Hello and welcome to another episode of iWay with Tomato Jamel. I hope this episode finds you well.

I'm alright, just a bit stressed. Been on my phone way too much, 13, 14 hours a day. Sometimes

just reading the news and Twitter and Instagram and watching the news cycle continue to be so devastating

and scary and watching all the vitriol and bloodthirst online or the bigotry that seems to be pouring

out because after any moment of progress there's always a horrific backlash. I also, you know,

incredibly disheartened watching the way that the government is utilising a moment of distraction

and chaos and panic to take away more and more rights from the most marginalized people. It's just

pretty devastating and I'm starting to have actual panic attacks. So if you are out there and also

struggling, know that while it is important to be informed and engaged and helpful you don't have

to be plugged in all of the time because you're just going to burn out and then be no good to anyone.

So maybe we all need to scale back a bit. Speaking of rights being taken away over in the UK,

trans rights are being rolled back and I was very lucky to be able to get hold of the very busy

and very important and very extraordinary world famous trans activist Monroe Bergdorf. She is a

young black trans woman and has a very specific and unique lens and so articulate and smart and

funny and human in this episode and just gave me, it's so rare when someone with such a big platform

is so willing to be so unguarded with you and she just went all the way there with me. I do have to

give you a trigger warning at one point we talk about some very very upsetting sexual violence that she

was on the receiving end of, we talk about it kind of just past halfway or towards the end of

this episode and it might be upsetting for you to hear. I think it's important to hear about if it's

something that won't hurt and trigger you but it really gives you a full sense, a full explanation

of her experience on this podcast really gives you a sense of what it's like for her, for people

like her, for people in the trans community, what their day-to-day existence is like how much

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