(Transcript) Jonathan Van Ness (JVN) on Hair, Gender, and the Obsession to Control Bodies (Copy)
-INTRO: 3…2…1: Jonathan Van Ness, also known as JVN is many things. In their own words, Jonathan is A hairstylist by trade turned personality, author, comedian… and an entertainer by life. You may know Jonathan from Netflix’s Queer Eye, or Jonthan’s podcast and netflix show: Getting Curious. I actually met Jonathan when they interviewed me for Getting Curious to talk about my documentary and podcast series, Sold in America: Inside our Nation’s Sex Trade. And then we both shared with each other our love for ice skating and gymnastics and Jonathan so graciously invited me to join them for weekly practices….etc.etc. This conversation is a long time coming. And it’s our first time seeing each other since the pandemic…WE ARE AT CITIZENM HOTEL IN BOWERY…this is more of a friendship focused conversation, because I actually have something on my heart I want to talk about. Hair. and what the big deal is…etc.
Noor Tagouri (00:00:00):
So, I mean, this podcast is to be of service to you first and foremost, but okay. Not only, it's funny that you are mentioning getting curious
So this is I I, I'm beside myself. Cause I just want to say I miss you so much.
Jonathan Van Ness (00:06:30):
I miss you so much too.
Noor Tagouri (00:06:32):
Literally I think the day of lockdown in 2020, like we were still ice skating and tumbling and doing gymnastics together. And I was telling Sarah and Adam earlier, there was something in me during that time where I was just so grateful that you were, didn't even realize what you were doing, but you were giving me a space and permission to do gymnastics and to ice skate, which were things that I loved doing as a child so much. But then I stopped like on my own because once I started covering my hair and you were like, wait, what? You can continue doing this. You can still do this. So that was really where I feel like our friendship started to flourish and you felt like a home to me in that way. And then the pandemic hit
Jonathan Van Ness (00:07:23):
It was like, we just need a clip.
Noor Tagouri (00:07:26):
Yeah
Jonathan Van Ness (00:07:27):
Just a clip to keep it on there, honey. And then we can go upside down and or fall or whatever.
Noor Tagouri (00:07:31):
I know know. And you taught me so much during that time and I was so grateful for it. And um I was telling them we had never sat down for a personal podcast conversation. And I think maybe subconsciously I was like, I really wanted to just cherish the friendship that we were having, but I knew that the conversation was going to happen when it was meant to. And I didn't really know what it was going to be about. And I have been thinking about this conversation for the last couple of weeks because I wanted to flip the script. So when we first started, before we started recording this podcast, you had mentioned getting curious. And it's funny because earlier I was telling my team, I want to honored by you and honoring you. I want to approach this episode similar to a getting curious episode. And what I am currently getting curious about is hair. And I have been on my own really big hair journey and just after I did my rep investigation and I have begun really rethinking my own personal stories and my own identity labels and what all of these things really mean and what is it that I really believe in all of these things. I've been thinking a lot about my choice to cover, to not cover my hair. And in all of that, I realized I'm turning 30 years old this year and I started covering my hair when I was 15. So it's been
Jonathan Van Ness (00:09:09):
Half your life vibes,
Noor Tagouri (00:09:10):
Half of my life. So I'm like, this is a time, I feel like half of your life moment is a good time to rethink and to ask questions again and to make sure, is this something that I'm doing because I really feel like this aligns with me? Or is it something that I want to rethink? And in all of that, I realized that I find myself asking, well what's the big deal about hair anyway? What's all the noise about hair anyway? Why is it, why are people dying over this? And I think in the last 15 years, because before I started covering my hair, I would spend two hours in the morning doing my hair and I had a relationship with it. But I think the relationship that I had with my hair as a 14 year old child was one of how people were going to see me, what it would look like in front of other people or if they were going to like it or if they were going to like me.
(00:10:03):
And it was less about me because especially at that time, you're so impressionable to beauty standards. So a huge part of my hair routine was always straightening my hair. That was, that was naturally wavier. Curlier. And I wanted to look like the girls at school who were typically blonde and had super straight hair. And now as I'm rethinking it, I'm, I've been really grateful for the fact that the last 15 years almost, I just haven't internalized any of the pressure around a achieving a beauty standard or focusing on my hair for other people. It just hasn't been on my radar. But in covering my hair from the public, I think I also was covering my hair from myself and I wasn't really thinking about it. And in so many ways, that's been really healthy and great for me. And also now as approaching 30, I have been wanting to actually establish a relationship with this part of my body that I have never really talked to or engaged with or really felt. And I'm going to pause there because there's so much more I could say. But I really felt like I just wanted to share what was deeply on my heart. And so when I thought about who I wanted to talk to about this, you were the only one. And besides the fact that Adam and I only used JV N hair and we're actually obsessed and it truly is so thoughtfully crafted and you and your team are doing such important work with that.
(00:11:50):
And also I know that I love, I loved the episode of getting curious on Netflix where you talked about hair and the history of it and why it's been such a big thing. But I think maybe a good starting point is, ooh, I usually start with the question, how is your heart? But because hair is so important to you, maybe I can ask you, how is your hair
Jonathan Van Ness (00:12:13):
That's such a good que or That's such a good question. Yeah. Because also hair is so much more than hair. It is your heart. It's like it's really self-expression. And also I know that I don't know you the best of anyone in the world. But I will say when you were talking about that, when you got to the part when you were like, I've been rethinking a lot about your relation or when you said, I've been thinking a lot about my relationship to hair. There was a moment when you got really quiet and you got this look in your eye that literally looked like you were hang looking over the edge of a cliff. It was the same look that I feel like I have when I'm looking into something. I'm inks, I don't like heights, I'm nervous about a height, don't love them. Planes are fine, but not a stair height.
(00:12:51):
But it was like you were giving me looking into the abyss and I could literally feel like the level of this is a turning and also 30 mommy not to be baby, but dirty. That's really cute. You're, you're so wise beyond your ears. But yeah, hair is your heart. It's also, I don't know if you've ever heard that thing about how our psyches are forum from zero to seven, you're when you're a baby. And so when your hair and your relationship to your hair and how people receive you because of your hair, all of that is ingrained from such an early age how you start to see yourself and the experiences that you have. And then when you were saying my 14 year old self, I remember the first time my mom, I had to put a full court press on to let her get me highlights.
(00:13:36):
It was in a small mall in Florida and I got these highlights on vacation and I was so excited to go to school cause oh my God, are people going to notice? I really want compliments? Which in, when I look back, it's like I wanted validation and anyway that I could get it. And if my hair was the avenue or whatever, I just wanted the validation. So the hair is thriving, my heart is stressed, but my hair isn't really a stress, which is fierce, but it is still connected. So I don't really know exactly how to answer the question. But other than say that I'm loving your exploration,
I got to interview Moja Madera and Nicolette Mason. Yeah. About it. And Oh my God, yeah, just and talk about duality. Sometimes I feel, and I don't even know if this is duality, but sometimes I feel so overwhelmed by the attack on trans people, women, non-binary, just all of the repression and patriarchy. And here it's when I was reading in the news about what was going on in Iran and happen to Iranian women, the overwhelm and what am I going to do? But then
Noor Tagouri (00:15:52):
I should also be really transparent in that my own exploration skyrocketed or really broke open in this most recent Iranian revolution.
Jonathan Van Ness (00:16:04):
And that's what I was kind of wondering.
Noor Tagouri (00:16:06):
I mean think for me it was the concept of a badged and armed morality. Police really unleashed something in me that I spent days crying and wailing up in our cabin. And I had to really understand where this pain was coming from. And it was because I was very familiar with the morality police from all ends. I think that ever since I started covering my hair people, it was always under scrutiny. It was always under, you're not doing this well enough. Why are you doing this to begin with? Whatever it was, it always talked about. And it's wild that this very personal decision has just always been political and publicized. And it's funny because my brother just sent this article in our group chat, and I had read this article, it was written about my family exactly 20 years ago. And I read the article for the first time. It was written when I was nine years old by the Department of Homeland Security.
Jonathan Van Ness (00:17:13):
Oh my God.
Noor Tagouri (00:17:14):
And in the article, there's an actual question that mentions me and my sister's name and it says, will they wear the hijab? And this article was on the Department of Homeland Securities website. That's where I found it. And it, it really activated something in me because I was, even when I was a child, even when I was nine and my sister was five people, were still, our own American government is amplifying this question on these children who it was never your right to ask that question. So, so we've seen this morality police, we've seen it all, and it's really hard to really, I'm still processing it obviously, and it's really difficult because my experience covering my hair has been so powerful and so positive and so comforting, and it's felt so carried because it was something I actually never thought I was going to do.
(00:18:20):
And so it's, on one hand, this scarf has been a companion and a friend to me for so long. And on another hand, I'm also trying to do this work of who am I outside of this? And that's why it kind of transcends just this piece of fabric. Who am I outside of all of these labels and these things that we don't realize that we get to rethink that. That's also a part of life is reevaluating the questions that we, we've asked our entire lives. And so I'm grateful that, I mean, I'm grateful and I admire the revolution that's happening in Iran and also in places like France and India where people are fighting to choose to have the right to choose to be able to cover their hair. Because to me, it's all about, it always. It's always been about choice. It's just always been about choice.
(00:19:20):
That's the thing. And so I have to also unpack in myself, well, if it is about choice, and maybe I feel like right now I don't know if I want to continue covering my hair, do I really feel like I have a choice? Or is the morality police on the internet or around me in person, are they going to get in the way? Which I would be lying if I said no, because I already feel it. I already see it. I already see how people talk about if they see me showing hair or whatever it is. And so it is really challenging. And it's funny because the week that the most recent Iranian revolution happened, I ended up going on this five day yoga retreat. And it was right after I finished rep. So I just needed a break to kind of recalibrate. But it was literally the day after I had posted this video about Samini and about the morality police and about asking people, what is the role that you are playing in this problem?
(00:20:16):
Because we don't really ask ourselves that. And that week I had this woman that I had met at the retreat who told me she had cut hair in high school. I, I think I want you to cut my hair off. I just wanted it all off. And I didn't understand why I was doing that. I felt like I was trying to tap into, I had this very big wild woman breakthrough of wild in the most n nature sense of the word of being a woman, of nature, of really trying to tap into that. And even as I was doing that, I didn't realize that I was also doing it because of this weight that I felt I was feeling on the heels of witnessing the women who were also cutting off their hair, who were also fighting for choice and stuff. I was just doing this for myself because it's what I, I was just following my intuition. But yeah, it's really been since then.
Jonathan Van Ness (00:21:16):
Yeah. I mean, don't know how you could have that not lead. You mean, obviously I'm, when you said it's about choice, it's always about always been about choice. Yes. It's always been about, I just say it louder for the people in the back. Yeah. We should have our ability to, whether you want to practice your faith, how you want to express your gender, how you want to control your reproductive future, yes, we should absolutely have our ability to self determine. And I think that when you look at what's happening in Iran or in the United States, or the common theme for me is patriarchy. And then I also was thinking, one thing that came up for me that I'm like that since we, well, actually this was before, but the older I get, the more I'm like, oh, binaries are our kind of enemy all the time.
(00:22:15):
Not only in gender, but if you cover your hair, then X, if you don't cover your hair, then X. Those are all, yeah, they're just so black and white. There is such a spectrum to everything that happens. I think even what is, there's a spectrum to even right and wrong. There's some things that are always wrong. physical harm, sexual abuse. But then there's some times where even what's right and wrong is a little bit more not so black and white. It takes two to tango. There's nuance, there's levels to this. So sometimes it's black and white, but then other times it's not black and white. And it depends on who you are and where you're from and how you see yourself in the world and all of your experiences, experiences that have led you to this point.
So however, we can take a little bit of that, the edge off this fastball, I see so much, we're literally killing people for the choices they make that, while in the duality sense, they really, really matter, but they also don't really matter to you as far as if you take these trans laws that are, or these trans laws that are being debated all across the country.
(00:24:20):
People are so fired up about making these absolute rules that actually don't affect them because they're like, well, I did the X, Y, Z, or I want to protect children want to, but it's like if a kid wears a dress or if a kid goes to a therapist, does it affect you? Yeah, no. If someone wants to cover their hair or not, does it? It's really the idea of what these acts do in society. Transness is seen as a huge threat. Women self-determining in a run is seen as a huge threat to, in what it shares in common, the patriarchy or the ruling party. And it's just so silly because if, well, it's not silly cause people are dying and it's literally affecting people's lives. So in that sense, it's not silly. But then on the other hand, what is silly is that if you just let people be themselves, the fabric of society's not going to crumble. People said when schools are going to become integrated, that the fabric of society would crumble. When or interracial marriage became legalized, people said the fabric of society would crumble. When people have always said that yet time carries on, and yet things, people still grow, things still happen. The sun still comes up. So it just feels like there's this, things are treated as these absolute threats. And really the truth is a lot more nuanced and less black and white than I think we all are willing to believe.
**AD BREAK: “REP” TRAILER:
Noor Tagouri (00:25:40):
Yeah. What is the big deal about the dead cells that lay on top of our scalp?
Jonathan Van Ness (00:27:42):
Yeah, it's confusing, but in it seems like it's a lot of it is tied to gender roles So I think though, we like the idea of head covering in even whether or not it's the truth of the faith, which that's its own conversation. But then it's how our government's using their faith to impart their will on people and deem certain things as a threat while other things are not a threat. So a lot of it feels like what's the big deal about hair? A lot of it is tied to gender roles. Now, historically, I can speak more clearly from what happened historically in the West. Yes. And one thing that I've learned a lot in the podcast is, so obviously we know Darwin, right?
(00:29:32):
Yeah. Survival of the fittest. He did the whole genus species evolution. That's Darwin. And so that was in the late 17 hundreds. He had this first cousin named Francis Carlton that we're always talking about on the podcast, all fucking roads lead back to Francis Carlton. That's what I'm learning. He invented eugenics. So eugenics is essentially what the Nazis used in the final solution. So prior to World War ii, you literally had magazines in America that were eugenics weekly. It would be like, who is the prettiest southern bell? Who is the be like? So there's positive eugenics, which is good families breeding with good families. Then there's negative eugenics, which is we shouldn't be letting single parents, we shouldn't be letting women who've had 10 kids with eight different people, they should have four sterilization. That would be an idea of negative eugenics or four sterilizations were a huge aspect of negative eugenics.
(00:30:23):
And we even had state sanctioned forest sterilizations all through the history of America. And it wasn't until the 19, actually four sterilizations were happening on Native American people. I believe up through the seventies, there was a lot of four sterilization of black women, native American people, and also even there was Bell V. The United States literally saw the Supreme Court say like, oh yeah, you should do four sterilization because you had one. This woman was in the insane asylum. She was committed to the insane asylum because her mom was committed to the insane asylum. And then they wanted to take her newborn baby and put her in the insane, because they were like three feeble. The quote was, three generations of feeble minded people is enough cool from the United States Supreme Court. So they sided with the state and these four sterilizations. So all of this came from the pseudoscience of eugenics that was invented from this guy Francis Carlton.
(00:31:20):
And where that came from was, so in the 16 hundreds and 17 hundreds, if you look at the writings, these European explorers would go to Africa, they'd go to Senegal and they'd say, these women are beautiful. They had these beautiful breasts. They had these beautiful curves. The way that they would speak about Native Americans. It was more positive. It wasn't as vilifying in earlier writings in European explorers. Then as you get in the 17 hundreds, then it's like these Native Americans are letting the women hunt, the men wear skirts. The Aboriginal people in Australia, they wear skirts. The women have their breasts out. They're uncivilized. So they were saying that Europeans were the height of civilization and that they were evolving towards a more civilized place. And then they were saying that women were more evolved to child bear. They were saying that white women were more rear to childbearing.
(00:32:10):
They're not meant to use their brains. Men should be using their brains. Men should be making money. Women don't have the same strength that men have, so they need to, there are reproducers, so we need to take it easy on them. Obviously this isn't true. This is what he was saying. So then they started to say that, oh, actually, we're saving these poor souls from Australia and Native America and Papua New Guinea and all these places because they're going to burn the fiery pits of hell because Jesus. So we've got to save all of them, and we've got to civilize all of them because they are not civilized. They're evolving towards the worst we want to evolve. So it was always through this guise of saving people, helping people, christianizing people, because they didn't want to burn in the pits. It's the story that we're telling ourselves.
(00:32:52):
But Francis Galton was inti integral in this idea that civilization was Anglo, it was Western European, it was United Kingdom, it was Europe, and everything else was like, we needed to save them to make sure that they were civilizing and use eugenics towards that end to get rid of people that were not seen as civilized. So this Francis Galton was fucking scary pseudoscience. I mean, they were measuring people's heads. It was all that same Nazi stuff that guy was measuring. They were using all of this pseudoscience to differentiate, to use racialized differentiations in biology to separate people. And same thing with queerness. Queerness wasn't seen as this. I mean, it existed. People would talk. It was this, it was a known thing, but it wasn't necessarily so negatively seen until Francis Colton came along and said, oh, they're really on the fringes of society. They're going to evolve us off a cliff.
(00:33:48):
They're really bad. So it was around this time, the turn of the 18th century coming into 18th century that queerness and transness became really bad and women, and it builds to a fever pitch up until the turn of the 20th century, the early 19 hundreds. That's when you start to have people say, oh, lady men and girly men, they have even different heights and different, which is obviously all fake. It's all cherry picked data to support these really transphobic and homophobic and anti-women positions. But a lot of the history around, when did hair become such a big deal? Why should women have long hair? Why should men have short hair? Yeah. That really happens in the 18 hundreds, the long 19th century, which would be 1780 to 1920. That's what I've learned from our historians on getting curious about when did womanness, when did these gender roles become so intensified? And the relationship between gender roles and hair is really big. And that becomes much more solidified in the 18 hundreds, because prior to that, you had a lot of cultural diversity. The Egyptians were really there doing their thing. The Native Americans really had their own, every different culture had their own way of doing things. But the gospel of eugenics, so to speak, in that gospel of colonization, which is colonization, that's what really started to spread this idea of what hair means, what purity means, what femininity means, what masculinity means. That all really happens. Then,
Noor Tagouri (00:35:19):
Whoa, thank you for the history lesson.
Jonathan Van Ness (00:35:21):
Yeah.
Noor Tagouri (00:35:24):
Wow.
Jonathan Van Ness (00:35:25):
It was a lot
Noor Tagouri (00:35:26):
Process, but it's the thing too, just, but prior to that, did hair always have a cultural significance? And was hair hair ever as personal? Was hair ever personal or was it always, was there always a factor of it being something for consumption? Not like your consuming hair or whatever, but something to be talked about, something to be analyzed, something that represented something bigger than the self.
Jonathan Van Ness (00:36:00):
I mean, I think from how I understand, I, I'm fascinated by Egyptian hair and Egyptology. We got to do a little segment on getting on the Netflix version of that. But I mean, they were braiding hair. They were coloring hair. They were cutting hair. They were using hair to denote places in society. And so even back in Egyptian times, we were talking about wanting to beautify the hair, wanting to use the hair as self-expression and to express where one would be in society. And I think in Native American cultures, you see a lot of symbolism in hair, in all cultures. You see, I think it is largely how it is now, but the roles of gender and why it's such a quote, big deal from a, I'll fucking kill you sort of way. You can't exist in this way. That comes more in patriarchy, in the solidification of gender roles in the last 300 years, I feel like in.
(00:36:57):
But maybe it wasn't that the 15 hundreds and this 14 hundreds and Pryor. But I do think that there have been eras in the world in history where hair was not linked to the same ideas of masculinity and femininity and how important it was to self-express in those ways, especially when we look at Native American cultures and why hair was kept very long. Or the spiritual connection there of hair, which is really beautiful.
Noor Tagouri (00:40:00):
Hair represents time. And that's also what I think is so fascinating about by it and the traditions where people do end up growing their hair out or locking their hair or having braiding it or having these different representations. It literally, it is carrying our stories in the DNA itself as well
and I'm curious too, the role of hair stylists and how you often joked that you sometimes would double as a therapist to the people because you're, especially on Queer Eye when you're giving people these new transformations and we can say, yeah, changing the hair or whatever, you're giving people new so that they can feel good about themselves. What does that really mean? What is it that we're really, how does hair play a role in our bigger story of who we are in this moment?
Jonathan Van Ness (00:43:18):
Well, it's, it's so hard to pinpoint that answer because it's so layered. Part of it is action driven where you or I want to take a risk. I want to try something different. I want to see, or I just want to do something different. That's scary. It's taking a risk. You have to seek someone out. You have to save your money. You have. So there's a lot of confidence building in identifying something you want, finding a person, asking for help because you got to find someone that can do the thing. So there, it's really vulnerable because you're like, you're building confidence. You're taking a chance in whether or not you end up liking the outcome. You're literally taking a risk. So you're learning what do I not, how do I like to feel? How do I not, so there's the action taking. Then if you, how the hair turns out or you don't, that brings up its whole other list of relationship building exercises that you're going to have with yourself if you really like the hair, are you just, or if you hate it, you're like, oh my God.
(00:44:21):
If you've ever seen someone who did something to their hair that they fucking hated and they can't stop talking about it. And it's just something that's like, yeah. So that brings up, so I think, is it the things that led up to it, or was it that you actually, when you looked in the hair, the mirror, you're like, oh my God, I love how this turned out. This makes me feel like when I have my hair certain ways, it makes me feel certain ways more, maybe a little more chic, maybe a little bit more natural, maybe more. And what do those feelings elicit? But that's also different for everybody. What is chic to somebody is not chic to somebody else. So it's such a highly individual thing. And hair is such a facet of self-expression. And sometimes people have just become totally numb to that.
(00:45:09):
They're like, it's just this thing I do. I don't really see it as self-expression. I don't really see it as it's just this thing I got to deal with. Or they became really frustrated by it a long time ago for whatever reason, because when they were saving up the money or they had a hairdresser that didn't get it, or they had a parent that was really critical, or a friend, maybe when they tried their highlights, they went to school and everybody made fun of them, and then they were like, I don't ever want to try it again. So we all have such, or maybe you had a really good reaction to a hair change, so you're more adventurous. But all that stuff happens when you're little. It's from your first experiences with self-expression through hair. And all of those are also linked to, those are also racialized.
(00:45:47):
They're gendered a socioeconomic thing there too. Because if you don't have money, if you don't have the resources, if you're in a geographical space that doesn't know how to do your hair, hair can be a source of joy and self, ex and self-exploration. It could also be a source of frustration and negativity and something that you don't want to play with and you don't want to look at. And usually that happens from your formative experiences with hair, which is why for some people, hair is a huge deal and for other people not that big of a deal because it really does depend on how your individual experience was. Which actually leads into this other thing that I've been thinking a lot about, which is the relationship between individuals and systems.
Noor Tagouri (00:46:30):
Yes. Okay, perfect. Yes.
Jonathan Van Ness (00:46:32):
Well, because a lot of times if someone says anti-trans bills and anti queerer and anti-drug bills are really on my heart, obviously, because it's like today is trans visibility, trans a visibility, yes, queen. But sometimes we'll think of, someone will say, oh, I don't think that gender affirming care should be available to anyone until they're fully adults, because when you're younger, you don't have this, you're whatever. Whatever their reasons will be. It's like your frontal cortex or kids can't do this and that. So why would you let, but that's taking a whole system, which is healthcare, gender, and you're taking your individual idea of this entire system in which you actually don't know anything because gender affirming care can be your kid wearing the clothes they went. It can be a therapist. It's not always medical. It's not always surgical. It's not always pharmaceutical. It can literally be your kid wearing the clothes they want.
(00:47:33):
It can literally be letting your kid play on the team. It's a whole host of things. It can be using preferred pronouns. It's not always medical, it's not always surgical. But what the right's done is they've convinced everyone that three year olds are going in and getting hysterectomies and fucking boob jobs with their parents not knowing. Yeah, that's what on Fox News. And people are like, oh my God, these kids are making irreversible. So that's how we conflate an individual with a system. And that happens, happens in Black Lives Matter, it happens with police brutality. It happens in anti-trans bills. It happens in abortion. Why is someone so pro-life? A lot of times when especially women turn out to be super pro-life is they take their individual experience, which is, I regretted it forever. If they had a bad experience with, I felt convicted by Jesus, whatever, they were like, I will never let another person make the mistake.
(00:48:22):
So they're taking their individual experience and they're trying to infuse their individual experience into an entire system, which is what you have these Christian politicians that are like, well, I don't want you to burn in the pit, whatever it is. But it, it's always kind of motivated by their individual experience and trying to impart that on a system. And what we were saying before is that it's always been about choice. Yes. And I think that we shouldn't have, should you have the choice to sexually abuse someone or murder someone? No, we're not saying that, but we're saying that we're, as long as you're not imposing on people or hurting, but then I think their kind of argument would be, well, you're hurting kids because you're letting them make irreversible d No, they're not making irreversible decisions. Hormone blockers are in fact, reversible. Hormone blockers are in fact prescribed to cisgender kids and intersex kids every day of the week, all day long.
(00:49:10):
It's already happening. If a little girl who's six experiences precocious puberty and starts to develop breasts early, has an early period, her doctor very often will give her hormone blockers so that she does not start her pub or start puberty and continue her periods until she's 12, 13 when other girls it, that happens all the time. It also happens a lot in athletics. It happens a lot in gymnastics and figure skating, especially in other countries. But it also happens here where little girls will be given puberty blockers, so they don't develop hips and breasts as much when they're in their athletic career. It will happen to little boys if a little boy goes through precocious puberty and he starts, his voice starts to lower. If he starts to get pubes, and as like genitalia grows, they will often prescribe that little boy hormone blockers until the rest of his, the boys in his grade and his cohort start to go through those changes as well, because they might not want him to stick out.
(00:49:58):
He might feel embarrassed or bullied because people are like, oh, you're whatever, developing early. That happens all the time, and they're completely reversible. What does tend to be a bigger issue is if someone is given hormone blockers and then hormone or puberty blockers, then hormones of their desired gender expression too early, that can sometimes have implications, but it's also really not happening. Usually what happens is they'll give a kid puberty blockers. If that kid is still saying when they're, they're 13, 14, 15, 16, I am a woman, I do not want, or I'm a man. Whatever their gender expression is, at that point, they will subside the hormone blockers and then give them or puberty blockers, and then they will give them hormones for their gender expression. But that's not happening when kids are six and seven. They just give them puberty blockers. And same thing with gender reassignment surgeries.
(00:50:50):
They are not happening on children. My cousin is a surgeon at a hospital that does, did gender affirming care. It's been outlawed in that state now, but the youngest top surgery they ever did on someone was 16. And this man had been living life as a boy and a man since they were three. And the hormone blockers were even through hormone blockers, their breasts developed and they had extreme gender dysphoria. And that top surgery 100% saved their life. That kid's like 24 now. And I think 1.7% of people treat detransition. So that means like 98% of people. But 95% of the stories that you hear are about, yeah, it's not reflective of the reality of trans people, but those, that negativity bias goes so much farther than, oh, a lot of trans people are getting healthcare and it's working out really well, and they're not really hurting anybody. Threats and mishaps go way farther. It's like, if I fuck up your fringe, that goes on Yelp way more than if I do a million great fringe trims. Yeah. That's why negative stories tend to go farther. But the systems and individual thing, especially with anti-trans laws and just systems, I think a lot of times we conflate individual, individual experiences on systems, and that creates so much wreckage and so much carnage taking away that choice for people
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Noor Tagouri (00:52:28):
That you just shared language to. Something that I've also just been thinking about a lot too, which is that when it come, the reason or the approach that I take with fighting for choice in every regard is that just in this moment in my life to lead with love, lead in service, and to never impose on others. And if we can just give it's, imagine the world that we would live in if we gave people this space to truly just be themselves. I want to get to know the truest version of you. And so how can I assist or how can I be of service in creating that space for that expression to exist? And I, that's also why even if I feel nervous having these conversations or asking these questions or sharing stories or going on this own exploration with my own self, I also feel so strongly that I need to start it with gratitude because I feel lucky that we get to have this conversation that we get to say these things out loud because not everywhere in the world can you do this,
Jonathan Van Ness (00:53:42):
Which is pretty cool,
Noor Tagouri (00:53:44):
Which I feel really grateful for. I would love to know what is a question that you've been asking yourself these days?
Jonathan Van Ness (00:53:59):
Oh my God, so many. Depends. The minute,
(00:54:06):
It's a lot around, I live in Texas, so much stuff happening in Texas. I kind of personally think that the future of queer rights is in the South because it's actually really interesting. But the majority of queer people live in the South in America. And there's so much, there's so much talk around, oh, well, why don't you just move? That's literally millions of people. Like the amount of queer people in Texas, in Georgia and Florida and Arizona and New Mexico and Tennessee, new Orleans or Louisiana. It's literally millions of people. And I think California, New York, not that the threat to queer liberation is over here, but the state legislatures are not systematically trying to erase the existence of trans people in the way that they are in the south. So I think the future of queer liberation and the future of the queer rights movement is in these spaces.
(00:55:02):
It's in the spaces that, because if you look at where so much of the progress happened, it was in Stonewall, it was in California. It was wasn't these urban centers, but at the time the state legislatures and the federal government were coming for queer people, which is why so much of the progress happened there because that's where the friction happened. So now the friction is much more. In Florida, we have, don't say gay, don't say trans bills. All of those same bills are being debated in Texas right now. And it's not just the South, I mean, we have Iowa, Kentucky is in the South, but I mean a lot of these bills are happening not just in the South, but there's just so many millions of people whose rights are being infringed upon and taken away and suppressed in favor of a Christian Eurocentric, Francis Gaan approach to gender. And that's really being enforced now on everyone.
Noor Tagouri (00:55:49):
Is that part of why you decided to actually plant roots in Texas?
Jonathan Van Ness (00:55:53):
That was more of just, I realized that I was going to probably tend towards a nervous breakdown if I stayed in New York City or la just, I went to Austin for Queer Eye, and then it's so green and it's so calm. And when I moved to New York, I was like, I never want to drive again. I've been in LA for nine years, and I was like, I love public transport and I love just walking everywhere. But then at 10 in the morning when you've taken 75 selfies at 10 in the morning, you're just like, and you're compulsively late. I, I just could not get anywhere. I couldn't get anything done. And 10 minutes early today I did really good, thank God. But in Austin it's just, it's just more relaxed. People don't really expect to see me there. I can kind of exist in a way that's, I still see people and I still interact with people, but it's like, it's kind of nice being in your car cause you're not, you just don't get stopped 50,000 times.
(00:56:43):
And it's just, that's the thing. Texas is actually a really diverse, interesting, cool place. So many of the policies and the issues that you see coming out of Texas aren't really reflective of Texas and the diversity of Texas. But when you have voter suppression and then also you have just a lot of lack of motivation from democratic voters, which is a really other multi-pronged layered issue that is a whole other podcast. But our voter turnout is horrific in Texas and in Florida. But there's a, but that also is not only because of turnout, it's also because of voter suppression, which is linked to racism, which is linked to history. So it's, it's not just to say that there's a lack of enthusiasm and then it's all our fault because it's not, there's, there's layers. Why our turn out is bad. But I do want to be a part of the solution.
(00:57:30):
And that was part of why I was like, Ooh, I can do good work here. I can be part of a change here. I can be a little bit, and also I can be my nervous system in some nature. Ways can be more relaxed. I can have chickens and five cats and three dogs in Austin that I could not do in do in New York or la. So in some ways it's better for my nervous system. In other ways it's more challenging because we're actively being legislated against. And I see all these young people who are looking to me to help me be a part of this solution. So it's duality, it's, but I do really like Austin. It wasn't on my Bingo card, but it ended up being on my bingo card.
Noor Tagouri (00:58:09):
I love that journey for you.
Jonathan Van Ness (00:58:10):
Yeah. It's weird. It's weird.
Noor Tagouri (00:58:11):
So what is the question that you're asking yourself?
Jonathan Van Ness (00:58:15):
Huh? Oh yeah. What is it? Oh, it's like how can I be a part of the change in Texas? How can I, so specific, I love it. How can I be a part of the change in Texas? And then how can that radiate into other parts of the country? Yeah.
Noor Tagouri (00:58:29):
Can you tell me about your own relationship with your hair evolution and where you are now and how you're doing now on your insides?
Jonathan Van Ness (00:58:37):
Yeah.
Noor Tagouri (00:58:37):
How your insides matched your outsides all these years
Jonathan Van Ness (00:58:45):
Yeah. I mean I feel, I don't know. It really is. Can you ask it again?
Noor Tagouri (00:58:57):
Yeah. Just tell me about your own hair evolution from when you were a child, when you had that narrative, when those narratives get embedded into our psyche to what your relationship is within
Jonathan Van Ness (00:59:10):
Yes. Really good question. So a lot of my or hair journey comes from education. Yes, I have really curly hair. I never knew how to style it Growing up. Growing up, if look at any pictures of me, it's just so much gel right in this part of my hair. And then nowhere else, I always wanted long hair, but never, that was another gender thing. In college, I was a cheerleader. Boys couldn't have long hair on the cheer squad. There was always a reason why I had to cut my hair off. I hated it. And so the second that I could grow my hair long, I did, which was in my early twenties. And so that always was something that I wanted. And it does, it just was part of it also came from the fact that I knew that everyone in my family loses their hair.
(00:59:49):
And I was like, I want to have long hair to experience it and try it and have long hair for fun. And then I realized that I really loved it. And in my twenties I had hair down to my elbows, such long hair. And then I've been having a little bit more fun chopping it up, making a little shorter. Just I've been into a chin to collarbone moment for the last few years, not wanting it so long. But for me, I feel like when my hair wasn't fun, cause I didn't know how to do it, then I learned how to style hair. Then I was like, oh my God, this is so fun. So I feel like really, when people don't think that their hair is fun, or when I didn't think my hair was fun, it's because I had a lack of education, a lack of, I didn't know how to work it.
(01:00:29):
So I feel like knowing how to play with your hair and knowing how to style it. And then also having the time to do so. I learned how to style other people's hair starting in 2005. And I don't think I really got good at doing my own hair until 2010 or 11. Really. It took me six years to figure out. And that was literally being in the salon all the time and styling other people's hair. But it's harder if I could've cut my head off and done my hair on in the chair. Yeah. Then yeah. But it's harder. Figure out how to do the back and how to takes a while and you're always evolving, getting better. And I've gotten better and better and better.
Noor Tagouri (01:01:04):
I watched every single video on JVN hair on the YouTube page
Jonathan Van Ness (01:01:07):
That's my whole years of, that's my whole career of education. I know. Trying to figure out how to get on there. And I also know it's something like sidebar that I'm really frustrated with. Yeah. Tell me just Jared, our YouTube director, who I love so much, but he's always, what's a quick sound bite? What if someone just doesn't have a lot of time? It's you think this shit happens because you had five seconds. No one that gets good at their hair got a one five second sound bite and then fucking figured it out. And I also think we need to stop selling ourselves short on what our attention span is. If you look at my podcast, I think we shouldn't diagnose people from afar, but I think it's pretty safe to say, I have a bitch in case of adhd, if my ass can stay and learn and go away from a subject and then come back to a subject and the stories that we tell ourselves become more ingrained in your brain, the more that you say this.
(01:02:02):
So this idea that the average American has a short attention span that I really think came from lazy advertising execs that were like, fuck, I don't want to have to make something that's engaging for 45 seconds. Let's just say that they can't do it. That's not true. You think that people learn to be doctors and people learn to be experts because they have 15 second attention. No, your hair is art, it's science. It's fucking hard. If it was easy, everyone would do it. But you are able to learn. You gain new skills just like you are in anything able to do. I
Noor Tagouri (01:02:32):
I feel like you're telling me this into my soul
Jonathan Van Ness (01:02:34):
But you know, it's just so true. We are able to learn, we to change. You can in fact pay attention for more than 15 seconds. And I think that we need to start challenging ourselves to st If easy fixes existed,
Noor Tagouri (01:02:46):
Yeah.
Jonathan Van Ness (01:02:48):
Why the fuck are we here right now? Yeah, this shit just keeps getting harder. So you do got to sit down and slow down long enough. Because if you want something, you got to fucking take your goddamn time to learn about it. I really want to learn how to make jewelry right now. And then when I go how to start, I'm like, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown. Yeah. Because it's fucking hard. Of course. Can you tell me how to make great, listen to how stupid this sounds. Tell me in 15 seconds how to make really great jewelry. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So people say, what's one quick tip for G? I'm like, fuck off with these stupid questions. Ask more of yourself. Let's stop selling ourselves short. Let's ask more of ourselves as far as what our capabilities are. Cause I actually do think that we have an ability to understand and comprehend so much more than what we've been sold.
Noor Tagouri (01:03:37):
I felt that in this entire conversation. I felt you speaking directly to me as someone who's just been trying to figure out how to, I haven't done my hair in 15 years. I haven't really done anything with which means it's incredibly healthy
Jonathan Van Ness (01:03:52):
So healthy.
Noor Tagouri (01:03:53):
And also the other day when I was trying, I was cry and I was like, wait,
Jonathan Van Ness (01:03:58):
Which is so normal
Noor Tagouri (01:04:00):
Bad hair day? This is what that means.
Jonathan Van Ness (01:04:02):
Yeah.
Noor Tagouri (01:04:02):
Oh, okay. Cool. Goes back to JVN and hair videos,
and this is kind of why I'm bringing it back to this full circle moment of, but
Jonathan Van Ness (01:06:07):
That's the system. Exactly. That's why I brought that up thing that
Noor Tagouri (01:06:10):
Was so personal. That's supposed to be so personal, become so publicized and so politicized. And why is it so hard? And this is really hard for me too, because for a lot of years I did talk about it. I did talk about the hijab and I did talk about representation in it, and I still believe in talking about representation. And also I want to give myself the space to be able to figure out who I am out.
Jonathan Van Ness (01:06:37):
So you're going to have to remove yourself from that idea of the system.
Noor Tagouri (01:06:41):
Yeah. This, it's
Jonathan Van Ness (01:06:43):
So hard because Noor, you as an individual, you get to have that exploration. And then I think as a public figure, we get, and I've been struggling with this a lot too, you're always going to be something to somebody when you're in the public, either too much or not enough or not doing it, or you should be doing this, you should be doing something else with your platform. I really like what you're doing in your platform. Someone's always going to come somewhere with it. And do you feel that a lot? Oh, of course. And that's the system. It's like how do your actions impact a system? So do you want to be worried about that or because binary, again, it's not a black and white thing, but maybe recently you've been, it's been more 50 50, maybe there's your 50%. What do people think about me? How's this going to impact the system? And the other 50% is maybe what does this mean to me individually? So maybe right now in this season in your life, it's more of, you know what I think I want to be 90% Noor right now and 10% of that. Yeah. Because we always need to be aware of both. I'm not going to go on my, and
Noor Tagouri (01:07:42):
It's all true. That's the thing is, and this is what's so hard about it too, is it's all the truth and it's all from this place of deeply truly caring about all of this. And I think that that's the thing that, the part of the system that we have to just sometimes put to the side because of social media and because of the internet, because of media in general and the way people are perceived and reduced to these two-dimensional figures and not full human beings who are going on this evolution. It's funny because I posted a photo in my beanie and my hair was out and I got so much, it was not great, but I hate those. But there are a lot of people who don't cover their hair and who are messaging me. And they're like, I'm saying this in the nice version of it. But basically it was like, I believe in choice and everything, but if you have built your career off of this, then basically you don't get a choice. And I was just like, but that completely defeats the purpose because all I've been saying all these years is that I, I've literally in Paris on a French television show, where was, they had never had
Jonathan Van Ness (01:08:58):
A girl. They standby though. Cause I already know what you're going to say. But this is a really important, this is really, you get to be who you are. You get to be who you are. You get to be who you are. You've gone into rural spaces in this country that were so fucking Islamophobic. And literally you are one of the bravest people I know. You are one of the bravest people that I know. And you have to give yourself, give yourself some grace because you are a literal Muslim woman in the public eye who's maybe one of what five hijabi wearing women in the country who's a super public facing figure. You can't really name five other of you that are where you are in your career. So the amount of pressure of your individual that's getting transposed on this system right now is so intense.
(01:09:49):
And so backing off a little bit even on yourself, on being on this exploration and being on this journey, you need to be on that exploration, that journey. Not whatever I al, I almost like what Aoke told me once, and I have had my dms off ever since I turned the fuck off of my dms. You don't get access to me like that because it's too much. The feedback. And people who don't know your heart, people that don't know your whole story, there will be people in your Instagram that may see that picture that you posted and they don't know that you went to fucking Iowa and Texas and were speaking in schools. They don't know that you were in France fighting for women to be, I mean the Islamophobia in France, I mean they passed a fucking law that says that women cannot wear niqab, cannot wear hijab, cannot self-express.
(01:10:32):
Like you haven't. You have not built your career off the hijab. You've built your career off of advocacy and being who you are and being of service. So even having someone take away your narrative is so being able to recognize what that is and then taking a little bit off of the fastball and then creating some boundaries. You need some boundaries. Turn the dms off. They can't have access, especially when you're in this vulnerable journey of deciding how you want, what you want to do. But it is kind of reminding me of, I've been having this talk with myself too. I am an example of a non-binary trans person in the public eye when there is oppression happening against a community and you are one of those communities and you're also thriving and you'll be under more scrutiny because of misogyny and because we're both femme, there could be a Muslim man or a gay man that could say all the things that we say and have all the success that we have, and they're not going to have any of the scrutiny.
(01:11:35):
I know they're allowed to do it. They're allowed to say it and they don't have to explain. And that's actually why I cut you off because I was like, oh, you're explaining yourself and you don't have to explain yourself. You do not have to explain yourself and the voice in you that says, oh, I need to explain why I'm on this personal journey and why maybe want to don't. That's literally the patriarchy that is you reacting to. Yeah. And that's all patriarchy that people learn when they were little. So giving them the compassion for when they're judging you and stuff, not your business. And it's a lot easier said than done what people, but I used to be addicted when we were figure skating and gymnastics all the time, I was going through such this phase of, I used to name search myself on Twitter.
(01:12:14):
Yeah. I deleted Twi like, oh my God, I can't name search myself on Twitter. I can't read, I can't be in these comments like that. I will cuss people out in my comments at least once a week. I don't know how Luke does that whole benevolent, this isn't a locus can read someone with so much love and kindness. Have you ever read a Luke comments when someone will say something horribly transphobic and then a local will be like, this is not about me. This is your own pain and I want to be a loving cheerleader for you. So mom does that for me. Whereas I will be like,I want you to rip out your innard. I am not benevolent to trolls like that.
(01:12:49):
It really gets into my egoic pain place, which is not good. I got to not read these comments, honey. So you just got to keep on your path not to give you such hardcore advice, but literally this is because it is a thing. I've just seen a level of anxiety and pain in your eyes that I've never seen, which tells me that you're a nervous system is taxed. It tells me that you're window of tolerance. Do you know a window of tolerance is normally, we live in our, if this is your bottom and this is your top, normally you live in here, but because of the persecution of women is Islamophobia, what's going on in Iran, the fact that you're a public facing figure, you're probably not living in this part of your window of tolerance. You're probably living right here, right next to the top. So when something happens, you can spike above your window of tolerance. And so it just feels like a lot more, and that's the pressure that I'm alluding to of if you could, it's hard to divorce yourself from everything that's going on in the world, but also giving yourself enough space to be your own human and express your own humanity and your own journey. Because maybe it's, you want to not wear and then you want to put it, I don't know. I can't tell you what you want to be.
Noor Tagouri (01:13:55):
It's also why I keep coming back to this thought of maybe the radical thing to do also when you're talking about see or explaining yourself. Again, I try to be conscious of that. And even then I didn't catch it. And what I keep coming back to, maybe the radical thing to do is to not feel like I have to explain this or to talk about it until I'm ready. And I've processed it and I've gone through it. Because when I did first start covering my hair when I was 15, it was very shortly after that, I kind of just got thrown into more of this public space and that a lot of that carried me because I was surrounded by so much positivity and support and stuff. And so it helped me cultivate this beautiful relationship that I have with the hijab. And now also I'm just like, oh, maybe this is the opportunity where I can actually go on this journey and show myself what it looks like for this to be something personal.
(01:15:01):
This we talk about so much how the choice to cover, not to cover is so personal, but what does that look like in practice? And so maybe this is the radical thing to do, is to actually not feel like I have to explain every step of the way and I can have these intimate conversations with a close friend of mine. And this can be the extent of what I feel like I want to share until I feel ready to do so further when it is time. But I know that the last several months have been extremely challenging on just my spirit and my insides with all of this. But I also, sometimes in the moments of this, I know that I will look back at this fondly and I know I'll be grateful for this because this has is all made me feel stronger. And I have to, even as we're having these conversations and as things are being said between us, I keep thinking there's a buzzing almost in my head of like, oh my gosh, is somebody going to cut this?
(01:16:02):
Take this out of context, do whatever, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff and say this. And I'm just like, no, you know what? The entire story is right here. If you choose to listen to the whole thing, if you choose to give yourself the full context of the conversation and after you listen to the conversation, if you realize that even in this, it's just a tiny little snippet of a bigger, larger journey. And the reason we're sharing this so that you can go and so that a listener can go and scrutinize and pick it apart so that maybe it made you uncomfortable, maybe it inspired some questions in you. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe. But it's because I really do believe that telling the truth on yourself is a form of service. And if we can continue to be open and we can continue to show people what it looks like to ask these questions out loud and to give ourselves and each other grace to show up as exactly who you are, then maybe people will be able to honor themselves in that way.
(01:17:02):
Because those same people who are saying whatever they're saying to us, my mom taught me this a long time ago about reframing that, and that's why I was like, she's in my comments, quote, killing people with kindness. But it's like, it's people When somebody, any judgment, any judgment you make on another person is a judgment on yourself. And it really is a reflection of how you feel about yourself. And so I think, yeah, I, I am so in the thick of it all and I'm so grateful to have had this conversation with you and I'm grateful for you cutting me off the way that you did because I needed that.
Jonathan Van Ness (01:17:40):
I didn't mean to No, but I love you.
Noor Tagouri (01:17:42):
No, I love you and I really do. I appreciate it.
Jonathan Van Ness (01:17:46):
You know what my therapist says, Noor, tell me. She says that you don't like, I mean, I'm sure you heard this, but you don't grow when you're comfortable. You really grow in your relationships with people and yourself when you have a disruption in your relationship. So you're going through a growth moment and you're actually growing in your relationship with yourself, which is gorgeous and fun and exciting. And it is like, it's how we started the podcast. You're watch Adventure Adventures of Noor in your spirit, and I love that for you.
Noor Tagouri (01:18:11):
I was like, do I keep that story in this episode? Is that, are we coming back to that raw story
Jonathan Van Ness (01:18:17):
It's cute and I love it. And I love you and thanks for having me.
Noor Tagouri (01:18:19):
Thank you so much. We end our conversations with, you can fill in the blank with one, two, or three statements, but if you really knew me, you would know
Jonathan Van Ness (01:18:31):
That figure skating and gymnastics are the best sports.
Noor Tagouri (01:18:37):
We know that.
Jonathan Van Ness (01:18:38):
Yeah. That's the first. Yeah, that.
Noor Tagouri (01:18:41):
Tell me another one.
Jonathan Van Ness (01:18:42):
Cause I knew that. Oh, oh, okay. You really knew me. I really knew me. You
Noor Tagouri (01:18:47):
Would know
Jonathan Van Ness (01:18:52):
That binaries are bad. The binaries are not, or the, which is a binary to itself, that binaries are to be scrutinized. If you really knew me, the binaries would be scrutinized. And if you really knew me, you would know that off year elections are off year. Election cycles are often the most important years for us to make inroads with people, which is actually the hardest time because there's so much icky legislation right now. So this is actually the time to pedal your bike towards a solution.
Noor Tagouri (01:19:28):
Those weren't really about you, but they are about what you stand for and your message. And
Jonathan Van Ness (01:19:33):
You knew I love anything.
Noor Tagouri (01:19:34):
You really knew me. If you really knew Jonathan, you would also know that Jonathan is in his gardening era
Jonathan Van Ness (01:19:41):
Yeah. In my gardening era. And I don't know, I feel like I've, like when you've written a book about your survival of sex abuse work, like being a sex worker, being HIV positive, it's like hard to do a surprising, I've been such an open book.
Noor Tagouri (01:20:04):
I want to know what your favorite part of gardening has been, because I saw
Jonathan Van Ness (01:20:08):
Pumpkins. You mentioned I love pumpkins. It's my favorite.
Noor Tagouri (01:20:12):
You've been growing
Jonathan Van Ness (01:20:12):
Pumpkins. Yeah. I love, really not this season yet, obviously, but the last three years, and I really love pumpkins.
Noor Tagouri (01:20:19):
Jonathan Van Ness, y'all, a gardener, a wrtier
Jonathan Van Ness (01:20:22):
Pumpkin mother.
Noor Tagouri (01:20:25):
Pumpkin mother, cat, mother,
Jonathan Van Ness (01:20:26):
Cat, mom, mother. Now it's true.
Noor Tagouri (01:20:27):
And a hair stylist
Jonathan Van Ness (01:20:29):
Sometimes. And a hot slut. I love you. I love you too. I'm so proud of you.
OUTRO:
PODCAST NOOR IS AN AYS PRODUCTION.
PRODUCERS INCLUDE, MYSELF, ADAM KHAFIF, SARAH ESSA.
EDITING, MIXING AND MASTERING BY BAHEED FRAIZER.
Theme music by Portugal The Man, the song is called Thunderdome, Welcome to America, featuring Black Thought…check it out!
EXTRA GRATITUDE AND THANKS TO OUR STORYTELLER JONATHAN VAN NESS.. MAKE SURE YOU CHECK OUT THEIR PODCAST GETTING CURIOUS, AND CATCH THEM ON NETFLIX’S QUEER EYE.
AND AS ALWAYS, AT YOUR SERVICE.