Netflix Part 2

[music] So, Oliver, who are we canceling today? [music] Obviously, Netflix again. No other options. [laughter] Yeah, I think that's probably a good move. And also, there have been a lot of developments in the story since we talked about it last time. Yeah, I'm really excited to talk to your guests about that. [music] Hey, everyone. I'm Caitlin Burns. And I'm Olive Rash Klein. And you're listening to "Cancel Me Daddy." The show where we take a closer look at all of the Panic Ground cancel culture. Without full analysis. And verbal shit posting. [music] So, Caitlin, what's new and exciting with you? I'll tell you what. There's been an exciting development in my life. Do you tell? I bought an old lady cart for the grocery store. I love that. I have had an old lady cart for several years. And they're so great. Yeah, I mean, I live like a mile from the grocery store that I like to go to. And I was just tired of carrying six bags of groceries back. Oh, yeah. No, you needed an old lady cart. That's a very good investment in your wellbeing. I'm so excited. This is life-changing. If you are lugging six bags of groceries all over the place, please buy yourself an old lady grocery cart because they're great, y'all. But, yeah. We're not being paid for by like big old lady cart money. But if you work for a big old lady cart, my number is not just kidding. Sponsored as podcast. Before we get to this show, we of course are going to have some shameless, self-promotion as we do. I have been loving all of the listener comments that we have been getting about our last episode. Like we've gotten so many tweets, so much love. It's been really, really great. And welcome to new listeners, by the way. I know that our Twitter presence has been growing. So I appreciate the follows and the new lessons and welcome and apologies in advance. Apologies in advance for what our show is great. What are you apologizing for? For new listeners, every week on the show, we read an Apple Podcast review or a nice tweet about our show. And so if you want us to say your words on the air, that's one way you can do that. This week I want to read a tweet from Lee Rosenbaum, which I really appreciated. It said, "Everyone should be listening to Council Me Daddy because there takes on the Council Culture Crypt economy are so real and become real or every day. Something, something, outward." And yeah, unfortunately, you know, that tweet gets at the stuff that we're covering is somehow it's gotten to be a bigger conversation and a louder conversation and a more important conversation to have because I don't know. It's just these last six months have been wild. I feel like we were on the sort of front edge of this too of people sort of realizing what the grief is. And what the, of course, the thing that reference saying here in the tweet, something, something, outward as Margaret at would. Kind of being weird about gender issues and like being turfy and then not being turfy. But anyway, she has like a book of short stories or something coming out in March, so people are speculating that this is all just part of a publicity drive, which is kind of what JK Rowling did. The Council Culture Crypt economy, artwork. Which is kind of what a bunch of other people have done. Anyway, so just wanted didn't want to leave that one hanging without explaining. And we have a really good show for you today. Caitlin, do you want to just let our listeners know what's what's coming in the next hour. Yeah, so we're talking to B Pagels minor and Tara Field from Netflix. If you'll know them as Tara was the senior software engineer at Netflix, who's trans, who is originally suspended and then had her suspension lifted. And B is the pregnant black trans person who Netflix fired in all of this. I am super happy that we had this conversation. It's very lengthy. I think this is probably the most time and space that they've had to articulate their feelings and thoughts on this. And I thought it was important for us to go back to this. I know this is the second episode in a row that we've spent on this. And we've spent a ton of developments after we recorded our last show. Like, be and up and fired at that point. The walk out had not occurred. So we felt it was important to go back and sort of fill in the gaps in the story from our first episode on this. You know, one of the things that all of our night have sought to do with the show is give voice to those who we feel are being excluded from the conversation that's typical of cancel culture. And one of the things that I'm super happy about with this episode is that I think we did that for really the first time with a lot of substance. I hope that you all enjoy the conversation that we had as much as we had having that conversation. Today on cancel me daddy, we are so fortunate to be joined by the organizer of the Netflix walk out. Be Pagels minor. They were actually recently fired from their position as program manager shortly after the walk out was announced. Now, in my opinion, it's perhaps one of Netflix's most egregious move in the company's mishandling of this entire situation. Be also worked as co leader of the trans at Netflix employee resource group that's called trans star. And they also worked as co leader of the black at Netflix employee resource group. Be, thank you so much for joining us today. I can't imagine all that you're going through right now and it means a lot that you're coming on the show. Thank you so much for having me. And that walk out be organized had about 2000 employees attend, which is 20% of the company. Now also with us here today is Tara field. She is a senior software engineer at Netflix. When the Dave Chappelle special first came out, she had a thread that went viral on Twitter talking about the harm of such hateful content. She's also a part of trans star at Netflix as the co vice president and was suspended from the company in the turmoil around all of this. Thank you for joining us today Tara. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I wanted to start out by asking you about your decision to kind of come out and name yourself because I know initially you were staying anonymous because of concerns about online media attention and hate and wanted to check in with you to see kind of what made you decide to come forward and also how that experiences. Yeah, so actually what's really interesting about this is I feel like I didn't have a choice right after the like statement was put out to the news and some other places. My wife and I both noticed that there was like an uptick in views to my website. There was an uptick in terms of, you know, these messages I was getting. So it actually seems like someone leaked my name and we were actually able to find my name in a couple different online forums and you know I kind of had the suspicion that perhaps someone from within Netflix decided to do that. And I was just like, you know, if they're going to do that anyway, then I might as well ensure that my story is told the right way because it's my right to write my story versus someone else specifically intimating things that were not true. What do you want? Just the average every day of people to sort of take away from. I mean, I don't want to recap everything that's happened in the last week, but what would you want like just, you know, our listeners to take away from this whole experience. Yeah, what I would say is that first and foremost, it's it's the right thing to fight. And you know, a lot of people, you know, they've misconstrued this from the very beginning that this is about the special, but it's not about the special, you know, the internal trans star ERG had been talking to you, content leadership and leaders all over the company for the past three years about content and how much of the content that we were putting out on Netflix could be considered harmful or had the wrong types of information and was dangerous to trans people everywhere. And so the ask has been from the very beginning, you know, just just have parity and content, put out content that is actually true, you know, make sure that people see that we live, you know, I said it the walk out very specifically, you know, as someone who's about to have my first child, the thing that I keep coming back to is that I do not want my son to see images of people like me and wonder, why do people hate you? That's a, that's a terrifying conversation to think about having when it's really absolutely unnecessary if we could just have parity in the type of content that is actually out there in the world. You saying that has brought up a lot of. of memories of conversations that I've had with my own kids. My oldest has started to read Harry Potter books and that has led to several. I would say interesting conversations about just these same types of things, right? Because obviously the JK Row, I'm the author of the Harry Potter series. I think is in a very similar boat as like a Dave Chappelle, although I would argue that JK Rowling has taken it probably further than Dave Chappelle has, but just talking about transphobia in general and why people just don't like trans people. And it's, I certainly sympathize with you on that front. - Yeah, and as a person who was a very proud Harry Potter fan, and I'm also a slitheran, I've learned to accept that I'm a slitheran, I don't get upset about that anymore. It broke my heart too about JK Rowling. And you know, it's so interesting because when you actually, like when I dive deeper into her comments, there's so much hurt that that woman has. And I hope that she addresses that hurt one day so that she can kind of move on and be the person that I think she could potentially be as well. - I runically enough a lot of the hurt that she has is the hurt that has also experienced very commonly by trans people. - Exactly. And it breaks my heart that neither she nor any other person outside the trans community can seem to recognize that. - Yes, exactly. And it goes back to that point of like, how do we listen to each other? Like how do we take a step back? We don't have any preconceived notions. We just listen to each other. We care about what's coming out of people's minds and we try to help people be whole people. You know, if you really think about it, there are millions or even billions of people every single day who are walking through this world who've had so much hurt and harm done to them that they're like this, they live this like half life, right? And so it's all about how do we prepare that damage and make people whole people? So they could be the best versions of themselves. When I think about the content that Netflix is putting out, when I think about these hateful comments that are going out, it's like they're just diminishing people's ability to be these whole versions of themselves. So they can actually go out and be people who are super productive in society and we are all diminished by that. - Tara, I was reading what you wrote. Is that, sorry, side note. Is that on your blog? Is that where I read it? Right, medium. Okay, thank you. Sorry. (laughs) Okay, fine, that's okay. I just wanna make sure I got that right 'cause I read it and then like 30 seconds ago, I realized, oh, I didn't know where I read it. So I read Bees, Washington Post, Peace also and I'll get to that a little bit later. But Tara, I read your Peace on Medium that was titled, was it titled, it's not about Dave? - It was never about Dave. It was titled, it was never about Dave. And I found that really interesting because you talk about how the Trans Employee Resource Group or ERG has been having conversations now for years about Trans Inclusion and the company's support and portrayal of Trans Communities. Can you talk a little bit about the history there and be feel free to jump into on this 'cause I know that you were part of that as well. The ERG was formed a couple years before, I actually joined the company, I joined the company in February of 2019 and it was formed kind of specifically because while there was a more generic LGBT ERG, the Trans people at the company at that point and there weren't very many, I think there might have been two or three when the ERG started, they were out at the company. They had some very specific asks regarding, at that point primarily, like workplace issues, right? So hey, it's really hard for me to change my name. Hey, the language used in this signage isn't very inclusive. Hey, how do I get my proper name to show up on all of our systems without having to dead name myself and be dead named by the system over and over again? Initially, they were very like practical workplace concerns. And then, and again, this was before I was there, but then girl came out on the service. And that was, I think that was probably the first point where the ERG really started pushing back and giving feedback on content because girl, if you remember, is it was a, I wanna say transphobic, but really just, like I don't think that was the intention there. It was just like, it was so not grounded in our experience that it became almost like a character share of our experience. And so people were very upset about that. And that is kind of what started having the content conversations. But again, at the point the ERG was really small. Fast forward a few years, I think when I joined, we over doubled it to eight people. And then, you know, sticks and stones happened. And I think that was when we really, there were a couple of things about that moment that I think really, really changed things for us. One was because it was a, the feedback that we were offering was on something by a black comedian. We didn't want to be, because at that point, the ERG was mostly white trans women. We didn't wanna be, we didn't want even what the appearance of criticizing a black performer without having worked with our allies in the black at ERG and Netflix. And so we came together with them. And we had like, you know, listening sessions with each other. We had town halls about it. And when it comes to the, the allyship of the other ERG, it was really a fantastic moment for us. At that point, we also had conversations with leadership and the messaging that we got. You know, it was, it was very much the same thing we've seen, it was, you know, talk about creative freedom and artistic freedom. And, you know, a lot of talk about some content is going to offend people. You know, I was frustrated at that point. So I wrote a memo that I called "A Fence vs. Impact" that essentially was a, you know, proto version of that Twitter threat that I did. That was an attempt by me internally to point out that like none of us are offended. Like we're not thin skinned. Like you don't get to be a trans person who is both alive and as old as we are. And have thin skin, that's just not how it works. It wasn't about offense. And so I tried to, you know, impress upon people that it's about the impact that it had to the community. And so at that point, that's when we really started having conversations and building relationships with content groups kind of in earnest. And also, that's right around the time that, that, thankfully, we arrived. Yeah, maybe I could pick up from there. So I started in March 2020 and I started, you know, very, you know, gently getting involved in Black-Ed and Transstar. But the one of the first memories I have at Netflix is being a part of the conversation follow up about sticks and stones and then happened in June 2020. And in fact, it was myself and one other Black-Trans individual, we both were the two, like the two newbies to this group and they were so gracious to let us join in these conversations with content leaders. And I remember being in that room and it was Ted Srandos, Bella and Cindy Haaland. And it was so interesting because the conversation was really, it was completely not combative. It was, let us tell you about us. Let us tell you about what our lives look like and why it's so important that Netflix gets this content right. And you know, there were like five or six of us and we kind of told them our stories and they sat and let, listened. And I remember especially Cindy Haaland, oh my gosh, Cindy Haaland, queen, you know, amazing human. And she was just like, you know, we really hear you. And I actually think that one of the things that has hurt Netflix in this journey is that Cindy Haaland is no longer there, right? You know, she ultimately ended up leaving the company. And as a result, you don't have that LGBTQ+ voice and I'm very high up leadership role at Netflix in content anymore. And I think that's one of the big issues that happened there because it was very apparent that she seemed to understand more so than anyone else who was listening that day, exactly what we were talking about. And so after that is also when I sought out leadership roles in Transstar. So Transstar became more formal because the goal was to actually ensure that we move forward these initiatives. And so that was the first time we had our formal elections and I was elected to the global co-lead for Transstar as well as the content lead for Transstar. And Tara was elected as the VP for Transstar. And in my role as the content lead, what I really did was, you know, partner with some of our VP allies to start this thing I call it the friendship offensive. And the whole goal was to meet with all of the various content leaders who would meet with us to just have very simple conversation. chat, talk to them a little bit about ourselves, make sure they understand how you know we didn't want to harm or minimize the type of content that they were putting out. Creative freedom was important to us. Netflix values were important to us. Netflix's bottom line was important to us, right? Like at no point did we want to do anything that would minimize the strategy that was already there. All we wanted to do was expand that strategy to tell more diverse stories because to Tara's point, it wasn't you know, train content obviously is a huge thing for us, but you also start to recognize there's not that great black content. There's not that great Latinx content. There's not that great content about women who are in power kicking ass taking names on on the network. In some ways Netflix is following the exact same playbook that Hollywood's been playing for, you know, the past hundred years. And the goal was always just to make them more ambitious to set them up for that next generation of viewer who has different expectations of what content looks like. And the friendship offensive was going well. In fact, you know, I'm gonna bring this up because I give very up no way about it. It's every single time. But the look men on event was a partnership between Netflix animation and train star. You know, we had started playing in that event months in advance of this whole controversy. And the goal was to bring a look on, you know, from a train star perspective, I wanted to bring a look in because that was gift to the ERG. They love a look. I love a look. And then Netflix animation team is working on a bunch of projects over the next couple years that have gender diverse people in them. And so they wanted to give their team an opportunity to learn more about gender diverse communities as well. And so, you know, the the look thing being tied up into all this was really tragic because it wasn't it was a gift to the trans community. And then it was a gift that was taken away from us because a look started getting threats about, you know, why would you go there like all this other type of stuff? And it just wasn't it wasn't at all involved there. But all this to say that there was movement happening on trying to achieve this overall goal of creating more diverse content, specifically trans content on the service. However, that all got set back when the special came out because it is seemingly seemed like the entire content organization had ignored all of that work and all that relationship building for, you know, short-term goals. I wanted to ask about having gone through that process, you know, with the employee resource group and how all of these conversations, you know, both around when she tells 2020 sticks and stone special came out and also like on going with various folks and you it sounds like you all felt like there was some progress and you all felt heard and then this came out. And so I'm wondering, you know, looking back on that, how has your perspective changed based on how you felt like at those times when you were having those conversations and now over what's kind of unfolded over the last month? There are several things to it, right? Because it's been kind of swirl of complicated emotions around this because there was immediately when we we found out about the special and for most of us we found out about the special like the day, I mean technically I think the day after it hit the service. We found out about it on the morning of the six that we really started digging into it. And there was there was absolutely like a sense of betrayal kind of at like the organizational level because we know that there are so many allies throughout the content board who, you know, either they raised concerns about this or you know they had been bringing us content to you know look at and participate in it. So we knew that those people were very genuine in their desire to work with our ERG and our community. But at the same time, you know, it felt like this got kind of fast-tracked and it felt sort of like the processes that we had been trying to work on had been you know skipped in favor of hey we've got this thing and you know we already paid for it and we want to put it on the service because we know a lot of people are going to click on it. And you know that was very frustrating. Yeah, so not only was it frustrating it felt like a betrayal, you know, it really did feel like a betrayal, you know, so as in my capacity as ERG lead, I got a message like a few days before saying a special was going to come out and I was like, okay cool is this a typical special right because at this point we know what she pal specials include and they were like yeah it's typical no big deal blah blah blah blah and then it came out and I was just like this is not the typical special. This is like next level like this is this is so far beyond what I would have expected and I'm surprised that no one thought more strategically about how to warn us about this and and and so it felt like a betrayal because at the very least let's pretend no matter what the special is going to come out right like let's let's pretend that that's the point. At the very least it seemed like you could have done a better job of preparing us for what the special actually included and how it was going to potentially you know be received because I keep coming back to this idea of the ERG had always lent itself as to someone who could help you know again maximize the content to make it less harmful and more palatable for people right so there's so many ways we could have consulted and given suggestions that could have led to a much better experience because you know for instance you know a lot of people keep Mr. Tribune to the fact that the fact that the people asked for the special to come down to Transstar but it was actually external people who asked for it to be taken down and so if you think about that if they had partnered with us perhaps we could have been like hey by the way if you do this like small tweak if you consider this small thing in theory you won't get the nearly the amount of backlash that you're gonna get and so it's just it's just this idea of you know Netflix has this idea of you know descent makes us better right you know people disagreeing you know people like having the smart people in the world having them disagree having them you know molding things into you like this absolute like amazing product is what makes us successful but then they completely bypass doing that right they completely bypass seeking out those partnerships and I think that that's like for me it comes back to so when it's certain types of content when it's trans content we don't follow the methodology and processes that make our company successful because we don't care and so that's why I felt like a true portrayal to me yeah and and one of the things that we we'd also worked on and one of the things that we had talked about extensively when sticks and stones came out was that giving us a chance as an ERG a chance to digest the content ahead of when it hits the service that also it gives us a chance to have that anger reaction and then gives us a chance internally to talk to each other to say hey you know here we can have a response this we can talk to people about this we can you know see you know can a disclaimer be added can a content warning be added whatever can you know we we somehow give parity to you know more positive trans content what are our options here but because we found out about it the same essentially the same time the public did in terms of what was really in the special my Twitter thread probably wouldn't have happened if I wasn't so damned angry at the fact that this has been dropped without even talking to us about it when if they had talked to us about it like we could have had time to process to give feedback to make the reaction better for not just for the ERG but for the community as a whole to see if you know can we can we make changes can you frame things differently as they're you know are there any options here that don't let or the absolute worst option for the company in terms of its public image we didn't get that chance and so you know I'm from New Jersey that the anger does not take very long to get to that high bar and you know that's how that Twitter thread happened as has an Irish person that can relate to the anger thing I'm also of Irish descent and from New Jersey so I've got like two feeds of anger going oh geez okay double-dosing it I want to kind of shift gears a little bit if we could each of you have I guess the word it's not the best word but each of you have been sort of punished in a way for a lot of the things that have been going on you know over the last couple of weeks terror you were suspended later the suspension of his jobs and be obviously you lost your job out of this I want to ask but and this is a question for both of you do you feel like you are punished for speaking out or organizing behind the scenes around this issue so it's difficult for me to say definitively anything right like it's hard for me to believe that the company that I was so sold on could be this malicious right there's there's no question about that I do find all the timing very strange and if nothing else I can say that there's no possible way in either one of our cases that they did a thorough enough investigation before they took action right I could definitely say that and I do you think that there's a thoughtlessness and a carelessness there there that is not indicative of the organization that I signed up for. - Was there any kind of due process around your dismissal? - No, so from what I understand, the article that they're accusing me of leaking information to came out the evening of October 13th. And by the evening of October 14th, I was terminated. So if you think about it from that perspective, I find it hard to believe that in 24 hours, you've definitively concluded that there's only one person who participated in this first of all. And second of all, that that person was me. And so it's really difficult. It's really difficult for me to believe that they did a thorough job, especially when by contrast, I think Tara, your investigation that eventually cleared you was three days. So it took them three days to clear someone. So you would think they would also take three days to convict someone. But Tara, you can elaborate. - Yeah, I think I posted the Twitter thread on, I think it might have been like Wednesday. And then Thursday, I attended the QBR meeting which I later learned I was not supposed to attend. Somebody gave me the link after I asked for it because I knew that the situation with the special was going to be discussed there because I had heard that from some of our allies in the RG. And so I joined this meeting and I uploaded some of the questions in the Q&A list that they had. And I just listened because I was curious like as the co-VP of the ERG, I was very curious to find out like is there going to be an evolution of the language that the company is using to discuss this issue or are we gonna hear the same song about creative freedom but no mention of creative responsibility which I think is the company's tenant is freedom and responsibility but when it comes to content, a lot of the time it really feels like there's just freedom and very little responsibility. So that meeting was done like midday on a Thursday, I think and then Friday evening, I got a message from someone in HR that said, "Hey, can you give me a call? This was at 6 p.m. "So this is well after most people, it stopped working." And it's funny because I looked at that message and I'm like, "This feels like something I should not do." But I did it anyway 'cause I was just too curious and that's what I get. So I called the person and they said, "Hey, we found out that you attended QBR "where you were aware that it was restricted to directors "and hire." And I said, "No, I didn't realize that at all." And so they said, "Well, we're gonna suspend you with pay "while we investigate." And you'll hear from somebody next week, this was on a Friday before a holiday weekend because it was Indigenous Peoples Day on Monday. And I said, "Look, if you can suspend me on a Friday at 6 p.m., "surely you can find somebody to do the investigation "on a Friday at 6 p.m. "but it wouldn't be until Monday "that I would actually hear back from them." And can I say definitively that it was retaliatory? No, because I don't have access to all of the evidence that would be required to that. Is it hard for me to not see it that way? Yes, because I've spoke to a number of people at the company who have said, "Oh, wow, I can't believe that you were suspended for this." I've attended that meeting in the past. I've spoke to people who weren't contacted, who attended that meeting and weren't invited to it. They actually put the same link that I did. And they were never contacted. So it's really hard to internalize that somehow, if I hadn't spoken up that they probably would have been a lot less curious about what I was doing. And in terms of due process, like in the end, I was exonerated whenever, whenever, where do you want to use those? I was clear to any wrongdoing internally, but that was after the company had gone to the media. There was a variety article that characterized me as sounding like I was some kind of radical trans activist, kicking down a boardroom door, barging into meetings and whatever impression it gave to people. And the reality was, you couldn't even participate in the meeting, it was just a street. So it's not like I could even click raise hand or something. I just listened. And so I think part of due process, it's hard to say that there was due process when the very well-funded PR marketing arm of your multi-billion dollar employer kind of puts the targets on you. And as a result of that, like thankfully, there's an app called Block Party, which is incredibly helpful that kind of filters out your Twitter mentions and lets other people handle sifting through them. If it wasn't for that, like I was getting re-agated by a who's who of people who I don't very much respect their opinions, let's say. - Yeah, and I think, like so I have to like highlight that because I was very fortunate in my roles at ERG lead, there are many situations that I participated in to support various members. And one of those is I came to Tara's re-instatement conversation. And the first thing that I brought up was, what is the company going to do in the future to ensure that they protect people in this situation? Right? Because it's not fair for Tara to have been accused of something like that, have that out there into the media, and then they did do anything to correct it. You know, it's not okay for that to happen. And it was really irresponsible as well. - Yeah, and one thing that they, you know, that they kind of said to me later was like, well, the reason why we, you know, usually we wouldn't, and I think, I think being also has gotten some version of this line. Normally we wouldn't comment in public on personnel matters, but, you know, in my case, when I got the notice that I was suspended, you know, considering everything else that was going on that week, I immediately, in my head, said, well, you know, this does not, on its face, this seems like it could be retaliatory to me. So having, you know, coming from a family of union folks and knowing that in this scenario, if they were trying to silence me, the number one thing that I should do at that point is be as loud as possible. And so I, you know, in our public ERG Slack channel, I said, hey, I've been suspended, you know, suspended with pay or attending this meeting, please continue the work. And as a result of, I assume that, you know, it got out that I had been suspended because I never, you know, I didn't tell anybody outside the company, you know, to the family that I had been suspended. And, you know, they had said, well, once that happened, you know, you would kind of give them up your privacy. And it's like, what should I have done? Because what happened and what it would look like if I was being retaliated against, whether or not they are the same from my angle, it absolutely looks the same. - Yeah, I can kind of comment on this also, because Tara, you were going to be on our show last week, originally. And I think we contacted you after your threaded gun viral, but before your suspension. And when you came back and said, you couldn't do the show, you didn't mention why you just said something has come up. I cannot do the show now, right? And that's all you said. So I can kind of corroborate that you weren't going around telling a bunch of people about this. I don't know that I have a question here, but I just wanted to comment and add that I can kind of corroborate that as well. - It's funny because I forgot about that. Yeah, you're absolutely right. That is exactly why I worded it that way. And that's why I said, okay, well, you know, and at that point, you know, I had immediately, you know, saw legal counsel because I had no idea what was going to happen next. I didn't know what my rights were and I didn't know what I should do. And at that point, you know, I had to temper my desire to pretty much always be yelling about things that I think are wrong for a couple days. And yeah, that's why I wasn't able to do last weekend, so. - So one thing that I have been wondering about is we're kind of talking about all of this. Like I know that you all have talked about, you know, a lot of the culture at Netflix and how you all have worked with a lot of people that like you really trust and you really like. But also I'm wondering about how you all are thinking about, you know, what leadership is saying in terms of like diversity and inclusion and what y'all have seen unfold over the last month and how you're thinking about that. - Yeah, you know, it's so interesting because a few people have asked me about this now. And I do think it maybe I was a little bit naive, right? Because, you know, Netflix is better than any place I had ever been before. Like there's no question about that. But just because some places better than you've ever been before doesn't mean you haven't been abused and you're not being abused, right? And I think that that's one of the things that, you know, now that I as I reflect upon that, I realize that in some parts of Netflix, there's no question that I was accepted fully and I could be exactly who I am. But I also think that when who I am became a problem, it was very easy for Netflix to say, you know, we can cut ties. And I think that that's something that is a hard pill to swallow, especially as someone who had previously kind of been the face for Netflix on a lot of different issues that maybe I had just not done my due diligence in understanding where my value would end. And so to a certain extent, I don't think that they are where they think they should be. And to be truthful, even as ERD leaked for Blackhead and Transstar, I mean there's some issues that I have helped navigate. I mean, even with Tara, you know, like Tara was really, really, you know, in a place where she was trying to figure out like, does she want to stay at Netflix anymore? And I kind of intervened and helped her get connected with the right people to help her transfer to a better team. And that's the type of stuff I had to do all the time. And at the time, I was like, okay, it's okay. I'm doing this type of stuff because, you know, at least they're letting people have the opportunity to be successful. But why the heck did I have to say they're letting people have the opportunity to be successful? Why wasn't it just that every manager, director, VP, C-suite person knew how to treat people so that they could be successful? Like I should not have ever had to be as someone who was not paid more to be this ERG lead to navigate these situations and make sure that there's safe spaces for people. I should never have had to do that. And I did it so much. And so it comes back to this idea just generally of companies, especially companies like Netflix, who swear up and down that inclusion is a key value for them that they actually do what they say that they're going to do. Yeah. And it's almost like dealing with kind of with two organizations or two companies at this point, right? So there's the ground level employees, the individual contributors or whatever you want to call it, the kind of rank and file. And then there's obviously layers of mental management. And then there's the leadership all the way at the top, the executive staff. And I feel like genuine support and empathy and care from a lot of the kind of rank and file and even kind of like the middle level management folks, like they really seem to understand I got a lot of positive feedback from them. And then you have the kind of people at the top. And it feels like almost an entirely different reaction, which is a little frustrating because we've done so much. And you know, one of the things I said kind of in anger when this thing dropped is like, yeah, because people were very ready to be like, Oh, it's time for, you know, I guess, I guess we need even more education. And it's like, no, I am sorry. But like at this point, like this, this is summer school. Like we have spent so much time educating, we've done so much emotional labor. But still, you know, this is kind of the response we get. It's hard to get the response that we did from leadership and feel like feel like that we're not in addition to fighting kind of external influences and opinions, but that we're not having to fight for ourselves internally. And also like, you know, I love doing the work. I love making it a better workplace for trans people. But at the same time, like I was also like, I was hired to be an engineer when I signed the paperwork. It was to be an engineer. And sitting in the room with, you know, millionaires and billionaires trying to desperately impress a sense of empathy upon them. Like, why? I don't know, it's frustrating that that's something that we have to do. And then in terms of like the actual reaction, like, you know, it feels like on some level, there's a make things better and make things worse button. And it feels like every time they're just explaining to make things worse button, even like there was an apology, right? You know, by our co CEO, and I, you know, I would quote, apology, quotation fingers, there's a book by Susan Shapiro that's called the forgiveness tour, how to find the perfect apology. And I was joking the other day that like, you know, as a group, we should just gift copies of that leadership because like the apology that we got, like, we're all trans. We've all had to deal with our family. And we've all gotten the non apology apologies. And that was a non apology apology. That's just frustrating because at the level at which this company, you know, operates and at the level at which, you know, we're supposed to be surrounded by, you know, stunning colleague to our, the best of their field. It's like, is this really, is this response really a collective group of the best people at PR marketing and everything else was able to come up with because that is shocking if that was the best that they were able to do. You know, it's so funny that you mentioned the PR part of this. Some people have been like, be like, I've seen your name everywhere. And I was just like, yeah, and they were like, how did you do that so quickly? And I was like, I have spent 15 years cultivating relationship. You know, I went to North Western University, go wild cats. That has one of the best journalism schools in the entire country. And when this happened to me, all I did was reach out and say, Hey, could you help me? And that's the thing about this is that kindness and generosity leads to people wanting to help you. And that's the message that transstar was putting out there. It's like, we just want you to be kind. We just want you to be thoughtful. And you know, if nothing else, what this is, I hope that they're learning from this is that thoughtfulness leads to people wanting to support your cause. And right now, Netflix continues to stumble because they're not being thoughtful. You know, to the point of Ted's, you know, like interviews that he did where he said, you know, things like I messed up. He also in the same breath said that because people have been working from home, they forgot how nice we are. And I was like, well, but we're talking about the library of content. I can look at the library of content that Netflix has on my TV every single day. That does not, that does not tell me that there's trans content that is parody and content that tells the complete story. This isn't about a bunch of one percenters, right? Because people are like your spool brats. You get paid a lot of money. You know, I don't know, like, Taryn, I both can tell you, we were poor as hell. You know, I was in a situation when growing up, teachers did not even try to call my home because they knew the telephone wasn't going to be on. They didn't send notes home through the mail because they knew that they didn't know what my address was because we didn't have an address. I remember when my wife and I were, we celebrated like crazy when we bought our house. And I cried because it was the first time I had a permanent address. It was the first time that I knew that I was going to have stability in my life. We are not spool brats. We are not people who don't understand how fortunate it we are that we get paid a decent salary to do work that we love. In fact, we are grateful every single solitary day that we have that experience. And all we want to do is help other people have that experience. And because we have that experience because we are empowered. We are people who have done that work to become whole. And all we want to do is make sure that the companies that we work for aren't tearing down people like us, right? Because we were able to get here and we want every other person to get to the same place that we are in life. Exactly. And I talk a lot about like putting the ladder down behind me, right? Like, at the end of the day, I'm a white woman, right? Like nobody gets to check a box saying how awesome they are because they hired me because I was 35 before I transitioned. And that was already a senior engineer. Show me the senior engineer who transitioned, you know, early in their career or maybe even before their career started, who's made it all the way up through the industry to this level. And it's hard to find them. Show me the black trans woman engineer that made it all the way up through this. You can't because there's none in the room at least at my workplace. And so, you know, that that has been a big focus is to make sure that we are building these opportunities so that even within our community that, you know, every variation of person within our community, because our community, despite what Shepal said about, you know, queerness only being a white thing, you know, our community is as diverse as humanity is. And I want all of those stories to be there. So one thing I'm curious about is, you know, obviously our podcasts, we do a lot of analysis around, you know, quote-unquote cancel culture. That's sort of our big thing. So I'd be remiss if I didn't kind of go there with you two. But I guess my first question is, do you all want Dave Shepal to be canceled? I just want to say ahead of time, just right here, the only person who's in this entire thing that's been canceled is me. Well, I was gonna get to that in a second. Yeah, so first and foremost, so I am a black person. Like I got to say again, I'm a black person, I'm trans, I'm southern. There's something that we always say, well, there's two things we always say where I'm from. You don't mess with nobody's money and you don't mess with nobody's car, right? These are two things that you do not do. So based on those rules that are facets of my life, I don't want Dave Shepal to be canceled, right? That's not the point here. You know, I honestly sincerely believe many people who have met him, who have said things like he's a very nice person, he has no ill intent. I actually lean into that theory because that's the hopeful part of me. And so what I would like him to do is educate himself. You know, I would love for him to meet people like me, understand that we exist, so that he can understand the nuance of the argument that he was making actually is wrong. Because this isn't the LGBTQ+ or gay or the white gay people, he identified this versus the Black civil rights movement. Because there's a bunch of us who fit into both of those categories. And we would like him to sharpen his argument. Because perhaps if he did, we would actually laugh. Right? He has so many logical fallacies, illogical fallacies in his argument that are just not right. And he would do well to learn more. And like, you know, I'm here for it. You know, I posted yesterday after he announced that, you know, he would meet with the Netflix employees. I will help coordinate that. I don't know his information of his people. Right? If anyone wanted to reach out to me, it would, I, like, I don't even have to be in the room. I would just connect him with the Netflix employees so he can have that conversation. Because this is what this is about. It's about education, you know, it's about educating people, making them our allies, not about destroying them or denigrating their work. Because Dave Chappelle has earned a lot of cred for being in the business for 20 plus years. And I just think that he could do a better job in the next 20 years that he's out there than what he's doing right now. Yeah, we as an ERG have not asked for this to be taken down for a number of reasons, right? Like, first of all, if you take this thing down, you run the risk of it becoming even more popular, right? Because now it's taboo, right? Now it's something that, you know, I'm not supposed to watch this thing. So I'm going to want to watch it, right? So none of us think that that's a good idea. We also just don't think it's a likely outcome given given the way the environment at the company is. But that said, like, there is a opportunity here to one, like we put content warnings in front of other things. You know, if there was, you know, rampant homophobia to the level that there was transphobia, would this have gotten it? Are there other things on the service that have, you know, similar levels of hate or towards marginalized groups that already have content warnings? I don't know, probably, but it feels like that's a really low bar to say, like, hey, this is one man's opinion on several marginalized communities. And if you want to learn more about Jewish people, about trans people, about any of these groups, you know, here are some, here are some additional resources that are available. And, you know, I have, I have no desire to cancel Dave. Like, I, you know, was 846 perfect? No, but 846 was the best thing he's done in almost two decades. It was incredible. Like, you know, I, even after six and stones watching 846, I was like, whooping at my TV? Like, that was what I wanted to see because that was punching up. And so I have no desire to cancel, especially because like, somebody like Dave, if he is, you know, more informed on the reality of trans experiences and trans lives, and, you know, maybe gets a little history lesson on queerness and how, you know, the queer movement and the, you know, movement for racial justice have always been intertwined in this country. Like, you know, whether, whether you think that it was Sylvia Rivera or Martha P. Johnson that was the first person to throw something at the Stonewall, right? It doesn't matter because either way, it wasn't a white person that did that. And that is inextricably linked to the history of our community. And, you know, I think that this is just, you know, it's, you know, maybe Dave doesn't have, you know, like, like so many people in positions of power. Maybe there aren't enough people around Dave saying, like, listen, I love you, but you really got this wrong. I think one of the things that I'm most frustrated with and all of this, and then this has sort of been my standard response to the trolls that have been in my own Twitter mentions is, I want people to go watch Disclosure Doc, right? Which is ironically enough, hosted at Netflix, because I think that documentary did such a great job of explaining how things like Dave show can be harmful, right? Yeah. And I think that, you know, there's been a conversation around that the whole time, and this is kind of where my, you know, my Twitter came from, the offense versus impact, my mother that I wrote, is that at this point in understanding media, I don't know how it's possible to be in leadership at a major media company and not understand the ways in which content affects people's perception. Like, we know, like, if we didn't think that content affected people's perception, then why would we care whether there is smoking in our original shows or not, right? Why would we put a warning, content warning on it? If we didn't think that there was a chance that watching somebody smoking would cause someone to say, "Hey, maybe I will do that." And, you know, that is known and has been known for a long time. So, you know, when we say that this causes harm, you know, the answer that we seem to get back is, well, we don't think that there is a direct link between Dave's special and violence against trans people. It's like, none of us have been saying that somebody goes out and watches Shopell's show. And it's like, "Wow, I'm going to go beat up a trans person." But it's the culture that just creates where we are, you know, we are objects of ridicule where we are less than human, in particular, where attraction to trans women is embarrassing to men. That is the environment that leads to violence and harm against trans people. So, you know, saying that there's not a direct relationship, nobody said that there is, it's more complicated than that. Well, and I think the other thing that I think is interesting about that. So, one, why do we have different rating categories? If content does not matter. If anyone can watch any type of content, you know, you have PG, you have PG-13, you have RatedR, you have NC-17. Like, literally, we say from the, in the United States, also in other countries, in other countries, the ratings, barometers, the different categories are even more strict than they are in the United States to be clear. And that you literally cannot watch certain types of content if you're not old enough. So, we know that content has some kind of effect on people. Secondly, why does Netflix exist if they're not for that? Right? Like, why wouldn't it, like, there's no point in creating content at all if you're saying that content that gets created does not have an impact on society, right? Like, that means that there will be no point in any show, that any movie, any documentary that has ever been created. So, again, it goes to the thoughtlessness of this response, right? It goes to the fact that people had not really thought through what is the point of Netflix to exist if not to impact how people perceive the world, right? And it gets very frustrating, right? Because like, I expect more, I expect more from people who run a $200 billion company than to be this thoughtless in every aspect of how they operate on a day-to-day basis. And I think the last point here is to the point that has been made a few times that content will be offensive. I agree. There will be content that could be offensive to anyone. My dad is a Baptist minister. He doesn't like to see curse words or sex or anything like that on TV. So, of course, he would, you know, have a problem with different things. I couldn't watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Okay? So, like, I know that there's content that people will find offensive. But again, it's about showing different types of content. I was asked the other day of this concept of, well, you can just press stop. I'm like, yeah, yeah, I can just press stop. And I totally agree with that. But if I press stop on all of the shows, what the heck am I supposed to watch? And this is why you have to have diversity in content because I still want to watch something. Like, should I not have anything to watch because all of these shows provide hateful context to my life experience? No, that's not fair. I'll we're asking Netflix to do is to invest in a wide swath of content and specifically trans content because we want to show stories that are trans stories as well. Yeah. And Caitlin, you mentioned specifically disclosure. And I think disclosure is a great example of this, right? Because, you know, we frequently hear, well, we have so much great trans content on the service. But what are we promoting? What are we paying for? And what are people actually watching? You know, I don't want to say that we should, you know, somehow alter the recommendations algorithm or something so that no matter why that just always shows you trans content. Like, that's not what we're asking for. But if you're going to put something like the closer, you know, on the billboard as soon as you open the app and you're going to see Dave's head there like, why, where's my billboard, you know, for for trans day visibility or trans day remembrance? Where's our billboard for disclosure for every member of the service? There isn't one, right? And so having the content, if we aren't paying trans creators like we do cis creators, and if we aren't promoting that content to people outside, like the The people for whom disclosure is most valuable in terms of its influence and its impact on people is people who aren't trans. Trans people already know about all this, but what we need is for broader audiences to be looking at that and just having it sitting there and paying, you know, whatever, I think Sam Federer had said that, you know, they they've gotten it for a heavy discount. Like if you want this content to actually be impactful instead of just paying lip service to how great the trans content is, you need to make sure that a broader audience sees it and you need to pay queer and trans creators so that they can then go on to make more content because at the end of the day, if you offer somebody a pittance for their trans content, it's going to be really hard for that person to continue to make queer and trans content. I wanted to check in about if there are kind of any broad topics or things that you all wanted to talk about that we haven't touched on yet. Yeah, I want to talk about the intersectionality piece of this, right? You know, it's so hard for me as a black trans person. Like I can't sit back and not talk about how frustrating it is to continually have black trans people be erased from this conversation. You know, on national day of remembrance on November 20th, the list is up to 44 people who have been killed who were trans this year and the majority of those people are black and trans. And I was actually just having a conversation with my cousin because my cousin watched this special and he's normally a huge shapel fan and he mentioned he was like, I didn't enjoy it as much. And I was like, oh, I wonder why? And he was like, well, because I was thinking of you. He was like, I didn't see you. I didn't understand how this related to you. And I was like, oh, I was like, oh my gosh, you've just had that same breakthrough that so many people have. You understand that I'm a human and I deserve to be acknowledged and to exist. And I started explaining to him that that list always feels incomplete to me on national day of remembrance because it's only the people who had someone who could tell their story, who had someone who fought to make sure that they knew that that person was a black person that they were a trans person that they wanted to be identified in that way. You know, again, we talk about, you know, Taren Eyre privileged people. I was able to legally change my name and legally change my gender. So no one can erase who I am. Like it's documented evidence that I'm a proud black trans person and that you cannot change who I am simply because you don't like it. You know, if I if this if I didn't have those means, it would just be based on whether my community had the ability to get my story out there. And that's the harm that these types of pieces of content puts out there because they try to make this justice position a white thing versus black thing or a gay thing versus non gay thing. But it's not because there's so many people who intersect at those different margins. And we get hate from all those different groups. I remember last year when June's teeth was really being promoted as, you know, we should have that this is a holiday. There were a lot of, you know, white gay people who are like, June is our month. You can't possibly take, you know, one of our days from our month to celebrate. And I was like, honey, June's teeth existed before the, you know, before the LGBTQ rights movement first wall. And secondly, June is my month and June's teeth is my day because I am both identities. You don't get to tell other people who they are, like let them tell their own stories. And that's the disservice here. And this is goes back to how do we, you know, let's take a step back and educate ourselves because it's completely ridiculous that in 2021, we're having the same exact oppression and Olympics conversation. And it's exact conversation that people put in place to keep diverse and minority people from coming together and asking for what we deserve, which is equality and equity. Absolutely. Um, be, you're about to have a kid. And that's one thing that to me just seems especially cruel about how you were let go and what happened. But I'm wondering you know how you're grappling with all of that and also about what you hope to pass on to your kid by standing up and speaking out against all of this. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's definitely something I didn't expect. But you know, the good thing about being a product manager my entire life is that I've been planning for worst case scenarios for a long time. So, you know, fortunately, we know that we'll be okay, right? We saved money. Um, hopefully also we can come to a reasonable solution with Netflix for a severance. And then I'll be able to have this child and have time to bond and recover before I have to look for work. And also I should, I should say, you know, again, I spent 15 years creating Goodwill doing great work for my community doing great work in tech. And so so many people have already raised their hand and said, so what do you want to do next? You know, we got you. So like, I don't have any doubt that I'm going to do great work somewhere after this is all said and done. So that part isn't the nerve wrecking part. It actually really is how many diapers do I really need? Like that part, like I don't know how many diapers. I'm like, which butt paces? Because apparently butt paces a whole thing. And there's like 15,000 different butt paces that you have to look at. That's stuff is super confusing to me. I just bought like a few different ones. I was like, who knows which one's going to be the right one? So that stuff is like that. That's a truly scary part about all of this. And then what I want my child to think about. So my mother, and it's something that comes up constantly, like every single day I wake up and I think about my mother. So my mother unfortunately died in 2012. And I was still relatively young. And every single day I get up and I think what would my mother think of what I did today. And when I think about my child, I would think I would hope that he knows that he's from a long line of amazing humans who fight for people, who create kindness in this world, who create opportunities for people in this world. And that it didn't start with me. I'm just the latest iteration of this. But that this is this is who we are. This is our DNA. And that he would internalize that message and he becomes that person too. And so even when I'm long gone, he will wake up every day just like I do and think, am I still holding those values to be true? Because that is exactly who our family is. That's beautiful. So there's something that I've been dealing with since when when public with their termination. And that is this, especially within the company, within the people I'm talking to about my situation, there seems to be a lack of understanding. Well, we think that B did this terrible thing that is such a credible violation of the companies, ideals and rules and whatever. And they seem to be trying to encourage me to kind of separate from B in terms of like full-throated supporting B. And they don't seem to understand why. And I think it's because these are entirely cis people. And they don't understand the power and just like the investment and that there is in like a trans person who is carrying a child. And it's going to have and raise a child in an affirming environment. And you know, that is going to have that child thrive. Like I'm never going to have my own kid. Right. And so looking at somebody within our community who is pregnant and who is put in danger as a result of decisions that are being made. Like I don't know how I could do anything else because there's a movie, "Children of Men" where there's basically like a play where women can't have babies anymore and they haven't been able to for like 20 years. And then you see like the one, you know, somebody has a kid and it's everybody's just like son by it. And like that's what I feel like when I see a trans person having a kid, it's like, oh my god, this is, you know, our community directly being able to thrive and to have their family. How could I ever not support that? And I just don't think that cis people can understand that perspective of like this is so important. And this is such a beautiful thing and a precious thing. Like of course I will defend it and I will stand by be because like I don't know, it's not exactly a revolutionary act, but it is in terms of what society expects from us. Like that is worth so much more to me than almost anything else because so many of us don't get to do this thing. Yeah. I mean it all comes back to hope, right? Because like for instance I never thought that I would have a child because economically it's very difficult to have children. And so, you know, it goes back to that idea that for so many of us who are Netflix trans star, we are legitimately, we're like the top 0.1% of the trans community, right? In terms of, you know, power, economic power, you know, psychologically being in a great place. And I think that's why we're fighting so hard. because all of us know what it took for us to get here. And we also, like, so disproportionately, I think in the Transdard group compared to the rest of society, I don't know a single one member of the Transdard community who isn't giving back in some way. Many of our transdard colleagues actually pay people's rent every month. They pay for people's hormones every month. You know, my wife and I, we have a scholarship for LGBTQ plus, what black LGBTQ plus students at Northwestern University. You know, we support Harabown Health in Chicago, which is the largest kind of trans provider of care in the Midwest and everyone from the Midwest comes there. We give so much because we realize how endangered this community is. And that's why, you know, again, the conversation is that we have had enough, right? Like, we know what you're doing to this community and we're fighting for this community and we're not going to stop fighting because it's absolutely imperative that we save every single trans life that we can. And it starts with making sure content is not hurtful. - Be Tara, thank you so much for joining us and being so generous with your time and sharing about what's going on. It's been a really important conversation to have and we really appreciate you coming on the show. - Thank you for having me. - Yeah, it was really great, thank you. - So, Caitlin, are you ready for some out-of-context cancellations? - Oh, is he now important ready for the segment? - So, one of our listeners wanted us to cancel Centrist Democrats. - I can't imagine why. - No, they're so great, aren't they? So great. Is that sarcasm or a detect in your voice? - No. - No, not at all. - Not for me, not for me. - Could be me. Our next out-of-context cancellation is Instagram constantly showing ads for brands without inclusive sizing. And I think by extension, brands without inclusive sizing to begin with. - Fuck that. - Yeah, it's just annoying because, I mean, I get this. I've gained quite a bit of weight to the pandemic and I'll see ads at places that I used to shop and I'm like, "Oh, that's cute." And I'll click on it and it's just not available in my size. And it's like, thanks bro. Feels bad, man. - And it's not only like a moral thing that they should do, but it's also like a capital is like, it makes them more like this. Why would you do it? - It doesn't make any sense. - Also, so I have been struggling with a sign-ass infection that has destroyed, like I've been like snoring horribly and just like not being able to breathe through my nose. And so I would love to cancel some sign-ass infections 'cause they're not a good time. - Yeah, let's do it. I've had sign-ass infections before and they're just the worst. - Bad news. Nixit, goodbye. All of them are gone. If you are struggling with a sign-ass infection, you aren't anymore because we've taken care of it. We're not medical professionals though. So like, don't legally hold us to that. (laughing) - It's a weird doctor. - Legal disclaimer. And then lastly, it's shooting here and dear to my heart or not. We're canceling depression. I've said it. It's time to go. - No, I am on board with that. Not a fun time. - Don't need it. Let's get rid of it. - So I started my first anti-depressant the other day and I had a stop at 'cause it gave me hives. - No. - Yeah, like horrible hives all over my body. It was miserable. - Well, I am sorry about that. You're gonna get it on another one and you'll find one that's a good fit for you, but that's not a fun adventure to go on. - No. And I've never been allergic to a medication before. So it's a surprise to hell out of me. - Mm. Well, knock on wood. Hopefully the next one will be a better experience. - I hope so too. - And then if you want us to cancel something, you can become a Patreon of our show and join our Discord for $5 a month. And then you can let us know what you want us to cancel. We also have some other rewards for our members and support helps us become a weekly show, which is our goal. - You can join our Discord and learn about other perks at patreon.com/canceledaddy. - Today's show was made by me, All the Grash Client and my incredible co-host, Caitlin Burns. - Daniel Peter Schmidt made our theme song in even MW Designer Graphics. - Our show is made possible by the incredible cancelers supporting our work, especially the members of our cancel or Hall of Fame, with great power to cancel all of their enemies, Meg and Alice. - We appreciate your support. - Happy canceling. (upbeat music)