Munroe Bergdorf: “I’m scared for my safety!” Bodily autonomy & femininity as armour

Identity has become tribal, and it’s stopping us understanding each other’s humanity. Activist, writer, and model Munroe Bergdorf explains how fear and anger for society’s issues have been misdirected towards trans people. In this chat with Fearne, Munroe talks through what the recent UK Supreme Court ruling on biological sex and gender means for trans women, cis women, and society more widely. How, for example, are trans rights intimately connected to abortion rights? Fearne and Munroe chat about how to practice self-acceptance, particularly around body image, and how to use your voice to create positive change. They also cover grief, and numbing out as a way of dealing with poor mental health. Munroe’s new book, Talk To Me, is out on June 5th, and you can watch her documentary, Love and Rage, in cinemas from June 10th. This episode also contains an exclusive first listen to a chapter of Kirsty Gallagher’s new book, Your Cosmic Purpose, which is published by Happy Place Books on June 5th. If you liked this episode of Happy Place, you might also like: Emma Dabiri https://pod.fo/e/2154cb Olly Alexander https://pod.fo/e/28dfd0 Kirsty Gallagher https://pod.fo/e/185156 Child on the line is a three-part documentary podcast series celebrating the Volunteer Counsellors of Childline, and the brave children & young people who contact the helpline service. Listen here: https://www.childonthelinepodcast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hi, I'm Natalie Dormer and I'm proud to be an ambassador for Childline. This year, Childline turns 40. To mark it, I've made Child on the Line, a three-part documentary podcast. We hear why children needed a helpline in 1986, how it was built against the odds and the challenges children face today, from abuse and mental health to social media and AI. Search Child on the Line and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:28Fearne Cotton?

  Hello, I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place, the show that brings us all closer through storytelling. Today, I'm chatting to Munro Bergdorf.

• 0:38Speaker 02

  I can't be having a conversation with a cisgender woman who refuses to understand that I'm a human being too, who's also under threat of misogyny, who's also scared about her physical safety, who's also experiencing mental health challenges because of the rise in misogyny rates, who can't walk down the road without being catcored and feeling like I need to cross the road at night when the man's walking towards me. All of these things are shared, but we don't know that if we don't talk to each other.

• 1:07Fearne Cotton?

  I really enjoyed this episode, and look, I've said it before, but doing this podcast helps me immensely mentally. I can't even tell you, some days I wake up feeling so shit for no reason, like I know many of you do, and having these chats is game-changing. It gives me a whole new perspective, it reminds me that other people are going through stuff too, it stops me spiralling into my own little wormhole of negative thoughts. I had a really wonky brain week last week, where I was just being really mean to myself and I could feel myself spiralling and I just felt quite shit. And again, listening to other people talk and tell their stories never fails to lighten the load for me and just gives me, I guess, the chance to get out of my own head and get into someone else's.

• 1:51Fearne Cotton?

  That's why I bloody love doing this podcast and I'm pretty sure it's one of the reasons why you listen to it too. Today is no exception, it is a really important one.

• 2:03Fearne Cotton?

  Munro is a seriously trailblazing, internationally renowned activist, writer and model. Her new book is called Talk To Me and she's made a new documentary called Love And Rage Two, which is incredible. Both of which remind us that conversations might not seem to change lives or shake up the system, but they really do have so much more value than you might realise. We of course had to start this chat with the recent UK Supreme Court ruling that said that for the purpose of the Equality Act 2010, women and sex refer to biological sex, not gender. And Munro does an incredible job of explaining what that means for trans women and indeed for cisgender women and our society at large.

• 2:46Fearne Cotton?

  By the way, you're going to want to stick around right to the end of this episode because there's a special exclusive just for you as a Happy Place listener. I'm completely over the moon that Happy Place Books is publishing Kirsty Gallagher's new book. She's got a huge fanbase, I know many of you love her. The book is called Your Cosmic Purpose. She's one of the UK's leading voices in spirituality and you'll be one of the first to hear a chapter from the audiobook at the end of this episode, so stick around.

• 3:18Speaker 03

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• 3:49Speaker 04

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• 4:20Speaker 05

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• 4:41Fearne Cotton?

  Right, here it is. This is the show.

• 5:05Fearne Cotton?

  Oh my god, I'm so excited to start this chat.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  I'm excited to meet you for the first time.

• 5:10Fearne Cotton?

  But I know, do you know what I think? We haven't met met, but I sat near you at the King's Trust Awards one year.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  Really?

• 5:17Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, and I remember because your dress spilled over to about five seats.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  That was a really big dress.

• 5:22Fearne Cotton?

  That dress is major.

• 5:23Speaker 02

  I know, they actually moved two people and I felt really bad.

• 5:25Fearne Cotton?

  Did they move people for your dress?

• 5:27Speaker 02

  I think they kind of thought, well, this isn't gonna work. This dress is huge, but yeah.

• 5:31Fearne Cotton?

  That's so good. Well, I'm really happy to meet you properly, properly today.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Me too.

• 5:35Fearne Cotton?

  I've had an amazing time reading your new book and watching your documentary, which we're gonna get on to. But first of all, I wanna know how you're doing because it's been one hell of a year, quite frankly, but certainly the last few months have been pretty intense. How's your head? How's your heart?

• 5:51Speaker 02

  It feels like when people ask me, my initial reaction is, I'm good. But then you kind of, you know, have that moment where you're like, like, can I really go there with somebody? I think in this instance, I really, you know, wanna go there. But it's difficult because you don't wanna let it rule your life. You know, this Supreme Court ruling is really landmark in the trajectory of how our community is able to participate in public life with the guidance that followed it. It reads like segregation. And when you've got that looming, it's very difficult to not spiral into despair.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  So I'm both, you know, really investing in my personal life and pouring myself into my friendships and my career and my partner and my family. And like, I'm really good in my personal life, but then also... This is really tough. So it's a ping pong of, you know, I'm good, I'm panicking. So, yeah, I think it's difficult. It's a difficult question to answer. I think that a lot of people in the community are really struggling right now.

• 7:06Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I mean, of course. With this UK Supreme Court ruling, what are now your biggest fears for the trans community?

• 7:16Speaker 02

  I think my biggest fear is how this could serve to erase our human rights. Ultimately, the guidance really disregards the Equality Act, which should concern all of us because the Equality Act protects all of our rights, regardless of who we are or how we identify, even protects workers' rights and the right to not be exploited by your employer. So if people can just go in and remove what they fancy from the Equality Act, then what's to stop a future government saying, we don't want workers' rights, we don't want women's rights, we don't want right to abortion,

• 7:59Speaker 02

  we don't want freedom of religious expression? Because all of these things are protected by the Equality Act 2010. So my concern is not just the impact that this is going to have on the trans community, but that we are sleepwalking into disaster as a country, where any government, future government, and how it's looking, you know, the idea of a reform government or a reform Tory coalition coming into power could just turn around and say, we don't fancy these rights for these people. And then it silos us into a situation that is going to be very difficult to return from and prioritizes certain kinds of humanity,

• 8:43Speaker 02

  rather than acknowledging that we are all humans that deserve human rights, period.

• 8:49Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I mean, I want to get into the book in absolute detail in a moment, but. I read it in one sitting, which I think.

• 8:57Speaker 02

  That's a good sign.

• 8:58Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I think it's the sort of book that you need to read in one sitting, in my eyes. Because it's a continuous flow of not only storytelling, but also, for me, there was a lot of educational points, things I didn't know about, and also just blind spots for me that I needed to pick up on. And one of the biggest things that landed for me on this subject is the misdirection of anger and blame to the trans community. And I'd love you to talk a bit more about that, because that was one, I mean, I think it was in one sentence, you sort of summed it up, and I was like, wow, that, I needed to read that explicitly and understand it better.

• 9:35Speaker 02

  Do you know what that sentence was?

• 9:37Fearne Cotton?

  I can maybe even find it, but I've written down loosely here. The real threat isn't trans women, it's that the vast majority of, this isn't necessarily, I might have truncated this, but the vast majority of, say, crimes like rape, violence, murder are instigated by men. So we're not looking at that. We're directing all of that rage, all of that injustice and anger to trans women.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think the problem really lies in that the majority of people who are angry towards trans people have never met a trans person in their life. So when you don't know a person who's trans personally, it's very easy to be convinced that they are someone that they're not. Or it's very easy to be manipulated into having your very valid fears projected on to somebody that doesn't actually have anything to do with those fears, but actually shares those fears too. Trans women share a lot of the same fears that cis women face. As a trans woman, my reality is very different to a cisgender woman's,

• 10:46Speaker 02

  but so is a black woman's experience to a white woman's, to an Asian woman's, to a disabled woman. All of our experiences are valid, they all matter. And we are often scared of the same things. But when you've got a society that is ultimately weaponizing those fears instead of solving them, it's misdirecting the blame. Because if we were to actually explore where that blame lies, it's a, I think it's a direction that maybe society's not ready for.

• 11:24Speaker 02

  It's really, really important that we do though with soaring misogyny rates, you know, with the conversation around adolescents coming out and a lot of people having their eyes opened to the radicalisation of young men and boys. It's a conversation that we have to start having and we stop, we need to stop blaming people that are just trying to live their lives. You know, it's not migrants' fault that you are earning less or that there's less opportunity. It's not trans women's fault that there is soaring levels of abuse online and in real life. We need to start really actually looking at the source. But I think that that's the function of culture wars, isn't it?

• 12:09Speaker 02

  It's, if we solved the problem, then culture wars wouldn't have their function. Yeah. Culture wars kind of function in the sense of an endless war and war is often with a motive and it often isn't about what it's being said it's about. So I think that the trans community are a very beneficial scapegoat. Unfortunately, we're a very small community that is visible enough to exploit, but you know, they don't need our votes. In reality, we have very little power, yet we're talked about as if we're the ones

• 12:50Speaker 02

  running the show, that we're the ones, you know, inconveniencing everyone's lives and, you know, endangering people through merely existing and through wanting to go for a swim somehow, that's like inconveniencing the rest of society. And it's, it's a real shame because we've seen all of this play out before with the proposed segregation of minority groups, whether or not that's saying that black women shouldn't be allowed in the same spaces as white women because they're inherently angry or inherently violent or not real women. And then the pipeline of where that, you know, comes from is heartbreaking, you know,

• 13:32Speaker 02

  in medical racism as well, black women were operated on to form modern medicine because they believed that black women specifically didn't feel pain. Arguing that Jews shouldn't be allowed to go into certain spaces. It's just, um, it's sad that we don't learn from our mistakes. That we don't learn from our ignorance. That when we don't understand something, we demonize it and we humiliate it into submission. So my real worry, my primary worry is the impact that this will have on the mental health of trans people.

• 14:09Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 14:10Speaker 02

  Living day to day. The reality is, most people don't know a trans person and the only trans people that they see are either influencers that are using their platforms or people in the public eye. So they've, they've kind of formed their idea of what a trans person is by a public platform. When the reality is a lot of trans people just wanna go and work. And like, live their life, whether or not that's working in a shop or like, you know, being cabin crew, you know, normal jobs, we're normal people.

• 14:40Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  So, um, my worry is ability to function in public life. If you can't use the men's bathroom as a trans man. If you can't use the women's bathroom as a trans woman. And then you're told to use the bathroom that you were assigned at birth. But then, the guidance also says, in some circumstances, trans women can't use the men's either. If you've had gender-affirming care and look too much like a woman, that leaves you in a place where there's no bathroom. And then you can't use the disabled people's bathroom because why should we take that space away from somebody who needs it? And we're not disabled, some trans people are.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  But then, if an able-bodied trans person is forced to use and take away a space from another person, that's not fair either. So really, if you're in a workplace that's telling you that we don't have a space for you and then singles you out, forces you to come out, forces you to make your gender identity a thing to everybody, makes you uncomfortable, we're really talking about segregation here. And the impact that that could have. On not just trans people, but people that could be perceived to be trans is catastrophic. It's going to turn people into the gender police. If we're saying that people need to start carrying their birth certificate around to prove that they're not trans, then is that really a free state?

• 16:10Speaker 02

  That's fascism, in my opinion, to carry a certificate to say that you can go from A to B. That's not right. That's not right for anybody. And also, when we hear the transport police say that they're going to start using male officers to strip search trans women. How do you know that that's a trans woman that you're proposing to strip search? How do you know that an officer who may or may not be corrupt says that you're trans as a cis woman? To then strip search you because a lot of trans women have vaginas too. So unless you're looking for a cervix, and I'm pretty sure that a lot of men can't find a cervix.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  Because they can't find a lot of other things, then, do you know what I mean? It's so illogical. All of this is so illogical and it puts so much power into the wrong hands for all of us. And that's why I'm so adamant that trans rights are women's rights and bodily autonomy across the board. If you don't like the idea of transitioning, don't transition. But it's not for you to say to other people that they can't. If you don't want an abortion, don't have abortions, but don't tell other people that they can't either. Abortion and trans rights follow a lot of the similar trajectories. And I, you know, I'm so adamant that if trans rights are removed from the equality act 2010,

• 17:40Speaker 02

  then it's going to set a ball rolling in a very difficult direction for all of us.

• 17:45Fearne Cotton?

  I mean, having to regularly, and this is something, this is part of your activism, this is part of who you are as a person, that this is, you know, you, you, there's not only passion, but this is survival for you. And you're speaking on behalf of. Friends of yours, but also a community and people look to you for that guidance and look to you for that strength and that hope. Talking about your own human rights and having to defend them is exhausting. It's something that many people wouldn't even think about having to do. And here you are having to do that quite regularly. And I'm imagining that takes its toll massively, mental health wise, energetically.

• 18:27Fearne Cotton?

  Also, you know, I, I, I don't have the same lived experience as you, but I can even just feel it's sort of being in the public eye, people having opinions about you is draining. And can actually send you completely mad. It's sent me completely mad so many times to the point where I'm like, what am I doing this? No, it's completely, it's insanity. And you somehow find coping mechanisms and something, you have good days and bad days. How has this particular period affected your mental health? Because it's been really full on.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, I feel it's odd. I was with, um, I was with my boyfriend the day after all of this broke. And I think I just went into numbness because this court case has been going on for the best part of a decade. So I had a feeling that this was going to happen because all of the signs have been there, that this is what was going to happen. This is what governments have lined up to happen. People have been put in place in certain roles to allow this to happen. People of significant means have been advocating for this to happen. So all of the signs were pointing that this was going to happen.

• 19:44Speaker 02

  I think a lot of people didn't even know that this court case was happening, that this was going on. And that's really down to, you know, how trans rights are reported on, the kind of conversations that we're having when all of the conversation is focused on women in sport. When there's very little trans women competing in women's sports. And when trans women do compete in women's sports, there's processes, often in terms

• 20:11Speaker 02

  Of the form of hormone regulation and things like that, which actually isn't limited to trans people. If a cis woman who is considered to have elevated levels of testosterone, her womanhood is then thrown into question. And then she's having to also have hormone regulation treatments such as Castor semenya. And Iman Kalaf is also a boxer who was humiliated and is a biological woman. So when all the focus is on the wrong place, instead of encouraging us to understand what's happening legally and politically. You really start to understand how distraction works.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  And it's getting everyone to look over there, focus on the bathrooms, focus on the women in sports. Create a problem that doesn't exist and then we take your rights away through the back door. And the same will happen for cisgender women too, I promise. And I don't want that to be a promise. I want it to be a warning. Because we are all focusing on the wrong things whilst abortion, not just abortion, miscarriages. Could lead to a woman having a conviction, a criminal conviction. Last week in the press, there was a story about how

• 21:41Speaker 02

  women who have an unexpected end of pregnancy could be visited by the police. Imagine losing a child and then being under suspicion for an unexpected end of pregnancy. After a certain date. And people need to realise that this is all connected. Trans rights, LGBT rights, gay marriage. That isn't as set in stone as people think it is. Abortion and pregnancy rights and just our right to general safety.

• 22:21Speaker 02

  You know, when we've got the police, when we've got stories like Sarah Everard being murdered by Wayne Cousins. And it just really actually not making that much of a difference in how we talk about policing. When we've got Brianna Jai, a sixteen year old trans girl stabbed to death by her classmates. And somehow that isn't a red line for how people talk about trans people. How bad does it need to get? Before we actually start thinking this is a horrendously violent place for all women and girls? And we are focusing on the wrong things.

• 23:06Speaker 02

  So I've really kind of steered away from talking about like my mental health because. I don't know, I mean, I I feel like I've got responsibility to my community. And I feel like a lot of trans people are forced into the position of being an activist and um. I don't know if that, I I feel like I I I want to be able to be of service for my community. And yeah, it it's scary because I feel like it's um the the stakes are so high now. I didn't get into, you know, when I first came into this industry, I was really just talking about. Our, you know, increased visibility and representation and like respect in public spaces.

• 23:52Speaker 02

  And somehow we have gone from visibility and respect and representation to being. Somewhat talked about by people in positions of power as um potential attackers of women and girls. Even though there's absolutely no statistic to suggest that that is the case, it also doesn't make any sense. Because why would a man, a cisgender man, pretend to be a trans woman? In order to get access to a women's space? When trans men exist? And he could just pretend to be a trans man and then say, no, I was assigned.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  A woman at birth and I transitioned to become a man and I'm in this space, which is by this logic, the right space to be in. It's misogyny. The focus on trans women is misogyny. Because it doesn't line up, none of it lines up.

• 24:51Fearne Cotton?

  I mean, with, you know, you've touched.

• 24:53Speaker 02

  I didn't even answer your question, sorry.

• 24:55Fearne Cotton?

  No, do you know what? You did, because also I think feeling numb is, I mean, in my experience, shock. And even though you might have a feeling it's coming. And you've seen the signs and you've, you know, you're obviously completely on top of how these things are flowing and how they might turn out. I think numbness is shock. It's like your body's way of going, I, I, I can't compute this, I can't.

• 25:19Speaker 02

  It's one, it's one thing knowing it's coming and then it's another thing when it actually happens. I guess it's like similar to Roe versus Wade. Like you know that the threat is there and somewhat process that it could happen, but then when it happens, it's like.

• 25:36Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah, you can say crap.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  I was gonna say something else. But yeah, I, I feel like, you know, I've, I've had my major depressive moments in advance because I felt like this is a moment where I'm gonna have to step up.

• 25:52Fearne Cotton?

  And that's full on, because people will look to you to step up in a moment like this in time. And, you know, we, watching the documentary, you've got this amazing documentary coming out, which it's so cinematic and beautifully made. You know, I DMed you on Instagram off, directly after I watched it, because I was just like, this is so powerful. And again, you know, not only do we get to know you better, but it explains so much. It's called Love and Rage and it's just really beautifully done. But we see you in burnout. We see, you know, you talk about after pride, feeling so burnt out and like you had nothing more to give. What is that balance to you? How do you keep a check on how much you're giving away, how much of yourself you're willing to put

• 26:35Fearne Cotton?

  out there? Because every time you wanna go out there and say something, yes, you're gonna have people who are going, thank you, I understand, I'm learning, or thank you for speaking up for me. But there are obviously gonna be people that say the opposite. And you're quite used to that by now, but it doesn't make it any easier.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  I don't think you ever really get used to it. I think it's hard. I think you, you stop looking for it. And I think that's the difference. Like, you're never gonna get used to someone screaming in your face that you suck and that you're barely human and that you deserve to die. And like, that impacts everybody. But I think when you're in the public eye, you stop looking for it. You stop like searching your name, you stop concerning yourself with the opinions of people who don't care if you live or die. Like, why would I? It's like you severed the abuse in a way. Um, I'm not very good at knowing when to stop. Yeah, I bet.

• 27:32Speaker 02

  To be honest, because for a very long time, I was the only trans person of colour with a platform in the UK. And for actually for a while, I was actually one of the only trans people who was getting certain opportunities in the mainstream. Um, there weren't hardly any, I mean, there wasn't really influencers when I first came into this industry. And there definitely weren't any trans influencers and trans people weren't working with fashion and beauty brands. I was one of the first to do that. And I'm really proud to have opened a lot of doors for people and not pulled up the ladder after me.

• 28:12Speaker 02

  Whenever a new girl comes on the scene, whenever, when there was a young doll, I'm always like, let's have lunch. Oh, yeah. I wanna be a big sister for you in this industry. And like, we're all different. Not all of us see eye to eye, we have our little like spats. Of course. You know, that's like girls. Of course. But like, I want people to know that like, I ride for the dolls, I ride for my sisters. And as soon as a girl is in the industry, I'm like, you need to know that this can be hard. Yeah. Especially as a woman, but then you add being trans on top of that. And like, there's a misogyny that is not accepted for cis women.

• 28:52Speaker 02

  But trans women are, our womanhood is really, the stick that is used to measure our womanhood is largely along misogynistic lines. So like hair on a cis woman's arms, it's normal to have hair on your arms. But if a trans woman walks into a room and she's got hairy arms, then we're not going to be measuring her with the same standards that we do as a society for cis women. Suddenly, that arm hair is a signifier that she's not a real woman. So the pressures to adhere to traditional ideas of what it means to be a woman is so high for trans women.

• 29:38Speaker 02

  For all women, but especially trans women, because our womanhood is then questioned.

• 29:43Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  So when you are then in the public eye.

• 29:46Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, times it by a million.

• 29:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I just always want girls to know that I'm there for them.

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• 31:10Speaker 04

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• 31:45Fearne Cotton?

  I mean, you say in the documentary that, you know, and I'm sure this is partly, probably largely because of your public persona and the fact that people are looking at you. And, you know, whether on a red carpet or a documentary or on a podcast like this, that your presentation is ultra feminine and it's like a suit of armour that you wear. But in the documentary, you know, we are seeing you at home, in joggers, no makeup, hair scraped back. Did watching that back make you feel vulnerable? Or like you were having to show a part of yourself that felt slightly uncomfortable?

• 32:15Speaker 02

  You know what, actually, I think it was really good for me because up until that point, I was so regimented about how I would allow people to see me. And working with Olivia Cappuccini, who is the director of the documentary, she really was just like, enough of the bullshit.

• 32:33Speaker 02

  I was like, can't I just put on a little bit of foundation?

• 32:36Fearne Cotton?

  Get the ball gown off, come on.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  And like, you know what, like both sides are me.

• 32:41Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  But I have just been so battered down by the media, especially in the early days of my career. And just some of the things that have been said to me, I think I just went into this kind of mode where I was like, I'm never going to let people see me sweat. And that includes, I'm never gonna like, not be polished. Because, I don't know, I think, yeah, it was, it was a defence mechanism and it is a defence mechanism. I write about it in my first book, actually, about how this is not just like kind of something in women's heads. It's a social condition. If you look at women who read the news, they did a study that people are less likely

• 33:24Speaker 02

  to take or believe what the woman who is reading the news is saying if they find her unattractive.

• 33:31Fearne Cotton?

  Wow.

• 33:32Speaker 02

  And also, it doesn't just stop there. In court cases, if a woman has been attacked by a man and she is deemed unattractive, they're less likely to believe that she's even been attacked. And I guess then, when you understand that, you understand like public perception. I guess that there's a sense of, you know, that my life is going to be easier if I look a certain way all the time, because this is me. But I... Probably put on the armour more than I need to sometimes.

• 34:08Fearne Cotton?

  But it can be both, can't it? It can be, you know, I I love putting makeup on and putting a nice outfit on, but equally, especially in this environment, you know, I don't wanna be on camera not feeling confident and like myself. So I think it's kind of, for most women, it's both. It's like, it's a, it is a suit of armour, but also, oh, it's so fun and I love it and it makes me feel good.

• 34:27Speaker 02

  I think it's also like perceived differently when you're trans, but like, ask any woman to go into the workplace without any makeup on.

• 34:34Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 34:34Speaker 02

  And like, see how she would feel. Ask any woman to not shave her legs and then go on a date and see how she would feel. Like, we all do things that maybe we're just like, kind of programmed to just do. But yeah, when I was filming without makeup on, I was like, quite self-conscious. Watching it back now, I'm, because it's, we were filming for three years. And now I feel like, you know, it's younger me and I don't feel like, you know, I'm, I'm looking back at her, knowing everything that I went through, you know, I lost people.

• 35:07Speaker 02

  I lost a person who I loved incredibly.

• 35:12Speaker 02

  And that I've got a tremendous amount of guilt about because in that relationship, I was the less emotionally mature person at the time. And I felt like, you know, you, you sometimes look back at relationships and, you know, a lot of my relationships, I'm the more mature one, I'm the one ready to be loved, I'm the one ready to love. And then suddenly I was in a relationship with another trans woman and I couldn't get out of my head. What does this mean? Who, who am I in, in this? Like, and I think a lot of it was like my inability to love my own transness in, in, in those years.

• 35:53Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 35:53Speaker 02

  And I found it like extremely confusing to fall in love with another trans woman. And also, you know, I, I feel like another woman. Um, I had, I'd never had a relationship with another woman. I feel like. Often, relationships with men, like emotional immaturity comes part and parcel a lot of the time. And you know, I'm the one having to like, kind of give and give and give. And I didn't have to give, I just had to be. And I felt like that was really uncomfortable. And I just felt when we broke up that I didn't give her what she deserved. And then I, we

• 36:35Speaker 02

  grew apart, she, um, she moved away and I got into a different relationship. And then I heard that she passed away. And um, I just found it really difficult. Like grief comes with guilt, it comes with anger, it comes with sadness. And it was tough. So when I look at myself in that documentary, I really just, I don't care that I'm not wearing makeup. I feel like I wanna hug myself because it also just puts into perspective that life is really hard. And my life was so tough in those three years, that wearing makeup or not wearing makeup was neither here nor there. So it was really actually a really

• 37:18Speaker 02

  freeing thing for me. I love the glam, but I feel like it actually forced me to like, give myself a break.

• 37:25Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, too right. I mean, that was a particularly poignant story threaded throughout the documentary. And I think when grief is complicated like that, and there's no tying up of loose ends, there's no moment to say goodbye, or to say the things that you wanted to say, that's really hard. That's really hard. And I think, you know, what you said, there's really important also about your own self-acceptance. You know, we've, we've probably all been through a relationship like that, where we didn't like ourselves, we weren't accepting of who we were. Where would you say you are with that today?

• 38:06Speaker 02

  So do you have a tissue?

• 38:07Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, of course.

• 38:09Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 38:10Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, it's full on. And it's full on to talk about that relationship.

• 38:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's hard.

• 38:17Fearne Cotton?

  You know, publicly, it's, it's a lot. It's a lot.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  Sorry, I zoned out. What was the question again?

• 38:25Fearne Cotton?

  No, don't worry. Take your time. Well, I think it's really around, you know, because you've got that piece of footage to look back on now, where you can see your growth. That's why I also enjoyed watching it, because we see, it's not like, oh, here I am and I've got all the answers and I've sorted everything out. You know, none of us have, but you see your journey through it. You see your growth. You see the ups and downs that have got you to a place where you feel perhaps more resilient. I'm not speaking on your behalf, but you know, you can see that, yeah. So I wonder where you are with the self-acceptance piece, you know, if you can look back at that relationship and think, I didn't love myself enough and that's why I couldn't be in it. You know, I'm sure most of us have been in a relationship like that.

• 39:07Fearne Cotton?

  It's ended because we didn't like ourselves and that was the defining factor. Do you feel accepting of yourself today?

• 39:16Speaker 02

  I do. I think it's human nature to never be satisfied in different respects. Like visually, like I think in terms of my appearance, I feel like I'm the most accepting that I've ever been. I'm thankful to have accessed a lot of the gender-affirming care that I wanted to and I feel like the best thing for me was beauty neutrality and, you know, just like not resting so much on my appearance and not thinking so much about how I look and just trying to be a lot more present and not thinking about, you know, I wish, I wish, I wish. And, you know, before you know it, you've wished yourself into being someone completely different that

• 39:59Speaker 02

  will never be you and that isn't you. So I think a lot of it is about just practising acceptance, even about the things that, you know, I don't necessarily love about myself, which, you know, will also just constantly happen, you know, as we age, there's going to be things that happen to my body that I don't love and I don't want to look back and be like, I just really wish I loved myself more and like the way that my body worked and my healthy body. So I've really eased up on myself a lot. I feel like, uh, like struggling with how I dealt with things in the past has been the biggest, the biggest hurdle. I got asked the other day in an interview if I chased controversy in the early days of my career and I think I was just naive.

• 40:44Speaker 02

  I really actually.

• 40:45Fearne Cotton?

  Well, we're all young once and we're learning on the job.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  Exactly. And like, I never chased controversy. I ended up in a lot of controversial situations or like situations that were turned into controversies because I don't necessarily think half of them were actually what I was saying. Um, but I was very naive in how, in not thinking, how could this be taken by a society that's unwilling to talk about racism? How could this be taken by a society that's unwilling or unused to actually hearing a trans person talk or even seeing a trans person move, exist.

• 41:27Speaker 02

  Um, so, you know, unfortunately, being a trans person has turned into something controversial when, you know, I think that the controversial thing should be that transphobic hate crimes rise year on year.

• 41:41Fearne Cotton?

  Yep.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  That trans women are more likely to be attacked than to attack somebody in a public space. It's just, you know, we're living in the upside down.

• 41:51Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  Um, so, I don't know, I feel like, yes, um, I try to just ease up on myself as well. And when I have like a thought that moves through my head, that isn't that kind to myself, I ask myself where it's, where is it coming from, rather than just accepting that it's true.

• 42:07Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 42:08Speaker 02

  And I think for a long time, I just accepted that it's true. I was like, yeah, you really suck. Like, you are what these people say about you, you, this, that and the third. And sometimes you're just exhausted.

• 42:21Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, we've all got to get better at that, just going, it's just a thought.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  It's just a thought, let it go. That's meditation.

• 42:27Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 42:27Speaker 02

  It's like not blocking the thoughts out, it's allowing the thoughts to come through and leave it behind.

• 42:34Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 42:35Speaker 02

  So, yeah, I feel like a lot of, a lot of the times, my unkind thoughts are like anxiety. Sometimes it's insecurity.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  Sometimes it's because I'm overtired, overstretched, spending myself thin. And just accept that I'm a human being. And that feeling of like, if I do this, then I'm gonna feel better. If I do that, I'm gonna feel better. Like, that is just kind of like a human urge.

• 43:03Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 43:03Speaker 02

  And it's not because I'm actually lacking.

• 43:06Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 43:06Speaker 02

  It's just because we are all human and these are natural feelings.

• 43:11Fearne Cotton?

  So. I mean, go- going back to you, so, you know, someone asking you that question, did you chase, you know, controversial topics or whatever, you know, that line of questioning is. Your new book, Talk To Me, focuses around difficult conversations.

• 43:25Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 43:26Fearne Cotton?

  And, and encouraging us, whether it's in activism or just within your own family, to have those chats. It doesn't have to be about big global topics, but, you know, into family scenarios, whatever it might be. I think the British are particularly bad at this. I mean, not very good at having awkward conversations or tough conversations or confronting people. We, we tend to suppress and then be very resentful is kind of like the.

• 43:50Speaker 02

  We start a culture war.

• 43:52Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. But, you know, very early on in your.

• 43:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:55Fearne Cotton?

  Public career.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  Mm.

• 43:57Fearne Cotton?

  You were forced into, there was no like easing in, you know, like I did a bunch of kids TV and just talked utter shit for years on the telly before I got anywhere near having a deep conversation.

• 44:05Speaker 02

  Digging it.

• 44:06Fearne Cotton?

  Shout out, we love it. But you were straight into it. You were straight into.

• 44:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:13Fearne Cotton?

  You're on live TV, you're often on big news breakfast TV shows or news outlets, talking about really punchy issues without any guidance, I'm imagining.

• 44:23Speaker 02

  No.

• 44:24Fearne Cotton?

  I mean, do you, what do you wish you'd known then that you know now that has enabled you to write a book like this?

• 44:29Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, I think also it's, it's worth mentioning that, that, that was largely out of survival and necessity.

• 44:36Fearne Cotton?

  Of course.

• 44:37Speaker 02

  I lost my job and I was thrown to the wolves. Um, you know, and it, it just kind of felt very like, you know, I, I needed to stand up for myself. And, um, it just, um, sorry, it's really hard to like go back to that place. It just feels.

• 44:54Fearne Cotton?

  A bit.

• 44:55Speaker 02

  It's, and. Like, I felt like that was the hardest part to watch of the film, like the reliving of just how brutal that was, because it wasn't just the UK press, it was the worldwide press. I was seeing myself be discussed in South Africa, America, the Netherlands, Australia. Like, that's not normal to go from, and before that happened, I just got out of an abusive relationship that I was in for years. It was coercive and it was controlling and I had such little self-esteem.

• 45:36Speaker 02

  I had such little sense of self. I didn't know what was going on a lot of the time, because as a way of coping with being controlled and being shouted at and being belittled and, you know, he was controlling what I was wearing, who my friends were. He'd driven a wedge between me and my mum. I just didn't really know, I didn't feel real. I just had my, my personhood stripped away from me. And then I was starting to like build myself back up and, you know, I booked the job with L'Oréal.

• 46:22Speaker 02

  And, you know, as the first trans woman to work with L'Oréal and like probably one of the first trans women to work with a big beauty brand in the UK. And then it all just really fell apart. And then suddenly all of the abuse from my relationship became the general public and the media. So I really felt like in that moment.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  You need to fight for yourself. You have just come out of an abusive relationship and now it's the world. I didn't have any other choices, that or give in to feelings of not being here. And thankfully, those voices were quieter than they have been in other situations. I saw that moment as an opportunity to advocate for myself in a way that I hadn't been able to advocate in my abusive relationship. I felt completely silenced in that and I felt terrified of him. And I was just like, I'm not gonna let the general public terrify me. I'm not gonna let the media bully me or like, kind of tell me that I'm an awful person for

• 47:32Speaker 02

  saying that like racism is a system that's set up to benefit the white race. Like, that's just unfortunately, a fact of society that is really uncomfortable for a society that hasn't ever talked about racism. But we needed to talk about it. And then, you know, cut to twenty twenty and everybody's on that page. And I'm relieved. There's, there was an element of kind of like, well, where were you guys in two thousand seventeen? But you let that go and you're like, okay, well, this is what you wanted in the first place. You can't be resentful that people are now on the same page as you saying what you said. Yes, you lost your job

• 48:11Speaker 02

  for saying it, but maybe we wouldn't have, people wouldn't have felt, you know, comfortable talking about it if they hadn't, you know, gotten the ball rolling. And I do think that that unfortunately, for me, was a watershed moment in, you know, opening up a conversation about how we talk about racism in the UK. It's just, it was, it was, it was a tough, it was a tough moment.

• 48:36Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I mean, I can't imagine, you know, watching that back on the documentary. It's, it's a tough watch seeing you go through it. And, you know, it's fucking awful having people attack you. Like, it's shit. I've, I've not had it in, in the same way as you, obviously, but I've certainly been on that horrible. End of people giving you shit about things, or it feels like it's very noisy. Everyone's saying the same thing to you, or saying unkind things. I definitely have my own version of, might feel extreme to say PTSD, but I think at times it's felt like that. Where I don't wanna do certain jobs anymore. I don't feel safe in certain jobs anymore.

• 49:18Fearne Cotton?

  I think safety is a key word in this conversation. Because you still put yourself in these situations, out of necessity again, and also because you, it's a duty perhaps. But it's also passion, activism, that you still have to go on live TV. You still have to have debates about your human rights. And I wonder for you what the hangover of that is. You know, for me, if I put myself in a situation that reminds me of a horrible time. I go into fight or flight, I feel like I'm leaving my body, I go into shock. I still don't really wanna do that. I still avoid certain jobs hugely. Because it doesn't suit my nervous system and what I experienced.

• 50:03Fearne Cotton?

  For you, you know, do you still have those feelings for a start? And if so, what are you doing to cope with those tricky conversations you're having? The questions you're being asked that are really uncomfortable, the stories you're having to tell that might even re-traumatise you slightly?

• 50:16Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, it's the same. I don't do certain things. Like, I won't debate my existence on television.

• 50:23Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 50:23Speaker 02

  I'm not going on to some of the shows or segments that I went on earlier on in my career. Because, I don't know, I feel like also we're in different times, we're 10 years past that. And I feel like, you know, debating whether or not trans people are real, we.

• 50:42Speaker 02

  Hello? So I feel like I won't indulge certain things. And I think that we've all got a responsibility to not indulge those things. Because a lot of the time is actually intentional to get us stuck on something. The reality is, trans people are here, we will always be here, we have always been here. It's gonna be a long and miserable life for these people that have invested so much in eradicating trans people. Because you can't. It's like trying to erase resistance or hope. You can't do it. The natural being of a human is to want to exist. And yeah, you can make it hard for people to exist, but I I just think that trans people,

• 51:25Speaker 02

  you know, you go back in time and we were seen in a completely different way. In indigenous cultures, seen as like people that were the most plugged in spiritually, that saw past boundaries and, you know, rigid ways of thinking, like the shaman or that kind of thing. And, um, you know, I, I, I feel like you go back to the eighties. And trans women are responsible for sparking the queer rights movement in America. I just feel like an immense sense of pride for being trans. And it's not because I think, think that I'm better or anything like that. I think we should all feel proud of being who we are. I think it's a beautiful thing to be a cisgender woman.

• 52:07Speaker 02

  And, you know, if you're lucky enough to be able to bring life into this world, I think that's amazing. But I don't think that's all that being a cisgender woman is. I think that we are all individuals and I think the way that my transness interacts with who I am as a person, I feel proud. And I think that we should all feel proud. But, you know, when you've got the government and the media consistently telling you that you should be ashamed of who you are, you, you learn. And I think it's a very similar thing. You, you, you know that certain spaces It's not safe. Aren't safe. So, you know, I, I won't indulge certain media outlets. I won't put myself in a situation where I'm invited to go and debate on television.

• 52:50Speaker 02

  You know, whether or not trans people should be segregated or not. It's like, it's like asinine and I think it's extremely insulting, actually. So, I don't know. I, I feel like I try to be a little bit more dynamic. I like to think about how can we push this conversation forward. I like to think about what is actually a constructive use of my time rather than pandering to existing systems. The Supreme Court ruling, actually, with that, no trans voice or organisation was heard. So there was a lot of organisations for cisgender women's rights who are largely anti-trans that were heard.

• 53:30Speaker 02

  But there was no voice for the trans community, which is so wild because the legal system is meant to be about fairness and it can't be fair if both sides aren't heard. Even people who have committed murder have the chance to say their piece in court. Trans people weren't even given the same right as a different kind of court case. But still, it's the legal system. Yeah. You should be able to say your bit. So I've teamed up with Good Law Project, which is an organisation that are actually taking legal action in response to what's happening.

• 54:11Speaker 02

  And we filmed a film that was projected on to the Supreme Court. And we said what we would say if we had had the opportunity to say these things. And it went on to social media and it got a really great reaction. A lot of people didn't even know that trans people hadn't had the opportunity to say anything in court. And they were like, this is wild. How was this allowed to happen? So I think ways of educating the public in a way that isn't just going down the lens of sensationalism or controversy or soundbites or misinformation or the opportunity that someone would take to misquote me. I think just being a little bit more creative with how I do things.

• 54:55Speaker 02

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• 56:27Fearne Cotton?

  You know, this book is largely about those difficult conversations and activism, but of course, looking at the balance of the toll that it might take. But not to say that you shouldn't, because I think also what you cleverly articulate in the book is that so many people feel like, what's the point? Nothing I can say is going to change anything. You know, my tiny voice, and if you're sat at home thinking, I'm really passionate about whatever it might be. It could be animal rights or like whatever, whatever your thing is. There's no point me saying anything, doing anything, because no one will listen. I think a lot of people feel apathy towards big systems that are in place because it feels so out of their reach. But actually...

• 57:08Fearne Cotton?

  Two things that you state in the book, which again are like, things we know, but we need a reminder of are like, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, women could be jailed for wearing trousers. And if no one had done anything about that, you and I, who are both wearing skirts today, would be carted off by the police. And then also, as we all know, looking at nineteen sixty seven, you know, it was illegal to be gay in England and Wales. And that's, that's not long ago. That's yesterday.

• 57:33Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 57:34Fearne Cotton?

  So, so I think remind us of those big points and that these changes are only made because a few people decided to start speaking up and then gathered and rallied and got an allegiance together to make some noise. It's, would you say it's always worth it? If you've got a cause in your head that you believe in, it's always worth it.

• 57:53Speaker 02

  It's always worth it, senor, but always. I think that we firstly, talk to me is about having difficult conversations, but it's primarily about understanding your own personal power.

• 58:06Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 58:06Speaker 02

  And that your own personal power matters, not just to win an argument or to engage in conversations as a competition. Your power and what you believe in doesn't exist so that you can be right in certain conversations all the time. What you think matters, period. What you believe matters. And I think if we only engage in conversations with the desire to change that person's mind, and if we don't ever express what we think

• 58:47Speaker 02

  because we feel like we can't change that person's mind, then it diminishes what we actually believe in. It diminishes our personal power and we feel dominated. We're like, no one's gonna listen to me, so I'm not gonna say anything.

• 59:00Fearne Cotton?

  You silence yourself.

• 59:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, and you become.

• 59:04Speaker 02

  Siloed again, prison, imprisoned in your own mind. I think when I started writing the book, I wrote it for a younger me. I didn't have the means that I have now in terms of, you know, security, mental health, self-worth, those kind of things, not just like financial means, but like, you know, I didn't know myself in the way that I did now. So I think this book, Talk To Me, is really an amalgamation of everything I've learned. But also what I've learned of living with myself and how I communicate that with others.

• 59:43Speaker 02

  And I, I thought the other day, I think that we have all taken too much of a cue from politicians when we're communicating with, with each other. Conversation has become a debate. And when you're debating someone, you're driving home one singular point largely. You're not actually listening to the other person or trying to understand where their point or their beliefs are rooted. You're conversing with that person to win. And oftentimes, two things can be true at once. And the progress of it all actually exists in the middle a lot of the time because we need to live with each other.

• 1:00:27Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 1:00:28Speaker 02

  So even if someone doesn't believe what you believe, you need to find a way of being cool with them. And they need to find a way of being cool with you too. I'm not particularly a big fan of organized religion, but I'm not going to stop people from practicing it. I'm not going to say you can't worship this god because I don't think that god in any sense is like real. I'm very spiritual, but I've got a lot of criticisms about, about organized religion. And I think that that's fine, but as long as you're respectful of the fact that people have faith and people have their personal faith and everybody should be allowed to practice whatever faith they have.

• 1:01:10Speaker 02

  And also, that faith setup or that religious setup should be able to be critiqued as well, because certain things happen in powerful organisations that, you know, should be talked about also. I don't know, I feel like everything should be talked about. We shouldn't not be able to talk.

• 1:01:31Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. And also, like, you know, the book is so nuanced because as well as saying, yes, we should stand up for our beliefs, we should have the space to talk about them. You're also saying there has to be room to make mistakes, there has to be room to go wrong.

• 1:01:45Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:01:46Fearne Cotton?

  And there has to be room for forgiveness and perhaps further conversation about all of it, and room so therefore we can grow. Like, nobody in the history of humanity has gone through life without changing their mind for a start.

• 1:01:59Speaker 02

  Well, exactly. And I think when you take that into the trans conversation, and especially with people that are arguing for trans women not to be allowed into women's spaces, I think that there are a cross-section of women who just don't like trans people and are using it as an opportunity to ostracise and segregate. But I think that there's also a lot of women who are traumatised as women and don't know any trans people, have been manipulated by the media into thinking that trans women are men who are predatory, and then are then put in a position thinking, I need to defend myself, I need to defend my womanhood, I need to defend other women by not allowing these "men", quote unquote, into women-only spaces.

• 1:02:45Speaker 02

  I think that instead of just ostracising these women who are expressing these concerns, as long as they're being respectful, I think that respect needs to be on both sides. Let's just have a conversation, not like demonise people who are just lacking education and lacking actual understanding about how this could actually make their life harder too. But if there's not respect on both sides, then there's no conversation to be had.

• 1:03:16Fearne Cotton?

  Nope.

• 1:03:16Speaker 02

  I can't be having a conversation with a cisgender woman who refuses to understand that I'm a human being too, who's also under threat of misogyny, who's also scared about her physical safety, who's also experiencing mental health challenges because of the rise in misogyny rates, who can't walk down the road without being catcalled and feeling like I need to like cross the road on at night when the man's walking towards me. All of these things are shared, but we don't know that if we don't talk to each other.

• 1:03:47Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:47Speaker 02

  So like, it's difficult because it's like a chicken and egg situation. It's like kind of we need to talk, but I can't talk to you because you're not being respectful to me. And then I feel hostile to you because you're not seeing my humanity. I just want all of us to understand that a lot of identity has become tribalism. And it's stopping us from understanding actually that we're all human beings.

• 1:04:10Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:10Speaker 02

  And we all deserve safety, dignity, respect, opportunity.

• 1:04:16Fearne Cotton?

  Hmm.

• 1:04:17Speaker 02

  The basic things.

• 1:04:18Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. I mean, looking at the documentary and having read the book, there is a lot of hope in your voice. Even though there's a lot of shit going on and even though it is a noisy conversation and one that you often find yourself in the centre of, you do have hope. You do have hope that there is a positive future ahead for the trans community.

• 1:04:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I do. I mean, if I didn't, then I would spiral into despair.

• 1:04:43Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:44Speaker 02

  And I do have an optimism with regards to, uh, to, to the people. I, I, I think a lot of people are easily led. I think that a very small minority of people are leaders. And then I think that an even smaller number of those people use their leadership for good. So I feel like with the right education, and unfortunately, we often seem to have to learn the hard way. I have faith because I know that what's being proposed won't work. And it won't just not work for trans people. It won't work for all people. Because it hasn't worked before.

• 1:05:31Speaker 02

  It makes everyone's life hard. If you look at how racial segregation didn't work. If you look at how chastising, humiliating and demonizing gay men didn't work in the 1980s. How not talking about alternative family dynamics or even the fact that queer people exist in schools didn't work. This isn't gonna work. So I have faith in just logic. But I've also got faith in my community. I'm so plugged in to the love of my community and like the love of women. I have faith in women and like womanhood.

• 1:06:15Speaker 02

  And I know that womanhood isn't this exclusive thing. I feel like there's a very loud voice that is anti-trans, that is plugged into government, that's plugged into the media, that's getting a lot of attention. But I don't think that that's indicative of all women because I really feel like there's a kindness with women. And I'm gonna choose to think about that.

• 1:06:41Fearne Cotton?

  Good.

• 1:06:42Speaker 02

  When, when it's, you know, difficult times, I'm gonna plug into the love that I've always felt from my queer community. I'm gonna plug into the resilience of my black community. I'm lucky to be a member of multiple marginalized communities that are extremely resilient and have gotten through hard times before. And I'm gonna learn from my ancestors and I'm gonna look at my queer elders who got through the HIV and AIDS crisis. Police were barging into queer bars with rubber gloves on because they didn't wanna catch AIDS or HIV from gay men in the 1980s.

• 1:07:27Speaker 02

  That wasn't that long ago.

• 1:07:28Fearne Cotton?

  Nope.

• 1:07:30Speaker 02

  That was the kind of idi-

• 1:07:31Fearne Cotton?

  I was born in 81, babe. Like, it's not that long ago.

• 1:07:34Speaker 02

  That's the kind of idiocy-

• 1:07:35Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:36Speaker 02

  -that gay men were facing back then. Women, as you said, couldn't wear trousers.

• 1:07:41Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 1:07:41Speaker 02

  At one point.

• 1:07:42Fearne Cotton?

  Absurd.

• 1:07:43Speaker 02

  In the nineties, same-sex parents were doxxed by the press. And now, it's not a thing.

• 1:07:51Fearne Cotton?

  No.

• 1:07:53Speaker 02

  For a lot of people, it's not a thing.

• 1:07:54Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:55Speaker 02

  Gay marriage, I mean, I talk about ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson talking about gay marriage being akin to bestiality. And like now, if someone's against gay marriage, then we're like, what's wrong with you? Why are you standing in the way of someone's love?

• 1:08:14Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:14Speaker 02

  So like, I've got faith that time does reveal idiocy. And I've also got faith in the kindness of people.

• 1:08:23Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:23Speaker 02

  So I am gonna focus, pull my focus onto the right things.

• 1:08:28Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:28Speaker 02

  And when these voices are hateful and loud, that's exactly what they are. They're hateful and loud, but they're not the majority.

• 1:08:36Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, exactly. Hey, I'd love to know, to somehow finish off this chat, that I could sort of keep on going for like the next week with this chat.

• 1:08:45Speaker 02

  I feel like I have.

• 1:08:46Fearne Cotton?

  We've not even scratched the surface.

• 1:08:48Speaker 02

  I always, I'm so sorry, if you're listening to this, I go off on tangents so often and I feel.

• 1:08:52Fearne Cotton?

  That's what this is for, this is what podcasting is. We don't want concise answers, we want, we want all of it.

• 1:08:58Speaker 02

  I do feel, I do feel like I should go back, though, when you talked about like, how do I cope? And I feel like I do have a tendency to be quite avoidant, because I feel like we're all struggling in this moment.

• 1:09:11Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:11Speaker 02

  I do hide a lot of how I struggle, because I feel like I've got a responsibility to my community to be strong. And like, that has proven difficult, and in the documentary, you can see it.

• 1:09:25Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:26Speaker 02

  At one point, my hair started to fall out, and half of my face was paralyzed because I was so stressed. And I was dealing with grief whilst also being dragged through the media. And just seeing, you know, a sixteen-year-old child be murdered in broad daylight in a park in the UK, a trans woman be dragged through the street by her hair. In America and, you know, just politicians just like act like none of this is happening. And yeah, I mean, I, I, I, I feel like I've got. My boyfriend says that my face has subtitles, but I've also got the best poker face ever. And it depends on who I'm talking to.

• 1:10:11Fearne Cotton?

  I like that. You, I've never heard that. Your face has subtitles.

• 1:10:14Speaker 02

  I can either be the most obvious person or like I, you will never know how I'm feeling.

• 1:10:19Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:20Speaker 02

  And unfortunately, I have gotten through life experiences very good at not letting people know how I'm feeling. People around me can see it as plain as day, but there was times when we were shooting this documentary. Like I shot the cover of Cosopolitan magazine and then a few weeks later I was in rehab. Like dealing with PTSD symptoms because of everything that happened in the media. And also the abusive relationship that happened before it. I didn't have any time to process that abuse because then the abuse was like coming thick and fast through social media and through the mainstream as well. So like, I think it was really around COVID that I started to process everything.

• 1:11:06Speaker 02

  And then everything became a lot. And then we started filming the documentary. So I think I was processing things in real time.

• 1:11:15Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:15Speaker 02

  In the documentary and then Ava died and then I crashed. And I was like, this is just too much. Like I can't give and give and give and give. I mean battered and battered and battered. And I started having some real, serious conversations about, you know, how I continue. How do I be a voice for my community and take better care of myself? And it feels difficult because, you know, this documentary was, we were filming it for three years and we didn't know that this was gonna happen. It's just the timing. It feels like the best time for the film and like the hardest time for me personally. Because I'm releasing it into an extremely hostile environment,

• 1:11:58Speaker 02

  which means that it's like really necessary for a lot of people that need to see it. But then also, like, it makes me feel really unsafe. Um, so I don't know, I, I, I think it's a constant, it's like, it's a constant check in.

• 1:12:12Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:12Speaker 02

  And it's like, some days I'll be really good and some days my anxiety will be so bad that I can't get out of bed.

• 1:12:18Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:19Speaker 02

  So I think it's just checking in on myself constantly, making sure that, you know, I'm not pushing myself too hard. Um, I've got an incredible team and I've got amazing friends and an incredible boyfriend. So I lean on them a lot.

• 1:12:37Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, good.

• 1:12:37Speaker 02

  I don't have anybody in my team that's encouraging me to do things that, you know, would be to the detriment.

• 1:12:44Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:45Speaker 02

  Of my wellness.

• 1:12:46Fearne Cotton?

  No, good. It's so important. You've just got to keep checking in. Daily inventory. How am I doing? What's going on? Where would you say your happy place is?

• 1:12:56Speaker 02

  My happy place, I mean, it has to be home.

• 1:13:00Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. With your cats.

• 1:13:03Speaker 02

  I've got two cats and two dogs.

• 1:13:04Fearne Cotton?

  Love your cat. I'm a cat person. So when I saw your cats on the dock, I was like, okay, we need to hang out. These cat, what, what's that? Is it Sphinx cats?

• 1:13:12Speaker 02

  They're two Sphinx's. They're different kinds of Sphinx.

• 1:13:14Fearne Cotton?

  They are incredible.

• 1:13:15Speaker 02

  I know. One of them looks like an, like the alien emoji.

• 1:13:17Fearne Cotton?

  I, I'm obsessed with that cat. When I saw it, I was like, this is my dream cat.

• 1:13:22Speaker 02

  She's my alarm clock. She's an absolute nightmare. Now that it's summer, I forgot that when it's summer, she wakes me up even earlier.

• 1:13:30Fearne Cotton?

  Four in the morning, I'm hungry.

• 1:13:31Speaker 02

  I'm just like, girl.

• 1:13:34Speaker 02

  Um, so yeah, um, but I think it's at home.

• 1:13:38Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:38Speaker 02

  Um, it's doing really normal things. Um, it's like ordering takeout, like girl dinner, Indian.

• 1:13:46Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:47Speaker 02

  Chinese, picky bits, film.

• 1:13:50Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:51Speaker 02

  Friends, animals trampling all over us.

• 1:13:54Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:54Speaker 02

  Like gossip, you know, getting the tea from your girls, getting the gays over.

• 1:14:01Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:01Speaker 02

  Getting the tea from the gays, because that's the good tea. That's the good tea. But I don't know, I, I, I just. Very basic things. I've set up my life. I've got a very full private life. And there's a difference between a private life and a personal life. And when you're in the public eye, you need to make sure. That you've got. A very clear distinguish.

• 1:14:24Fearne Cotton?

  Yep.

• 1:14:25Speaker 02

  Between the two, because there's elements of my personal life that I'm willing to share, but my private life is off limits.

• 1:14:33Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:34Speaker 02

  And I have filled that with love.

• 1:14:37Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:37Speaker 02

  And, you know, I'm lucky to have parents who understand. And I didn't want them to be part of the documentary and they didn't want to be part of the documentary because they understand that I need that private life.

• 1:14:49Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:50Speaker 02

  And then, you know, my public life is, is, you know, largely full with this kind of thing and like, you know, um, talking about things that I feel matter.

• 1:15:00Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:01Speaker 02

  But, um, I don't know, I, I feel like I've, I've got it right in terms of how my life is set up. So my happy place is my private life and making sure that I've built a life that feels good for me and not a life that looks good for other people.

• 1:15:16Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, that's so important. Doesn't matter what anyone else thinks your life is like or looks like. It's if you're content, if you're happy, that's all that matters.

• 1:15:24Speaker 02

  Make sure you've got people that allow you to be messy.

• 1:15:27Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, too right. Well, as I said, I thought the documentary is just incredible. I love reading this book. It's really motivating.

• 1:15:36Speaker 02

  It means so much that you like it because I really respect your opinion.

• 1:15:40Fearne Cotton?

  I love it. I don't like it. I love them both and it was just a joy to read and a joy to watch and just wish you all the success with both of them. Thank you so much, Monroe.

• 1:15:48Speaker 02

  Thank you, Fan.

• 1:15:50Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, Monroe, thank you so much. That was just an incredible chat, informative and moving and eye opening at times and essential, I would say. Monroe's book, Talk To Me, is out on the fifth of June and her documentary, Love And Rage, will be in cinemas from the 10th of June. Please go see it. It is so beautifully made. Right, I'm going to love you and leave you with this gorgeous exclusive chapter from Kirsty Gallagher's new audiobook. It's called Your Cosmic Purpose and it's out on the 5th of June. Until next time, a huge thank you again to Monroe, to the producer, Anushka Tate at Happy Place Studios, and to you lot, I love you.

• 1:16:50Speaker 08

  Chapter 6 Heal Your Worth Wound Every part of you is exactly as your soul intended it to be in this lifetime.

• 1:17:05Speaker 08

  One of the greatest ways that you can begin to live your cosmic purpose is to heal your worth wound, that deep rooted belief that you are less than, that constant feeling of never being enough, and ultimately, that profound sense of being unworthy. You can never fully be all of who your soul came here to be if you're worried that you're not good enough, or about the shape of your thighs, or a wrinkle on your forehead. This is yet another way that the current systems keep you disconnected from the power of your divinity, by making you feel like you are never enough.

• 1:17:48Speaker 08

  When you identify too much with human you and your looks, material possessions, and gaining approval and validation from the world outside of you, you disconnect from the beauty, power, essence, magnificence, and magic of your soul. When you walk through the world feeling like you're not enough, you suffocate the life force energy of your soul.

• 1:18:17Speaker 08

  This isn't to say that you don't need to make the best of yourself, or take care of yourself. Your human body is the vessel for your soul, so you want to take the best care of it possible, and feel as good in it as you can, so that your soul can live, experience, and express fully through you. Get enough sleep, eat well, hydrate, exercise and learn how to breathe properly, meditate, walk in nature, and keep your energy clear so that your soul essence can flow through you. Yes, your soul made you perfectly. But you can't abuse and not take care of your human vessel

• 1:19:01Speaker 08

  and expect life force energy to be able to flow through it clearly. The problem comes when you're doing things because you feel that you need to do them to fit in or be accepted, because you feel you should look a certain way, or because you don't feel good enough without it. I need you to remember that there is an entire industry that profits from you never feeling like you're enough. One of the most powerful ways to take someone's power is to make them dislike themselves. And we live in a world that's designed to make you feel like you're not enough just as you are.

• 1:19:44Speaker 08

  This has you constantly chasing things outside of you and feeling like you need something out there to make you feel worthy, or that you need to look or behave in a certain way to be enough. I want you to come to see that it's all already within you. When you begin to take back your worth and realise who you truly are, your life will change. Your soul created you just the way you are for a reason. You are perfect in your soul's eyes. And I wish that each one of you could see yourself through the eyes of your soul, or even what I see when I look at you.

• 1:20:30Speaker 08

  I see your soul shining through, your inner beauty radiating outwards, your unique expression of the universe in a human body, and everything that makes you, you. You are radiant and magical and perfect just as you are. Every part of you is exactly as your soul intended it to be in this lifetime.

• 1:21:01Speaker 08

  But we can only see you when you allow your soul to express and radiate out of you. When you stop squishing your soul's essence by worrying too much about whether you look the way the latest beauty standard tells you that you should look, or you're behaving the way you should be behaving. In order to fully live your cosmic purpose and allow your soul to radiate and experience life through you, you need to heal your wounds around your sense of self and not feeling like enough.

• 1:21:38Speaker 08

  Undoing your worth wounds. Let's begin by reflecting on where your worth wounds have come from. What has happened in your life that has made you feel like you're not enough? Who or what has made you doubt yourself and question your worth? Where does the belief come from that you're not worthy? What are the stories that you tell yourself about who you are and what you do or don't deserve?

• 1:22:12Speaker 08

  What has made you forget your divine cosmic essence and who you truly are? In order to expand into your full soul self, you need to let go of all that keeps you from being able to fully love, accept and approve of yourself. Do healing around any ways in which you felt different, an outsider, or not believed in yourself, your gifts and what you have to offer to the world. Hold those versions of you who felt this way and let them know that you accept and love all parts of you and that it is safe to be all of who you are.

• 1:22:55Speaker 08

  It's time to realise that you are enough just as you are, and that everything that makes you you is needed in the world. It's time to embrace your quirks, uniqueness, and everything about you that makes you different, and see this as a superpower rather than a flaw. You are perfect just the way you are. And when you begin to embrace your unique soul essence and let your soul's light shine through you, that's when you will radiate your true worth. Because, my love,

• 1:23:38Speaker 08

  as you begin to allow your soul to weave and express through you and listen once more to the stirrings of your heart and soul, you will begin to know yourself, understand yourself, accept yourself, value yourself, and love yourself once more. And as you do this, you will no longer accept anything less than you deserve. You will begin to know that you are worthy and deserving and more than enough just as you are. From here, you will begin to trust yourself

• 1:24:20Speaker 08

  and believe in yourself enough to listen to your intuition and inner knowing and follow where your soul wants you to go. You will be empowered to care for, nurture, nourish, and look after yourself as the cosmic being that you are. It's only from a place of being fully anchored, grounded, and at home in yourself and your values, worth, and sense of self that you will ever be able to truly make change, move forwards, and do things differently in your life. This is the only place from which you can truly know what you want,

• 1:25:05Speaker 08

  and then believe in yourself enough to get it. What the world really needs is you being all of you. That's a huge part of your cosmic purpose, to bring you to the world, which you can't do when you don't feel worthy or good enough. To do this, you need to once more connect back to the essence of your soul, as it's only when you're disconnected from the divine and living too much from your ego that you will feel like you're not enough. The way to create a life of meaning and purpose is to know yourself, love yourself, and accept yourself

• 1:25:50Speaker 08

  as the soul that you are. All of you, the complex, raw, vulnerable, messy, perfectly imperfect human you, alongside the powerful, wise, magical, all-knowing soul you. As soon as you can begin to show up in the world as who you truly are, without questioning it, that's when you become free. When you are truly rooted, anchored and grounded into your sense of self, you no longer need to look for as much from the outside world. You self-source your worth, approval,

• 1:26:35Speaker 08

  validation and permission from within you. And that's when real change and transformation becomes possible. You begin to know from deep within you what you are worthy, deserving and capable of.

• 1:26:50Speaker 08

  I'd love you to begin to feel into who you are when you are at your very best and most purposeful, when you are your truest, most authentic soul self. What makes you feel good, alive, like your best, most soulful self? Let more of this version of you begin to shine through and then start to embody that energy. You see, it's not enough to just tell yourself that you're worth more or that you'll believe in yourself more. As very often, especially in times of difficulty or doubt,

• 1:27:31Speaker 08

  your ego mind will simply tell you, "No, you aren't," or "No, you won't." You can tell yourself something until you're blue in the face and it won't make too much difference until you begin to feel and embody it. That's where the true wisdom and awareness, gnosis, lies. It doesn't come from the mind, it comes from the body. The more you can embody deep levels of worth, power, confidence and value and know who you are deep in your bones, the more you begin to embody your soul and your new beliefs and the more your life will change.

• 1:28:16Speaker 08

  When you feel a sense of worth from deep within you and a sense of trust deep in your soul, that's when you're going to truly show up in the world differently. You simply won't accept anything less than you deserve. When you accept and love yourself for all of who you are, you won't be available for anything or anyone that doesn't reflect that. These things just won't come into your consciousness anymore. Every now and then, they may show up to give you a little test of whether you're holding that energetic boundary and knowing what you deserve. But for the most part, those things will stay away from you.

• 1:29:00Speaker 08

  I finally want to mention that many people come to the spiritual journey from a place of not feeling good enough. When you approach your spiritual journey, or anything in life from a place of lack, and doing it because you're not good enough, or need fixing, or because you feel worthless in some way, it's going to feel hopeless, like hard work, and as though you're always searching for that one elusive thing that will make you feel complete. You need to approach this journey from a place of empowerment, and finding your way back to your soul and more of your authentic soul self, not because there is anything wrong with you

• 1:29:44Speaker 08

  or missing. All that is truly missing is your connection to the essence and truth of who you are. And once you find that, you'll realise that you are inherently worthy just because you're alive. There never was, and never will be, anything wrong with you. You just got a little lost along the way and forgot the magnificence of your soul. Whispers from your soul. Where do you currently derive most of your sense of self-worth? Who or what makes you doubt and question yourself the most, and why?

• 1:30:29Speaker 08

  Who are you at your most purposeful, soulful, wild and free self? Now that you've started to heal your worth wounds and realise that you are more than enough just as you are, let's move to the mind and remember that you are not your thoughts.

• 1:30:53Speaker 09

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