Our Thoughts on Feminism

Voiceover:
Welcome to the Underrepresented in Tech Podcast, hosted by Michelle Frechette and Allie Nimmons. Underrepresented in Tech is a free database built with the goal of helping people find new opportunities in WordPress and tech overall.

Michelle Frechette:
Hi, Allie.

Allie Nimmons:
Hi, Michelle. How are you?

Michelle Frechette:
I am good. How are you?

Allie Nimmons:
I’m good. It’s Friday, which is always nice. We don’t always record on Fridays, but sometimes we do, and it’s like a fun way to cap off the week.

Michelle Frechette:
Absolutely. Guess what I’m doing tonight?

Allie Nimmons:
What are you doing?

Michelle Frechette:
I’m going to Buffalo, bringing one of my friends with me to Buffalo for two reasons. One is my daughter is DJ-ing at an event that I get to attend. I’ve never seen her in action. I’ve only seen her on Instagram to do it. But she’s opening for a drag show and I’m so excited about doing the whole watch her DJ, watch the drag show in Buffalo. I got a really cool headpiece to wear, a little fascinator with a big old bow, and I’m excited. It’s going to be fun.

Allie Nimmons:
That sounds so much fun. I’ve never been to a drag show, which I’m so upset at myself for. The opportunities just never… Because I feel like you can’t just go to a drag show by yourself. You got to go with someone or to watch a certain person or something. So what do you say, we got to get up a bunch of friends and go to a drag show?

Michelle Frechette:
It’s so much more fun when you have somebody to watch with, right?

Allie Nimmons:
Like a concert, right? Going with people is fun.

Michelle Frechette:
I know that people who watch this can’t see that I’ve got this rainbow flag or rainbow fan. I’ll put it right here next to my phone so I don’t forget so I can do the whole fan thing.

Allie Nimmons:
Love it. That sounds like it’s going to be so much fun.

Michelle Frechette:
It’ll be fun. Oh, I think so. For sure.

Allie Nimmons:
Take pictures so that I can see.

Michelle Frechette:
Oh, I will for sure. Absolutely. I’ll be Graming it. Is that what we call it, Gramming? I don’t know, whatever.

Allie Nimmons:
I guess.

Michelle Frechette:
I’m so old. Oh, I follow a drag person on TikTok. I can’t remember exactly the handle, but Kyne, K-Y-N-E, is their name and they’re a mathematician, like a freaking phenomenal mathematician, and they do their little… Little, that sounds so diminutive when you say that. They do their 60 second, which is what I meant by little, Tiktoks in full drag. And I’m like, oh my God, they’re so gorgeous.

Allie Nimmons:
I’ve seen them before. Yeah, I just Googled her. It’s just so fabulous.

Michelle Frechette:
I ordered the math book. It comes out in March. I ordered the book. I sound like that stereotypical, I don’t even like math. I mean, I do. It’s interesting. It’s not where I have chosen to focus my energies, so I never became really good at it, which is why I like my calculator, but I’m so excited to read the book from the perspective of drag.
So it’s going to be a lot of fun. I just love it. It’s going to be fun. I love your topic for today. You came with a topic, and as often happens, we morphed it a little bit, but let’s talk about feminism. I think, I don’t know, somehow drag fits in there somewhere too, right?

Allie Nimmons:
Absolutely.

Michelle Frechette:
I love the idea of talking about feminism. There’s been so much in the news this year. I know we try not to get too political, but just the idea of women having autonomy over their own reproductive systems and things like that. It’s been a huge part of our existence here in the United States for the last two years for sure. Maybe even longer than that. I literally don’t remember what had happened.
I just remember crying. But what does it mean to be a feminism? What does it mean to support feminists, and what does it mean to raise feminists? So I know you don’t have kids yet, but I raised a feminist. I’m super proud of that. And what does that all mean? So what does it mean to you, Allie? Let’s kick it off to you, throw it over your way.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. Well, so I think it’s cool that we started off talking about drag because I think that I had to explain to someone recently the difference between cross-dressing and drag. Drag is a form of cross-dressing. Cross-dressing just means you are wearing clothes that have been gender to the opposite person. So if you’re a man, you’re wearing “female clothes” and vice versa. That’s cross-dressing. And you can cross dress for any number of reasons, some of which are sexual, but not all.
And drag specifically, and I feel like a lot of people don’t necessarily know this, the art form was specifically…And I’m worried that I’m going to come across sounding ignorant because, I mean, I don’t know the whole history of drag, but from what I understand, the art form of drag is primarily focused on satirizing and parodying and critiquing and picking apart the hyperfeminization of women. So that’s why when you look at a drag queen, typically you see giant hair and exaggerated makeup and big lips and big fake boobs sometimes and jewelry and high heels.
And it’s all of these things that we think of as extremely feminine to just the nth degree to try to show all of these things are ridiculous and they don’t actually really mean anything. And I know that lots of different drag queens have lots of different philosophies on that idea and their approaches to it, but I always found that to be really interesting. And I believe that drag is inherently feminist because it is intentionally analyzing and critiquing and pointing out the challenges that come with being a woman.
So to me, feminism is about being aware of those challenges first and foremost, being aware that they exist, being open to learning about them if you are not a woman and don’t experience those things. I don’t even know if I would say feminism is about trying to fight that sort of oppression because I think you can be a feminist in a more passive supportive way rather than being someone out there who’s marching and protesting in that kind of thing. There’s a scale of the actions that you can do to show your feminist ideals and beliefs.
But it really comes down to acknowledging the challenges that women have to go through and trying to find ways to alleviate those challenges. And I’ve been thinking a lot about feminism writing my new podcast because it’s all about women in horror. So I’m doing lots of research on various forms of feminism and things like that. It’s super interesting because I feel like people think of feminism as this dialogue of, “Oh, boo hoo. Woe is me. I’m a woman and I’m a victim and feel bad for me, give me special treatment,” and blah, blah, blah.
And in some ways, in some circumstances, yeah, it is about that. It is like, yeah, parts of my life really suck and I want people to know that and I want people to sympathize and empathize with me. But most of it, the systemic parts of it and the parts that push things forward are, what’s the problem? How can we solve the problem? How many women are being victimized? How many women are being left out of job opportunities? Let’s gather all that information and then attack those individual problems.
And sometimes that’s you are a business owner and as a feminist, you decide you are going to go out of your way to interview and hire more women. That could mean that you as a young woman are going to go to marches and to protests and call your Congress people and those sorts of things. There’s so many different ways to display that. And to me, being a feminist means supporting all women without in a way that is cognizant of the different challenges that different types of women have to go through, the experience of…

Michelle Frechette:
And the different choices they make.

Allie Nimmons:
Yes, exactly. You could look at a wealthy, white, educated, able-bodied, neurotypical white woman and you can look at a disabled woman of color in poverty and say, “Wow, those are two vastly different experiences.” But according to the society we live in, there are ways in which all women suffer. And a lot of those other things can contribute to that. They can help alleviate that suffering. They can make the suffering worse. They can make the suffering better. But there is this universal concept of being a woman and what that comes with, the burdens and the privileges that comes with.
And so a little bit before the podcast, we were talking about the idea of intersectionality, and I’m definitely going to do more reading and research about exactly what that means. But I know parts of that have to do with acknowledging that the feminist actions that a wealthy white woman needs to alleviate whatever her suffering is are going to be very different than what a trans woman of color might need for her. But both those things, supporting both of those people is feminist.
It’s just paying attention to there’s not a one size fits all solution for all women, but all women have these struggles. That’s such a roundabout way of answering your question. But we’re prone to stream of consciousnesses on this podcast.

Michelle Frechette:
I use an app that’s an anonymous app that people post their thoughts and things like that. And I didn’t want to say what the app is because it’s got some negativity associated with it, but I love to go through and just read what people… When they don’t have to put their name and face attached to their thoughts, I love the social aspect of seeing what people feel free to post. And yeah, people will post racist stuff in there. People will post anti-left, anti-right, whatever.
But one that comes to mind talking about feminism, there’s a lot of people that purport to be men, because sometimes you can see if they’re male, female, age range, but they can also hide that, but some people will purport to be a man and post something along the lines of, “The only good woman is one who decides to stay home and raise her kids,” or something like that. But one that comes to mind was a person…
And again, whatever they post is their own personal thing. They purported to be a young woman, so a woman in their 20s is what they identified, as female, 20s, and within the United States, said, “I’m not a feminist. I choose to stay home and make dinner for my husband and raise our kids and keep a nice house.” And I responded to that and I said, “Oh, you chose that? So you are a feminist.”

Allie Nimmons:
Or you benefit from feminism, the fact that you have a choice.

Michelle Frechette:
You have a choice. Exactly. That’s the lifestyle you’re choosing for yourself. I don’t know whether that person was in a relationship or not in a relationship, but they were talking hypothetical or they actually are a stay at home wife and mother and whatever, more power to you. If that’s the way that you are wanting to be a woman in your life and other people can support that, honey, I got news for you, that is feminism, right?

Allie Nimmons:
That person benefits from the feminists that have come before her, that have given her the right to choose. I was actually talking to my partner about this yesterday. There is this thing right now on social media called the tradwife movement, which is traditional wife, and it’s people like that who are like, yes, I believe that you should get up before your husband and do your hair and makeup so that he doesn’t see you, blah, blah, blah, and I believe you should wear heels to cook dinner, whatever.
All of these things. And the difference to me is it’s like, yeah, if that’s the way you want to live your life, feminism is about everyone being able to make the decision for themselves. When that breaks down is… I remember seeing a post from one woman who was basically saying, “If you don’t live this way, you are XYZ. Bad words. You’re the problem. You’re,” blah, blah, blah. And that is so hurtful to the feminist movement and the ideals of feminism because there was such a long time where…
And I mean, there’s still places in the world like this where women can’t choose what kind of lifestyle they want. They can’t choose how to spend their time. Everything’s dictated for them.

Michelle Frechette:
They can’t get driver’s licenses. They can’t show their face in public.

Allie Nimmons:
Can’t have bank accounts, all of these things. So for us living in America, and I mean, there’s still little pockets of America that are behind, but for the most part, living in America, a woman has the ability, more or less, to decide what kind of lifestyle she wants to live. And that is directly because of feminists who came before and fought for those rights for women to be able to have a bank account.
There are parts of America where… What is it? I’m married. There are parts of America where if I want to get a divorce from my husband, I can’t unless he also decides he wants to get a divorce. There are laws in place to make it so that women cannot get out of marriages without their husband’s emphatic consent and so on. It’s really, really, really all about choice.
And like you mentioned before, reproductive rights. That’s where the question of feminism comes in there because yes, women should be able to choose what to do with their bodies in terms of when and how and where and all these things to have children, and for the government to take those choices away from you. I don’t even call them rights, but those choices is extremely harmful to that movement of feminism.

Michelle Frechette:
The other thing that…

Allie Nimmons:
There’s so many deep parts of this that you can go into, and I feel like so many people just see the surface level. Well, if you’re a feminist, it means you hate men. And yeah, some feminists hate men, but that’s not the point.

Michelle Frechette:
But true feminism wants equality. That’s the whole idea. The Equal Rights Amendment that never has actually passed, that was a huge thing of bra burning and all of that in the ’70s was not about female superiority, women’s superiority. It’s like, just give us what everybody else has, make it even, make it level, make it just. There’s got to be some justice in this, right? They burned their bras in the ’70s so that we don’t have to today, but it doesn’t mean that everything’s fixed.
And there’s still such inherent within families raising people who are just like them to not agree with the fact, to keep women down, to keep people of color down. That’s what racism is. That’s what sexism is. That’s what genderism is. That’s what ableism, all of the isms are coming from all of that. And it’s hard. It’s hard to undo. It’s hard for me. We’ve talked about my journey as an ally having to unthink and unlearn the things that I grew up just knowing to be true, which weren’t actual truths, but knowing to be true because that’s what was taught to me.
You get to a certain point in your life where you’re like, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Wait, why? And those kinds of things and questioning those as opposed to just raising people to automatically ascribe value to all. And so that’s the whole thing about raising feminists and raising people who are socially aware. My daughter teaches me every day because I hopefully raised her to have those kinds of thoughts and think about challenging things. And she’s challenged me and helped me grow over time, for sure.
We talked a little bit about that in the last episode or the one before. I can’t remember now. We were talking about our journeys of allyship and how that’s coming out in a way of being an ally and growing and things like that. And I think about that. One of the other things that I see on the same app is guys will post this thing. And again, I’m assuming they’re guys by what it says in their profile, but it says things like, imagine dating a woman with a body count over, whatever number, eight, 10, and then they put the puking emoji.
But nobody ever says, imagine a man having sex with more than five women in their lifetime, kind of thing. It’s like, okay, first of all, who cares? Who really cares? And if it matters to you, fine, then don’t date somebody who’s dated other people before. Look for somebody who you can oppress. That kind of thing. It’s just interesting to me, like I said, the things that people… Definitely there are people that will say these things with their face and their name in their full chest. I think one of them is in a prison in Romania or something right now. What’s his name? Andrew Tate.

Allie Nimmons:
Andrew Tate.

Michelle Frechette:
There’s the, what do they call, the Red Pill Guys or something like that? There are definitely people who are still trying not only to perpetuate this within their own families, but make other men believe it and see it and feel it. There’s a whole incel movement. We could actually talk for a whole week on a lot of this stuff because women only have value if they are virgins, and they’re pretty, and they’re thin. But as soon as that woman rejects that man, then she’s a slut, and she’s ugly, and she’s fat. That literally is what happens.
If you read Reddit, there’s Insultiers. Go to Reddit and read the Insultiers subreddit. You will see this over and over and over again. Oh gosh, it’s just crazy. These people could be so much happier if they just open their mind a little bit. And so, yeah, I don’t know. I’m on a tangent now, but back to you.

Allie Nimmons:
It’s amazing. You mentioned a little while ago the things that you had to unlearn, and there’s a difference between reality and truth, I think. Your reality is what you are raised with, what you were taught, what you see around you that clicks in your mind. And then there is truth. I mean, we’re just talking about red pill. That’s kind of what The Matrix is, right? It’s like The Matrix is what you see around you that you believe to be true, and the truth is what is irrefutable. And it’s very difficult to change your reality or to dismiss your reality.
It’s very difficult. It’s very uncomfortable. But we are human beings, and I think it is part of our responsibility as human beings to seek truth, to seek to understand things, because we are the only being on this planet, in this solar system at least, that can do that, that can imagine what it is for somebody else to empathize with somebody else. That’s what separates us from animals. It baffles me how people can be so content for so long to live in a reality that just is not true. And it’s scary.
People like Andrew Tate, he is a sex trafficker. I feel like people are like, “Oh, the incel thing is, those are extremes. There’s not a lot of people like that,” but it’s a growing movement.

Michelle Frechette:
Yeah, it is.

Allie Nimmons:
There are more and more people who are subscribing to that every day. And it’s fine line between women can’t code and trafficking women for sex. There is a pipeline, and it is very, very scary. And again, that’s not to say all men are XYZ.

Michelle Frechette:
Right. Of course not.

Allie Nimmons:
But when I look around at the people who are making decisions for women, whether it’s reproductive rice or whether it’s people like Andrew Tate, they’re all men. So what are we supposed to do with that information? There are definitely women who are sexist. There are definitely women like we just talked about who are totally down to keep other women down. But the thing with that is they don’t have, those women, regardless of what they believe, don’t have the institutionalized and systemic power to make that a reality.
The men do. So talking about raising feminists, my sister is about to have a baby in a couple weeks. And it’s a girl, and we’re very excited, but she was really frustrated at the beginning. She really wanted to have a boy. Because in her mind, and I happen to agree with this, she said, “I would rather raise a boy to not be a monster rather than raise a girl to have to fight the monsters.”

Michelle Frechette:
Yeah, that resonates 100%.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, and I feel the same way. If I ever have a kid, I’ll be happy with what I get. But if I could choose, I think I would choose to have a boy, because they are going to go into the world automatically with more power. And that’s not to say that women don’t have power. I don’t want that to be taken out of context.

Michelle Frechette:
Right, but they have to fight for their power, as opposed to have it be something that is just…

Allie Nimmons:
It is easier for men to be listened to. It’s easier for them to get ahead. It’s easier for them to make change. And so it is so much on us as adults to I think particularly raise boys who are feminists because I think kind of most women are going to end up feminists anyway because it benefits us to be a feminist, right?

Michelle Frechette:
Right. But at what level and what degree of feminism for sure? I mean, we already said that for sure.

Allie Nimmons:
But given that a boy is going to go into the world benefiting from a lack of feminism, it is important to teach them that that’s not okay. I hope that I one day have a boy so that I can teach him to stand up for and help protect women who can’t protect themselves. And if I have a girl, I’ll raise her to fight the monsters too. And it’s such a kind of conundrum where it’s like, okay, well, we want women and men to be treated equally, and we want everything to be equal.
But the reality, the truth is that we don’t and we can’t move through the world in the same ways. We have to be aware of the differences. It’s a really difficult line to walk in terms of, yeah, I want employers to treat me no different than a male candidate. However, I want them to also be aware of the fact that I’m at a disadvantage and I want them to act accordingly. So sometimes it’s hard to ask for that solution because it’s so complicated.

Michelle Frechette:
One of the people that I think is the most I don’t want to say dangerous, like physically dangerous, I’m not fearing for my life around, but are the people, and I’m going to say men for the most part, who say they’re feminists and actually believe they’re feminists, but don’t stand up to the test of what real feminism is.

Allie Nimmons:
And I feel like a lot of those people are… I mean, we have a term for people who say they’re feminists, but do not count trans women as women, TERF, trans exclusionary radical feminists. We’ve talked about that before. There are people who will say they’re feminists, but will not afford women of color the same respect that they do white women.
There are people who say that they’re a feminist, and that really only counts for women that they find attractive. And if they find you unattractive, you are now subject to any amount of degradation or whatever. And it really has to be no exceptions, no exclusions. I still believe those trad women who are like if you have sex before marriage, you are not a worthy person, blah, blah, blah, those women still deserve…

Michelle Frechette:
How could you wear white at your wedding?

Allie Nimmons:
Those women still deserve as much rights and as much protection and as much power as men do. They can be wrong. It’s everyone’s right to be wrong. But as a human being, they deserve the same things that I would want women who I agree with to have. That I think is really what being a feminist is, is-

Michelle Frechette:
It’s so important.

Allie Nimmons:
-getting everyone to that same level playing field and not making exceptions, which can be hard when they’re women that you don’t agree with. I think there’s lots of women in policy stuff who are not really helping the cause, and it’s really hard to be like… I have to also include you as somebody who deserves all of these things, even though I kind of hate you. It can be tough.

Michelle Frechette:
Or at the very least disagree with you.

Allie Nimmons:
Yes, exactly.

Michelle Frechette:
Absolutely. It’s not easy.

Allie Nimmons:
I mean, obviously there are whole podcasts just about feminism and there are books and all kinds of stuff.

Michelle Frechette:
And they probably talk about it better than we do, but we are coming to making sure that we bring it to our audience as well, for sure.

Allie Nimmons:
Absolutely. And yeah, I don’t think we’ve ever… Of course, we’ve talked about feminism in bits and pieces, but I don’t think we have a full episode where we just share our thoughts about that.

Michelle Frechette:
I don’t remember if I’ve ever talked about this on the podcast or not, and this is definitely the difference between my being 55 and you being, I don’t remember how old you are, 30, 30, whatever.

Allie Nimmons:
31.

Michelle Frechette:
31, okay. You and Lydia are the same age. So I graduated high school in 1987. My daughter graduated from the same high school in 2010 with the same guidance counselor that I had.

Allie Nimmons:
Wow.

Michelle Frechette:
Yeah. Now, in 1987, I thought she was old. Of course, I was 18. What did I know? Anybody over their 30s was old. But that guidance counselor told me in 1985-’86 when I’ve started to apply for colleges that I shouldn’t even think about applying to college, that I should work towards honing the skills to be a good wife and mother. Now, this was 1987. This was not 1945 or ’54. This is 1987, and I graduated 21st in my class of over 300 people.
It wasn’t like I had bad grades and she was trying to discourage me from getting my hopes up for getting into college. I had AP credits. I had all of this stuff. I think you all know I’ve got my brain in my skull. God, how do I not sound intelligent when I can’t even talk about my own brain?

Allie Nimmons:
The irony of you stumbling over that sentence is so amazing.

Michelle Frechette:
Oh my gosh, that’s great.

Allie Nimmons:
Y’all know I got the smarts.

Michelle Frechette:
I can talk real good. I had the grades. I had the extracurriculars and everything that should say to anybody helping young people plan their future, that this person should be successful in a four-year college. And I’m not saying everybody needs a four-year college education. We can talk about education another time, because for me, it was the right step, whatever.
But for somebody in that day and age, this is post burn your bra era, to say I shouldn’t even worry about going to college was so discouraging. But on the other hand, I was like, fuck you, I’m going to do what I want.

Allie Nimmons:
I’m going to do it anyway.

Michelle Frechette:
Right. And I ended up with several degrees, and you all know where I’m sitting now, enjoying the fact that I have this voice and ability to do a lot of really cool things. But my daughter, she ended up with the same guidance counselor. I went in to meet with the vice principal or assistant principal, whatever they call it now, and I said, “I don’t want this woman to be my daughter’s guidance counselor.” And they said, “Why?” I said, “Because she’s not a proponent of young women.”
And they said, “She might’ve changed a lot in the last 20 years, Michelle.” And I said, “She might have, but she might not have either.” I said, “Let’s leave it at this. If my daughter ever feels like she’s not able to move forward with her plans and her dreams with this woman as her guidance counselor, then we will change it.” And they said, “Okay, we’ll agree to that.” And she had changed a lot, and she did not discourage Lydia from doing the things she wanted to do.
But for somebody in 1987 to say, who had a degree herself because she’s sitting in a position in a school, it just boggled my mind. And so it is so easy for people to affect young minds by telling them what they can and cannot do. I want people to think about that when they talk to young minds about what they can and cannot do, and always err on the side of helping them feel good about their dreams and their goals.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, whatever their choices are, if they want to go to college, if they want to be a stay-at-home wife and take care of kids.

Michelle Frechette:
Exactly.

Allie Nimmons:
You can do whatever the heck you want.

Michelle Frechette:
That’s right.

Allie Nimmons:
My mom always told me when I was little, she was like, “You can be anything you want except for Pope.” And I always remember that. She was like, “You can never, ever, ever be Pope, but you can be anything else that you want.”

Michelle Frechette:
It turns out I didn’t want to do that job anyway.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah. Well, I’m super glad that that did not repeat itself with Lydia, because I mean, I think Lydia would’ve been like, “Yeah, right. Okay, whatever,” and go out of there. But it’s really cool to hear that that woman has changed, and I’m really curious as to why or what happened or if she said that to the wrong person who just gave it right back. What might’ve happened to have changed her mind, because what she said to you, that was her reality. And it sounds like her reality has changed, and that’s really fascinating to me.

Michelle Frechette:
I also wonder who of my fellow students at the same time, who of my peers, might she have dissuaded instead of encouraged. I don’t know. Who knows? There was over 300 of us. I lost track of everybody over time.

Allie Nimmons:
I didn’t really have a guidance counselor in high school. I wish I had, but I remember… Talking about the whole preparing for college, being a woman, blah, blah, blah, I remember my best friend, and he since apologized for saying this. He’s a white passing Hispanic man. And I remember him saying to me when we were applying to colleges, he was like, “Oh, you have it so easy.” And I was like, why? And he was like, “You’re a girl and you’re Black. All the colleges are going to want you for that.”

Michelle Frechette:
Affirmative action.

Allie Nimmons:
“They don’t want the straight white guys anymore. They want diversity.” And I was like, “Excuse me. First, that’s so offensive to boil me down to those two things.” And he knew how smart I was. I graduated 15th out of 700.

Michelle Frechette:
Wow! That’s amazing. That’s fantastic.

Allie Nimmons:
To be fair, he was the valedictorian. He graduated first out of 700.

Michelle Frechette:
You weren’t that far behind.

Allie Nimmons:
I was not that far behind, and I was very proud of that fact. That was one of the very few things that he ever said that really hurt me, because I was like, even if you’re right, even if the colleges are looking for that, that’s such a discouraging thing to say of boiling me down to just those two things. That’s so upsetting. I only applied to one college, and I got into that college, and so I never really got to test that to see how many colleges would’ve just nabbed me up for those things. But yeah, it’s a challenge.

Michelle Frechette:
I once had a man at the church I used to go to tell me why women weren’t… Tell me that women couldn’t do everything that men could do and why women shouldn’t be in the ministry, because that was my undergrad, was religion and philosophy. And I looked him in the face, and I’m going to eat my words, by the way. I looked him in the face.
I said, “Every woman can’t do every job. I cannot do construction work. I’ve not built my body in a way to be a construction worker, but you cannot show me anything that a man does that there isn’t a woman on this planet that could also do, except sperm donor.” And now knowing the trans women that I know in my life, I take those words back because that’s not exactly true anymore. So there is literally nothing. And that they can’t be Pope right now doesn’t mean that that can’t happen someday.

Allie Nimmons:
That’s true. They might one day change the rules.

Michelle Frechette:
That’s right. That’s right. Trans men can have babies. Trans women can donate sperm if they want to. And I am not going to stand in anybody’s way of achieving their dreams, except Andrew Tate. He can rot in prison.

Allie Nimmons:
Yeah, seriously. Let’s end on that note.

Michelle Frechette:
Yeah, rot in prison, Andrew Tate, and we’ll see y’all next week.

Allie Nimmons:
We’ll see you next week.

Michelle Frechette:
Bye.

Allie Nimmons:
Bye.

Voiceover:
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