cassandra phoenix is an air

force brat who much like highlander, hails from a lot of places for nearly 25 years. she has happily called madison, wisconsin her home. she has a dedicated librarian at both the monona public library and the waukanakee public library. she has a proud and sometimes terrified of a trans kid and currently lives with her husband, stepson and two cats are author. tonight is kavin senapathy coven is an award winning science journalist covering parenting health and social justice, a sought after analyst and speaker sympathies writer has appeared in slate's self. the daily beast salon sideshow, forbes and more. let's give a round of applause.

our speakers. tonight's. thank you. oh, yeah, you got it. okay thanks much, everyone, for being i see a of familiar and comforting so i'm thrilled to you all join me here today for my first book official book reading event. i think there are some seats left if you want to file in or you can go into the back. there are a lot of special people here today, so i can't go through everyone, but especially my kids, asha and gwen. you can come in and, move to the back. so, yes, jason, i'm going to start out with a brief reading

from book selected reading and then cassie and i talk for a few minutes and then we'll have a q&a followed by a signing. and hi again to live streaming. we're live streaming from over here on facebook. so the first reading i have selected is from chapter or one of the book and it's called the progressive parents dilemma. and so this reading is setting up what the book is essentially trying to do. when added to the task of through the evidence on any parenting question viewing information through the lens of family values can make the quest for answers even more daunting. that's the crux of our dilemma

how do we seek answers? parenthood and parenting. but take stock of all our values and evidence and note about book's use of the word progressive to describe parents. the term progressive in the united has evolved since it's. over the last handful of years. surveys from the pew research center have bolstered the view there is significant heterogeneity among left leaning american people who identify with progressive values. many of us identify as non-religious with, while others believe in god, and god's we can be single part of traditional families or have nontraditional parenting arrangements, including kids with three or more parental figures. some of us may or may not identify with the term

progressive. i've heard some say that it reminds them of faux progressives whose actions are performative rather than transformative. i understand this, but it is in some ways the word that most broadly connects people who are holding this book in their hands hands to really boil down the values progressive americans hold. most dear. look no further than those quintessential american spaces. its front lawns, where there are neighborhoods with kids and progressive families who feel safe enough displaying it. the yard of the ages that proudly declares family values is peppered throughout nation. it reads. in this house, we black lives matter. women's rights are human rights. no human is a legal. science is real love is love and

kindness is everything. three activists in my self-styled progressive hometown of madison created the sign in 2016, following trump's election with its iconic rainbow all caps sans serif font on a black background designed to pop during the snowy gray winters, they had no idea it would go viral. both online and across neighborhoods in the us. from austin, texas to south orange, new jersey, one of the women, a fellow parent, collaborated in launching the iconic sign, actress jennifer rose and hines had. complicated feelings about it from the beginning. it was right after. trump was elected and everyone's what are we going to do? she tells me over the phone in 2020. the sign became a very form of

activism that started to signal safe spaces like when someone's car breaks down, they look and they see the one house that has the sign and that's the house they're going to knock on the door, she explains. ultimately says the sign and capsule8 values. that can be a good thing. but she adds that it can also a form of virtue signaling in which people literally stake the claim. i believe in all the right things. i believe in science. i have my npr tote. she explains that it becomes a kind of shorthand rather than an example of having work or continuing to engage in work. it becomes a symbol rather than an act of process. nikki van der meulen, defense attorney, member of the mst school board, disability rights and one of the first openly autistic school board members in

the united states says it's easy to put up assign to show support. the problem is, are you willing to actually for what it comes down to? i'm chatting with van der meulen over coffee and downtown madison on a summer day in 2022 and say to her, you and share the pension for being very direct how we talk. she nods. i asked her whether she thinks that others inability to handle straight talk helps cement status quo in some way. 100%. people aren't talking about what's most important. which is necessary to ultimately things better, she explains. i've heard the sentiment countless times from all kinds of people fighting the rights of children. i the feeling that learning to tolerate discomfort is crucial. all of these about the sign are valid. my feelings are. this it's true that in some

instances, parents who display version of the sign are participé adding in a form of virtue, signaling. but whether or not someone to display it around their dwelling there's power in its message for parents. if we also act intentionally on these shared core values. science truth equity and justice. that's the end of that first section. more people showing up, you can file in and i think go toward the back. if you would like. hello. hello hello. i'm glad everyone's masking because we are very full. glad to see everyone. and then i have. so that was the end of first reading from chapter one. and then i have a little reading here from chapter five and chapter five as type titled studies and parenting with

feminist bodily autonomy and fat phobia. and this this bonus reading is related a very important moment that's going on right now. and that is kamala harris, a.k.a. mom ella harris. and it's about people who are parents raise kids who are not biological parents. for generations. and people have internalized the other the idea of mother's intuition has been used to obscure the truth about parenthood. there is no sex or gender to the warm heartbreaking existential affection, love that a caregiver develops a child breastfeeding. which some gender non-conforming people call chest feeding can

release warm fuzzy chemicals in the body. but so do other forms of nurturing and closeness with an infant like bottle feeding, holding, cuddling or sniffing the tops of their heads as they rest on your shoulder. studies suggest that adults of all genders who take daily caregiving and engage with babies go through deep changes. testosterone and cortisone levels decrease and oxytocin, estrogen and prolactin levels surge and parents whether or not they've given birth promoting bonding, love and devotion, neuronal undergo transformations. an adult is tasked with the care of an infant. we also know that adults can form intense bonds with older who aren't infants. foster parents, adoptive parents and others who are not so-called

biologic parents in terms of haploid, genomic contribution still form their own hormonal and brain based biological connections that forever them. we have some form of intuition about our children that we can feel in our guts. the bottom line is, the idea of a mother's intuition or instinct reduces people can get pregnant to ostensibly innate biological functions, perpetuates a sexist division of labor, and convinces boys, men and others without uteri that they aren't hardwired for nurturing. there is no truth. the notion that only mothers can achieve an arbitrary apex parenthood devoting ourselves to our children can be a great thing, but no gender is more

wired to do so. testaments to adoptive love about sound in pop culture like. the kents love for clark. uncle phil's love for well or matthew cuthbert's love for and shirley. this kind of love doesn't only happen in movies tv and books. it's as real. it's as ordinary as it is precious. we all have the right to devote as much to our children as they need and as our heart's desire that capitalism, oppression and family separation and incarceration of stolen time between parents and children is an atrocious blot. the well-being of children. so that is the reading your thanks for sitting so. i'd be happy to read more and more of this book to you.

but we do have some questions so i'll hand the mic over to cassie. hello. so i think it would be interesting if you told why this book is not a typical parenting book. yeah. so i've done a few interviews far and one podcaster i was speaking with who is a parenting podcast or reads parenting books all. the time said that had never read a parenting book like this one. and that's pretty much what i was going for. hi folks. i see few people out in the hall and i'm just waving. i don't know if there's room back here. is there any.

yeah. there's room if you want to go in the back, you can you can stay over there. okay. so largely, i would say rather a prescriptive parenting book. book is more of a expression of who we have been as a generation of parents who we are and who we can be going as progressive parents. so a lot of folks around my age with little kids are millennials, elder millennials we have some gen x and younger folks, but we were shaped by the eighties, the nineties, the early 2000s. and so this book speaks to the way we were raised, the way society taught, us and everything that we have and have yet to learn. so this book, while it well, it

kind of all began with the yard sign that was created in 2016. the book even really who we were in 2016 or who we were even 2020. so this book is looking to what we could be in the future and, how we can get there. so spoiler the book does have some prescriptive parenting, but it only takes a fraction of the book. i can give some examples. kids be eating a lot of fruits and vegetables. we know that. and unfortunately, access to all those fruits and vegetables equitable. kids homes with small kids should their furniture strapped to the wall? stuff like that. but this book is more about how we can better understand and the true nature of humanity from

gender to sex, race and ethnicity and even neurodiverse city, to effectively ourselves to do the right thing as parents and as other adults who care about children with the resources and the bandwidth at hand and also given unique situations with our families and given of the information facts and science where applicable. so that's essentially why the book isn't a typical parenting book. i hope many of you will will it? and get a bigger picture to why it's of a parenthood perspect of and broader type of book. so just wanted to say when i was reading it, i know how strongly you felt about some of those and i, i saw moderate.

you were about some of those topics. and i either thought you must have really had a good editor or, you know, just had somebody else read it and say, hmm, not like that. so and i know from when you got me into writing for grounded parents and were writing about infant feeding and that was sort of like a gateway thought maybe for you to write about this sort of thing. can you expand on that little bit more. yes. so i should say, cassie knows me pretty well and i am glad hear that she thought that book was so measured because usually initial reaction to something i feel strongly about is to frankly stand up and pace around and at a rant about it. and so and see some people who know me not in the audience. and so the book can get a little

ranty at but but i made sure yes right. so i made sure to to try to consider all of the perspectives. of course, i can't consider everyone and i can't represent everyone, but i really made it a point to talk as many people as possible, to speak to as as diverse and wide a group of readers as possible. so to cassie's question, her question is why does the book infant feeding as a to start delving into applying what i call a healthy scrutiny of science adults who care about kids. so chapter two of the book is called a healthy scrutiny of science. and it uses infant feeding as a case study.

and it's an interesting case for a few reasons. one is that breastfeeding is popularly chalked to be a scientifically proven way to up your child, to have the healthiest and best. so whether or not you've birth or are partner or spouse to someone who has given birth, you've heard that, quote unquote breast as best, which is a saying that up this almost dogma that called exclusive breast feeding that is nothing but human milk for newborns for the first six months of life is as best and is going to lead to better outcomes and that in that sense infant formula is also so harmful infant feeding is an interesting case study because again, most parents and other

parents and other adults believe that exclusive is best and infant feeding also involves breaking concepts that people with believing in science. so ultima atlee going through this case study helps set the stage for how to approach the scientific information and narratives that are presented to parents. so even if you're well beyond your infant feeding stage re reexamining that stage is helpful. so some of the concept that people associate with believing in science that this case study and then later case studies throughout the book help people learn to scrutinize includes the concept of consensus. so there's this idea that scientific consensus is very

clear and and while that is the case, many of our of the questions that we consider when we think about believing in science from the shape of the earth to whether or not vaccines work, which which they do. to the dinosaurs going extinct. we we have pretty strong consensus that these things are but when it comes to something like infant feeding or so many other questions that come up for parents, it's really hardly that cut and dried. so other concepts include the scientific method people think of as the scientific method versus how it actually plays out, as well as the problem with assuming a causal between an action and an outcome and the difference experimental and observable personal data as as

the importance of considering history behind why something about children's well-being might be presented as scientific. true when not the case so ultimate early chapter two goes into detail on why formula is not going to make or break the well-being of the vast majority of infants except for some that are born extremely prematurely so. then the rest of the chapters a similar approach with everything from race and racism and ethnicity to gender sex and sexuality to, vaccines, clean living and greenwashing and for many of us, it might sound radical to say that everyone should actually just be able to choose what works for them, and that just we have controls over

control over any other aspect of. our bodies and our reproduction. we also should and do have the right to fully informed decision about how we feed our kids. and again, there's a whole chapter that goes into some of the the fascinating history of of how we to this idea and this this era in which in the last few decades women and other people who give birth and lactate been told that if you don't exclusively breast feed your infant human milk, then you're setting your kid up for failure. there's this pediatrician that spoke with in my reporting for this book and he he puts it roughly this way that it's made out to be that or not breastfeeding is going to make the difference between your kid like pole vaulting for yale or

struggling to ends meet and that's just simply not the case. so yeah i could go on and on about feeding, but i think we can move on to some more questions and discussion. of course, was very interested in what you had to say about gender, sex and and biological essentialism. so if you could address that confluence. interesting factors harms children. yeah, i'm just. if anyone or who in the audience has heard the term biological or determinism. i see a few people out in the hallway few people in.

yeah, i see some people on the livestream as well i think some of them know, but it's, it's also known as biological determinism and essentially biological essentialism is the belief any specific trait or quality, whether it be behavior, demeanor or athleticism, personality, muscle tone, etc., etc. is primarily the result of what we think of as nature or as something that's coded and the genes and as in the essence of our bodies and lives in our bones and our blood and our tissues, rather than these traits, largely the result of. and when some of some of the. or outcomes are considered undesirable. it is then again can be chalked

up to human nature of the result oppression and how that affects what are exposed to. so ultimately, yes we do know that genetic variation does play a role in people's outcomes. but when it comes to kids well-being, the it's the struggle between, scientific narratives ends up being fundamental totally about justice kids. so if a child's outcomes from behavior to disease, these are assumed to be primarily or largely product of innate genetic or human nature. then systems don't have to change. there's little to be done. whereas if we see differences in, outcomes as largely product of privilege or of inequity or

of care or then we can do something to that all children have the best chances to thrive and be their most expansive, authentic selves. immediate in the immediate future. and into adulthood. so this book as its premise that most of the what we think of as bad unwanted outcomes or what we are told to think of as bad and unwanted outcomes that we don't want for our kids aren't a result of human nature. rather the result of oppression. and the book, of course, makes the for this. so even though we might not realize it biological essentialism is intertwined with much of the parenting discourse.

as you'll see in the book. so again, a few of the examples that the book goes into include gender and sex and race and ethnicity so biological essentialism and people's minds comes down large to an oversimplified ocean of biology, including what we were taught in high school when when we were kids. but even many kids nowadays. so the book refers to the of brian donovan, a senior science education researcher at the nonprofit bsc's science learning and colorado. and he runs a program called honoring the complexity of genetics so their research suggests that the oversimplification of genetics and essentialist genetic

constructs of and sex and gender and the curriculum can increase students tendency towards both racist and sexist thinking. so this the researchers call oversimplification of biology. a big scary problem. and i. i agree that it's a big scary problem. so to bring up one of the more obvious examples of essentialist thinking when it comes to sex is the notion that people born with two x chromosomes are biologically and therefore will have a number of traits that we associate with being biologically female. and if you ask if you ask everyone this room what they kind of first think of when they think of somebody who's biologically female versus what they think of, they consider

someone who is a biologically male. you'll hear all you'll hear all kinds of ideas down to more typical ones like a larger adam's apple or higher bone in males to a softer, more nurturing capacity. and people who we think of as and heard a lot about this in recent in recent years. but it's also a big scary problem that adults and everyone's just sort of walking around with some of these notions not intending to be sexist or or trans but in the it all same ending up perpetuate sexism and transphobia and misogyny. so all have to relearn and what

we've what we've been taught the complexity of biology has become so much more well defined just in the last few years. and what it shows is me quite elegant and beautiful proving sort of the true prism madoc nature of humanity and showing us that our children could be so much more. we've been led to imagine. so brian's done. brian donovan's work intends change. this oversimplified version of biology and so along that line this book seeks to dismantle and change the oversimplification of genetic and biology in the minds of parents and others to ultimately help a generation humans become everything. they can be.

i think if you have any other questions we can do that or. we can do audience questions. whatever you think we should. you. question or only questions, no comments. yes. yes. i'm so i couldn't help but notice that there were a fair amount of things that, you know, you specifically did not address in the book, some some subjects that you stayed away from. and i think, i know the answer, but like, you know, techno, we're advancing very rapidly as a society. there's a lot of new science out there and there's a of juristic and sort of subjects that are coming to the surface impact of social media and all that stuff. when science is non-existent or, very thin, and it leaves you flying blind as a parent, what

do you see the progressive parents role as being and navigating that kind of wild blast of of new science get to to sum up you want to know how a progressive parent proceeds as a when there's not a lot of science or a scientific consensus to back up actions that you might want to. right. okay. yeah, that's a great question and there's often usually when the consensus some question isn't clear that is an area where manipulators can thrive charlatans snake oil you may so an is an example that comes up a lot is epigenetics or microbiome we hear a lot about how various actions or dietary supplements

or diets or. foods can shape the microbiome to shape outcomes and specific ways and what we can do. okay, so the book goes more and more into the microbiome. but what we can do when these when the answers aren't so clear is to really look what what it is that we can control and what we know that controlling will will. evelyn just distracted me for a second. what what? we have control so we know that eating plenty of fruits of vegetables is really important, right? so instead of looking at maybe a supplement to help tap into our microbiomes and optimize it, there's so much we can do

systemically to make sure that people's exposures are or children's exposures are what they need to be. so more a more diverse, fewer exposures to lab and pfa as there is so much in our environment that still needs to be improved to to find equity and to ensure equity for everybody so that sometimes our is best spent by working in our communities than trying to control our individual kids outcomes. so your question is, is quite a broad one and i can think about it for a while. i'm sure we'll talk about it later too. but yeah, it's it i think it comes down to when we don't know or science doesn't tell enough tell us enough about an action we can take in our own family or

with our own individual child. spend that bandwidth if. you have it in your community community. i also reflecting when i read that about. consensus that one of the other important things is that consensus can change and that's okay because it's meant when you have more information and you have more. and so even though something was scientifically years ago, new information can happen and then you can be okay with changing your mind or changing your actions on that. when there's more information, that's the next all way in the back there. yeah. so am really forward to reading it and i really like how you are talking about bringing in a variety of perspectives. it's race and ethnicity or sex

and gender. and i was wondering if you could maybe tell us a little more about how differences in class, socioeconomic status also informed your writing? the question is how have differences in socioeconomics and class informed your writing. yeah, that's i would say that consideration differences in socio socioeconomic status and class and have really been sort of backbone of how i look at these questions for instance if we talk again about breastfeeding the example of breastfeeding we're told that breast milk human milk has all of these amazing properties which it does i should give i have i have in my notes here i should give a quick shout to the fed is best foundation they have

a book out right now as about infant feeding which completely breaks down all of the real harms of the pressure to exclude simply breastfeed. but to your question about class and socioeconomic status the people the west who have the capacity to exclusively breastfeed a baby for six months tend to have a lot more privilege than the people who have to turn to for muela. so that consideration when looking at the on outcomes for kids really informs ends up informing the reason those outcomes. so the the problematic in the idea that breast is best is that human milk itself causing people

have better outcomes so these better outcomes that are chalked up to breastfeeding range from fewer infections in childhood, fewer a lower incidence of forms of cancer and even better achieve in career and education and, and, and so much more. but the same pediatrician i spoke with who said that breastfeeding not isn't going to make the between your kid pole vaulting for a yale or struggling to make ends meet also said that again i'm i'm paraphrase using here but also says that rather than imposing on people to exclusively breastfeed their infant no matter despite what toll it might take on them that he would rather see increased access to

child care to to universal health care to school lunches for everybody. these are these are the of interventions that are actually on a population level and even on an individual level making a difference in people's outcomes. so it's it's equity that's ultimately going to achieve the best outcomes for and for all kids. that you spoke about parents when you speak to any parents and all and if so how did that go? what question did you speak to any conservative about the items wrote about in your book and how did that go know?

yeah. so i didn't seek out conservative parents when i was working on this book because it is this book is meant to speak to to progressive parents and. there are so many questions that need answered. progressive parents and so many ways that we need to kind of have a little bit more in and navigate the world around us. but i, i did do some reporting from various less spaces we could say, and an story is in 2020, 21, i believe, in madison, there was what was called a turf conference. so some people in the audience may be familiar with turf that

is spelled t e, r f and that stands for trans exclusionary feminists. and these are people who are would also consider themselves progressive. so if you many terfs would would not be for example the republican national convention in milwaukee. but these are people who believe that trans women trans girls are encroaching on the spaces of of real girls women and that for instance keeping trans women or gender nonconforming people out of women's and girls sports is a way to protect women and girls. and so there a out group of terfs in the area and they all

convened in madison a few years ago to essentially amongst themselves about it, about how how how much they hate trans people. i mean, we'll be real here and there were counter-protesters. this all happened at the madison library. and i showed up there to talk. i mostly wanted to talk to the counter-protesters who are standing up for trans kids. that's that's what this book but to your question, tim it did get it did get pretty heated and i observed some verbal verbal barbs being thrown between people so i just really admire the bravery of folks who stand up for trans and gender non-conforming children and

adults it's it's really an ongoing battle that we're seeing play out right now. so yeah, to the question of how it is to encounter those people, it's frustrating. it's it can be scary and but i also have so much hope seeing the people who are pushing back and so what this book attempts to do is to i to say that we shouldn't need to affirm people's identities and humanity. however sometimes sometimes you need science to do to refute bigoted arguments and that's that's what this book seeks to do is to arm some of people fighting the bigots with with a

little more back up. in the back, please. right now that i have is how do you think about maybe some the audience for your book that would think of themselves as progressive but when it comes to certain stories they tell themselves not so much. so what i mean by that is there might be a lot of parents who read your book that might say, oh, of course i believe in vaccines, but also, of course, breast or chest milk is best and that and they behave in such a way that they attack anybody who deviates from that orthodoxy. so i see that a lot with women researchers example who say that and they get attacked. other women, for example when they talk about that. another example be people who have the signs that you're talking about that think of themselves as very liberal and progressive but don't want to live next to black people. right. and so how do think about how you can engage with people,

consider themselves progressive, tell a story that they're progressive, but have these ideas or, beliefs or actions that don't align that. so the question, i believe, is how do you approach people who are telling themselves or narrative rising themselves that they are both progressive but also diametrically opposite in their in some other progressive? is that correct? was that okay? thanks, cassie for restating that question. and to my friend dr. tiffany green back there for that question, i and tiffany a source in my book. so thank you, tiffany, for being awesome. so. i've heard people say that when you encounter making a bigoted

statement that sometimes the best response is to just ask a question as for clarification, what do you mean by that? so, you know, who says say, i'm not i'm not racist. i believe that black lives matter. but this zoning thing shouldn't be changed. my neighborhood for, you know, for some nebulous reason you ask them why and and continue peeling back. and usually you find form of biological essentialism in the person and so it's it's really hard to change people's minds we know that sometimes information doesn't sound information doesn't change minds so it's a

it's a constant push and it's it's i wish i had a clear answer to what to do when. someone is has all the information at hand and continues to it insist for instance that that letting people use the bathroom of their choice is actually still harmful which it's not. eventually i hope the hope is that enough of us will well truly see humanity for what it is. but if there are a few stragglers, others who are going to make a fuss about bathroom, but they'll be drowned out by everyone just using the bathroom that works for them. so again, i wish this this book

more or kind of helps those conversation lines happen. it might not help flip the mine of everybody, but i think of it as you talked about vaccine as even form of inoculation and whether it be in a group or a group to be able to challenge not only people you don't know and people you your enemies, but your friends and the book talks about being able to sit with discomfort. one one example i give when i myself had some pretty bigoted and onsets unscientific ideas about gender myself, maybe maybe about ten years ago, i, i thought that the that sex and

gender binaries very real and were scientifically truthful. so it didn't occur to me why it wasn't right to say everyone either an x female or an x y male. and i in a in a back channel at the time having this conversation. and one trans scientist started very graciously educating me and another person kind chewed me out for having asking transphobic questions and and i felt pretty uncomfortable with that i did not feel good like i could feel the upset feeling like rising up in my chest. and one thing that i think everyone needs do is learn sit with that without it resorting

to defensiveness as the first reaction and also encouraging your friends and, the people you care about to do the same. because honestly, i just think that very good friends don't let other friends have very bad world views and sometimes sometimes that takes while like it's up to you whether not you have the bandwidth to keep someone on in your life that you also need to persuade over about people's humanity. so the book talks a little bit more about that as well, but yeah, being able to sit with discomfort within oneself is important and. trying our best model that for other people is is also important.

i so. mentioned a movie where there were things that were talked about race was a social construct and how it is that they kind of moved through things with different and you know juxtaposing that with what dr. was talking about with implicit bias training and how that doesn't work. i have not heard of that college study. can you talk a little bit more that and how that's how that is why that's different knowing that what we know about implicit bias training training. i'm having a hard time trying to trying to compress that so are asking about whether or not implicit bias training is or no because it's not it's not i'm

asking about the study of college students that were talked about that race was social construct and that seemed move the needle. okay so the question is about this study that introduced the concept of race a social construct and more about it. yeah so off the top of my head, i'm the study, the book surveyed college students groups that were informed educated about what it means that race is social construct as opposed to those who believe that race is biological construct, that means that people believe that by looking at someone's genome, we determine that they are one percentage of this race, one percentage age, that race and. then, dana, i think your question juxtaposing these

beliefs with, what we know and the book talks about this a little bit more as well about how implicit bias training while is very popular is is not really effective in changing way that people whether be clinicians or law enforcement actually treat people and outcomes of of that treatment. so i think what you're asking is a little bit beyond the scope of what i have cut and dried answers to and i would love to see researchers look more it but. if we can i think if people can understand and that human nature and our proclivities demeanors our traits and being so much more than that then wired in our

bodies that's a that's base a basis for at least parents and other adults to then set stage for for kids to be more than what we've that they need to be boxed into. as for implicit bias again and it's it's a question of what really were books based on what people believe and so yeah i'm not sure i'm i'm answering your question often but i just want to reiterate the importance i think again going back to honoring the complexity of of biology and looking at say a child and realizing that they're

having an x y karyotype type doesn't tell us how caring or nurturing or athletic that person is going to be. i think we. i don't have our time person telling us that we don't have time for more questions. so we might have time for one more is jay here somewhere? i think a sample size or he went outside might be. does anyone have another question? do i see any on on trying to look on the livestream. yeah. biological essentialism.

someone talking about one of the hardest things combat when combating bigotry. yeah, i will. i say again and as you read the book you'll how many different ways biological essentialism plays into what we believe about about kids and humans so anyone out in the hallway with a question or comment right now evelyn do have any questions. this is my next door neighbor evelyn i like to call her i like to call her president thompson. now, she's she's shy. she be the president at some point, everyone so. yep, yep. so i don't know when we're

supposed to move over to the signing, do you any other questions, cassie. well, i noticed that did quote me a little bit in the about transgender parenting. and now i feel like a coward because i let you use my, my. 5 minutes. so i was of interested because you were talking about how a transgender person educated you and how hard as like progressive people try not to have the marginalized use their precious bandwidth to, you know, the dominant paradigm. so i was just wondering what when my kiddos started exploring themselves as being i realized that as a librarian, of course, i did a bunch of research to educate myself.

but how did you how did you educate yourself after that chat with that? very nice transgender person. yes so again, that that nice transgender who did not have to be very nice to me at all, gave me just a starting point and to your question of how i educated myself i would i could write like a few essays just about that because it took but it all kind of started there and i can only speak to my own perspective or my own journey and understand ending, but i first learned what science tests had begun to undergo and about the human genome as it applies to sex and

gender and started learning about as a you know as genetics nerd myself started learning about so many other loci across the genome not only the x and y chromosomes that play one you know one tiny role and in the complexity what makes up gender and sex and again that took years and yeah so i should reiterate that that that might not be the way that someone else through this space to to try to to to understand and again what what people are and what humanity is but it can it can be it can be quite a task. so you can't expect to do it all at once. they're not there not be one

reading or one podcast. i think the thing to do is to that no matter you understand or what we understand and are not treating as humans and and striving for equity is something that can be done in parallel with with learning and understanding and then i have i see one question here from angela since have maybe 2 minutes left that i will try to speak to before we wrap up here and angela, can you talk about why you wanted to write this book in the first place. what inspired to write it and so i can say my kids who are in the audience today and the one that's pointing at herself who is 13 and a half years old, i would have to it all started

when i gave birth to her in. 2011. and a few of you a bit about this. but i personally got hit with a pretty rough case of postpartum anxiety, depression and ocd after giving birth. and so i know that that parenthood and a baby to take care of is terrifying for a lot of people, or at least at least anxiety provoking and worrying on level. but for me, it was a very dialed. up, terrifying version of that. and so my first reaction while in the in the depths of this pretty dark anxiety to seek out information and and what i learned is the information in at

hand is not hardly sound and reassuring and it's really hard tell what is worrying about and what is perhaps not as worth spending our bandwidth on and so that my my initial work in learning ng which led in a nutshell to my career in science journalism and ultimately this has been a culmination of of that work over over ten years. so thank you, angela and thanks everyone. i think that is all the time we have. so again, i everyone for being here it's so nice to see all of your faces as i can recognize

many you even with the masks on and so we will chat during the signing. thanks again. i would love to start this off by naming the session we're here today for, which is after fire and we