Ashley St. Clair Apologized. Elon Musk Threatened to Take Her Kid

Summary

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Podcast Summary: There Are No Girls on the Internet

Episode: Ashley St. Clair Apologized. Elon Musk Threatened to Take Her Kid

Host: Bridget Todd (iHeartPodcasts)
Guest: Parker Malloy (Writer, "The Present Age" newsletter)
Date: January 20, 2026

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Overview

This episode explores the recent controversy involving right-wing influencer Ashley St. Clair, her relationship with Elon Musk, and her public apology for anti-trans rhetoric. The host, Bridget Todd, and guest Parker Malloy delve into how the outrage-driven right-wing media machine operates, what happens when one of its own attempts to step off, and the wider implications for marginalized communities online. At its core, the conversation asks: What does genuine change look like in a toxic digital ecosystem, and how should we respond when former antagonists express regret?

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Story of Ashley St. Clair and Elon Musk

• Ashley St. Clair, a right-wing influencer, wrote "Elephants Are Not Birds," an anti-trans children's book (02:57).
• In 2024, she had a child with Elon Musk, kept private for nearly a year. Musk offered her $15 million and $100,000/month child support to keep his paternity secret via NDA. She refused (02:57).
• After her refusal, St. Clair faced alleged retaliation: Musk’s AI chatbot Grok generated sexualized images of her (including photos from when she was a minor), her X (Twitter) account was demonetized, and features were removed (03:23).
• Ashley sued X; Musk responded by threatening to seek sole custody, falsely suggesting her public regret about transphobia meant she planned to transition their child (03:48).

2. The Right-Wing Outrage Machine

• Many conservative influencers thrive by generating outrage—especially around trans issues—because algorithms and audiences reward divisiveness and cruelty (07:40).
• "Conservative media figures are able to really just deploy anti trans rhetoric for clout and cash." – Bridget Todd (06:58).
• Outrage cycles are self-sustaining: deviation, doubt, empathy, or apology make you the new “content” and target of the machine you once fed (18:25).
• Example: Tommy Lahren being ousted for expressing pro-choice views shows strict boundaries for diversity of opinion in right-wing media (19:00).

3. Is Change and Redemption Possible?

• Ashley St. Clair apologized for her anti-trans past, expressing regret and saying she feels immense guilt––especially if she hurt Musk’s trans daughter, Vivian (12:43).
• Quote:
  "I feel immense guilt for my role and even more guilt that things I said in the past may have caused my son's sister more pain... I also haven't said much on this because I have gone back and forth over whether my voice would be helpful... But, yeah, I am sorry. Let me know how I can help." – Ashley St. Clair (12:43)
• Parker reflects on how to approach apologies from former antagonists:
  "Do I want to punish people who used to hold bad views or do I want fewer people to hold bad views? If it's the latter, I have to leave room for people to change." – Parker Malloy (15:04)
• Motivation for change is complex; sometimes it’s personal circumstances or loss of status, but the path to empathy, even if self-centered, can still be real (27:00).
• The sincerity of apologies isn't as important as modeling public change: "If we demand perfect motives before we accept an apology, we're never going to accept any apologies." – Parker Malloy (30:17)

4. Audience Capture and Escalation

• Right-wing creators often feel trapped by their audience's expectations—pushed to take more and more extreme positions (21:36).
• "You have to keep one upping yourself... It's one of those things where I do understand feeling sort of trapped by what your audience expects from you." – Parker Malloy (21:36)
• Some eventually perform rather than believe the extreme positions they're rewarded for ("putting on a performance"). But stepping back results in instant loss of support (26:25).

5. Empathy and the Dilemma of Response

• Both Bridget and Parker discuss efforts to resist knee-jerk unsympathetic responses to people like St. Clair—challenging themselves to honor their own values rather than indulge schadenfreude (37:20; 45:31).
• Quote:
  "It was like the voice in my head was no longer connected to my own humanity... It's not even really about them. It's about me." – Bridget Todd (45:31)
• Parker emphasizes maintaining empathy is essential not just for societal healing but personal well-being in the face of relentless online toxicity (46:33).

6. Musk’s Political Motivations and Platform Power

• The show discusses how Musk’s acquisition of Twitter/X was rooted in explicit transphobia (53:04).
• Media coverage often sanitizes motivations of people like Musk, treating their bigotry as just another political viewpoint (53:50).
• Musk actively manipulates algorithms, policies, and AI chatbot outputs to mainstream his own fringe views and make platforms hostile to marginalized groups (55:54).
  • Example: After rules against deadnaming and misgendering were removed, Twitter became "open season" on trans users, causing many to leave (55:54).

7. What Next? The Role of Former Antagonists

• If people like St. Clair continue to speak honestly about their change, they may have critical influence over audiences who would never listen to activists or those from marginalized groups themselves (62:02).
• "We're probably not going to be the ones to change people's minds, but she might." – Bridget Todd (61:29)
• True progress comes not from medals for changed minds, but from more people shifting away from bigotry and speaking up about their journeys (61:29).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the dangers of the outrage machine:
  "The same people who cheered your attacks on trans kids will turn those same weapons on you. Even in what she wrote, St. Clair seems very aware... 'As soon as I say anything, this is going to feed the right wing outrage machine.' And by golly, she was right." – Bridget Todd (18:25)
• On leaving room for change:
  "Do I want to punish people who used to hold bad views or do I want fewer people to hold bad views? If it's the latter, I have to leave room for people to change." – Parker Malloy (15:04)
• On the public/private intersection of Musk's actions:
  "...to just relegate them to 'his private life' misses the ways that he's terrorizing people, women and trans folks, both privately and publicly in ways that are linked." – Bridget Todd (37:20)
• On empathy:
  "I caught myself being the kind of person who I didn't recognize, like, wishing for bad things for people. And I'm really trying to not be in that space because that's not who I want to be." – Bridget Todd (45:31)
• On why marginalized voices online matter:
  "Marginalized voices have always been at the forefront of the internet, yet our stories often go overlooked... We need monuments to all of the identities that make being online what it is." – Bridget Todd (From episode description)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Ashley St. Clair’s story setup: 02:57 – 04:48
• Introduction of guest Parker Malloy: 04:48 – 05:32
• Explaining the "outrage machine": 07:40 – 10:28
• Summary of St. Clair/Musk dispute: 10:29 – 12:43
• St. Clair’s apology read and discussion: 12:43 – 15:04
• Machine’s reaction to deviation (Tommy Lahren, Nick Fuentes): 18:58 – 26:25
• Exploring paths to empathy and change: 27:45 – 32:41; 45:31 – 48:15
• Media’s framing of Musk’s motivations: 53:04 – 55:54
• Reflections on building space for redemption and impact on policy: 61:29 – 65:00

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Tone and Style

• The episode is thoughtful, compassionate, and at times confessional—emphasizing reflection and challenging listeners to reconsider their own reactions to redemption and change.
• Both host and guest share personal anecdotes, offer societal critique, and ground their points in both lived experience and media analysis.
• The language is direct, conversational, and rooted in a desire for justice and empathy—but never naive about the realities of online cruelty and power dynamics.

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For listeners new to the story or the show, this episode is an incisive look at digital outrage culture, the messy business of public apologies, and the stakes of who controls the internet’s platforms—and narratives.

Transcript

[Parker Malloy]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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[Bridget Todd]

There Are no Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and unbossed. I'm Bridget Todd and this is There Are no Girls on the Internet. Ashley St. Clair is a right wing influencer. She even wrote a kid's book called Elephants Are Not Birds, which is a pretty thinly veiled anti trans metaphor. In 2024, Ashley had a baby with Elon Musk, a fact that she kept private for nearly a year. Musk offered her $15 million plus $100,000 per month in child support in exchange for signing an NDA and never revealing his paternity. She refused, saying that she didn't want her son to feel like a secret. What followed, according to Ashley, was retaliation financially, publicly and technologically. Musk's company X, allowed his AI chatbot Grok to generate sexualized images of her, including depictions based on photos from when Ashley was a minor after she complained her account was demonetized and stripped of premium features. Last week, Ashley filed a lawsuit against X, and now Elon Musk is saying that he plans to seek sole custody of their son, who Ashley says he's only ever met a handful of times. Now Musk is citing Ashley's regret over her past transphobic behavior as evidence that she intends to transition to their one year old child, even though she never said any such thing. Now this episode is not just about Ashley St. Clair. It's about what happens when the same outrage machine that rewards cruelty turns on one of its own, and what it means when someone tries to step off of it.

[Parker Malloy]

My name is Parker Malloy. My pronouns are she, her and I'm a writer. I write a newsletter called the Present Age.

[Bridget Todd]

In a piece for her popular newsletter, the Present Age, called a conservative influencer apologized for her anti trans past, Elon Musk is trying to take her kid. Parker grappled with Ashley's apology and asks, if someone expresses regret for their past harmful behavior, shouldn't we be listening? I have been following your work for a while. I feel. I mean, I don't mean this in a creepy way. I feel like you were have really been on the cutting edge of a lot of stuff, like, you know, leaving a larger outlet and doing your own thing. I feel like you were one of the first writers I really saw in that space.

[Parker Malloy]

Yeah. You know, because it was, it was 2021 when I made the move. Because before writing the Present Age, I was the editor at large. I was trying to remember the title Editor at large of Media Matters for America. And which was this, you know, for, for those who don't know, it's this progressive media watchdog group which basically involved a lot of watching like Fox News and reading Breitbart and basically stewing in the right wing media ecosystem. So all of the things that, that would make you, make you sad and angry, I was, I was there to watch and read them. And so I kind of, when I left, when I left Media Matters in 2021 to start, start my own thing, it was, it was kind of scary. But it, it also kind of opened up the open, opened up for the ability for me to kind of write about a little bit whatever I want, not necessarily stay super focused on right wing media like being able to, to, to talk about things that are happening in culture, tech, journalism, politics, whatever it may be, and not having to tie it back to. And here's what Fox News had to say or something like that was, was really freeing.

[Bridget Todd]

I can only imagine. And you really are somebody that really threads the needle of all those different things you were talking about media, tech, politics, social issues, culture. So well in the piece that you wrote about Ashley St. Clair. I feel like that is a great example of what I mean in the piece. I love the framing that you use because you describe it as this engagement machine that you in your own career spent a lot of time writing about, identifying and breaking it down where conservative media figures are able to really just deploy anti trans rhetoric for clout and cash. So first off, what is the machine like for people who are like the machine? What, what are they talking about? Break it down for us.

[Parker Malloy]

Sure. So, so basically, I mean we, we all know that since, since Elon Musk took over Twitter in 2022, he's, he's kind of molded it into his own, is his own nightmare factory that, that is just an algorithm that is based entirely on what he wants to see. But even before that, outrage has always done really well on the Internet divisiveness. You know that that's why when people post on, you know, social media and they want engagement, they'll say unpopular opinion and then just share their opinion instead of just saying what their opinion is like. They say unpopular opinion because they want people to be like, well, I disagree with this. So I'm going to engage with it and I'm going to, you know, these are, those are harmless things generally, but in the, in the right wing media ecosystem, you know, it's, you know, these, these sorts of things can, can really influence policy and public opinion. And I think over the past five to probably five, seven years or so, their work, trying to demonize trans people, you know, by either by pointing to, you know, edge cases of, you know, people being inappropriate or like, seeking out people who commit crimes and being like, this is what, you know, this is what all trans people are like. And highlighting that, you know, is really hurt public, public perception of trans people. And it's, it's not, it's not a new thing. You know, Breitbart, for instance, the right wing publication, used to have a tab on its, on its website that was just black crime and it was just crime committed by black people. And that was the whole thing. The whole purpose of that, to see a feed of this is to, to try to get you to think this whole group, something's wrong with this group of people. And that's what they do to trans people. And that's what they do to, you know, you see these social media attacks going out, you know, currently happening to people, Somalis in, in Minnesota, you know, or Haitians in OHIO before the 2024 election, where, you know, they would just kind of come out there and throw, throw out something that was obviously false, you know, they're eating pets, stuff like that, where it's meant to smear an entire group, you know, whether it's built on facts or not. And so the, the thing with the Ashley St. Clair story, which I, I can, can, should I explain it real quick?

[Bridget Todd]

Sure.

[Parker Malloy]

Okay, cool. So basically, Ashley St. Clair is the, is a conservative influencer and she had also she had a baby with elon Musk in 2024, which he has a lot of babies.

[Bridget Todd]

Yes, he does.

[Parker Malloy]

So she's also the author of an anti trans children's book called Elephants are Not Birds. Earlier this month, Musk's AI chatbot Grok was used to generate sexualized images of her in addition to like a bunch of women and children, including some based on photos from when she was 14. When she complained about this, the platform stripped her of her, her blue verification badge, demonetized her account and took away all the premium features. Then, you know, after that, she posted an apology for her past anti trans rhetoric and acknowledged Musk's trans daughter Vivian as her son's sister. So Musk responds to this by announcing that he's filing for full custody, claiming he want, claiming that Ashley wants to transition their one year old. Which she never said anything like that. But that's, that's kind of the story at play. And it's been really interesting because for so long she, you know, she benefited from this, from this system. You know, she, she got her start at Turning Point USA with Charlie Kirk's organization and. But was dropped in 2019 after she was photographed at a dinner with white nationalists. So it's like she was really deep in this conservative media ecosystem. But what I decided to write about was how as, as a trans person, as someone who's, who's watched a lot of like, really awful things said about trans people and who was very aware of Elephants are not birds. When it came out, I saw that and, and someone asked me, like, what do you, what do you think of, you know, what do you think of her, her apology, her, her walking, walking back, some of the things she said about trans people.

[Bridget Todd]

On X. Ashley St. Clair seems to contend with her past behavior. When asked how she now feels about trans people after having engaged in such blatant transphobia, she said, quote, I feel immense guilt for my role and even more guilt that things I said in the past may have caused my son's sister more pain, referring to Elon's daughter Vivian, who is trans. I don't really know how to make amends for many of these things, but I have been trying incredibly hard privately to learn and advocate for those within the trans community that I've hurt. I also haven't said much on this because I have gone back and forth over whether my voice would be helpful on this issue since it will be framed as disingenuous or just turning because I'm scorned. Even this reply will become right wing hysteria. But, yeah, I am sorry. Let me know how I can help. Parker really thought hard about Ashley's apology.

[Parker Malloy]

My initial, like, reaction reading that was, you know, kind of like, there are two ways to go about this. You can either view, view that as like, well, this person has been horrible about trans issues. Why should I trust them? How do I know they're sincere and how do I know that they'll do the right thing or whatever. But I wanted to kind of force myself to, to really think about this, to be like, things are bad for trans people right now. Isn't it good that someone, even if it's only because Elon Musk took away their blue check mark and demonetized them, you know, isn't it still a good thing if someone comes around on this issue and was like, you know what? I realized that it was, it was a bit much. Maybe I need to kind of walk that back. You know, it's one of those things that I want to encourage more people to, to take that approach to, to, to feel like they can change on an issue and people won't bite, bite their heads off and, you know, because it's, it's not fun getting yelled at on the Internet. And, you know, I've, I've learned that over the years.

[Bridget Todd]

Did you ever think you'd see the day where you find yourself acknowledging the apology of somebody with a history like Ashley St. Clair's having to write something.

[Parker Malloy]

Sympathetic about someone who wrote Elephants are not birds? You know, it was, it was a little hard, you know, but I had to sit with it. But I kept coming back to this question, like, what do I actually want? Do I want to punish people who used to hold bad views or do I want fewer people to hold bad views? So if it's the latter, I have to leave room for people to change.

[Bridget Todd]

Let's take a quick break.

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[Bridget Todd]

And we're back. One of the points that you make in the piece is taking it back to this concept of the machine. You write you're valuable as long as you're producing content that feeds the outrage cycle. The moment you deviate, the moment you express doubt or empathy or heaven forbid, an apology, you. You become the content. The same people who cheered your attacks on trans kids will turn those same weapons on you. And even in what she wrote, St. Clair seems very aware of that reality herself. I said, oh, as soon as I say anything, this is going to feed the right wing outrage machine. And by golly, she was right.

[Parker Malloy]

Well, yeah, I mean there's one example of this that comes comes to mind is was it was probably back in I'd say say it's somewhere around 2017, 2018, somewhere during Trump's first term. Tommy Lahren, the the right wing commentator, she went on the View and while on the View she mentioned that she's personally pro choice and afterwards she got like the entire right wing apparatus kind of came at her. She got, she got fired from her job at the Blaze, a conservative outlet. She people Were like, I'm no longer going to support you. And she kind of had to disappear for a little bit before, you know, all she, all she did was she just kind of stopped talking about abortion as a whole and kept giving Fox News what they wanted because she, she went on to work for Fox News and like, she's still really conservative and she says a lot of things that I strongly disagree with and I think are bigoted. But it was really interesting to watch what happened when she stepped just a little bit outside of what they were comfortable with. Like she was just saying her personal position was that she's pro choice. Like, she still supported all the anti choice politicians, but it wasn't enough that it wasn't enough that she supported those politicians and their policies, but that she had to personally buy into what they were saying and not speak out against it in any way. You know, people criticize the left a lot for being like, oh, you, the left is so, so stuck on, you know, having everyone needs to have the right positions and everyone needs to have, you know, stand for the right things. There's no, there's no diversity of thought on the left, but it's just like there, there absolutely is on the right. It's, it's restrictive is, you know, so I don't know.

[Bridget Todd]

And part of me looks at that and I see people who are so committed to transphobia or things like that, and oftentimes I will wonder, doesn't this get old after a while for them? Don't they want to evolve or just sort of be done with this? And I wonder if this fear of themselves becoming content for the machine might keep people who otherwise might evolve or move on or like be ready for just a different conversation for themselves. Kind of locked in to this level of outrage all the time.

[Parker Malloy]

Yeah, I mean, you have to keep. The thing about the outrage machine is that you have to keep one upping yourself. And you'll see this with creators all the time. Nick Fuentes, he's, he's a great example of this as someone who he, I mean, he's, he's very racist. He's, he's a white nationalist. He's popular on the right. And watching his career over, over the past six or seven years as well has been really interesting because he's had to keep one upping him himself and taking increasingly more extreme positions, you know, to the point where now it's just him saying things just to kind of shock people. He was saying Jeffrey Epstein was actually really cool. And he's, he's, he's supported Hitler and he's, he's, he says all of these things that are just complete, completely outrageous. But it's his brand and it's what the people who give him money that pay his bills want him to say. And if he stops saying it, if, if he had this moment of clarity and he said, you know what? I've been a horrible racist, terrible bigot my entire professional life. I need to fix that. Every, like all of his followers would turn on him instantly. And to some extent, it's like, I understand that sort of audience capture where you, you build an audience who expects something of you. And if you start to give them something different, you can't really be surprised when, when your, your audience stops paying or stops reading or listening to you or watching you. Like, if, if tomorrow. I decided to turn the present age into a, a baseball blog, which I love baseball, but I feel like if I wrote about nothing but baseball, I would lose a lot of the people who read my work because I write about politics and media and, you know, and culture in a way that they benefit from or they, they can, can connect with. So it's, it's one of those things where it's like, I do understand feeling sort of trapped by what your audience expects from you. And I think that that's why there are some really extreme content creators out there who just kind of keep getting pushed into more and more absurd positions. You know, over the weekend I saw a video of some conservative influencers. There was that Andrew Tate, Nick Fuentes, Sneako, and like a few other right wing content creators. Like, they were at like a club in Miami listening to one of the, like, the Hitler song that Kanye west made. And they were doing like, there was videos of them doing like the like, Hitler salutes and stuff like that. And it's just like, how do you get, how do you get to that point, you know, to where you're like, this is not only something I'm going to do, but I'm going to film myself doing this and put it on the Internet for literally, like, that's the type of thing that I feel like 10 years ago people would have been trying, trying their hardest to hide from the Internet, right? Themselves. But this is kind of what happens with this machine takes. It takes you and it, and it keeps prodding you to, to be more extreme. And I was just really shocked to see someone take the opposite side of that. You know, I'm sure that Ashley Sinclair like it. There's no money to be made on Being someone who supports trans people, like, there's, there's no money, there's no fame to, to come from this, you know, I, the opposite is true. There's a lot of money that's to be made for being transphobic. You know, you can be Riley Gaines and make like $400,000 a year for coming in fifth place in a swim meet. So it's, it's one of those things where it's like, there's, when, when someone does the right thing despite there being financial incentives to do the opposite. I feel like it's worth calling out and being like, cool. I hope more people are like this. And that's what I tried to do.

[Bridget Todd]

I side note, I was just thinking of that video of them out at that club, and it didn't even look like a good time. That was the other thing. I was like, this doesn't even seem like a fun night out to me.

[Parker Malloy]

No. Like, I, I mean, maybe, maybe I'm just getting old, but I, I watched that and I'm just like, this, this just doesn't seem fun. Like, they're, they're putting on a, a performance, basically, you know, and, and it's just like, I wouldn't ever want, I don't know. I, I, it's, it's hard to put myself in that, in that headspace. Like, I can't, I can't imagine being like, time to film my content in the club. No matter what. No matter what. The content is same, same, same.

[Bridget Todd]

And to your point about sort of turning the lens on people who are showing that they're able to evolve. I like that in your piece, you go out of your way to be like, listen, I'm not saying she deserves a medal for get, for getting here, but, you know, when I first started reading about Ashley St. Clair and her apology, I was like, well, would she be doing this if she weren't scorned by Musk? If, like, Musk was continuing to, like, give her money for the kid and was, like, treating her well, would we be having this conversation? And you were like, ultimately, people change their minds for all kinds of different reasons. Like, sometimes it's because you saw what they, that, that that person has turned their behavior on you and it doesn't feel so good. It might not be the world's most noble path to empathy, but it is a path. Can you tell me more about, about how you got there?

[Parker Malloy]

So, so I've been thinking about times on, like, here's an example of something that happened to me recently. I So I, usually for social media these days, I use Blue Sky. That's just where I'm, like, most comfortable posting stuff about my life, my days, you know, whatever, whatever I'm doing. A few weeks back, I had a situation where I upset a bunch of people on Blue sky because I made like, there, there was someone on Twitter who made a, a mod for the game Animal Crossing, where it took one of the cartoon characters who's a dog, and it gave her, like, an hourglass figure. And I saw this, and I was like, this is just kind of ridiculous. And I was like, why would someone make this? This is, this is very silly. And so I posted on Blue sky and I just wrote why, though? And people were like, why are you questioning why someone would make this? Do you hate furries? And I was like, furries? What does this have to do with furries? And they're like, well, it's a dog. And, and the person who made, made the mod is apparently a furry. And it's like, I didn't know any of that, but I had people yelling at me and were very angry about this in my mentions. And there did come a point where I was like, my, my instinct was to be like, you know what? I didn't have anything against furries, but maybe now I do. Like, that was that thought that was in there. And I'm like, that's not a good thought. My, my opinion about a, a group, whether I understand that group, whether I don't understand that group or not, should not be determined by how someone talks to me on the Internet. But at the same time, I think it's important to understand that people do react to how others respond to them. And if the response from all, all trans people to her, you know, apology, which, you know, seems hard, seems like it was heartfelt, like, seems like she mean, means it, you know, if, if every response from a trans person was like, you, you know, no, we don't forgive you. You're, you're terrible. You're horrible. Like, there were. There's no incentive to actually change. And so I, I, I, I tried to look at it from that, that point of view, and it was helpful. I think that it was right after the, the thing where I had people piling on me on Blue Sky. Um, but, you know, it's. And I've also seen, I've also seen many people do something where they'll say something sort of insensitive about trans people, and a bunch of trans people will then respond to them online and say, like, you're horrible. You're terrible. This is bigoted. And they might have meant well, maybe they didn't mean well. Maybe they're just kind of like, they don't really have an opinion, but they said something's kind of, kind of sloppy. And I've watched as people have gone from being like, I'm just trying to be, you know, I'm just trying to interact with the world and, and understand what's going on. And I don't really have any strong opinions on this topic. I've watched people go from that to being like hardcore committed anti trans advocates because they're like trans people annoyed me online one day and like, and it, it radicalized me to be more extreme, you know, like that I've seen that happen. And while it's, it's one of those things where it's like, I don't, it's not that I want to like coddle people who, who have bad opinions, but sometimes I, I think the like jump, jumping at someone's throat might not be the best, best approach, you know, but especially when someone is apologizing. Yeah. So it's one of those things that it's just like, you know, is, is, was her apology sincere? Maybe it is. I don't know what's in her heart. I'm not going to pretend I do. But I think the question of sincerity is less important than people assume. If she's telling the truth, great. She's not. She'll reveal that eventually. And in the meantime, the apology itself is useful. You know, it models what it looks like to say I was wrong publicly and that, that I think has value regardless of her private motivations. So, and frankly, if we demand perfect motives before we accept an apology, we're never going to accept any apologies. People change their minds for messy, self centered reasons all the time. That doesn't make sense. The change less real.

[Bridget Todd]

More after a quick break.

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[Bridget Todd]

Let's get right back into it. I'm curious what has the reaction been like to your piece?

[Parker Malloy]

You know it's, it's been kind of like mostly positive. Mostly like I've, I've had people saying that that piece made them feel hopeful because it's, it is helpful to see like some, some people who seemed so lost in the anti trans, you know, environment like, pulling back from that, you know, and I've seen some, you know, gotten some, like, messages from, especially from, like, a few other trans people who are just like, you know what? I see what you wrote. And while I. I understand it, I don't necessarily agree because, you know, it. It's one of those things like, oh, are. Are we supposed to. To give a medal to every. Every person who was horrible and it's now less horrible? It's like, no, not. And. And I make a point of saying that, of saying, like, no, you're not getting, like, a parade, but if you want to. If you want to be less terrible about this issue and hope and hopefully other issues. She's also. I watched an interview with her where she talked about how her. Her views on immigration have also changed, where she's like, I used to be very, you know, very hard line on immigration. Then she's kind of shifted over. Over the course of the past few years. So, you know, hopefully these things are, you know, these things are real. But we will see.

[Bridget Todd]

Here's where I have to admit that my initial reaction to Ashley St. Clair's issues was an eye roll. This was before she was making any kind of public amends for her behavior. It was an article I saw in the Daily Mail where she was talking about selling her Tesla after she said that Musk was financially retaliating against her son with a whopping 60% cut that Elon had made to their son's child support. Now, at the time, I remember thinking, what exactly did she expect? There is more than enough of a public record of how Musk treats the women in his life, especially the ones who have his children. So we're meant to be sympathetic to her, as if this didn't work out? Give me a break. I thought her interpersonal drama is her problem and she brought it on herself. But thinking about it further, I realized I was giving Musk exactly what he wants. Because this is not just an isolated interpersonal thing with Musk. It encapsulates exactly how his interpersonal behavior ends up playing out in ways that ultimately harm the public. And to just relegate them, to quote, his private life misses the ways that he's terrorizing people, women and trans folks, both privately and publicly in ways that are linked. Your piece, in some ways, kind of put me personally in my place in a sort of way, because when I was first reading about Ash, when I first heard about Ashley St. Clair, sort of like speaking up about Musk, she was doing a little thing where she was Selling her Tesla because she said, oh, Elon is not, you know, supporting me. And I had, I had such a bitchy reaction. I was like, well, what the hell did she expect getting mixed up with Elon Musk? I'm supposed to be sympathetic to this person? Like, what did she expect? And I, when I read your piece, I. It really made me question what that reaction was about. I'm with you. I'm not saying that she deserves a medal, but, you know, I think I was really quick to say the way that Elon Musk is treating this person and her child is not my business. Nothing to do with me. She brought it on herself. Da, da, da, da. And I think it. Looking at what he's actually doing, you know, allowing his chatbot to make these images of her, which are really inappropriate and sexualizing without her consent. And we know that's not just Ashley. This is happening to women and girls in mass on X at a rate of 1 non consensual sexualized image a minute. This court strategy probably of like, spending down the amount of money that she has to fight him in court. Like, these are not personal issues. These are, these are kind of microcosms of how he does business. Yeah, I was like, like, why am I so unwilling to, to deal with that? Because I don't like this person. You know what I mean? I don't know if that makes sense.

[Parker Malloy]

Oh, no, absolutely. And, and yeah, I mean, the way that he exerts power is by, you know, he'll, he'll sue someone. And then whether or not it's a legitimate lawsuit that he's filing, he has infinite money and the people that he's suing don't, you know, and, and that's how, you know, back to Media Matters, where, where I used to work, Media Matters reported on when, after Musk took over Twitter and he started changing the algorithm, there were some, some instances where there were pro Nazi comments that were showing up next to ads which typically brands don't like that. And so Media Matters published a piece where they were like, check out these instances of, you know, here's a pro Nazi post and here's the Apple ad that's above, you know, like the. And so all these advertisers left. And then Elon Musk sued Media Matters for reporting on that, saying that they cost him advertisers, which they probably did. But at the same time, it was because they were doing reporting and it was honest reporting.

[Bridget Todd]

We actually did a deep dive into Elon Musk's court strategy. In his attacks on Media Matters, which I'll put in the show notes, he doesn't care.

[Parker Malloy]

He knows that he can just wear them down and push them into debt. And they ended up having to lay off a bunch of people, which was really sad. There are a lot of people who, you know, probably a couple dozen people who lost their jobs because Media Matters has to get real lean to fight this lawsuit and not actually focus on its mission. And so, like, so seeing that and seeing him, him do that, like, I, I think it's important to understand that it's just like what he's doing is evil.

[Bridget Todd]

Yeah.

[Parker Malloy]

And, you know, but at this, at the same time, I think that there's. Right now, like, we kind of live in this world where I've noticed there are a lot of times where people online will see some. See some tragedy befall someone who they would disagree with, you know, a flood in a red state, for instance, something like that. And people will go, well, that's what you get for, for voting for whatever. And, you know, or, you know, natural disaster or the job market screwed up because of a policy that they supported. And people just are like, well, you know, play stupid games, win stupid prizes, fafo, you know, like, that sort of approach. And I don't know, it all just feels kind of mean and pointless, you know, because, like, someone may have voted for Trump. I still don't think that that means they deserve for their house to burn down or, you know, something, something like that someone may have said, you know, may have taken some really horrible anti trans racist, anti immigration points of view stances, but I still don't think that they should be crushed by Elon Musk or have their child taken away or, or, or any of this stuff. Like, I think it's, it's important that we all kind of push for the type of world that we want it to be, you know, that we want to live in. And sometimes, you know, I, I think it's. It can be difficult to try to find empathy when a, when reacting in anger or frustration or, you know, just, you know, happiness even, you know, if you're, if you, you're. If someone feels happy that someone else has experienced some, Something bad. It's like, that's way easier than extending empathy and being like, oh, wow, that must really suck. So I don't know, it's. And it's not on me. Like, I, I can only speak for myself and, you know, and that's all I tried to do in the, in that piece I wrote was just like, this is how I feel. And I'm not gonna say as someone's wrong if they see, see her apology and they're like, no, I don't buy it. Like, that's, that's fine. That's, that's a legitimate position, I think. But I, I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone a little bit and be like, yes, here's this person who wrote this anti trans book that was really mean spirited for, and it's a children's book. I think I'm gonna challenge myself to try to be like, cool, good for, good for her. I hope she sticks with it. If she doesn't, I won't exactly be surprised. But I can at least say that I extended some empathy here, you know?

[Bridget Todd]

Yeah, I, I've really been, I really identify with what you're saying. I've been on a personal journey of trying to exercise my, or just keep, keep exercising my empathy muscle. And it was because of exactly what you just described. Our current situation is not great. It's not great for if you are any kind of a marginalized or like minoritized person if you're trans, queer, black or woman. But really, I think we're all in a fuck, fucking going to hell in a handbasket. It's not having a good time. And I realized I was, I was catching myself. It was like the voice in my head was no longer connected to my own humanity. And it's like ultimately people who are Trump voters or people who are like transphobic and horrible and bigoted, it's not even really about them. It's about me. Like, I caught myself being the kind of person who I didn't recognize, like, wishing for bad things for people. And I'm really trying to not be in that space because that's not who I want to be. It's not really even about them exactly.

[Parker Malloy]

It, it affects you not like, like how you respond to something that you see from, from someone you don't know. You know, it's because it's, that's, that's also the thing about like how we interact with the world now. We, we're exposed to so many people's opinions about literally everything. And not only that, but you could, you can go on Twitter and you could search for a topic and specifically seek out opinions that will make you mad. Like, like there is in an unending well of rage on the Internet like that you can just, you can always find something to be angry about. And I just, I really, for a long time struggled with how to Take in all of this stuff that I find insulting or hurtful or offensive. And I think part of it might be that because of the background I have, you know, at Media Matters, where the primary news sources that I would consult were the right wing news sources that, that were like straight up anti trans. Trans people don't exist. Saying that trans people mutilate themselves, you know, like all of these really intense things. And the, the funny thing is there, there would still be people who are just like, oh, you don't want to, you don't want to hear, hear the point of view as someone who disagrees. Oh my God, that, that like, oh, you, you're, you're afraid, you're afraid to hear.

[Bridget Todd]

Can't get out of your silo.

[Parker Malloy]

Yeah. And it's like, no, the silo I've built is very much out. Like I am living in someone else's silo. And it is not fun, you know, But I think that that kind of primed me to when I stopped working at Media Matters to try to shift how I think about other random people on the Internet. You know, it if someone's on tv all, you know, if, like, like I, I think it's fair to be like, I am angry at this elected politician who has implemented a policy that I think is harming people because those politicians absolutely exist. And it's good to, good to be upset about those politicians because that sort of frustration and anger can be used for positive things. You can, you know, you can call your member of Congress, you can, you know, do do all sorts of things. But when it comes to like just seeing regular people online, even ones who have horrible views on things, I think it was important to just kind of accept that it's just like, you know what, they're not worth getting angry about. Like, you don't have to be like, what they're doing is great and I'm, I'm happy about it. But I think it's important to not, not get consumed with the thoughts of a random person on the Internet who may or may not believe what they're saying, but is just posting to maybe get, you know, a rise out of some people.

[Bridget Todd]

More after a quick break.

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[Bridget Todd]

Let's get right back into it. Well, speaking of People who post to get a rise out of people. Let's talk about like who I consider to be the ultimate, the world's ultimate troll, Elon Musk. You know, we talked about this on the show, but when, back when Elon Musk first decided to buy Twitter, was first talking about it per like court filings. The reason why was really rooted in transphobia, like explicitly. And if this is not me saying this, it's like part of the public record. And I did not often see this reported that, you know, people talked about it like a tech leader, business decision kind of thing when they were reporting on it, but they didn't, they didn't talk about this like known thing that this decision was rooted in. Why do you think that is?

[Parker Malloy]

Well, I think part of it is that like, I mean, going back, like to, to like before, before Musk bought Twitter even there, there would be like New York Times articles where people would say there was one that, that asked the question, like, has Musk revealed himself as a conservative? No, not so fast. And that would make the argument that he was like, his politics are completely unknowable. And it's like, no, they're pretty knowable. I, I mean, I think that one of the reasons that the anti trans stuff kind of got lost in it is that the people in, in positions of influence and power at news organizations like the New York Times, Washington Post, I think that they're just kind of indifferent to trans people at best. You know, it's. It's one of those, one of those things where they very, very clearly view being anti trans as a completely valid viewpoint, that, that shouldn't negatively affect someone and they kind of, kind of just go, well, that's his view and that's fine. It's, it's. It's one of those things that it was, it's frustrating as a, as a trans person who, who used to be on Twitter all the time, who. I would, I would post something, it would be shared thousands of times. It would have a bunch of likes, it would have so many replies from people and not in like, you were like, Twitter famous. Yeah, like I, I like to, to be like back in the day, you know, back in the day, there was, there was one, one time where the official Twitter like account interviewed Chrissy Teigen, who was also very, very famous on Twitter in addition to being famous in real life, where they asked her, like, if, if Twitter was a party, who would you invite? And she said my name on there.

[Bridget Todd]

Oh my God.

[Parker Malloy]

I was like, oh my God. That's so crazy. So, yeah, so it was like Twitter was great and he, he took it over to pretty much strip away everything that I liked about it. When Twitter implemented a rule against misgendering and dead, naming trans people, you know, it in terms of targeted harassment, like, that was, it was one of those rules where I made the argument. I wrote a piece for the New York Times at the time that was like, yeah, putting in this, putting this rule in place could allow us to have more open, more, you know, thoughtful conversations about trans people and real areas of contention, I think. You know, and I, and the examples I used, I was just like, yeah, if, if someone has, you know, there, there's a discussion to be had about, you know, trans people in sports, there's a discussion to be had about, you know, what kind of health care people should, should be able to receive and when. And we can, we can discuss, you know, all those things, but if we're going to start with, like, just repeating over and over, you know, I don't think trans people are real or I'm gonna scream at you and call you, you know, I'm gonna call you a man and I'm just gonna yell at you on the Internet. It's like all that does is that, that pushes trans people out of the conversation entirely because it's not fun to get harassed on the Internet. It was, it was really frustrating that people would take that, you know, what, what Musk was implementing, which was like getting rid of all those rules and just letting it be kind of open season on trans people. He even made it where, if you, if you say the word CIS or cisgender, like, it doesn't show up for anyone on, on Twitter, it gets labeled as being, being hateful and can't be retweeted by anyone. So it's, it's one of those things where he like, clearly was rigging it against trans people, making it hard to have conversations on there. And eventually most trans people just kind of left Twitter because it wasn't, it wasn't productive, it wasn't helpful, and it, it just fed you all of the worst things possible. You know, it became the platform, became Libs of TikTok, basically. That was kind of it. And that shut down speech that made, that made speech on Twitter less free than it was before. Because if you have people who feel like they can't participate in the conversation because of the, the toxic environment that you've created, like, you're not having an open dialogue. It's not the town square. It's just, it's just an anti trans platform and it's designed to spread anti trans content and push actual trans people off of the, off of it. And you know, he, he does, does this with any issue he cares about and he tweaks the algorithm. He, you know, his, his Grok chatbot has, has been lobotomized and, and retrained using rockipedia so that it no longer will respond to questions about trans people using like what is said on Wikipedia, but instead goes with this anti trans page that's been like written up on the Grokopedia site. So it will, it parrots back what Elon Musk believes as though it's like a fact. But you know, it's his belief and he, he's more than welcome to have his beliefs. But at the same time it's kind of like watching, watching him trying to tweak it to get the responses that he wants specifically is, is kind of evil. But you know, that's, that's what he's doing and that's what he bought right from the start. It was like, this is a political project. He's doing it to, to try to mainstream his thoughts as though they're the public's thoughts. And you know, there, there was that, that day where Grok wouldn't stop talking about white genocide in South Africa. You know, where every, you'd ask a question about, about us, like football, and it'd be like, yeah, here's this, here's the response. And then also did you know that currently in South Africa, you know, white, white people are fleeing and you know, like all this stuff that was just like a weird conspiracy theory was just baked into Grok at that point. And so I think it's important that people realize that, that these, you know, these, these tech billionaires, you know, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, you know, those guys, like they, they own the platforms in part so they can assert their political views on the rest of the world. And it's definitely worth keeping in mind because I think a lot of people will be like, well, no, Elon is for free speech. Even though like once a week he'll post something saying that like a teacher teaching that America isn't the greatest should be tried with treason and murdered. You know, like, he'll say something completely, completely ridiculous like that. But, you know, which is very not free speech.

[Bridget Todd]

In your piece. You end it by talking about, you know, if Ashley wants to keep talking about this and like, wants to actually know like what it is she can do now to sort of make amends for her previous, you know, transphobia. It looks like continuing to talk, right? It looks like talking about how you went from publishing a transphobic kids book to then using the correct pronouns for your kid's sister. Right. Like, because people like you and people like me, we're probably, we're probably not going to be the ones to change people's minds, but she might.

[Parker Malloy]

Yeah, well, exactly. And that's, that's kind of the, the thing. Like, there are times where I'll think to myself, like, I can't, you know, like, I will think to myself that, like, oh, wow, it would be helpful if someone who wasn't trans could make this argument in trans people's favor. You know, this, that sort of thing. Like, there will be times where I know that there's a immediately because I, because I'm trans. If I, if I say something like, oh, actually, and you know, click clarify some, some misinformation that I see. Like, there will be people who go, well, you, you clearly have, have an agenda here because of who you are. And I can't take this at face value, but if you have someone who was anti trans who, who had changed their views, like, yeah, I think that, like, they have a better chance of getting through to people who view trans people with suspicion, you know, at minimum. And, you know, who could kind of be like, yeah, it is, it is a little strange that we're focused, you know, we're obsessed with this, like, 1% of the population and constantly talking about ways to try to push them out of public life. Why are we, why are we doing that? And like, asking people to kind of consider, consider the, you know, why people in con, in, you know, positions of power in the country want to have, keep having that conversation instead of tackling, you know, dealing with affordability or, you know, talking about, you know, dealing with climate change or any of these, like, real problems that affect people, you know, in real ways, affect all of us, affect a lot of people. You know, they'd rather just say, no, no, no, you should focus on this group because this group is, is harming you in ways that we can't really, we can't really specify, but we, we're just going to keep talking about them in this scary sort of way, you know, like that's, that's kind of the, the, the reality, you know, so it's, it's helpful, I think, for there to be people who are like, yeah, I used to buy into all that stuff, but I don't anymore and here's why. So it's like, yeah, if she wants to keep talking about this, I think that would be great. Just, just be honest. She and, and I don't. One thing I want to make clear is like, I think that there is definitely a spot that exists between being like hardcore anti trans and someone who will like shout out like slogans and you know, things like, you know, like saying like trans women are women. Like that's more of a slogan than anything that has to do with politics. Like, it's not, it's not particularly important to me if, if a politician sees trans women as actually women or trans men as actually men. Like I, I would obviously, like I, I, I think more people should view, view trans people as who we say we are. But at the same time it's like, I'm mostly concerned about like the efforts to restrict, you know, access to health care or discrete non discrimination protections in, in work and in public accommodations and you know, just being able to live lives and like, I don't need someone to completely buy in and you know, buy into like everything that every trans person says. So I think it's important having people out there who maybe aren't entirely super on board but maybe just like have been like a single trans person came into my life and it made me rethink how I view all of this. You know, it made me, it, it humanized the issue for me because I think that that's, that's a big, big thing. That's you know, part of the reason that gay rights advanced as quickly as they did as more people started to meet, know someone who was gay and trans, trans rights. You know, the people who support trans rights the most are people who know a trans person and so that it's more difficult for trans people because we're such a small portion of the population. Plus you don't necessarily know if every, every single person that you're talking to who is trans, whether they're trans, you know, because not everyone walks around and announces it everywhere they go. So it's, it's one of those things that it's, it's going to be difficult to kind of fight back against a lot of the, a lot of the anti trans stuff that's happening now. And really I think that we can just kind of use all the help we can get. So she wants to keep talking about this and wants to, you know, explain how she got from one point of view to another. Like I think that's good and that's helpful and you know, more credit to her if she does and if she doesn't, that's still, that's still fine. She, she tried to make amends for, you know, her past positions and all she can do is try to do better moving forward.

[Bridget Todd]

Parker, you're, you're such a thoughtful person. I really just like, really appreciate the way you see the world.

[Parker Malloy]

Well, thank you. I, I mean, I, I, I, I try, you know, like, because I've, I've sat there with, holding my phone in my hand, so angry that I'm shaking, you know, like I've had that and it's, you know, it's just, it's, it's not healthy. You know, I, I still find myself doing that sometimes. Like I'll see something that's, that's, that's annoying or frustrating or I think is unfair and, and my reaction will be like I should yell at this guy in this comments. But like I'm trying not to do that as much just, just because I, I think if I keep getting mad about every person who has, has spoken ill of trans people that I'm just always going to be mad. So.

[Bridget Todd]

Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi. You can reach us at hello. You can also find transcripts for Today's [e-mail] There are no girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of iHeartRadio and unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Dodd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Parker Malloy]

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[Parker Malloy]

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