Trans Joy // RE-RUN: Geena Rocero's "Horse Barbie"

Trans Joy // RE-RUN: Geena Rocero's "Horse Barbie"

How can you reclaim your truth and your power? We’re diving into Horse Barbie, Geena Rocero’s radiant and illuminating memoir that shows her journey from a one-room home in Manila, Philippians, to trans pageants, from the perfume counter at Macy’s to New York fashion sets, and from private, suffocating, fear to a TED Talk that reframed transness as power. Along the way, we discuss her father’s complicated love, her mother’s unwavering belief and reflect on what can spark when the people who matter most tell you there’s nothing wrong with you.   Geena’s story and memoir widens from personal to political: pre-colonial history without gendered pronouns, the costs of documentation that doesn’t match your face, and the power of her viral TED Talk to turn shame into strength. We sit with the big questions: Why is femininity seen as a threat? How do entertainment and policy diverge? What changes when a community moves from visibility to rights? By the end, Horse Barbie reads like a manual for courage. It shows how story becomes strategy and how one woman’s voice can help many step out of the shadows. If you care about trans rights, immigration, pageant culture, modeling, or the way love can change a life, this conversation brings nuance, warmth, and a clear takeaway: policy matters, family matters, and stories move hearts faster than arguments ever will.   If the conversation resonates, subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who needs a hopeful, human lens on trans life and advocacy. For the extended discussion of this episode (an additional 24 min), subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/BabesinBooklandPodcast]. Support the show: Buy us a book [https://buymeacoffee.com/babesinbookland] Buy cute merch [https://www.teepublic.com/user/babes-in-bookland-podcast] Buy Horse Barbie [https://bookshop.org/p/books/horse-barbie-a-memoir-of-reclamation-geena-rocero/653cdaa143243d38?aid=118071&ean=9780593445907&listref=season-2-memoirs&next=t] Other Links: Evan Hurst substack [https://evanhurst.substack.com/p/is-it-anti-christian-extremism-to] This episode is produced, recorded, and its content edited by me. Special thanks to my dear friend, Jaime!  Xx, Alex Connect with us and suggest a great memoir! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2339134/fan_mail/new] Follow us on instagram! @babesinbooklandpod [https://www.instagram.com/babesinbooklandpod/]  ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

AUTHOR CHAT: Dorothy Roberts' "The Mixed Marriage Project"

What questions should you be asking the people you love while you still can? That's the thread running through this conversation with Dorothy Roberts, whose memoir The Mixed Marriage Projectstarted with a stack of boxes. After her parents passed, Dorothy opened them and found nearly 500 interviews her white father had conducted with interracial couples in Chicago, beginning in 1937, almost two decades before he married her Black mother. Inside were wild parties, a nudist camp, a turn-of-the-century club for mixed couples, and a file labeled number 224 that turned out to be about her. We talk about the interviews her father never published and the book contracts he kept walking away from, why she hid her father's whiteness from her Black classmates at Yale, and the painful stereotypes that surfaced even inside a club devoted to interracial marriage. We get into the big question at the heart of the memoir too: whether love, the everyday intimate kind, can actually dismantle racism. Spoiler, it's complicated. Dorothy Roberts is a scholar, professor, and author of five books on race, gender, and the systems that devalue Black women and mothers. The Mixed Marriage Project is her first memoir, built from the nearly 500 interviews her father left behind. If this conversation moved you, share it with a friend and leave a review and rating. Purchase The Mixed Marriage Project [https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-mixed-marriage-project-a-memoir-of-love-race-and-family-dorothy-roberts/d5922a6c45c20de3?ean=9781668068380&next=t&aid=118071&listref=season-3-memoirs] Support the show: On Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/BabesinBooklandPodcast] Buy us a book [https://buymeacoffee.com/babesinbookland] Buy cute merch [https://www.teepublic.com/user/babes-in-bookland-podcast] Subscribe to the Babes in Bookland Substack [https://substack.com/@babesinbookland] Connect with us and suggest a great memoir! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2339134/fan_mail/new] Follow us on instagram!  [https://bookshop.org/p/books/strangers-a-memoir-of-marriage-belle-burden/9576dba8b9d3ce7d?ean=9780593733318&next=t&aid=118071&listref=season-3-memoirs]@babesinbooklandpod [https://www.instagram.com/babesinbooklandpod/]  Thank you for listening! Xx, Alex ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Objectify Her // Lauren Fleshman's "Good for a Girl"

What would it mean to build women's sports around women's bodies?  This week, my friend Becca returns to discuss Lauren Fleshman's memoir "Good for a Girl". What starts as a running memoir quickly reveals itself as something far bigger: an investigation into the science of female puberty and athletics, the eating disorder epidemic inside women's collegiate and professional sports, and one woman's relentless fight to change a sport she loves from the inside out. We discuss Lauren's unconventional path to running, the ways puberty has been treated as "the one injury a girl can't come back from," the NCAA's staggering lack of policy around eating disorders in women's athletics, Lauren's famous Nike "Objectify Me" campaign, and the ways female athletes are still being failed by the systems built to protect them. This episode is for every woman who was ever told she was good — for a girl. The runners, the former athletes, the moms of daughters in sports, and anyone who has ever felt their body was working against them instead of for them. If this conversation resonated with you, the best thing you can do is share it with a friend who needs to hear it, and rate and review the show wherever you listen. It makes a huge difference! Purchase "Good for a Girl" [https://bookshop.org/p/books/good-for-a-girl-a-woman-running-in-a-man-s-world-lauren-fleshman/716dbb2e91b4d2be?aid=118071&ean=9780593296806&listref=season-3-memoirs&next=t] Other Links: https://www.milesplit.com/articles/211759/dear-younger-me-lauren-fleshman [https://www.milesplit.com/articles/211759/dear-younger-me-lauren-fleshman ](Lauren's letter to her younger self) Follow Becca's bookstagram: @bookedwithbecca and her new running account: @run.with.becca Support the show: On Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/BabesinBooklandPodcast] Buy us a book [https://buymeacoffee.com/babesinbookland] Buy cute merch [https://www.teepublic.com/user/babes-in-bookland-podcast] Subscribe to the Babes in Bookland Substack [https://substack.com/@babesinbookland] Connect with us and suggest a great memoir! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2339134/fan_mail/new] Follow us on instagram!  [https://bookshop.org/p/books/strangers-a-memoir-of-marriage-belle-burden/9576dba8b9d3ce7d?ean=9780593733318&next=t&aid=118071&listref=season-3-memoirs]@babesinbooklandpod [https://www.instagram.com/babesinbooklandpod/]  Thank you for listening! Xx, Alex ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

AUTHOR CHAT: Jessica Zucker's "I Had a Miscarriage" & "Normalize It"

What would change if women stopped being silent about the hardest parts of their lives? This week, I sit down with psychologist, author, and advocate Dr. Jessica Zucker, the woman behind the viral #IHadAMiscarriage movement, to discuss her memoir I Had a Miscarriage and her newest book Normalize It: Upending the Silence, Stigma, and Shame That Shape Women's Lives. TW: Infant loss, pregnancy loss Jessica shares the story behind her 16-week miscarriage, how it deepened her already decade-long clinical work in women's reproductive and maternal mental health, and why she felt compelled to bring that conversation into the public sphere. We also dig into why so many women default to self-blame after pregnancy loss, how our culture has taught us to minimize our grief, and why avoiding painful emotions can be far more destructive than actually feeling them. Plus these big questions: Can pleasure and grief coexist? What does it mean to truly honor a loss? And why do the people who most deserve joy so often feel the least entitled to it? Come for the conversation about pregnancy loss and women's shame. Stay for the moment Alex and Jessica unpack why grief avoidance, not grief itself, is what really derails us, and the simple, no-excuse practice Jessica recommends for anyone who doesn't have time to fall apart. Warm, honest, and full of gentle permission slips, this conversation is for anyone who has ever shrunk their pain to make others more comfortable — which is probably all of us. Purchase Jessica's Books: Normalize It! [https://bookshop.org/p/books/i-had-a-miscarriage-a-memoir-a-movement-jessica-zucker/1a59de68ee83b5d6?aid=118071&ean=9781558612884&listref=season-3-memoirs&next=t] I had a Miscarriage [https://bookshop.org/p/books/i-had-a-miscarriage-a-memoir-a-movement-jessica-zucker/1a59de68ee83b5d6?aid=118071&ean=9781558612884&listref=season-3-memoirs&next=t] Find Jessica! Dr. Jessica Zucker's website: drjessicazucker.com [drjessicazucker.com] Her Instagram: @IHadAMiscarriage Support the show: On Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/c/BabesinBooklandPodcast] Buy us a book [https://buymeacoffee.com/babesinbookland] Buy cute merch [https://www.teepublic.com/user/babes-in-bookland-podcast] Subscribe to the Babes in Bookland Substack [https://substack.com/@babesinbookland] Connect with us and suggest a great memoir! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2339134/fan_mail/new] Follow us on instagram!  [https://bookshop.org/p/books/strangers-a-memoir-of-marriage-belle-burden/9576dba8b9d3ce7d?ean=9780593733318&next=t&aid=118071&listref=season-3-memoirs]@babesinbooklandpod [https://www.instagram.com/babesinbooklandpod/]  Thank you for listening! Xx, Alex ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

TEASER: Missed Opportunity // Lena Dunham's "Famesick"

This week, Brett is back for a bonus episode and we are getting into "Famesick", Lena Dunham's new memoir about illness, ambition, Hollywood, and whether any of it was worth it. Brett isn't just any reader here — she worked closely with Lena during the Girls era at United Talent Agency, which means this conversation comes with some serious behind-the-scenes context that you are not going to get anywhere else. We break down what the book actually delivers versus what it promises: the health journey, the name dropping, the rise-to-fame years, the rehab chapters, the wildest dedication page we have ever read, and the moment with Barbara Walters that has been making the rounds for good reason. We also get into what the memoir conspicuously leaves out — her friendship with Taylor Swift, the wording of the November 17th statement — and why those omissions say just as much as what she chose to include. The big question we keep coming back to: is "Famesick" a genuine reckoning, or is it a very calculated, self-serving reframe of a career and a public image? If you loved Girls, hated Girls, or have ever had a complicated relationship with a woman who is clearly brilliant... but also kind of a lot — this episode is for you. Thank you so much for supporting the show! Xx, Alex ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.