea that yeah, this consumerrist materialist world we live in might not be the sole summit of our happiness. That these big spiritual um principles like forgiveness, tolerance are good. We don't always hear that they're good. Even in the queer community, we don't necessarily hear that they're good. Um and uh and that yeah that there are we it is both good and natural for us as human beings to be selfless to care about one another — even when it's of no worldly material capitalist benefit to ourselves. And so for me that's — getting to kind of an approximation of what I think spiritual love involves. And then other than that you know again it feeds into [clears throat] the hope thing is that for me reclaiming a sense of a spiritual life which for me can you know look like meditation it can look like contemplation um is also a way of coping with the reality of the world in which I find myself and um retaining hope — um particularly in the face of — huge macro events that at the individual level I know I'm powerless over and there's a lot about individual powerlessness in most spiritual traditions and

— confronting that reality um — but not being defined by it. — Yeah. — Um so that's in a nutshell. I think — I think when I was younger I want I wanted to understand identity and I was also skeptical of the categories of identity. Would they capture me? Would I would they be a new prison? — Would I be liberated by them? But then in recent years I've decided that um that identity when you say I'm a this or I'm a that you're actually asking somebody to regard you a certain way or to ask you some questions about who you might be. — So um for me identity is a point of departure for a larger conversation. um okay tell me your story like how'd you get there what does it mean to you how has it shifted where's it where you going with that — you know um and then you get to know the person so I think about um identity as the point of departure for a story or a point of departure for a conversation but not a kind of self-encclosed moment like this is who I am like I'm firmly this and I'm encased in this and I'm defended against everything outside of me it's No, it's like so when a kid comes to their feminist mom, and I can't tell you how many feminist moms have come to me with this. when the kid who the feminist mom thought was their daughter um comes to them and says uh um I uh want you to call me by this masculine name and I'm in the midst of uh going through a transition and would like to be uh treated as a boy. Right? So that the feminist mom comes to me then it's like hold on I have to call you the mother like what's happening I built this world so that my daughter could grow up and be a happy woman and now she's not really like living in the world that I produced for her. Like how ungrateful. And um and I said well maybe you need to ask this person your son um what's happening like how are they feeling? How have they felt? What kind of journey are they on? Where are they? What are they thinking? What are they who ask them to talk to you? Right? It's like that's a it's an invitation. If that kid comes to you and say says, "Call me this and I am this gender. " It's an invitation like are you going to recognize me in the terms that I'm offering to you that feel right to me or are you going to stay with terms that feel right to you but have face me? And if you love that child, you open to that child to what they are saying and you listen and you allow yourself to be transformed by what you hear.