Welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. A reduction of shondaland Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. So it's like the supremacy or the misogyny or transpobia at the top, it's put into policies and laws, and then it just trickles down into this real sense of permission to assault and attack, whether blatant violence that creates physical harm or death, or just for you know, the microaggressions that are so commonplace and people don't even think much about them. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. I'm Laverne Cox. So I definitely want to give a trigger warning before today's episode because it's triggering. It's fun to talk about this. The trauma is super real for me as a survivor of multiple forms of direct and indirect violence, both in my childhood and as an adult. Year after years, transfolkes become more visible in the media, the instances of violence against us are not decreasing. In fact, these instances are increasing, particularly fatal violence. In two thousand, trans people that we know of were murdered in the United States alone. That's the highest number for the US ever in a single year, and an estimated three and fifty trans people were murdered globally. Since I've had a public platform, I've been trying to bring awareness to the senseless violence too many transpokes experience on a daily basis. There are so many factors that can make trans folks more vulnerable to violence, housing and employment, in security, lack of access to healthcare, policies that fail, trans youth in school, media stigma and political propaganda, to humanizing trans folks, and many others. Of course, I I'm so sick and tired of talking about this. I just want this violence to stop. How do we stop would be perpetrators from physically attacking us? How do we stop them from killing us? This brings me to today's guest, Dr Karen Franklin. I first talked with her in two thousand fourteen for the documentary Free c C, which you can purchase or rent on Amazon Prime or iTunes. Dr Karen Franklin is a forensic psychologist who has conducted pioneering research into the motivations of people who assault sexual and gender minorities. In fact, she has presented her research findings to a hate crime subcommittee of the U. S. Senate. Dr Franklin is an adjunct professor of forensic psychology and host a prominent forensic psychology blog. She's also a former criminal investigator. Please enjoy my conversation with Dr Karen Franklin. Already, Hi, Karen, Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today. I'm doing well. It's so nice to see you. It's been such a long time. It's been such a long time. It's been it's been I think seven years since we talked. Last we were I think it was in San Francisco and we talked about c c McDonald and her case, and people can watch the film free CC to hear Karen's remarks about violence against trans women in that documentary. UM this subject I've been talking about my entire public life, really and it's gotten more and more difficult over the years. But I wanted to talk to you today because I want to have a vision for ending violence of all kinds of particularly violence against trans women. So I wanted to try to understand it better, particularly understanding the motivations the rationale of the perpetrators. So Dr Franklin, from your research, what are some of the top reasons perpetrators have cited for the violence, hate violence they've committed. Well, there are several distinct motivations that can be separated out, actually, because that was one of the that was the main thing I was looking at in my research was I was I wanted to go directly to perpetrators and ask them exactly why they did what they did. And it came down to not one thing, but several different things. One was norms enforcement, social norms enforcement, whether for gender or for sexuality. And then another motivation was peer motivations, pere bonding, not being ridicule, going along with the group, having fun together. Another motivation is what is called instrumental violence, which is not particularly due to the person's status as as a category, but rather because it's easier to assault them for some of the reason For example, robberies like some some robbers might go after gay men because they think it's easier to get them to go to a secluded location where they can be easy lee robbed. The same with targeting of Asian victims, actually because there's a stereotype that they're weak and not likely to fight back. So certain offenders aren't really motivated by hate or bias at all. They're just motivated by stereotypes about who's going to be easy to target. And then finally there's defensive aggression, in which the offender is feeling like they are defending themselves. And again really prominent with anti transplolence, where you know, this person was coming on to me, or this person deceived me, or this person was looking at me wrong or flirting with me, and so then I had to attack them because my self respect or or even personal safety was at stake. So those are the four main reasons that I found. I know, I had to defend my masculinity. James Dixon, who murdered Lan knows talking about he needs to defend his masculinity. Yeah. Wow wow. So much of your work staying hate crime and anti embiased crimes focused on anti gay violence. What do you see as the relationship between anti gay hate crimes and anti trans hate crimes. Yeah, that's a super interesting and really good question, because when I actually first started out to do my research, I wasn't really even thinking about anti terrans gender violence particularly, but it just sort of it popped right up onto my radar right aways, and as I really launched into it, and I actually over time, as I did my research which was two types of research. I did survey research of young adults, just normally young college students, and then also some more in depth interviews with perpetrators, and it quickly became clear to me that a lot of what was going on was more gender norms enforcement than actual targeting of gay men and lesbians based on sexual orientation. And when we look at it more historically, when homosexuality first became a public identity, which wasn't until like less than a hundred years ago, the nineties or so, it was really more thought of by the public as gender nonconformity, so it was masculine women and effeminate men more so than based on sexual behaviors. And in fact, what I found in my research was that a lot of what is kind of captured under the rubric of anti gay violence is targeting of people based on their perceived gender nonconformity. That is so important to note. I think about my own life and when I was bullied for the first time as a child in preschool, I was called anti gay slurs, but I was being bullied because he had said I acted like a girl. So their violence towards me was really about enforcing gender norms, right, but they called it gay and so historically I've talked about this for years. Historically people have complaint get sexual orientation and gender identity. Can you break down, I guess in some of your research what gender norms to folks see we're not being performed correctly that they were trying to police. So it's different depending on the gender male or female. But for boys in particular and men who are not masculine enough, that is a violation of longstanding social norms. I think this is a complex topics a lot to it, and there's a lot of nuances. But if we're gonna drill down and look at anti trans women violence for example, So the ideal in our culture for men is strong, warrior like masculinity, right, and that historically comes from nineteenth century Western ideals that went along with colonization. So colonization of inferior people's based on this kind of strong, powerful, dominant masculinity. And so if a young child is being bullied for being a boy and not being masculine enough, he's violating this norm of hyper masculinity. And then women just in general are considered to be inferior based on that norm because masculinity kind of holds itself up as the opposite of femininity, and women are subjugated and looked down upon. So anybody not adhering to those norms is it is thought to be doing something wrong. Like for for example, what what seems to be happening right now. And you know, as you may know, rates of violence are said to be increasing against trans women of color in particular, and especially combicides right now. In the last few years, there's been ascending curve according to the Human Rights Counsel keeps tracking these things. And what's happening is this very deliberate attempt by certain ultra right forces to use transgender is um as a wedge cultural issue. And they and it's very very cynical and deliberate because they actually can be in focus groups to see what will resonate and what can bring in kind of suburban Republican voters to the polls. Right now, they you know, they think that the issue of trans women in sports is very powerful for them. But across the Boyd's like dozens and dozens of laws being proposed, especially across the seven States, to restrict the rights transgender people in health care and to being called their correct pronoun in the schools, and even really serious things like doctors being able to deny treatment based on their own moral and religious beliefs. So theoretically an emergency room doctor could have a transpatient walk in and say I don't want to treat this person and let them die. I think that was Arkansas. Yeah, actually in Arkansas effect that Arkansas is the first bill. So there's several states that have passed sports bans on trans girls competing in sports. I think three or four different states have passed that. But in Arkansas, they've criminalized doctors providing healthcare to transgender children, and it would become it would be a felony for doctors to treat and or even refer transgender youth for gender affirming healthcare. And there are several states as of the recording of this episode that have similar laws being considered and debated as we speak. So I think it's important to note that there's this has been focus grouped, right, that this is a very deliberate, sort of cynical effort by lawmakers to scapegoat trans people. And we know that there is a correlation between stigma against a certain group and violence against that group, right, we're able to particularly I think in the conversation around transgender women in sports, it immediately be times a conversation about bodies, testosterone levels, strength, which I believe objectifies trans people in them we can dehumanize. And even as we have this increased visibility of transpokes, the violence is also increasing. And that violence is it is obviously physical, it's with the deadliest yard record for trans people, but that assault is also legislative, and it's also judicial and interpersonal. So wait, that's right. You hit the nail on the head, is that these things are correlated and when So, for example, with the coronavirus, when the when people in government started calling it the Chinese flu and the Wuhan virus, you saw of dramatic increase in anti Asian violence. Same thing with after nine eleven, dramatic increase and anti Arab violence. And so anytime the forces of the state or people in the authority or prominent politicians start demonizing a group, it trickles down. So we've got kind of a violent ideology at the top that trickles down into laws and policies, and then that trickles down to give people on the at the lower ends of the of the cultural spectrum, permission or even instruction that they should be enforcing these norms against whatever group it is that's being demonized and dehumanized. Absolutely, So, in any of your research, have you spoken specifically to perpetrators who have commit violence against trans women or with most of your research with anti gape bias crimes, I did speak with people who had committed specifically anti trans violence, and I wasn't really setting out to do that. It just so happened that that's what I encountered, and because really I think perpetrators aren't necessarily categorizing people the same way people are categorizing themselves. But I do recall very specifically one particular perpetrator who I interviewed, who had been convicted of an anti gay hate crime. But then when I started talking to him, he started telling me about some other attacks that he had participated in, and in one he was with some friends and he saw somebody who he said was a man wearing a dress and high heels and makeup, and he went over there and started kicking the person. And I asked him, I said, so, why did you do that? And he said, well, he was wearing a dress and makeup and high heels, and he and I asked you, but why did you actually go over there and assault this person? And he just looked at me like there was something wrong with my intelligence, because why didn't I why did I not understand that this was a normal thing to do. If you see somebody who's obviously violating gender norms, you have permission or maybe even a moral duty to do something about that person. I think I remember reading that example on some of the research and some of the interviews have read about you, and it's it's really stands out because the assumption for this perpetrator is like, well, just look at them, and so then it just it just makes me think about so many moments in my life where I've you know, been verbally assaulted or even physically assaulted, and so much of it. So it seemed to come down to, well, well, look at them, right, look at them, and there's a there's a there's a mythology right now, whenever I'm online and a trans person has been murdered, and it happens far too much in a comment section, you'll see a number of people say, well, they shouldn't be trying to fool people, right, So there's a mythology that trans women are out there fooling people, and when men realize that they're with the trans woman, of course they're going to react negatively and and kill the trans person. There was a moment on a show called a Breakfast Club. It was a day after Janet Mock, author TV director Janet Mock was on the Breakfast up talking about her second book, Surpassing Certainty, and she disclosed that in her early twenties she had dated a man for many months and did not disclose that she was trans. The next day on the Breakfast Club, they had a comedian named Little Duval on the show and held up a photo of Janet and said, you know, how would you feel if like you were dating this woman and you found out she was trans? And then he said, well, she'd have to die, you know he So he said this on the radio, and it was it was insane. But that is the kind of mentality that we hear from people. And I'm sure there are trans women transpokes for various reasons, who don't always disclose that their trans to the people they're dating for safety reasons, internal life shame. Early in my transition, I went on a few dates with guys and didn't tell them right away that I was trans, and I stopped doing that like twenty years ago because it just for me personally. I didn't want to get motionally attached to someone and then be rejected because I'm trans, and like they're gonna reject me because I'm trans. I'd like to be rejected right away. But what I found and what I believe happens, even though these men say that they were with these trans women and did not know, that could certainly be the case. But there are a number of cases where men have claimed this and the evidence suggests otherwise. Right, there's two cases I think of. I think of Angie Zappada, trans woman who was murdered in two thousand and eight in Colorado, and I think about Mercedes Williams and a trans woman who was murdered in um Mississippi in two thousand and fifteen. Angie Zapatam, her murderer was convicted of a hate crime. It's actually the first instance when I hate crime distinction was used for the murder of a transgender person. The perpetrator basically said that he had traveled to hang out with Angie and they left the apartment, and then he saw clues that she was trans, and when she came back, he confronted her and discovered that she was trans and then beat her to death. The evidence, though that's presented a trial, suggest that all of her friends and families said that she always informed men that she was trans. There was also evidence that suggested that he had gone to court with her when she had a traffic violation, and that her name, her dead name, was used in that trial, and so he would have had to have heard her name. And then there was also some kind of salacious evidence of a of a sex toy that was recovered from the scene of the crime that had his DNA only on the on the sex toy. So he had made very anti gay statements around gay folks should die, and he claimed that he didn't know, but there was all this evidence that suggested that he did know. And there's another case of Mercedes Williamson that I often site as well. She was a seventeen year old trans woman who was murdered in two thousand and fifteen in Mississippi, and she was murdered by a guy who was in Latin king and he claimed too, that he didn't know she was trans, he discovered it and then killed her. But there's a really good friend of Mercedes who said that he had to have known. They've been dating for many, many months and that he knew she just the friend described, you know, sexual encounters that they had had, and he was in he's a and surfing life sentence now in prison. That's a documentary Love and Hate Crimes that you can watch about him on on BBC. And again we have but we have evidence that suggests that he knew that she was trans, but he's claiming that he didn't know. I guess it's just really frustrating because it feels like it's a victim blaming thing, and it's a narrative that suggests that men aren't knowingly seeking us out, and when most trans women who live in big cities know that there are lots of men who are seeking us out, you know, and just don't want people to know about it. Right? What? What? What are your thoughts around that? So there is some recent scholarship on this topic and a few things here is as as all as all of these topics are the kind of complex and a lot to unpack. But the first thing is what you mentioned that there's this narrative or stereotype of trans women as evil deceivers, right that are tricking these heterosexual men into relationships without their knowledge. And so essentially what that does, it's kind of a shifting of the blame, right, and then identity is turned into provocation. Just mere identity becomes a provocation meriting a violent response. So trans identity is a trespass right against normality. So that's the first thing is that it's a blame shifting thing. But the second part of it is if a trans woman is successfully quote passing and and has to disclose in order to be revealed as transgender, then she's put in a double mind right because she has to say something and then she has to make that decision about when is it safe to do so. So, like there's one study of trans women of color in Australia who talk about the fact that even just walking down the street and have and hearing a sexually flirtatious comment from a man, they have to think, Okay, if I even accept this politely, I'm putting myself at risk because then that might escalate into greater flirtation, which might escalate into them seeing that I'm transgender, which might escalate into violence. So the idea that that the trans woman is responsible for this man's violence. First of all, people are responsible for their own violence, right, and to shift the blame over onto the victim is really heinous. That's so important. People are responsible for their own violence. Can you just pause their People are responsible for their own violence, so that anyone who has committed violencing as the transperson, they are responsible for that violence. It's not the transperson's fault. I just wanted to just pause on that. Go on absolutely, now, Okay, So now we get to the next level, which is there are men who are straight identified who are conflicted about their sexuality and who feared that being with a trans woman means that they're gay, and they can freak out during sex or or even not during sex and then a shout, So that is a phenomenon. But and then the other thing that some trans women have spoken about in in our research studies is the idea of fetishization of the trans body. So sort of men collecting a trans women as kind of an exotic specimen or almost like a doll. And if you look at somebody as an exotic being. They're not really a person anymore, and you can own them, and you have control over them, and you have a right to do whatever you want with their body. So rates of sexual assault, for example, against trans women and relationships with heterosexually identified men are higher than for other women. Percent of transgender people have been sexually assaulted um in their lifetime for percent of trans people. You got it. So the other piece of that, you know, I hate to use huge terms, but intersectionality is really important to remember, which is kind of the multiplicative effects of different forms of oppression when they come together. And I think it's important to remember that trans women are women, and that women in relationships experienced high levels of violence from men period, So intimate partner violence, I mean a third of women homicide victims across the board are killed by their intimate partner. As you say, sexual assault is high in general and the population, and so with the added permission afforded if one is fetishizing the trans woman or thinking of himself as doing her a favor by being with her, and author times trans women are economically disadvantage and so may have fear of leaving relationship. For those types of reasons, survival type of reasons. It all compounds into really a great risk of victimization and then, like you say, scapegoating and turning the blame around. This is a good time to take a little break. We'll be right back though. Okay, let's get back to our chat. I would love to try to understand the psychology of the perpetrator as much as possible. I mean, I'm Gwen Araujo, the trans woman who was murdered in two thousand two in Newark, California. One of her one of her killers upon finding out that she was trans at a party. And this is a group situation. Now you have done great research on group settings. He repeatedly said to himself, I can't be gay. I can't be gay. I can't be gay. He had allegedly had sexual relations with Gwen, not knowing that she was trans, And there's different reports that suggest that she wasn't, that she wasn't always completely quote unquote passing that like it was obvious to many people that she was trans, and many people speculated. But he said, over and over again, I can't be gay. I can't be gay. What is of research told you about that kind of mentality, right, the fear of being gay and that being with the transports and makes you gay. What do we know about this? That's kind of psychology. Yes, I think you said it really well, but it is. It's an internal conflict between the man's internalized homophobia and fear that he's gay for being with a trans woman and his desire is a rotic attraction that it can create enormous shame, enormous sphere and lashing out. I think the more when you talk about prevention, what you were speaking about earlier, I think, the more that homosexuality, for example, becomes normalized and not so stigmatized, which is happening so rappidly. You know, it's hard to believe how quickly cultural marks are changing that internalized fear should start to reduce and not create such a sense of panic that people feel the need that these men feel the need to violently lash out. I think I'm a little bit optimistic that things have changed so fast that they will continue to change. And I mean we were speaking earlier about laws and the cynical use of laws in order to ramp up hysteria against trans people for political aims, But some of these things have fallen flat, like the transgender military band. The majority of Americans do not support that. Even the bathroom bills that that kind of flopped, you know, And so you know, they found one one out of several that really seems to resonate, the the athletics thing because it's framed as an issue of fairness. But I do think that the public is becoming less phobic and less prejudiced over time. I think to underlying this as well is that we need to understand that trans women or women. I think underlying so much of the anti trans discrimination high is violence. Underneath all of it is the assumption, the belief that trans women aren't really women, right, that we are really men in disguise, And so we have to do away with that. And so straight men who are attracted to um women are still straight. I mean, there was a trend happening on TikTok earlier this year called super straight, and that basically meant that this guy started a TikTok basically saying that like, well, you know, it's an identity thing. You can't discriminate against me from my identity. So my identity is super straight, meaning I'm only attracted to women who were born women, and so you can't call me transphobic if I don't want to data trans woman, and it's like, it's just so, it's fine if you don't want to date us, like I've never there's plenty of people who do want to date us. It's tricky. I understand that they are, you know, people, you know. Finding love for trans people is hard, and it's been difficult and challenging for me. I don't want to downplay that. But the issue though, is that these men are attracted to trans women. And then, for example, on on dating apps I I've used to before my current relationship, I was on dating apps and what I discovered is, and this is a lot happens to a lot of trans people, is that men match with the trans person realized their trans It's the first sentence of my profile. They don't reprofiles and then unmatched, but they do it, and they get angry about it. They get angry that they've been attracted to a trans person right and lash out, and it elicits such a violent reaction that they could actually be attracted to someone who's trans. This makes me think of another case, Elan Nettles trans woman who was murdered in two thousand thirteen in New York City. James Dixon, the man who's now serving time for her murder. He was with a group of his friends, Alan and a friend of hers walked by and he cat called her his friends. One of his friends realized that she was trans, made fun of him, and then he beat along Nettles to death. Apparently a few days earlier, he's something similar. It happened he had flirted with two trans women, not knowing they were trans, and then his friends made fun of him, clowned him. I believe it's the language he used, and so Elan Nettles was murdered as a res that a Lamas is walking down the street. She was just being herself. She wasn't deceiving anyone. Remember your research on sort of multi participant sexual assault and hate crimes and or bias crimes that link between misogyny and homophobia. I find really interesting in how the dynamic changes when these men are in groups, right, And I think the example that you give Mss Nettles is a little bit different than what what I'm generally speaking to in these group crimes, in the sense that that particular man that was cat calling, likely felt demasculalonized and threatened by his friends, kind of by the ridicule, whereas a lot of these group crimes there isn't even anything like that. It's just it's an actual proactive decision to target somebody based on whether they're female or gay or trans. But but at any rate, yeah, there are certain motivations that happened in these groups of mostly young men, mostly men then their teens and twenties, where it's not only the overarching motivation of enforcing gender norms that we talked about earlier, but it's also a lot of group dynamics. So there's an intense pressure to perform and to perform masculinity. There's a sense that if you don't participate, you're gonna get targeted yourself, or at least ridiculed or tease as being non masculine. There's also a way that that committing violent crimes together can really bond groups of young men and make them feel closer to each other. There's there's thrill seeking element to it. So what what I actually came to realize in my own work, because I was initially looking at hate crimes against gayman and lesbians and like, like we talked about hate crimes against transgender people kind of came into that organically. Then I started looking at group rape against women, not transgender, just all women, and and realizing that the victim and all of these different crimes, it doesn't really matter who the victim is. The victim is interchangeable as long as they can represent femininity. So it could be a trans woman, it could be a female born woman. It could be a gay man who's a feminine. It could be any of these things, and the function is still the same as to extrude the feminine from a group of guys and make them all feel masculine. Um. You know. Another thing I just thought about with the group piece is the sense of belonging. I just had a conversation with with the straight man who back in the day he used to engage in like making fun of gay people and trans people, and a lot of it was about fitting into a group, right, A lot of it was about trying to have a sense of belonging. So when I think about the group mentality that like, we all crave connection and belonging, and Burnee Brown always had to bring Bernie Brown in says that the opposite of both true belonging is trying to fit in right. Fitting in it's about shape shifting and saying and being who you think you need to be to be accepted. And we first must belong to ourselves and we have to have a vest of values that we're carrying with this at all times. I think that's really true, but it's really hard to accomplish, especially when you're young, when you're just going through adolescents and you're just and you're really insecure, and the group is so important, and you haven't really got your feet under you, and you really don't know how to assert yourself, and so so many people are followers. There's far fewer leaders than followers. And what what young men and groups will say is that they felt like everybody else was more committed to what was going on than they were, and they didn't want to let on about that. If you listen to the perpetrators who participated in the Gwen Araujo murder in two thousand two, there was one specifically who was there and thought it wasn't sort of insaying what was happening, but didn't know how to really stop it, and just kind of went along with it, so that it is consistent at least with that. I'm sure others as well. And you know, Leavern, I should tell you actually how I originally got interested in this topic when I first was looking at the phenomenon of anti gay male and anti lesbian hate crimes in the gay community. At that time, these were conceptualized as hate crimes, so crimes driven by hate or or you know, some form of bias or negative emotion towards the victim, right, But when I was growing up, I was actually associated with people who were committing these crimes young men, and I didn't think that those particular people that I knew were motivated by hate, and I didn't think they were sexually conflicted either. They were just young men in groups who would actually drive up to San Francisco. I grew up here in the San Francisco Bay area. They would just drive up to San Francisco and cruise around looking for victims to target because they thought it was really fun and and they also enjoyed that whole group camaraderie. So that's one one thing is because at the time that I did my research, nobody has actually talked to the perpetrators themselves to see what was going on in their minds, and I found it really interesting that a lot of them don't particularly hold extreme views. They're just acting out these group dynamics, and you know, an event will just take on a life of its own as it goes along. So, for example, in the in the case of miss Nettles, who was killed, right, that was probably not even planned. And some of the other guys in that group might have even secretly liked what they saw going on, but they didn't feel like they could probably say anything without looking weak or feminine themselves. If that makes sense. It does, it really does. It's like we cannot really talk about ending trans phobia and homophobia without also talking about ending mithogyny quebec. Then you cannot. You cannot disentangle these things. They're all just twisted up together. And in fact, when you really think about it, you know, the attacks on trans women in particular, I mean, women in public spaces are policed right and their their bodies are scrutinized. And this is a historic thing women. I mean it's only recently that women haven't been even allowed to go out in public without a male escort. But certainly when we're out in public, men are entitled to bother us and look at us and make comments. And I mean, I think that's one of the differences between trans mean and trans women in terms of victimization, is that nobody's really looking at trans men very closely because they're not objects of public scrutiny the way that women are. There's there's an invisibility of masculining and invisibility of a certain kind of assume male privilege. So they're less on display. And you've also talked about this is theater. They're less on display in the sort of theater of you know, of male female interaction exactly. I mean, I've said this for a long time, but it always often feels like it seems to keep coming back to having, you know, having people have a deeper understanding the humanity of trans people. But there needs to be a critique of like misogyny and patriarchy and what we teach those folks who are male identified in culture about how to not only treat lgbt Q plus folks, but how they treat women. Absolutely, because in fact, one thing I found out when I was doing my original research was that anti lesbian attacks tended to start out as anti woman attacks, just like anti trans women attacks just start as generic anti woman attacks or cat calling, and then if the woman responds in a hostile way, like f you to a cat call or an approach, then all of a sudden, the perpetrator will turn that around and start using anti lesbian epithets. The woman might be lesbian or might be straight, it doesn't really matter. It's just a way of kind of bending his um masculinity. I'm saying, Okay, this woman is not accepting my entitled approach here, she must be gay, right, So yeah, I think it really does what you just said. It boils down to misogyny and just this a sense of masculine entitlement that really I do think that we we we need interventions two educate boys as to the rights of everybody too, and you know, not feel so entitled. I would love for you know, diverse audiences to hear this. But so many men feel like they're under attack, straight men. You know, you'll if you watch a Supreme Court hearing your Congress, straight white men are under attack, you know. And then a lot of straight black men also feel like they're under attacked from my perspective, they just want to have the unfettered access to be able to be misogynistic and homophobic without consequence. And so that's what it feels like the attack is to me, and because I mean, I love men and date men um but it's how do we have the conversations that this toxic masculinity can feel like these gender norms and expectations have to be enforced through violence, means that they're not as sort of inherent as we'd like to think, right, that they have to continually be enforced and reinforced through systems through violence, And if we could let that go, I feel like they would be a lot happier too. But but I think it's like there's also the critique of power. There's some people who are just the psychological piece of it, but then there's also the like I want power and privilege, you know, and I don't know, I'm just grasping. Well, yeah, a couple of things about what you just said that I think are really critical here. One is the whole notion of masculinity. It's not a real thing, which is what makes it so fragile and and having to always be protected and defending because it's not a real thing. It's just sort of an ideology, right, unless you really fight to prove it. Men. You know, you may have heard this research, but when they asked men and women what they're most afraid of, women will say they're afraid of being like raped or murdered, and men will say they're afraid of being ridiculed or laughed at. And a lot of that fear of being ridiculed or laughed at is really primal and really drives a lot of what men do. It seems like they're exercising power, but they're exercising power sometimes from a place of internal fear. And I agree with you, if if that could just be somehow dismantled, they would be a lot happier. Right. And the other piece of it that that what you just said brought up for me is that a lot of it is this whole scarcity model where if somebody has rights, it somehow takes away rights from somebody else. And I think that that's I mean, that's the whole antiimmigrant thing. These immigrants come in somehow it's going to harm me as opposed to maybe better in society by having more hard working, productive people in our society. No, it's going to take away from me. And I think this whole white heterosexual men are under attack idea comes from this place of I'm feeling like, you know, I owned this world and now these people are all whether it's immigrants or trans people or Asians or what have you, they're all encroaching on me and taking something away from me. Is that there's not enough to go around. So we have to move from a scarcity mentality and this is everyone to one of abundance. And you know, I you know, it's just it's fear. It's like this interesting thing around. Like Bernie Brown talked a lot about this, that if you can sort of still fear in people and give them someone to blame, then you know, people can maintain power that way. But for the people out there who are being made afraid, I think that's the piece that we have to begin to understand that trans folks are not a threat, that like me, existing in the world world is not a threat to you, and you need not be afraid of us. You need not be afraid of us. That the trans girls in sports, it's like the Governor of West Virginia with Sula MSNBC recently, and Stephanie Rule asked him, you know, you just signed this anti trans girls playing sports in your state and state of West Virginia, can you name an instance of a trans girl sort of taking advantage of the system, you know, to you know, get an unfair advantage. And he couldn't name an example in his state, and yet he just signed this law into being. And you know, trans people have been allowed to take place sports in the Olympics since two thousand two. There's not been an influx of trans women dominating Olympic sports. There have actually been no trans Olympian since two thousand two. So yes, there are a few cases where you know, some trans women have you know, played sports in in one but it's not a problem where thirty five states need to like introduce over a hundred bills addressing so a lot of it is about fear. It's a it's a strategically and cynically manufactured crisis. I think, and I think people like you learn or you know, I wish there was more people like you, because that's what will help, is more visibility and people speaking reasonably to power. But it does, it starts at the top, and it's often cynically deployed and strategically to to hit people's fears about whatever. And you know, I the more I learn about violence against trans women in particular, so much of it is is deployed against black trans women. And it's like, um, the parallels are kind of inescapable about how lynching culture back in the day so similar the black codes and the gym crow laws. So it's like the supremacy or the misogyny or transphobia at the top, it's put into policies and laws, and then it just trickles down into this real sense of permission to assault an attack, whether whether blatant violence that creates physical harm or death or just more you know, the microaggressions that are so commonplace and people don't even think much about them. But it really does start at the top. It starts with people like Tucker Carlson who's just boaming at the mouth about this trans athletics thing, and you know, he is revving up that whole base around this manufactured issue because they have found that this is an issue that resonates more than unisex bathrooms. Yeah, what from your research with with perpetrators of violence in general, right, because it's like there's a we're talking about bolence against trance people specifically, but like a culture of violence, right that is, you know, steeped in what Bell has called imperialist white supremes, this capitalist patriarchy, these intersecting sort of structures. Have you, I guess in the research talk to perpetrators who have like sort of reformed or thought differently about the violence that they've committed, or haven't haven't had some perspective on it. Absolutely, And in fact that's more my practice areas that are my search area because you know, I work as a forensic psychologist. I work with I mean, day in and day out with violent offenders. That's that's what I did. And typically typically violence is really a young man's thing, so it's teenagers, people in their twenties, maybe up to early thirties. And over time, most people who have committed violence do become more insightful and regretful and slow down and stopped. And probably reform is more the rule than the exception, I would say, and especially when people can be educated and approached in a good way, like sometimes there have been for some hate crime offenders, rehabilitation programs designed specifically for them like racist hate crime offenders who are then put into groups of people combating racism. It's really can be really effective and really powerful for them, and they can really turn their lives around and become prominent spokespersons for progressive ideals. Is that about exposure to people who are that raised or is it the education pieces that both? We know that we're very sort of right now politically that most of us sort of live around people who think like us and who look like us more so than any other time in our history. I think it's both. It's you know, having mentors who preach a positive message and exposure and also kind of education about why their previous ideology had flaws. And of course it's not universally effective, but you know, they found, for example, though, some of the most promising work at reducing bias crimes these days is in the school system, where they can train educators and counselors and then put really charismatic mentoring leaders into place that you can really change the climate of a school and reduce bullying and harassment and which you know, escalates into into hate crimes. That that's kind of positive to me because it means that we actually have the power to change the culture from a small level. Yeah, that's really exciting to me, and I think it's it's noteworthy that the guidelines of how trans kids should be treated in school that were developed under Obama's Justice Department with Loretta Lynch where immediately rescinded, one of the first things the Trump administration did in twenty seventeen. I'm not sure what the status of that is now with the Biden administration, but that you know, I think it's a seventy of students. It's a glistening study of trans and gender nonconforming students in school experience arrascomer bullying s that is startling, startling. We'll be right back without further ado. What do you think the role of religion is, because it's interesting the guy who I'm killed, Mercedes Williams, and his name escapes me at the moment, but he talked a lot about God, right he's in jail, and then his mom was very religious, and he's sort of claiming that that he's not gay, and he didn't know Mercedes was trans, and he's citing God a lot. What you know there, yet I've murdered someone, So what thau shall not kill? What is that right? What is the relationship for you between religion and and bias crimes, because it's it seems like they're not compatible, but yet a lot of religious folks seemed to justify almost violence against trans people. There's definitely a correlation between religious fundamentalism and homophobia and transphobia and misogyny for that matter, in all three of the major you know, mon atheist religions, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. So definitely there's a correlation. And when when assailants are asked about their motivations, the ones who are committing violent crimes out of the value expressive function which is what we call it, which is because of their moral beliefs, will often cite religion. So there's definitely a correlation between fundamentalist religious beliefs and the belief that such violens is acceptable, whether or not they're actually out there committing violens or not. The belief that you know, there's that deviance should be punished is really prominent. Wow. Wow, I don't even know what to do with that, you know, because it's like, because you want I only be in a place where people's religion is is respected, you know, I think that's very important, especially in the United States. Right. One of the big reasons we you know, the original and folks came and I founded this country was for religious freedom, right, So we want folks to be able to have that that that religious freedom should not be encroaching on the liberty of other folks. Yeah, it's actually kind of scary. I mean, there's a conservative Christian fundamental organization that's going around the world is called the Alliance Defending Freedom. Yes, I'm familiar, really well funded, and they are trying to curtail the rights of sexual minorities and general minorities around the world, including trying to lobby force sterilization of transgender people. And wow, you know this is all on their belief about what God's law is. And so I mean there are progressive religious movements as well. I really need to step up and be heard absolutely, you know, I think it's important to note that the organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom, they're really responsible for that. There the heart of the bathroom bills that were in state legislatures several years ago. There at the heart of the anti trans legislation targeting children. Right now, Land Spending Freedom argued at the Supreme Court that it should be legal to fire someone for their jobs for being l g b t Q plus. So they are really well organized, really well fund day and are doing a really good job, relentless around discrimination against trans people. Yeah. Yeah, it's really scary and a lot of parts of the world, even compared to hear the the amount of oppression and terror that is going on is is is catastrophic. You know, I can pull and they've got these signs that they put up in various places that say things like lgbt Q Free Zone, And there's been riots where sexual minorities and general minorities are attacked and it's just and people are actually moving out of those countries because of the level of danger that exists. And so I think it's kind of there's a kind of global repressive movement that's under way that I sure hope, sure hope that that that tide turns. Yeah. And and and my documentary Disclosure that's available on Netflix, we talk about with increased visibility, we become more targeted, and they're just seemed that just seems to be the reality right now that we've never been more visible. We just haven't in the meat and the violence and legislative assaults are more vigorous at this exact moment they've ever been. So. Well, that may just be because what you're saying, Because there's visibility, then there's a backlash, right, But it may actually turn out that this is just a temporary backlash that is overcome by the visibility and the and the civil rights movement. I hope that you know when, when when people become visible in genders, a backlash, but that backlash may not be successful over the long haul. Let's hope. So let's hope. So we've talked at length about men and women, and we know that some of the victims that you've studied of the years would probably identify as non binary or exist in some kind of non binary spaces. There's been specific research on non binary people in terms of instances of violence. There isn't much research, mainly because non binary is a newly conceptualized thing, so it wasn't really something that was known or talked about a couple of decades ago. But what I will say is that the person's self identification is pretty irrelevant to whether or not they are targeted. It's more how they are perceived by the other person. So for example, if a man is somewhat infeminine or a woman is a little bit masculine, or somebody looks like they might be trans, that's going to be what the perpetrator is going after based on enforcing gender, aren't. It really doesn't matter what the person calls themselves. So there are cases, for example, where heterosexually identified men have been assaulted and called gay because they were coming out of a gay bar with In reality they were the beer delivery man. You know, they weren't. It was just wrong place, wrong time, right. But they may be like maybe they're small and thin and so they fit some sort of stereotype, but it really doesn't matter. Or there was a there was a a young non binary person here in Oakland recently that was writing a public bus and got set on fire by this other boy on the bus. Just a book was written on that. I wish I could remember the name of it, but it didn't rate. Yeah, this this person who identified his non binary and by the pronoun they was just set on fire because of the attire they were worring. So the offender just thought, well, this person looks weird. Let me set them on fire. What that just brought up from me? How when we read about these cases, they're usually so violent, their stabbings, their beatings. Is a brutality that that happens in these hate crimes? Often, I don't want to say always, but very often we hear the accounts and it's really horrendous. And do you think is there a correlation between like the level of force that that is used and being a bias crime or is it just my sort of perception? No, you're right, I mean, obviously we have to say that the accounts that get known about our ones because there's something that stands out to the media about them. So yes, the more brutal and violent ones are going to be the ones that are publicized. However, there is something to what you're saying. We call it forensic overkill, where there's just way more violence and would be necessary to hurt somebody, And in that case it often is there's uh strong emotion at play. Alrighty, gotcha? Gotcha? So then what what then can we do to dismantle these things so we can end violence against trans people? I really mean, I'm so sick of talking about this. It's triggering for me to talk about this, and I just wanted to be done. I know that's going to take time, but LA and I know there's a lot of intersecting issues that cause violence against trance people. Well, I think it's somewhat starting to happen in the sense that that hyper masculine ideal has been slowly eroded and chipped away in modern society. I don't think it's as important as it used to be. And I another really big meta idea that's important is what's called the contact hypothesis that when people are in contact and know somebody of a certain category, they start to know that person as a human being and it's harder to dehumanize them. So, for example, there's been researched with gay people where if if heterosexual people know gay people, they are less likely to be prejudiced. Of course, it's a little bit circular because people that are less prejudiced tend to associate with other people that are more diverse. But I think still only a very small minority of Americans say they know any transgender people. So people like yourself actually being on television and being very prominent that starts to break down barriers and prejudices. So I you know, I'm anti violence in every aspect of the word. And from your research, what do you feel like the biggest thing we can take away around what we should be doing or could be doing in violence in general. I know it's a high one. Well it's hard, I mean because if you really want my real, honest answer, it has to do with just the economic exploitation and the poverty and the the scarcity that's going on that just makes people feel so stressed and so battered in their day to day lives that they are looking for a scapegoat to take that out on. And I think if we lived in a society that were like the the wealth was more equally distributed, where people could have a comfortable life and not be so stressed out and be committing violence against their children, which in turn those children grow up and then become violent adults. I really think that that's a big piece of it. And I just really think that if we put more resources into helping families and helping schools and helping social service agencies when we see people stressed and in distressed, we could just really cackle this problem. I am so glad you said that because I mean, it makes so much sense. There's so so much of what's going on in the country right now is because the system has failed far too many people. We live in a country that says, you work hard, anything is possible. Right, if you work really, really hard and keep your nose to the grindstone, you can be successful. That's the American dream. And the majority of people don't have that and can't experience that because um of income inequality, because jobs have been shipped overseas, because of automation, because of so many different factors, and and to political parties who are beholden to corporations enrich people and not to the betterment of the material conditions of working people. And so people who are feeling just destitute and like they have no way out, it's easier to play on their fears and then they need somebody to blame. And again, so they're blaming trans people, they're blaming women, they're blaming people of color instead of blaming a system that talks a good game, but it's not really doing anything to make their material conditions better. No, when you see I don't know where you live, but where I live, it's just like this. The homeless encampments everywhere. It's like some dystopian future. And when people are that marginalized, they tend towards alcohol and drug abuse, and then that, of course increases impulsivity and acting out, and and then there's resentment against those people. And the whole thing is just so, you know, it's huge, and I think that people don't feel like they can really target the actual forces of oppression because that's too big. You know, you can't get the Jeff Desos where the heck is that, you know, so just go after somebody on the street next to you instead. Yeah, so we've you've given us a lot to chew on, Karen. I don't know we've we have any answers, really, but I'm so glad, you know. I guess the conversation continues, and I think a lot of it is hopefully. I think I would love to put the parents out there to begin to think about how they're raising their children right. So much starts there, and then I think in schools as well, if we can have education where we can have environments where it's not not acceptable to bully kids because it starts so early, and it started early for me, and it was relentless, and I just I was never really protected. It was like it was always my fault, right, Why why are you acting that way? Why are you dressing that way? So I hope that we can for everyone out there listening, they can begin to envision a different way of raising their children, a different way of parenting and educating children. I think that's so critical. So I like to end the podcast with this question that comes from my therapy. It's thematic therapy based in the community resiliency model. It's the idea of both. And even though there may be something really challenging and in my life right now that's, you know, making me feel awful, something else is true. There's something else that's going on in my life that's neutral or positive that can help me to get through. So, Karen Franklin, Doctor Karen Franklin, for you today, what else is true? What helps you get through? Well? I I really think that at present, superficial circumstances notwithstanding, I see a lot of good in people. And I just see a lot of really nice young people who are really committed to being solid, non violent, non prejudicous people in the world. I got kids who are in their twenties, and people that age are so overall so intelligent, and even though that they feel depressed about the state of the world, they have a positive outlook on humanity and on their own role in the world, and they are not participating in oppression that they can help it. And I just I really find myself a little bit hardened by that. That's beautiful, That's absolutely beautiful. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for your research over all these many years, and gosh, I there's just a lot of work to do, but I'm excited that we can talk about how we can do it better. Are you on social media? Where can folks find you? I have I'm on Twitter, that's the only one. And then I have a website as well, and my website is www dot Karen Franklin dot com, so it's easy to remember. And I'm planning to put up a page of resources related to our conversation today, some recent reports on anti trans violence and some of the theoretical discussions that are happening, so that people can click on those links and get more background if they're interested. Amazing, So go to Karen Franklin dot com for all those resources. So we can do what we can to um in violence of all kinds, particularly against trans people. Thank you so much, Dr Karen Franklin. Thank you. It's great seeing you. Wow. This this topic is so intense. One of the things that Dr Franklin said that really sticks out to me is that she said, when it comes to group dynamics that it did not matter who the victim is as long as they can represent femininity. They could be a gay man, they could be a trans or non trans woman. It's the feminine that must be targeted that is so deep to me, and it reminds me of eve Ensler's Shin to the Vagina monologues. In two thousand five, she interviewed many trans women and added a new monologue that she titled they beat the Girl out of My Boy, or so they tried, And in all of her interviews with trans women who had experienced violence, she noted that it was the feminine that needed to be being out of these trans women. So eve Ensler's research, along with Dr Franklin's research, reaffirms how much femininity is what is under attack when we look at violence against trans women and violence against women and gender and sexual minorities. In general, and it's also highlights to me the close relationship between homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny. They are inextricably linked. So Dr Franklin has indeed added a page on her website full of resources based on this conversation. You can find the link to this the book she read, Friends to the Seven Bus, a true story of two teenagers and the crime that changed their lives, and other resources in our show notes for this episode. You know, I'm because I think it's important to say that I'm a huge advocate of disclosing right for my own safety and personally, but it's hard for me to tell other people what to do. But what I want to say to trans folks out there is that I hope that you understand that trans is beautiful and that someone can love you and should love you for who you are. So disclosure I think is important for that just to have love that is authentic. But it's also about your safety, right, so that you have to always make sure that you're safe before you disclose, and maybe that's begot text message or on a dating app or whatever, so that you're not in danger. You know, we are in a really violent culture and It's not our fault, but we have to do everything we can to try to stay safe and stay alive. Please okay, m M. Thank you for listening to Laverne Cox Show. Thank you so much. Please rate reviews, subscribe and share The Laverne Cox Show with everyone you know. Join me next week when we talked to Dr Kristin Knapp, a pioneer in the field of self compassion, she explains why self compassion could be so hard for so many of us. Exhibit a me. Everybody always talks about self love. Honey, if you don't practice self compassion, you ain't our self love. Joined me for our conversation. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter at Laverne Cox and on Facebook at Laverne Cox for Real. Until next time, As always, stay in the The Laverne Cox Show is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.