Let Her Rest: We respond to the Pod Squad’s mind-blowing questions

September 21, 2021

Glennon Doyle:

Well, hi everybody. Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. We have a special episode for you all today. I don’t imagine that maybe there’s ever been a situation where a podcast has more ridiculously amazing voicemails from the pod squad community. If you all could listen to these questions we have flooding our inbox every week, and stories, it’s so hilarious, heartbreaking. It’s everything, so we decided, this week, we are going to dedicate two entire episodes to your questions.

Abby Wambach:

Woo woo.

Glennon Doyle:

Yeah. It’s so thrilling to us because we feel like we’re just going to be hanging out with you all this whole time. And so, a few reminders. The tricky part of Q&A’s is that we don’t have any A’s. It is my deep belief that the reason why people ask me for advice so often is because I never give them any. There’s this idea that someone else will have the answers, but really, we’re each living this completely unprecedented, unrepeatable experiment of a life. Nobody’s done it before us. Nobody will ever do it after us. Each of us is winging it completely. So, the only one who ever really has the answers, obviously, is us. Right? So anyway, we have your Q’s and then we have some responses.

Amanda Doyle:

And mostly they’re like-

GD:

Right? We have some stories.

AD:

Yeah, good call. That’s correct.

AW:

Yeah.

GD:

Mostly, our responses are, “Same. Yes. Retweet.” Correct. So, we’re excited to jump in. Let us… you ready, Amanda and Abby, for these-

AW:

Let’s do it.

GD:

… beautiful Q’s?

AW:

Let’s do it.

GD:

Okay. Let’s hear our first one.

AW:

Jody.

Jody:

Hi, G and Sister. My name is Jody. I’m 53 years old. Over a year ago, I ended a very toxic 18-year marriage to an addict. It was my second marriage, and this person was a step-parent to my two older children, and we also have two children together. I’ve been working hard at healing my relationships with my older children who despise this person, and also helping my younger children establish all the good boundaries necessary when you have an addictive parent.

All of that is hard, but definitely the right kind of hard. The hard thing I’m bringing you today is this. I have been in survival mode for so long that I barely know who I am or what I want this next stage of my life to look like. So, even though there is tremendous relief with breaking that cycle and saying, “Not this,” I sort of feel numb, like maybe this goddamn cheetah doesn’t have a wild, like if I was Tabitha and they opened the cage, I would just walk out and lie next to it, because it’s all I know, and I’m really tired.

How do I start thriving and living a joyful life that my kids will be proud of, and want to emulate, instead

of just surviving day by day? Okay, that’s it. That’s my hard thing. Love you both, and Abby too.

AW:

Oh, Jody.

GD:

I want to be… Does anyone else want to be-

AW:

Yeah.

GD:

… best friends with Jody?

AW:

Jody, Jody.

GD:

I’m fully obsessed with Jody. Jody wants to know how to be a goddamned cheetah. Okay. But she’s tired. Right? That’s Jody’s thing. She’s tired, because she’s been through the fire, several times, carried her children on her back, out of the fire, probably more than once, and now she’s tired. You know what I started thinking about, when I was listening to Jody, is something that one of my dearest friends in the whole world, Liz Gilbert, said to me recently. And she was talking about how women are always called to be fierce and tough and brave and cheetah-like, and like, that’s the revolution. And she was like, “You know what I think the revolution is? I think it’s a rested woman. Where are they? Where are the relaxed, rested women? That’s the revolution to me.”

I was thinking about the first memory I have of my entire life. Okay? I don’t have a lot of early memories, but I know that this has to be significant because it’s the one thing I can remember from being little. I remember being in Kindergarten. I remember my teacher. Her name was Mrs. Peacock. Mrs. Peacock, remember?

AD:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

GD:

And I was in my Kindergarten classroom, and I had crawled underneath a table and closed my eyes, and tried to fall asleep in the middle of class. Okay? And a bunch of kids circled the table and were like poking at me, because it’s ridiculous… Right? …to try to take a nap in the middle of the class. And Mrs. Peacock walked over, and I heard her feet, and I thought she was going to pull me out, and she said… She didn’t say anything to me. She said to the other kids, “Leave her alone. Let her rest.” And those words, “Let her rest,” I’m just telling you that it is… It was like, to this day, it’s the most beautiful thing anyone can say to me. When I go to bed, Abby, in the middle of the day, and I hear you say to the kids, “Quiet. Let her rest”…

Okay, so Jody, what I want to say to you… Hold on a second. I need to google something real quick, Jody. Oh, okay Jody. Here we go. How many hours a day does a cheetah sleep? At least 12, it says, at least 12. Cheetahs spend most of their time sleeping. During the day, they are minimally active. They prefer shady spots. Look, Jody, if you want to know how you can be a goddamned cheetah, at this point in your life, after you have done so many hard things for your children, for yourself, Jody, rest. That’s what a cheetah would do, right now.

AW:

I think we’re forgetting… We just have to get to get to the point where she’s outside of this cage. And if you find your way outside of any freaking cage, you get to do whatever the hell you want. If that is to sit down right next to the cage and use it to hold your back up, because your back’s tired, do that.

GD:

That’s right.

AW:

If it is to go on a run… Whatever it is, as long as you are… Like, you’ve done the work. You get to do whatever it is that you want, Jody. You have just gotten yourself free.

GD:

That’s right.

AW:

You choose.

GD:

Rest, Jody. Rest. You said you’re tired. Your body is telling you-

AW:

That’s right.

GD:

… exactly what a cheetah would do. We are animals. Your body is saying, “Now, I fought the fight, and now it’s time to rest.” Lay down next to that cage. Let your children see a woman rest. That could be the revolution.

AW:

Ooooo.

AD:

I also think that if it’s rest, it’s rest, but I think it’s also what Jody is describing is trauma. She has endured a chronic-level stress trauma, and when you do that, your nervous system has these two parts. Right? There’s the one that’s the fire flight. It’s the sympathetic nervous system, and that is the one that’s activated during places of danger. It sounds like Jody has traveled a lot of that. Then your sympathetic nervous system is the one that kicks in and allows you to actually rest and to recharge yourself. But, for a lot of folks, and this could be what’s happening to Jody as to why she feels so exhausted, is that when you’ve lived so long with that chronic level of trauma or stress, your nervous system can’t continue to respond.

So you either get stuck in the totally On position, where your body doesn’t know the difference between a perceived threat and an actual threat. So you’re constantly in hyper razzle. You’re up, On, On, On, On, or you’re in the Off position, meaning that you are fatigued, and your nervous system is not responding in either way, and I think that, that’s something that helped me understand that I just constantly idle high, high, high, high, high, high alert, and other people respond other ways.

So I think that it’s also good for folks like Jody to understand that this isn’t a character trait, necessarily. This isn’t like… It could be your body responding very, very appropriately, and taking care of itself in a way that allowed you to survive the years of what you’ve survived, and that maybe paying attention to that, and learning how your nervous system can cope with the next part of your life that you’ve created to not have the danger you had in the first part. It’s an interesting thing to explore, because sometimes our bodies are stuck. The inside of our bodies are stuck, where our physical bodies are no longer. So learning about that sympathetic nervous system would be interesting for Jody.

GD:

Yeah.

AW:

Really smart. Damn, I love that. I want to learn about it now, jeez.

GD:

Yeah, it’s good. Jody, we love you, and don’t forget. We all want to be bad asses for our kids. The best memories I have of childhood are just sitting on a couch and snuggling with my parents. The things that we think we need to do to impress them, I don’t know… I just think, sometimes, doing nothing and just breathing with your family is the most beautiful thing that we can do. So, Jody, give yourself a long break. Let her rest, and when she awakes, she will move mountains. Isn’t that a Pinterest thing?

AD:

Yeah. I think it is.

GD:

That’s for Jody.

AD:

I think it is. That’s for Jody.

GD:

Or let her rest, and when she wakes, she might like to rest again.

AD:

That’s better. I like that one. That’s the poster I want.

AD:

Yes. All right. Okay, let’s go to our next Q.

Madison:

This is Madison. I would like to say Hi Glennon and Sister. My question is, sort of, for Abby, and I’m hoping that maybe she can come back on and help me work through this one a little bit. I am currently in a relationship, a long-term relationship, where my partner has children. And I’m struggling to find what my role in this situation is. We’ve been together for over a year, and we do lots of things together, but I find myself, kind of, always feeling like the thing that doesn’t belong or like the awkward buddy of the group, and especially with his son. I really have a desire to be a more supportive and emotionally-involved figure in his life, but I’m not sure how to start to make that transition and help that relationship grow. So if Abby or Glennon has any insight into how to start to open up that world and forge that path, I would love to hear it. Thank you, so much.

AW:

Mmm. Madison. Wow. Well, I’ve got a couple of thoughts on this. First of all, sweet question, and the fact that you’re asking this question makes me know that there’s some real possibility here. I believe that… We use the word, bonus parent, but most of the world uses the word, step-parent, phrase. It’s one of the most selfless acts of love, when you find yourself in a step-parenting role because there are all of these confusing dynamics at play.

How old the children were when you came into the family. How was that marriage before you came into the family? How was the divorce? There’s so many things that differentiate each situation, that my experience is going to be different than yours, of course. But one thing that I know really did help me was having a partner, in Glennon, who was, and is, capable of wanting to have the conversations around what my desires are what her desires are.

So, here Glennon was with three children, and Craig, by the way, having the co-parenting trio that we have makes things, in so many ways, so beautiful and so much easier for the person like me stepping in. But Glennon had been raising these children, and Craig had been raising these children, in many ways, I think, in hindsight, to accept somebody like me, on some level, on some deep, deep level. And let me tell you. It wasn’t easy.

When I first got to the family, Tish and Chase and Amma, they were, of course, sad about their family being, now, different, about this new person walking in the door. But I had to look at it from their perspective, like, “If you really want to have a relationship with this son, this son of your partner’s, you do have to take some of the arrows or some of the frustration, or fear, or anger, on some level.” Imagine being these children, and imagine their life being flipped upside-down and then go about trying to heal it.

Be capable and present enough to understand that, if you do want what’s best for these kids, it is a balancing act like of, “How much do I put myself out there?” Quite frankly, step-parenting, you’re always putting yourself out there, and you’re never going to get… I mean, you might never, ever get the credit. You know? I have had to come to accept that our kids will probably never call me Mom. They call me Abby, but like, when they’re out in the world with their friends, I actually just heard recently that they do call me Mom to out there world. And I just like… I about died. I about fell over when I heard this news.

So, Madison, I know this is a long, and not helpful, answer, probably, on any level. But Glennon really did help me. I would say talk to your partner, and tell them about your dreams for the way that you want to interact with their child, with this child, and what kind of a relationship do you want, so that you can be, both, in it together, that you’re not feeling like… Because part of the responsibility of this partner is to make sure that the path that they’re allowing you to walk isn’t riddled with fires-

GD:

Right.

AW:

… along the way. You know? That you have a clear pathway to be able to… And it’s then up to you. Right? So have the conversation with your partner, and then figure out what this child loves and help create environments that this little kid can go out and express this love. Then, the more you get to see this kid experience the joy of life, they will start turning back to you. They will start looking to you, to make sure that you’re watching.

AD:

Mmm. That’s good, Abby. That’s really good.

AW:

That’s all I got.

AD:

That’s enough.

AW:

That’s all I got to say.

AD:

That’s enough, girl. That’s enough.

AW:

But also, I’ll just say this. There’s nothing more rewarding, in my life, nothing that I have ever been able to accomplish in my life, than being able to know that my children love me. There’s also like you being the biological parent, and Craig being the biological parent… There’s a level of openness to both of you that has allowed me to come into this situation. So I think that you allowing me to feel like I have an entitlement to this mother-

GD:

Yeah.

AW:

… claim. That is a big part of why I’ve been able to actually feel like these children’s mother, on some level.

GD:

That’s why I think it’s so brilliant that you mentioned to Madison that one of the most important things is talk this to death with your partner, because the two partners set the stage for the bonus parent’s success or failure. Right?

AW:

Yep.

GD:

It’s aligning those intentions, for the biological parent, letting go of some of that gate keeping of like… I don’t know. There’s something… It’s a process for us, too, to, say, energetically allow permission in each… to change dynamics, to change patterns. All that stuff necessarily happens when you really and truly fully let another grown-up human being into your family dynamic. And if the OG parent is holding too tight to old patterns, to old dynamics, which is understandable… When family is changed, you hold onto something. That creates, kind of, sets the stage for failure for the new person.

So I think it’s just… I love the opening the conversation constantly, and being super honest with the other partner, and being in it together, because I think, sometimes, it’s set up as, “Oh, how do I… I? The bonus parent… fix this relationship with the child?” And that’s too much for the bonus parent. It’s directionally incorrect. The work should be with the two adults, setting up the stage for success for the kid.

AW:

That’s right.

GD:

So good. All right.

Katy:

My name is Katy. I would like to ask, after being in a relationship with infidelity and moving on to being with Abby, how do you trust that she is going to hold your heart safely? Even when she says all the right things and does all the right actions, how do you know? And that’s my question. I love you guys. Thanks. Bye.

AW:

I can’t wait to hear this answer. How do you know, Glennon?

GD:

I love, so much, listening to these questions, and then my brain, all it does, because I don’t live in the real world. I live in the imaginary world. I just need you to know that every single one of these callers has an entire backstory in my brain, immediately. The things I have created for Katy, in the last 45 seconds, about Katy’s life… Okay, I want to say a couple of things about this trust issue. I think that… We were just talking about this, Abby, this weekend.

AW:

We were.

GD:

We were just talking about trust, and how most of my life, especially the second half of my life, is about trying to figure out how I can trust the universe a little bit more, how I can just relax and stop being so anxious and suspicious, and certain everyone’s going to screw me over constantly. And some of that came when I met you, Abby, and you live differently than that. You generally feel like people are doing the best they can, and that we can trust people and that things will work out, which is just a batshit crazy way to live. Right?

Things don’t work themselves out. I work them out, and if I don’t work them out, they fall apart. Right? So this is the general way I live, which is why I’m sweating constantly. One thing I want to say to Katy, I just want to directly answer her question about love, first of all. This is probably, Abby, exactly what you want to hear, but the truth of this matter is that I don’t know much, for sure. If I had to bet my life on whether Abby was going to betray me, at some point or break my trust or something, I would, at this point, bet my life that she wouldn’t. Okay? That she would never betray me, that she would never break my trust. But, Katy, I’m also going to tell you that life has surprised the shit out of me, many times.

There have been things before, in my life, that I would have bet my life upon, that, in fact, I would have lost the bet in the long run. So what I do know, Katy, is that I’m pretty sure that Abby’s not going to betray my trust, and I’ve never met anyone in my entire life that has earned my trust more than Abby. But that, at the end of the day, is not what I hang my hat on. What I do know about my life, and about you, Katy, since you actually were cognizant and alive and vertical enough to make this call, is that no matter what has happened to me, in my life, and how many times I have been betrayed, or how many times I have been gobsmacked by people or life, I survived.

What I know about myself is that I have become a 45-year-old woman who is no longer afraid of fires in her life because I have proven to myself, over the past few decades, that I am fireproof, that no matter what happens, I will survive. So, my peace, Katy, and I hope your peace, is not dependent upon what Abby does or does not do. My peace is fully dependent on my track record, that I know that it can all fall apart, and that it won’t be pretty. It doesn’t have to be. But I will remain standing. Good luck, Katy.

Helen:

Hi, Glennon. I have followed you for many years, and I love your work, Glennon, and thank you for the contribution you’re making to so many people. I’m a parent and a sister to queer folk, and I loved and cried through your podcast episode, Queer Freedom. However, I have a contention with one small part of it. You said that you can’t say you love someone and then make choices that show hate to them. I have a different opinion.

I was in the evangelical church for many years, believe the party line that being gay is a sin. I have since left that church and now see the deep damage I caused. I hurt my gay family members with my conservative beliefs and choices, but I did still love them. In your book, you said that your family did not feel loved by you when you were deep in your addiction. By the same logic, one can say, since you made hurtful choices toward your family, that you didn’t love them. But I know you did love them. It was just mucked up.

So my question to you is, if you could still love and do harm when you were an addict, can’t someone with misguided religious beliefs love and do harm? Please let me know your thoughts. Sincerely, Helen. Good luck with your podcast and thanks for all you do, again.

GD:

Helen. See, this is the problem with having super smart people in your community. This is constantly the problem, is that they are asking very tough questions about things that you may or may have not said.

AD:

And with such grace. I love… I mean, really.

GD:

With such beauty and grace. I want to do a whole episode on criticism and questioning, and ways to do it where it makes the other person want to engage in ways to do… Anyway, Helen is a really beautiful example of offering dissent in a way that invites more ideas, instead of shutting down. I think that I guess… I want to hear everyone. There’s going to be a million. There’s no answer to this question. There’s just ideas and responses. The question being, can you love someone and can you love a queer person but also judge them for their queerness, I guess. Can we love and judge or love and reject at the same time?

What I would say first is that we all have to decide for ourselves what the word love means. Right? So if you mean, “Can I have warm feelings about someone and then also have a dogma that rejects their identity?” I guess. I can’t tell you that you can’t have both of those things at the same time, but that’s not what love means to me. Love is something that’s very specific. I don’t do cheap love. I don’t believe that love is just a warm feeling that I have, so I can say, “Oh, I love her, but I just you know, I disagree with her family and her being and her identity, and I think God’s going to send her to Hell.” No, no, no, no. To me, love has to do with a fierce celebration of what a person is.

So I’m sorry, Helen, but I would stick with my… When you’re saying could I… I said I loved my family when I was an addict, but I was hurting them. I think the question would have to been to ask my parents, “Do you feel loved by Glennon?” And I think that, Helen, the question would be for you to ask your queer family, when you were in the evangelical church, did they feel loved by you? You may have thought, “I’m, loving them,” but in the end, does that matter? Does her intention mean shit?

AW:

Mm-mm. All impact.

GD:

If the impact is pain and rejection? Oh, but I loved my family when I was drunk and ruining their lives all the time. So what? What does that mean? I had warm feelings for them while I was actively hurting them? Love is as love does? Love is as love is received? Love is as love feels? To me, the question about whether we are loving should be asked of the receiver. Right? So I think that while I love you, Helen, deeply, I think the answer for me is a big No.

I think about the definition of things a lot, and I think we all just have to decide what love means to us, and then we can answer that question for ourselves. Abby and I had to spend a lot of time figuring out what a friend is because, can we be friends? We have the situation where we had friends who we enjoyed being with, but we knew that those friends were also people who were actively voting and rallying against our family’s rights and well-being. And it was very confusing to us because we felt like the culture was suggesting to us that, “Well, you can be friends and disagree.” But that felt bad to us.

So we decided, “Actually, no. That can be something else.” But a friend, to us, we don’t believe in the friend as anyone other than somebody who would stand with us when they’re standing right in front of us and somebody who would stand with us when we can’t see them in a voting booth, or whatever. So I just guess we all have to decide what the word love and friend means to us and answer that question for ourselves.

AD:

And I think it might be… It’s interesting because I think what Helen’s trying to get to is, “I felt a deep and real love for them.” So what we’re not saying to her is that, that love wasn’t real. What we’re saying is that, when there’s a barrier between the deep real love you feel, your intention, and deep real love being received as an impact, often there is a barrier there that is preventing it from being transmitted. So, in Glennon’s case, that was her addiction, that that was a wall that real love went in, but real love did not come through, and that, in the evangelical party line, you, Helen, might have been giving forth all of your love, but this evangelical barrier of a belief that that had to sift through, was not allowing it to be received as real true love on the other side. So I think that’s another way to think of intention versus impact, is, is there a barrier? Is there a boundary? Is there a wall between the love that I’m sending out that perverts that love, that changes that love to make it not be received? Because it doesn’t mean it was invalid on either side. It means there is something that you haven’t done the work to deconstruct, to allow your love to be received as real and true.

GD:

And the only way to find that out, too, is to ask the people who you think you’re loving, because, as you said, Sister, it can be very real for you when you’re offering it. You’re not a good judge of that. I know, for me, I don’t want to just insist that I’m loving my children well. I want to know, from them, are you receiving it as the love that you need? That’s all that matters.

I love the idea of not thinking of love as something that we offer our way, and that’s it. We’re loving. It’s like love is a verb. Love is personalized. Love is specific to people. It’s like when you feed people, you don’t feed everybody the exact same thing, in the exact same way, and expect everybody to be satisfied. People are different, and I really like the idea of considering the success or the power of your love, as judged by the beloved.

AW:

Mmm.

GD:

Yeah.

AD:

I mean, I’m listening to this, and I don’t feel like I fit into either of those neat categories you’ve already discussed, but I’m immediately thinking of the way I love my kids and the barriers between the outrageously real love that I have for them and how it’s received. If it’s through the barrier of judgment or if through the barrier of expectations, how is all of that energy that I’m pouring out, that I believe is coming full-throttle at love, how is it being received?

GD:

Yes. I think it’s a brilliant way to think about it, with kids. I was sitting… I have this one child who, loving her just looks way different than loving anybody else in my life, and I was sitting on the couch the other day. I wanted to talk all of these different things. What she really wanted to do was describe in minute-by-minute detail, to me, the last horror movie she watched. She’s like super, super into horror movies. Please understand. Think about anything I’d rather not… I hate everything about the situation. I’m in a hostage situation, with a child who’s… But that is how she feels loved by me. And what I wanted to say is, “Dear God. Can we talk about your life? Can we talk about… What’s going on in your life?”

AD:

Literally, anything other than this.

GD:

Literally anything other. I want to pull the fire alarm. I get it. Like, “And then, and then, and then, and then…” But I guarantee, at the end of that, she felt closer to me, and I just don’t get to choose. Let’s move on to the next one.

Annie:

Hi, Glennon. Hi, Sister. Hi, Abby. My name’s Annie, and I was calling because I just finished listening to your sex episode. I’m sorry. I’m emotional right now. I’m not sorry. I’m emotional, right now, and I just wanted to sincerely thank Sister for the honest conversation-

AD:

Yes!

Annie:

… especially about when your partner doesn’t want to have sex with you. Just for some background, my husband had an affair about two years ago, and immediately after, we had a lot of sex. Then, about a year and a half ago, it abruptly stopped. A lot of it is related to some mental health struggles that he’s been having. Rationally, I know that, but it still really, really hurts. So I just wanted to thank Sister for bringing that up. It was so validating to hear that, and I just want people to know that they’re not alone in it. So, thank you. Love you guys. Looking forward to the next episode. Bye.

AW:

Annie.

AD:

So, y’all, we… This is one of hundreds. Annie, thank you for leaving that message, and I just want to say to Annie that your message is one of hundreds of messages and emails that we received with a story very, very similar to yours, and to mine, and I think that this is something that, given the response of people, that A, it’s happening so much, so frequently and, B, that people are not talking about.

GD:

Can you give some context, Sister? Please tell-

AD:

Yes. What I was-

GD:

Please tell… I just want people to-

AD:

… remember about that show. Basically, what I was saying in the sex episode, as we were talking a lot about how, in hetero normative relationships, the conversations very often revolve around, “Oh, my gosh. My husband always wants to have sex with me,” and “How do I deal with it?” And “I never want to,” and “It’s such a chore.” I know that struggle in my current marriage. So I want to say that clearly, but I also know the opposite struggle in my prior marriage, where I was not desired and basically just, kind of, deserted sexually, and that is something that rarely, if ever, do people talk about it, and, more so than not talk about it, I feel like women are often discussing the opposite problem.

So you feel like a real outcast and odd, in your own relationship, and then an outcast and odd in the social dynamics where people are discussing their sex problems. So I think that what we do know is that hundreds of people responded exactly like Annie, and we also know that statistically, 20% of couples are in sexless marriages, and we don’t know who is, kind of, the one who is experiencing that as abandonment in those relationships. But it is very, very frequent. So thank you, Annie, for bringing it up, and I just think that a lot more people are having this issue than are talking about this.

GD:

Yeah, and Sissy, I just want to say thank you to you because what I want everybody listening to know is that we actually recorded that whole episode without that part, and Amanda listened the whole thing and said… Hold on… I am listening to this, thinking about all of the women for whom this is going to be a painful conversation because we haven’t addressed this other part, and I have experienced it and, for them, I need to get on and we need to record this new part. And I just love that, so much, and I’m grateful to you, Sister, for working so hard to make sure that we’re all seen as brave. I love you.

AD:

I love you, too.

AW:

Beautiful.

GD:

Okay, next, please.

Ellen:

Hi, G. My name is Ellen, and I work with young people, and many of the youth I work with are exploring their identity, sexuality, and gender expression. I recently spoke with someone who told me that these people should accept reality and stop joining others in trendy things, like being non-binary or gender fluid. I believe that it is the youth who will help us expand our definitions of gender, sexuality, and self. I love your fierce acceptance and was just wondering what your thoughts are on this topic, and how we can go about changing the world, instead of putting our youth in the boxes they may not fit in. Thanks, so much. I love your podcast. Bye.

GD:

Sister, what are we going to do with all these trendy, non-binary folks, who are just jumping on the gender bandwagon?

AD:

So trendy, like-

GD:

Like it’s like false eyelashes, or like a cool headband.

AD:

It’s so cool and easy to be gender non-binary.

GD:

Yes.

AD:

This is so fun. You know my idea of fun is things like this. So will jump on-

GD:

Here we go.

AD:

… the train with me? Because it-

GD:

Choo-chooo.

AW:

Let’s go.

AD:

Okay, we talked a little bit about this on the first episode on Tuesday, but I think we just need to talk about this because this idea of trendy suggests new and different than what always has been. And I think it’s just really important, contextually, to understand that we literally lived in a pre-sexual orientation world, for all time, until about 160 years ago. So trendy is sexual orientation.

GD:

Amen.

AD:

And we also think of heterosexuality as being always like given normal default status and queerness being, somehow, new or abnormal. But, actually, they were created, as we talked about, at the exact same moment. It was in the 1860s. It was legal concept in an article protesting German sodomy laws. So those were invented at the very same time. But, because we had a very strong need to establish and defend normalcy, at the time, it was a very strong priority because it was the rise of the Middle Class. So all of our social institutions, government bureaucracy, police force, all of that, there was a new economic social dominance of Middle Class, which had a vested interest in defending this idea of normalcy in themselves. Okay? So, in opposition to that power grew out of normalcy as being heterosexuality, and that was left alone, only defined as normal. Heterosexuality became this physio-social disposition. So that became deviant, abnormal, broken. Then that…

GD:

What, homosexuality.

AD:

So that became a personhood, an identity whereas heterosexuality was left alone, normal. What was formerly just something people did became something people are. So that all happened very, very quickly. Now, the labeling that everyone is viewing as trendy, now, arose out of queer people’s response to this definition from outside of themselves. So they urged this new self-definition, and now we have the articulation of all these sexual identities, which is, at one point, a very good thing, because people find community, describe their identity, find their people that they want to be in relationship with.

All of that is very good, but to Ellen, I say, all of the folks that you’re talking to… We have too many trendy definitions of sexual orientation. It just blows my mind because I’m like, how do we have damn near enough? We don’t have enough. We have infinite… Okay, infinite human possibilities-

GD:

Experiences.

AD:

… of desire.

GD:

That’s right.

AD:

As number of people that we have, is the amount of possibilities of desire that we have in the world, and at the highest count, we have 21 orientations to organize all the people, all of the people.

GD:

And, Sister, can we talk about how ridiculous it is, in the first place, to make categories for people based on what they prefer? Why do we choose sexuality? Why don’t we just choose colors?

AD:

Well, we do that too. We do that too, actually.

GD:

Where are all the people that prefer purple? You’re stuck with that forever. Where are all the people that prefer blue the most? You’re stuck with that forever. It’s so strange.

AD:

Well, it’s not strange because the people who have the power to define what is normal and abnormal

get to use that. It’s not arbitrary. It’s not arbitrary like color.

GD:

No, it’s not arbitrary.  It’s strange but not arbitrary.

AD:

It’s strange but not arbitrary. But this is my question. It’s like, a recent UK poll found that fewer than half of 19 to 24-year-olds define themselves as 100% heterosexual. And that is not because they had engaged in queerness. They hadn’t physically acted upon that, but it was that they didn’t need to cling to this idea of heterosexuality as their barometer of normalcy. It’s like not only do those categories fail to fit who we are as individual people, and they inevitably require leaving some of ourselves at the door, as we try to fit ourselves into these boxes. But it also feels like have we not outlasted the need to reinforce normalcy?

GD:

I feel like the way that I see this generation is not like getting on the trend. The way that I see this generation is pointing out the emperor has no clothes.

AW:

That’s right.

GD:

The way that I see this generation is that they understand that we’ve made all this shit up.

AW:

Yep.

GD:

That if all of these categories are arbitrary, and all of these identities, and even gender, is horse shit. Right? It’s just completely arbitrary and made-up. They’re performances, mandatory performances that somebody gives us. This kids, many of them are saying, “We don’t want to perform.”

AW:

That’s right.

GD:

“We’re not going to perform the roles that you are giving us anymore.”

AW:

I think, first of all, we’re just trying to get back. The new generation is just trying to get back to the 1860s, before all of us adults fucked it all up.

GD:

They’re so good-fashioned.

AW:

Then, what I would also say, Ellen, is those who are coming to you with some of this non-binary, it’s just laziness. People don’t want to change. People don’t want to have to learn something new. People feel just like exhausted, and we’re not going to… Let them be lazy.

AD:

I have an answer to the laziness. We can just get rid of all of them. It’s like when James Baldwin, they asked him what do you think gay people will be like in the future? And he said, “No one will have to answer that question, because it answers a false argument.” It’s the wrong question. Right? So let’s just, “Hey, lazy people. We’re with you. This is so trendy, this past 160 years. We’re just going to get rid of it and let people be themselves.”

GD:

That’s right. You can’t do hard things.

AD:

You can’t do hard things.

AW:

Y’all, we got to wrap this up, and we got to go to the pod squadder of the week.

GD:

Woo hoo.

Meredith:

This is Meredith, calling from the south. Glennon, Amanda, and Abby, I love this podcast. If I had a vote, I would vote on having it on five times a week. This country is in a mess, and that’s because we’ve never talked about hard things. I grew up in the ’50s and ’60s, where nothing was discussed. The elephants were all over the room, and now those of us who are in our 60s and 70s are having to still figure out the things that happened to us that we weren’t ever able to talk about. So don’t let anybody sway you from your path. You just keep talking about hard things. I love you. I think you folks are hilarious, I’m sporty spice, and I love everything that y’all talk about, even though sometimes it is hard to hear. Take care. Bye-bye.

AW:

Meredith! Oh.

GD:

You guys.

AD:

Oh, Meredith.

GD:

Meredith.

AD:

Meredith, calling from the south.

GD:

Don’t you just wish that you could call Meredith.

AD:

I want Meredith to call every day.

GD:

I want that pep talk, every day.

AD:

Meredith, you could do hard things like leave a message for us every day. Please?

GD:

Every day, Meredith. No pressure.

AW:

Five times a week, Meredith. That’s what we want.

GD:

Meredith, I just want to say thank you. Okay, to all of you… I mean, clearly, mostly to Meredith, but also to all of you, we love you. Seriously, we could listen to your voice mails and your stories and your questions all day, and we will. We will listen to them forever. Thank you for listening to us. We will keep listening to you. Together, we can do hard things, and we’ll see you soon.