Today we're unraveling the complex story of Ghislaine Maxwell — socialite, heiress, convicted sex trafficker and now prison camp roomies with someone from Real Housewives who tried to swindle elderly people out of their money. Totally the same. 

Without excusing anything Maxwell chose to do (because crime is a choice), it's important that we try to understand why women in particular are drawn into the recruiter roles in the dark underworld of sex trafficking. 

From power dynamics to psychological conditioning to daddy issues, in order to actually prevent and end human trafficking and sexual abuse, we need to understand the female side of exploitation.

Also, we're on YouTube now! You can see our faces and see our pets! More previous episodes will be uploaded soon. 

We want to hear from you. Do you have a story we need to discuss or a guest we should feature? Visit us at ToxicThePodcast.com and share your story, see our merch and access resources for survivors and support persons. 

If you’re experiencing abuse or domestic violence, please reach out to someone you trust. You can also connect with a trained advocate near you through DomesticShelters.org.

Finally, help us keep this conversation going. Please leave a rating and a review below. We'll even take one word. "Cool" works. Or maybe "Neat." This helps us to reach more people and amplify these critical stories.

How many times have we heard this tale? A woman accuses a man in power of assaulting or abusing her. She is immediately put on trial, accused of "ruining a good man's reputation." His assault is swept under the rug and the survivor is called a man-hating feminist (which is not inaccurate and for good reason). 

Chanel Miller.

Amber Heard.

Blake Lively

E. Jean Carroll.

Christine Blasey Ford.

And today, Anne Hauben. She bravely reached out to Toxic to let us know she was ready to talk about what happened to her at 18. She's now in her 50s. 

Before everyone says, "BuT WhY nOw?!" be aware that less than 23% of rapes and sexual assaults are reported to authorities, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The reasons? See above list. Those women went through hell after they came forward. What 18-year-old is eager to sign up for that? What 18-year-old is even 100 percent sure of what constitues rape?

Guess what, nonconsent = rape. And that's what Anne says happened during a high school trip to Bermuda. The man in question? A city councilman named Ward Hamilton of Melrose, Massachusetts, a small suburb of Boston. 

Anne thought the voters might want to know what kind of man they were voting for. Turns out, that was an inconvenience for them more than anything. Anne was called crazy. A liar. Told to take her supposed trauma elsewhere. 

So she came to Toxic. Because we'll believe her. Because we know women don't lie about this kind of thing for funsies. 

And we also believe in holding men accountable. 

Welcome to Anne's story. Which is also E. Jean's story. Which is also Christine's story. 

This episode is a little long, but worth it. 

Also, COMING SOON, you'll be able to hear some of the more recent Toxic episodes, including this one, on YouTube. So, stay tuned. 

Your review of Toxic would help immensely. 3.8 what?! The trolls are coming for us -- please help combat them with a quick click on the five stars below. 

We want to hear from you. Do you have a story we need to discuss or a guest we should feature? Visit us at ToxicThePodcast.com and share your story.

If you’re experiencing abuse or domestic violence, please reach out to someone you trust. You can also connect with a trained advocate near you through DomesticShelters.org.

Washington state police are still looking for 32-year-old Travis Decker, suspected of killing his three young daughters last Monday, June 2, near Rock Island Campground in Chelan County, Washington. It's just another heartbreaking example of a judge not listening to a woman when she says a man is dangerous. How many examples will it take?

Meanwhile, admist his breakup with Elon, Trump is soothing himself with an ego parade on Saturday in D.C. the cost of which could literally eradicate homelessness, while weaponizing the National Guard in Los Angeles and allowing ICE to hunt down brown people for sport. Cool, cool, cool. In response, people with their sanity still intact are rising up in nationwide in more than 2,000 No Kings Day protests this coming Saturday, June 14. Grab a poster board, a sharpie and an American flag, because we're taking it back, and join us. Go to nokings.org to find the protest nearest you. 

We want to hear from you. Do you have a story we need to discuss or a guest we should feature? Visit us at ToxicThePodcast.com and share your story.

If you’re experiencing abuse or domestic violence, please reach out to someone you trust. You can also connect with a trained advocate near you through DomesticShelters.org.

Finally, help us keep this conversation going. Share an episode of Toxic with someone at the protest this Saturday, the cop who tries to tell you to move back or your racist uncle, just because. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform or social media, and please consider leaving us a review so we can be seen in this vast sea of equally talented podcasts. Your support helps us amplify these critical stories.

Together, we can create change.

We’re honored to welcome Nichole Schmidt to Toxic today — a friend of the pod and a fierce advocate for survivors, especially young survivors of dating violence. In 2021, her 22-year-old daughter, Gabby Petito, was murdered by her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, during what was supposed to be an idyllic cross-country van trip — and instead became a national tragedy.

This past February, Netflix released American Murder: Gabby Petito, a docuseries featuring never-before-seen details about how Gabby’s story unfolded. Ultimately, she became yet another preventable victim of dating violence, strangulation — and, yes, femicide.

Just two weeks before her death, police in Moab, Utah, pulled the couple over after a witness saw Brian hit Gabby. Despite clear signs of abuse — and officers even identifying it as assault — Laundrie wasn’t arrested. Instead, they named Gabby the primary aggressor and gave Brian a hotel room usually reserved for domestic violence victims. The incident laid bare just how much law enforcement — and society — still doesn’t understand about abuser tactics.

A little over a month later, Brian strangled Gabby to death in Wyoming. He later scribbled a confession in a notebook before dying by suicide — because, of course, accountability was never on his itinerary.

Today, Nichole shares what life has been like since Gabby’s death — and how she’s working to keep her daughter’s memory alive, one survivor at a time.

We want to hear from you. Do you have a story we need to discuss or a guest we should feature? Visit us at ToxicThePodcast.com and share your story.

If you’re experiencing abuse or domestic violence, please reach out to someone you trust. You can also connect with a trained advocate near you through DomesticShelters.org.

Finally, help us keep this conversation going. Share an episode of Toxic with someone also outraged by the relentless epidemic of violence against women. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform or social media, and please consider leaving us a review. Your support helps us amplify these critical stories.

Together, we can create change.

Is it hot in here or is it just us? If you're in the throes of perimenopause, you're going to feel right at home in this episode. As ladies of our mid-40s, we have to talk about this. Disclaimer: This is NOT a medical advice podcast. 

Thanks to overt sexism within medical research fields, most health research funds are allotted to study diseases that affect men, or how diseases that affect both sexes mostly affect men. 

The National Institutes of Health found that diseases, ailments and conditions that affect men receive twice as much funding as those affecting women. Therefore, it would be correct to say scientists are spending much more time and resources studying erectile dysfunction than perimenopause or menopause, leaving women woefully unprepared and under-resourced for this major life change. 

How do we deal with that? Well, we're resourceful as always, aren't we ladies? We turn to crowd-sourcing solutions like TikTok and Facebook groups and happy hours. Which means we wind up with a slew of solutions like yam cream, red light therapy, eating more kiwis and drinking mushroom coffee. Will any of it help? Who knows! We'll try it anyhow because dammit, we want to look like we're aging gracefully while also biohacking our faces. 

We want to hear from you. Do you have a story we need to discuss or a guest we should feature? Visit us at ToxicThePodcast.com and share your story. (We also have some sweet merch!)

If you’re experiencing abuse or domestic violence, please reach out to someone you trust. You can also connect with a trained advocate near you through DomesticShelters.org.

Finally, help us keep this conversation going. Share an episode of Toxic with a friend (or maybe a frenemy?), your eyebrow waxer, your petsitter or really, anyone you want. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform or social media and please consider leaving us a review. Your support helps us amplify these critical stories.

Together, we can create change.

In the '70s, a charismatic minister named Jim Jones convinced thousands of followers of his Peoples Temple that he was for them, moving them from the U.S. where he was being investigated for running a cult (lol, nothing to see here) to an agricultural commune in Guyana under the auspice that he was "creating a paradise free from the oppression of the U.S. government."

Oh, and also, they had to call him dad, maybe sleep with him and never, ever leave unless they wanted to be shot. 

But that's neither here nor there. He was FOR them, you guys. Of course, if you know anything about Jonestown, you know this didn't end well for 909 of them. 

You'll never believe this, but the markers of Jim Jones—a guy who loved Hitler, schmoozing with politicians and exerting power over others—have a lot of overlap with our current RPOTUS (that would be rapist president of the United States). 

In this episode, we welcome back—Dr. Janja Lalich, CEO of the Lalich Center on Cults and Coercion and foremost international expert on cults to answer our is-half-the-country-in-a-cult? questions. 

She also recommended a book that we're going to recommend to you: The Brainwashing of My Dad: How the Rise of the Right-Wing Media Changed a Father and Divided Our Nation—And How We Can Fight Back, by Jen Senko.

We want to hear from you. Do you have a story we need to discuss or a guest we should feature? Visit us at ToxicThePodcast.com and share your story.

If you’re experiencing abuse or domestic violence, please reach out to someone you trust. You can also connect with a trained advocate near you through DomesticShelters.org.

Finally, help us keep this conversation going. Share an episode of Toxic with a friend, your gyno, or even the person next to you in line voting for Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford.

Follow us on your favorite podcast platform or social media, and if you’re willing, leave us a review. Your support helps us amplify these critical stories.

Together, we can create change.

In another disturbing case of women's safety being not at all a priority, a man in Minneapolis turned images of some 80 women he sort-of-but-not-really-knew into graphic p*rn. When his WIFE found out, he fled town with his laptop in hand, probably to infiltrate a new town with his predator ways. Police threw their hands up and said, "Uh, we don't know what you want us to do. Is this illegal?" Turns out, it is and it isn't. One of the victims talks to Toxic about how she's using her law background to help make sure future women get the justice they deserve against gross men who can't literally make everything in the world about getting off. 

We want to hear from you. Do you have a story we need to discuss or a guest we should feature? Visit us at ToxicThePodcast.com and share your story.

If you’re experiencing abuse or domestic violence, please reach out to someone you trust. You can also connect with a trained advocate near you through DomesticShelters.org.

Finally, help us keep this conversation going. Share an episode of Toxic with a friend, your Lyft driver, or even the person next to you in line at your next protest for women's rights. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform or social media, and please leave us a [nice] review. Your support helps us amplify these critical stories.

Together, we can create change.

Abusers know the routine: First, present yourself as a savior. Promise a romanticized, idyllic version of the future. Earn trust. Then, isolate. “It’s the world against us, baby.” Brainwash. “Don’t trust anyone but me.” And finally, control at such a dizzying speed that the victim can’t make heads or tails of it all. What is real? Am I in danger? How do I get out of this?

Hey, look at that, it's Trump, America’s abusive husband. In just under 30 days since he and his BFF Elon Musk invaded the White House, we’re in full oligarchy mode. This is not a drill. Call it a coup, call it a dictatorship or just call it the most embarrassing time of U.S. history unfolding before our eyes.

Today we’re talking about Trump’s dizzying array of executive orders, declarations, hirings and firings, which are all just a distraction technique. An appetizer round if you will.

We need to discuss why it’s important we don’t give up, put our heads in the sand and shut down our ear holes. Because that’s what he’s hoping will happen.

We want to hear from you. Do you have a story we need to discuss or a guest we should feature? Visit us at ToxicThePodcast.com and share your story.

If you’re experiencing abuse or domestic violence, please reach out to someone you trust. You can also connect with a trained advocate near you through DomesticShelters.org.

Finally, help us keep this conversation going. Share an episode of Toxic with a friend, your dog sitter, or the anxious person next to you in the TSA line. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform or social media, and if you’re willing, leave us a review. Your support helps us amplify these critical stories.

Together, we can create change.

Patrisha McLean survived nearly three decades of abuse by her [unfortunately still] famous ex, Don McLean, singer of "American Pie." Once free, though Don tried his best to discredit her in the media (sound familiar?), she started her own nonprofit to help other survivors of violence, aptly named, Finding Our Voices. It's been working on taking down abusive a-holes ever since, and we love her for it. She joins us today on Toxic to tell us more about it. 

(Apologies in advance for the sound issues in this episode. Amanda was having issues with her microphone.)

We want to hear from you. Do you have a story we need to discuss or a guest we should feature? Visit us at ToxicThePodcast.com and share your story.

If you’re experiencing abuse or domestic violence, please reach out to someone you trust. You can also connect with a trained advocate near you through DomesticShelters.org.

Finally, help us keep this conversation going. Share an episode of Toxic with a friend, your dentist, or even the person next to you in line at the grocery store. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform or social media, and if you’re willing, leave us a review. Your support helps us amplify these critical stories.

Together, we can create change.

Trump "Tiny Hands" was sworn into the highest office in the land yesterday, leaving us all asking, "But seriously, no really, honestly, what in the actual eff?" As we enter this second iteration of a reoccurring nightmare that's actually reality, many of you may be stuck in fight, flight or freeze like us. (We're cycling between all three.) The question is: Where do we go from here? How do we get through these next four years? Are we ready to fight, and if so, how can we do it without burning ourselves out?

Consider this a family meeting, group therapy or a support group meeting. Take what you need. Just know that we're in this together. 

We want to hear from you. Do you have a story we need to discuss or a guest we should feature? Do you have an idea of how to fight against an oligrachy? Visit us at ToxicThePodcast.com and share your thoughts.

If you’re experiencing abuse or domestic violence, please reach out to someone you trust. You can also connect with a trained advocate near you through DomesticShelters.org.

You can find abortion resources at abortionfunds.org. 

Finally, help us keep this conversation going. Share an episode of Toxic with a friend, your dentist, or even the person next to you in line at the grocery store. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform or social media, and if you’re willing, leave us a review. Your support helps us amplify these critical stories.

Together, we can create change.