Matt Bernstein

And I think just for myself to just to be very honest, because back and forth leading up to this interview, you know, we've talked a little bit in the back of my mind.

I'm like, what if like, you know, what if the intentions are bad?

What if this is like a.

like an infiltration or I, you know, I don't know.

I kept going back and forth, but it was one of those things where it's like, it would be so much easier if there was any sort of bad intentions to just sort of sit down and sort of be in that sphere still and just sort of not talk, you know?

And I did, to be completely honest.

I did at first.

And like I said, I do believe your intentions are good as well.

It was just that at first I was like, oh, I know.

It's a common story that you, of course, touched on here is that you don't understand or sort of switch your perspective on things until it happens to you.

Because from my perspective, for some context, I have been super politically minded and active since I was in high school.

From a fairly early age, I realized I was bisexual.

And then shortly after that, I realized I was trans.

So in the back of my mind, I was always like, and this was before gay marriage was legalized.

This was when Fox News

was bringing on pastors being like, the Bible says you can't have, it's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, you know, the classic bullshit.

So like, I saw this world around me and, you know, I tried to, being the good politically minded person that I am, the addicted, you could call me addicted to politics in a sense,

But like, you know, I would argue, I would talk to people I disagree with.

And it's very rare that that would change their minds.

What would, of course, change people's minds is having something happen to them.