Let’s talk about what we’ve been told. And what we know to be true. In this special episode of Inner Voice, Jeffrey is joined by the incomparable Jacob Tobia, author of the groundbreaking new book "Before They Were Men." Together, they explore masculinity, memory, and the mythology of gender itself. With equal parts humor and depth, Jacob shares what it means to survive a world built for binaries—and to write your way free. Perhaps their most controversial take is the position that privilege is not black and white, and that to say all men have benefitted from privilege as a blanket statement is to erase the painful, lived experiences of men everywhere. Intrigued? Yeah, us too. This conversation isn’t a debate. It’s an invitation: to imagine a world where healing isn’t gendered, softness isn’t punished, and we stop blaming ourselves for the violence we were never meant to inherit.

Produced by Zaq Latino.