SIO370: Adrienne Martin - Suburban Mom Hairstylist Turned Superstar Activist

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:16 Thomas: And welcome to Serious Inquiries Only, this is episode 370, I'm Thomas Smith, and ooh, I've got a treat for you today. This one's a little different, I'd say. It's the last of the recordings that I had not yet gotten out. So it was recorded, you a little of a different paradigm, so it's not a science recording, it's a science expert. Although you could say it's a political science practical I guess. Fascinating story, so much so that there are two parts to this one. Today's part one. My guest is Adrienne Martin. You not recognize the name per se, but you might have seen her in several things, whether it's a viral video that's been shared so many times by so many people, Viral, typical left-wing sources, under heading of "Democratic stuns at school board hearing" with her speech.

It's a Granbury ISD school board meeting, there's so much behind it, but she pushed back against the Christian fundamentalists banning books in her community, going after queer kids, non-, know, the usual, anyone who isn't exactly a straight cis white person, in the heart of quote-unquote enemy territory, as far as I'm concerned, 85% Trump voting county in Texas, and she's such a fascinating story of just a person, you you or I, like anybody else, put into very interesting circumstances and really thriving and doing a lot of real good.

I think it's such an inspiring story. I'm I'm not gonna spoil any more about it, don't, we get on to part one with Adrian Martin and be ready for so many cool twists and turns in this one from viral you videos to HBO shows to you name it.

0:01:54 Thomas: This is a really fascinating person who has done something that I know a lot of us have wanted to do, which is make a difference on a local level under tons of adversity. Here we go. Part one. Part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven, part eight, of my interview with Adrian Martyn. Adrian, how you doing today? I Am doing great, it is so nice to talk to you, uh,

0:02:11 Adrienne: Good. How are you? I'm excited to be here.

0:02:16 Thomas: Is so interesting, I feel like you've gone from you, a regular person, to in an absolute just maelstrom of, I bullshit and politics and activism and all this stuff. And I would love to get the story of this, like how this happened and kind of see, 'cause I know so many of my listeners and, ever Trump, ever since 2016, at the very least, have felt like, "Ah, I want to make a difference. I want to do stuff," but I'm just, you know, I'm a guy. I'm Just a whatever. I'M just a person.

0:02:44 Adrienne: Mm -hmm. Right.

0:02:46 Thomas: And it feels like you're a really interesting example of like just a person, but doing all kinds of really cool stuff. So where does it all begin? Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?

0:02:47 Adrienne: Um am kind of a typical suburban mom, a hairstylist, so not like a scientist or a lawyer, so your audience should adjust their expectations. But moved to, I kind of grew up outside of Dallas, and me and my husband moved to this town called Granbury in 2008, and southwest of Fort Worth, and at the time I thought that's, that's where my husband grew up. And at the time I thought that I was moving to just like, you know, another typical suburb. That turned out not really to be the case because Granbury is constantly in the news. Um, a small town. Uh, it's one of the most Republican, uh, counties in the country, uh, % Trump voters. Had various members of the Oathkeeper leadership insurrectionists, um, Rhodes lived in Granbury. Um, And, lawyer girlfriend, she lives in Granberry. Um.

0:03:40 Thomas: Really?

0:03:58 Thomas: Is this where he shot himself? So I think we should make a little memorial or a plaque or something.

0:04:01 Adrienne: No, no, that was. He didn't actually live here. I mean, I guess he lived here at some point, but he came here because his girlfriend was here, I guess.

0:04:07 Thomas: Oh, okay. That's why everybody comes to Granbury for love. Yeah constant

0:04:15 Adrienne: Right, exactly. It's such a random thing. We did a, right, it's

0:04:19 Thomas: Cliche every musical every song is always saying everybody goes to Granbury Texas for a true love

0:04:26 Adrienne: Just so romantic. Yeah, we a BLM protest. I these college kids do it on our town square, and Stuart Rhodes was there watching us. Like they were a bunch of armed guys from Oath Keepers, and they, they surrounded us on all the corners of the square, we were like in the center. Yeah, so. That's the kind of atmosphere here, um.

0:04:26 Thomas: Yikes yikes yeah and so you said you came from more of like a suburban thing I know Texas you know I'm in California so I think of Texas as like oh this red Republican state, you know, we've been trying to win it back, it feels like Beto came, came close, but always slightly short every single time. Um, but you is still pretty close to 50, 50 in some ways, you know, like Texas. And so I'm wondering where you grew up, or did you grow up in kind of just a left environment at all, or was it still pretty Republican? You don't

0:04:56 Adrienne: Right. Where Where I grew up, with was outside of Dallas, so it was really diverse-verse. The other thing about Granbury, Granbury is extremely white.

0:05:25 Thomas: Say, yeah.

0:05:26 Adrienne: Yeah, I know it's hard to imagine. But when I first got here, when Ifirst moved here and I started, you going to stores, going to get groceries, whatever, it took like a little while to like dawn on me like, oh, my God, there's only white people here. Like almost like like get out sensation. Like Like, this is kind of creepy. And the is, the is getting more extreme, more conservative, because people have heard about it through all this negative press that it's gotten. So they move here specifically for that. Because you can imagine the kind of people that move across the country because they want to live somewhere that's really white.

0:05:39 Thomas: Yeah. Yikes. Oh. Sure.

0:06:05 Adrienne: Yeah. So kind of scary. But yeah, was used to living in a diverse area like the town I grew up in. It's like their whole city council and everything is Democrat. I didn't grow up particularly political, so It's not something that I was even thinking about, but it was very diverse. Was use to being open-minded around all kinds of people. Ball, um, I moved to Granbury, I started doing hair here, and one of my clients was, said there was a Democrats club, and I was like, there's Democrats here. I had been here a few years at that point, and she got me to come to, um, of their meetings, um.

0:06:18 Thomas: Yeah.

0:06:39 Thomas: Well, let's put some timing to it, when, when is this, did, like, when did you move? I mean, are you, I'm curious if you, like, when did you kind of, you said you weren't political, that's totally fair enough, but much of of the country is not really that political, including, I actually often bring up the example of my old person who did my hair, where I, I, it was like in the peak Trump time when the Mueller report came out and I was like, yeah, big news. And she's like, what? I was Like, what do you mean? Like she had no idea, no fucking idea what I was talking about. And, um, I think a lot of people are like that, you know, they've got lives, they got jobs, they get too much worry or they don't care or, or they may care. They just don't have time to, to involved.

0:06:45 Adrienne: -hmm. Right.

0:07:15 Thomas: So was this something like that for you? Were you not really particularly engaged until a certain, you know, time, year, something happened, event?

0:07:14 Adrienne: I was always semi-interested in politics, um, piqued my interest first was the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Clinton, I was like, I remember reading that whole report, and I was a kid, you know. So, um, kind of piqued my interest, and then, um, I got older her, uh.

0:07:30 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. Sure. Like politics is great. This is super, super fun. Like blowjobs, all this stuff.

0:07:42 Adrienne: I'm I just love a good sex scandal. What can I say, so, uh, think the the first time I ever voted was, um, believe it was when Bush ran the second time, and he ran on a really against, uh, or pro -traditional marriage, and that kind of offended my sensibilities. And And that's, first time I voted. And then when we got here, it was peak Obama time.

0:07:48 Thomas: Sure, who doesn't? Okay, sure.

0:08:13 Thomas: Okay. So, all right. So So you've been there a while.

0:08:15 Adrienne: Yeah. Yeah, yeah yeah. I moved here in 08.

0:08:18 Thomas: Gotcha.

0:08:20 Adrienne: I So was seeing, hearing a lot of racism around Obama and his, and it was really shocking to me. I wasn't used to hearing that kind of rhetoric or people just casually saying this kind of stuff.

0:08:36 Thomas: As the joke goes, a whole lot of economic anxiety all of a sudden, huh?

0:08:40 Adrienne: Right. They don'T even cover it up like that here. I

0:08:43 Thomas: That's like the pundits trying to like constantly make excuses for why we should listen to what these voters actually have to say. And it's like, no, I think they're just racist mostly. Like I don't, I don'T actually think they have a good points or anything.

0:08:47 Adrienne: Right. Mm hmm. Right. Well, I can I like I can speak their language. Language, I feel like I can understand them in a way that a lot of people maybe can't. And lot Of them are, like you said, they're not political. They really have no idea what's going on. I mean, of course, you have those extremists, like the insurrectionist types, and there's average person that maybe goes and votes Republican. They're doing it because they they've been told over and over again that you know the libs are horrible and um pussies or whatever you know and

0:08:59 Thomas: Sure. Hmm. Yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah, No, that's totally true. Yeah, I mean, because I grew up in a small town in California, which, you know, believe it or not, is probably every bit as conservative as what you're you're talking about. I mean, maybe not quite literally. It? Gransberry? I already forget. Granberry. Maybe not quite that, but like not that far off because that's kind of how our country works. Like it's way more about rural versus urban. You know, it's really about that.

0:09:41 Adrienne: Cranberry Mm. -hmm. Right. Absolutely. No.

0:09:56 Thomas: And then, you know, of course, there's still varying degrees of difference and all that. But that's my experience too. I I grew up conservative and I couldn't agree more.

0:10:05 Thomas: I that people, has been a little bit divorced from the issues. I think it's truer than ever now. I mean, it's just it's so much about this overall stance. For one thing, it's the fear mongering and it's The Othering of whoever it is, liberals or, you know, immigrants or whatever it may be at the time. And it's that plus this general hatred and fear and stirred up, you anger toward the left. And that it becomes almost nothing to do with like, hey, should we build a fucking bridge in this town? Or it's nothing to deal with. It's got nothing to with that anymore.

It's people voting at these very local elections based on national bullshit that's just feelings. It's all feelings based. It has nothing to be with policy. And so it's been hard for people like me and I think people like the listeners to be like, I don't understand. Why are these people voting for this bullshit? Shit, you know, all they're going to do is like taxes for the rich. And then, you know, like people have a hard time understanding that. And it's like, they're not voting based on that whatsoever. They barely pay attention to the outcomes of like, you know, legislation and issues. It's all based on these

0:10:37 Adrienne: Nothing, no

0:11:08 Thomas: Feelings.

0:11:09 Adrienne: It's Cultural thing, it's so a cultural thing. Uh, if I talk to people that will like and get, I try not to engage with them, but if I'm going to engage a Republican voter, a friend or something, and I say, when Trump was in office, why, why would you vote for Trump, they'll say, well, a lot of them would say, well, secretly, like, I don't like Trump, but I need to protect gas and oil, which that tank under Trump.

0:11:35 Adrienne: It actually did really well under Obama and is doing well over Biden. But that's not something the Democrats tell people because they don't want people to, because then the lefties get mad. But Texas, there's a lot of oil and of course it's the guns. They're going to take my guns. I mean, that has been drilled into their heads and they cannot get past it.

0:11:25 Thomas: Yeah, oh, Yeah Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Yeah, yeah. Right.

0:11:59 Adrienne: And it doesn't it matter if it's not true, if it'S not rational, you know, that's, that'S what they're focused on. They think that the Democrats are, will raise gas prices. Like, you Know, it's, it'S just those fears. They've been taught to fear. Um, it'S NOT rational and it's very much cultural.

0:12:01 Thomas: Yeah right. Yeah well You just mentioned, like, oh, Democrats don't talk about that. I don't think it would matter if they did, like, it doesn't, it's, they don't get their information from Democrats, like, they don't, they get their information it, and it's a mistake that I think the left has made so often is, well, okay, here's what we'll do, we'll kind of make a little compromise here and then. Then Fox News will be nice to it. It's like, no, they won't.

0:12:29 Adrienne: Right. Right. Mm -hmm.

0:12:42 Thomas: They'll just tell some new thing that's the impossible standard or it's an outright lie that, you know, it's it's long past time that we stop giving a shit about that and just try to make good things happen, you know. OK, so all that background in mind. So it sounds like you're pretty pretty active and you're pretty, you at that time. And it sounds so like, you gay marriage was a big issue for you. So OK, Okay, so it's not as though this is a, you're a more recent convert or anything like that. That's interesting to know.

0:12:42 Adrienne: Mm -huh. Right. No, no, I've always had an interest in it, but not, I wasn't involved, you Know, and then I got, um, I said, my, client my told me about the Democratic club and I started going to their meetings and I was like the youngest person there by 30 years that they're so excited to have a quote unquote young person there, um they made me vice president another club and then like almost immediately and then I was a precinct chair and now I'm a county chair I've been the county chair for six years, yeah.

0:13:12 Thomas: Gotcha. Okay.

0:13:23 Thomas: Yeah. Wow. Cool. So what does that, what doesthat involve? I mean, to kind of branch off a little bit, but

0:13:44 Adrienne: So I'm not sure, sure, for people in other states, their parties may be lined up differently. So and and it's something that unless you're involved in it, why would you know, why would you care, but um, in Texas, and I assume many other states, um, parties are on the local level, are your precinct chairs, which is your voting precinct, and your county chair, and then if the, if it's count, is it the bigger county, you're going to have vice chairs, etc., but um, like I'm elected in the primary, so that makes me the one Democratic elected official in my county. But, yeah, so basically you're the head of the party for your county, and you run your primary election for your party. So the Republican chair runs the Republican primary. I run the Democratic primary. Primary, if you have an elections office, you delegate to them through the Secretary of State, really boring stuff, um, but you're basically the head of the party, you follow the candidates, you can, you be a spokesperson for the party for your county, etc., etc., uh, candidates, etc.

0:13:48 Thomas: Right, right, right. Mm -hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. OK.

0:14:50 Thomas: Now, I imagine not to not your your job or anything, but it sounds like it's a primary for election that you're never going to win kind of situation. Is it that kind of thing?

0:15:00 Adrienne: We actually had two candidates this last uh election, which was big for us to have two, two Democratic candidates. And I think they both got like somewhere around 17% of the vote. Just the fact that we had two people running was a big deal. A lot of these rural counties don't have any. So because It's, it's expensive and you just don't have the numbers, are against you. Mm.

0:15:10 Thomas: Oh, Yeah. Right. Right But I we learned in recent years that running everywhere is really the key. I mean, you never know what surprise seat you might pick up somewhere because especially in these smaller elections, local government or whatever it is, where it doesn't take that many people to swing it. So it's really cool that even in the face of just overwhelming odds, it is, we as a party, we should absolutely treasure these people who are like, yeah, I'll go run and, once again, Dan, I keep thinking Dan's Danbury or whatever, because of Connecticut, what Granberry, okay

0:15:39 Adrienne: -hmm. Right. It's Well, it's Gran-g-r-a-nberry, that's what it's kind of a weird, right, it's a Confederate soldier, I know you'll find that hard to believe.

0:15:58 Thomas: Yeah, oh, wouldn't you wouldn't, you know it, no, I just also have ADHD and a terrible memory, I'm sorry, I should have written it down somewhere But yeah, no, it's super cool. The people who still go through that to try to, you know, because part of winning anywhere is running like everywhere. And that's really cool. So you've had that position for six years. But when is it, you that people may have seen you in or anything, when does that start of your life start?

0:16:08 Adrienne: No. Me.

0:16:24 Adrienne: Um. So during COVID I started making TikToks, and at first I was just doing them with my son. Um, he lost interest in that really quick and wouldn't do them with me. So then I started doing um TikToks on Texas politics. Um, I got a little bit of a following on there. Um, some people kind of knew me from there, recognized me from their. Um, so last year, I end. It was the tail end of 2021. was a Texas legislator who sent out a notice, and it's called the Krause list. His name is Matt Krause. And it was a list of books that he wanted removed from public school libraries, so the

0:17:11 Thomas: Sure because he's like an expert in childhood education, he's done the research, he's seen, okay, here's what leads to better cognitive development among our children, because, you know, we want to make sure we're producing the best and brightest here. So that, right?

0:17:16 Adrienne: Right. Oh yeah, of course. Well, running for office, I think he wanted to garner a little bit of attention for his, his, and it was 850 books, I think. Um, % of the list, I believe, was LGBTQ or had LGBTQ characters, were books about diversity, cultural awareness. That, that thing went out, and the Abbott, Greg Abbott is Texas governor, he's horrible, and he sent, he sent out a thing saying like, yeah, I agree with, we need to get these books out of the schools. And school district, our superintendent started pulling books and I heard about it. It was within like a few weeks, I want to say, of the letter going out. Now the Kraus, just a representative wrote it, it wasn't passed into law, no.

0:17:24 Thomas: Yeah.

0:17:59 Thomas: Great. Wow.

0:18:17 Thomas: Yeah, that's What I was going to ask. And remind me, was he saying from all Texas schools, or was this specific to like his? Um, know, so

0:18:26 Adrienne: Said all schools, I believe. I believe it was all school yeah he

0:18:28 Thomas: All schools, so he just writes a thing, and, and once again, is this a state representative or representative to the U.S. House? Okay.

0:18:35 Adrienne: Stayed, I'm pretty sure he stayed, and he's not even, I don't know if he's in office anymore, he, he didn't run, he, he ran for a different office and I think he lost, I'd have to double check that, but I don't think he's an office. Yes.

0:18:37 Thomas: Oh. Okay. Well Point is a guy writes a letter that's not binding on anything, right? I mean, he's not the, yeah.

0:18:49 Adrienne: -hmm, right. At all. Right.

0:18:52 Thomas: He's not the governor, he's not anybody, he's just a representative, so presumably you'd have to like, you know, vote on a bill to do this, even, you still terrible, but at least that would be like a law that happened.

0:18:52 Adrienne: Right. Well, They actually did that today, yeah.

0:19:06 Thomas: But it's, but it just goes to show, like, the kind of shit we're dealing with, if a school already starts doing that based on a letter, that just shows like the level of, like, I don't know, zealotry going on here, right?

0:19:08 Adrienne: Right. Right. Right, and I, yeah, the letter meant nothing. Even when the governor put out his directive about it, it meant nothing, he sent something to the Texas Education Agency about the books, that there was these sexually explicit books and all these schools, and calling it porn and that rhetoric. Yeah, our superintendent started removing books. Um, people started talking, it, first there was no notice about it, and it was actually like five books publicly that were taken out, and they were like, ya, romance novels. Um, there was like a like decent attempt, I think, to cover it up and just act like it was was these five books, but it was more than that.

0:19:59 Thomas: Huh. That for, though? I mean, aren't they trying to make a public thing about this, or like

0:20:07 Adrienne: First he wasn't, at first, he wasn'T. Know if it was, if he anticipated what was to come, that parents were going to start, oh, I say parents, none of them were parents, were going start asking for these book removals. Mean, I can't read his mind, but he's, He's super uber, uber conservative, Christian conservative guy. Um, there were a group of parents that, uh, um, records request, uh, out there was a lot more books removed than the five, uh.

0:20:08 Thomas: Yeah. Sure, yeah, wow. Yeah.

0:20:39 Adrienne: There was like, it was over 100 books, and there was was a little bit of outrage, and I would tell people like, 110% all of this would have gone under the rug if people wouldn't have made noise, because the majority in this county are those people we were talking about earlier, who are not really paying attention, they're not super involved, they are not, um, passionate about reading or libraries. Um, they're just like, well, these kids have phones, right? So why does anybody care about this?

They can look up, you, majority of people are like that, but there was a really good vocal group that came together and fought this, and made noise, and talked to the media, and got the story out there, because he, our district was one of the first ones to do it in the country, this new wave, we weren't, that we weren't the first or the only, I mean, it's happening so many places now, but we were one of the first, which got a lot of attention. Um, then what happened was the superintendent, really good staff to the librarians and the staff, um, recorded him in a meeting with the librarians. Mm-hmm. And you can pull it up, his name is Jeremy Glenn. Yeah, he said, you, what we want out of here is the transgender stuff, the sexuality, said, you some of you may agree with me, some of may not, but we're in a conservative community, and if you're not conservative, you, you better hide

0:21:08 Thomas: Wow. Oh. Yeah.

0:22:07 Adrienne: It. That's basically, you could pop in the audio, but that's basically what he says.

0:22:07 Thomas: That's yeah I will for sure yeah. Yeah.

0:22:12 Clip: The Texas Tribune, ProPublica, and NBC released leaked audio of Superintendent Jeremy Glenn meeting with school librarians the day before. Granbury is in a very, very conservative community. The the transgender, LGBTQ, and the sexuality in books. That's what the governor has said that he will prosecute people for, and that's what we're pulling out. It's This book is gay for someone who's trying to figure out who they are and what they're about. Glenn That book does not need to be on our shelves. You're If it is not what you believe, you better hide it because it ain't changing. In

0:22:51 Adrienne: So that happened. That made national news. Oh

0:22:54 Thomas: Thing I was going to clarify was because I remember that they've gone through so many iterations of this bullshit and who the person they're scared of or what the thing they're scared of is. There was the critical race theory, and I guess there's probably still is. There was that where it was like under that, you know, I know there are a lot of book bannings or attempted book banning or both on critical race theory.

0:23:02 Adrienne: -hmm, mmh,

0:23:15 Thomas: But I think it did end up that they're like, you you know, the stuff they're banning is really not even, a lot of it is just LGBTQ stuff. Is that this, or was this a different wave of crap? I don't know.

0:23:14 Adrienne: Mmhm, mmhmm. Right. And they They had a few, um, basically the culture, like the cultural books or like, let's just say it's books that have black authors that tell black stories. That's what they are. Like the hate that you give was one of them. The Um, bluest eye was one of them. So like our district has removed those books, but they are not telling people.

0:23:34 Thomas: Yeah. Cultural. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Really?

0:23:47 Adrienne: So there's a right.

0:23:47 Thomas: Oh, even, even now? Are you talking about at the time? Oh Both.

0:23:49 Adrienne: Yeah. Both. Both. Been a lot that's been really secretive and kind of behind the scenes. And what's is I see what's happening. Oh my gosh, we got to go back to 2015 too. Like, this is such a crazy story. But Tried to remove books here in 2015 from our public library, gay children's books, um, Made national news as well, one of the women, the woman that led that is now on our school board, yeah.

0:24:16 Adrienne: So, um, to the current day, the call it weeding. Weeding, -E -E, D, weeding is when you pull out a library book because it's old or because it's torn or whatever, right?

0:23:50 Thomas: Okay. Okay. Okay. Wow. Yeah, not white. Oh, like the

0:24:29 Adrienne: Well, yeah. Well, that's now what they're doing. They started doing that in my district, weading, quote unquote, these black books, black authors, black stories. Those just happened to be the ones that needed to be taken out of the libraries, but they're smart enough to not to try to cover it up, right, but I saw just the other day, which is another county in Texas who, their county commissioners tried, they had a federal judge tell them that they had to put library books back. So they had the right to a big vote just last week on whether or not to close all their public libraries rather

0:24:29 Thomas: Normal process, you mean? Okay, okay.

0:24:44 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Sure. Yeah? Oh, God, yeah?

0:25:12 Adrienne: Than put put these books back. Um, but they were using the same terminology. Right.

0:25:14 Thomas: And that has a long history that I'm sure you're aware of. But there's a book, did I read the book? Or did did I just hear a really good interview? Can't remember. But it was the fact that, you know, back in the 60s and 50s and all during the civil rights era, at racist people would literally get get rid of things rather than let black people have access to, you swimming pools, or other other things that are available to the community, when when things were passed to try to make a difference here that said, hey, you have to actually, you know, be human to black people, they're like, well, fine, we're taking all of our things and going home and no one gets them, which is just, it's just naked racism. I mean, the fact that, like, you'd rather be like, we we both should suffer rather than have equality, is just as blatant as it gets.

0:25:34 Adrienne: Right, right, right. I remember hearing that story too, like closing pools and things like that. Like they'd rather close the pool than, uh, integrate it. Um we're way back.

0:26:01 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. No, no kidding.

0:26:12 Adrienne: We're just unbelievable, um, stuff that's gone on. And like I said, it just passed here today, um, book ban at the state level. So it's like, all this that's going down on the micro level of like my county and all these other counties, I, we lost, they have won, they're going to pass it, the governor's going to sign it, and now it's fucking law. Like, is this a joke, is this really really what's happening? Was thinking about it today. It's so, like, so many people that don't understand why it's important. And I'm not a historian, I'm not an intellectual, but I understand the basics of why it is important not to let people ban books.

0:26:13 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:26:35 Thomas: Book bans. Yeah to burn books. Yeah that's a pretty pretty basic test.

0:26:56 Adrienne: Right. But people, people, there's Democrats that will say, well, they really shouldn't have those books that talk about sex. Like, eh, you know, and, and will say why do you want kids to have books about sex? And I just want to say you fucking morons. Like we're, we're trying to, to fight for freedom. It's not about the books.

0:27:18 Adrienne: Like do y'all not see what's coming after this? And it's just so so frustrating. And then like, today, like I said, it passed the Texas House. It's going to pass the Senate and it's gonna become law. So everything that we've been trying to fight against, trying to speak up about, like, mean, for now, we've lost, we're lost. To do it. It doesn't matter. We can't stop it. That's like sexually explicit, but it also says that basically every book has to be approved.

0:26:58 Thomas: Yeah right. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Sure.

0:27:56 Adrienne: You're looking at like having state approval, and it has to do with who books are contracted through. That really crazy, that If you have book a company and you sell romantic novels as part of your company, but you're not selling them to schools, you're out. You can no longer sell books to schools.

0:28:05 Thomas: Yeah.

0:28:18 Thomas: Like just, this is like on a publisher level? Like, the fuck?

0:28:20 Adrienne: Yes, that's How they're going to control everything that comes into the schools. They're going to control all the textbooks. And Texas controls these textbooks for the whole country, which is something people can look into.

0:28:32 Thomas: Are we talking textbooks or are we talking library books?

0:28:36 Adrienne: Believe it's both.

0:28:37 Thomas: Both.

0:28:37 Adrienne: They've been trying. I don't know that they're both in that bill. There's a big movement with textbooks also.

0:28:37 Thomas: Wow. Uh-huh. Oh, sure. Yeah. And I know, I think I've heard the most about that in Florida and I have a hard time. Sorry. I'm, Florida I'm and Texas. They all look alike to me. I don'T know. I remember the differences. I'M just teasing. But like when I when it's one of these headlines, I can't remember which is which because they're both so horrible, you know, textbooks where it's like we can't teach that slavery was wrong per se. We can say that a lot of people didn't like it, but it's just like, what the fuck are we doing?

What are we going? And you mentioned a second ago about kind of the people, you Know, who might be Democrats who kind of feed into that at all. I can't agree with you enough there, because we've seen that at every level going kind of awareness of politics doesn't date back as far as yours. Like I was loosely aware of the Bush era and all that crap, but like I wasn't, I was still conservative and I was either conservative or didn't care at that time. And I didn't really get active until maybe like 2014, 15. And then, you Know, once obviously Trump happened,

0:28:54 Adrienne: Right. Right.

0:29:39 Adrienne: Trump.

0:29:39 Thomas: That really just completely, you know, I'm like, oh, say, and actually that might be kind of relevant to the point now that I think about it, because for the longest time, I think a lot of people who kind of in my position, just to speak for me, and maybe people who are sort of oriented like I was, where I went to college and I, you know, I was around nothing but people on the left and I had these conservative views still. And then what happens is your view gets skewed where you're like, well, everybody around me is on the left. So I'll tell you what a good use of my time will be. Let's critique the left, you now. I'll just see, I see these people and then you find these examples and you know, there's a student screaming on campus. They're dumb. Like let's critique that. And then what happened to me was somewhere along the line, I, was for reason, but I don't know, they're by the grace of God or whatever. I was able to say, oh shit, that's all stupid.

0:29:40 Adrienne: Yeah. Trump helped get a lot of people. Yeah.

0:30:30 Thomas: Like I'm now I see what's happening on the national level. We're going to absolute fucking hell. I'm going to waste zero zero more time trying to make those points like, oh, maybe we should, you know, look at these books and see if, fuck that. Like it's the a lot of people, either they're not really on the left, they're certainly that category. People who actually aren't on the left. They just kind of pretend or cosplay to like, look like they're on the Left, but conveniently every, everyone they critique is on the West also, which is weird, you Know, or they genuinely are just, they don't know know any better. They're just useful idiots for the right, you know, which is gaining that perspective of, no, as you said a moment ago, it's forget the one book. That doesn't matter. Like it's about the broader picture. It's about what is the balance of power here? What's actually the threat? You know, and a lot of people, for whatever reason, a lot people on the left, a lot I knew were not ever able to get out of that.

0:31:21 Thomas: Like, well, yeah, but there was a kid, there was this college student who had purple hair. Did you see? And and they were stupid. They screamed a dumb thing. It's like, who gives a fuck? That has nothing to do with anything. And those people really took a turn because Fox News and the right-wing media just demonizes those kinds of people 24-7, makes it seem like they're running the world, you know, like students are just running the entire world, according to those people. And having that perspective is really important to say, like, can you just take a look at at what's actually happening to the point where all of these people who thought the left thought the college students, all that stuff were the threat to free speech. See, they're banning speech because they're offended by something. So all of that led into literal fucking book bannings.

0:32:06 Thomas: Like you fed into actually that the thing you thought you were fighting, but a thousand times worse because it's conservatives banning books that were written by black people or by, you know, non -straight people, essentially. And you know what we're never going to fucking get, Adrian, is an apology. We're never gonna get any accountability from those useful idiots or those negative, those bad actors on the, who ostensibly on the left, who helped this by saying anything other than fuck you, you know, anything other than, oh, you want to ban a book? Fuck you. Fuck you, that's not, well, let's not even go down that road.

0:32:23 Adrienne: No. And we got so much of that in the community. The, the few of us that were speaking out against the book removals, we had people on quote-unquote our side, um, the school district in, in a rural county, your school district is your biggest employer, um, superintendent's wife is a very sweet teacher. Well, talk about Miss so-and-so's husband, their family, like, why are you doing this to their family? Are Why you making us look bad? When you're in a small town, it's on a whole nother level, because

0:32:43 Thomas: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, for

0:33:15 Adrienne: People, take it more personally. Know you. So you're really putting yourself out there, as a trouble starter or whatever. Even though he's, he's the one that did it, um, but we had

0:33:16 Thomas: Sure. Yeah. Yeah yeah. Right. But you're going against the grain. So you're the asshole apparently, you know? Yeah, totally. That's another, there's so many layers to your story. That that's definitely a very fascinating one, which is, yeah.

0:33:29 Adrienne: Right, right, well, we, we haven't even gotten into, like, all The, yeah.

0:33:39 Thomas: That's what I was going to try to invite you to, to get back to it. Yeah

0:33:42 Adrienne: On tape. He was on the tape. That's where we go. The thing that I personally did was, I, okay, there, day after the tape had come out, made national news, in front of our high school, there was one guy standing out there. I don't know who this guy was. I don't know if if he was a ghost.

0:34:03 Thomas: Wow.

0:34:03 Adrienne: I don't know if he was Jesus himself. I don't know. But there was one guy out there with a cardboard sign and it said, I have a picture of it somewhere, but I think it said ban the Bible. And, and for somebody to do that here, like that's bold. That's so bold. And it just sparked it. And I was like, okay, we're going to do a protest in front of the high school or demonstration from the high school.

0:34:15 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah no kidding.

0:34:29 Thomas: Let's pause on that. I mean, that really is cool. Like, might be the entire thrust of the story, which is you need that one fucking ghost person who may or may not exist. We'll see. Maybe we'll track him down someday. You need that person. You gotta be, somebody has to be that that person because especially in a small town, you know, because like you don't you you need a little bit of safety of numbers, it's fucking scary to go against the grain, so that's, I mean, that really is like an emblem for this entire thing, you know, that that the fact that that like sparked all this, just one sign, there's one person being like, I'm gonna say a thing that's kind of funny but also true, and I'm going to, and I're going to put myself out there by standing and, and, you know, being seen with it.

0:34:36 Adrienne: Right. Right? Mm hmm. Mm hmm, mm hmm. Right, right. Seen just through doing things of my own work, like you will get up and say other people agree with you, you may not feel like they do, but they're there. And they may may not say anything publicly, but they'll reach out and they'll be like, thank you for saying that. Thank you for standing up. It also gives other people the courage to do it, Which is why it's important to put yourself out there because other people will feel stronger because of it. So what we did was I did old school organizing, got on the phone, said we're meeting here, um, got big pride flags, and this was specifically to support the students who I felt, you, these kids are already way outnumbered, they're not celebrated in this town, and now you've got the superintendent saying, you, we're removing anything with transgender, we're removing anything with sexuality, and I believe what he meant was, you know, LGBTQ sexuality, sexuality. And I'm like, these kids are being told, we don't want you here. Can't you read about yourself in the library.

0:35:16 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah.

0:36:16 Adrienne: And you probably can't talk about yourself at home, maybe. I mean, there's, you know, there's good parents here. But there's also a lot of Christian conservative parents that are not accepting. So I said, what we're going to do is we're gonna go out, we met the night before we made signs, we met, there was probably 20 of us.

0:36:22 Thomas: Sure. Yep. Mm-mm.

0:36:33 Adrienne: And we did a lap in front of the school, stayed in front of the school all during drop-off uh, the kids were getting dropped off, and

0:36:41 Thomas: Quick, quick clarification. Was this a, like a specific group of kids who you were trying to support who were protesting or something? Or are you just saying in general, any LGBT kids who might be in this school and might be, even if you're not, I'm just curious if like there was some student-led movement that you were backing or you were just wanting to support the kids in general?

0:36:42 Adrienne: -huh, okay, Well, that goes back to a whole nother story that we were specifically supporting the LGBTQ students, but also, um, of speaking out about the book banning, because there was a group of students that went viral, I forgot that. And the very first meeting, after he removed the books, there was a group of students that went viral. They were on MSN, they were on CNN, because they all got up and organized and one after another spoke out against book banning at the school board meeting. So they were originally, I I would call them the champions of the movement, you know, it was really cool.

And they were really brave, you, like I said, that inspired other people to get involved. We did the demonstration, it went really well. We had a few people yell at us nasty stuff. But we got, got lots of cheers and honks and people excited and right, and we had, huge, I had a huge, uh, pride flag that I was like, had on a pole, and I have the coolest picture of me standing in front of the high school with that flag, like going, it's just, it's such a juxtaposition with, with the, with what was going on at the time, and, that happened, and day, I got messages from kids, like, thank

0:37:17 Thomas: Sure, yeah.

0:37:53 Thomas: You're still in this 87% town, right? Like this is still, yeah, mm

0:38:20 Adrienne: You for doing that, that meant so much to me, that, my gosh, I was just in tears. I felt so, like oh my god, like that meant something to them and they're going to remember that. And, um, was a statement and it felt really powerful. I Uh, believe as far as I know, it's the first ever like pride, anything that's happened here. So that happened. Then the next day I get a message in my Facebook book. And it's a woman saying that she's with HBO. She's casting a show. And positive show? Would I like could I talk to her? And weirdly enough, I had been contacted by other casting people. I talked to journalists fairly often because of the stuff going on here, right? Right. So they look up the Democratic chair and I come up. So I'm one of the first

0:38:19 Thomas: Mm -hmm, yeah yeah. All right, gotcha, got

0:39:12 Adrienne: People that usually gets called and then I give them leads to talk to other people. It's usually doesn't end up being about me, you. So talked to this woman and she says one of the kids that saw me and knew that I organized that gave her my name. One of the kids from the high school, because they started contacting, they look for news stories that happen, LGBTQ, um, to it. And they go to cast in those towns. So one of the, they contacted the kids that went viral first.

0:39:30 Thomas: Cha, mm hmm.

0:39:46 Adrienne: Of kids gave them my name. Got on the phone with her and I was telling her about the demonstration and I was so emotional. I was just crying like a real nut job and she was like, well, what we do is we take three famous drag queens from RuPaul's Drag Race and we send them into the small town and we put on a drag show.

0:40:07 Thomas: Wow.

0:40:07 Adrienne: Yeah, and I was like, oh my god, that sounds amazing. And um, said would, would you get in drag? And I was like, what? Like me? I thought she was going to ask me for somebody else. She's like, yeah, would you do it? And I was like I would love to do it. That sounds like a dream. I was, like, but I don't want to take, you person's spot that, you would never have that opportunity. I mean, of course, like who does does have the opportunity. So like, no, no, no, we cast different people. You, we have allies, uh, members. She's all different kinds of, um, stories. I talked to her, then they put on tape and then didn't hear anything for a long time.

0:40:17 Thomas: Huh. Right. Yeah, well Sorry, you what's put on tape? Like

0:40:47 Adrienne: Sorry. Uh, casting, like you, they put you on zoom basically.

0:40:50 Thomas: A Like an Audition Tape kind of thing.

0:40:52 Adrienne: They just ask you questions, kind of talk like we're talking right now.

0:40:52 Thomas: Oh Okay Gotcha. Right.

0:40:55 Adrienne: Tell me like about your family. Like, how did you get into this? What led up to this, that kind of thing. But then you're starting to hear through the grapevine, like they're talking to all these different people, you know? So I was like, oh, they're not going to pick me. And then, I don't know, it was a several months later they're like, okay, it's you and we're doing it in two weeks. Yeah, so that was the, and the show is called We're Here and it's on HBO Max, I guess it's soon to be Max. You can watch, there's three seasons, um, ended up, uh, the season opener, opener, so it's the first episode of season three and it'll be an excellent companion piece for your listeners.

0:41:15 Thomas: Geez. Sure.

0:41:38 Adrienne: Listen To This Podcast And Go watch It, yeah This

0:41:38 Thomas: I'm Yeah I Gotta Watch this Now When So where Are we on the timeline? When was this? Okay.

0:41:43 Adrienne: We filmed it last July. Yeah. Yeah, and then It Aired In November, yeah.

0:41:46 Thomas: So pretty recent and It And It already Came out? Oh

0:41:50 Clip: It. My school district started removing books. It was kind of on a hush hush at first. Then a couple of, after I organized, and we did what I called a pop-up pride event to show the LGBTQ students and the trans students that we cared about them. Wow, how many people went with you? Like 20. That's awesome. In this community, that's awesome! And I got some hateful messages and we got a few people being hateful, but I got several messages from kids saying that I've been a lot to them. Let me give you another hug right here. That is something that is so special that you did that. It's that kind of warrior spirit that sometimes you have to have. We're going to make something special in this community. We're

0:42:36 Adrienne: Was a, a really cool experience, um, also been being filmed for a documentary that's on, um, banning, uh, these documentary filmmakers and they've been filming like on and off for a year. I don't know how much I can actually even talk about it, but um Yeah. They're filming several different counties' stories of people that have this happening, like, kind of simultaneously, um, ongoing, like they're still filming, they may be filming five years from now. I have no idea, you know, how documentaries are sometimes

0:42:49 Thomas: That's All right. Yeah, well If Yeah, if They're Playing like, okay, let's make sure we get everywhere this happens, and they're like, fuck it, keeps adding to the list, and maybe they'll never finish, yeah. Now Have to pause it there. I know we didn't even get to the point of the viral video, but that's the focus of part two. So much more interesting stuff to come. Adrian was really a cool story, and I can't wait to get you more of it. See if I can get to patrons early, patreon.com/seriouspod, and go there of course for ad free shows, other goodies, bonus episodes, a science-seriously awful movie. We'll see what it's called. Uh, but bonus stuff, patreon.com/seriouspod. Please support the show and thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next time.

0:43:05 Adrienne: Yeah Yeah It's Possible, um