Are you #LivingYourTruth? This buzzy catchphrase is all over Instagram, but might it actually justify selfish or irresponsible behavior? Alternatively, can it be a way of affirming marginalized identities--and perhaps even reveal the extent to which our lives are ultimately of our own making? Ellie and David speak with Dr. Tamsin Kimoto in episode 37 about how "living your truth" relates to transgender identity formation, "born this way" narratives of sexuality, and the idea of an authentic self. After the interview, David and Ellie suggest that existential authenticity is a way of "living your truth" without buying into the metaphysical idea of an inner self.

Works Discussed

Tamsin Kimoto, "Merleau-Ponty, Fanon, and Phenomenological Forays in Trans Life"
Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality
Talia Mae Bettcher, “Trapped in the Wrong Theory: Rethinking Trans Oppression and Resistance”
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Elizabeth Grosz, “Criticism, feminism and the institution: An interview with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak”
Friedrich Nietzsche, “Schopenhauer as Educator”
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time
Theodor Adorno, The Jargon of Authenticity

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