[Show Intro] Jala Hey, thanks for coming! I'm glad you're here. Come on in! Everyone's out on the patio right now. Looks like a couple of people are in the garden. I can't wait to introduce you! Can I get you anything? [turned away] Hey folks, our new guest is here! [Intro music] 00:00.20 Jala Hello world and welcome to Jala-chan's Place I'm your host Jala Prendes and today I am joined by Jamie (she/her) and Marcus (they/them). How are you both doing today? 00:16.55 Marcus I am very very sore I did my first parker lesson since 2019 over the weekend and I am sore in places where I forgot I had places. 00:16.55 Jamie I'm doing pretty good. 00:25.20 Jala Oh that is the best feeling ever when you get back into something physical and you're like how does this hurt I Thought that was just a rib. You're like no actually yeah, actually there's a bunch of connective tissue. There's like a little bit of a yeah. 00:41.53 Marcus Yeah I have like muscles in my hips that are like what the hell is going on right now. Some things are familiar like something simply feel familiar but others it like oh God What? Oh no, it's just from all of the landings I think so yeah. 00:46.98 Jala Oh yeah, because that's like a lot of yeah, that's a lot of movement. 00:57.11 Jala Oh yeah, well that's like a lot of movement patterns and a lot of impact that your hips haven't been getting since 2019 so 01:04.71 Marcus No, they have not so yeah, no, yeah, it's so so yeah I am I'm recovering is how I'm doing. So yeah. 01:14.70 Jala Awesome! I'm also recovering because I continue to be ill I can't shake it anybody like no no one I cannot shake this I'm dealing with chills and sweats and lack of sleep. So that's where I'm at today. 01:32.67 Jala But I am very excited to be here today. We are talking about engaging with femininity and this is a really like this is a big topic and part of the thing about talking about femininity is you can't really start talking about that without first discussing gender in the first place. So what is gender? Yeah yeah, and like the longer I was sitting here reading a bunch of different articles and looking at a bunch of different socio you know, ah analyses and stuff I'm just like. 01:53.70 Marcus Ah, ain't that the million dollar question 02:08.90 Jala Gender What is nonsense is what it is is really like a lot of nonsense but but at the same time. It's so important to people for their sense of self and sense of of place in the world and it's just really kind of wacky So ah, textbook. 02:11.40 Marcus Um, exactly yes. 02:26.42 Jala Um, definition of what gender is yeah gender refers to socio-cultural attitudes, behaviors and identities. Basically every human has learned behaviors and how we speak our mannerisms. The things that we use our behaviors all signal. Who we are and establish rules for interaction. Gender is one such set of organizing principles that structure behaviors attitudes, physical appearance and habits. So Jamie what about gender norms tell me about gender norms. 03:02.92 Jamie Um, so gender norms are basically social and cultural attitudes and expectations about what behaviors preferences products professions and ah like what you know?? What's appropriate for you to do as it pertains to your gender Identity. So This would be things that draw on and reinforce Gender stereotypes. Um, sometimes these gender norms are reinforced by inequal distribution of resources and discrimination in the workplace or in your family or you know when you're out in the world. Ah, gender norms are. 03:40.45 Jala Underlining everything? Okay sorry, go ahead. 03:45.43 Jamie Um, the interesting thing about gender norms though is that they're constantly in flux right? So the things that are gender norms now that we think of as male and female gender norms have not been consistent. Between culture or location over a period of time so things in the 50 s are different than things in the 2020 s things gender norms in Korea are different than gender norms in Germany. Even like gender norms in a urban area. You know in a well-populated city versus like a more rural area all of these gender norms and how people perceive and interact with them are different in different social contexts. 04:29.60 Jala Yeah, so like what your expectations are when you're at work versus at home. You know out with people in society somewhere versus just you know chillin' or whatever all of those things you know all of those different places. 04:48.60 Jala Require different faces different masks that you have to put on you know for each of these different performances that you're doing to tie in the performance and identity episode. So yeah. 05:03.30 Jala Ah, Marcus tell us a little bit about gender identity. 05:05.36 Marcus So gender identity is a little bit different than gender norms. Although those do things they do tend to intersect but gender identity is mostly about how individuals or groups perceive and present themselves in relation to gender norms. So. Ah, gender identity can be context specific and when you know when talking about how people interact with other identities like ethnicity plays a big part of that cultural heritage plays a big part of that I was just reading about a tribe in Africa where. Gender identity. There are very very manly men who put on full faces of makeup for this contest where women choose where women choose them to be husbands and this happens every single year. So that's way different than what happens around here. Um, and so and. 05:57.46 Marcus Yeah, and so the way we think about gender identity is super complicated. It can be multidimensional and we usually think about it on a masculinity femininity spectrum and people call that like a spectrum along a dimorphic I forgot the term but basically having like we have these 2 extremes and then there's. Everything in the middle. But more people more and more think about it as like this blob than just a straight line across um, and yeah, but that that because of that that that masculine femininity spectrum can reinforce stereotypes about men and women and ignore. 06:35.57 Marcus Those of us who fall outside these gender binaries and ah any person can experience like can can experience positively or negatively you know gender norms or traits and things that can that don't really fall into the category of masculine and feminine. And so yeah, when we talk about Gender. We're often talking about like the typical things we're talking about Stereotypes. We're talking about talking about traits that are usually gendered like physical things are usually related to dudes domestic are usually related to women. And then we have like you know, occupational gender norms like nurses versus doctors. We normally like we don't Normally we normally think of a man as a nurse a man as a doctor and a woman as a nurse which is how we now have the category of male nurse and female doctor. 07:29.24 Marcus We have to make we have to specify that or else people automatically assume that a doctor is a dude um you know and when domestic roles we have you know homemakers child givers versus home repair right? Which is why now we also have the category of female mechanic you. 07:49.76 Marcus Things like that. Yeah, um, you know, Ah, you know we have you know and personality and personality things too. People think that self-confidence and you know ah people think that that's a typically masculine thing and they think that people being shy and passive is generally a feminine thing and no. Also not normally if not really a thing but this is why we get. You know we got you know gaslight Gatekeeper girl Boss You know that's how we end up with that thing too because self-confidence is supposed to be. You know?? Ah, a man thing and associated with bosses who we also always think are women and which is why we even have the term girl boss. 08:25.89 Marcus Or Shiro which is the thing that really pisses me off but know it's awesome. Yeah, it's awful I Hate Oh yeah. 08:26.34 Jala Oh Lord I haven't even heard that before don't tell me that ever again I hate it. So yeah. 08:36.78 Jamie It It also that last part kind of feeds into the whole like Alpha Male Omega Male Beta Male weird thing that's going on right now. 08:50.19 Marcus Not and I'm so glad that people with those podcasts are getting just like viscerally just just just getting kicked off the internet I'm so glad. Ah, at the time of reporting Andrew Tate just got kicked off of all social media and good riddance. So. 08:58.44 Jala Yeah, yeah. 09:05.50 Jamie Heck yes. 09:05.11 Jala Yeah, absolutely absolutely. So um, do we before we move on to what is femininity. Any additional comments about gender generally speaking from either of you. 09:19.76 Marcus Ah, one thing I'd like to throw out there is There is a very big difference between um, gender Attribution Gender identity and and gender performance. Um. 09:33.40 Marcus Like you know gender Identity We think of like as an internal sense of self but then there's performance which is what we put out there and then there's gender attribution which is how everybody reads us and those things can intersect and sometimes the way you perform will affect how people what gender people attribute to you and I think and that. 09:52.46 Marcus May or may not line up with what your identity actually is but I think it's important to recognize that. 09:55.63 Jala Yeah, and when I was thinking about a bunch of different questions different topics for us to discuss on our experiential side about this when we get to that. Um. 10:08.56 Jala 1 of the things that I was reflecting on because of course um I was looking at this through the lens of not just femininity but also masculinity because I will be doing a future episode on that topic engaging with masculinity. So I'm thinking about it in those terms I'm like yeah you know I think. 10:27.41 Jala 1 of the challenges for me when it comes to engaging with masculinity and I'm not going to hover on this for long because that's not what this podcast is about today but it's the way that people perceive me does not align with what. 10:43.43 Jala Subtle changes in stuff I see within myself that I know are going on within myself in the shift on the spectrum for me towards like a more masculine everything you know like I'm I'm I'm leaning towards masculine at that time and. Either. It's too subtle for people to see because they are hearing my voice the way that I talk the the way that I look and all of that and they are reading that as being feminine and then not recognizing these other adjustments to body language or to my word choices or to um. You know, even just my mindset like the the things that I'm saying that are coming out of my mouth are from a different place entirely than they were. You know a few minutes ago and like people don't notice those shifts I don't find and so that is actually one of the. Most challenging things for me because we will get to it but in my current situation as caretaker for my parents. Ah and as in my role as daughter to them I don't have a lot of room to really be anything other than feminine to Them. You know. 11:55.25 Jala Ah, in the house around. You know, um, where I'm at most of the time these days with covid and everything. So um, that means that that does not really give me room to do much by way of expressing myself in masculine fashion the way I used to have leeway to do so um. Anyway, so like that you talking about the gender Attribution Marcus just reminded me of that because that's something that I've been literally thinking about in the last several days leading up to recording this episode. So yeah, so. 12:26.60 Marcus Ah, yeah I can imagine. Yeah yeah, it's a weird thing for me too. Yeah, like you mentioned oh I mean this is we'll get to it. But yeah, the way the pandemic has affected things in terms of all of that is a a rut. 12:44.39 Jala oh yeah, oh yeah for sure. So um, did you have any further thoughts on that Marcus or was that like the okay cool Jamie anymore. 12:47.87 Marcus I Know that was it I just wanted to put that in there. 12:53.48 Jamie Um, only that like I definitely also struggle with ah like gender attribution. It's definitely one of the things that I and obviously we'll get into this more but like definitely at the forefront of my mind usually. Whatever outside. 13:12.95 Jala Um, yeah, yeah, so let's talk about what femininity is so despite the terms of femininity and masculinity being very commonly used. There is actually very little agreement in the scientific world about what they are nobody knows guys. It's like okay so among scholars the concept of Femininity has a whole variety of different meanings and over time as we mentioned before. 13:43.92 Jala Femininity meant different things so in the middle ages women were basically referred to their gender role. So like they are the wife they are the mother they are the widow they are the daughter. That's that's what they were the first time that the words femininity and womanhood ever appeared. We're in Chaucer's work around thirteen eighty in 1949 french intellectual simone de beauvoir wrote that no biological psychological or economic fate determines. The figure that the the human female. Presents in society and one is not born but rather becomes a woman. Yeah yeah, and this idea was of course furthered by Goffman and butler both of whom were discussed in episode 5 of this podcast. 14:25.15 Marcus Which I wish more people would listen to with. 14:39.74 Jala About performance and identity. So I strongly recommend if you have not listened to that and you are listening to this one go back and listen to that episode with Sarah if it was covering some of those topics so different scientific efforts have been made to try to measure and this this all just sounds like such. Bs I mean trying to measure femininity and masculinity so people were trying to do this in the 30 s they made the let's see ah Termin and Cox Miles in the 1930 s made the mf model and this posited that femininity and masculinity were in 8 and enduring qualities that were not easily measured but were opposite to one another and it's like no really femininity and masculinity are hanging out in a pool and. 15:28.98 Marcus Um, I feel like they were and 10 percent right. 15:36.21 Jala Like they are oozes and they were in the pool together is what it is but whatever anyway, alongside the women's movement of the seventy s researchers started to stray away from this male female model and developed an interest in Androgeny so then the. 15:54.58 Jala Bem Sex Role inventory and the personal attributes questionnaire were both. You know, developed to measure femininity and masculinity on separate scales and using these tests they figured out that all of the results. Very independently of one another. They're not actually diametrically opposite. Oh shit now. What? Yeah so then second wave feminists believed that although biological differences between females and male and males were in 8. 16:26.86 Jala The concepts of femininity and masculinity had been culturally constructed with traits such as passivity and tenderness assigned to women in aggression and intelligence assigned to men so in the 1 63 book the feminine Mystique American Feminist Betty Friedan 16:45.55 Jala Wrote that the key to women's subjugation lay in the social construction of femininity as childlike passive and dependent and called for a drastic reshaping of the cultural image of femininity. It's so weird that people didn't even. 17:00.40 Marcus That's interesting. So like. 17:04.27 Jala And get like a clue until like ah. 17:07.57 Marcus Well something I think is really interesting about that. Okay, so the the ah the childlike passive independent I feel like as people started to like you know as women's liberation became more of a thing and there were war women's rights and like the civil rights movement and everything like that. 17:24.44 Marcus And so many things became more both acceptable but also accessible to women that started to break down, especially the dependent part. Ah because you know you know nobody is relying on a spouse to get things like you know a credit card or a bank account. 17:43.90 Marcus Or all these things that you had to be married for before and so yeah, the idea the idea that to be feminist is to be dependent upon someone else is starting to break down big time I mean it started to a long time ago, but even more so now because everything is equally ah, most everything is equally accessible regardless of gender at this point which is. Pretty cool. 18:03.88 Jala And that actually is something I was thinking about myself just ah yeah, again when I was preparing for this episode I was musing about it and I'm like you know what we're probably like but all these these um old school people who are still alive. Um. 18:20.63 Jala Who think in super binary terms and can't get outside the box. Um, they are from a completely different world and the people the way that people are being raised. These days is such that like everybody okay things are not equal. They're not they haven't been Equal. It's going to be a long fight for equality for everybody forever I feel because human nature is just exploitative of each other ultimately. But um, even with that being the case. Nominally there is equality. 18:54.65 Jala And people ah have rights to go do different stuff and people are out there of varying gender identities doing their thing and so like thinking of gender in terms of like your role in the house your role in the workplace your role in this and your personality treats. Well, all of that's breaking down right because our society is leveling the playing playing field or trying to at least you know and so that being the case like people's sense of like us binary is going away because it's. 19:30.54 Jala You know a construct in the first place and the way that our society is set up is changing so necessarily that identity has to be updated with the changing of the society within which these norms are being formed. 19:45.54 Marcus Absolutely again. So well. Yeah, and just people come. 19:51.62 Jamie Yeah, the kind of the germ of my idea for this episode was a conversation I actually had with my mom ah like a month ago where I was trying to describe to her how I was and I'm sure what this will come up in the experiential section. But. 20:09.50 Jamie How I was trying to differentiate from feminine aspects that I was engaging with um, a presentationally for lack of a better word. Um, so to translate my identity to other people easily at what things I was gravitated. 20:28.79 Jamie Gravitating towards naturally and the thing that she said was it was really interesting to hear me talk about that because growing up as a woman for her you know, ah kind of in that second wave feminism a big part of it was ah like shedding a lot of those. 20:48.50 Jamie Stereotypes and social ideas about what femininity was and what made you a woman and so it was interesting to watch me like intentionally engage with those. 20:59.12 Jala Oh yeah, and when I was asking myself spoiler. We're going to ask. We're going to go around the table and ask everybody what their idea of femininity is when we get there So when I was. 21:12.67 Jala Thinking about that topic I was like you know it's so wacky to me because my concept is really really strongly rooted in what was basically um, provided to me as an example in my own household which as I've discussed before is super binary. 21:30.51 Jala And so like my my concept of gender is a super binary based on these things that I saw in front of me like my whole life and they're dated my concept of gender is a super dated you know like and it's arbitrary and. 21:47.13 Jala You know? So even my concept of what femininity and masculinity and you know mean to me, it's it's nonsense. It's just nonsense and so I was just like Wow this is. 22:01.32 Jala And going to be an interesting series of episodes talking about this subject because like I feel like I'm going to have some groundbreaking amazing thoughts. You know come into my head while grappling with this in real time on the show. So so yeah, but um, talking about. 22:20.26 Jala These stereotypes though. So feminine Traits they're considered to be nurturance Sensitivity Sweetness Supportiveness Gentleness Warmth Passivity Cooperativeness Expressiveness Modesty humility Empathy Affection. Tenderness being emotional kind, helpful devoted understanding ah that makes me tired So um, but the defining characteristics such as these. 22:55.65 Jala Are things that vary between societies. We mention like Korea versus Germany and of course like Africa is going to be different than you know the US or what have you and so you know that's a whole whole different thing and then even little things like blue and pink and what. 23:15.40 Jala Gender they're associated with it used to be flipped. It used to be pink was a male color and blue was a female color but you know that flipped. So it's kind of interesting and a man with an unpronounceable name because I do not know Dutch. 23:19.85 Marcus Yeah, yeah. 23:30.87 Jala In his 9098 book masculinity and femininity the taboo dimension of national cultures if one of you know how's just how to say that guy's name please? ok ok I will I will say yes because I don't know any better. Um. 23:41.80 Marcus I'll take a stab at it I think it's gert hosted. 23:49.25 Jala That person wrote that the only that only behaviors directly connected with procreation can strictly speaking be considered feminine and masculine yet. Every society worldwide recognizes all these other behaviors as being more suitable to males than females or vice versa. And he describes these as relatively arbitrary choices mediated by cultural norms and traditions and we kind of already talked about that that Yes, yes, you are correct Sir. So anyway, um. 24:22.78 Jala Yeah, this was in ah with 98 ok so that's not that long ago. Ok so this wasn't like the groundbreaking revolution back in like the thirty s that nobody paid attention to for you know? 24:32.99 Marcus Where that got burned in the ah in the book burnings in Germany. 24:39.30 Jala Ah, said person describes as feminine behaviors service permissiveness and benevolence and describes as feminine those countries that stress equality Solidarity quality of work life and the resolution of conflicts by Compromise and negotiation. Why? Ok this this it's It's really weird that this guy is like it's all arbitrary. Let's assign genders to nations like what wait a minute What what are you doing? What are you doing. 24:57.85 Marcus Um, so Sweden so Sweden is by default feminine. 24:58.88 Jamie Interesting. 25:15.32 Jala Ah, you were in going in a good direction. What are you doing? Ok um, it it. 25:18.13 Marcus Well maybe that was the point of it. Maybe he was doing it completely. Ironically, it's just like since these are the things we just associate with femininity. Let's just say sure like yeah, all of like you know, ah you know the like Sweden and the Netherlands. 25:32.89 Marcus And you know and Norway and all this they're feminine because you know because the way they like to treat people sure why not because what difference does it make it's all bullshit anyway, so. 25:41.58 Jala Yeah I don't I don't know I would have to actually take a look at the book and see but I have such a pile of research for shows coming up I cannot even begin. So yeah, ah moving right? along though in Western cultures the ideal. 25:57.83 Jala Feminine appearance usually includes long flowing hair clear skin. They don't even want to see my face right now I'm so broken out from being sick um a narrow waist a ha ha Good luck on that I'm I'm built like a block and little or no body hair or facial hair different religious ideals. 26:17.18 Jala Very globally like in Hinduism. You've got devi the mother goddess aspect and you've got shockti the power of creation which is feminine and it's like you know all tied into just like the pure creative force necessitates both the masculine and the feminine elements. But then you've got abrahamic religions which are super patriarchal so you know and there are scholars that are you will god has no gender or they're just saying this because but but ok, whatever, but like you know it's traditionally. Yeah, yeah. 26:50.22 Marcus Um, you know The Bible was written by old dudes. So. 26:55.80 Jala And for a very patriarchal society. So I mean you know, but anyway um, also in Western cultures Feminine traits are often considered to be for the benefit of men like if you're dressing up and wearing makeup and whatever it's because you are showing off and trying to get yourself a man. 26:56.46 Marcus Exactly. 27:13.34 Jala Or whatever or if you're being soothing and loving it's because you're trying to comfort your man or whatever so which is just gross I mean it's just gross really? So so that's my my grump about. 27:17.86 Marcus Um, you yeah yeah, it is. It is so yeah, absolutely yeah, we the patriarch you're messing up everything. 27:32.40 Jala It's funny like yeah and it's just you know like every single person has within them multitudes so you know even people who think very securely to themselves that they are absolutely. Hundred percent dude or 100% lady or whatever. Um, you know you you have more dimensionality to you and since the concepts of femininity and masculinity change over time. It's not like this enduring forever thing you know like it's it's it's weird. It's. 28:08.45 Jala It's it's nonsense that that's my thesis statement. It's nonsense but it's it's also it's it is made up but at the same time. It's just so weirdly important to everybody's sense of self at the same time even if it is nonsense. 28:11.73 Marcus Mean it looks basic. It's all made up. 28:28.21 Jala Because you know we're all here to talk about this subject because we present ourselves as feminine and you know at different times and in different ways and we have in our head this ideal of femininity that we aspire towards. When we are doing that and you know like obviously we each have our own different version of our our um gender identity and even people who use the same pronouns aren't on the same place necessarily on the gender Spectrum. So. You know it's a lot more nuanced I think than people give it credit for.. They just think black and white or blue and pink or whatever you know and it's not really like that. So I think we should just go ahead and get into our experiential. 29:24.65 Jala Duff and like get talking about it. So we've already talked about how femininity is very subjective and it changes depending upon so many different factors so Marcus I'm going to throw to you first. 29:39.90 Marcus Um, oh boy. Okay, ah, okay, well, um, it is impossible to quantify. That's for sure. 29:40.11 Jala What is femininity to you. 29:56.36 Marcus But um, one thing I will say is that femininity to me at this point in my personal development. It's mostly performance based like presentational you know I wouldn't say that much of my like internal sense of self feels very feminine. However. 30:16.27 Marcus When I do have to be in front of people I Want to definitely put more of my feminine cell there is I feel like there needs to be a feminine aspect of myself that is made obvious. 30:32.67 Marcus And it varies of course depending on the situation but like ah, there's a lot of times when especially if I'm in some kind of like formal setting where I have to dress up a certain way. The last thing I want to wear is a plain old suit. You know I want to do like you know I want to. 30:50.86 Marcus Have the full makeup and I want to have like a scarf and my nails done and some non-clunky shoes and you know and come in and have a sense of I Guess the easiest word would be grace about me that sets me apart from. 31:09.30 Marcus What people would think of as like the average dude in the room. You know I want to come in and be like no I am nonbinary and this is how I express that and you will not be addressing me as he ah at any point and if you do you will be corrected you know and I. 31:27.44 Marcus And that is interesting for me to put out. But then when I am at home by myself I don't feel like much of anything and it's mostly because I don't have to show that to anybody. And yeah, so a lot of yeah um, like personal presentation at home is whatever is comfortable. 31:47.21 Marcus You know like I don't feel like putting in a whole lot of effort you know, but then yeah when I'm out and about I want to be able to I want to be able to showcase aspects of myself that if not distinctly feminine are definitely not what are considered masculine in this society I Guess that's the best way to put it so but like you know. 32:05.69 Marcus Things that ah I consider to be feminine. Some of the things like I said before mostly it's a matter of not looking clunky or you know, but or like bulky or like I want to I want to feel lighter than I look like in terms of. 32:26.57 Marcus You know how I walk you know I don't I don't like well okay, here's this is ah, an important thing So when I am out presenting more feminine I walk lighter I don't step hard I try not to leave footprints if that is possible. You know, um, and. 32:45.80 Marcus You know how I move my hands is different. How I'll pick up or put down an object. How I engage with other people like you know I am I have been athletic my whole life I am actually very physically strong when I'm trying to be feminine I put I I scale that back a lot I. You know use only like 10% of anything you know when I'm trying to do that So that people don't get so that people I guess it's a way of feeling like and this goes with being black too. I don't want to be perceived as Aggressive. Um. 33:22.32 Marcus And that's like we talked about this in the intersectionality thing but like ah that is actually a big thing because you know being black. There's this perception of hyper masculinity that comes with being a sign male at Birth and especially being the height that I am and having the build that I have but I don't want to I. When I am trying to showcase my femininity What ends up happening is that all of that gets scaled back. A great deal and maybe in some ways I overexaggerate what. Ah, appears you know what people think as feminine and this goes into the attribution thing I'm trying to get people to attribute femininity to me, you know in you know via my presentation. You know? So I think that's ah yeah, so a lot of. 34:12.00 Marcus Kind of goes along with what you said earlier Jalla like a lot of the things that I consider to be feminine do operate on a pretty strict binary but um, at least in terms of presentation. But then when it comes to the kind of femininity that I feel it's not so much you know. 34:31.33 Marcus Um, a lot of um, that's and that's a separate question I'll get to that later. 34:38.80 Jala Okay, okay so what's interesting to me about listening to what you were saying is that I kind of did like word assert ah word association for okay femininity. What words do I think of when I think femininity. 34:52.99 Jala So for me I was spouting out words like growth, empathy a feeling of connection with myself others nature Creativity Joy Grace Sensuality Sinewy and slinky kind of a little coy. 35:04.99 Marcus Right? yeah. 35:07.33 Jala Soft yet strong pliable like a sapling that won't break in the storm like a big tree does it rolls with the punches in like water. It's always finding its way it's nurturing. It's fiercely protective. It's gentle and less provoked. But it's also provocative and playful and on the negative side. It can also be indirect. 35:15.73 Marcus This. 35:27.52 Jala Passive aggressive or indecisive and so those were a few random like word association bits that I jotted down when I was trying to gather my thoughts about like what is a concept of femininity to me and again these are all based on what was presented. 35:45.97 Jala By my parents when I was growing up. 35:49.40 Marcus Not true or true speaking of that secret parenting just for a second. Um, so ah for the uninitiated I have a 13 year old child. Um and one of the things that's very interesting is ah you know as I was raising her. Um. I was a stay at home parent which is typically a more feminine role. Um, and that was actually really interesting to me because I really like doing a lot of the homemaker stuff I love cooking. You know I love cooking and like taking care of things and doing all of like the freaking. 36:24.88 Marcus Donna Reed 50 s housewife stuff basically um and yeah, like when like when my kiddo was a baby like I was at home taking care of the baby and my spouse was going to my spouse went to work and people consider that to be a very traditionally feminine thing. But it's. 36:44.58 Marcus Honestly like it didn't feel that way to me at the time I was just being a good parent you know and even now I mean you know like I said my daughter's 13 and now um there are still a lot of things that I do that people consider to be and again. 37:03.13 Marcus Being black and red is male. People don't think that it's stuff I'm quote unquote supposed to be doing or or you know the things that I do that I just consider to be being a good parent people consider a feminine or they consider it just to be out of character as a black father. 37:21.57 Marcus And they want to give me and they want to give me cookies for it I'm just like what I'm just doing what a parent is supposed to do like what the heck and the other thing is you know a lot of it's considered oh Beta Cock Blah Blah blah or they consider to me to be like more more like a mother or whatever. 37:37.94 Marcus Doing these things is like I am doing the things I'm supposed to be doing as a good parent to my child regardless of gender and and you know being caring and nurturing and gentle and all of these things and I'm not you know I am not going to you know. I mean I don't let my kid walk walk all over me but I'm not going like I don't yell at her I don't do any of the things that you typically associate with like fathers doing and again, especially black fathers. Um I and partially because. A lot of that is what I was raised with and I don't want to visit that upon my children my 1 my 1 child but also her younger siblings. You know who are not mine. Um, but like the ah. 38:13.87 Jala Yeah, yeah, well and and just to insert for just a second. My dad was the one who you know like I'm I have a latino father. So. You know he's cuban and so he was the one who would scream and yell and you know he was violent and he was all this other stuff and so you know that made me want to be like no don't come and raise your voice at me when you can speak like a human being with respect. We can have a discussion. 38:45.74 Marcus Exactly exactly. yeah. 38:49.56 Jala But when you are calm. You come back to me and talk to me about that I do not want to engage with you at this time. It's not going to be productive you know and um, so of course that aggression for me is very very strongly a masculine thing in my head because of. 39:08.44 Jala How I was raised now. Um that doesn't mean that femininity to me isn't strong. It's just strong in a different fashion. 39:14.13 Marcus Right? Yeah, exactly and like 1 of the things that this is an interesting interesting thing to to go back and forth with because like okay so my father was always the quiet 1 in the house and my mom was always louder right? That was 1 thing that was different too. 39:31.42 Marcus So in some ways I but by associate you know the gentleness and the calmness and the nurturing with my dad and with masculinity in some ways but people don't but then and then on the flip side of that. So my daughter's stepfather or both of my other parents. Both of the other parents are. 39:49.67 Marcus Trans right? And so my stepfather is a transman who came up through the military also and so he does a lot of things that are really kind of feel to me to be aggressively masculine in the bad way when it comes to how he interacts with my kid and I'm just like oh we are not doing that unit. 40:09.55 Marcus So I'm just like Nope No No Nope Nope Nope Nope that is not what's happening when she's with me she is getting. You know she is not being treated like that and like what's funny to me and by that I mean ironic not funny haha is that I think that a lot of. So much of the masculinity that we see in Parenthood or the things that we things that we attribute to you know masculinity in Parenthood You know the strong Stoic father or but blah blah or you know or the father who yells or or whatever a lot of that. People are trying to well. Okay, so in the case of my daughter's stepfather. Ah the the what I am. Seeing when I when I witness him interacting and when I hear about the information and the thing when I hear about things that he has said or whatever I I immediately under what? what I understand from it is that he is trying to he believes. He's trying to help you know. 41:16.92 Marcus He's trying to set a good example and make sure that you know there are all these big good behaviors are in place so that my kiddo will get into so great greater society and will have these behaviors kind of programmed in. So that she will be able to interact in a way that will earn her respect and while I understand that I don't think it's right, you know, um and some of it's fine but also like a lot of times I feel like. 41:48.92 Marcus He's trying to get her to grow up away faster than she needs to be growing up and yeah, yeah. 41:53.95 Jala Um, well, especially these days. It's even even more so these days like kids don't have a lot of time to be kids before they're exposed and turnout you know. 42:05.51 Marcus Right? Yeah, exactly and so yeah, so for me like I am trying to ah give give my kid a safe space to just have fun and be a kid while she has the chance you know because. It's not going to last that much longer for 1 um, and I you know I wanted to you know, have the opportunity to just explore stuff and just have fun and you know. 42:36.41 Marcus People might think of it as regressing a little bit but hey whatever she needs a mental vacation I'm here for it. You know because things are stressful enough. You know outside of the times that she visits me, you know so I want to make sure that she has the space and yeah, and so. 42:52.97 Marcus Lot of those things people think of as feminine or as you know, not a typical father especially like I said not a typical black father and they want to give me cookies and kudos for it I'm just like I'm just trying to be supportive of my kid while I have the opportunity so that's all that boils down to in terms of in terms of that I could talk about this for a long time. 43:10.20 Jala Yeah, yeah, we'll we'll put a pin in that for the time being so Jamie Jamie tell me what does femininity look like to you. 43:18.90 Jamie Um, So it's interesting that all of you Ah, both pointed to really binary ideals and talked about ah your parents as being direct. Influences because I feel like that is very true for myself as well. Um, like I I Definitely like grew up right around the time when ah you know there was a big movement I think in the 90 s ah to sort of. Like try to I mean Deprogram Toxic Masculinity is what how I would call it now. Nobody had the words for it back then but um, ah, but like so for me like femininity does line up. 44:11.96 Jamie Really like presentationally with what we describe as ah femininity but not like not like behavior wise. So like I when you were writing ah reading off your list of um, like attributes I really. 44:29.88 Jamie Like I identify with a lot of those especially thinking of like and again this might have been just a matter of the time when I grew up but like thinking of like a lot of positive like strong women. Ah people that were you know, excelling in their careers or I don't know like. Like talk show hosts that were female or you know things like that where I could I could look to those and be like oh like this this is what a this is what a woman is or what a what a what a woman could be or you know, um, so. Like the way that I engage with feminidity generally speaking is much more on the presentational side and I think that's mostly because um, growing up I've inherently always had more feminine traits like i'm. I'm pretty shy I have always been pretty emotional. Um I'm very empathetic I I am Audie all of those like sort of more traditional feminine traits? Um, but like in my own household. My mom. Always worked pretty much throughout the time me and my brother were growing up. Um my dad was the disciplinarian ah but my mom but but my mom would like. 45:58.36 Jamie It's interesting. My mom would always be down to debate me and my brother and be my brother were very precocious children so we would always try to talk her out of anything punishments chores it anything and she would add to to her credit she would like go Ted rods with us. But. 46:16.30 Jamie At the point where it was just like shut up and do the dishes. You know my dad would come in and be be like ok you got to do the dishes now. So right exactly this has been a good intellectual exercise. But we're moving on. 46:25.22 Marcus Um, like you've had your fun. Let's get on with it. Yeah. 46:36.60 Jamie Um, so yeah I I think when I think of of femininity I Generally think of those presentational traits over the personality ones. 46:52.18 Jala Right? right? So What's interesting for me is that Um, as I've discussed on prior episodes I I have all of the different personality traits that go into whatever I consider both masculine and feminine and so for me. It's kind of always been a matter of I'm looking at myself and I'm looking at these models that I've got in front of me right? and I'm going. Okay well I look more like this one right now and I feel like this one right now when I'm acting and everything like I'm presenting like this one and Then. At a different time I'm presenting like this other one you know and they happen to be masculine and feminine and there are points like when we're talked about like say being in tune with your emotions and all of this other stuff. Well um, part of my whole exercise of writing down my concepts of femininity involved. 47:47.87 Jala Writing down my concepts of masculinity and the you know the capacity to become 100% intellectual and completely to connect from my emotions that's something that I do all the time and that is something I consider to be a masculine thing because any time there was a crisis. My mom would freak out. 48:07.53 Jala And my dad would be the one to be like think about it rationally do this thing and anytime there's anything going on like I'm always in like my crisis mode is 100% like shut down everything you know all the emotions process everything later when you need you know when you've got leeway to do that in the meantime. 48:27.35 Jala Let's set this stuff up knock it down take care of it. Get you know, get the business taken care of whatever we need to do to make sure everybody's safe or whatever is going on. You know? So ah yeah, and just 100% analysis and when I was thinking about it like my concept of like. 48:46.88 Jala Internal femininity because that's another question on my list of many questions. Um, really when I was comparing my word association of internal feminine qualities and internal masculine qualities I found that not 100 % but in large part. Those lined up to left and right brain it was like like yeah like ah you know like the analysis the order the um disconnection from the emotions that this and and that like all of that was all on masculine side and then all the creativity like I associate all of my creative. 49:22.36 Jala Works my dancing and making choreographies and drawing and writing and stuff like that. It's not like I'm saying men can't do those things but I associate that act of creation with the feminine aspect and so that's the other side of it right? so. 49:39.15 Jala You know, ah that that was an interesting little thing like when I I was looking at that and you know thinking about it and I'm like yeah, that's that's kind of interesting that that's how that came out and it's not a 1 to one. It's not like okay well if it's a left brain tendency. It must be no, it's it's not a 1 to one but it is. 49:57.99 Jala There are enough of the same things. Um, you know the same word Associations happening and overlapping there for me to make that comparison and say that that's kind of like how it works in my brain so you know so. 50:12.60 Marcus Um, in makes sense now. 50:17.95 Jala Um, another interesting question that I would like to ask because I think everybody's concept is going to be a little bit Different. We talked about what is femininity but what is your feminine ideal like when you are presenting feminine when you are feeling feminine. As you go move through the world as a feminine person. What is your ideal I will start because it's probably easier so that you can have some time to to think on that because I wrote I wrote down my responses So I could say these things So for me. 50:47.97 Marcus It is It is. 50:53.32 Jala My Feminine ideal is strong but compassionate sexy self-confident gently playful, graceful full of light and life. She helps others to learn and grow. She teaches and nurtures every one around her She is supportive and loving she sets an example for others. And supports their hopes and dreams. She shows her loved ones that they are loved regularly and dotes on them. That's my feminine ideal. 51:25.84 Jamie That's good I like it. 51:31.35 Jala And so this is this is the kind of um, way that I think about how I want to put myself out in the world as a feminine person when I'm in feminine mode of course that shifts when I'm in masculine Mode. You know what? I'm. My ideal is and what my objectives might be for how I'm presenting myself in the world as a masculine person but when it comes to and my femininity. That's what I'm trying to go for. 52:01.17 Marcus Um, yeah, see it's funny. So when I think about like I said so femininity is me is mostly presentational right? So I don't actually think about. Like because what you listed there was a lot of behaviors you know and what I think is interesting. There is that I don't actually see my behaviors changing when I am feminine when when I am trying to be feminine versus trying to be masculine like I don't even I don't. 52:37.61 Marcus Have those modes I guess is the best way to put it. Um, there's just like me existing and people attributing it people attributing femininity to a lot of the things that I do right? because? yeah like my like. 52:54.10 Marcus It's funny because when when I read that question I was reading it earlier before we started recording when I was reading the question I thought about what is my feminine ideal and 1 of the things that I talked about in the intersectionality episode was that most of my I most of my just personal ideals. Did not come from men. You know they didn't all necessarily come from women but they didn't come from men like when it comes to you know? Ah, all of my you know fitness inspirations or anything like that most of them are women bodybuilders a lot of them are like dancers and athletes and ah you know i. 53:32.65 Marcus Grew up in the age of Mary Lou rettin being on the weedies box. You know? So so like I grew I grew up with a I grew up with that you know and like the only it is funny because the only ah oh and the other thing is that like I also grew up with you know the. 53:52.10 Marcus You know women bodybuilders gaining a lot of popularity in the late 80 s and early 90 s and my dad I've mentioned this before my dad was a big collector of like muscle and fitness magazine and Iron Man Magazine and flex magazine and all of those that were coming out at the time and they had a lot of showcases of women bodybuilders and that was just like yeah. 54:11.50 Marcus That's cool, um and like because all of the dudes were like these fricking behemoths and I didn't want to be that but I wanted to be like strong and cool looking and. 54:22.57 Jala And you know it's when you're talking about that. It reminds me of how on the intersectionality episode that we recently released um I was talking about how I struggled to have a role model who was female. 54:40.34 Jala There wasn't a female role model that embodied all the things that I felt that she should embody in my head to be somebody that I could look up to and and feel like yeah this Jibes with my my concepts you know I didn't have a character that really. 54:59.47 Jala Fit that mold like I I said like the closest thing I had was Zena and that was later that wasn't right at first. So for a long time I was idealizing. 55:02.88 Marcus Right? yes. 55:12.33 Jala Males rather than females because there wasn't a female that had all of these things but you could have male characters that had some of these you know, compassionate and whatever and flirty and whatever all these other different traits that I mentioned like there were male characters that did that but usually females they didn't embody those elements. As well as the strength aspects and the other things that I felt needed to be part and parcel of a role model for me as you know a a feminine person. So What I'm hearing from you though is that like yeah your feminine idea law. 55:49.40 Jala You had role models and like maybe not all of them are women but like you had women in there with your role models. So that's like part and parcel love it. You know like that's a you know it's all tied together is kind of how it sounds to me. 56:02.14 Marcus Yeah, and this was of course you know all stealth in terms of like I never told my parents any of this you know, but but like 1 of the things one of the other things that was really interesting. Of course you know, ah early stage anime fan you know. 56:14.69 Marcus In the very early 90 s and it was anime that introduced to me the whole be shown in aesthetic ah for for the uninitiated be shown in literally means beautiful boy. Um, and like those types of characters also were super cool because they you know a lot of them embodied very you know. 56:32.77 Marcus What I thought were masculine traits most of them were like you know badass Fighters or whatever. But any time they weren't killing someone they were you know very yeah, they were being. They were very gentle and nurturing. They were very self-spoken they had like really you know they had really. 56:51.15 Marcus Feminine features in terms of like you know like their eyes were you know were drawn like women's eyes there. You know they moved gracefully yeah. 56:55.20 Jala And they might even wear. They might even wear makeup and a very very often be shown in are confused for you know, assigned female at birth people. So. 57:05.46 Marcus Exactly. So yeah, so there were a lot of characters like that I was like oh yeah, there yes, that person you know and so I identified with a lot of those and so yeah, so the kind of feminine ideal that I ended up with was like okay. Let's take like you know, be shown in mannerisms give them you know women's bodybuilder muscle you know and like and you know circus artist Grace and that kind of like falls into about what I'm aiming at you know when it comes to feminine ideal at least. 57:43.35 Marcus Aesthetically speaking and I guess. 57:44.78 Jala Marcus you should have just been there when I was growing up so that we could just hang out together. It would have just made so much sense. 57:51.80 Marcus You know, um I yeah I mean it would it would have helped I think both of us a lot just have somebody bounce things off of like that. But unfortunately I grew up in upstate New York so but but yeah, like. 58:06.17 Marcus Yeah, so when it comes to feminine Ideals. Those are the things that I think of right Away. Um, and yeah in terms of my behavioral things like if you had asked me this question in my twenty s um I would have been. Talking about a lot of different behavioral things in terms of like breaking down what we now know as toxic masculinity and all the things that I was taught to stifle about myself in my teenage years by numerous athletic coaches. Ah, but now like I've done a lot of that work already and you know I'm in my. And my late 40 s for those who don't know ah and so I've done a lot of this work and so now I'm just like yeah I'm pretty settled in terms of like you know what we consider gendered behavior like I'm pretty settled in like who I am behaviorally So now it's just a matter of. 58:57.75 Marcus Yeah, when I think about ideals. It's really all aesthetic and presentational and that's when it gets a little difficult but you know it's It's not so bad. Actually so still. Yeah. 59:06.73 Jala Yeah, so so Jamie I'm interested to hear what you think about feminine ideals. 59:15.70 Jamie So um, so this one is really um, interesting for me because I actually feel like I identify a lot with what Marcus is saying I I don't know if we. Said this before I'm a transw woman right? I was born a man. Um, but like I came to my transness and my identity really late in my life. So I'm thirty thirty three god okay I'm 33 um, and I've only been. 59:42.83 Jala But you're still the baby on this podcast. So. 59:48.50 Jamie And I've only really been transitioning or even thinking about transitioning in the last two years um and a lot of what my feminine ideal for myself is very presentational. Ah, it's you know. 01:00:05.58 Jamie Feeling comfortable being out in quote unquote women's clothes. It's getting better at makeup. So I don't look like I just mashed a eye lighter pencil all over my face. Um, you know it's those kind of things. It's the. It's the changes that will happen to my body over time on hormones and if I choose to get any surgery. It's all that kind of stuff that feeds into my feminine ideal I think for me um, because i. Like I said like I've always felt like in terms of like behavior and traits. Um I I already ah like I already identify with and feel emotionally attached to typically feminine traits and. I'm I'm really lucky. Ah I I live and grew up in Portland oregon incredibly ah, open minded city um, my parents were incredibly um. 01:01:12.60 Jamie I Don't know liberal in the way that they raised me and my brother. So I mean like I I did was lucky it in the sense that I didn't have that typical male experience growing up where people were like. Oh you know you can't have emotions you can't cry like that wasn't something that was really enforced in my upbringing so I never I never had to really engage with it. Um, and also like I said I definitely remember in elementary school if not. 01:01:48.84 Jamie Maybe throughout there was there was a big thing about. Oh oh you know like it's ok for boys to have emotions. It's ok for them to share like which kind of informed you know the way that I am now so I feel like in terms of. 01:02:07.15 Jamie Like we can talk a little bit about it when we talk about feminine energy because that's the 1 thing that I feel like ah behaviorally I have a hard time with but um, like in terms of my personality. My mannerisms the way I talk. Um. Like I've already got that locked into about where I want it to be It's really just how how how good can I like how how how good do I feel about my body and the way my body looks and does that line up with whatever. 01:02:47.80 Jamie Is in my head as my ideal. 01:02:51.91 Jala And it's interesting to me because you know I was assigned female at Birth and it sounds like just from talking to both of you. It seems like ah the both of you are like yeah so that the feminine stuff like no I Just that's just part of the. Personality that I've gotten I'm like meanwhile I feel like I have like ah I've talked about the switch in my head and how it flips and that you know I'm hyper aware of the differences between like every aspect of my personality and everything switches but it's weird because when I think about it. 01:03:27.89 Jala I Had a period in um, my teen years when I had a lot of gender Dysphoria because I didn't find a female that was anything like me and I was like maybe I was supposed to be a guy and I wore men's clothes and all this other stuff and presented physically more like a male. And I eventually made peace with my body the way that it was and my personality and my everything else and just kind of settled on how I am Now. Um and I don't really present in a physical fashion on my person on my body. Ah, with like accoutrement or clothing or things like that this male identity that I have in me, it's it's in my body shape in the muscles that I've got in the poses that I take in. 01:04:23.29 Jala Body language and the way I talk and different aspects like that and of course in my mindset. All of those things. Yes, but for me that masculinity is really at least at this point in my life more internal and it's not an external thing that I show. So ah, we'll get to. 01:04:42.37 Jala All of our issues that we have the challenges that we have connecting with femininity. But for me one of the challenges that I have connecting with my masculinity is that people don't recognize like I mentioned before people don't recognize those changes when they are going. 01:05:00.65 Jala On in my person in my presentation in the manner in which I am speaking and so it's interesting because um, you know, ah the I consider. 01:05:18.69 Jala The external connection to other people um, feeling connected to other people in society engaging with people and things like that as um, generally being more of a feminine thing. An external feminine thing. So maybe that's why I don't. 01:05:38.49 Jala Present to the universe to the world. You know, like as much physically masculine The you know like the physically the masculine qualities but like I make a big production out of looking feminine when I do you know? and and that's probably also just because. 01:05:58.40 Jala Men in our society. Don't have you know the kind of ah peacock feathers kind of flair that other societies have their their men volk and other societies have so like masculine energy. 01:06:13.99 Jala Is usually gray or blue or black in whatever you know and it's like ok, that's that's not that's that's not me. So. 01:06:23.11 Jamie Well and one of the things that I think is really interesting about the way that specifically like western society or you know if I could speak more specifically to people living in the Us is like there are feminine clothing. I I I can't I'm racking my braid I can't think of a specifically man piece of clothing like women wear pants women wear button downs women wear top hats. You name it anything but like what's what's like a physically. 01:07:01.92 Jamie Like signifying piece of man clothing or masculine or you know whatever you want to say? yeah I mean they God but you know. 01:07:03.85 Jala Yeah, because yeah, well because women rock suits women rock everything like women done took over. Yeah yeah, so yeah. 01:07:11.34 Marcus Writing it? Yeah yeah, exactly? Yeah no, that's really true though. Yeah I was I was going to say um, ah, there doesn't seem to be yeah, there doesn't seem to be any particular. Item of clothing in anywhere like in the United States anyway that is like specifically only for men. Yeah, like it's you know people across genders have taken it all which is like great awesome but also like. 01:07:46.76 Marcus Yeah, there's now there's nothing left and I think ah that may be causing the some some of the quote unquote anxiety among certain segments of the population that are trying to you know, grab trying to cling to you know binary binary standards as like. 01:08:06.72 Marcus You know I think that's that might be 1 reason that that's happening is because you know because there's so much that they feel a lot of these very conservative men feel like masculinity is being taken from them which I think is an interesting thing and it's just like. 01:08:26.35 Marcus It was never yours to begin with bro. You know it was never it never was it was It was always all made up some a bunch of old dudes a few hundred years ago decided that this was a thing and we've been breaking it down ever since and now it's finally come to a point where yeah you realize that it's made up and you. 01:08:45.42 Marcus Don't know what to do with yourself and I think that's what a lot of a lot of people are having trouble with on a more fun note Jalla something you mentioned earlier ah just related to that. There was one of the things that actually kind of really really really long ago back in the day kind of put a little seed in my head. That you know masculinity and femininity are not so separate and maybe it's all made up and you know maybe it doesn't really matter is that there was a girl I went to like not even middle school like grade school with um, who. 01:09:24.73 Marcus Similarly to what you were saying always wore what appeared to be guy clothes and but she identified as a girl. She never claimed anything else even like the whole time all the way up through high school. She never identified any other way I don't know where this person is now but that was one of those things I was just kind of like oh you can be a girl and that's cool. 01:09:44.41 Marcus Right? Cool you know and the short hair always wore like you know button downs and like khakis or jeans or whatever and like boots I saw her wear a dress exactly 1 time and it freaked everyone out. We're like who is that wait wait a minute you know. 01:10:03.98 Marcus Um, and yeah because it seems so out of character. But yeah, like she was like super super cool and super chill and we were actually really good friends and I think that was one of the things that kind of started to plant the seed in my head that maybe all that maybe all this gender stuff didn't matter at all. So yeah. 01:10:21.52 Jala Yeah, and so one of the other questions that I had which is kind of already just kind of foiled because the answer answer is already but it was inside you all along ah was like. 01:10:35.20 Jala How do you engage with your femininity in all these different situations like by yourself or with your family or when you're at work or when you're out in society and both of you already answered that and said yeah like I'm already just the same person on the inside and meanwhile I'm like. 01:10:50.70 Jala There are switches changing. There's different engines firing. There's like a whole different mindset going on over in my world. But um, you know so like the. 01:10:58.55 Marcus The Shrump Femininity was the friends you made along the way. No. 01:11:03.29 Jala Yeah, yeah, so that being the case one of the other questions that I had like I'm I'm going to have to skip over that whole question because you know I'm I'm sure I will burn lots of cast about that on the masculinity episode talking about the differences in how I engage with people in that space. 01:11:22.94 Jala But like insofar as internal stuff. What do you think? is there some kind of a feminine mindset. What does your internal femininity look like and Jamie you had already said like no, that's just me like I'm I am feminine and that's my brain and that's it. 01:11:34.39 Jamie So yeah, yeah I don't know that I I don't ever I'm sorry like I feel like I should have a much more like well. 01:11:46.12 Jala I'm jealous of your easy answers. 01:11:54.39 Jamie But well thought out answer but like really it is like I don't like when I'm out and about like I am I think of you mentioned a switch between genders and I think of mine as more of like a dial So when I'm out and about. I Turn the dial way up right? because like as a Trans woman I feel the pressure to over percent almost so like if if I'm if I'm out I am very aware of. 01:12:31.30 Jamie The way I'm walking the way I'm dressed the way I hold my arms my shoulders. What my voice is doing um but I don't but like if I'm at home like I still feel a Baseline femininity but I don't need to. I don't have to prove it to other people I guess is is the thing right? like because I know I know what I am um and and I don't know that there's really like I guess maybe intentionally engaging with typically feminine things. 01:13:09.40 Jamie Puts me in a more feminine mindset. But I don't know that that's like again any more than whatever my default mindset is if that makes sense. 01:13:18.43 Marcus I Wonder if it's more like yeah when you're engaging with things when you're engaging with feminine things. You're just like it's like that part of your brain is doing the thing because it's engaging with these things but it's not like. 01:13:38.34 Marcus It's not like it ever actually turns off, it's just like yeah it's ah the visual in my head is really difficult to describe but I I feel like I understand what're saying. But yeah, it's like okay I'll describe it the way I feel it so like when I am engaging when I am putting on makeup For instance, right. 01:13:57.60 Marcus So like that's a part like there's a visual that I see in my head in terms of how I want my face to look when I'm putting makeup on and. 01:14:08.33 Marcus That visual is kind of always there whether I'm putting makeup on or not. It's just when I am putting makeup on is I was like oh cool now we're now we're lighting that side up you know and then it's like okay, cool now that's on that feels nice and then you know when I take makeup awful if if I'm at Home just relaxing my. 01:14:27.20 Marcus In my mind my face doesn't change. It's just that the things that I'm showing the things that are visible have changed. You know I think that's the best way to that's the best way I can like understand that it's always on. It's just whether other people can see it. So. 01:14:46.33 Jala That's yeah, that's that's an interesting way of putting it because again, um, having been assigned female at Birth and automatically being assumed as female even when I'm in a masculine mindset and mode and everything. Um. 01:15:02.34 Jala You know like I don't have to exert any effort for people to just think that I'm a ah female you know? Um, so I've definitely been mistaken many times when I am in masculine mode for a butch Lesbian and it's like no I'm pan but like. 01:15:21.81 Jala You know that's that's not and no no I'm probably attracted to a butch lesbian but you know like I tend to like um I tend to lean towards liking masculine um things in my partner. Um, but they don't 100% embody like this this toxic masculinity or anything. 01:15:41.48 Jala Um, usually that like if I have been dating a guy. Ah that guy is usually on the nurturing and and loving and usually had a very close relationship with his mother kind of guy you know. So um. 01:15:56.33 Jala That's that's kind of like where I sit with that somebody who balances out some of the other traits that I've got and can tolerate my bullshit when I'm in super rough and Gruff mode you know, Um, but anyway yeah, ah, it's interesting though because um, for me engaging with. 01:16:15.31 Jala Gulinity I have to talk about that just as a flip side. Um I like ok when I'm I'm turning on the femininity I'm putting on the feminine clothes I am putting on the makeup I am doing all that other stuff and you know just different parts of my behavior get accentuated. And different. You know body language different ways of walking and everything all of that comes into play. Um, and that's not something that I think about regardless of which whichever ah mode that I happen to be in at the time. But. When it comes to the masculinity like there's nothing external for people to see other than hearing the difference in my voice and word choices and then seeing the difference in my body language and how I'm standing in all of that. So um. 01:17:08.96 Jala You know when it comes to like the external stuff like I it's it's like I'm when I'm engaging with the feminine I I don't have to put forth very much effort. But I'm also not putting forth physical exterior effort on the masculine stuff either like it's.. It's kind of weird like it's really more of an internal thing for me than it is an external thing. Um, although I do absolutely perform Femininity. Um, and when I don't for an extended period of time I start to suffer and feel depressed because I like to perform femininity. 01:17:46.75 Jala And if I don't have anyone to perform femininity too. Then I get very depressed and I feel um like I don't have any gender at all and so that's that's kind of what happens to me when I don't have that ability to show that on the exterior. As much so that kind of leads into like during pandemic what kinds of stuff happened to your sense of femininity I mean Jamie it's going to be interesting your response because you know you've only um, come as trans like you've only decided to transition within like. 01:18:25.45 Jala A few years here. So. 01:18:27.13 Jamie Yeah I suspect I suspect by ah my answer will be quite different than yours. Um, so I mean I know for myself. Um. 01:18:34.21 Jala Um, so tell me tell me. 01:18:42.10 Jamie And I I know this is fairly common for a lot of people who started transitioning in during the pandemic that like that sense of isolation the increased time away from people and also just the amount of time that everyone was so. Ah, staying home really boosted I think a lot of people but especially my ah ability to start um, exploring and engaging with different aspects of femininity that I wanted to. And a big part of this was like situational I was going through some big life transitions that had prompted some internal thinking. My spouse had also recently come out as nonbinary which led to me thinking about gender stuff as Well. Um, but like ah. 01:19:38.99 Jamie If you don't have to go out and talk to anyone or you aren't going to see anyone that day like you can kind of just look. However, you want and nobody cares because nobody's going to see you? Um, so for me, it was a huge boon. Um, and. 01:19:52.10 Jala I Love that because you're just like I have a sandbox and I can just do whatever I want because there's no other kids in here. 01:19:59.56 Jamie Yeah, exactly um and ah, another big thing that I think a lot of people don't think about is how much a godsend masks are um. 01:20:14.36 Jamie Masks are incredible, incredible transition tools because you'd be shocked how much somebody's face changes when you cut off the bottom part of it. Um, and what I've definitely found. Um is that it is like a hundred percent easier for me to pass. Especially if I'm not talking to anyone. Um, if I'm wearing a mask because a lot of that facial feature like the jawline the way your cheeks are the way your mouth is is completely gone and if that. That the upper part of your face so you're thinking of like I make up sorry I make up. Ah, if you've done anything to your eyebrows all of that sort of stuff if that looks feminine then your brain most people's brain fills in the rest of the face feminine. Um, so that was incredible. And then also the huge thing that I saw starting to happen which was incredible for me was um, a lot of telehealth ah services coming to prevalence especially you know because people don't want to go into hospitals because there's a pandemic. Um, but also the availability um of like ah you know pharmacies to send you medication. Um I use a telehealth program called prose. Um for my hormones that like. 01:21:44.22 Jamie If I'm being honest if I had to go to a doctor and like try to explain to them like what's going on in my brain and then like you have to do the the psych check and the wellness check and all this other nonsense hoops that they make people jump through. 01:22:02.41 Jamie Ah, to get hormones like all I had to do was like do a 30 minute video interview with someone and they were like yeah sounds like hormones is the right thing for you and I was like great. You knows so. 01:22:13.29 Jala Yeah, like I I have no obviously no personal experience with that. But having read some of the memoirs of Samantha Allen she is absolutely hilarious. But anyway ah like love and estrogen and ah m two WTF. 01:22:30.14 Jala Like those were just you know just talking about all the different just experiences that she had when she was transitioning and it's just really real. You know and. 01:22:43.63 Jala Some of it was just like the anxiety just the sheer volume of the anxiety is just through the roof for all of that kind of stuff because you know, ah the moment you step out of your house. You have people looking at you and judging you and thinking one or another thing and you don't know. 01:23:01.79 Jala If somebody's going to be um, like an off off kilter person. You know who is dangerous to you or what you know and that's that's really some real stuff to deal with and you know you being in Portland maybe that's not so much the case but you know. 01:23:06.00 Jamie Right. 01:23:15.42 Jamie Yeah, definitely I definitely have to speak to like I am cognizant of the fact that you know I'm white I live in Portland I have a lot of privilege and relative safety in terms of like being able to. Present. Authentically what I'm out and about. 01:23:31.80 Marcus No yeah. 01:23:37.51 Jala And so yeah, so I I didn't mean to interrupt but I had to just insert a little bit about that because you know like I would definitely ah recommend for listeners um to just check out Samantha Allen's work generally. 01:23:41.59 Jamie Oh no, you're good. 01:23:52.98 Jala Ah, she's a really good author but continue. Please tell me more about your telehealth and and all the other ways that Pandemic was the best damn thing. Ah. 01:23:57.70 Jamie Ah, but yeah, ah so I mean like I of course of course I would never say that like thank thank God We had a pandemic but like I think. If if if you know we're allowed if we're allowed to pull Silver Cloud at Silver Lightings out of that awful Cloud. Um. 01:24:17.94 Jala Please please bring Yes, please bring some sunshine some some kind of good please do. 01:24:21.40 Marcus Um, please do something good had to come out of this room. 01:24:25.22 Jamie Ah, then like yeah that um that having access to hormones um, was like such a game changer. Um, and like again the ability to like I can order clothes on. Amazon they can come to my house I can wear them even if I'm just in my room which is how I started out. Um like I I now have the ability to present you know and and and the big thing for me in the beginning was. Exploration. You know, just the ability to play around with things and change my presentation in drastic ways. Um, and I you know again like I can't discount that a big part of that was like some big life changes that were going on. Ah but also. The the fact that the pandemic was happening and all these services were becoming a thing like was a huge part of it too. 01:25:31.60 Jala And you know the thing too about femininity is that it is so big and it has taken over so many different other things that it's like ah that that experimentation part that's something that I've done too I have tried on different types of femininity and gone. Oh. 01:25:47.35 Jala No, this is absolutely not me like I look at something I'm like oh that's real cute I think I like that and I want to present this way and I try it and I'm like Wow No no, what was I thinking? No no, this is not me at all I am not comfortable. 01:26:02.86 Jala You know and and definitely there is a lot of um, kind of trial and error involved in all of that too. You know in then God Just good going into makeup and then trying to figure out because there's so many different ways to do makeup and different like how how loud do you want to turn it up. You know and. 01:26:07.62 Marcus Oh definitely. 01:26:21.13 Jamie Turns out for me. It's pretty loud. Ah. 01:26:21.21 Jala What yes so I mean like all of that just kind of um you know it it. All of that is different ways of presenting that femininity and turning up the volume on that femininity to 1 or another degree. 01:26:39.25 Jala And finding exactly what fits you comfortably is and I don't mean just like the clothing and stuff but like you know what fits your sense of femininity is also something that's you know, like variable wildly from 1 person to another. 01:26:55.45 Marcus Absolutely there. 01:26:57.16 Jamie Yeah, um, and also like it's it's interesting that we always have these discussions in the the um the context of like queer identities. But I I feel like there. They're also thing like I'm sure Cis women also experience that right? like that's that's a just a thing that people engage with um, growing up. You know like. 01:27:24.14 Jala Well because gender is all just arbitrary anyway. So yes, everybody I'm sure I'm sure all the people out there that are Cis they are listening to this are like yeah I can I can think of a time that I tried to be a dude in this way and it didn't work out for me and I don't I don't dig it. 01:27:43.66 Marcus Yeah, no, absolutely like there are I can they can think of plenty of times when my mom just changed how she is doing everything and it was fascinating. 01:28:03.11 Marcus Just over the course of like you know I like I remember watching I remember watching my mother change the way she presented herself. Ah you know from the time I was like 6 to the time I was like 23 and it just watched all these different things happen and some of it was just like oh fashion trends come and go blah blah blah. 01:28:22.68 Marcus But then it was just kind of like no my mom is actually like she just she switched her whole wardrobe up like just like that and it was just like okay now she's here you know and there were some very interesting conversations that we ended up having or that I ended up being privy to I should say that um where I was talking about like you know. 01:28:42.45 Marcus Gender norms that she grew up with being raised. You know being raised in in church. Also you know, ah like the fact that in in the church of god in Christ which is the dominatmination denomination. We grew up in you know women were not allowed to wear pants and she was like screw that I'm wearing pants. 01:29:01.81 Marcus You know and ah like the pantsuit was like a griing of this gigantic rebellion out of my mother as opposed to a dress and like what we consider to be the church lady hat you know? um yeah, like and when my mom like cut her hair and started doing all these different things. It was just like oh all, right? yeah. 01:29:20.86 Marcus And like something that was really subtle when my mom decided to change the type of glasses she was wearing it was like it was a thing you know and a lot of it. Some of it had to do with like you know, changing jobs and like changing how she wanted to present herself at work and things like that getting her law degree. You know that was a big deal. 01:29:39.93 Marcus But yeah, like it was fascinating to watch how my mother's feminine gender presentation changed over the course of life just because of how she wanted to do things differently. 01:29:54.98 Marcus Despite the fact that none of this had anything to do with queer identity on her part at all and it's that that is think is just a fascinating thing. So yeah, and some of that again also informs some of what I was what was going on for me too. But you know stealth because I you know they didn't find out until I was 37 01:30:11.52 Jamie Ah, philosophical. 01:30:14.98 Jala Yeah, so I guess I should have asked Jamie to coalast because both Marcus and I have had like suffering under under pandemic when it comes to connecting with themininity and we I don't want to um, retread too much. 01:30:30.50 Jala Where we are. We're already talking about like the body Dysphoria from gaining some weight on Pandemic and the fact that you just don't have a place to perform it too really like you know if you're just hanging out at home all the time. 01:30:44.29 Jala Then you know you're not out in society being seen and being seen as potentially depending upon your presentation that day some degree of femininity and so you know like that then makes it like a drawback to be at home and everything although I will say Pandemic did. 01:31:02.52 Jala Bring me to the point where I was like okay I want to start doing poll dance and I started doing poll dance during Pandemic and that actually got me to what I consider to be more or less like the pinnacle of my expression of self in That. Includes both masculine and feminine because at the time I was doing all this poll dance Sexy Pole dance stuff and dressing up super girly wearing my hair X y Z way with all the accoutrement and doing my makeup and all that like on a daily basis more or less forol. Um I was also doing. Super heavy lifts like all the heaviest lifts I've ever done and you know getting super muscular at the same time and and being strong and capable and doing all this house remodeling stuff and all this other stuff. That's just um, it was ah like a perfect balance for me because I had a nice outlet for. 01:31:38.77 Jamie Philosophical. 01:31:56.65 Jala Hyper Feminism and then also for all the the stuff that I consider masculine about myself at the same time and it was this great balance that I had going at least during the beginning part of pandemic until it just kept wearing on and and then started wearing me down and then I got Covid and. 01:32:10.33 Jamie Philosophical. 01:32:15.96 Jala You know you know the rest from there. But um, yeah, like it did bring me to the point where I was able to do that and I do definitely want to get myself back into the shape that I was and back into a pole studio. Although unfortunately I had some issues with the studio I was. 01:32:35.69 Jala At Um, just like some um administrative type stuff situations not being handled well that kind of thing. Um, so. 01:32:47.55 Jala I Would like to find another poll studio and get back to doing that and of course get back to all of my lifting I am trying to work on that around you know sweats and shivering and fevers everything else that comes with the you know, prolonged sickness. So. 01:33:02.71 Marcus Um, men. Yeah yeah, the pandemic was interesting for me in that way too because if it wasn't for the pandemic I wouldn't have made ables I wouldn't have been able to start doing contortion. 01:33:15.48 Marcus And that's been a big thing for me that you mentioned with pole dancing being a big thing for you to helping you express your femininity like learning contortion has been a very big thing in terms of expressing my femininity. Ah but and like I wouldn't have been able to do that if not for the pandemic because. 01:33:33.73 Marcus There's no contort. There's nowhere to train that around here. So um, the person I ended up training under who is a very good friend of mine at this point ah started offering classes online and if it wasn't for the pandemic that wouldn't have happened so like that's ah, that's you know a silver lining that I like to think about. Also. 01:33:52.60 Marcus On the flip side of that I feel like ah yeah, my femininity has actually suffered a fair bit because I haven't been able to you know, bring forth my you know muscle Femme ideal the way I would like to because I haven't been able to go to a gym or I haven't felt comfortable enough going to a gym in a really long time and so. 01:34:11.69 Marcus All of the lifts and things that I was doing before that really shaped my body and though we don't like to talk about you know weight loss so much. It's what kept a lot of like the body fat level pretty low. All of those things formed my body into that presentation that I really liked you know. 01:34:30.76 Marcus Um, and something I've mentioned I believe I mentioned this on the intersectionality thing too. But I mention it all the time is that I have this interesting paradox in my head where the more masculine I appear the more feminine I feel and like the more muscular and like honestly just straight up jacked. 01:34:50.24 Marcus That I look and the more masculine that people attrite the more people attribute masculinity to me because of my musculature the more feminine I actually feel about my body and but yeah, it's a couple of things because of like the the you know. 01:35:00.14 Jamie Interesting. 01:35:07.34 Marcus Most of like I said most of my fitspiration coming from female bodybuilders but also because just strictly physically when I am like super jacked my waist looks really really small and so I have this awesome hourglass that comes with it and it's like yeah there it is. 01:35:19.88 Jala Well See. It's so what's really funny for me is that I get the same thing but for different reasons like um. So when I have a low body fat. My chest starts to go away which does weird things to my head I don't have a large chest anyway, um I have what one would call an athletic chest. Um like when I hit like when I saw my sister who was 4 years older than me hit puberty and she developed. 01:35:50.57 Jala I was like oh so that's what I'm going to look like I hit puberty nothing happened wait a minute and so that's that's my lot in life. Um, so that. 01:36:01.52 Jala Appears when I get to too low of a body fat. So I actually don't like to get super super. Um, low body fat because of what that does to my head because of what happens to my body at that time. Um with like loose skin and stuff I don't I don't like it. Um, but when I'm super fit. 01:36:18.96 Jala Especially with doing the poll and some of the other lifts and stuff that I do I turn into a muscle hourglass and I've got like the broad shoulders and then like it like I'm built like a box I have a short torso. So um, my ribs. 01:36:35.69 Jala Don't have enough space between my ribs and and my hip bones to really make like a dip on. You know my waist even though my waist is not big. Um it doesn't dip in and do the hourglass thing because it's It's just not long enough. It's short. So. 01:36:44.31 Jamie I follow. 01:36:52.81 Jala As a result I look like a block but when I have the big shoulders then I have like this other hourglass going on that is actually very appropriate for me since I am not you know. 01:37:04.28 Jala Hundred percent thinking of myself as female all the time and so like the hourglass form that I have that is this muscle hourglass with some curve still there works well for me and my sense of identity. So. 01:37:18.94 Jala Um, that's why the muscle form for me is important to my femininity in a ah different way but still still valid. So. 01:37:24.81 Marcus Yeah, yeah, it's it's funny to me because like when I'm working out all the time My ask gets really big and that's like yeah, that's really cool. So like from the side I have this really cool. They have this very cool silhouette and it's just like. 01:37:44.73 Marcus That's there. There's what there's what we were looking for and so yeah, elma All of my all of my like feminine clothes look way better on that than they do right now. So. 01:37:55.96 Jala Yeah, and it's kind of like um 1 thing that I was I don't even know why I was concerned about this given that I have like the quote unquote Latino Moody but like um, you know I was like oh man when I drop enough weight am I going to just like have boy hips or something. 01:38:13.46 Jala Because I don't have a chest. So if I have boy hips. What do I have left physically and going for me other than muscles you know, but like no that doesn't happen I keep the curve on the lower half and I didn't have anything up top in the first place. So I build the muscle to build that up and then I make the hourglass that way and you know that works for me. 01:38:33.47 Jala So but yeah, that's interesting. So um, yeah, did you have anything further about pandemic stuff that we didn't already cover previously Marcus. 01:38:45.58 Marcus Um, not so much just that. Um I think I mentioned this on intersectionality also is this that I yeah felt a bit of a distance from my femininity since I didn't have to present it to anyone. Um, and. 01:39:00.69 Marcus And then yeah like I started to actually just think of my nonbinary identity a bit differently to the point where I started feeling more age gender than anything else which I still kind of like move in and out of um and ah, but yeah, something that's been interestingly consistent in the whole time. 01:39:20.80 Marcus Is that I've told you this before like my when people ask me what my gender is I think mannequin because like you know it's just like I don't normally keep hair in my head I don't keep hair on my face I don't keep hair anywhere basically except my eyebrows So like you know, mannequin. 01:39:38.22 Marcus And that's kind of where my gender tends to fall and also like it works out really well because you can put a mannequin in anything in any type of clothing and it still works. It's still mannequin. So so yeah, that where that's where things kind of have settled in. We'll see what happens as you know we start to venture forth. 01:39:58.11 Marcus Into the world eventually. But ah, but yeah, like right now it's that's kind of where I am so yeah effemity I won't well I won't say that Femininity has taken a back seat I will say that it has kind of like ah become a little bit less loud than it was before. 01:40:15.45 Jala Um, and and that's that's sort of how I think about my connection with my masculinity. You know like when I was a teenager and I was you know in the male clothing and just like presenting male one ah hundred percent of the time all of that mess. You know like. 01:40:33.00 Jala That was obviously a lot louder than the kinds of ways that I've already discussed my masculinity shows itself these days and part of that is in fact because of my various roles and things which come into gender stereotypes and gender roles. So. 01:40:49.65 Marcus Yes, yeah. 01:40:51.72 Jala I am caretaker of 2 elderly parents I am their daughter so I am their daughter I am playing daughter all the time I am playing caretaker all the time you know I am with Dave Dave is great. Dave loves me as I am whatever that means to me but that's. 01:41:09.70 Jala Not enough to offset the performance that I have to have all the rest of the time and since Pandemic I have been locked in the house so you know um I am around them all the time. So the performance I have to do is the feminine performance. So. 01:41:26.82 Jala By default my performance there. My performance at work. My performance everywhere is all just this feminine default at this juncture and the only times like during pandemic the times that I had the release from that is again when I was lifting when I was doing certain other activities and that's really how I started to associate those. Like before before Pandemic I did not associate lifting with Masculinity. It only really because that became my outlet for my masculinity and talking to my lift bros about lifting and you know getting into the weeds on lifting tech stuff like that's. 01:42:03.71 Jala That's what I started to consider my masculine time because I was hanging out talk to my dude bros about you know them lifts and them gains. So you know like that very different you know and like that's a space that I could engage with and feel comfortable in. 01:42:20.23 Jala You know, being relaxing into my masculinity and being that without having to filter a feminine mask on top of that. So so yeah, because like with my elderly parents. They're not going you know I've talked about it before they're not going to accept all of that other stuff that is. 01:42:28.58 Marcus Right? yeah. 01:42:39.97 Jala Me So you know we're not going to even go there because that would just cause the biggest kfuffle and you know like a fight that I don't feel like bettling So we're just not going to go there like old old Catholic Latino father. 01:42:59.77 Jala Not going to have it so you know like my mom. My mom would be cool. She just she wouldn't understand a damn bit of it but she'd be fine, but my dad we're not going to go there. We're just going to leave it alone. So so yeah, and so we talked about it briefly Um, again talking about. 01:43:18.79 Jala Internal femininity versus external femininity and you know apparently I'm the only one with this sense of internal femininity but you know um Jamie you had said that you wanted to talk a little bit about the struggle with the concept of like feminine energy. So do you want to talk about that. Do you want me to bring it up and start talking and then you jump in. 01:43:34.84 Jamie Um, yeah, no I can I can kind of kick the conversation off. So um, even if I have less like a really natural. Um. 01:43:50.30 Jamie Like sense of internal internal femininity or just more of a like fluid. You know way that it works for me. Um I was still raised and socialized as a boy. Obviously so there are like certain things in the way that like. People that are socialized as women interact that like I can't quite like incorporate into my my person. Naturally, it's something I'm only ever able to like feed off of other people's feminine Energy So like ah. So like at at work I work with a lot of teenagers a lot of them are Cis girls and when we're all together like I can I can drop into that like really like giggly chaotic like fun gossipy sort of energy. But it's not something that I can like produce myself or like you know when I'm when I'm out with a with femme friends like you know we can be sassy and like sort of like rude but like joking and like have that sort of interaction. 01:45:05.24 Jamie But again like if I'm around a lot of masculine people or around a lot of men like I have a hard I have a harder time or am not able to really sort of bring that out of myself. Yeah. 01:45:16.10 Jala So it's more like a social engagement kind of thing like depending on your company. Maybe a little bit. 01:45:24.83 Jamie Yeah, and and I think a big part of it for me again is like I was I was socialized and performed as a male for so long that that kind of stuff like the the social aspect of being a man or being masculine. Ah. Is very internalized in me. So um, like if I'm around other people that have feminine energy Naturally um, you know and and men can have feminine energy naturally. Also I'm not saying that but like. You know it's a lot easier for me to tap into or play off of that whereas if I'm around masculine or people with masculine energy I I can't I can't play the feminine energy off of them. 01:46:16.64 Jala And what's interesting to me. What's interesting to me is that my experience is completely the opposite I feel like a poddling when I'm around Cis women I do not understand. 01:46:17.52 Jamie In the same way. 01:46:24.36 Jamie Was that something. 01:46:34.91 Jala I Feel like the outsider and like every once in a while I can like if they're if they're really down to earth and and kind of like um, not leading super heavily over into you know stereotype land. Ah then like I can. 01:46:51.29 Jala Can relate to them a little bit better. But like if they are super stereotype type you know, living in the stereotype world. Um I I cannot I cannot I don't I don't understand them I don't feel comfortable around them is very weird to me. Um I actually have a lot easier time. 01:47:10.59 Jala Embodying Feminine energy when I am around people who are either like somewhere on the gender spectrum. Um and like openly so or when I'm around masculine Dude Men's like when I'm around dude Dude bros. 01:47:29.28 Jala If I'm not joining them and being a do bro like talk about lifting or something then I am the flirty coy Whatever feminine energy balancing out the room. 01:47:42.13 Marcus That's fascinating. Yeah I have interestingly ah interestingly similar experience like okay so growing up I had exactly 3 guy friends. Ah my cousin and my two best friends from like grade school and after that. I couldn't relate to anyone like I could not I could not relate to any masculine person at all. So I had mostly I had mostly women girl friends. You know, growing up and um and I had 1 actual like girlfriend. 01:48:17.35 Marcus But like other than that I had mostly like women friends and even now I cannot relate to men I have such a hard time relating to men it sometimes hurts my head I am like when like when I was modeling. 01:48:31.75 Marcus I would I was of course all of the other models. There were women except for this one Derek Zoolander looking dude and I couldn't relate to him at all I can relate to everybody else. No problem than when I started doing photography most of the photographers were men I hated every single one of them. I could not like we'd be hanging out in like the photographer pod room. You know we're allll hang out in there and people are talking and everything I was disgusted by these men partially because a lot of them were actually really misogynistic and were clearly only there to they weren't actually like trying to be artists. They're just trying to get like pictures of Dna. 01:49:08.20 Marcus But like but also just like again I Maybe it's this is the energy thing but like I could not I couldn't relate to them because they were just men in a room being men and I'm just like ah I don't oh God No and like. 01:49:28.17 Marcus When I'm in a gym I cannot like when I mean when I'm like when I was working in in a gym and I was like teaching a class or whatever. Um I Well you know while I trained everybody equally I naturally gravitated more towards the women in the room because. Their energy felt easier to engage with and anytime I have like in my personal training when I am dealing with men while like I said and train everybody equally I immediately have a much easier time if I'm training a woman I have I have more fun. The entire interaction is better and just everything goes smoother. So yeah. 01:50:06.63 Jala All of that but flip it all of that but flip it the other way for me. Absolutely um because yeah like I especially when I used to work in the office all the time before they started hiring some actual. 01:50:06.97 Marcus Know I can't really tune in at all. Yeah yeah. 01:50:23.48 Jala People who were not women cisgender women in the office I could not stand the gossipy water cooler chitty- Chatty passiveagg aggressivess got to figure out this I cannot I don't have energy for that like talk plain english. 01:50:42.67 Jala To me I don't want to sit here and guess what's going on with you you weird Moody person stop you know and like when it comes to training people I have a lot more fun training guys than I do women usually because. 01:50:56.89 Jala Most of the time the guys are the ones that are pushing super hard and they want the big challenge and I'm like oh yeah, let's do it. You know like that's that's where I'm at you know, like that's that's what I want I want to push you and I want to see how far you can go and you know all of that and it it. 01:51:01.68 Jamie So sort of. 01:51:02.84 Marcus Right. 01:51:10.39 Marcus Yeah, yeah see I'm training somebody if I'm training a woman especially like I am actually while I do want to challenge them. My immediate mindset goes into a more nurturing mode and encouraging Like. No, it's okay to push a little harder. No you can lift the weight Blah Blah Blah I'm not like you get them greens but like what I will what I will say is like okay, no see you've already done. You're doing better than you thought you could and I'm immediately doing like I said like this kind of nurturing more like caring kind of. 01:51:45.14 Marcus Like the way that I challenge people is a way of just encouraging them to push a little bit harder than they would normally and then when they do achieve the thing. It's like there see you did it and you know and then sometimes I'll joke with them. Ah dars you know, but then I won't but will have a laugh. We'll have a laugh about it because I'm doing it. Ironically, you know. 01:51:58.26 Jala He yeah well. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah for sure and it's not to say like I I have trained many women and it's been absolutely a pleasure too. But you know like. 01:52:14.69 Jala If You were to just have me in an open gym to go approach somebody to see what's going on or to train them or whatever I would probably end up picking you know somebody that I want to you know. Light of fire under their butt to see how much further they can go because they think they're at their limit but they're not they can go further. You know that kind of thing. That's usually what I like to gravitate towards or I will on the flip side depending upon how I'm doing that day and what switch has been. You know, toggled in my brain. 01:52:34.55 Marcus Um, right? 01:52:45.67 Jala I will pick the person who's very uncertain and needs all the reassurance in the universe because I want to give them cookies all ah protein cookies, protein cookies healthy ones. Okay and then and then teach them all the things and you know inspire them so that they can. 01:52:50.31 Jamie So of course of course. 01:52:53.19 Marcus Um, right? yeah. 01:53:00.60 Jala Go forward and gain confidence and do the thing and be the best them and and see that they can do a lot more than they thought but like I tend to gravitate more to dude mode when I'm doing training stuff than I do the feminine mode. But again, that's ah, my. Personal experiences like when I'm doing endurance events and things like that when I'm doing rucking events. There's very few women that do that and the women that are doing those events are 1 of 2 types of women. Ah you've got the lady folk who are. 01:53:36.14 Jala They have no idea why they're there and they do not understand the mindset of doing the thing and not complaining they complain nonstop and I always end up getting stuck with this the the woman person they always stick the women together and I'm like. 01:53:52.88 Jala Don't put me on the log with this oh god now I've got to listen to her for 5 hours you know like I don't want to hear you complaining you know like and it's just because of the the height or because they're like oh well the dudes can be lifting that no don't don't just automatically assume what I can and cannot do thanks. But. 01:54:07.31 Jamie Awesome. 01:54:11.14 Jala But these people that I cannot relate to because they do not understand the mindset of why why are you? even here. Why did you sign up for this like what are you doing you know, um those people which completely frustrate me and you know just make me want to run. Ah, just. 01:54:27.77 Jala Want to separate myself from them because I will lose my temper or they are interestingly Cis women who don't have any kind of behavioral changes whatsoever when they're out there doing the 24 hour rucking event and. And hauling all this weight and doing whatever they're still smiling and being consistently themselves exactly the the same way that they were when they first showed up and I go through so many different changes when I'm doing these events and like my entire persona is so different. It's like. 01:54:53.36 Jamie 50 It is. 01:55:01.74 Jala You know it. It is seriously a switch for me and that's kind of part of the way that I was like no I'm I'm different than a Cis woman I'm not the same as these people I'm not I do not understand I do not understand them I do not understand their mindset I do not. 01:55:20.37 Jala You know? yeah I'm not that person you know. 01:55:24.33 Jamie I Wonder if some of that um that you experience but that I know I experience like growing up I was like a soft sensitive Boy. So like I was I I definitely had a lot more girlfriends than. Then Boyfriends. Um I But like always I felt like I I related to them on an emotional level but like felt like an outsider ah because of my maleness right? Um, so like you know. 01:55:57.25 Jala That exactly but also had like have that be me talking about Cis women like my maleness makes me not understand. They're female. Um, when when I'm hanging with them. 01:56:01.12 Jamie Right? Yeah, right? That's yeah, that's really interesting. 01:56:10.60 Jala So like that's exactly the same thing for me and exactly how I would say it for myself. So sorry, big continue. Oh okay. 01:56:15.74 Marcus Ah, yeah, yeah. 01:56:15.91 Jamie Um, no, no, no, no, That's ah, that's that's kind of what I was getting at is like it's really interesting. Ah so for me now to be recognized as a woman or at the very least as a Trans woman by other women. And to be treated like a woman by other women I think is is part of that like tapping into the feminine energy at least for me. 01:56:43.10 Marcus Yeah, right? yeah. 01:56:44.20 Jala Um, well yeah, because like having that recognition that you yourself are feminine. You know does link you up automatically to the feminine with the Capital f. 01:57:02.34 Jala Yeah, definitely That's what that's why I went in the intersectionality episode my mantra for that one was It's the most wonderful thing in the world when you are authentically being yourself and somebody else's being themselves and you see each other as you really are and that's like the most beautiful thing you can do. 01:57:16.40 Jamie Awesome! Yeah, definitely who. 01:57:21.17 Jala Is just that it's the best feeling the best feeling and the best sense of connectivity you will ever have. So yeah, so we are running up on 2 hours and I said that this wasn't going to go over two hours it's going to go over 2 hours but I'm going to try to wrap it up here. So 2 2 two sides of the same coin one last question. 01:57:40.16 Jala What is the biggest challenge you face connecting to your femininity and what moment do you feel was your peak connection to your femininity. So I'll go real quick. Biggest challenge that I face I already talked about it not being able to perform out. In society to people the feminine parts of myself. Not in that. What I mean by that is all the trappings the dressing up the makeup The whatever you know like my behavior can still be feminine like it is on this episode and you know it has swung towards masculine at different points. 01:58:16.35 Marcus Yeah, when I can actually hear a little bit. It's kind of interesting. 01:58:17.45 Jala Subtly certain people will see that. But anyway, um, yeah, yeah, and it's It's only when you start tuning into it that you really realize that because it's just a subconscious thing. You don't you don't register it usually um, it's it's kind of like you. Ah, everyone tends to assume. 01:58:37.17 Jala Yeah, the pro the way that this person is presenting to me right now is going to be the way that they're going to present to me throughout this conversation that we're having and that's not the case with me I I change back and forth and you will hear it subtly happening around at different points. So anyway, um, biggest challenge is just. Presenting to the world in the fancy schmany way. Ah, what do I feel was my peak connection to my femininity is ah I mentioned that pole dancing when I was pole dancing and I was able to be in my eight inch fucking heels. You know, rock in the outfit the hair the makeup. 01:59:13.71 Jala And being confident and sexy and provocative but also being my own woman. 01:59:21.62 Marcus Yeah, um, I'd say for me Ah, biggest challenge that I face currently is yeah, just trying to like. And it feels. It feels shallow to say but trying to get my body back into Shape. So I feel like you know I can you know have the Muscley Hourglass X frame again like that's been. That's been my thing and it's just going to take time and getting back in the gym and doing the things and I understand that but I hate it. 01:59:51.72 Jala It's It's just like a you know you know the road you've been there before you'll get it back there a lot faster than you think but you just hate the fact that you have to go down the damn road again. So. 01:59:59.66 Jamie 1 for that. 02:00:00.00 Marcus Um, exactly on like why can't I just get somewhere and stay there right? But um I would say don't don't come at me with your facts in logic. Um, no jey. 02:00:04.75 Jala Oh I don't know maybe like a worldwide crisis and anyway. 02:00:15.56 Jala That's the masculine part of me anyway. Sorry. 02:00:19.59 Marcus But anyway I'd say as far as a moment where I feel was my peak connection to what I would call my feminine ideal again. All of this is presentational I would say I had 2 interestingly enough all the moments where I felt the most connected to my femininity were when I was doing belly dance performance all the times I've been on stage and I can think of 1 in particular who this was a while ago. It was back in 2015 but it was this one particular performance that I did. 02:00:51.77 Marcus And it was probably like my best belly dance performance I felt I was so at home in my body I everything hit dead on perfectly and. What actually really made it for me. It was the first time that my then girlfriend had ever seen me belly dance even though I practiced in the house like because we lived together. We lived together at the time but she'd still never seen it and it was the first time she'd ever actually seen me perform belly dance. She'd never seen me practice. She had no idea what music I was using nothing and so. 02:01:25.42 Marcus Ah I Yeah I got on stage she had no idea what was about to happen and I got up there and did the thing and I have never in my life short of like you know, um, some of my parental but my parents saw me perform way back when I was 10 I haven't felt somebody be so proud of me in one moment than I had at that time and it was just so incredibly validating and plus like the crowd there at this event they were the crowd was full of people that I know. 02:02:01.60 Marcus And very few of them had ever seen me perform and I got up there and did that and the collective Holy shit that came from the crowd was like the most validating thing ever and it was. It was absolutely amazing. And yeah, that's when I'd say that was like. 02:02:20.15 Marcus Peak feminine energy for me right there but also just like peak personal identity that was like that was me being like this is who I am and I'm showing it to everybody and now all of you have seen all like you know thousand of you who are at this event have seen it. 02:02:38.31 Marcus And there's no going back like there's no, there's no one doing that and that was like a really big like moment for me I would say so yeah. 02:02:46.83 Jala Yeah, that's that's really awesome and belly dance was for me, especially when I was doing all the ultra events and things the way that I kept my connectivity to my femininity for a long time and then at some point or another I started to just kind of um feel like. Who I was was shifting away from the kind of um overall style of dance that was and so that's when I kind of started trying burlesque a little bit and then I was like sort of but not quite there and then I got the poll and I'm like I dig it and that's that's where I was like ok and I'm. 02:03:23.59 Jala I'm not like the world's greatest polled answer I did it for you know like a year and a half or so before um you know the issue with the studio came up and then personal stuff happened with injuries and things. Um, but at the same time like I just really really enjoy doing the thing and it's kind of funny because um. 02:03:43.60 Jala I Sometimes try to talk about it in my discord and there's like nobody in there that knows anything about ants and so like they feel like because they don't have a vocabulary for the thing that I'm doing They don't know how to talk to me about it and it's like no you can engage me and talk to me about this thing that I love that I Really want to get back to that is part of my identity. 02:04:02.92 Jala Um, and and talk about it on like I like that neat thing you did at x timestamp or you know talk about the costuming or whatever I mean like there's so many other things you can talk about you know? and um I will give a shout out to Nick I I mentioned this to Nick because I was feeling sad because. 02:04:08.46 Marcus Right? there's. The end. 02:04:22.32 Jala You know I was I was boohoo I I want to talk about dance and there's nobody in there that wants to talk about dance with me and I really want to talk about dance and so then Nick has made it a point to. 02:04:30.25 Jamie Specifics. 02:04:33.26 Jala Talk to me about dance ever since like whenever I post about dance and Nick tries to say something about it. So that's very very sweet and kind and it is very appreciated because it is important to me and it lights me up when I talk about it even if I am not good. You know like I I don't think I'm terrible but I'm also like I haven't been. 02:04:46.35 Jamie So sort of. 02:04:51.85 Jala Practicing you know, frantically for as long as many of the people that you see on Instagram or something you know so. 02:04:57.52 Marcus Right? Yeah, 1 actually 1 thing I'm looking forward to getting back into when I have a little more time is getting it like going to dance classes and stuff because I want to I want to start. Incorporating you know like I said I started learning contortion and I'm actually getting kind of all right at it and I want to start incorporating contortion in that heavy flexibility aspect into dance choreography and I need to be able to go to a class where I can start to sort of do that and that's not belly dance of course. But. 02:05:22.82 Jala Oh yes. 02:05:31.70 Marcus Um, it'd be more like modern or lyrical or something like that. But I want to start you know, exploring that a little bit and that's yeah, that's another thing I'm actually really looking forward to which would be incredibly validating for me and my femininity and my identity in general. So yeah. 02:05:42.92 Jamie Substance. 02:05:45.97 Jala Yeah, so so I'll just give you a couple of quick recommendations if you don't already follow Zoe Jakes Zoe Jakes is a yeah but Zoe Jake's belly dancer contortionist right? there? Um, but then also um, there is the. 02:05:50.42 Marcus Oh yeah, oh oh yes, Absolutely. 02:06:01.57 Jala Teacher that I love the most from the studio that I went to Samantha Mitchell and she is also a contortionist and a poll dancer. So I will actually um, link you up to her Instagram so you can see that but um. 02:06:13.61 Marcus Yeah, very cool. Yes, thank you. 02:06:19.36 Jala Is she's under rage underscore monster underscore poll on Instagram and it's very good because she's very small and very tiny but she's the rage monster. But anyway so so Jamie anyway, um about. 02:06:37.56 Jala You and your challenges with femininity engaging with your femininity and then also like what highlights have you had engaging with your femininity. 02:06:49.64 Jamie Yeah, so I think the biggest like challenge for me is that I have to keep reminding myself that transition is a process and it takes time Unfortunately, um so like. 02:07:03.69 Jamie 1 of the things that I struggle with in general is feeling almost like an incomplete person. Um and and because of that sometimes it's hard to engage with ah like femininity or feel connected to it. Um, and. And since a lot of my concepts of femininity are presentational um like it's just something I'm going to have to work on so like you know, ah effects from from hormones typically top out at like 3 to 5 years depending on the person. Um, you know there are different roadblocks again if I'm if I'm trying to get like any sort of affirmational surgery. There are things that go along with that um paperwork that has to be filed for name changes all of that sort of stuff. Um, and unfortunately. 02:08:00.60 Jamie I'm I would I'm also pretty shy and like socially anxious and I hate making phone calls. So I don't know who decided to roll that character but they were dumb. Um, so so yeah I think it's really just. 02:08:17.73 Jamie The process is is a huge challenge for me. Um, in terms of when I feel like my peak connection. Um, there are 2 things that I can think of and they're both fairly recent um me and my roommates went to. 02:08:37.68 Jamie Like a house party of a mutual friend but like before we got together. We like you know we did the whole like getting ready for a party thing. So My roommate Sam is nonbinary but they're fairly feme and they were like. Let's you know,? let's do our hair. Let's do our makeup. Let's coordinate our outfits. Um and that was cool because like I I've literally never had that happen to me and it it is an affirming like like feminine relationship thing to do you know like. 02:09:13.97 Jamie Something that 2 girlfriends would do um and it was just like really sweet like I don't I like I can put a hair at a ponytail but like I don't know how to do somebody's hair but you know they were still like yeah like help me put the bobby pins there. You know like help me do this stuff and it was really sweet. Um. 02:09:33.30 Jala I I I just have to just interrupt for just a second and say the few times that I have had a situation where I am doing makeup with a female um I feel like. 02:09:33.49 Jamie And that that was fun and affirming. 02:09:48.95 Jala A weird impostor when I'm doing it I feel like a weird imposter and I'm just get all self-conscious like I don't really do makeup all the time. So like this person is super practiced and just does all this stuff and just like P just. You know, automatically and I just like ah this is the thing I do hopefully it straight or whatever. So um, and and so you know like I I pick a hairstyle and that's the hairstyle and that's it. That's. 02:10:18.00 Jala 1 and I don't do a lot of other things with my hair. So then when like when it's along and people are like oh I want to braid it and I'm like I I can do a very simple braid and they're all just doing all these fancy braids and stuff and I'm just like I I am a fish out of water I do not know so sorry sorry. 02:10:37.20 Jala As you were saying as you were saying so you had that Really, that's wonderful moment that was making me smile the whole time you were talking about it me. 02:10:43.39 Jamie Yeah, it was I don't know it was just like really girly. Um and you know I I don't I haven't had a lot of those experiences so far so that was cool and affirming the other thing I can think of is um within the last. 02:11:00.12 Jamie Couple of weeks. Um I've been going through just my ah my clothes and like getting rid of Boylos Um, and but what I realize is it's been hot everywhere right? So I had like a couple of tank tops stashed away and a couple of button downs. Um, and I was like okay, it's so hot like I literally don't care what I look like I'm just going to go outside and try and be alive. Um and like so like I I put on like a ah traditional like mail cut ah tank top and like. In looking at myself in the mirror I still looked like a girl. Um which I had never really experienced before and that was a huge like sort of turning point for me because a lot of what I do to myself. 02:11:55.14 Jamie What I do to myself a lot of the figs the the makeup and the you know the hair and all of that stuff contributes to sort of back pedaling. What? ah boy Puberty did to my body right? um. 02:12:11.72 Jamie So I don't know if it's a it's a combination of like you know I I've been on as of January I think was my 1 year anniversary on hormones. So finally starting to see those like changes in my body. 02:12:26.60 Jamie Enough like natural breast growth that like it looks like something you know I I don't know exactly what it was but it was an incredibly like ah it was really Eupphoria euphoric experience and like kind of I think kind of flipped a switch in my brain. Where like it. It just clicks now like I don't I I feel like I don't have to work as hard anymore and that was like so a big thing. 02:12:51.45 Jala Well because yeah, because like you're able to look in the mirror and see there reflected back to you that which you already felt inside to begin with. 02:12:53.99 Marcus Ah, yeah. 02:13:04.74 Jamie Yeah. 02:13:09.60 Marcus Um, that's very cool. Even. 02:13:11.23 Jala The warm glowy wonderful feelings. Did you have anything else to add or are we going to like like leave it on that happy note right? there? Okay, great, great. That's wonderful I love it I love it. So um I don't know. Ah we are already at like 152 so like 02:13:12.22 Jamie 8 out. I know that was i. 02:13:20.53 Marcus Um, rich next news. That's a perfect. Yeah. 02:13:28.57 Jala We've got to wrap wrap up the episode. So we're going to talk wrap up thoughts now. Um do either of you have any kind of like wrap up thoughts thesis about Femininity Gender Generally any of those things. 02:13:42.12 Marcus I would say that it's all made up anyway. So if you feel feminine doing whatever it is great. Enjoy it. 02:13:52.25 Jala Yep, sounds good to me Jamie. 02:13:56.74 Jamie Um, ah I don't yeah like I agree with that though, the weird thing about like I'm sorry I'm just going to ramble on the weird thing about like um, identifying as a binary. Trans woman is like I I do I do on a certain level like emotionally connect to the stereotypes of being a woman whether that's because of the way I was raised my brain chemistry who the heck knows but like that's. 02:14:30.34 Jamie That's what speaks to be and what makes sense to me but like ah like that doesn't I don't know it's really hard to like feel like stereotypes are affirming for myself but also like very deeply believe that stereotypes are stereotypes and they're not. Definitive for everyone I don't know gender and Identity is a mess. Um, and I think everybody should do a lot more introspection and thinking about themselves. 02:15:00.93 Jala Well I will say that I have received the feedback that this show and the way that we delve into all this stuff and talk about our different experiences have gotten a lot of people out of their usual headspace and into a little bit different of an experience and thinking about. 02:15:15.91 Marcus Excellent. 02:15:16.56 Jamie Yay! 02:15:20.77 Jala The world a little bit differently. So um, that is what we're here to do. We're here to shake things up. So yeah, and and so for me, um, it's I already said it before multiple times during this episode gender is weird but it also is weirdly important you know to people's sense of self people's sense of place in the world because if you don't have a sense of your role or your um like a role model for yourself or that kind of a thing then. 02:15:56.20 Jala You don't have any mooring and you're just kind of like a ship that's ah off somewhere without a Mast floating around on the ocean right? like um, some kind of guiding principle some kind of concept. Even if it's arbitrarily founded is still a guiding principle that leads you. To where you feel your best and where you are happiest and whatever that looks like for everybody and it may be a thing that changes over time you know, um I've talked about the the way that my grappling with different senses of femininity and Masculinity have changed over Time. You know that's. Entirely possible and true for very many people so like whatever that looks like to you. However, it changes over time just you know touch base with yourself see what's true for you. What feels right for you and go for that thing. 02:16:49.15 Jamie Yeah, and I think that last part is really important. Um because a lot of times ah people like they they're like okay I'm not this thing I'm this thing and I'm this thing forever and that is the case for some people but definitely not all people like. I Don't know if I mentioned it earlier in the episode but when I first came out I came out as nonbinary because I thought I definitely wasn't a man and I didn't feel connected enough to femininity or womanhood to like just be a Trans woman. Um, and you know what I found out over time is. Like no I I Definitely just like being a girl and feeling like a girl and being treated like a girl but you know. 02:17:28.12 Jala Well because as you had the experiences you weren't allowed to have those experiences before and as you had those experiences your relationship with you know your your concept of femininity changed over time as you actually allowed yourself to indulge in that. 02:17:46.26 Jamie Yeah, definitely. 02:17:47.62 Jala You know and indulge in that femininity engage with that femininity. Actively. 02:17:53.44 Jamie Um, and if I had just been like okay I'm I'm I'm nonbinary forever. That's all I am I think you know I wouldn't have allowed myself that growth and I think that's really important, especially for um, you know people who have defaulted. Gender for a really long time to you know, allow themselves to change and grow if they feel like 1 identity isn't working for them the way it used to. 02:18:20.52 Jala Yeah, yeah. 02:18:21.83 Marcus Yeah I think people need to understand I saw it was a Tiktok greatest statement ever. It said labels make excellent servants but poor masters and I was like yeah that. 02:18:38.56 Marcus And yeah, because people tend to think that they have to stick to a particular label once they find and it's like now. Yeah you could you could change that tomorrow and you know there needs to be support for that for everybody as people figure their shit out. So yeah. 02:18:51.59 Jala Yep yep, and as the world changing grows you know because it's always changing and growing too. You know the world is not static. The world has been changing so people also change and situations change over time. 02:18:54.57 Marcus Exactly. 02:19:08.32 Jala Everything changes. So anyway that is a good place. Let's stop it there. Okay so Marcus where can people find you on the internet. 02:19:21.30 Marcus People can find me pretty much everywhere on the internet at Marcus Underscore rasan that's marcusunderscoreras a a n that's Instagram Twitter ah, both of those will also link to my Patreon which is random rain. Ah, it's where I do art stuff and my art Twitter is also random rain or random rain seven is on is my art Twitter so there. 02:19:45.46 Jala Awesome. Jamie, how about you? 02:19:50.22 Jamie Um, I don't really have much of an online persona but I hang out and in Jawless Discord. So if you ever want to talk to talk to me I'll be there. 02:19:54.14 Jala Yeah I you know and I was making the joke the other day I was like I don't know a good 70% of the people on this show I drag on here are like you know as as breyer said. Um, internetcrypted they they do not exist on the internet except for in my Discord somewhere. So yeah, yeah, so that that is definitely a sacred space. My discord um I love it very much It is a nice zen community of folks that I adore. So. 02:20:31.92 Jala Yeah, if listeners are interested in checking out the discord I will have to vet you first you're going to have to talk to me and we're going to have to you know chitchat a little bit so I can get to know you first and see if you are jollic on Discord material. So. 02:20:40.31 Marcus Um, oh no. 02:20:48.31 Jala I promise it's just to make sure that you're a nice person and you're not going to be terrible. That's all anyway um I can be found everywhere on the internet that I may be found @jalachan and this podcast is in fact at jalachan.place. So that's all for now. Until next time take care of yourself and remember to smile. [Show Outro] Jala Jala-chan's Place is brought to you by Fireheart Media. If you enjoyed the show, please share this and all of our episodes with friends and remember to rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice. Word of mouth is the only way we grow. If you like, you can also kick us a few bucks to help us keep the lights on at ko-fi.com/fireheartmedia. Check out our other show Monster Dear Monster: A Monster Exploration Podcast at monsterdear.monster. Music composed and produced by Jake Lionhart with additional guitars and mixed by Spencer Smith. Follow along with my adventures via jalachan.place or find me at jalachan in places on the net! [Outro Music]