Gabrielle Union on Trauma, Healing, and Her “50/50” partnership
By Rebecca Carroll
Let me tell you what Black folks are going to do: survive. And no one knows that better than actress Gabrielle Union, who has spoken very openly about the 30-year battle with PTSD she’s experienced since being raped at gunpoint when she was 19. Union’s trauma came to a head last year while filming the true crime series “Truth Be Told"—and on the eve of her 50th birthday, she decided it was time to lean in to her family and friends for a life-changing, revitalizing experience. That experience became “Gabrielle Union: My Journey to 50,” a two-part BET+ series that follows Union and her family, including her 4-year-old daughter, Kaavia, across four different African countries—a profoundly intimate narrative of discovery that I had the joy of discussing with my friend, Gabrielle Union.
Rebecca Carroll: You experienced a breaking point while you were filming “Truth Be Told”—it re-triggered your trauma. How did that happen?
Gabrielle Union: We were filming a story about the sexual brutality of Black and brown teenage girls in the Bay Area—I don’t think it's a spoiler alert at this point—and the courthouse where my character is shot is the same courthouse I testified in for the grand jury [for my rape]. And it was like every episode broke something in me, and revealed shit. Everything became crystal clear over the five months of filming, and by the time [my character] dies, I died. I was not myself. I was not well by any stretch of the imagination…When you are empty, trauma takes hold, it takes root, and that becomes the center. It becomes your nucleus.
I’m not a crier, but every day I would walk in—it still makes me emotional now—I would walk into my husband’s side of our room, and he would just be there with his hands out, and I would just sob for 19-year old me, and what I had actually survived. And even when I would tell the story [over the years since], it was telling it from a place of disassociation. I was completely separate from it.
Are you able to give yourself the grace for that disassociation?
Yes. It was necessary to make it. You know what I mean? No hyperbole, no cap. I would not have made it. It's too much. It was breaking me at 49. I can't imagine at 19.
In your new BET+ series, there is this palpable sense of rebirth, liberation, and renewal. But because I know you, I know that this is not the first time you have experienced these feelings—how does this particular milestone feel different, and what made you want to capture it on film?
I was so depleted emotionally, and by the time I was getting on the plane [to Africa], I was just dust. I didn’t even have large enough pieces [of myself] to fake it at that point. But I knew I would get my bearings the second we landed, because that has always been true to me. I had been there before, but I used to have no idea what to expect. Each country was new. But as the trips started stacking up, I was like, “Boy, every time I set foot on the continent, my shoulders unclench, I feel seen and acknowledged as a whole person, and I can get back to myself.” It’s different being somewhere where you are acknowledged as a human being, and not necessarily extraordinary or deficient. It’s nice not having to feel like you always have to flex. I could just exist as one of millions who look like me, and it allowed me the time and the space and the grace to look even further to what I didn't even know existed.
At one particularly emotional point in the series, Dwyane [Wade, Union’s husband] is talking about how you are evolving together in real time, which made me think a little bit differently about this silly dust-up a few weeks back, when you shared in an interview that you two split the household bills 50/50. People on social media couldn’t believe that you were paying half when your husband is an NBA star with a multi-million-dollar net worth. But what I saw in this series is that you two truly are 50/50—not just financially, but in all ways.
Yeah. That’s my potna and my partner.
I know that’s right. The other thing, though, is the scarcity mindset that I think a lot of Black folks experience—if you don’t come up with money or financial security, the anxiety of not having it never goes away, no matter how much you make as an adult.
We come from a people where it’s like, you are your brother's keeper. You are everybody’s keeper. And if you have it, then we have it. And I subscribe to it. I am an active participant in that. I have three separate households that I’m a hundred percent responsible for. D has even more. There is exactly one person in each of our lives who has ever met the other halfway, and that is each other.
That is amazingly powerful.
And the most loving, joyous thing! I like working, I like contributing. I like going half on a dream home, because it's our dream. I like going half on our baby, because that was our dream. I'm not chasing him around for 50 cents if he buys some Doritos. It's not like that. I certainly used all his points and miles to pay for this Africa trip, I will gleefully say that. But knowing what it feels like to be met halfway, and how good and reassuring and how protective that feels—it’s also a lot easier to go into a 50/50 situation knowing somebody can easily pay for a hundred percent.
And he knows that as well. Now, is my money long? No, but can I hold us down. Are we losing this house or are our kids going to be pulled out of private school? No, I got it. Because that’s how I’ve lived my life. I have it. I will have it. I'll find it, and we'll be okay. So it's easier to get into a 50/50 situation knowing that if push comes to shove, nobody's totally fucked. If it's different in your house? You like it, I love it. I'm not saying that this is what's great for everyone. But I'm definitely not stupid or deficient because I like to pay for half of my life and the children that I have created.
Speaking of family—you’ve always emphasized family and friends, many of whom joined you on this journey to Africa. Why is that so important to you?
I come from both sides of big families. And my family don't play about each other. We just don't. We call ourselves the dozens of cousins for a reason. If I need to fight, say the word. Nothing brought [my parents] more joy than delivering for their family. And I grew up seeing that. Nothing makes me happier than providing for my family and my community, and I wouldn't have been able to say that 20 years ago.
Even though you were gaining enough financial stability of your own to help them?
Even though I was giving financially, I didn't feel worthy of the position. I felt like I was unseen and unloved in my industry. And it took me probably until 40 to really revel in it, and to be outspoken about this joy and how hard fought it was, because before that I still [thought], “If the God of white supremacy and the white gaze don't see me, then nobody can.”
[But] nobody ever let me fall—not in my industry family, not in my personal family. I tell the story about Regina King literally saving me from the riptide. That's true as fuck. I talk about Tisha Campbell paying for therapy—I’m still seeing [that therapist] to this day, 25 years later. I've just been very lucky that people were not interested in watching me fail. And I'm not interested in watching me fail. And now I feel worthy.
When you were in Ghana, you visited the Last Bath river, where enslaved people were bathed before being loaded onto slave ships for America. It was intense; tell me about it.
As I said [in the series] when I came out of that river, “Oh, this is my superhero origin story.” Right. Holy shit, I am unstoppable. And I fucking believe. Holy fuck. Oh, it's on. It is on like Donkey Kong, and I can't fucking wait. I wish a motherfucker would, because I'm ready.
You said earlier that all of this started because you had arrived at a place of feeling depleted—how do you feel now?
Whole. There’s still some cavernous spaces that can be filled, but I want to try to leave myself open to what's to come and what I don't know—which is a lot. We know as African-Americans what happened on the other side of the Middle Passage, but we are less secure in our knowledge of who was left behind and what our collective mass absence did for generations. It left a gaping, festering wound all across the diaspora. And we just aren’t as familiar with that.
It's always amazing to talk to you, Gab.
I live for our talks, and I thank you, because I needed something different today. I've been doing [interviews] all day, but this is the first real one, so I appreciate you.
Right back at you.
A Seat at Audie Cornish's Table
“The goal isn't to make people feel foolish or dumb.”
BY REBECCA CARROLL
Veteran journalist Audie Cornish does not come to play. The former co-host of NPR’s All Things Considered has long been considered a serious interviewer (at CNN, where she moved last year, she recently took now-former chief Chris Licht to task for platforming Trump). Now she has a new podcast on CNN called “The Assignment.” And whether it’s questioning a parent activist on their true motivations or talking to an OnlyFans star, she knows exactly what she’s doing and why she’s doing it. As a fellow interviewer who is slightly obsessed with the process, I was eager to hear more about Cornish’s own style—and what stays with her after it’s all said and done.
Rebecca Carroll: You’ve long emphasized your commitment to amplifying the voices of “regular people” in your work. In this social media-crazed landscape—I think I’ve heard you refer to it as the attention economy, where people are not really interested in regular folks unless they go viral—my question for you is, how do you make regular folks interesting?
Audie Cornish: ...There wouldn’t be social media if we weren’t all interesting and interested in each other, and it wouldn’t have changed the celebrity journalism landscape. We have a system that rewards what we call “stars”—people who we think have a singular magnetism and talent who are cultivated as such, and put on a pedestal for much of their lives, until we tear them down. I think what I'm saying is…We also can share our actual knowledge, share the wisdom that we've learned in our lives, and I'm finding that to be really deeply engaging.
I went all the way back to listen to the first episode of “The Assignment” in preparation for this interview. And in that episode, you are engaged with two parent activists from Florida whose primary concern, it seemed to me, was that teachers in schools are teaching their children with the bias that America is a racist country. But America is a racist country. You navigated the conversation deftly, but I wondered if you ever felt, specifically during that interview, like saying, “Actually, you’re wrong. That’s just not factually correct”?
I think what you’re asking for is a different kind of show. And I don’t mean to be obtuse here, but you saying with such certainty that it’s a racist country—there are very many people who would say the exact opposite with complete and total certainty! And I think that in that first episode what I wanted to introduce to the audience was that this is a show where you're going to get heard all the way out, and if people dislike you, it’ll be for your best take, not your worst take. The goal is not to make people feel foolish or dumb; it's to find people who are in the middle of a maelstrom of some kind, who are in the middle of a story that's changing rapidly, and to find out what it's like for them.
I think what I wanted to do with that first show is to get everyone situated, no matter what your political beliefs are—to say, “Okay, this is how we're going to talk at my table.” And there are plenty of places for you to go where people will be like, “You're racist, please leave.” But this table is not that.
What is it that you’re really trying to do with the show? And how you are feeling as you do it in a climate where we are grappling with divisive news outlets and audiences, and an industry that is under enormous scrutiny in general?
Every single episode is through the lens of: This is a weird corner of the world [where] something's going on, and what really is it? Is it really a fight about school boards, or is it about your fundamental vision of this country and how you seek to 'rectify' a story that's been told about it? I think [the existing news landscape] makes it really hard for people to understand the scope of problems sometimes. Everything is just kind of something on the internet that makes me mad. I just think not knowing is not helping.
What drives your curiosity, and how do you keep the faith that an interview is going to yield that unique conversation?
I have no such faith. No audience is given unearned. Nobody is owed anything. This is the news. This is journalism. This is actually how my brain works: I want to know, “What are you really getting at? What's your motivation for being here? Why are you here and not there?” And to me, that’s everything, that’s life. It’s the root of us.
Say more about that.
I just approach everything like a listener. I have questions, and I think that's really it. That's not a catchphrase. I think if I had more answers, I'd be an activist. Because then my job as an activist is to imagine the world as it could be and try to convince people to get there. What drives me is question, question, conversation, question, question, conversation. That's where I live and breathe. I keep going because there's more stuff to ask, because there’s more to tease out and pull apart to help find clarity.
So who helps you find the clarity?
I mean, my guests? I pick my topics for a reason. I think everyday people do have answers and common sense. They want the same things. They want to take care of their kids. They want to take care of their families. And in general, they don't want to hurt other people to do it, ideally. I think my nature, as I learned from one of our episodes, as a Libra, is to try to find some kind of balance. I want to find the person who really knows the answer. And I'm just going to keep booking guests until I find them.
And what does it feel like when you find the answer?
Imagine that feeling you had as a kid, that high. Like the moment when you learn something you didn't know, or you heard something you didn't know. You never feel that?
But I’m asking you, because you do have a tendency to answer questions with questions.
I mean, it's real. It's not a shtick. That's my high, that's my drug. And now I've learned something new—this conversation is going to transform how I think of you and us, because we had this moment. And that's very different from the relationship we had before, which was at a distance. I mean technically, I know what you think, I've read your work, but I didn't really know you. I think that people sometimes mistake those online personas as knowing people and what they're all about, and being able to say, “Fuck off.” I will never be able to say that to you, because we had our moment of intimacy and dialogue, and that’s amazing. I could do that all day.
I wonder about these moments, and both the connections made between you and your guests, and the connection your guests make with each other. Do you miss them after the conversation is over?
Oh my god, I hear their voices in my head all the time. Whatever they felt, I feel for days after. But I don't regret having [the conversation], and I've exchanged lovely notes with them since. But all my notes are pretty much the same, which say, “Thank you.
Get Ducked, Greg Abbott
 June 6, 2023 Howdy, Meteor readers, I’m going to start this newsletter the same way I’ve been starting every conversation I’ve had since Sunday: Have you seen the new Spider-Man? Okay, hear me out before you scroll down to the adult conversation! This is not your average comic book superhero film. It is a moving, thoughtful, visual experience and an absolute feat in physical and racial diversity. I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone, but the Spiderverse literally has a Spider-person for everyone. I can honestly say that I haven’t left a theater on such a high since I saw Black Panther. Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way: In today’s newsletter, we’ve got more bans than we know what to do with—and, finally, some happy news from our AI overlords. (No, it’s not that they’ve thought twice about killing us). Spidey-sense tingling, Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ONWhen transphobia backfires: I regret to inform all of you that Greg Abbott has Greg Abbott-ed once again: On June 2nd, the Texas governor signed into law a bill that bans gender-affirming care for trans kids, making Texas the 18th (and largest) state to do so. On its heels quickly followed a similar ban in Louisiana, once presumed dead but resurrected by Republican shenanigans. And it won’t be the last: seven other states are considering bans just like it. However, some recent court cases suggest that these bills’ rhetoric may work against them in the long run. US District Court Judge Robert Hinkle issued a preliminary injunction today against Florida’s brand-new ban, likely precluding its enforcement. Hinkle’s ruling directly cited “bigotry” (yes, he used the actual word! In a court document!) as part of the decision. He claimed the ban had “no rational basis” and referenced the moment when Rep. Webster Barnaby (R) called trans people “mutants” and “demons.” That kind of language actually pops up frequently in right-wing legislation: A recent ACLU lawsuit challenging Idaho’s gender care ban references several examples of bigotry from Idaho lawmakers, including likening trans people to “Frankenstein.” Journalist Erin Reed, who records many of these statements, tweeted that getting Republicans to “say the quiet part out loud” can be an effective tool for dismantling these bans in court. So keep telling us what you think lawmakers—it may be your undoing. As civil rights attorney Alejandra Caraballo pointed out, “Twitter talking points don’t hold up in court.” AND:
  THE METEOR IRLPlanning to be in New York soon? We'd love to see you at our next live event Say the Word: A Night of Art and Action for Trans Liberation on June 15th. Tickets are on sale now! Just click the image below to secure your seats.  This newsletter was brought to you by Shannon Melero and Bailey Wayne Hundl who would really love it if you filled out this reader survey. Thanks!  FOLLOW THE METEOR    Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend?
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The AI Overlords Are Coming For Us
 May 30, 2023 Happy Monduesday, Meteor readers, For some of us, today is a particularly tricky day. We are now two days removed from the series finale of “Succession” and, according to TV etiquette, it is allowable to discuss spoilers (apparently things are bad for the eldest boy??). However, some of us (me) are still a few episodes behind and would like for everyone to stop running their mouth like cousin Greg!  If you’re wondering why I’m so behind on the biggest show in town, it’s because I did something else this weekend: I went to an actual movie theater to watch The Little Mermaid. Reviews have been mixed, but when I tell you that Alan Menken put his whole menkussy into revamping this movie!! Halle Bailey’s performance brought me to tears three separate times. You must go see it. And if, like me, you have very strong thoughts about that one Lin-Manuel Miranda addition to the soundtrack, my DMs are open. In today’s newsletter we’re turning our attention to a surge in racism against athletes, the coming AI overlords, and the hawt summer we’re about to have. Still humming “Under the Sea,” Shannon Melero  WHAT'S GOING ON“Something I will continue to deal with”: During a post-match press conference yesterday, tennis star Sloane Stephens commented on the growing racism facing athletes, saying, “It has never stopped. If anything, it’s only gotten worse.” The data backs her up, alas: While racism in sports isn’t exactly a new phenomenon, a 2021 study showed a 200% increase in acts of racism in sports from 2019-2020. The most notable recent occurrence of this involved Spanish soccer team Real Madrid’s Vinicius Junior, who this month reported his tenth incident of racial abuse before the league he plays under (LaLiga) actively got involved—a move that only came to pass because of the immense success Vinicius has had since he started playing. But that let’s-try-to-fix-this energy isn’t as present in women’s sports, where there are only hundreds of thousands of eyeballs being drawn, vs the millions Vinicius commands. Despite the efforts of Althea Gibson (in the 1950s), the Williams sisters (in the ‘00s), and Naomi Osaka (now), the next generation of Black tennis stars are still fighting a Sisyphean battle. “Obviously it's been something that I have dealt with my whole career," Stephens said during the press conference. “It’s only continued to get worse…and something I will continue to deal with, I'm sure. That's that.” (If you're looking to show some support, Stephens' next match is tomorrow at 8:15 AM ET.) AND:
 THE METEOR IRLPlanning to be in New York next month? We'd love to see you at our next live event Say the Word: A Night of Art and Action for Trans Liberation on June 15th. Tickets are on sale now! Just click the image below to secure your seats.  Can't make it to Joe's Pub? No worries! Why not let us know where you're from and where you'd like to see us put on an event by filling out this reader survey? You could win a Meteor tote!  FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend?
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"You Don't Like Me? I'm Gonna Throw a Party in Front of Your Office Window."
BY MIK BEAN
On Monday, May 22nd, trans children and teenagers from across the country threw a prom on the National Mall, a youth-led public celebration of trans joy at a time when more and more states are adopting viciously anti-trans legislation. The Meteor’s Mik Bean spoke to Daniel Trujillo, 15, one of the event’s organizers, about the power a little party can have.
Mik Bean: Of all the events you could think of to celebrate trans joy, what made you and your friends choose a prom?
Daniel Trujillo: It stemmed from a lot of frustration me and other trans youth were feeling from continuously [having our existence debated]—and so publicly, too.
Me and Libby [Gonzales] were on a call one day, and we were real angry. I was driving back from our state capitol from having to testify [on anti-trans legislation], and we were like, “What do we want to do about this problem?” And we were saying that we need, like, a joyous event. That's how it snowballed.
There’s a lot of anti-trans legislation targeting trans youth in school specifically. We chose prom to be a statement of what schools could be like if trans youth were protected instead of being politicized in this really brutal way.
I love that it's a party, because the narrative that these transphobic legislators are telling is not a happy one. Are you hoping that holding this prom in a highly visible place like the National Mall will help change the conversation?
A lot of the anti-trans legislators have kids and grandkids of their own. I hope they all have this realization that we’re all kids who are just going to a prom and having fun, and that they see our joy and the commonalities between us [and] their own kids.
Part of me is kind of spiteful. It's like: “Hey, you don't like me, but guess what I'm gonna do? Throw a party right in front of your office window.”
I want the people [attending the event] to have this puzzle-click moment, this realization of: I have a lot of community here, and we might be in a really cruddy time right now, but it's not always gonna be like that. And because we had one really joyous day, I know that the rest of my life can be just as joyous. My parents run a parent support group in Arizona, and there's some younger children who go there who are, like, six, seven, eight years old, and some of them are gonna be at prom. I feel like it's going to be really amazing for them to see this.
What is something all of us can do to make trans youth feel safe and joyful?
The main thing is to always listen to the youth. Create an affirming space by making sure that you're respecting their names and pronouns. And if those ever change, then make it a space where that’s not a big deal. Be really outspoken about your support of trans youth. A lot of people don't know about this movement against us.
Is there a moment you remember where someone did that for you?
Last year in the eighth grade, my history teacher at the start of class passed out a paper that asked: What’s your name? What’s your preferred name? Can I use this in front of your parents? What are your pronouns? Can I use these in front of your parents? Do you want to use this with the whole class or just privately? And even though this is the bare minimum, I was like, “This is so amazing. This is crazy. She's my favorite teacher. I love her so much.”
I love her, too. OK, back to the prom. What’s your number one dance song?
We made a Spotify playlist. I put some absolute bangers on there: “Dancing Queen,” ‘cause that's my song; “I Will Survive”—that's gonna be so fun; “Heroes” by David Bowie. I put Elton John on here. I also got Prince’s “I will Die for You.” That one is for my mom.
Bangers. Tell me about the outfit!
It is a black tuxedo with a white button-up shirt, and then a bowtie. We had to get it tailored because none of the clothes fit me right. But I got it tailored so the pants go above my ankle to show off my socks that say “Lord of the Strings.”
What is the story you want this prom to tell to trans youth about their futures?
That they're gonna be super happy. That they have a lot of community with them who's willing to fight for them. They’ll see this community with older trans people and have this understanding that…they don't need to be held to those statistics about [trans] life expectancy, you know? It's really important for me to have seen myself as a 35-year-old, a 40-year-old, even a 60-year-old. I know that we don't have to amount to those same statistics. We can change that narrative.
Trans youth and their families deserve the respect and dignity as any other family or person. We shouldn't be used as political tools.
The main thing that I would say is that we are heroes. We are beautiful.
Mik Bean is a writer and editor living online. They cover local politics, legal drama, and anything queer.
Florida's New Child Kidnapping Law
 May 18, 2023 Heeyyoooo Meteor readers, Friends! I’ve come back to you from the wilderness of maternity leave on this lovely Thursday to reclaim my ergonomic newsletter writing throne. Now I know what you’re thinking: What could possibly drag me away from my very cute child perched upon her Boppy? I think we all know the answer to that.  That’s right, I am here with a piping hot 2,000-word essay on Scandoval and its implications, not just on the reality TV landscape (which is now forever changed) but on the sixth wave of feminism, launched by Ariana Madix and Katie Maloney. Just kidding! I save those thoughts for the unhinged voice notes I send my friends late at night. In today’s newsletter, we’re talking about the WNBA, Gen Z’s contributions to feminist theory, and sports bras. But first, let’s get through This Week in GOP Tomfoolery. Shannon Melero P.S. It would be such a great welcome-back-to-work gift if you filled out this survey, all about how this newsletter can better serve you. More deets below!  WHAT'S GOING ONLet (straight) Kids Be Kids: Yesterday
During the signing ceremony, DeSantis celebrated his attempts to keep Florida “a refuge of sanity and a citadel of normalcy” (gross) behind a podium with a sign reading “Let Kids Be Kids.” But studies have found that providing trans youth with gender-affirming care strongly decreases the risk of suicide and depression. Let trans kids be trans, too—or they might not live to be adults. AND:
 DEARICA HAMBY AND HER HAMBABIES. (SCREENSHOT VIA INSTAGRAM)
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"There's literally nothing they could do"
  May 16, 2023 Hello hello, Meteor readers, Everyone wish a happy birthday to Bobi, the world’s oldest dog. Today he celebrates 217 (dog) years of being a very good boy—or 31 human years, if you don’t feel like doing the math. Today’s newsletter features a story we’ve got to stop becoming familiar with: a Texas woman forced to develop sepsis due to the state’s restrictive abortion ban. Plus, we’ve got Martha Stewart on Sports Illustrated, Planned Parenthood taking a stand, and Naomi Osaka shutting down some bullshit. Let’s get into it, Bailey Wayne Hundl  WHAT'S GOING ON A WOMAN PROTESTS FOR ABORTION ACCESS (PHOTO BY IRFAN KHAN/LOS ANGELES TIMES VIA GETTY IMAGES) “There’s literally nothing they could do”: Once again, Texas’ draconian abortion ban has caused a woman to develop sepsis. Last January, Kristen Anaya, a Texas resident, was elated to hear that her in-vitro fertilization had been a success. But only four months into her pregnancy, her water broke. Anaya rushed to the hospital, but, by the time she’d arrived, had lost nearly all of her amniotic fluid. She began shaking uncontrollably, vomiting, and spiking a fever—all signs of an infection that could lead to sepsis. But the doctors were unable to perform a dilation and curettage to help her; the baby’s heart was still beating. According to Anaya’s medical records, she went on to wait 22 hours before doctors were allowed to induce labor to deliver the unviable fetus. Medical personnel first had to contact the hospital’s termination committee—a team of hospital administrators who must approve any abortion care at the hospital—and build a case for the life-threatening nature of her pregnancy. “I was crying, asking for help,” Anaya told ABC News. “And I remember them literally not saying anything. [The doctors and nurses] would just literally look at me and look at Stephen and they’re just blank. There’s literally nothing they could do.” It’s now been one month since Anaya left the hospital. Since then, she has needed two dilation and curettage procedures to remove the placenta and stop her bleeding. Anaya says she is still experiencing pains and complications, as well as a still-dilated cervix. According to Dr. Aileen Gariepy, an OB/GYN and assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College, an early dilation and curettage could have more effectively removed the placenta while in the hospital and prevented further complications. It would be easy to write off these horrific—but increasingly common—scenarios as a Texas thing. That’s where Amanda Zurawski was subjected to similar treatment while losing her pregnancy last summer; she’s now joined four other women in suing the state for the harms caused to them by the state’s abortion bans. But this is now an America thing: A new report from researchers at the University of California San Francisco details dozens more health complications caused by abortion bans across the country—including a patient who was denied an abortion for a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy and another who developed a severe infection after leaving the hospital. “Medicine isn’t black and white,” said Daniel Grossman, the lead author of the report. “It’s not like suddenly you know that a patient is at a very high risk of dying in a certain situation. There’s a lot of gray and that risk will slowly change over time.”  RUDY GIULIANI DURING A REPUBLICAN GET OUT THE VOTE BUS TOUR (PHOTO BY MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO/GETTY IMAGES) AND:
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Why did CNN basically host a Trump rally?
  May 11, 2023 Happy Bey Day, Meteor readers, Last night was a huge spectacle, and no, I’m not talking about Trump’s CNN town hall—though more on that below. I’m talking about the first night of Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” tour: the sexy bee outfit, the enormous disco horse statue, and, of course, the loving homage to Black ballroom culture.  LIKE, COME ON! LOOK AT HER! (PHOTO BY KEVIN MAZUR/GETTY IMAGES FOR PARKWOOD) In today’s newsletter, Rebecca Carroll sits down with Nicole Chung to discuss her new memoir about adoption and loss. But first, the news. Desperately clamoring for tickets, Bailey Wayne Hundl  WHAT'S GOING ON
 MEGAN THEE STALLION SHOWING UP TO COURT TO TESTIFY IN THE TRIAL OF TORY LANEZ (PHOTO BY JASON ARMOND/LOS ANGELES TIMES VIA GETTY IMAGES)
 CULTURE CHANGERSOn Loving and Losing Your Adoptive ParentsBY REBECCA CARROLLNicole Chung on her new memoir A Living Remedy  PHOTO COURTESY OF NICOLE CHUNG Nicole Chung has established herself as a queen of the literary memoir. Born to Korean immigrants and later adopted by a white couple in rural Oregon, Chung’s first memoir, All You Can Ever Know, chronicled her experience as a transracial adoptee, and the search for her remaining birth family in the United States. Now, her latest, A Living Remedy, published last month, is already garnering rave reviews. It tells the gut-wrenching story of losing her two adoptive parents back to back, in 2018 and 2020. As a transracial adoptee, I am moved and astonished by how Chung continues to expand on the adoption narrative (or the perception of it) in such succinct and generous ways. I sat down with her for The Meteor to talk about all of it. Rebecca Carroll: In your new book, A Living Remedy, you contemplate whether or not you would have become a writer had you not been adopted. What is it about your experience as an adoptee that made you become a writer? Nicole Chung: Maybe you’ll relate to this as an adoptee and a storyteller, but you're always telling that formative story over and over whether you feel like talking about it or not. There were certainly many years when I didn't want to share it or tried to find ways to share less of it. But even with the original story my adoptive parents told me about my adoption, which I later learned wasn't quite the truth, I was always struck by the power that can be found in retelling or reclaiming a story, if you're willing and brave enough to reconsider it. RC: It makes me think that as adoptees, we are constantly trying to write our identities into existence. When did you know that you were going to become not just a writer, but a writer of such personal stories? NC: I grew up not seeing anything like my experience in literature. Even stories written about adoption where it's a plot point, I often find bears little to no resemblance to my experience. And it's hard because I was very worried about, and honestly still am, being pigeonholed as this Korean adoptee writer. At the same time, it felt as though I had to write the first book [All You Can Ever Know] before I could write anything else. I just needed to see something like myself in literature to write more of it. RC: There are moments throughout A Living Remedy where you say, “as an adoptee…”—and every single time I read that, it was thrilling because it felt like you were writing directly to me, while also expanding the adoptee narrative. Were you writing to fellow adoptees specifically? NC: With my first book every time I started to lose my nerve or just think, “This is beyond me. I can't tell this story,” or “Who will care?” I thought about fellow adoptees, and that is what kept me going. A Living Remedy is completely different. It’s not that I didn't think about the wider audience with All You Can Ever Know—unlike some people in publishing, I was always convinced there was an audience for adoptee stories. A Living Remedy scared me, though, because it is just a much broader book. I'm writing about many things people call universal when white writers do it—grief, loss, illness. But because of my identity, I did wonder, will I be allowed to do this? RC: Your main subjects, though, your parents, are white—how did that factor in? NC: The story of my family until me is very much a white working-class story. But to be in the family and not have that same experience was one of the things that I wanted to write about, while not making either my race or my parents' race the focus. An interviewer asked me recently if my parents being white made me feel distant from them or their financial hardship, and I just didn't know how to respond. In every way, I thought of them as my parents, except for the basic biological facts. So, of course, I always felt I was part of their experience.  PHOTO COURTESY OF NICOLE CHUNG RC: There’s a passage in the book when you’re in college, about to get married, and your mother accuses you of being embarrassed by them—she says you just see her and your dad as “poor white trash,” which took you off guard. How did you see them? NC: I thought of them as my parents. I thought of them as the people who loved and raised me. I was just beginning to understand the educational and class differences that might happen. I think this is part of almost everybody's coming-of-age story, where you learn to see your parents as whole people, not just your parents. The changing nature of that parent-child relationship is a big part of the book, partly because of the caregiving role I had to step into when both my parents were ill. RC: In one instance, you describe college as stepping into a foothold that your parents couldn't follow you into—what did you mean by that? NC: I had never been away from my parents, where I grew up in this small town in Oregon for longer than a month at summer camp. I wasn't thinking about the fact that they couldn't go with me, or that if I gained education and class privilege, that I wouldn't be able to bring them with me. I was still thinking, “If I make it, they make it.” Of course, I had my own ambition, things that I wanted and hoped for, but I very much thought of myself as doing this for my family. RC: Where did that ambition come from? Because you could have just stayed in the town. NC: Oh, no, I could not have. After my first book came out, someone who had gone to my same church said, “I read your book. It was interesting. That's just not really what I think our community was like for me.” And I said, “Well, of course it wasn't like that for you. You are a white guy. There's a reason that you and I had very different experiences in that community.” Honestly, not to sound dramatic, I thought it might kill me if I stayed. RC: How do you feel now about the place where you grew up? NC: There are beautiful things about it…but it's not home. I never really belonged there, and I know that. I would rather not give racism this power in my narrative, but it's true that as soon as I started hearing slurs on the playground, I started thinking about leaving. I think also it was my parents, and especially my mother, who prepared me to go. RC: I was so struck by your relationship with your mother, and the resolute way in which you write about her love—what have you brought of her mothering to your own? NC: She was a very devout woman. Her deepest faith was in God. But after that, she had so much faith in me as her child. It's not like our relationship was perfect. It was very complicated. Adoption was one of many things that complicated it. But I never doubted her love or her faith in me. And I think that made me braver than I would've been otherwise. If I can bring anything of her parenting to mine, that's what I think about the most. I want my kids to grow up with that sense of reassurance.  RC: In the book, you use the term “unadopted” to describe what it felt like, in part, to lose both your adoptive parents—can you say more about that? NC: I'm not sure it's the term that I'd use now to describe my current state. But my mother was dying—my last link, the last person who knew me as a child or remembered what it was like for me growing up. It was just sinking in that I was going to be carrying these memories of my parents and my grandparents, all alone in a sense. What does it even mean to have lost two families—to have lost one family through adoption, and then the one that adopted me? What does it mean to be an adoptee when your adopted family is gone? RC: If not unadopted, then what? NC: I am still an adoptee. That will always be part of who I am. My parent’s love for me will always shape who I am. I was then and still am really sad that my time belonging to that family is over, and there's no getting it back. There's no finding it with other people. It's just over. RC: How do you bear it? NC: I think there was a time when I wasn't bearing it. I remember just this deep depression I fell into after my father died, and there were echoes of that when my mother was dying. Just the helplessness and the rage, and it felt unbearable. [But] I knew that by living, I could remember [my parents]. It finally became more important to me to be able to live and remember them than to live, punishing myself for what I couldn't do for them. And I think that's still how I bear it, because when I was able to do that and grieve in that way, they felt close again.  Rebecca Carroll is a writer, cultural critic, and podcast creator/host. Her writing has been published widely, and she is the author of several books, including her recent memoir, Surviving the White Gaze. Rebecca is Editor at Large for The Meteor. FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend?
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Thank you, E. Jean Carroll
  May 9, 2023 Good evening, Meteor readers, I’m coming to you live from Houston, Texas, where approximately five metric fucktons of water have poured from the heavens today. But of course, that’s not today’s top headline: Trump has lost another court case and, thrillingly, a woman he abused has (finally!) gotten some measure of justice. We’ve got that story in today’s newsletter—as well as everything from feminist Pulitzers to trans romance. Drenched yet overjoyed, Bailey Wayne Hundl  WHAT'S GOING ON Who’s the “complete con job” now?: After less than three hours of deliberation today, a jury unanimously found Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing and then defaming magazine writer E. Jean Carroll. Because this was a civil case, Trump faces no criminal consequences, but Carroll has been awarded about $5 million in damages. Carroll had testified that in the mid-1990s, Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room. At the time, fear of retaliation kept her from coming forward, but as she testified Thursday, the stories of the #MeToo movement made her realize that “staying silent does not work;” in 2019, while Trump was still president, she came forward with her story. Trump denied the charges, calling Carroll “a complete con job” and her story “a hoax”—claims for which he’s now been found guilty of defamation. The two-week trial has itself been gutting—not just because of the details about the assault itself, but because of Carroll’s unflinching candor about the fallout from the attack (she hasn’t had sex since, she revealed in her deposition) and from coming forward against a president (the social-media backlash was swift). “It’s very hard to get up in the morning and receive those messages, that you are way too ugly to go on living,” she said. The jury also viewed a deposition taken in October in which, among other things, Trump claims Carroll enjoyed being sexually abused. (Content warning.) The trial wasn’t a complete win; the jury did not find Trump liable for rape. But headlines saying he was found “not guilty” are getting it wrong, as Philip Gourevitch of The New Yorker pointed out on Twitter; civil courts don’t issue guilty verdicts at all, and this judgment simply means that “the charge was not proven to the jury’s satisfaction.” Carroll—now 79—has thrown herself fully into this case, and the outcome could have huge ripple effects. First, on the presidential election, in which her assailant is still his party’s front-runner. And next, on society’s expectations of rape victims, who have often been dismissed if they don’t scream, or been judged for what they wear. Carroll’s calm dismissal of those biases (“he raped me, whether I screamed or not”) sends a powerful message to other survivors that they, too, may be believed. And one last note: If Carroll had been assaulted in almost any other state, this trial may never have happened. She was only able to pursue legal action thanks to the 2022 passage of the Adult Survivors Act, which provides a one-year window during which sexual assault survivors can sue regardless of preexisting statutes of limitations. Such laws currently exist only in New York and California—but as this week proves, it’d be a good idea to pass them everywhere.  E. JEAN CARROLL LEAVES THE MANHATTAN FEDERAL COURT FOLLOWING HER TRIAL (PHOTO BY STEPHANIE KEITH/GETTY IMAGES) AND:
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An OB-GYN meets with a midwife
  May 4, 2023 Ahoy, Meteor readers, Tomorrow is International Midwives’ Day. What’s it like to be a midwife at this particular moment in time in the U.S.? Dr. Heather Irobunda traveled to Texas to find out. In today’s newsletter, she reflects on her own family’s history of midwifery, and meets a woman at the center of it all. But first, the news. Celebrating midwives everywhere, Bailey Wayne Hundl  WHAT'S GOING ONFeeling safe vs. being safe: In a city with ever-diminishing access to affordable housing, a Black man named Jordan Neely entered the subway Monday night, lamenting the intense hunger and thirst people experiencing homelessness face. In response, a white man placed him in a chokehold; Neely was taken to a hospital, where he died from a “compression of neck.” How did we become a society that views “behaving erratically,” the phrase many news outlets have used to describe Neely’s actions, as an act justifying killing? How have simple actions like ringing a doorbell or pulling into a driveway become threats? How was the man who was recorded putting Neely in a chokehold allowed to leave freely after some brief questioning? (The incident has since been ruled a homicide, two days afterward, but no criminal charges have been filed.) As this tweet from Sara Hinkley points out, “people don't deserve to FEEL safe, they deserve to be safe. You don't get to dispense death to someone...because you were stopped from FEELING safe.” The New York Coalition for the Homeless released a statement Wednesday saying the fact that the alleged assailant faced no consequences “evidences the City’s callous indifference to the lives of those who are homeless and psychiatrically unwell.” You can donate to the Coalition’s efforts to provide food, housing, and crisis services to people experiencing homelessness here. AND:
 MODERN MEDICINE“Midwives are for all of us”BY DR. HEATHER IROBUNDAFor International Midwives’ Day, an OB-GYN reflects on her grandmother’s work—and meets a San Antonio midwife providing the same care now  THE AUTHOR'S GREAT-GRANDMOTHER, A “GRAND MIDWIFE,” SURROUNDED BY FAMILY (PHOTO COURTESY OF DR. HEATHER IROBUNDA) In Jamaica, many years ago, my great-grandmother Helen Case was a midwife—what some people would call a Grand midwife or a community midwife. I didn’t know anything about her work until the last couple of years, though: Her history was erased, even within my family, despite the fact that she had delivered all of her grandchildren, many great-grandchildren, and a lot of folks in the community. There was just so much stigma attached to both Black midwives and to the people who used them; the idea was that only poor folks had their babies in homes with “unskilled” midwives and that, if you could afford it, you should go to a hospital. As an OB-GYN, I think about that history and wonder what she would think of the fact that I am a physician who does the same type of work that she did so many years ago. Obviously, in her day, there weren’t many opportunities for a woman, let alone a Black woman, to go to medical school, and delivering babies in Black communities was work for women who looked like us. I think she would find it interesting that that work has become very regulated and formalized, because the Grand midwives learned from the traditions passed down by those before them, not formal schooling. And I think she would find it strange that despite that formal training, outcomes for Black birthing people are so poor. But her history should allow us to recognize that we all—doctors, certified nurse midwives, and doulas—have roles to play in providing good reproductive healthcare, even if those roles are different. (Doulas, for example, can provide important support to patients but cannot deliver babies.) It may sound odd coming from an OB-GYN, but I personally think midwives should be the entry point into obstetric health care for a lot of patients. That’s how it is in many other countries (especially in Europe) if you don’t have other medical issues; it's only if a pregnancy gets more complicated that you see an obstetrician. Here’s why: The medical model of providing obstetric care is very much problem- and solution-based. But pregnancy is not a problem, it's a condition. It's just what a body does. And in midwifery, I’ve found that care can be more focused on the idea of pregnancy as one of the body’s natural conditions. So, during births, midwives are usually lower intervention, and can use certain techniques that may make it a bit more comfortable for patients having vaginal births. And, just as midwives are able to understand how to care for normal pregnancies and birth, Black midwives in particular have insight to our communities and some of the social factors that impact our pregnancies and birth experiences. That’s one reason why, as midwife Nikki McIver-Brown pointed out when I visited her in her San Antonio birthing center last fall, it’s so urgent that we make space for more Black midwives. (The other is that the maternal mortality rate for Black patients is more than twice as high as for white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.) Midwives can help—but only seven percent (up from 2% a few years ago) of them, according to the American College of Nurse-Midwives, are Black.  WATCH: DR. HEATHER IROBUNDA MEETS NIKKI MCIVER-BROWN AT HER BIRTHING CENTER. There is, however, a stereotype that using a midwife is something white people and people with money do. But we need to know that midwifery is not only accessible to people with money. Midwives are often covered by insurance, including by Medicaid. I also want people to know that, even when a pregnancy becomes medically complicated—which is the case with some of my patients—doctors can work in tandem with midwives. (I’m personally lucky enough to work in a hospital with a strong midwifery department, and most of our patients birth their babies with a midwife’s assistance.) And, as with my great-grandmother, there is a rich history of Black midwifery in the States which is only just now being excavated. Seeing more Black certified nurse midwives today would be an important bridge to celebrating the contributions of the Grand midwives. Tomorrow is International Midwives’ Day. On it, I’m thinking of my grandmother, and of the many midwives—like Nikki, whose video I hope you’ll watch—who have followed in her footsteps. Midwifery belongs to all of us. We just have to learn about it, like I did. Dr. Heather Irobunda is an OB-GYN in Queens, New York, and one of the founders of Obstetricians for Reproductive Justice. FOLLOW THE METEOR Thank you for reading The Meteor! Got this from a friend?
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