interview on her website, booktv.org. just click on the afterwards tab near the top of the page to find this and all previous interviews. here are some of the current best-selling nonfiction books according to the boston globe per-unit topping the list in the first volume of the presidential memoir, a promised land. former president barack obama reflects on his life and political career. ... ... the best of me, a collection of stories and essays by author and humorist, david sedaris.

>> good evening, my name is connor moran and i'm delighted to be here tonight for our eighth event of the fall celebration, normally this would be the 9:00 little bit more laid back, i unbutton my top button for this keen of event but we dying lighted to host jacob tobia of their coming of age gender memoir, sissy. long-time coming weapon booked this event in february when we thought we could be here in person. thank you. we are also joined by -- oh, very good as well. by a local transactivist and -- thank you for being here. as always i want to thank maddison public library and the library foundation. their support of free cultural

events for the past eight years and particularly over the past eight months has been intensely unwaiverring and i can't think them -- unwavering and i can't thank them enough for bringing these great opportunities to us here and across the country. so thank you to them. i'm going to let them take the conversation away and i'll see you at the end. >> yay. >> thank you, conor. i'm here we jacob tobia who wrote policiesy "obviously. and then a little housekeeping or housekeeping and then introduction. jacob will read and then we'll have some questions and we'll open it up for you questions. so if you have questions type them in the chat and there's a question function somewhere near the bottom of your screen.

yeah. so, housekeeping roll rules. we use they so if you refer either of us please use correct pronounces. jacob is act octoberor, writer, producer and awe or of the' memo sisi and helps others embrace they're gender. jacob recently made the acting debut as a nonbinary character double trouble. originally from recall league north carolina he lives in los angeles but north carolina because covid. >> oh, yes. >> so glad to have you here and excited to hear you read. so thank you for being here.

>> i am so stoked to be virtually with everyone in madison and wisconsin, the great state of wisconsin. i'm sad to not be there in person because my best friend from growing up who is in the book quite a bit, page. >> paige? >> yes, paige, paige lives in milwaukee. >> oh. >> i've visited milwaukee so many times and i wanted to stumble on whatever stage or podium or whatever physically for this book city festival. i intended to stump bell to that podium like pretty beer drunk and definitely in a cheese coma. that was my plan, and not all dreams come true. >> not everything is fair. >> we're in this dystopia digital void together but i think we can make them people intimate and cute and sparkly if

we try. so i'm so happy to be here with y'all and get a chance to share with everybody, and i'll read -- because i was trying to figure out what i warranted to read from the book and i defended it was national coming out day recently, which for me, i know that national coming out day hold as lot of deep emotional signaturans for a lot of people. to me national coming out day now just kind of feels look the national obligatorily post on instagram something about coming out day, and it's sort of -- has a certain triteness to me i get grumpy about because is feel like coming out is something we need to addressing and untangling and unpacking which whether it still has utility. so in the interests of that i'm reading from the top of chapter 4. if you have a copy, a-plus, overachiever, proud of you, page 101 to read along. aim a big believer doing this

librarian style because kindergarten library yap is my second career. so we'll start from there. >> for qu ree r and trans people lifeness class set can be nasty. not just the experience of with holing your life, living a half truth and navigate the world as someone else that's traumatic, it's the weh-weh talk but the period of our lives, using the melt fa fors we use, as a kid i didn't pause for a moment to think whether the metaphor of, quote, the closet work for me. just cook the closet as a shameful granted part of my reality. so what is obvious to me now as an adult is that this metaphor doesn't alounge young quee are people to have empathy for yourselves. i'm come to loathe the idea of coming out of the closet. something but the nature that rubs me the wrong way and thanks

to many qur theory classes and others i'm starting to imagine other narrative possibilities. inof the closet i want to propose faulk but qe r and trans people come out of our shelfs. wire like garden snails. we love in flowers and we are slimy and understand the power of proper lubrication and a shiny glittering trail wherever we go, and did you know most snails are gender neutral and play both male and fee mole roles and many snails change gender throughout their lives. more importantly, when you make a snail feel like it's in danger it will go in itself shell. protect itself. no longer be able to see its gorgeous glistening alien-like boy. only a hard shell of its former self. when a person hides in the closet we act as if it is their

responsibility to come out. when a snail hides in its shell we don't delegate responsibility the same way am snail only hides because the world i'd feels hostile and if a snail recoils at the saying of you it's not because the still in is cowardly or lying or deviant or were holding, it's because you scared. when qur hide or identities it's because the world and people around us felt predator because someone squared it intentionally or unintentionally, and we are trying to protect ourselves, like snails, we, too are defensive. awful this is to say that the metaphors we use to talk about queer and transexperience matter. the closet is a metaphor that sets us to feel like we're dishonest or immoral for conceal can ourities and our lack of courage that is to blame. the closet has cold my life and how i thought about myself,

making me feel ashamed for hiding my identity from the world and the people around me. the pressure to comp out weighed on my constantly. according to what i'd been taught on tv and in books coming out of the closet was my responsibility, my responsibility to open up that door and step bravely into the light. i was my responsibility to correct what the world had assumed about me. that i was straight, boy, this gender. i owed it to them to be honest, not the other way around. >> nobody has to come out, like, we shouldn't have to come out. eight not our responsibility. and yet i guess i was wondering if you could tell us more but

yourself, coming out in general and anything like that. >> yeah. well, part of the reason why i felt i had to write this book in the first place is because i just get so exhausted with the reducktive ways i had -- i was obligated to tell my story in mainstream media and narrative. i feel like for year is wrote the, like, thousand to 1500 word, i'm nonbinary and here's how i found my power essay and in that there's tropes that are just so hard to get away from because you only have so many words to sit with people. only have so much time and space and for me, i wanted to really take a moment to unpack in this work both how important the idea of coming out was to me, and

then how unimportant it became, because without -- just doing the latter i think it kind of -- you only get half the weight of the thing. it's important to share how earnestly i felt that coming out was this moral challenge for me. felt like my gauntlet. like the crucible that my identity needed to make it through in order to be real. and then on the back end, as my -- the idea of myself as a gay man really kind of started to disintegrate and i began to realize that's not covering everything. that's not the whole story here, folks. as that process began, all of a sudden the sort of transness of the thing undyed the coming out -- undyed the coming out story and the idea of it. because there is a point for me -- and i say this later in at the book and almost read this part but is ath it's long to do in the raeing so you can read it

for yourself in the book. but there is a way in which my -- it became irrelevant to come out because i didn't do it -- i did it in reverse after i came out as gay. i knew myself as a gay person for years before i was like, okay, i'm gay. and then shared that with the world and then i that really fucking suckses. exploring how i was, was a table way to do it settling on the language to encapsulate who i am without being able to test that without lived experience is not a good way so with hi gender exploration i was fu uck that it and would have been silly to come out as nonbinary because by the time i would have done that, by the time i had languaged my identity in that way, people would have been, like, well, i mean, yes, darling, you're tells

us you're nonbinary and also in lipstick and a dress, so we kind of figured. you know what i mean? i think there's all these ways in which there's these, like, so much complication we don't give ourselves space for with that classic narrative so i'm done with it. jukes i sport you. totally hear you. i feel like they're something powerful about people coming out, turning something that has been secretive being public and that's something that has been private which has so much shame than secrecy. but i think we should be able to do whatever we want and not have to tell people and update them every five muchs. >> or just change the branding, switch from national coming out day to national correct can your stupid -- like, divinorumtive, heteronormative, erroneous and

ridiculous assumptions who i am day. >> area. >> year. >> a national holiday that spans the rest of eternity. >> the century of correcting your assumptions. welcome. >> speaking of gender, i wonder what is bringing you joy in your gender these day? i know that quarantine changed how people are working with their gender because people's lives have totally changed. have not be as public, may have more time at home, try on new things. what is bring you'll joy in your life right now? >> i think right now what is really bringing me joy is getting in touch with just really the bliss of taking fully queer -- and i was sort of

like -- is that really the answer? and it's like,ey, it very much is. i posted my first, like, lewds on my instagram for the fire if and if you north familiar, ludes are newed-like. they're not official nudes. they're like a post without getting censored dependinging on your body continue. the instagram ruled are not fair. i posted my first lude and posting my about tu on the internet, and it just felt so powerful and it was a photo where i was just on a beach, so i didn't have any trappings of femininity on me. and that part of why i felt so powerful. i spend all this time talking about how there is no such thing as a feminine -- inherently

feminine body. nothing wrong with the fact i have hair follicles on my chest, they're kind of trimmed because i had to be an judge news put i have air follicles on my face and body and i'm flat chested but have breasted but they're pretty flat but i have this body and consider it to be worthy of femininity any and consider it to be worthy of a type of womanhood and a nonbinary bliss and something about putting my body with nothing on it no liptak no nail polish and nothing and it's here and i don't have to keep performing the kind of femininity and performing this kind of gender understanding in order for just my body itself to be enough and to be the testament. i was like literally this just came from posting pics on the

beach. it went into, i'm deeply addressing my -- addressing this kind of dysphoria that is really interesting and nuanced and i'm really working on my dismore ya, ya -- superb shoutout to our guest performer, luna. we love luna and -- thank you, luna. she is a hero. >> talking about me getting rid of her and jacob was like, let her statement i'm not totally unprofessional. >> we love her. >> this is -- i'm so sorry. >> that's the queeringest thing we could do on this talk. i'm sorry i need to shake her for a second and we're like -- we'll talk beaut the rest of it. >> talk about your healing view ya ludes.

there's something but just, like, putting my ass on the internet that helped me feel better about it. and just kind of -- and so ever since i've -- like today i just was like i don't -- i'm struggling to fine inventive new by as to encourage people to vote. i feel like just posting another selfie, vote, is like just -- duh. i'm a combo of sweaty bathroom pics and my little -- your mail union ballot has been accepted beyoud of elections and took my undy and hick up my dress with my leg on the counter pic and what is really sexing? voting. what turns me on, is fighting fascism by a broad democratic process and i was just like -- i just have felt overcome with a

kind of internet performance that has brought in the a lot of bliss and helped me be in my body, but easy to lose track of. that's a long ass answer but there it is. >> i love that answer and i'm really grateful for it. i feel like i don't -- this is so hard because we don't get to see anybody's faces or demographics of folks in here but i did invite some young queer folks and young trans people to this event and something i wish i would have learned much, much earlier is that without anything on your body you're still completely trans and you don't need anything and that's -- i feel like i didn't bring that until very recently. any tiny queer babies in here, a., we love you, and, b., that. >> this is maybe a weird metaphor -- not for me but other people -- i grew up in the --

and there are days really like to think of trans experience as more of a spiritual practice than anything else, courageous way of not necessary live it's not like a theology per se but a sort of courageous practice of proclaiming the truth of gender to the world. and of saying i'm going to live in that truth and going to live in the fact that general kerr is complicate -- gender is complicated and variant and beautiful and gender is not reducible to the hegemony. it's like a daily practice. it's not just kind of a one-off thing, not just something i reckoned with and i'm done. it's practice i'll keep going for my whole life put in the same way that you don't lose your faith because you take off a cross necklace or whatever. you don't lose your transness because you take off your makeup or lose your transness because

you take off your binder. you get to keep is because it's deeper than a physical manifestation, it's spirit to all and ex-stenshall and profound that lives in your heart and brain and then your body and then in all of the wonderful ways that you adorn it. >> thank you. >> let's to the stuff. >> throw stuff. >> who said that? >> luna. >> luna says fuck the police, okay? >> in like every language. >> please actually stop raiding homes and shooting us. >> what if you stop? >> right. what if we abolish you, that would be so nice but that's a whole other topic. >> but also not.

talking but queer liberation and trans liberation, abolishing the please -- >> let's check this shit. so when i had to figure out what caption to write for my lude, i was trying to figure out -- for the beach one, i was trying to figure out what -- why they felt so anythingant to me, why is being naked on a beach in the outer banks in north carolina like alone with no one else around to get news trouble? why did it feel so meaningful to me and what i realized i was like it's because it's all -- it's like it's because i'm not worried about my body, my gender being policed or my body being policed. it's like we found this magical little strip of beach where there was no one else but us and we could be fully present in our bodies without the threat of state violence. we could be just naked in a way that, like, we didn't have to

worry about having the law use to criminalize us living in our body. and that was actually a really powerful moment for me of, like, what an abolitionist world can look like, what the freedom and the joy that comes with abolition, abolition isn't just fighting against something. it's fighting for joy it's fighting for a world with -- where we are free and joyful and live in our power and live in care for one another. it's so much more than just trying to get rid of police and of prisons, and it's so much more about bringing care and community and safety back in to roost in our own homes and our own neighborhoods, with -- and radical ways that protect everyone, and help everyone live in their joy. and so there's a way in which i had this moment where i was like, wow, i feel really

connected to my body also because the state isn't mitigating it right now. the nearest cop who knows how close they are. >> yeah. yeah. >> that was really powerful to be like i'm miles and miles and miles away from a police officer. in fact they might have just been on the other side of the san dune but they'll never drive over them because that's illegal and it's a state park. it's a protected area. >> i feel like those moments of near utopia when i feel so in my body and feel so fulfill of gratitude and feels like this moment of complete presence and then there's something about really startling and frightening and horrific but coming back the world and realizing access and how frequently to moments like that where i they are policed and -- yeah, i really appreciate your saying that. >> and also that, like, as significant contributing factor

to my access to that freedom and that moment was -- it was still bound be the fact if war navigating the north carolina out are banks was a black question are person my experience would have been radically different. there's still possibility of course, always possibility. always potential for joy, but it's a different -- it's a different experience altogether. being a white passing arab in that moment came with something else. and came with a kind of protection and ability to blend in quote are cone or be removed from violence to get to the place where i could feel flee which is the paradox of escaping to nature narrative. in order to escape to nature you have to navigate through communities that are extremely hostile to different people of different -- but especially in the united states, hostile to people of color. even that, i'm like, damn, we can't even have that.

>> yeah. we're going into it tonight. >> if you're sleeping better in day, just say what shit is. >> i was wondering how we would get to this conversation and i'm so grateful it happened. >> i was like, we're not even -- this is just going to go. we would not be tired. >> you are a leo, right? >> yes. tragically. >> i was -- i could probably ask one question on that and just you could talk for an hour. was also not worried about the process. that was one a compliment. >> i -- being a leo, if it brings other people joy i can hold that but i hold it for me itself is a little bit of an insufferable and excruciating

experience. >> we have some questions. oh, okay. somebody said, from -- i'm a question are middle schooler in a small town and wondering if you have advice for a baby nb. we love you. >> should we both tackle this one. >> oh, my god. >> i can go first if you want. if you have things to weigh in with we both have things to share in this record. >> yeah, you go. go, go. >> well, so, the thing is i don't like -- there is a peppy answer that is kind of the one where you pave over all the bogs and pretend that -- and sort of just give the neoliberal polite one. just be yourself and everything will be great, noah, which i don't do that because i don't want to bull shit you. want to actually have it a real answer for that. and for me the thing i would say

about navigating the world as a youngin' b person, as a young trans person, is that your safety and your bodily autonomy and emotional health matter and are worth protecting, and that you don't owe sacrificing those to number. mean that i know that i especially in my younger life but still today, feel this pressure that i have to do things on behalf of the community. i have to take risks, do things that make me feel unsafe on behalf of the community and i owe it to other people and order to be a good trans person or a radical nd, i have to do -- i have to take on this moment or yell aft that person who cat calls me or wear a dress even though i'm scared to one one today. feels hard to get out of the hose. there are moments and negotiations you make, and what i have had to learn to do is

that it's so important to release yourself from that burden. , that you have to be the one to educate everyone around you, prove something to everyone around you, and that you have to play that role at all times because that's exhausting, not sustainable and going to be difficult when legally you don't even have full autonomy yet. so i would say i really want to make sure that yaw -- in whatever step outside take toward your joy, and toward your liberation and your power take whatever risks feel good for you and if there's a moment where you don't if you're ready no take the risk it's okay not to take it. you're not failing anybody or lefting anyone down. we are all still really proud of you and still so happy you exist, and just because you don't take a risk right now in your younger life develops not mean you forfeit the right to take that risk enough day thereafter. it's a long -- life is a

marathon. you don't have to sprint this thing. unless you really pan to sprint in which case, go. but i'm a spin spindly quine. i did long distance in high school because i'm not built to sprint. theft kind of what i would say for now. but i'll turn it over to you. >> um, while you're incredible and i just -- i'm so proud of you, i am just astonished at young people who come out when they're seven or eight or middle school or -- even in high school, i didn't come out until i was like 20, and i was like gay, and then -- i'm still kind of coming out as trans to everybody. i'm just like astonished how well you know yourself and how brave you are, and i think --

what i want to tell you -- and this might sound silly -- if you don't have books that reflect nonbinary and trans characters, let me help you fine some or let whoever help you fine some. i feel like not being able to see myself reflected in tv and movies and books until i was much, much older in life, was just harmful and i feel like there's a lot of growth and, like, i think there's still a lot of stuff that could happen if there had been more representation and if the -- the representation i had was horrific and traumatic. the first time -- i didn't know that trans people xi evidence until i say boys don't cry and i

thought was just a movie. i was just on tv one day and to have this moment where i was just the whole world stood still that i would like, wait there are other people out here who have the same exact experience. is this blowing my mind and then the person gets killed. so to have that happen-that what traumatic, and i feel just like stocking up on positive or just varied trans and queer representations could be help inflame allowing yourself to feel as possible as you are now, now and moving forward. you rule. and i think you're doing everything right. so, yeah. >> that last part, the other thing i just think is really important to name is you don't

ever need an author's consent to read their character as nonbinary, question are or trans. >> yes! >> if you know -- if gandolf seems like maybe she is a trans woman to you, read it like that. if you want to read this and this is a trans masculine journey, it's cool, sure. read whatever you've need to into something to feel -- you don't need an author's consent. that's the gamble you take when you've write one, people can read it how they'd like. >> i feel like taking off of that there can be something causing about have 0ing to do that. you're everything like that moment where everything -- [inaudible] -- touches you have position to be queer and also it can be exhausting and to be hypervigilant all the time like that.

just so many white authors writing beautiful trans queer stories. do you think you'll ever write a novel? >> i think about it but when i think but magic issue just think about the heart -- well, for me when i think bit ya i don't wouldn't to write a grounded ya novel. i get that exists but i just don't think that's for me. think but magic and i think that fantasy when i think but writing something in ya or sci-fi and then i just think but the heartbreak of me having to be, like -- when does magic enter my life? what -- when tie get telekinesis for real. when die get so mad he blow up something in my mild. one of my bots are the secret group of transwitches that live in the woods in my backyard this

whole time. there's a lot of heartbreak that you have to navigate and revolting youth and adolescence is something that a lot to do. but i am working on creating, like -- for me when i think about -- i think ya is a genre where i see people doing such good work already and some of the consideration i make -- i could sit here and pretend i'm a true artist who feels called to do exactly the medium they're called to do and it's pure in their intention but in reality, part of what i think about when i think about where to channel my artistic energy and where to go next is where are there holes i can fell. where are cranies -- >> there are children here. >> nooks or crappies -- i meant it as a -- nooks or cranny is,

where the work isn't being done and needs to be. when i think about representations of outcome people i feel like ya is a genre for years, too very long time has had incredible queer voices and trans voices with space and doing the work and it's such a entails that is just filled already and n the best way. with abundance, cornucopia, and when i think about representations of queer and transpeople in the television equivalent of ya, when i think but representation of question are and trans people in high school and him in and tv it's like trash. it's just a garbage fire. so little and when it's there it's so caricatured so unwrought or underwrought but never probably wrought and there's so much work to be done and that's one thing i'm working on now.

i'm channeling that energy to ya energy, into the screen writhing practice and what would it mean for me to create a show that, a., just has a trans person as the main character of a show that occurs in high school. it's not a side character, not a best friend, not the gay person who happens to be president of the drama club and is sassy or whatever. but it's actually centered on the trans girl, her story, and then everyone elves is peripheral to her instead of the other way around, and i might have maybe made some big strides toward that, but they're not strides i'm allowed to talk about publicly yet and i hate to be that girl and also love to be her. so i'm so sorry but also -- and all of y'all know, when i can let you know, might just be the things that didn't happen but tv development takes it years and is always a crapshoot.

>> and then there's the pandemic. >> right. >> not helping. >> not helping. >> i don't even know what to say. this is amazing. thank you beth so much. >> i don't know what to say. since we're not in person. maybe it was easier to access is because we weren't in person, but still -- >> a hug. maybe there's a hug in the future. >> or high five or elbow bump. a little bump. >> yes. >> i love the little bump. i love the elbow bump. >> i have a lot of questions that we could go into. i remember when we talked earlier you talked but how writing the memoir was like easily the most healing thing you have done for yourself and releasing it into the world and going into publishing with the

most harmel thing you had to do and can you talk more about that and/or how is screen screen writing different or similar. >> answer the first question first. i i have a cute pithy answer and then stick around for the meatier one if shouldn'ty that metaphor because i'm vegetarian. the more fiberrous one. and so for me the difference between screen writing and memoiring is not that huge because my writing practice exclusively occurs in cafes and coffee shops because i just am not good at doing things in the house which has made pandemic interesting. i have had to work on that and fine ways of creating scarcity of time. i lad -- but in general he still like to write in coffee shops

and cafes and few coffee shops which which have outdoor seating and for me the main difference between memoir and screen writing is in one situation when i'm screenwriting i'm talking to myself loudly in public because you have to hear what you're saying. you have to hear it -- you can't write in a verbose way for screen writing. you have to write how you speak so i have to talk it out. so i'm talking to myself, just very flagrantly with no shame. whereas memoiring, i'm not talking to missiles. i'm either just -- to myself. i'm altering when giggling and openly sobbing in public. it's just mountain which -- just about which way i appear in puck. the difference between the to types of writing and make of that what you will.

but, yeah, to the first point, i have always said-and i will continue to say that writing this book was one of the most healing things i've done in my life because there is just something so powerful and therapeutic about centering yourself as the protagonist of your own life. i don't -- i know that sound simple but it's actually something most of us don't practice every day. most of us don't think of offers as i am -- think of ourselves as i'm the protagonist of this experience in this moment as i'm living it. i deserve the empathy and the understanding and the context that comes with being a protagonist in a moment like this. i'm allow evidence to be flawed and should be gnawed in the way that every good protagonist is. there's this really radical potential of self-love that

comes when you start to think of yourself as a protagonist and especially in the context of a world where we aren't given many protagonist representations of ourselves to begin with. we didn't grow up watching trans or queer or nonboundary near people on television helping us tap into the sense of protagonism. so there's something to powerful bout putting i together and then the other part that was healing was i made the commitment i would never -- i had to for my opinion mental health and for the sake of the project, i think it does give it something, i had to find the joke in every story. i couldn't -- there was no story that was hard enough or sad enough i couldn't find the joke in what was happening, or at least find the comedy in the moment. so, for example, when i wanted

to gave big talk to my youth group at my church how jesus made me gay and maybe made you gay, too, and my youth group pastor had to sort of sit me down and be like, you can't do that. i was actually a heartbreaking moment that shattered me as a human being but in order to give me that talking to -- if i had just written it as a shattering moment it would have been like, oh, well, dang, and then that would have been it. but i was like i'm going to push myself to find the comedy because in order to do that i have to note above the moment and see it from a new perspective which is how one heals and i was like, wait, he literal through took me to the wendy's across the street from the church, bought me a frosty, and then told me that it couldn't say that in church. like, he used a frosty as my -- the hush money. and that, my friends, is hilarious bus when you're a freshman -- you're in high

school, a frosty is pretty much mush momentum. i'd do a lot for a milk shake in high school. you can't just go buy one anyway day you want. so, finding those little nuggets. there's something about letting myself laugh at that facet of it that just puts little stitches somewhere in these little breaks in your heart and just -- stitches them together in some way. so, that part was really helpful and really wonderful and then publishing a book and putting 'for critical consumption and watching a market respond to it was devastating, and i say that only because i -- and maybe this is giving away too much, maybe this is saying too punch but i overshare everything so i'm

sorry, friends. when i was crafting this book, the craft of the thing, the real intellectual work for me of this piece was writing a book that could be held -- could be the longest, widest bridge possible. i wanted to write something that my neighbors and neighborhood moms from growing up could read, feel seen in, feel like everything is explained to them but not patronizing and all of a sudden this idea of nonbinary millenials millenials millenials and genz and trans people stopped being mad and turned into a person i know who likes me. and who i like. and an experience i actually have a pretty technical understanding of on the other side and an emotional in

empathetic understanding of. wrote it for them as much as for the sweet baby queers and baby transfolks who i know could probably use this as a resource and i would have loved to read a book like this when i was younger, and for the -- just for all the queers and the trans folks and everybody. and especially for people of transfeminine experience or the folks who work -- don't ann reelize that qualifies the tome be part of transfeminism experience for them to help heal and the thing but pouting in marketplace is realize there is is an entire group of gatekeepers who refuse to let it reach so many peoplers who hearts and mind it could have affected and you get disappointed about sale numbers but nothing to do with making money. for me i just find it devastating don't think that this book made to it like the

moms of america. and the reason i'm sad beaut that is because i don't feel like i am not okay with the idea that as nonbinary people or trans people we have to wait for an entire generation to die out before we feel safe. he refuse to the terms. those are not acceptable terms and i feel like in this book i crafted something that could really help move the clock forward and ensure we can build community with those folks and create that safety and that sense of community a little bit earlier, and the fact that it didn't get there yet, which yet is an operative word here, but yet, like in watching people stonewall me out of things. my publishist is never getting a call back from "people" magazine. she like works at people all the time for all -- a bunch of her client monday and could not get me in that magazine to save her

life. and it's like, why? because people think that this, like, weird trans feminine nonbinary i could use more derogatory language, is too out there or is going to scare off their readers or whatever, and watching that happen over and over and over and over again in so many ways. really does a number on your heart. >> yeah. >> then also just watching new york editors, awful those literary intelligentsia be petty and not appreciate literature that is meticulously and surgically designed would like to say also pisses me off and that's a more petty vendetta we'll work out some day. >> i don't want to say in reading this i did think of my second mom, thought of her mother, thought of the people in

my life who have shown that they love and support me and they really do want to understand, but, like, they -- just a whole new language, a whole -- they're learning something completely new and i was thinking about this book, not only would they enjoy but it's accessible, its doesn't talk down to them, of there's issue in in the chat who has a mom or aunt or has a partner or best friend who is a mom or aunt or an uncle or anybody who is trying but just needs the right book issue do as a book seller believe this is that book. i think that yes is the word. >> i'm also seeing comments from beth who said my sister is trans and i'm going send this to her mom. and then jesse who said it made

it to not many moms of trans kids already that well. >> oh! >> oh!sometimes this is why you have to complain but things because sometimes you have it in your haven't that something has failed and then you just need to say this is what my brain is telling me and people are like -- get in touch with reality a little bit more. >> you sweet baby angel. you're wrong. >> okay. >> oh, well, so on the back of your book you have a blush from allen and miss alexander and how does one do that? >> so, the allen cummings bluen came because -- i grew up in north carolina and i can suburban southern trash through and through oomph aim country mouse and go to the city and i'm

like -- i pretend -- but i don't know what i'm doing. but when i lived in new york, i did sort of like -- i found some -- my gunkles. i fining legal when you move to the city if you need to fine some chosen family for yourself, my chosen family folks, they were friends with allen, and so i met him at their -- well, the new york gay mafia is a thing, okay? it's a real thing and it's not that hard to infiltrate. it isn't. i think you just have to want to do that, which i think most people don't -- and also probably you have to move there, which is a traumatic experience, and one i'm not sure i'd recommend. so, anyway, long story short, i met allen very briefly at a holiday party once, and then

never saw him again and then randomly rand into him on the street and was ick oh, hey, some some and it's like he's not going remember me and his hike, oh, hey? and i'm like, no shit and i was able to -- i connected because when yovanovitch need to get blurbs for a book you flood think but that one friend if know who went to college with that other girl whose mom is the literary agent of that one author who is friends with that other author who i want to get. to you mine your network that deeply to get to all these people because it's really hard and takes it forever but i honestly would say that if i could go back in time i'd be like maybe try a little less hard on that. it's important but not that important. so that is how that one came together. and then i'm trying to remember where i met miss jay first. it was at some sort of new york

gala situation. you just have to get an invite to a gala. you can weasel your way into a lot of shit in new york. aisle a nonbinary. >> if you show much interesting sequence -- sequins and say i'm here to walk the carpet and the panic and thing that should know who you are and then walk over and take your photos and you're like, cool. you can bullshit into almost anything and that's my inspiring comment. >> i want to remind you that jacob is a leo who is saying you can just weasel your way into

red carpets. >> everyone is capable of bullshitt iing no but you have to do it in commensurate with your sign and how you navigate the world. but each person can find a strategy that can work for you. >> in the chat i constant look for books to give to my family and loved ones to build the bridge. thank you, and i hope my mom would read the f out of this. >> just making my whole life right now. >> trike to make jacob cry. so, it's 9:25, i don't know -- get another question from -- if you have one. i'm going to ask jacob one more question until more questions come. in i have a second question if there are no more questions. but i want to explore your

gender -- who are you looking toward for strength and inspiration and what other queer-dos in the world-keeping you feeling safe, sane, beautiful, abundant. >> i could say that, like, right now i'm centering other people any inspiration but that wouldn't be fully honest. right now i am -- i've been in north carolina, really getting in touch with my inner bird and/or crow, and just picking up shiny rocks when i see shiny rocks, and i've been really -- like i actually have a bunch of them back there. i have little pieces of cork that just -- they're not crystals, little chunks of quartz, nothing, so when the light catches them right on the path you see that glint and you think maybe that's one of them and you pick it and it's this

little white or grayish rock and when the sun hits it just right you get that magical little prism moment inside and they're a full rainbow inside of the rock, and that is what is inspiring me these days, just little rocks that i feel like contain the whole universe inside of them. and that is the strangest ant i've ever given to that question but it's the most honest. i'm inspired by little rocks right now. >> i love that answer. >> go walk around and look for little rocks everybody and look at them carefully and you'll realize all the rocks are queer. >> mother nature is queer. >> rocks are gay. pass it along. >> the world is trans. >> sky ice i've never read a book that i could relate to mow and feel just seen and thank you. >> oh. >> the sky is also trans.

>> deeply. >> it's nice what he says -- >> oh, is that question -- the one you just asked? >> what have you been reading during the pandemic that brings you joy? a little different but we are -- this little joy thing. >> i have an answer for that one. >> give it to us. >> i'm reading a book by -- which is -- i feel like ran author gravitated towards bit mikele pollen called how to change your mind and i don't know if folks heard of it but it's all bowel the history of psychedelics in the united states specifically. doesn't delve to deeply into the history or history in dodge yous cultures indigenous cultural pud look at the initial summer of interest in terms terms of descg

psychedelics -- and then the resurgence and quiet resurgence in the early 2000s and to the present day. and i have been looking into that and that book has been wringing me joy because it comes with a real sense of possibility around my own mental health. i mean, i've dealt with mental health stuff, intense depression and i also have this real gut sense that queer trauma hard wired a lot of shit in my brain that shouldn't be there. there's hard-wiring that was altered by my trauma and a lot of scientific evidence to support that's how trauma work independent the brain, and so reading about psychedelics and how they work neurologically and how they reconnect neuropathways and reimagine your brain inside itself. there are these magical little plants that can help you talk to

god and of which i have now sampled once, and had a really profound incredible moving experience that was so deeply trans and so much about violence and fear of violence because of my body and my identity and a serenity that came and answered that. it's been giving me a real sense of futurity, and there's so much yet for me to try in terms of helping myself feel whole in this world. there's still so much that we do not know about our own brains and how to connect with joy and heal our trauma, and there's so much more for me to do, and that sense of futurity is joy for me right now because sometimes i it feels like we have no future in this moment and i'm like, we got a future. it's bright, it's awesome, we're going to get there and i'm not saying that a neoliberal trash garbage. we are going to fight like hell to get there and it's going to

be worth it. >> i think that's perfect note to end on. thank you so much. >> thank you so much everybody. my next book will be about my mushroom trips. >> conor. >> hi,... ... >> i just want to say thank you so much jacob. this is exactly perfect. and quite possibly, could not write better . so thank you very much. >> i forgot to say that he got matching earrings set in wisconsin at the flea market.

for 85 cents in this necklace about 85 cents as well. i just needed everyone to know that. if god. >> we did need to know that. >> i want to say thank you to all of the people watching at home . this is absolutely an incredible our listening to jacob discuss the book sissy. please doozy told you, by it. you can click the green box at the bottom of the screen. and now we will wrap it up. you're watching the tv, on "c-span2", every weekend with the latest nonfiction books and authors. it put tv on "c-span2". created by america's cable television company. today brought to you by the television company to provide book tv to viewers as a public service.

>> during a recent program u.s. for the sixth circuit, is the life and career of supreme court justice scalia. here he talks about the late justice and's writings and influence . >> i decided that i wanted to work for justice scalia. it is my path and my family that we would not have been your first guess. so why is it that in 1991, i wanted to work for justice daily a minute i think most all students can understand this. leading judicial opinions is a judge myself in the is often not a lot of fun. i think a lot of lawyers acquire the habit of drinking more coffee and is good for them. these are not dickens novels . caffeine is what could you through. how refreshing when you doing this to come across the justice scalia, majority opinion. and they stood out for the

writings and the honesty and the quest for truth. so i could've cared less whether justice scalia was a living constitutionalist or an originalist. all i wanted to do is get to know him. he seemed like a lot of fun. but then i really wanted to learn to write like him which of course, i am unrealistic . but right is closest to him as close as you could. that is how i get to know him. that is why started working with him. and then of course, it was really easy to fall under his influence because his passion for getting things right. in his dedication to finding the right answer making sure that you're being honest about what is really going on. and not being afraid to second-guess yourself. and of course his passion for writing. there was no way he could finish the year with him and not want to be a better writer.

and so much is becoming a better writer is about wanting to be a better writer. he just cannot come out of that experience without it. it is really interesting since 1992, some is been 30 years. that year, and any times since, he would do something i would hear him say something, we would talk about a case. and i would have this reaction. that cannot be right. and he would say it so forcefully. which i suppose i'm a little bit contrarian to have anybody say something forcefully makes me want to push back. i cannot tell you the number of times that happened. and then as i thought about it, or sometimes even a couple of years will go by, and i would say that is a really good point. and so now, in writing the introduction to this book. it was not hard for me to embrace the original is him. i would just right. things only answer to avoid destroying the federal courts. i think he has been right all along. but i think going back to the

point why this influence. i think it has something to do with the power of his ideas and his remarkable capacity to express himself so well. and that is not a bad thing to know. if you can have good ideas and learn how to express them, then you might have influence . >> to watch the rest of this program, his or program booktv.org and search for the title of the book the essential scalia. using the search box at the top of the page. you're watching book tv, on "c-span2". television for serious readers. his a program to look out for, tonight investigated journalist cheryl atkinson, offers her thoughts in the relationship between censorship and journalism. whole foods market ceo john mackey, talks about his approach to leadership. and on our author interview program afterwards, catherine flowers founder of the center for rural enterprise and environmental justice.