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- [00:01]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with a name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.
- [00:32]
Michael Malice
You. Good afternoon. Michael Malice here. Let that be your welcome for the next hour. Guys, you're in for a real treat because we've been cracking up. Before we start recording, we have with us Brianna Woo. Brianna, let me see if I get your bio right and please interrupt me if I'm incorrect. You were one of the protagonists of Gamergate, which, based on your political perspective, was either about misogyny in video games or about honesty in gaming journalism.
- [01:16]
Brianna Wu
Yep.
- [01:17]
Michael Malice
You ran for Congress twice as a Democrat. After years of online speculation, you finally came out as a trans woman for specific reasons. In recent years, you, although very much still on the left, have been increasingly critical of progressivism and the Democratic Party. And there were a couple of tweets that I saw. And you and I have both been around the Internet for quite a long time. Our paths have never crossed. Or maybe we've had mean tweets shot at each other. I don't remember. But what I want people to appreciate is there's this under this belief delusion, I would say on each side of political aisle that the other side is all united and work hand in hand. And I would ask people, if you're on the right, do you really think Jeb Bush and Donald Trump and, you know, J.D. vance and, and Marjorie Taylor Greene are all the same person or govern the same. It's nonsensical. Same with Hillary or Bernie or Mamdani or Andy Beshear. Even if they in Congress would vote the same way in the same bills, their priorities are certainly not the same. And I think people don't understand on the right how fractured the left is in many ways. And I'd love to hear you speak on that from your perspective.
- [02:26]
Brianna Wu
Oh, boy, do I have opinions on that, though. I think the bad guys are winning. The nut jobs are clearly winning in the Democratic Party right now. So yeah, that's not good for us.
- [02:37]
Michael Malice
Well, I'd love to hear what you. Who are the nut jobs and why do you like, how would you characterize them as the nut job?
- [02:42]
Brianna Wu
I mean, the fact that Mandani is like the mayor of New York, this is absolutely terrifying. This is. Someone's a straight up socialist. He is someone that's Very sympathetic to this Islamist political project. You know, he's someone clearly does not value the national security of the United States. And I don't think I'm the only Democrat going, if this is the future of our party, if this person is the standard bearer, who am I voting for? Because I've got my differences with the right wing. But I think America should exist. I think we should have a national security strategy. I don't think Osama bin Laden was the good guy in that scenario. So I don't know. It's some scary times to be a Democrat.
- [03:23]
Michael Malice
Well, let's. Let me. There are two tweets that you had that really caught my eye. And let's talk about this one. What's interesting is I've had to deal with, and you probably had to deal with this as well. A few years of the following. Brianna, I'm gonna say something that's gonna get me fired, canceled, and pop, sleep, put in jail. Are you ready?
- [03:42]
Brianna Wu
Yes.
- [03:43]
Michael Malice
Are you ready?
- [03:44]
Brianna Wu
Let's do it.
- [03:45]
Michael Malice
Let's do genders, man and woman. Mike drop. And this was daily for years. And if conservatives have issues with the trans movement as you do as well, they just stopped talking about it. It completely went away on the right, which to me is insane. And also speaks to what extent online discourse is about finding a group to fixate on and then just forgetting about them. The issues. In California, I have a friend who is. Sorry for the long question. I have a friend who's a shrink. It is now the law in California that if you have questions with your gender identity, you have to be pushed towards transitioning or that shrink can lose their license. Whereas you and I are both, you know, no spring chickens. Kids growing up. If you're a little boy who plays with the Barbie, you're not trans. If you're a girl who likes softball, you're not trans. You could just be a jock. It's perfectly fine. But in California, and if that, like, liberal white mom sees that little boy touching the color pink, she's got him to the. The doctor in five minutes.
- [04:46]
Brianna Wu
It's some really scary stuff going on. And, you know, I, I hope I can dig into this in a really technical way. So let me just give you a flat out numbers. I was the stereotypical kind of like, you know, early onset trans kid you can imagine playing with Barbies, obsessed with drawing princesses, very shut down emotionally when you asked me to play with the boys, obsessed with girls, all that kind of stuff, right? Like we get yelled out for my speech patterns every Single part of it. And the stats. Even with all those symptoms, the symptoms dead on in the DSM for transsexualism, early onset transsexualism. My odds were about 9. 1 in 10 of growing up to be an actual trans woman and 9 in 10 of just growing up to be a gay man. And you can't push these kids with this BS ideology. You need to let them figure it out themselves. Don't punish them if they, you know, have effeminate mannerisms. Let them grow up like kids do. But it drives me crazy to see this progressive political project to introduce all this doubt into school. It is deeply unhelpful. And we see the outcome, which is, there are armies of these natal females. They're being told if they get on testosterone, it's going to fix all their problems. And it doesn't. They are detransitioning. Their bodies are, my friend Abigail Shrier says correctly, irreversibly damaged. This is horrible public policy, and I say this as a trans woman that feels 10 out of 10 strongly about people having access to care. But you gotta get the politics out of it.
- [06:21]
Michael Malice
I. You and I are about the same age, and I. This is my hypothesis. I remember growing up, as I'm sure you do as well, it was extremely common for young women in high school to have eating disorders. I would say a majority of girls went through that at a certain period. And I think it's the same psychology now that if you feel uncomfortable with your body as these women, who in our time would have had a bulimia, anorexia, which is very fixable now they're being, oh, you're uncomfortable, your body. That means you're trans. Let's get you to do something that is, like you said, irreversible.
- [06:51]
Brianna Wu
Imagine how much worse it is for them. Like in the 90s, like, I don't, like, the girls in my high school were pretty. But you look at Instagram today like it's just no contest. I was looking at pictures the other day. These girls are drowning in an infrastructure that tells if you do not look like this false ideal, you're not actually a woman. Of course they are depressed about that. They feel inadequate. They feel awful about their bodies. We have so much psychology to show this. It should not be a surprise to anyone that they are going out there and thinking, well, if I'm not literally Barbie, maybe I must be a man. And this is horrifically damaging. We need all this nonsense out of the schools. If trans kids exist, you know, give them space to figure themselves out. But you know, the, the protocol that I grew up with, and the better protocol is you never, never, never ever even mention to a child that HRT vaginoplasty, any of these things were possible until they were 12, 13, 14, because it introduced ideas into their brain. You gave them an opportunity to grow out of it, which most of them will.
- [08:00]
Michael Malice
Yeah. And you can't grow out of, as Abigail says, irreversible harm. You can't go out. Female, biological female takes testosterone. There are things that happen to her that will never be undone. Or biological male takes estrogen. There's going to be things to him that will never be undone.
- [08:14]
Brianna Wu
Right. So I mean, you know, I would say, and this is where we may disagree, this data also strongly indicates that if you have someone who is gender dysphoric, like early onset gender dysphoria and talking about a case without comorbidity. So autism is not in the mix. You know, other things are not in the mix, like a traditional transsexual early onset gender dysphoria, if that is still present at puberty. The odds of that going away are basically non existent. Like because the gay boys, like at that age, they're going to know they want boys and then like this is not something that's going to change by delaying it. I think it makes sense to have a pathway for those kids to get help. My problem is this progressive project has politicized every single part of the science. I can look at the DSM 3 from the 80s and see how that was a better protocol than the DSM 4 and that was a better protocol than the DSM 5. And today it's literally garbage in there. Like you can invent your own gender. Something we have zero scientific evidence like helps actually affirming. So we got all these politics mixed up with gender identity disorder. None of this is about the patients, none of it is about the evidence. And the only way I can figure out how to get actually dysphoric, legitimate transsexuals help is we've got to rebuild these medical standards from scratch because it's just too politicized.
- [09:41]
Michael Malice
I'm wondering, I'm curious to hear your opinion, if this is something that's an inherent issue with leftism, because leftism definitionally is about welcoming the outsider, being open to the out group right now. I'm sure you may have heard this. If you haven't, I'm delighted that I get to be the one to tell you. There is a clinic now here in Austin which can People to be neuter and have their genitalia look like a Barbie doll or, or like flat with just a urethra. There's a guy here in Austin who's doing that. I, I, I. And the thing is, I feel like people in that space are, don't ever feel comfortable saying, this is my line. If I am telling you this is how I feel, it is your obligation as a leftist to tell me. Well, you know, if you accept me, I have to accept you. This is, this is hashtag, this is fine.
- [10:31]
Brianna Wu
So let's just be honest about this. That's a fetish. There are some people that have a fetish for becoming sexually nullified. It is as old as time itself. And that's a fetish. Like, here's another really uncomfortable fact. In the 90s, when we measured transsexualism, we figured that transsexuals, actual transsexuals, were about 1 in 10,000 people. Another uncomfortable fact is the number of natal males that are erotically charged by cross dressing, fetishistically, cross dressing is about 1 in 100, which means they outnumber us by a massive, massive margin. So if you're looking at all these people claiming to be trans online and they act like a bunch of cross dressers, it's because they are. Progressives have literally destroyed the standards that differentiated between these two communities and told those natal males, you know what, you need to deal with this in private. This is your business. Do that. And told them that they got on hrt, it was going to solve all their problems. That's not true. We knew that was not true in the 60s. So the problem is the right wing has a political project to dismantle trans health care. That's not helping transsexuals. The left also has a political project to dismantle health care for transsexuals. And you've got everyone caught in the middle of this insanity.
- [11:54]
Michael Malice
I. Are you familiar with the book A Year with the Girls?
- [11:57]
Brianna Wu
No.
- [11:58]
Michael Malice
There was a, there's an exhibit I saw at the Met or MoMA just recently about this thing called Casa Susanna, which was this establishment in New York, upstate New York in the 60s where cross dressers came and spend weekends cross dressing. And one of the protagonists was a prominent science fiction author and under a pseudonym he wrote a book about it called A Year with the Girls. And I'm going to. Pardon, I'm going to use a slur. Pardon me. If you read the book, he talks about we're not, we are men with wives who have sex with women. This is something that turns us on erotically. And cross dressing in the bed. I know it's impossible to understand. Cross dressing the bedroom as a kink was something very common. It was made fun of on TV all the time. And now this. I think they're called AGPs. This is something where you're supposed to. I saw this other video, this, this documentary on I think Discover channel called Rubber Darling. It's where guys dress up in like rubber latex costumes and pretend they're a rubber doll. And you watch it and it looks crazy. But the second go to the website, oh, this is a kink. It's a, it's a fetish. And it's like, it's all our, our corporate view of sexuality is that doesn't exist. So they present the activity, but they don't explain what, why they're doing it. So you have this bizarrely neutered presentation of fetishization as simply a different way of living. And it's like, this is how they get off. That's it. Not complicated inside.
- [13:27]
Brianna Wu
I don't have any judgment about that. Like, I had vaginoplasty. That's an intense, weird surgery to go have. I can't judge anyone for anything. But there's a health care discussion. Does this serve the patients? Does it serve a fetishistic cross dresser to tell them when they have no intention of passing voice training, blending. They're always going to be someone that's tremendously disruptive. They don't act like women. They don't want to be women. They want to be this thing in between the dresses a certain way. Does it serve them mentally to tell them, just go on hrt, this will solve all your problems? It clearly doesn't. Look at these people on Twitter. They don't have jobs, they don't have lives. They represent themselves, themselves with anime characters. They're. They're obviously deeply unhappy. So at some point the adults have to get in the room and say, this is not going to help you. And unfortunately, the psychology around this has been politically captured. So, like hand to God, Michael, if I had a child today that was trans, even I don't know what I would do. I have no idea where I would go to get them health care. I have no idea how I would find a provider I could trust. Like it is. It is truly terrifying. And I understand parents, parents pushing back.
- [14:46]
Michael Malice
It's interesting because people might not remember this. There was like a little window when the trans issue came to public consciousness and conservatives were like, okay, I don't like it. But if this person has a mental condition and they have to live their lives, a female at the color, she, okay, I can, I can bite the bullet. And then five minutes later, it's like, okay, your kid. We're going to take your kids from you and we're going to put them on hormones. Like, okay, you know what? I trusted you. I tried to be kind and neighborly, and now you took advantage of me. So fuck all of you, and I'm going to throw you in a river. I don't care.
- [15:19]
Brianna Wu
But it's this progressive political project again. They massively outnumber actual transsexuals. We are 1 in 10,000 people. They are 1 in 100 people. We can't beat them. And the problem is, it's exactly as you said. I was literally the first student to ever transition at the University of Mississippi over 20 years ago, which was very difficult. Right? And I want to tell you, most conservatives, these were George Bush voters, hardcore. They did not have a problem with me saying, look, I like men. I want to live my life as a woman. I'm not asking you to do anything except call me. The pronouns like I look like and just let me go live my life. I want to get married. My husband, you know, all this stuff is between us. He's fine with it, doesn't involve you. Just let me go live my life and have a marriage. They didn't care. They thought it was a private health care issue. The problem is these progressives that think in California you can seriously put out a policy that says your teachers can go transition your children socially behind your back without telling you, that is, I want to use language here and I won't, but it's just effing nuts.
- [16:34]
Michael Malice
Yeah, I feel like what you're saying is pretty much common knowledge understood among people with gender dysphoria. And they feel very uncomfortable speaking out because they feel, at the one hand, very politically vulnerable. They feel like only the Democratic Party or certain wings of Democratic Party are defending them. And it's like, if I say anything, I'm going to be politically homeless and possibly physically unsafe.
- [17:02]
Brianna Wu
Yeah, it's had huge repercussions for my career. Coming out and say this. I didn't not believe this in 2014 during Gamergate. I just correctly assessed that all my progressive friends were going to turn on me if I said this. So there's every single social incentive to keep your mouth shut, to pretend that fetishistic cross dressers the exact same thing to Pretend that non binary is like a teenager going through a phase of the bad haircut is the same thing as a fully medicalized transsexual woman. We are not the same thing and there's no political vehicle out here advocating for us.
- [17:38]
Michael Malice
So how, how has this affected you on. I mean, I feel also the Internet, which you certainly understand better than anyone, is a vehicle and it validates aggression, hatred and attacks. You were doxed and you know, all sorts of other things. Is this something that you're like, okay, this is just my path in life. I'm just going to be the Internet's punching bag? Or has it gotten worse, better? Are you getting now from the left?
- [18:03]
Brianna Wu
I mean, it's really funny because, you know, as you said at the beginning of the show is one of the main targets of Gamergate. And I did believe back then genuinely women were not getting a fair shake in the tech industry. That's something I felt very strongly about. But the problem is, and you can see it now, by how none of those same progressives that were so upset about DLC costume packs for video games that were revealing or speaking up for the women in Iran, they're utterly silent on that. You know, the problem is you get put into this pipeline and it starts with some good ideals like let's treat women equally. But when you start digging an inch under the surface, the real mission is to destroy the United States and dismantle our institutions. This is fundamentally what progressivism is about, which is why they form this dark alliance with Islamism, you know, this political project to destroy the West. So, you know, the thing is like I had enemies back in, in the Gamergate era and made a lot of friends in left wing media, I don't think I'll ever get invited back on Majority Report. Right. Like the thing is when you come out very strongly for transmedicalism and you know, standing against the crazies, now I've got all these same people that used to be our biggest offenders. They hate me, they consider me a traitor. So it's very frustrating.
- [19:25]
Progressive Insurance Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law, not available in all states. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with a name your price tool from Progressive you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Pricing coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.
- [20:06]
Brianna Wu
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- [20:36]
Michael Malice
Let's get back to the show. How would you advise just anyone who has to deal with Internet hate on a 247 basis? How do you keep saying, like, what advice would you have given yourself 10 years ago?
- [20:48]
Brianna Wu
I think first of all, you know, there's no price on your own integrity and you know you've got to speak your mind, the politics and things are going to change. But don't let people make you say you believe in things that you don't because for me there was a really big price, a bill that came due later, you know, secondly, you know, you've got to have friends that understand it. I think I probably take a phone call a week from a woman that's been, you know, professional woman that's been targeted by these forces. It is brutal to be a public figure now in a way it wasn't 10 years ago. That's just the reality of it. So, you know, to a certain extent, if you're going to be in the public discourse, you know, the destruction of you personally is just a price you're going to have to pay.
- [21:32]
Michael Malice
You think things have gotten worse than they were during Gamergate?
- [21:34]
Brianna Wu
Of course. Don't you?
- [21:36]
Michael Malice
I'm not, I'm not a Brianna Wu. Right. So I feel like you're very much a lightning rod and it's kind of a given that it's okay to take shots at this person. So. So I would have imagined you're more prominent in terms of being your central to Gamergate. So I would have thought in one context you would have gotten more heat then than now.
- [21:58]
Brianna Wu
But I got more death threats from Free Palestine and like for my Israel views. I got exponentially more threats on that. I had these freak jobs come to my house, knock on my door, take pictures, sitting outside my house just to say we could come kill you. These are remarkably dangero people. They make the gamers that Sent me death threats 10 years ago. Look like kindergarteners.
- [22:22]
Michael Malice
Holy crap. Well, I mean, how do you. I'm not trying to question what you do to keep. Keep safe or what do you do to keep sane? That's terrifying. If someone's at my doorstep from the Internet, Tim Ferriss had this great article. He goes, things that happen to you when you become famous. Right. He goes, let's suppose you have a million followers. He goes, one in a million people or I don't have the numbers off my head, are going to be full blown insane. He goes, I don't mean insane like they got wacky views, meaning like they think that you're married to them and you're not returning that level. So if someone shot my doorstep, I don't know that they're just like, oh, you were mean to me on Twitter, as opposed to, I'm John Hinckley and if I kill you, then Ronald Reagan's gonna like me there.
- [23:01]
Brianna Wu
There's a certain ex. You have to accept a certain level of risk. Right. I mean, I'm sure you get these emails too of people that are utterly delusional. Like, you know, they have schizophrenia.
- [23:12]
Michael Malice
Oh, yes, of course, yes.
- [23:13]
Brianna Wu
Yeah. I mean, that's just part of being a public figure. It's. It's weird.
- [23:19]
Michael Malice
Yeah. But I'm here. One of the reasons I moved to Austin from Brooklyn is so I could sleep with a gun under my bed. So I know that if someone breaks into the house, it's not going to be easy for them. I don't know that I'll be able to win, but I know I'll be able to feel like I've got a shot. Massachusetts is a different scenario. So that's why. And you know, that's my question.
- [23:42]
Brianna Wu
100. And the other thing is when you run for Congress, you have to put your address out there on the Internet, is that right? It's on literally the ballot. Your address is on the ballot when you run for office here. And if you own a house. Right. That information is just out there. So, you know, all I can say to you is there's a certain acceptance of risk that you have to, to take. And I mean, just getting real with you, I was the first transsexual to ever transition at the University of Mississippi. I am comfort. A certain level of risk, you know, it's like if I live, if I die, I'm gonna die on my own two feet saying what I really think.
- [24:20]
Michael Malice
There's another tweet you had, which I thought was really interesting. So this is some. There's a. That you quote, tweeted someone from Mamdani Watch, and it was from Mamdani's director of the mayor's office to protect tenants. Her name was Sia. I think that's her as pronounced see a Weaver. And she said, real transition, no pun intended. We'll transition from treating property as an individual good to a collective good. Whites especially will be impacted. And she appears to be right from the video. And you quote, tweeted and said, this is what caught my eye, this tweet of yours. I spent a decade working progressive politics. They all talk like this behind the scenes. Eventually, I came to the conclusion they were morally unfit to hold any power whatsoever. Can you please expound on that?
- [25:06]
Brianna Wu
So it's exactly like I said in the tweet. You know, I worked with progressives for an entire decade, and there's something about them where there's a pretext to what they want to do, whether it's health care or helping women or whatever. But the real mission is to dismantle whatever institution is in front of you. So if that's homeownership, if that's your local school, if that is the court system, if that is American national security, the real issue at the end of the day is dismantling this.
- [25:37]
Michael Malice
And marriage. You've got marriage in there.
- [25:39]
Brianna Wu
Marriage as well. This is why they're so hostile to that and child rearing. So, yeah, the thing is, when you work with progressives behind the scene, you know, I think of myself as an adult. I come from a military family. I like to go in there and get stuff done. But you have like the same politics you see on Twitter, which is. Well, you said this thing 10 years ago. Well, I'm worried you're not thinking about the power structure for black and brown people. Oh, you called a non binary person by the wrong pronoun down in this meeting. That's all progressive politics dissolve into behind the scenes, which is why we lose so consistently. So eventually I come to the point, I'm like, my God, what would happen if by some miracle progressives actually won an election and we had to go, like, build a health care system? How on earth would we build this universal healthcare system we've been promising people? Of course we could not do that. That I would literally rather have a centrist Republican in power than a. Than a progressive, because the. The centrist Republican, you can at least have a conversation about and can arrive at some public policy outcomes.
- [26:52]
Michael Malice
This is interesting because I hear this. I would love to hear your perspective on this one. Things I hear a lot is my opponent, my opponents, in their people speaking, meaning the left has gotten everything they wanted. And I'll say, okay, do you have a gun? They go, of course I go, then how can you say that? Do they want you to have a gun? Well, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, okay, like your, your hypothesis has been disproven. I would love to hear from your perspective, things that the progressives. And I know it's giving a long list, but people need to hear it. Things that progressives want but they have not actually gotten. Because I think the delusion on the right is that we live in a 100 progressive country. And the God is that is probably the big one.
- [27:31]
Brianna Wu
To counter that, I think progressives, if you let them design the public policy, they would destroy gender 100. They would make it so if you have a child, you cannot call them he, she, whatever until they become old enough to pick their own gender.
- [27:46]
Michael Malice
Yeah, because that's impressive. If I call my son he who. That's oppressing him.
- [27:50]
Brianna Wu
That's very problematic. Yeah, you don't know his gender yet. I think they would do that. I think they would dissolve all private property. There are certainly those that want to do that behind the scene. I think they would make all bank lending illegal. I think they would abolish all billionaires and millionaires. I think that they would dismantle the entire military of the United States. I think that they would. I think that they would radically reshape the court system. I think they would make Christianity impossible to practice in many parts of the United States. Like, these are some extreme views, and they voice it very openly. And just one more thing, Michael. I've got to say, the thing that really tipped me off against working with progressivism anymore is after October 7th and hearing these people openly cheerlead terrorism and the slaughter of Jews. Like these are not minor things that they just kind of weakly believe. They were enthusiastic and thrilled with the rapes, slaughter and murder of Jews on October 7th. And you would talk to them about it and you'd be like, what? So you think, what, you want Syria, Lebanon, Iran to come in and dissolve Israel? What do you think is going to happen to the 10 million Jews that live there? Well, 8 million Jews and 2 million Arabs. And they're like, well, they'll just go somewhere else. And you're like, this is literally ethnic cleansing. Are you crazy? This is what they believe.
- [29:23]
Michael Malice
Yeah. I never understood this argument about if Israel is dissolved which, fine, that's your political position. What are you going to do with all those people? Like, they got to go somewhere. I don't think any nation has an obligation to take either Palestinians or Israelis. It makes no sense to me. You just mentioned something else. I'm curious to hear your role about how centrist, broadly speaking, leftism whitewashes a lot of this stuff. I remember when there was this big. I know, you know, I know a lot about left wing radicalism, and I don't even mean radicalism is pejorative, just extreme views that are not part of the mainstream. There was this movement of, let's disband the police, right? And I think it was Chris Cuomo and several others go, oh, when they say, disband the police, what they really mean is, spend more money on education. And then there was the headline in the New York Times, no, we met. Disband the police. And I think this has been historically a thing where people who were leftist, Stalinists and defending Soviet Union, others would be like, oh, it's not so bad. They don't really mean it. And I think it comes on people like you to be like, no, no, no, they really mean it. They really think having a penthouse is more of a crime than burning down Target.
- [30:36]
Brianna Wu
So I want your listeners to look at me and listen to me. They 100 absolutely, genuinely want to abolish the police. They think we can have a system where it is. What do they call it, restorative justice. And they just basically think that criminals only happen because of economic conditions. And they think that if communism comes around, criminalism is going to stop, which would be a real surprise to anyone that's ever read Russia's history. So, no, they 100% believe this. And, Michael, this is what gets me is, you know, as a trans woman, as someone in the LGBT movement, you know, we need the police more than y' all do. We need law and order more than y' all do. We need the court system to adjudicate our civil rights more than you do. For me as a liberal, for me as a trans woman, I desperately need the police around to take care of me if there's some crazy person that wants to hurt me, right? So it's like it's this inverted logic where they think the systems that give us our civil rights are evil and they want to tear them down. And I just don't understand the limitation where they can't see the value.
- [31:53]
Michael Malice
There's this. It also reminds me of Iran, 1979, where the Shah's Bad. The shah's bad. The shah's bad. We got to get rid of the shah. And I can understand the article argument pretty easily, but it's like, careful what you wish for. I'm very anti police as well, but the idea that there should be no security in communities. And the other thing is, I don't, like, I can understand the argument maybe that, oh, if people are wealthy, it's okay to shoplift because I'm poor, because of the system. I don't understand what economic conditions make someone a rapist. That makes zero or someone beat their kids. That makes no sense to me.
- [32:29]
Brianna Wu
Yeah, I, I'm 100 there with you. I think it is. I, I do want to say you're against the police. Wait, your vision for what? A, for how society would be structured.
- [32:40]
Michael Malice
Private security.
- [32:41]
Brianna Wu
Okay.
- [32:41]
Michael Malice
In the same way, instead of just having one number to call, which is a monopoly, which is no accountability, it could be like uber. You could have people who are trained and licensed, and right away you'd have competition, you have accountability. Because one of the things where I think the police really fail and so that can be resolved very easily is if I'm a cop and I do something horrific, the odds of me having consequences for this are almost zero. Whereas if there were a competitive system, those people would be quickly fall by the wayside and people have more trust with the police and, and, and, and feel more comfortable calling them if they needed to.
- [33:15]
Brianna Wu
I mean, I could certainly, like, if I could pay for additional police for me, as a public figure, I would certainly do that. I, I, I think, I mean, maybe it's a divergence from the topic.
- [33:26]
Michael Malice
We could diverge.
- [33:28]
Brianna Wu
Well, let's, it's, I'm trying to think through that. So you've got someone that's a private security, may or may not have training, then how would they go testify? If there's a court case to put someone in jail, like a law enforcement officer, there's a certain amount of credibility that goes.
- [33:43]
Michael Malice
Well, that's the problem, first of all, because I think a lot of times that law enforcement officer credibility is used incorrectly to put people in jail who otherwise wouldn't. There's this power differential. Number two is anyone can testify in court. I could just be a witness to a crime. And furthermore, I think the ubiquity of body cams is a great thing, both for people who are victims and also for the police. Because it's very clear from watching those body cams that I've gotten more sympathy for the police as a result of Body cams and more contempt. Because a lot of times you'll see them saying sir or ma' am to someone who's just a complete, you know, savage. And they have to be polite and, and respectful and whatever. It's just like, if I was that cop, I would turn. Turn that body cam off and go to town. I don't blame. But then there's other cases where, you know, they're just. I. I saw this one video which even thinking about it makes me enraged. There was a woman who was clearly mentally handicapped and she was not having. She was having a problem with the self checkout at Target and they got her to the ground and blah, blah, blah, and they're dragging her out and it's just like, what is what. They're not making a scene. Do you know what I mean? It was just like, what kind of person are you that this is something that you would do? So I think it shows both, you know, but things when you have a monopoly and there's this one agency and that you have that blue line to protect your own, it becomes a lack of accountability.
- [35:04]
Brianna Wu
I can, I can understand that point of view. I mean, I agree with it, but I think it's all said.
- [35:08]
Michael Malice
Yeah. So let's also talk a bit about where you see. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna disagree with you a little bit because I think, yeah, I love disagreement. I think November and election day kind of. I let out, I was holding my breath and I kind of released it because when the people. I was on Gutfeld in like March or April, and the argument was, well, now the Democrats have lost everything, the Democratic Party is dead. And I'm just like, guys, it's not even the end of the first quarter and you're having your victory lap. This is the oldest political party on earth. They have no problems changing their principles to get power. Like, what do you think is going to happen? And I think the election day on November 2025 was a big litmus test. Which way? Western man for the Democratic Party, are they going to go the Mamdani way or are they going to go like the corporate hack other way? Those corporate hack candidates in Jersey. And I don't even use that pejoratively, it's been more business oriented in Jersey and Virginia won by record margins. In Virginia, she won by biggest margin since like the 80s. New Jersey was also a huge margin. So the fact that they did better than Mamdani, I think would tell a lot of Democratic leaders. Okay, that's how we win. Running on this cupboard issue as opposed to abolish the police like Mamdani, I
- [36:32]
Brianna Wu
would agree with you. I will say I've had so many private conversations with party insiders since losing this election. And my mission to them was was trying to talk to the party behind the scenes and go, look, I appreciate your stance on trans people. I do. I need these civil rights. But you are making us really unsafe by standing by this nonsense of trans women in sports. It is making the American people hate us. By passing these laws about transing children behind their back in public schools, you're making people hate us. We need to change some messaging and get back to basics on this and have a less extreme position. And you know, I have to tell you, I think the Democratic Party, you're right that we've been competitive in some of those races, and I'm happy to see that. But I think that overall, the progressive extremism side of the party is winning. There's something going on in the Democratic Party right now that no matter what happens, if Trump is involved with it, they're going to automatically oppose it, even if it's in our national security interest. And this is not helpful for us. You know, Trump is for better, for worse. He's my president. He's done a lot of stuff I disagree with. He's done some excellent things on national security that I do agree with. So the, the problem is, I think the Democrats had a chance to rebrand ourselves as a more sensible party and we are opting not to do that. Instead, we are becoming a party of this anti national security. We are becoming explicitly pro communist. And I think we're doubling down on all these really stupid politics. I think, you know, Whitmer and a lot of these more centrist. Yes, Spanberger, you know, they're going to exist and they're going to do well, but I think unfortunately, that's going to be a minority position.
- [38:28]
Michael Malice
Well, it's interesting because did you see Nancy Pelosi's retirement video?
- [38:31]
Brianna Wu
I did.
- [38:32]
Michael Malice
I. It blew my. Because Nancy Pelosi, I think, is probably the smartest person in the Democratic Party in terms of strategy. I don't think anyone could put that past her. And I watched that video very carefully because she knows how the tea leaves read and she, you know, it's very crafty. And I don't know if you caught this. She's from San Francisco, obviously, it's a six minute video. She never mentions the word LGBT once. She doesn't mention the word gay or trans, even when she's talking about aids, which obviously disproportionately affects San Franciscans. She doesn't mention the word gay, which is. Is if it was on the right, it would be like you're rewriting history. This is shameful. You know, she talks about Saint France of Assisi, how much she loves going to church, Veterans Day. There's American flags everywhere. There's barely. There's one for a second, the pride flag. And it's like, oh, she knows to pivot and that you have things like Virginia where it's like 57 to 43. Just huge blowouts. But. And Newsom was backing away from this a little bit, but recently he's tacked back. What do you think is happening there?
- [39:26]
Brianna Wu
I think the Democratic Party has tried identity politics. I think in Gamergate, the Gamergate era, that, you know, I kind of rose to being a public figure in. I think we had a theory about change for the American people. And I think it was if we really elevated identity to kind of invert the hierarchy of oppression and make it so, a black, trans, you know, lesbian woman would be at the absolute top and she gets to talk first. And the white guy that's straight is going to be down here. I think we had a theory of power. If we really focused on those identities, it would lead to addressing inequality. And I think we see now, 10 years later what the outcome of these kinds of structures are. They create remarkably brittle, self destructive organizations that get so focused on infighting they cannot achieve any political purpose internally. That theory is wrong and it turns off moderates. And the Democrats are losing because of this. The American people, like, we've got a lot of white people, we got a lot of straight people in America. Right? It's a real problem that people think the Democrats stand for LGBT issues more than they stand for a livable wage for a union worker. And that's literally what the polls show. So I think you're dead on. We need to move away from these toxic identity politics. Doesn't mean we don't think that, you know, women sometimes don't get a fair shake. It means that directionally our goal should be everyone gets a fair shake rather than putting down other groups.
- [41:06]
Michael Malice
Hey, it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my How We do it gaming team take on Gilly The King Wallow 267's Million Dollar Gaming in an epic global gaming league video game showdown. Four rounds, multiple games, one winner, plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to the championship match against Neo right now@globalgamingleague.com that's globalgamingleague.com everybody games. Let's get back to the show. I think a big reason there's this huge anti trans backlash is because conservatives, by and large, in many ways want to be good neighbors. They want to be friendly and amiable. You see that very much in the Midwest where people who are, you know, go to church every Sunday still, you know, therefore the grace of God want to be kind and charitable and then that good nature is from their perspective. I don't think incorrectly is being exploited. Like, I wanted to be nice to you and now you're coming after my kids. Like you're punishing me for doing the right thing. I'm not just disagreeing with you. I hate you. And I'm going to do what I can to destroy you because this is perverting what I regard and I would agree with them as a basis of a healthy society where people can leave their doors unlocked. And if someone comes to my door, my neighbor is going to see it and be like, hey, I caught this. Like, that's how a working community operates.
- [42:32]
Brianna Wu
That's right. There is a, there's a way, like, look, if you're born trans, friends, it's just, you're in for a rough ride. Right? It is not an easy life. Right. There is a way to get people on your side, which is, look, I had a healthcare condition. I got some. I went and got some treatment. I'm doing my best to look like the gender. I am asking you to call me as. I'm not listing my pronouns. I'm not making everything about this. Just let me go live my life. 99% of conservatives are on board with that. It's where you have this, this culture of, well, we can't presume anyone's pronouns and, oh, if you don't put your pronouns in your email bio, you're a bad person. And introduce all this gender ideology in it. It's, it's, it's just crazy. And I think you're right. It really takes away that goodwill. Another really good example. I'm sorry to get so political here. The trans women in the bathroom. Bathroom. You know, when I transitioned 20 years ago, we had intense discussions with sisters, which was like, am I ready to start using the ladies yet? It would be like, no, you know, I'm sorry, you've not killed your beard yet. You know, you're not Dressing well, you do not pass well enough to do this. Please just find somewhere else to go. We wanted to act in good faith and get along with women. It was important, important to us because we wanted to be included in those groups. We wanted to be one of the girls. We wanted to be invited out to brunch. Right. We wanted them to feel safe. And we understood we had to do the work. We couldn't do that work for them. We had to go get the surgery. We had to wait for HRT to do the work. We had to get electrolysis. The progressives have inverted this to say, a man with a full beard can decide he's a woman one day and go stroll into the locker room with your daughter, which is effing crazy. And it's taken away the goodwill part of that, which is why there's such a backlash.
- [44:37]
Michael Malice
Yeah, yeah, I, I think, and I think to your point, the kind of person who identifies as trans, who wants to be in that locker room with the beard, it's a very different mindset, of course. Right.
- [44:51]
Brianna Wu
I don't think they're trans. I think they're fetishistic cross dressers. An actual trans woman would be horrified to be out in public like that. They would be horrified to make women feel uncomfortable. None of these people are actually trans. But the problem is progressives have made it so we can't say that.
- [45:08]
Michael Malice
And I think also conservatives regard as all one big package. If you try to talk to a conservative about the difference between a cross dresser and a drag queen, which is performative, their eyes just glaze over and you're like, well, it's all just pervert stuff. And it's like, fine. But there's certain kind of pervert stuff which is fine for the nightclub, and certain kind of pervert so called perfect stuff which is going to be at the doctor's office. And it's not the same thing.
- [45:30]
Brianna Wu
Do you think? I mean, I think most conservatives in my career, I think they can tell I'm something different than a lot of this gender ideology stuff they're seeing online. I think, I think most people can tell that intuitively.
- [45:44]
Michael Malice
I think. I don't know if this is how I know if this is an offensive way of phrasing it. So I apologize in advance. But I think their line is, has this person done the work? Have they tried to do, go above and beyond to. And I know this has been an issue for black people, for Jewish people, for gay people, and for trans people passing. Right. Are they trying to pass or are they saying, I'm sorry, Brianna. And I know you're gonna agree with me, if a guy puts on a dress, he's not a woman, and if a girl puts on jeans, she's not a guy. There's no, there's zero percent. It makes no sense. That's not a thing. And unless someone is try. And the thing is, if you have gender dysphoria, and I know you, you obviously just recently, you talk publicly about your jaw surgery. You want to look in the mirror and see how you see yourself. You don't want to see a beard. That's. That's horribly disturbing.
- [46:31]
Brianna Wu
Of course it is. Actual trans women want to vibe with normal women. Right. And you know, another thing I think is so unhelpful is, look, did any of these surgeries make me literally the same thing as a biological woman? Of course not. Of course not. Why can't we just say that? It's like I had some commonalities in my personality that largely overlap with normal women more than men. Right. Like, I, through surgery, look a lot more like a woman than a man at this point. I'm never gonna have a period. I'm never gonna give birth. I am something different. I think it's okay to acknowledge that, Right? Like, we may not literally become women, but we can have lives where we are accepted and are included with women. And that's beautiful. It's great. I'm always so thankful for it. And I just wish, I wish we could get all these politics out of the way and just speak about all this stuff.
- [47:28]
Michael Malice
Honestly, I, I don't see that path. You know why? Because there's so much, much, so much money and so much status involved in fighting what you're arguing for that I don't see how they step away from it.
- [47:41]
Brianna Wu
Yeah, well, it's sad because that's a feature where people like me are not gonna be able to get help in the future.
- [47:49]
Michael Malice
Yeah. There. Do you know Andy Warhol's joke with Candy Darling? Andy asked her how often she's a trans woman first. Trans women. Yeah. For people watching who don't know, Andy asked her at Candy, how often do you get your period? You know, she said, no, every day. I'm such a woman.
- [48:07]
Brianna Wu
There we go.
- [48:07]
Michael Malice
You, I mean, I, I. How your, your inner, your tweets seem to be. I don't blame you. Really dark. And you're seeing that America is going on a very dark path, which I think a lot of us agree with as well. How do you keep personally from, you know, you're laughing. We're having a pleasant conversation. How do you keep personally from going crazy?
- [48:31]
Brianna Wu
Well, I've got a lovely marriage. Marriage. I've been married to a man for 17 years. I never even thought I'd get a boyfriend. So, you know, my husband is delightful. I love to run. You know, many days I strap on my running shoes, I'm gonna take out that anger on the treadmill. And I, I want to be really clear with you. I think if you look at the numbers, I think if you look at the numbers, people are fleeing both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party right now. The number of independents out there is skyrocketing. And I think the first party to come to their senses and reject their extremists is the one that's going to capture the American people. I think if you and I got together, we could design a much better trans public policy than these extremes would. So I do have to believe that even though it is very dark right now, I think that the American people have really. I, I think they're looking for something sane to believe in. And I, I have to believe eventually the incentives are going to produce that.
- [49:31]
Michael Malice
But hold on. This is where I'm going to push back a little.
- [49:34]
Brianna Wu
Please.
- [49:34]
Michael Malice
Because you're a, you're a tech nerd. So you, you understand the space even better than I do. I. My big concern now is AI. And here, here, my. Hear my framework out and tell me if you disagree. I think Covid, Mark Zuckerberg's job is how do I keep you looking at Facebook as much as possible. Right. Elon Musk's job is how do I keep you on Twitter as much as possible. Covid gave a lot of people information about how to keep the populace highly agitated and also highly plugged in. Everyone's on their phone, social kids can't leave their house. Everyone's in a heightened state of upset death statistics. It's a calamity, so on and so forth, forth. I think the COVID issue went away, but that information has not. And I think social media has been engineered by design to keep people constantly agitated. And I think what's going to be even worse is when Grok and AI and all these other avatars will be able to personally know what gets you Michael or you, Brianna, agitated and will feed you that kind of stuff. And you're going to be kept in a state, state of constant tension because then you're going to be plugged into your phone. And I think that's where it's going. And I'M very, very scared about it.
- [50:45]
Brianna Wu
I think that's a very reasonable fear. When I read for ran for Congress, one of the things I believe is that we should regulate this in the sense of these algorithms that they use for your newsfeed. All this information should be open source, and you should be able to choose your own algorithm. So me, Brianna Wu, if I want to choose one that may result in less engagement, like that will keep me on there longer, that will let me see higher quality, more neutral things, I should be able to select that algorithm. I think that is like my right. So I think there are ways around it. But the problem is none of these boomers that you know are on the tech Subcommittee have any willingness to do that work. So I think, unfortunately, I do agree with you. I do have to say AI is very computationally expensive. So I think the incentives are not going to be as aligned to have you interacting with fake bots ad infinitum with this. I don't see how that could be scaled down a bit. So hopefully it will all come to a breaking point.
- [51:48]
Michael Malice
Well, here's another thing I was concerned about, which is Sam Altman was recently talking about how ChatGPT. I was on Gutfeld again talking about ChatGPT is going to allow erotica. And everyone's just joking like, oh, what do you mean by erotica? Ha ha ha. And it's obviously a euphemism for your sexting with your computer. But the point I made is, look, if I am a mentally unwell person, and I think Siri would like me better if I did something to the president and my algorithm is anti Trump, how many? You're dealing with a population of 350 million. You tell me one in a million aren't gonna do something about it. This is a very dangerous road to go down when your computer is just making someone, as you've been, a hate object. And now I'm gonna be like, oh, you know, my. My waifu, you know, dot com is gonna like me more if I do something about it. This. This is a very dark road.
- [52:41]
Brianna Wu
Yeah, Michael Connelly's last book was exactly about this.
- [52:45]
Michael Malice
Oh, really?
- [52:46]
Brianna Wu
Yeah, it's about this very subject. I agree with you. Something that does give me a little bit of hope is that as best as I can tell, they put the brakes on chat GPT a few months ago to stop development on it it and to introduce safeguards for AI psychosis.
- [53:04]
Michael Malice
Right.
- [53:05]
Brianna Wu
I don't have AI psychosis, so I can't judge if they have been implemented or not, but maybe they were successful at that. I haven't gotten any emails from people telling me, ChatGPT says they're gone for quite a while.
- [53:19]
Michael Malice
But can you explain to me what AI psychosis is? Because it's a term I only heard recently, and it's very, very disturbing.
- [53:24]
Brianna Wu
Sure. So AI is, at its core, it is an engine to tell you what it thinks you want to do, hear. It's a predictive model. So, you know, it is something that's literally been trained on data. So if you give it a picture of yourself, it's going to say, oh, you're great, or hi, I just had a fight with my husband, you know, oh, well, he did everything wrong. It is programmed to mirror you and kind of feed these narcissistic impulses. It's very poor at checking these delusions from people that do have legitimate schizophrenia. It tends to mirror that and amplify that. That. So people with legitimate schizophrenia spend all their time talking to it. So it is a truly dangerous development for people that have mentally unhealthy habits.
- [54:13]
Michael Malice
Yeah. And I also think, if. I think the Internet is very big on dialing everything up to 10. So I made this joke when I was in Andrew Schultz show. I say, what would you call someone who thinks Trump sucks? He's kind of dumb, he's an embarrassment to the presidency, and, you know, he did a crappy job with the economy. A Trump supporter. Because until and unless you say Trump is literally the worst thing that's ever happened to America, you're basically Trump support in the eyes of some of these people. It's really kind of unhinged. But I feel like social media, everything has to. Every problem has to be a crisis, and every crisis has to be an existential catastrophe. And it's like, you know, sometimes things are just bad. You know, if you break your arm, I, you know, I wouldn't want you or anyone else to break their arm. It's not the same as brain cancer. And it's something. It's a problem. You could deal with it. But on the Internet, it's like, if something's an issue, you need to panic, panic, panic. And I'm like, it is, first of all exhausting, but also extremely mentally unhealthy and societally unhealthy for this to be the speed at which everyone's operating at.
- [55:14]
Brianna Wu
Yeah, but I mean, like, what worries me even more are the kids. Like, have you heard these stories about literal toddlers coming into first grade, and they spent so much time on their tablet that they literally can't grip a pencil. No, enough to hold it. So the teachers are having to give them clay to do hand exercises to get the hand strength to learn how to write. Like, I. I'm. I'm just. I mean, have you tried hiring some of these kids in their. Their 20s? It's terrifying. They can't deal with having a boss tell them to show up to work on it time like we are. We're going into some dark times, and I don't know how we're gonna have a civilization.
- [55:58]
Michael Malice
I was talking to a friend of mine. I don't want to mention his name, who's another big podcaster and he's got a big crew. And I asked him. I'm like, I don't understand how you have the emotional bandwidth to deal with these kids. Because it's. If you and I, because we were at the same age, if we screw up, I feel bad. I'm like, oh, let me fix it, and I'm not gonna make that mistake again. But with them, it's like, well, oops. And it's like, well, wait, you don't even feel bad about it. And there's no pretense that next time you'll get it right. It's just like, what are you gonna do? It's like, well, you're gonna get it right. That's what you're gonna do. And they don't think like that. And this is like you're saying a very. How do you have a society when there's just no personal responsibility?
- [56:38]
Brianna Wu
How are we gonna have a national security strategy when people are run like that? I. I don't know. I really don't. I'm scared.
- [56:48]
Michael Malice
We're both Gen X. Are we the new boomers? I feel like we sound like boomers. We don't understand these kids. It looks really bad, and it's got to go to hell in a hand basket.
- [56:57]
Brianna Wu
Look, I think, look, our generation, for all of our faults, like, we were anti establishment. We're clear on. We wanted to take our own destiny in our hands and go do our own thing. You know, I'm proud to be Gen X, so I don't know.
- [57:13]
Michael Malice
Do you see when you're talking to these Democratic insiders behind the scenes, are, do. I mean, a good example is AOC versus Chuck Schumer in New York. Do they see it almost as a given that this DSA thing is going to take over, or are they, like, want to fight back? What's their perspective?
- [57:29]
Brianna Wu
They see it as something. If you Just shut up. It's not going to cause too much trouble. Right? They have a theory of power, and their theory power is if you kind of just leave the DSA alone and throw them some cookies and you're nice to them every once in a while, they're not really going to have any power and then the adults can go do what they want behind the scenes. I think this is a flawed analysis.
- [57:53]
Michael Malice
That's the Jeff strategy.
- [57:55]
Brianna Wu
That's right. 100%. That's exactly right. I think these people are cancer. I think they're anti American and I think they're making us unelected. I think Mandani is teaching the American people. He's who a Democrat is. Someone who specifically wants to take over your housing and target white people so you don't own your homes, which is something his administration literally said they want to do.
- [58:19]
Michael Malice
Right.
- [58:20]
Brianna Wu
So, you know, I think with respect, you know, sometimes you got to fight it out behind the scenes. And if we want a Democratic party, sooner or later we're gonna have to decide do we want the normie school teacher that just wants her local kindergarten funded and didn't sign up for all this at gender ideology, or do we want a literal communist that wants to take away your home? I think that's a choice Democrats are going to have to make, folks.
- [58:48]
Michael Malice
Head over to Mouse Locals.com where Brianna took questions from supporting listeners. Brianna, we're running out of time. What has been your favorite part of this interview?
- [58:56]
Brianna Wu
I. I just love the vibes. You're fun to talk to. I don't know. I think you're. You're great. Great. Thanks for a really fun chat.
- [59:03]
Michael Malice
You are welcome.
- [59:17]
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