Join Kiran Manral and Shunali Shroff in a profound episode of "Not Your Aunty," where they dive into the intricate landscape of gender dynamics in contemporary society. From evolving definitions of gender to the challenges and safety concerns women face, this conversation goes beyond the headlines to explore the nuanced aspects of the ongoing dialogue about inclusivity and safety.
[00:00:00] Winter thrills await at Winterfest at Nemecolon. Join the fun on Saturday, February 10th for a day of fun-fueled winter festivities like skiing and snowboarding, snow tubing, ice skating and snow bikes.
[00:00:12] You'll be able to meet the Nemecolon Dog Sled Team. Try your hand at ice bowling, compete in the out cold race and finish your day with a brew by the fire at the peak.
[00:00:20] A winner of wonders waiting for you at Nemecolon's Winterfest. Experiences are for overnight guests denied that. And that's how Kiran and I went down this rabbit hole of discovering the lengths and depths of this phenomena. And the lengths and depths of this phenomena are astounding. It isn't just cats and dogs that they want to be. They want to be dragons.
[00:01:40] They want to be furniture, if you believe it.
[00:01:44] They want to be a woman and then decided to transition further on to becoming a dragon lady. It's called Iva Thiasset. They've done all sorts of things to themselves, colored their skin green, cut their tongue, they've implanted little bells and whistles all over their face and
[00:03:00] looks quite scary to me. I mean like really dragon worthy scary. Listen, this is in the US.
[00:04:04] problem with it, then it's a psychological issue. But interestingly, Kiran, you know, when I was doing a research on this as were you, I read that certain schools in the UK
[00:04:09] especially are afraid to take this on because everybody is so sensitive today and everybody
[00:04:16] is so ready to come to parents are so ready to come to school charging and accusing teachers
[00:04:21] of psychologically hurting their children or harming their children that one girl accused of this furry thing. So while a lot of people initially believed that this was some sort of fandom, right? Like cosplay, which is trying, which is dressing up as your favorite comic character, you know, Superman or Wonder Woman or whatever, just for the fun of it. Now,
[00:05:40] this thing, identifying with furry gone further than just an occasional
[00:07:03] activity, when people have started hiding behind this permanently, is that
[00:08:04] head and now she finds comfort in that. So again, this is a mental health issue. And a living partner said we live in such a tiny apartment that you know, suddenly she goes
[00:08:09] off and she becomes the table or she becomes the chair or she becomes just sitting like
[00:08:14] this with the thing on her head like that, like a statue. This is bizarre. She also said
[00:08:20] for the next generation, where are we heading? She said that her aunt sat on her when she I don't see anyone smelling the other's tail. Yeah, so I was watching Piers Morgan interview somebody on his show. I think he did the morning show or something, right? And she was an educationist and they were talking about this whole trend of furries. And he was questioning her and sort of pushing her to come up with a solid reaction to say
[00:09:41] that you know, school should actually be authoritarian.
[00:09:43] And put their foot down.
[00:09:45] And put their foot down, not just with this for several other things. or transphobic or, you know, homophobic. I think that firstly, reality should trump everything just as they say that biology should trump gender, which is what brings me to the next topic, which is trans people competing in the same spot as women.
[00:11:00] They have trans identity,
[00:11:01] so it's part of the same conversation.
[00:11:05] How do you feel about that?
[00:11:06] That is such a loaded topic, actually, Shannali, 400 yards freestyle men. She was fifth in women's category. Naturally. Yeah. And she was 65th in the 500 yard male category, but she won the championship as a woman. So now what happens to the women who have been training so rigorously, they get their advantage taken away just because somebody comes in with all the advantages of the male
[00:12:20] physique, all the advantages of strength, the reach, the belt, the length of the torso,
[00:12:26] all that.
[00:12:27] Of course.
[00:12:28] And takes away the... run in different races. Boys run longer races, girls are better in shorter races or something like that and the timing variation and she said, Mama, how does it matter? I said, no, physically you are different and you need to know that. Okay. So, and it's been going on from the days of the hunter gatherer. It's just in our DNA. It's coded there. Okay. Through thousands of years of evolution. Absolutely. Martine and Navratilova,
[00:13:42] she made a very pertinent comment. She said, at the risk of being cancelled or being called a turf.
[00:14:45] about an inquiry into a swim team of a US college.
[00:14:49] The girl was there, the girls were saying that we are there and we were putting our swimsuits on.
[00:14:50] Now these professional swimsuits,
[00:14:52] I know because my son was a professional swimmer,
[00:14:55] they take, you have to go centimeter by centimeter.
[00:14:58] It takes up to 45 minutes to get a male swimsuit on.
[00:15:02] Really? Yes.
[00:15:03] And to get a female swimsuit on is even longer.
[00:15:06] Oh. And once you're in that,
[00:15:07] you cannot pee, you cannot do anything. who are in transition completely is walking around with all body parts hanging loose. Obviously it is going to make women who are born gender to the gender no matter what they identify as uncomfortable and even threatened and also don't think about think of the fact that in certain communities and countries this can be misused also.
[00:16:21] Absolutely, absolutely.
[00:16:22] Right?
[00:16:23] And it has been to as a man I can you you know? What is the solution? Do we have separate bathrooms and separate changing rooms for the third gender? I think so. Why not? We should and... They deserve it. They must have it. Definitely. There's intersex. We are not talking of the intersex community who are born differently. That has been around with us for so many years and nobody has felt...
[00:17:42] Nobody has felt unsafe around them and that's different.
[00:17:45] That's a different conversation altogether. Yes, he was dressing in little pinaffered frocks with two ponytails. And this is this huge ass man. I'm sorry, he was huge. So he is dressing in these little pinaffered dresses and he's got ponytails and he's with little, whatever, toys and pacifiers and not even an eight year old, know. So they busted him. And if you look at his photographs, he looks quite sweet actually. Yeah. That's interesting. But at least he's going back to being a man in his regular life. This was just a one-off episode to help his... Yeah, but this is really true love, as you said. I mean, you know, to go this far to save your girlfriend from flunking.
[00:20:22] How lovely.
[00:20:23] Yeah.
[00:20:24] And I mean, I've people who are biologically male.
[00:21:41] Women of the Year Awards are going to trans people. So Kiran, when Caitlin Jenner, who was previously a national Olympic level swimmer, as you know, so when Bruce Jenner transitioned as Caitlin Jenner and became even more gorgeous than his ex-wife, right? That was very interesting. And I was wouldn't know, one can only surmise that it must take a lot of therapy to go through it. And how do you keep the relationship unchanged? I guess if you love the person you can make it works because it's not necessarily the outer. No, no, no.
[00:24:20] Yeah, because the identity of whom you love.
[00:24:22] But physically, visually, ethically what you see is now he must have been a certain level
[00:24:28] of athlete, you know, the gender keeps shifting. And I think that's exactly what is happening in real life. Now this book was written a long time back. This is happening now. So it was the idea of gender that keeps shifting. Firstly, you know, truth is stranger than fiction. And I think Try gender. You feel all genders at the same time. Yeah, when I want to smack somebody really hard, I feel very male and masculine. So that could be my masculine side. I associate smacking with women, not with men. Because I was smacked by my mother and never by my dad.
[00:27:03] So that's going to be a sub- with a pacifier in his mouth, I can be Madonna. I would identify into an alternate reality or world they are able to control, especially if they don't feel they have a supportive community around them. But fixation at this what would you say? Very nice, to a toddler. Then the child gets better and you begin to appreciate it louder, but there is time the child will turn in something very mediocre and you still say very nice. And we were taught at Montessori school, which is a very scientific way of reaching your children that this cell, your false praise is teaching them
[00:31:01] to seek validation outside of themselves.
[00:31:03] So you're supposed to ask the child,
[00:31:05] what do you think of it, darling? Yeah, marrying objects, marrying themselves, having fixation with objects and the media covering it and everybody afraid to speak up. It is attention seeking. It is just also canceling people who speak up again going back to work culture is basically saying conform by what I have decided is in is a new standard for society.
[00:32:21] So it's a cult to absolutely it's a very vehement.
[00:32:24] It's a very vocal and it's a very vicious cult.