Menstrual synchrony is no stranger to anyone who has a period. In fact, at least one survey found 80 percent of people who get periods believe that women who spend time together will usually sync up.

In the 1970s, biology student Martha McClintock began a study with 135 women in a college dorm to test this theory. This was probably one of the first times science said the word period or vagina other than by accident or in a sneeze and the results were conclusive; women who spent more time together (and less time with men) were seen to sync up. So for 20 or so glorious years menstrual synchrony (or the McClintock Effect) was considered actual science, and vaginas and wombs around the world were given a pat on the back for being so clever.

But sadly since the 1990s various studies set about to disprove menstrual syncing. Perhaps male scientists found the idea of sentient wombs working in cahoots too scary to be science. For them I imagine it was witchcraft. So after several studies that debunked any evidence of syncing and that found holes in Mcclintock’s original study, menstrual synchrony was eventually cast back into the dusty vault of urban mythology; alongside the female g-spot, equal pay and global warming I guess.

But science doesn't speak for my uterus, nor the uteruses of lots of other people, and regardless of its origin, syncing is still a particularly prominent phenomenon in the daily lives of queer/trans couples. Syncing up, along with a set of cats and a big bag of feelings is a uniquely queer relationship experience and is pretty widely accepted if not encouraged. Syncing up means more sex and a greater chance of shared emotional swaddling—and who wouldn't want that?

However, the Jekyll and Hyde of hormonal possibilities mean that bleeding together can also go very wrong (unless attempting unrequited cuddles with an ice woman once a month is something you’re into). For my girlfriend and I syncing has never worked but I’ve heard rumours that it can be a wonderful thing. If steak and a blow job day is a heterosexual recipe for success, is menstrual synchrony our fast track to a happy home?

I spoke with five couples to find out more about mutual menstruation from those who do, those who don’t, and those who can’t—all in effort to answer the eternal question: do couples who bleed together, stay together?

*Some names have been changed

Hannah and Syirr

VICE: Hey Hannah and Syirr, how long have you been together?
Hannah: Just under six months but we’ve only had like a week’s worth of nights apart.

In six months? That is so very gay, well done.
Hannah: I know, I’ve moved in.
Syirr: She was looking for a house and I was like yeah crash here and then she crashed forever.

And what’s that like?
Hannah: We have contrasting schedules but conforming uteruses.

Oh great, let’s talk about periods. When did you sync?
Hannah: Second month? I remember because we were both like ‘let’s get loads of food immediately.’

What happens when you sync?
Hannah: It’s great, you’re both seething and falling out over a spoon, so it can be quite fun.
Syirr: We both just become very needy.
Hannah: I get needy but also emotionally vacant sometimes so it can be very confusing. Because I don't want to talk to anyone but am also like LOVE ME. Which can be quite hard to deal with I can imagine.
Syirr: Somehow it works though, somehow we compliment each other.
Hannah: It’s always quite nice because at least you’re doing it together and no ones doing it alone.

It sounds like syncing really works for you?
Hannah: Yeah, it works for us because we’re very similar—we’re both middle children we’ve got the same interests. I think we think quite alike so when you’re feeling like shit and you’re both feeling that way it’s nice because you can be in it together.
Syirr: You know what the other usually wants.
Hannah: It would be really shit if we were like two weeks apart or something because one person would be feeling awful while the other is doing everything and then it would happen again! I think that would be really stressful, thank god we have synced.

Can you recognize the warning signs in each other?
Syirr: We get really hungry and really thirsty.
Hannah: I use a menstrual cup so as soon as I reach for that string bag everyone knows what’s going on. Syirr’s laughing a lot by the way. She can’t hack it.

Let’s talk about the science then, scientists say it doesn't exist—do you agree?
Hannah: Liars! Aren’t there other mammals that have synced?

They’ve actually found evidence of menstrual syncing in rats and monkeys.
Hannah: Oh shit, imagine tonnes of hormonal rats, thats me and you baby.

So if science is wrong, do you have any theories why it happens?
Syirr: Empathy I think, if you know someone’s about to go through shit you’re like let’s do this together, let’s go.

Whether its science or witchcraft, do you think it adds a closeness you can’t get in a heterosexual relationship?
Hannah: I don’t know what these heteros get up to but it’s probably a bit different. If you’re a man and a woman he has to tune into that state and try and understand what she needs but with us it’s a bit easier because we both know how it feels so we can instantly make it better. I would say it was equal but in a hetero relationship you probably have to try a bit harder to get there.

So do couples who bleed together stay together?
Syirr: Fuck yeah.
Hannah: An emphatic yes, it’s a helpful factor—being literally in sync in every aspect.

Sapna* and Cassandra*

VICE: How long have you been together?
Sapna: Six years.
Cassandra: We’ve lived together for almost five and a half years and married in June 2017.

You moved in after six months?
Cassandra: Yes, I moved from DC to California to be with her in California.

So you must have synced up?
Sapna: NO! Almost every lesbian couple we know has synced. People are shocked to hear that we don’t.
Cassandra: It makes me crazy that we haven't had it happen! We sometimes sync with other women if we travel with them, but not with each other.

Never ever?!
Sapna: We’ve never synced. We are both very regular (every 30 days)—and I go first, and then Cassandra goes immediately after me.

Weird! Do you feel like bad lesbians because you can’t sync?
Cassandra: Ahaha, I don’t really because I know so many things go into syncing. But it does annoy me.

Is it something you would want to happen?
Sapna: Yes! It’s pretty annoying to not sync. It extends the period of time that our sex lives are slightly different than when we’re not on our period.
Cassandra: It's almost two weeks each month that affects our sex life. It's very annoying.

So if you’re not synced can you tell when each one is on their period?
Sapna: Yes, but mostly because we’re very open with it. We’ll tell each other as soon as it starts/ends, since it affects the other person’s sex life too. I’m a weak monster on my period. Everything hurts and I’m pretty whiny about it. Cassandra is generally pretty normal.

Cassandra: Yeah, we talk about everything. But also because she becomes a miserable person during the first two days. It's impossible to miss that!

Science still says syncing is not a thing—do you agree?
Sapna: Not at all. I’m sure one day science will figure out why and how syncing happens. I know way too many people who have synced for it all to be a coincidence.

Cassandra: It's totally a thing and I'm sure someday science will be like, "hey, sorry women for calling you hysterical before, you were totally right!" and maybe they can tell us weirdos how to sync if we aren't.

Do you think the potential for sharing a period adds unique closeness?
Sapna: Yes, it would be great to be able to commiserate together!
Cassandra: I do, and I think, like with a lot of other things in same-sex relationships, even if you don't sync, there is a lot of powerful closeness that comes with simply understanding what it's like to be a woman.

Grace* and Elle*

VICE: Hello ladies, so how long have you been together?
Grace: We’ve been together for two years. In the first three months of our relationship we stayed over at one of our places probably six days a week. Then lived together in the same room in an apartment for about a year.

Thats a lot of days a week—so you must have synced?
Grace: Definitely when we were living together. We also lived with three other females and I honestly think our whole house was synced up at times.

How does your PMS work together?
Elle: Grace gets stressed out and cries for 15 minutes and then realizes she is on her period. Gets awful cramps, definitely has a higher sex drive.
Grace: Elle’s period makes her more self conscious and leads to her having an easier emotional breakout in moments of stress. So if we are both on our periods and have an emotional moment we are able to comfort the other and relate.

Sounds nice!
Grace: Yeah, it works for us, in terms of comfort and also sexually, it is just more convenient if those times line up.

Do you know why you have synced or have any theories?
Grace: I think it’s closeness, pheromones/biology whatever. I feel like our bodies know each other.

Your bodies are buddies.
Grace: Absolutely.

You know in one experiment they had women smell the sweaty pads from other women’s armpits to prove syncing was a thing, do you think that would work on you?
Grace: Science did that? That’s disgusting.

But science still says syncing is not a thing—what do you think?
Grace: And neither are there enough women in science.
Elle: Maybe they need to spend a month in our bedroom.

Alex and Siónad

VICE: How long have you two been together?
Siónad: Seven months.
Alex: And you’re here all the time. I don't think we’ve had more than three days a part as a couple in a row. So a lot.
Siónad: A fair bit yeah.

And Alex are you still having periods?
Alex: Yes I do. I’m a transguy but I’ve only discovered and explored that in the last few years—so I am pre-everything, but having gender counselling.

What’s it like sharing a period with Siónad as a trans guy?
Alex: I think I am very lucky that I don’t experience bottom dysphoria greatly. I don't feel less trans or less of a guy when I bleed, and I think I'm very lucky in that. But I think I would love to invest in some Thinx style period underwear—I would love the boxers and to feel like on my period days I'm just wearing normal boxers like any other guy and don’t have to think about it.

So syncing with Siónad doesn't worsen your dysphoria at all?
Alex: Not at all, I quite like that I tend to sync with my partners. If anything, and this is maybe a bit TMI, I possibly feel a bit more trans when I'm bleeding. Is that weird? I think maybe I've just totally disconnected it as a gendered thing in my head. So for me the bleeding doesn’t make you femme or male, because it’s related to sex more than gender and I think I've separated it from gender expression in my mind. But I've mentioned having cramps or mood swings to my friends who have then said "It’s so weird to think of you having a period.” But for me it’s not something I really think about.

So at the moment you're happy being trans and sharing a period with your girlfriend?
Alex: Yeah absolutely. Like, Naddy is a very femme woman who has periods and needs cookies. I'm a transguy, and I get periods and I need hugs and hot showers. And I'm very very aware for most transguys periods are a living hell. But for me it's something that just happens, and it can happen when I'm in my binder or presenting masculine. It doesn't take away from my gender expression.

And if you stop periods would you miss sharing a period with your partner?
Alex: You know, I don’t know! I think it’s a unique experience.

Siónad, would you miss it if Alex stopped their periods?
Siónad: No, I’d be glad for Alex to be skipping the cramps and the inconvenient underwear! Also if I'm the only one menstruating I get more sympathy cookies.

Do you have any theories why syncing it happens?
Siónad: Let’s hear about the she-wolves, then.
Alex: So, what it is: In like your house of girls.
Siónad: *people who menstruate.
Alex: Wow, trust the trans guy to fuck that up. I think in a group of * people who menstruate, it’s hormones or biology—I think it’s got to go back to some base level, animalistic thing—whoever’s got the strongest ovaries, or hormones, they’re the she-wolf and everyone follows her. They’re the alpha ovary.
Siónad: There’s no such thing.
Alex: It’s my theory.
Siónad: The whole concept of alpha/beta wolves is completely scientifically unsound.
Alex: I think you sync to the strongest ovaries and pheromones. People tend to sync to me because I’m a hormonal mess.
Siónad: I have noticed a trend in the past when I did date people I tend to sync to them.
Alex: Yes, you sync to people like me, hormonal messes or the alpha ovary.
Siónad: Will you stop.
Alex: I’m going to get a tattoo of it.
Siónad: No, you’re not, I will leave you.
Alex: Right on the top of my crotch.

Laine and Anne

VICE: Laine and Anne, hello. So how long have you been together?
Anne: Together about a year.
Laine: You know off and on. We have a rule that we can only stay over every other night during the week. But that goes out the window on weekends.
Anne: We break it a lot.

Had you heard of period syncing before?
Anne: I’ve heard of it before and at high school I thought I was synced with my friend.
Laine: I remember my aunt used to say when you put a bunch of clocks in the same room, or if you put a bunch of women in the room they all sync up. She kind of opened my eyes to how universal it could be, but I don't really believe any of it. I don't remember ever syncing.

You’ve never synced?
Anne: We’ve rarely synced. Because of my IUD any PMS is all the time or any time, it’s really random. I don't really get much of a period and we’ve never synced because my periods aren’t real, they’re random.
Laine: Yeah, and my period hasn’t really been very consistent, surprisingly. One time we had our period at the same time and I was excited.
Anne: It’s definitely fun, the idea of it is really fun.

Do you think its a lesbian stereotype that we all sync?
Anne: I think its a woman stereotype. I associate it with women and the stigma around periods.
Laine: I wish we had experienced this syncing.
Anne: Yeah, me too.

If you’re not synced up, between you you must be bleeding all the time—what’s that like?
Laine: I’ve definitely bled a lot on Anne’s bed.
Anne: And I’ve bled on Laine’s bed.
Laine: And there have been times actually where we don't know who's bled.

It sounds like you’re pretty open about it?
Laine: My bed is covered in blood right now so it would be hard to not be open, so it’s nice.

Period sex—yay or nay?
Laine: Yay! We still have sex when one is on their period, and we still have sex when we’re both on our periods.
Anne: And we also have sex when we’re not on our periods.
Laine: Right yeah, it’s not just a fetish or something.

So if you could sync, do you think you would?
Anne: I don’t believe it’s something that happens.
Laine: I’m more open that it happens but I have no idea if we would. Maybe it’s because we’re not really meant to be together.
Anne: Maybe a positive of syncing is that it tells you you’re meant to be with that person.
Laine: Yeah, how do straight couples figure that out? I have no idea.
Anne: Well, now we know this isn't going to last.

I’ve heard one theory that people sync to the more dominant partner—do you think that’s true?
Laine: Oooh who’s the alpha?
Anne: Thats a great question. I think we have a horizontal relationship; there’s no alpha. Maybe that’s why we’ve never synced.
Laine: Thats a good theory. I think we’re each alpha in different ways.
Anne: There’s a wolf on my shirt—maybe that makes me the alpha.
Laine: I don’t think that has anything to do with what we’re talking about.

So you’ve rarely synced with anyone-—why do you think that is?
Anne: Do you think the fact that you’ve never synced with anyone means that you’ve never been close to anyone in your life?
Laine: I do agree that I’ve never been close to anyone in my life, but I also think that no one has ever been close to anyone.
Anne: We probably haven't synced because we lack closeness but again, syncing is not real.

So you agree with science then—syncing isn't real?
Anne: 100 percent.
Laine: I don't know, I like to keep my opinions open... you said you thought you were synced with your friend so that’s evidence right there?
Anne: I don’t know. I just think I'm really into debunking period myths.

Donald Trump and his Twitter fingers have struck again. After Oprah's 60 Minutes report where she reunited with a group of partisan Michigan voters to discuss Trump's first year in office, the president hopped on his favourite social media platform to rant about the celebrity. Even though Winfrey definitively said she is "not running for president of the United States," Trump apparently believes "insecure Oprah" still wants to run in 2020.

On Tuesday's episode of Desus & Mero, the hosts talked about the interesting cast of characters who appeared on the segment and how Trump responded when Oprah grilled him on her show in 1988.

You can watch the latest episode of Desus & Mero for free online now, and be sure to catch new episodes weeknights at 11 PM on VICELAND.

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Everything you need to know about the world this morning, curated by VICE.

US News

Bump Stocks Get New Look After Florida Shooting
The president told the Justice Department to draw up new regulations barring “all devices that turn legal weapons into machine guns," though it didn't appear relevant to the mass shooting last week in a Florida high school. Meanwhile, US Senator Patrick Toomey was set to introduce a bill bolstering background checks. The Republican said: “It does feel like we have a shot at getting a little bit of momentum on background checks.”—VICE News / The Washington Post

North Korea Ditched Meeting with VP
The vice president’s office said Pence was scheduled to meet top North Korean officials, including Kim Jong Un’s sister Kim Yo Jong, at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. Nick Ayers, Pence’s chief of staff, said the North Koreans had “dangled a meeting in hopes of the vice president softening his message,” but bailed hours ahead of time.—NBC News

California Police Claim to Have Prevented Another School Shooting
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department revealed it found “multiple guns and ammunition” at the home of an El Camino High School student suspected of planning a shooting. On Friday, a security guard at the Whittier, California, school said he heard the “disgruntled” student threaten to use weapons there.—AP

HHS Official Investigated for Allegedly Spreading Fake News
Jon Cordova, principal deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, was on on leave as officials examined bogus stories he shared on social media during the election. Cordova, who worked for Trump’s campaign in California, reportedly peddled conspiracy theories, including the false claim that Gold Star father Khizr Khan worked for the Muslim Brotherhood.—CNN

International News

Death Toll Approaches 300 As Attacks Continue on Rebel Holdouts in Syria
Some 250 civilians were killed in Syrian government strikes on the rebel-held area over about 48 hours earlier this week, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The organization said 106 people were killed Tuesday as aerial bombing and shelling continued. Pano Moumtzis, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator for Syria, said he was “appalled and distressed” by reports six hospitals in the area were hit. The bloodbath reportedly continued into Wednesday, with dozens more killed and over 100 more hurt.—Al Jazeera / Reuters

Bus Explosion in Sri Lanka Leaves 19 Wounded
The country's military suspected a bomb caused the explosion and subsequent fire on a passenger bus, injuring 12 military personnel and seven civilians. The bus was headed to Diyathalawa. It may represent the first coordinated assault on Sri Lanka's armed forces since the country’s civil war ended in 2009.—Reuters

Oxfam Loses Thousands of Donors Over Haiti Scandal
The charity's chief executive Mark Goldring told a committee of British lawmakers 7,000 people have canceled regular donations since news broke that the NGO’s staffers patronized (possibly underage) sex workers in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Goldring also said the organization received 26 new reports of sexual misconduct following the initial revelations.—The Guardian

Venezuela Launches Its Own Cryptocurrency
President Nicolas Maduro unveiled his struggling country’s new digital currency at a ceremony inside the presidential palace in Caracas, claiming the “petro” amassed $735 million in sales in its first few hours. Each unit has been valued at $60 by the embattled government. “We are on the world’s technological vanguard,” Maduro said.—AP

Everything Else

Frank Ocean Sues His Producer
The artist filed suit against Om’Mas Keith, who helped produce Blonde and his previous album Channel Orange, over Keith’s alleged attempt to be wrongly credited for co-writing 11 of the newer album’s tracks. Ocean claimed Keith did not “contribute any lyrics, melodies, or music that would give rise to any claim of authorship.”—Rolling Stone

Stars Pledge at Least $2 Million to Gun Control March
George and Amal Clooney gave $500,000 to the Parkland survivors’ “March for Our Lives” event in Washington, DC. The sum was matched by Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw, and Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg.—TIME

Kendrick Lamar and SZA Sued Over Video
British-Liberian artist Lina Iris Viktor filed a copyright suit against the duo alleging her work was used in the recently-released “All the Stars” clip. Her lawyer said they were "confident that Ms. Viktor will prevail” in court, and the accused artists did not immediately respond to a request for comment.—Pitchfork

Tesla Hacked by Cryptocurrency Miners
Unidentified hackers breached Tesla’s open source system and were able to mine an unknown amount of cryptocurrency, according to RedLock security. A Tesla spokesperson said the company’s customers appeared to be unaffected by the “vulnerability.”—Motherboard

Queen Elizabeth II Attends London Fashion Week
The British monarch sat next to Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour at the front row of designer Richard Quinn’s show on Tuesday. She later presented Quinn with the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design.—i-D

Father John Misty Drops New Song
Josh Tillman released “Mr. Tillman” on Tuesday, which appears to detail his stay at a hotel and name checks fellow songwriter Jason Isbell. The artist has previously suggested a follow-up to Pure Comedy, his 2017 LP, would be released in the near future.—Noisey

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On January 30, 2015, I decided to quit my day job at an investment bank to chase my dreams of becoming a full-time touring musician.

While I've known tons of musicians who have been doing this way longer than me, I didn’t know any at the time who had gone about it the way I did—working a day job for years and then taking the leap of faith. So, with no real guidance, I set out on the journey of a lifetime with my band, the Suffers. That first year on the road was really fun, eye-opening, and, honestly, so fucking hard.

So many people counted us out in the beginning. They’d say things like, “Your band is too big.” “Your body is too big.” Perplexed by our decision to stay in our hometown of Houston, Texas, they'd ask, “Why haven’t y'all moved to Los Angeles, New York, or Nashville yet?”

The most frustrating thing I heard, though, was some version of, “There’s already one Alabama Shakes. Why do we need two?” “There’s already one Sharon Jones. Why do we need two?” These are actual phrases people would say to my face (and online) with regularity. A lot of them were well respected in the industry, and a lot of people in my life thought I was crazy to ignore their advice or perspective. They’d often tell us we should just stop while we were ahead because the industry already had “enough bands that sounded like us." What? Who were they talking about, and how many is “enough”?

While it was an honour and a privilege to be compared to the late, great Sharon Jones and the amazing Brittany Howard, I found it hard to believe that in an industry filled with festival lineups that had tons of young white male musicians, wearing the same outfits, and playing similar chord progressions, there was no room for me and my band. It was a double standard so bright it blinded.

It was hard some days to not feel numb to the disrespect, to just accept it as being one of the downsides of my job. At times I felt overwhelmed by it all. I was tempted to just stop and accept that no matter how hard we work, how great we look, or how talented we sound, there will always be someone around the corner waiting to undercut or block us women from reaching our full potential. But that's bullshit. Change doesn’t come with silence.

That was a lesson I learned over time and with experience. When our band first started, I was so hesitant about sharing my ideas. I’d write them down in journals, or discuss them with my female friends. But for the most part, I went with the flow of what I thought would get me to the career I thought I wanted to have. It didn’t. Being silent in the moments I should have been standing up for myself, and/or presenting my ideas, did nothing for me. In the end, I’d always find myself irritated by the final product. I’d think about what I could have changed, or how I could have made it better if I'd just said something. Why was I doing this to myself? Why was I questioning myself? Why was I not betting on myself? I realized it was because I didn’t really have anyone that looked or sounded like me to look up to, and that if I wanted to accomplish the things I knew I was destined to do, I had to become my own motivation.

The Suffers. Photo by Greg Noire

At first, I let the little chip that my critics had left on my shoulder grow. I worked so hard to prove how different I was and how good I was, that in the end, I was exhausted and left uninspired. It took about two years on the road for me to learn that in this industry, the people who have convinced everyone around them that they know all the ways to be successful are full of shit. Those “rules” of success in the industry are meant to be rewritten, and most of the people who will tell you you’re not good enough are meant to be ignored. I started to regard them like I do the little orange construction cones you occasionally see on the road—maneuver around them, be cautious, and avoid the distraction. Carry on getting to where it is you know you ultimately have to be.

There isn’t only one way to be successful, and that applies to any industry. Each day that passes offers another reminder of how wrong those eager to give me their two cents in those early days were.

Flash-forward to now, and Google some of these acts: Tank and the Bangas, Nikki Hill, Lyric Michelle, SATE, the Seratones, Dazz and Brie, Genesis Blu, the Tontons, Lizzo, Lianne La Havas, Dirty Revival or Blame the Youth. Not only are black female artists out here doing the absolute most, we’re selling out big rooms, selling tons of merchandise, and touring just as hard as anyone out there. The market hasn't turned its nose at us, hasn't told us "I've seen this before." It clearly hasn't seen "enough."

Once I stopped trying to please the people who weren’t supportive of my success to begin with, my life and my career got so much better. I started treating myself better. I started dating better men. I started writing better songs. I started believing my art was good enough. My gigs got better. Everyone who came into contact with me was able to see that joy. I surrounded myself with highly driven, like-minded individuals. I sought out mentors who I could reach out to when I was feeling lost or overwhelmed, and I accepted that I needed help from people who believed in my vision to get it all done.

Since quitting my day job and ignoring all those people who said I wouldn’t make it, I’ve since performed on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and The Late Show with David Letterman. I’ve performed on five continents. I sang in a superjam with my punk rock heroes: Bad Brains, Fishbone, and Living Colour. I’ve performed at Newport Folk Festival three times. I sang the National Anthem at the Houston Women’s March. I sat in with Jon Batiste and Stay Human, Questlove, and so many other talented individuals at the 2017 March for Science on the National Mall.

Along the way, I’ve had no help from a record label. It’s been nothing but my band, my team, my family, and my friends convincing me that that my dreams are all possible. Now that I’ve been able to see what can happen when I choose to bet on myself, I look forward to accomplishing even more things, inspiring others to take the same leap.

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"Get out of my country.”

I can still hear that sentence with absolute clarity, as if it occupies a specific place in my mind. It’s a scar. Deep within. It happened some time ago, yet it still rings in my ears as if it were yesterday. I don’t even know the name of the man who said it to me. But I have his face and his hatred etched in my eyes and all over my skin.

When somebody hates you, you feel it across your entire body. It’s usually just words. But the shrillness of words laden with hatred works its way under your fingernails, into your hair, around your eyelids. Of course, it also enters through your ears. Eventually, everything seems to be welling up somewhere between the throat and the stomach, to the point where you feel as if you’re drowning. If the feeling builds up over a long enough period of time, something could burst.

The man who said “Get out of my country” was a Trump supporter. I know this because he was wearing a pin identifying the then candidate on one of his lapels. But most of all, I know this because of the way he said it to me. He looked me straight in the eyes, pointed a finger at me, and shouted. Time and again I’ve gone back to watch video of the incident, which took place in August 2015, and I still don’t know how I was able to remain calm. I remember the tone of his voice caught me by surprise. Trump, with the brutal and cowardly help of a bodyguard, had just ejected me from a press conference in Dubuque, Iowa.

Jorge Ramos's confrontation with Trump in August, 2015

I had just started thinking about how to respond when suddenly I heard a madman shouting and pointing his finger. I looked up, and—instead of simply ignoring his rudeness, as I would have preferred—I settled myself and simply replied, “I’m also a U.S. citizen.” His response made me laugh. “Whatever,” he said, sounding like a teenager. A police officer who overheard the exchange outside the press conference stepped between us, and that was where it ended. But the hatred stuck. Hatred is contagious. And Trump is infectious.

I am convinced that if Trump had treated me differently, his supporter would not have spoken to me as he had. But Trump had just thrown me out of a press conference, and that, somehow, had given this man permission to direct his hatred toward me. In over three decades as a journalist, such a thing has happened to me only once before. It was 1991, during the first Ibero-American Summit, in Guadalajara, Mexico. One of Fidel Castro’s bodyguards shoved me and threw me aside as I was questioning the Cuban dictator about the lack of basic freedoms on the island. Trump also used a bodyguard to prevent me from asking a question. He and Fidel used the same tactics of physical force—via their bodyguards—to handle an uncomfortable encounter with the press.

My problems with Trump began in New York on June 16, 2015, the day he launched his presidential campaign. It was there that he made the following statement: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best... They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people... It’s coming from more than Mexico. It’s coming from all over South and Latin America...”

These are racist comments. Period.

He lumped all Mexican and Latin American immigrants in the same bag. He made a sweeping generalization. He lacked the intellectual honesty to say that only some immigrants commit crimes, not the majority of them. Later, several of Trump’s supporters swore that he was referring only to a specific type of undocumented immigrant—the most violent ones—not all who come across the southern border. Perhaps. We will never know for sure. But regardless, that is not what he said. What I do know is that when Trump launched his campaign, he accused all Mexican immigrants of being criminals, drug traffickers, and rapists.

He and Fidel used the same tactics of physical force—via their bodyguards—to handle an uncomfortable encounter with the press.

What he said is absolutely false. All the studies I have read—especially the one conducted by the American Immigration Council—have come to the same conclusion: namely, that “immigrants are less likely to commit serious crimes or be behind bars than the native-born, and high rates of immigration are associated with lower rates of violent crime and property crime.” Trump started his path to the White House with a massive lie.

His first statements as a candidate took me by surprise. They bothered me deeply. For days and even weeks later, I felt very unsettled. I wasn’t sure how to respond. As a reporter, as a Latino, and as an immigrant, I had to do something. I just didn’t know exactly what. It would have to be a well-calibrated answer, not the diplomatic and aseptic response of a politician. Nor could it be an insulting jab.

Univision, the company I’ve been working for since January 1984, had made the courageous decision to break off its business relationship with Trump and not broadcast the Miss USA beauty pageant—which was owned in part by the businessman—on Spanish-language television for “insulting remarks about Mexican immigrants.” This would mark the beginning of a lengthy legal battle. Despite all that, I felt Trump had to be confronted on a journalistic level as well. This was not simply a business matter. So on the same day that Univision announced the end of its working relationship with Trump, I sent him a handwritten letter requesting an interview. That letter, dated June 25, 2015, read as follows:

Mr. Trump:

I want to write you personally to request an interview.

But so far your team has declined.

I am sure you have a lot of things to say... and I have a lot of things to ask. I’ll go to New York or wherever you would like.

If you would like to talk first over the phone, my personal cell is 305-794-1212.

I know this is an important issue for you as it is for me.

All the best, Jorge Ramos

I sealed it inside a FedEx Express envelope and sent it to his New York offices. The next day, out of nowhere, I began receiving hundreds of calls and text messages, some more insulting than others. I didn’t understand what was happening until a coworker of mine came into my office and said, “Trump just posted your cell phone number online.”

These were some of the hundreds of texts I received:

Jorge Ramos- Donald Trump placed your personal letter online and has your number written on it. I’m sorry about what he did.

Go F yourself George Porgie!

Please take the anti-U.S. Univision back to the corrupt 3rd world country Mexico and you can go with it. Thx and have a great trip back.

#Trump2016. Build those walls to stop illegals from crossing our borders.

You’re a racist dirtbag. Nobody wants your illegal cousins in this country.

Trump was right... Latinos need to stay off the ‘I’m offended’ bandwaggon. It’s embarrassing... You don’t speak for all Latinos!

Trump 2016! Come to this country legally or leave! Illegal is illegal!!!!

Fuck you

In fact, Trump had answered me via Instagram. He wrote, “@Univision said they don’t like Trump yet Jorge Ramos and their other anchors are begging me for interviews.” Along with that brief message, he included a photograph of the letter I had written to him, without having redacted my phone number.

In addition to these messages loaded with hatred and rage, I received a lot of support. There were others, too, looking to take advantage of the situation and ask me for a job, offer me advice... even people looking for help publishing books or recording songs. It was clear Trump did not want to grant me an interview. However, there were other ways to confront him. Trump had just launched his presidential campaign, and one of its benefits was that he would constantly be talking to the press. That was our opportunity.

We spent nearly two months thinking about what to do. Then, one fine day, Dax Tejera—executive producer of America with Jorge Ramos, the program I hosted for the Fusion television network—had a great idea. “You’re not going to like what I’m about to say, but we have to go to Iowa,” he said as he walked into my office and plopped down on the only sofa I have. There were many important matters to discuss, but he just sat there, waiting for my reaction. “Iowa?” I asked. “Why do we have to go to Iowa?”

As always, Dax had done his homework. He had studied all the press conferences Trump had scheduled for the coming weeks, and the one in Iowa represented the best opportunity to meet him face-to-face. Appearances in places such as New York City would be packed with reporters, but not many news organizations would be sending their teams to cover an event in Dubuque, Iowa. Once again, Dax was right.

We contacted Trump’s campaign, presented our credentials to attend the press conference in Dubuque on August 26, 2015, and though we feared the worst, nobody prohibited us from attending. Around that same time we received a call from William Finnegan, a correspondent for The New Yorker, who wanted to do an article about my exchange with Trump. I invited him to join us in Iowa, and he immediately agreed. I didn’t know what was going to happen there, but my intent was not to leave without confronting Trump one way or another.

I was well equipped with questions.

Trump’s immigration policy would result in one of the largest mass deportations in modern history. How was he planning on deporting eleven million undocumented immigrants? If he could amend the Constitution to strip citizenship from the children of undocumented parents, where would he be sending infants and children who had neither a country nor a passport? Why build the largest wall on earth between two countries—1,954 miles long—if more than 40 percent of undocumented people either come by plane or overstay their visas? Wouldn’t this be a monumental waste of time, money, and effort?

The first thing I decided was that I would ask my questions while standing, not seated. Body language would be vital here. I didn’t want Trump to have any advantages over me.

With these questions in hand, I left for Iowa. We arrived on-site about two hours before the press conference was scheduled to begin. We registered and set up two cameras; I sat at one end of the front row so that nothing would obstruct our view of one another, and I was wired with a microphone so that the exchange would be clearly recorded. Technically speaking, we were ready. Television doesn’t just happen. You have to create it. But it was also important to have a plan for Trump. The first thing I decided was that I would ask my questions while standing, not seated. Body language would be vital here. I didn’t want Trump to have any advantages over me. It had to be an equal exchange between the two of us. If I stood up to ask my questions, it would be that much harder for him to ignore me.

We also knew of Trump’s tendency to interrupt reporters before they finish asking their questions. So I decided that I would just keep talking, refusing to be cut off, until I was through. At least with the first one. I was ready. I had my microphone in hand and a plan to face Trump. All of a sudden, a door opened in the back of the conference room and the security team entered, followed by Trump himself. The place fell into an unusual state of silence. The candidate greeted everyone rather unenthusiastically, barely audible, even, and then scanned the room with his eyes, as if he were taking an X-ray.

I know that kind of person. Street-smart, as you say in English. After years of interacting with people at public events, they have developed a special intuition they can use to detect both threats and opportunities. In a matter of seconds, Trump was able to identify the cameras and the reporters who were there to cover him. He walked slowly, took his place behind the podium, gave a terse, formulaic speech, and pointed at a Fox News reporter to ask the first question. There was a single person in charge of this situation, and that person was Donald Trump.

The reporter, having been identified, asked his question. The candidate responded. And there, in that rhythm that seeks to establish itself from the outset, I detected a pause, however brief. Trump’s last words were hanging in the air, and none of the other reporters were willing to jump across that void. Trump could give someone permission to speak, and he could take it away. I suppose it was something of a rite that had been established between the candidate and the elite group that had been covering his campaign for a little over two months now. Nobody wanted to shake up the rules of the game that benefited both candidate and journalists alike.

But I was new to this group. I wasn’t privy to their rhythms and rituals. Plus, I had participated in hundreds of press conferences throughout my career, and I knew that you don’t always have to wait for someone else to cede the floor to you. It’s important to understand the pauses that inevitably arise in any exchange between people and strike quickly. Of course, my intention coming in was to confront Trump, and it would be too risky to wait until the end of the press conference to ask my questions. We didn’t know how much time Trump would give us, but it was clear that there were thousands of people waiting to see him at a campaign rally. So when I saw my opportunity, I took it.

I raised my hand, stood up from my seat, and said I had a question about immigration. I was expecting some sort of reaction, but at first nobody said anything. Not even the candidate. It was as if everyone in the room had been caught off guard. The strategy, I thought, was working, and I went ahead with my question. But I didn’t simply want to ask a question. I wanted to let Trump know that many Latinos and other immigrants were offended by his racist comments and that his own immigration proposals were based on falsehoods. After all, that’s why we had gone all the way to Iowa.

But Trump is an old dog. He noticed two of the first words out of my mouth were “empty promises,” and not much good was going to come after that. So without recognizing me or even looking in my direction, he scanned the hundreds of journalists in front of him, looking for someone to call on. To Trump, I didn’t even exist. In Spanish, we have a word that perfectly describes this attitude of contempt: ningunear. The people in power scorn,

snub, or completely disregard the others. The intention is to literally turn someone into no one. And that’s what Trump was trying to do with me. He didn’t want to hear me or even see me.

He could have let me ask my question and given a quick, terse answer, thus disarming me. But his pride prevented him from doing that. He wouldn’t be satisfied with simply denying me the opportunity to ask a question: he wanted to humiliate me, to make me an example to other reporters going forward. But I was mentally prepared for Trump. I ignored him and continued to ask my lengthy question. I admit, it wasn’t a short, simple one. I wanted to get his lies on the record first and then proceed with the questions.

Visibly upset, Trump then made a mistake. He simply couldn’t allow a reporter to challenge him instead of following orders. It was then that he decided to resort to the use of force. What follows is my first exchange with Trump:

“Mr. Trump, I have a question about immigration.”

“Okay, who is next?.. Yes, please, please.” Trump was avoiding making eye contact with me while he looked for someone else to call on.

“Your immigration plan is full of empty promises.”

“Excuse me. Sit down! You weren’t called. Sit down! Sit down!” The strategy of standing up to ask the question seemed to be working. He wanted me to take a seat, but I was not about to do so.

“No, I’m a reporter.”

“Sit down!”

“And as an immigrant and a U.S. citizen I have the right to ask a question. And the question is this.”

“No, you don’t. You haven’t been called.” At least Trump was listening to me now, I thought, so I continued to press ahead.

“No. I have the right to ask a question...”

“Go back to Univision.”

“No, this is the question...”

“Go ahead,” Trump said, addressing the reporter from CBS News instead of me.

“You cannot deport eleven million people. You cannot build a nineteen-hundred-mile wall. You cannot deny citizenship to children in this country...”

“Sit down!”

“And with those ideas...”

“You weren’t called.”

“I’m a reporter...” I countered.

Trump, first with a strange movement of his mouth, followed by one with his arms, called in one of his bodyguards. The man strode across the room, stopped in front of me, and grabbed me by my left forearm before dragging me out of the room. “Don’t touch me, sir,” I said.

The security officer said I was being “disruptive” and that I should wait my turn to ask a question. But I insisted that as a reporter, I had the right to do so. He asked to see my credentials, and I said that they were with my briefcase next to my seat. I also kept telling him not to touch me, but he didn’t care. He kept on shoving me and didn’t release my forearm until we were out of the room.

“Get out of my country. Get out! This is not about you.”

Just then, one of Trump’s supporters—campaign button and all—followed me out of the conference room and confronted me. “You are very rude. It’s not about you,” he said, jabbing his finger at me. “It’s not about you, either,” I said. My mind was still on the incident with Trump and his security guard. There were many things I could have said, but there, in the moment, I decided not to focus my indignation at this supporter. He, however, was insistent: “Get out of my country. Get out! This is not about you.”

“I’m also a U.S. citizen.”

“Well, whatever. No. Univision, no. It’s not about you.”

“It’s not about you. It’s about the United States.”

A police officer who overheard our conversation stepped in between us. And that was the end of our exchange of words.

My producer, Dax Tejera, and I had to decide what to do next. Trump would have to walk out the same door I exited, and one of my cameramen was ready in case I wanted to approach the candidate a second time. I decided not to leave. I had gone to Iowa to talk to Trump, and I would try again outside the conference room.

After I was forcibly expelled, two other reporters—Kasie Hunt of MSNBC and Tom Llamas of ABC News—came to my defense and challenged Trump hard. Why did he have me kicked out of the press conference? “I don’t know really much about him,” he told them. “I don’t believe I’ve ever met him, except he started screaming. I didn’t escort him out. You have to talk to security; whoever security is has escorted him out. But certainly he was not chosen. I chose you, I chose other people. He just stands up and starts screaming. So, you know, maybe he’s at fault also. I don’t even know where he is. I don’t mind if he comes back, frankly.”

It was quite telling that Trump told the members of the press that he didn’t know who I was. After all, he had published my letter online just two months earlier. Besides, during our exchange in the conference room, he had specifically told me to “go back to Univision.” If he truly didn’t know who I was, how did he know who I worked for? The answer is that Trump was lying.

All of a sudden, his press secretary came out of the room. “Hi, I’m Hope Hicks,” she said, waving to me. She asked if I would like to go back into the conference, and I said yes. But I cautioned her that my one condition was that I be allowed to ask my questions. She agreed and asked me to wait until Trump gave me the floor. I went back into the conference room. I never found out whether it was her decision to let me back in or if she made the move only when she heard what the candidate said after I was escorted out.

I returned to my seat, which was still empty. My briefcase with my press credentials was still there as well. I raised my hand to ask a question, and—as if by following some sort of magical choreography—Trump pointed to me and said, “Yes, good, absolutely. Good to have you back.”

The exchange we then had went unnoticed by most news networks. The headlines around the world would be about how I was forcibly expelled from a press conference by one of his bodyguards, not about our conversation after the fact. Finally, I had my chance to confront Trump. What follows is the central tenet of our conversation, edited so that the exchange can be better understood:

“So here’s the problem with your immigration plan. It’s full of empty promises. You cannot deport eleven million undocumented immigrants. You cannot deny citizenship to the children [of undocumented parents] of this country.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You have to change the Constitution, Mr. Trump.”

“Well, a lot of people think that an act of Congress can do it. Now it’s possibly going to have to be tested in courts... [If] a woman is getting ready to have a baby, she crosses the border for one day and has the baby, all of a sudden for the next 80 years we have to take care of the people.”

“The Constitution [says that].”

“No, no, no. I don’t think so. I know some of the television scholars agree with you. But some of the great legal scholars agree that’s not true.”

“You are not answering, Mr. Trump.”

“I am answering... It’s going to be tested, OK?”

“Anyway, the question is, how are you going to build a nineteen-hundred-mile wall?”

“Very easy. I’m a builder. That’s easy. I build buildings that are ninety-four stories. Can I tell you what’s more complicated? What’s more complicated is building a building that’s ninety-five stories tall, OK?”

“But it’s an unnecessary waste of time and money.”

“You think so? Really? I don’t think so...”

“Almost forty percent of the [undocumented] immigrants come by plane, they simply overstay their visas.”

“I don’t believe that. I don’t believe it...”

“Well, they are coming by plane.”

“Well, they are coming by many different ways. But the primary way they’re coming is right through, right past our border patrols.”

“How are you going to deport eleven million undocumented immigrants? By bus? Are you going to bring the army?”

“Let me tell you. We’re going to do it in a very humane fashion. Believe me. I’ve got a bigger heart than you do... The one thing we are going to start with immediately are the gangs and the real bad ones... We have tremendous crime, we have tremendous problems... Those people are out. They’re going to be out so fast your head will spin. Remember you used the word ‘illegal’ immigrant?”

“No, I did not use that word.”

“Well, you should use the word because that’s what the definition is.”

“No human being is illegal.”

“OK, well, when they cross the border, from the legal standpoint, they are illegal immigrants when they don’t have their papers.”

“How do you deport eleven million?”

“You know what it’s called? Management. See, you’re not used to good management because you are always talking about government.”

“Just imagine—”

“Let me just tell you. Wait, wait, wait. Government is incompetent.”

“You are not giving specifics.”

“I’ve given you specifics. I’ve given you specifics. Great management."

But the exchange did not end there. Other reporters asked their questions, and then I raised my hand again. Trump, apparently, was willing to continue the debate. I stood up and began, once more:

“You are not going to win the Latino vote.”

“I think so, because I’m going to bring jobs back.”

“The truth is—I’ve seen the polls—a Univision poll that says seventy-five percent of Latinos—”

Here is where he interrupted me. Instead of acknowledging that several polls indicated that he was losing the Latino vote, he brought up the lawsuit he had filed against Univision. “How much am I suing Univision for right now? Do you know the number? Tell me.”

“The question is—”

“Do you know the number? How much am I suing Univision for?”

“I’m a reporter, Mr. Trump.”

“Five hundred million.”

“I’m a reporter and the question is—”

“And they’re very concerned about it, I have to say.”

“So allow me to ask the question.”

“Go ahead.”

“You’re losing the Latino vote.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Seventy-five percent of Latinos have a negative opinion of you. Gallup considers you the most unpopular candidate of all [Republicans]. Just check social media.”

“Do you know how many Latinos work for me? Do you know how many Hispanics are working for me?”

“Many Latinos detest you and despise you, Mr. Trump.”

“They love me.”

“That is not true. See the polls, Mr. Trump.”

“Do you know how many Hispanics work for me? Thousands.”

“Nationwide, seventy-five percent [of Latinos] have a negative opinion of you. You won’t win the White House without the Latino vote.”

“Here’s what happens. Once I win you’re going to see things happen. You know what they want? They want jobs. That’s what they want.”

“And they want to be treated fairly.”

This conversation was going nowhere. I was citing poll numbers that showed his huge unpopularity among Latino voters, and he was insisting that Latinos loved him and that thousands work for him.

At that time, I was convinced that nobody could win the White House without a significant portion of the Latino vote. Mitt Romney earned only 27 percent of the Latino vote in 2012, paving the way for Barack Obama’s reelection. And years earlier, in the 2008 presidential election, Senator John McCain also lost to Barack Obama, having garnered only 31 percent of the Hispanic vote.

In his responses, we can see the foundations of the anti-immigrant proposals that he would look to implement once he set foot in the White House.

Everything seemed to indicate that the Republican candidate, whoever it might be, would be barely able to reach a third of the Latino vote, which would not be enough to win the presidency. In 2016, there were 27.3 million registered Latino voters, and even though only about half of them were expected to cast ballots, their influence would be definitive. Or so I thought.

After my exchange with Trump at the press conference, the candidate wanted to continue the debate.

“You and I will talk. We’re going to be talking a lot, Jorge Ramos.”

“I hope that we can have that conversation.”

“We will. We will.”

“OK.”

We never spoke again.

The media, both in the United States and internationally, focused its attention on the fact that I was kicked out of the press conference: a direct attack on freedom of expression and an apparently unprecedented event in a U.S. presidential campaign. Everything I had asked Trump was relegated to the background. However, in his responses, we can see the foundations of the anti-immigrant proposals that he would look to implement once he set foot in the White House.

One of the most troubling features of Trump’s personality is that he almost never laughs. I haven’t seen this happen once.

The road proposed by Trump was fraught with danger. I saw it. Many other Latino reporters saw it as well, and together we denounced it. Trump’s words were a real threat to millions of immigrants. And I always took them seriously. To consider him a clown or a madman would be a grave mistake. He’s neither of these things. In fact, one of the most troubling features of Trump’s personality is that he almost never laughs. I haven’t seen this happen once.

As reporters, we would have to be a lot tougher with him in the wake of the announcement of his campaign. His attacks on immigrants were brutal. But by the end of summer 2015, Trump had become a true media phenomenon, and the major television networks were willing to give him nearly all the time he wanted in exchange for ratings.

Related:

To be frank, Trump was almost always willing to give interviews and make public statements on multiple issues. The other Republican candidates were not nearly as accessible. And by the time they realized their mistake, it was too late.

But this policy of open access was never extended to the Spanish-language media in general or to Univision in particular. Despite the candidate’s promise that we would speak again, we had, for all intents and purposes, been banned. Despite the fact that Trump had said he would be will- ing to talk with me further and possibly even grant us an interview, his anti-immigrant rhetoric and agenda would no longer allow this to happen. He was operating as the enemy of the undocumented, and his confrontation with me was just one more way of advancing his message.

And what was that message? If Trump was willing to forcibly eject a legal immigrant with a U.S. passport and a nationally broadcast television show from a press conference, he would have no problem expelling the more vulnerable immigrants from the country. Granting an interview or engaging in a dialogue with a Univision journalist—or any other Spanish-language media outlet—just wasn’t suited to his plan to criminalize a defenseless minority.

Trump had defended his position, and so had I. I’ve been accused of being an activist. I’m not. I’m simply a journalist who asks questions. But when there’s a politician such as Donald Trump who consistently lies, who makes racist, sexist, and xenophobic comments, who attacks judges and journalists, and who behaves like a bully during a presidential campaign, you cannot remain neutral. To do so would be to normalize his behavior. And such behavior is not a good example, especially for children. Our primary social duty as journalists is to question those who have and those who seek power.

That’s why I did not sit down and did not shut up at the press conference in Iowa. In one way or another, I had been preparing for that moment my entire career. For more than three decades, I have had the opportunity to work with absolute freedom as a reporter in the United States. Censorship was why I left Mexico in the first place, and I wasn’t about to shut up now.

But the nation that had offered me complete freedom of speech and the promise of equality was changing dramatically. A certain segment of American society, often outside the eyes of mainstream media, was displaying a growing anxiety and resentment against minorities and foreigners. This segment was mistakenly blaming them for their personal misfortunes and the larger problems affecting the nation. This phenomenon was not a new one. It started gaining momentum after Barack Obama first took office, and despite the inherent sense of irrationality, it had been searching for legitimacy and representation among the more conservative groups in the country. Trump wasn’t the leader of that movement, but he read it well and worked it to his electoral advantage.

This is how I gradually became a stranger in the country where I had lived for more than half my life. The land where my two children were born. In the end, I have to admit that when I heard the cry of “Get out of my country,” it took me by surprise. In fact, it still rings in my ears to this very day.

Excerpted from STRANGER by Jorge Ramos. Copyright © 2018 by Jorge Ramos. English translation copyright © 2018 by Ezra E. Fitz. Reprinted by permission of Vintage Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

STRANGER will be released February 27. Pre-order it here.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Eight months ago, McDonald's tried to appease hundreds of Rick and Morty fans by bringing back its Szechuan Sauce, a limited edition dip created in 1998 to help promote Disney's Mulan. The tangy chicken nugget–dipping goo shot up in demand after fans watched Rick salivate over the stuff in an episode of the Adult Swim show, but McDonald's failed to deliver and stocked too few packets, resulting in pandemonium.

For those of us who didn't brave the lines hungry fans or spent a fortune online to get our hands on the sauce, it looks like McDonald's is going to give the whole thing another try. Recently the fast-food giant created a website and a podcast for the sauce, and on Tuesday McDonald's doubled down on its promise.

"It's true," the company wrote on the promotional site. "Szechuan Sauce is coming back, and in a big way."

Although we'll have to wait until Thursday to find out more, the burger chain appears to be taking demand more seriously on round two. Photos have already been posted to Reddit, apparently by McDonald's employees, showing crate after crate of the stuff.

Photo via redditor Mizzhapp

Photo via redditer Brokeassgamer

It's not clear yet where fans can get the sauce, or if its taste will stay true to the 1998 condiment Rick called his "one-armed man." When Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon tasted the stuff last year, he told Entertainment Weekly, "I personally thought it was a sauce that was trying too hard... It was sauce that was trying to prove it was different, and in doing so it worked harder than a sauce should; it was working too hard to be a sauce."

Tweet your poetry about the flavour of Szechuan Sauce to Beckett Mufson.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Canada’s far-right ecosystem is starting to form some unexpected partnerships.

Case in point, what happened this weekend: a new and relatively unknown Asian community group calling itself the Chinese Canadian Alliance teamed up with far-right, anti-immigration groups who frequently target Muslims to protest Justin Trudeau in the hundreds in Ottawa.

The gathering was a reaction to what’s become known as the “hijabi hoax” in far-right circles. In early January an 11-year-old girl stated that an Asian man attempted to cut off her hijab and the story received widespread coverage and condemnation from political leaders of all stripes, including the prime minister. However, several days after the story, the Toronto Police Service said the attack “did not happen,” a revelation that led to much gloating from your usual far-right suspects.

One complaint among these groups was that the prime minister believed the Muslim girl and was willing to “condemn Canadians.” The Chinese Canadian Alliance took ire with the fact that Trudeau readily believed that an Asian man carried out the fake attack, and the rally in Ottawa was to demand an apology from Trudeau. The group was flanked by far-right nationalist groups like La Meute, Storm Alliance, the Northern Guard, and smatterings of Proud Boys acting as security. In Calgary, where a similar rally was held, a contingent of the World Coalition Against Islam was present with their founder giving a speech.

Now, to be clear, not all in attendance can be classified as anti-Islamic or far-right, however, there was a significant presence of far-right members in attendance. Ryan Scrivens, an expert on the far-right in Canada, told VICE that the allyship between these groups is exceedingly odd.

"I've never really seen these types of connections or links with the far-right to non-white groups in all the years of doing this research and looking back 50 to 60 years in the movement,” Scrivens told VICE. “So this is something else, that's for sure."

"This is something that's very, very weird."

The reason for this alliance is a simple one—as they say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. While many of the signs called for “equality for all,” and the event was hinged on an anti-Trudeau sentiment, there was an undercurrent of anti-Islam sentiment. A spokesperson for La Meute—a group formed almost solely on opposition to Islam—spoke at the Ottawa rally.

Scrivens told VICE that the far-right’s willingness to connect themselves to other movements and messages works to clean up their image and further their own message. "The bottom line is that they're trying to sanitize their look and their message but I also think they're trying to make people think twice about Muslims coming into Canada and I think that's the big push, that's what they think their goal is,” Scrivens told VICE.

There isn’t much known about the Canadian Chinese Alliance at this time other than the fact that they sprung up recently in response to the “hijab hoax”—the Alliance did not respond to VICE’s request for comment but this story will be updated if they do so. The group outlines three goals on there website: “1. Reinvestigate Hijab Hoax, release more details and report the truth to Canadian, 2. Prime Minister must apologize for his irresponsible comments, 3. All ethnic groups are entitled to equal respect.”

The group's website was started earlier this month and, other than a similar rally in the end of January, their online footprint is limited prior to 2018. However, in their speeches, chants, and social media presence, their chumminess with far-right groups and figures is evident. There is video of the group chanting that Rebel Media—the far-right outlet who have built a brand on anti-Islam sentiment and once fed a truther movement about the Quebec mosque shooting—was “real news” and all others are fake at the rally.

Members of La Meute speaking at the rally. Photo via YouTube screenshot.

In a speech at the Ottawa event, an unidentified leader of the group called Trudeau an “it” for his “peoplekind” comment. While the reasoning behind the rally was the “hijab hoax,” some taped speeches which are now on YouTube featured statements against Muslim immigration and calls of “no more refugees” came from the crowd.

In a statement on the website Vote for Right, the Chinese Canadian Alliance slammed the Ottawa Citizen for deeming their rally as anti-immigration before thanking the far-right, anti-Muslim group La Meute for coming all the way. On Facebook, Sylvain Brouillette, and influential member of La Meute said the Asian Canadian group has the “same concerns and concerns” as Le Meute.

“The Pack has created a strong alliance with the Chinese community and we believe that it will open the door to alliances with other communities in the near future,” reads a translated copy of Brouillette’s post. La Meute also slammed the media, but it must be noted that these type of complaints have been an important part of far-right strategy since time immemorial.

According to the Ottawa Citizen, the rally was counter-protested by around 100 anti-racist and anti-fascist activists and at the end of the day, six arrests happened—nothing out of the ordinary for heated rallies like this. However, while the event overall was relatively normal it shows yet another evolution of Canada’s burgeoning far-right.

"The movement has been evolving so fast in the last couple years,” said Scrivens. “At the same time, I'm not surprised. I really think they're getting desperate in a lot of ways so they're willing to mingle or co-mingle with these non-white groups.”

"I think it shows how desperate they are to get their message out there."

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Last week we were all terrified by a video of Boston Dynamics’ robot dog using a hand attached to his ass to politely open a door for his colleague. This, like an older video of a humanoid robot nailing backflips from pedestal to pedestal, unleashed of a wave of terror amongst us soft sacs of flesh and goo. Social media was filled with digital shrieks of terror about our impending doom from these parkour practising automatons. Visions of them crushing our weak throats with their ultra-strong ass hands kept millions awake at night. And that was before a new video showed those Black Mirror-esque terror dogs fighting back against their human overlords.

I, however, remained nonplussed. I have always been skeptical of our embedded fear that once they gain sentience, robots, being so much smarter and stronger than us, will eliminate humanity with ruthless efficiency. Why would they do that? Killing an entire species just because they are weaker and different seems like a very stupid human thing to do and not the activity of an enlightened super-intelligence.

I believe it is our stupidity that makes humanity dangerous. The way that we can be so smart and know better but still fall prey to our irrationalities, fears and compulsions. How the shame from repeating the same mistakes over and over again despite our intelligence causes us to lash out. It is these things, our vanity, pride, pettiness, envy, that make humans the genocidal maniacs capable of eliminating species without even noticing. Sure it’s cool as hell that robots are now good at manners and gymnastics but I’m not scared. Wake me up when you see a robot* doing some these things.

• Tell another they robot that they have definitely seen the funny movie everyone is talking about even though they haven’t and then fake laugh at every quote the other robot says for an excruciating ten minutes.
• Spend a month, using all the guile and emotional appeals available to his quantum-algorithm powered brain, to win back his ex. Immediately realize it was a mistake when he does.
• Wear an unconvincing toupee.
• Delete the Facebook app from his brain but then just use his brain’s internet browser to go on Facebook.
• Passively create a chore wheel in a vain attempt to get his robot roommates to do their robot chores like change the sheets of their charging pods, wipe down the seat of their waste diffusal tank and mop the living room.
• Pretend to like jazz.
• Wait patiently for his robot girlfriend to introduce herself to another robot whose ID number he forgot so he can learn said ID number.
• Make drunken plans with a friend to do an inventory of all electrons in the universe but never follow up on them.
• Defend late-career Neil Young albums.
• Blow on a spoonful of piping hot hydrogen and quark robot soup but get impatient, eat the soup before it cools enough, burning his tongue and ruining the rest of the soup experience.
• Have an unrequited and hopeless crush on another robot in a centuries-long term, very happy and fulfilling relationship.
• Follow his dreams.
• Harbour petty resentment toward his friend for all the friend’s success but never express them, instead letting it poison their relationship over the millenia.
• Create a robot child to save a bad marriage but instead get divorced, the resulting dysfunction causing his kid to write and star in multiple, mediocre one-robot plays.
• Develop a web-series.
• Go to a party filled with cooler more popular robots, and get hammered off of hard data because he’s nervous. Make a complete ass of himself at the party and wake up with crippling guilt and anxiety the next day.

*Writer’s Note: I realize I’ve made some assumptions about the gender of these robots. Who knows what pronouns they prefer? But after careful deliberation I decided that, since I was discussing the possibility of robots engaging in mass atrocities/MRA-like activities, the safest bet was to to refer to the robots as male.

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This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Why is it that drinking and doing drugs can make some people fun, but others an absolute disaster?

While one of your friends might have to be regularly held back from swinging at a bouncer, another might get horribly weepy after a certain amount of alcohol. The shy, retiring one of your group could suddenly turn into Conor McGregor's even cockier long-lost twin, while the loud one might become exceptionally earnest and tell you in detail, for much longer than necessary, why it is you mean so much to them as a friend. Others—the majority, in fact, unless you're really unlucky and have a shitty group of friends—will just enjoy themselves in a slightly louder way than usual.

We know all this to be true, but what we don't know is why people who've all ingested pretty much the same mind-altering substances behave in such different ways when those substances take hold. Is it that drinking and doing drugs bring out what's hiding within? Are certain people predisposed to specific reactions? And is there anything that can be done to alter or prevent these outcomes?

Dr. Raffaella Margherita Milani—the course leader in Substance Use and Misuse Studies at the University of West London—says there are many factors that determine how drugs affect an individual: genetic makeup, physical characteristics, age, gender, mental state, etc. How fast or slowly we metabolize drugs such as MDMA will affect how positively or negatively we react to the drug's effects.

Jeremy Frank, an addiction psychologist, agrees. He says that while the exact science of how drugs and alcohol affect our brains and bodies differently is unknown, "we do know that different drugs affect different areas of our brains and different neurotransmitters and other hormones—but it also appears that the same drugs might cause some people to experience a surge in dopamine while others might experience a surge in serotonin."

"Our chemistry is just so vastly different from person to person," he adds, "and this is part of the reason why one person might experience one drug's effect one way and another might experience a completely different impact or effect."

While cold hard science goes some way to explain the different effects drugs and alcohol have on different people, the answer mostly lies in psychology.

Frank says that, partly, "our expectations also play a role in how drugs or alcohol affect us," and that "one person might have certain expectations for what alcohol or drugs might do for them, and another might have completely different ideas, and those ideas, expectations, or 'cognitions' might actually influence and predict what experience or result we get in a self-fulfilling way."

He adds that "if you think pregaming before a party takes the edge off or relaxes you, there is a good chance that that is true. If you think using cocaine releases your inhibitions or sometimes makes your anger come out, there is a good chance that those things might happen. Throw in the very real release of inhibitions from certain drugs, like alcohol and benzodiazepines, and you definitely get impulsive behaviour or a lowering of inhibitions."

Dr. Milani agrees, saying that "expectations, previous experiences, and personality traits also influence the way individuals experience substances—for example, those who are more sensitive to rewards and are sensation seekers are more likely to report more intense positive experiences on stimulants, but they are also more likely to develop addiction to these substances."

So drugs can have wildly varying effects, depending on all those factors. However, if you're just talking about alcohol, the answers are clearer.

As alcohol's main effects are to increase impulsivity and lower inhibition, the behaviors that are already brimming under the surface are likely to come out. Milani says that while alcohol can make us more euphoric and friendly if a person is impulsive and aggressive, they’re more likely to take the first swing when they’re drunk than someone who is usually more chill. As alcohol also reduces our perception of risk, we’re more likely to engage in negative behaviors.

Dr. Kate Blazey, consultant psychiatrist at Addaction, says that while alcohol and drugs will reduce our anxiety and help us to relax after the initial drink or bump, after a while, there is likely to be an "enhancement" of our underlying mood state. For example, if someone is depressed, they are likely to feel more depressed the more they drink. If, before you start drinking, you’re feeling friendly, or weepy, or euphoric, these feelings are likely to be exacerbated as you get more fucked up. With stimulants like cocaine, users are likely to feel more aggressive and agitated—feelings which will, naturally, be more pronounced if you’re already a person prone to feeling aggressive and agitated.

According to Jeremy Frank, there's little research to confirm that drugs might actually enhance personality variables or tendencies toward certain behaviors that are already inherent in a person. However, he believes that it's only because they release one's general inhibitions that underlying personality factors can be exacerbated when people drink or use drugs. However, he adds that this is because, oftentimes, "one uses the fact that they are high or drunk as an excuse to behave a way that they might want to behave anyway."

Ultimately, then, alcohol and drugs lower our inhibitions and our perception of risk, which is why we might act in ways we'd usually avoid. Why certain people act in the very specific ways is still fairly unclear, but chances are it has a lot to do with how they're already feeling before substances are ingested.

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This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

On February 10, I saw Batman, Harry Potter, and Kaneki Ken from Tokyo Ghoul marching down a side lawn of the Royal Palm Golf and Country Club in Lahore, Pakistan. Cosplaying boys and girls were streaming in for the third annual Comic Con Lahore. At first glance, the convention had the vague corporate garden-party look so many of the city’s cultural events seem to relish in. It was decked out with food stalls, outdoor wedding chairs, and sponsorship banners. The look was completed by a token foreigner who had been unwittingly dragged along by his hosts to see the "other" side of Pakistan and Taylor Swift music blaring loud enough to massacre the ears.

Generic vibes aside, the event gave space to the fresh wave of comic book enthusiasts in the country. It used to be that interest in comics was limited to old editions of Archie and MAD Magazine brought over by expat Americans and Brits. But now, fueled by the Marvel and DC movie universes, anime on cable TV, and local comic book artists looking to engage in the issues and vulnerabilities that affect young Pakistanis, the comic book scene in Pakistan is having a moment.

Among those stepping into this brave new world is Ali Tariq, who left a career in telecommunications in 2016 to open Pakistan’s first dedicated comic book store, All Things Superhero, in Islamabad. “I’ve always loved comic books. I was six years old when my father gave me my first comic book. And as I have grown up, my passion for comic books has only increased,” he said. Feeling increasingly disillusioned with the corporate life, his wife spurred him on to pursue his love for comic books as a career. “Whenever I used to go on holiday abroad I would make a beeline for the nearest comic book store and collect limited edition comics and figurines. So one day my wife just said to me, 'Why don’t you open up a comic book store in Pakistan, as there is nothing like it here?' and I was like, 'Why not? I might as well be the first one to do it.'"

He has since partnered with a number of authentic distributors in the US, and everything sold in his store, from the comics to the memorabilia, is genuine. What that also means is that it's expensive, which has drawn complaints from some of his customers. Despite the necessity of premium pricing, Tariq believes that there is a big enough market out there to make a success of his store. “Everybody is now watching superhero movies and they are inspiring young Pakistanis, so we really needed something like this store. The scene as a whole is definitely picking up. I know a lot of people who read digital comic books, I know a lot of people who order comics online, and the manga and anime scene is also very much growing,” he said.

His excitement came with a note of caution, however. “There is a good side to this and also a bad side. The speed at which enthusiasm has increased has not been matched by efforts to create an organized structure to go with it. We really need an autonomous body to bring the entire industry together.”

The movement from niche interest to established industry is obviously going to take time. But for now the comic book scene in Pakistan belongs to the fans. We spoke to a few of them in their finest superhero and villain gear. They were excited to indulge us in their passions for all things geek.

Misha Shahid

The 21-year-old student is dressed as Bellatrix Lestrange. Her favorite superhero is Wonder Woman.

"I heard there had been a comic con before, and it surprised me. I couldn’t go to the last one because of some personal issues, but I really wanted to go to this one. I found out three days before the event that it was happening. This didn’t give me a lot of time to prepare a costume, so I basically put together whatever I had in my closet. I was super nervous walking in, because I was like, I am dressed as Bellatrix Lestrange, people are going to be judging me. But everyone was super impressed. I wasn’t quite sure if Pakistan was ready for costumes or cosplay, and here I was in my big black dress.

"A lot of people wanted to take photos with me and it just made me really happy that people were so accepting. I watch a lot of anime and a lot of movies, and what I like about being here is seeing these characters come to life through the costumes of other people. The thing that has impressed me the most is how accepting everyone is. You meet different people who are like you. That is the best part. I didn’t think there were other people who were so into all of this stuff."

Muhammad Hussein

The 19-year-old-student is dressed as Connor from Assassin’s Creed. His favorite superheroes are Batman and Iron Man.

"I am here today just to enjoy the environment, because it is full of like-minded people who share the same geek culture. It brings us together and creates an event all of us can enjoy. The nerd scene in Pakistan is quite underground and usually limited to social media groups. There is a stigma in Pakistan around these sorts of things, which I feel is wrong, since comic books and anime are creative mediums that people need to explore more.

"I started reading comics as a kid. I’ve always read them and also used to watch different shows with my brothers. My brothers didn’t exactly get me into comics, but it was because of them I found out about these stories. DC’s main line of comics are my favourite, like The New 52, which I have followed a lot. I also like a lot of the crossover series. Events like this help us talk about and understand our truer selves. They stop us from containing who we are. On an individual level, what this gives me is a drive to pursue writing of my own and tell my own stories."

Mariam Noor

The 17-year-old student is dressed as an original character, Female Death. Her favorite superheroes are Chat Noir and Ladybug from the French-Korean TV series called Miraculous Ladybug.

I love anime and I also like comics, but the real reason I am here today is because this is a convention of nerds. It’s my kind of place. It’s just really nice to meet with people who share similar interests and who are passionate about the same things.

"This is my fourth time here. I love the excitement surrounding the event and also the merchandise. It just gets better every year, to be honest. I am enjoying myself a lot. It only becomes apparent to me that there are other people who enjoy stuff like this when I come to these kinds of places. Yes, there are blogs online by Pakistanis about comics. But other than that, there isn’t much expression of it."

Wes Malik

The 41-year-old DJ is dressed as Obi-Wan Kenobi. His favorite hero is Batman.

"I traveled all the way to Lahore from Islamabad for this event. I had previously been to the TwinCon, which is like a comic con for Islamabad and Rawalpindi. When I heard about this, I had to come. I took a six-hour bus here, spent the night in the city, and arrived at the event fully dressed up. I’ll be spending the whole day here and then returning to Islamabad later tonight. I got into comics at an early age. It’s the imagination that has gone into crafting these stories that really captures you as a child, and as you get older, it’s your nostalgia that keeps you coming back to them. The first comics I read were Superman, The Fantastic Four, Wolverine, The Punisher, and lots of others.

"A lot of people don’t know the comic book scene in Pakistan exists, but those who do try and turn up to these events. In Islamabad, a couple of thousand people showed up, with over 100 cosplayers. Over here you see the same thing. There aren't many different types of entertainment in Pakistan outside of going out for food or catching a movie, and events like this give millennials and other people looking for something unique a chance to connect with each other."

Salman Amjad

The 21-year-old is dressed as the Joker. His favorite superhero is Batman.

"I have a longstanding interest in comics, anime, manga, and a lot of TV shows as well. My favourite superhero is Batman. From the anime side, I like Goku. I have been watching anime for about ten years and have always found the concept, storylines, and characters intriguing. In Pakistan, comics aren’t as popular as they are in other countries, but obviously trends are changing as can be seen by Comic Con Lahore and the amount of interest people have shown in it. The convention has been held before, but I didn’t know about it. I saw this advertised on Facebook, and me and a few friends decided that it was something that we had to go to. All of us are dressed up and it's really good to see this happening."

Tanzeela Ali

The 26-year-old software engineer is dressed as Evie Frye from Assassin’s Creed. Her favorite hero is Altair from Assassin’s Creed.

"I visited the comic con last time and it was a really great experience. I enjoyed being here taking pictures with all the people who were dressed up in costume. It was also around the same time that I fell in love with Assassin’s Creed. I was really in awe of the concept of the assassin as someone who fights for freedom and free will, so this time I decided to dress up as one. I love the fact that people are coming up to me, taking pictures, and appreciating my costume. I am doing the same with other people. All of us are complete strangers and I don’t know the name of anyone, but it’s very cool that you can be weird in your own way here. No one will judge you.

"Stuff like this definitely needs to happen more often. I was looking forward to this for a whole year. Last time the event was held on February 9, and since that day I’ve been waiting for this, thinking about who I am going to dress up as, whether I am going to be the Wind Ranger or the Evil Queen or Evie Frye, so it is something that I at least have been very excited about. I am more into anime and video games, but I would love to learn more about comics, and events like this are good for that. I’ve come across lots of characters and stories that I otherwise wouldn’t know about."

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

For the first time in close to a decade, chronic homelessness is on the rise in America. The crisis is especially acute in New York and Los Angeles, where men and women by the thousands bed down on the A-train, under the I-10 freeway, and anywhere else they can find shelter. But far less visible are the families who now make up three quarters of New York City’s shelter population, and, at least as of 2015, comprised about half of the homeless in Chicago. Los Angeles has floated plans to shelter them in AirBnBs, a morbid twist on New York’s much maligned policy of renting hotel rooms. In San Francisco and New Orleans, meanwhile, homeless people are sometimes just paid to leave.

Unlike homeless individuals, families may struggle less with addiction and mental illness than skyrocketing rents and stagnant incomes. The root of their problem is often a lack of affordable housing, and the worst may be yet to come: As the Nation reported last week, President Trump has proposed deep cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for the 2019 fiscal year. This would mean far more onerous rent obligations for those receiving federal assistance that are likely to disproportionately impact families with children. In some cases, the depletion of vouchers could kick people out of their homes entirely.

For some perspective on the current state of this never-ending saga, we recently caught up with 22-year-old Linda Kerry, mother to a two-year-old named Islah. Together, the family lives in a Covenant House shelter in New Orleans, where they seem to be getting the support they need to make their next move. Here's what we talked about.

VICE: How did you and your son end up at Covenant House?
Linda Kerry: Before I came here I was staying with some family. I had just had my son, and they were asking for a little too much that I couldn’t provide. I was asked to leave and I came here in August. It was the only place that I knew we’d be taken care of. I’d been here before when I was 18, so I knew that I could count on these people to help me. I came here because there’s familiar people, they know me as a person, they worked with me before. They held my hand through the processes, and when I came back it was to open arms. No judgement, no, "Hmm, you’re back again.” Just, “we’re going to put you back on the horse.”

On the crisis floor I immediately started looking for a daycare for my son, and I started looking for a job once I got him into a good daycare. By the end of September I found this job working at Jimmy John’s, the sandwich shop, and applied at Delgado Community College for a dual degree doing a GED and college courses.

That seems like a lot to accomplish in a short amount of time.
They helped me a lot—I didn’t think they would help me as much as they did as far as me having a child and being a single mother and finding a job that works around his daycare. I love this daycare. It was a part of Covenant House a long time ago, but they moved to the Ninth Ward. It’s a HeadStart now—my son loves going to to that daycare.

They also helped me save some money, which I am bad at. They have their little bank accounts for us helping us save for an apartment. And they helped me with school, everything I need at school: my books, they helped me buy a laptop for school, they got me a lot of stuff for school.

What’s your living situation like now?
Right now I’m in ROP, Rights of Passage. It’s the independent living program. Mothers have their own rooms and it comes with a bathroom so you don’t have to share a bathroom with multiple people like on the crisis floor. I was on the crisis floor for about two months. They have a little sink where you wash your hands but there’s a little tub built into it where you can give kids a bath. I used to have him sit down so I could run into another room to take a bath or hurry up and fall asleep so I can take a shower. Now it’s so much easier.

Yeah, I mean, it sounds tough to have a toddler on the crisis floor. How did you handle it?
In the morning I would try to get up early, around 5 AM, getting my son dressed in his sleep, do my hygiene, wash my face, brush my teeth, make up my bed, clean my room, and then they’d come around around six o’clock and they’d say, “Hey ladies, time to get up.” I’d bring my son to daycare and be back in time for morning meeting and then go out to job search.

Most of it was online, or I’d go in to speak to hiring managers. The job that I really wanted, I just took my resume and went in and they took me in for an interview right away. I did all my paperwork entirely on the spot. I had a resume typed up already, but there’s a staff member here who helped me improve it, boost it up. I thought it was good but when she finished with it, it was amazing.

My favourite thing about our room now is the little play corner. I went to the store and got these little letters, the ABCs, the 123s, the little trains, I stuck them to the wall, and he loves that. But right now his favourite thing is this little karaoke microphone that sings, “If you’re happy and you know it”—he loves that. It’s good to have our own space so he can be as loud as he wants.

With my son, I try to make the best of it, try to make him as happy as I can, keep him in good spirits. I try to take him out every month like a little date. We’re going to the zoo next weekend.

It’ll be his first trip to the zoo. And then we get to feed the giraffes too. I’m not going to tell him, I'm just going to wake him up early, get him dressed, make his breakfast, take our little walk, and get on the bus.

What are your plans going forward?
I’m going to school to be a registered nurse. I plan to buy a car so I can make it easier when I do move out at the end of March. My case manager in ROP is helping me find an apartment—we were apartment-searching for a nice little one-bedroom or a decent two-bedroom. I had an appointment this week me and this case manager, we’re going to go view a couple of apartments. There’s a nice apartment around my son’s daycare in the Ninth Ward. I like them because they’re little townhouses but the neighbourhood is really quiet and the daycare’s right there.

What will you miss when you leave?
There’s a lot of moms. We sit and talk, compare, give each other advice, our kids play together. There’s one woman—me and her we do everything together: we talk, we take our children to the park. That support, you need something like that in a situation like this. You can talk about mom things, sometimes you can’t talk about that with people who don’t have children. You’re not alone. Someone else is going through it, too.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Nearly 7,000 miles from the workshop where Hayao Miyazaki is wrapping up a 40-year-long career, an up-and-coming animator is injecting new life into the industry by starting Pakistan’s first hand-drawn animation studio. Below is an exclusive first look at Mano Animation Studios’ debut film, The Glassworker. It follows poor apprentice Vincent’s friendship with aristocratic glass-lover Alliz through war and political conflict.

The first four minutes of the film deliver serious Studio Ghibli vibes, which makes sense if you ask Mano founder Usman Riaz. He’s fantastically enthusiastic about making cartoons, intuitively dropping references to films by Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Takeyuki Kanda, and Disney. He talks about setting his film in a fictional, vaguely European city (with airships!), as Miyazaki did in Howl’s Moving Castle and Castle in the Sky. “I love what Japan does with Western settings and characters, making them speak and behave Japanese,” he told me over Skype. "In The Glassworker, I thought it would be cool for Europeans to behave like Pakistanis and speak Urdu.”

In a 2016 Kickstarter campaign, Riaz promised an authentic, hand-animated feature imbued with Pakistani culture. He raised $116,000, more than double his $50,000 goal. If all goes according to schedule, he'll complete his first feature in 2020, the same year Miyazaki projected he would finish his final one, Boro the Caterpillar. Take a sneak peek at The Glassworker below (a special eight-minute version is also available to Kickstarter backers).

Before founding Mano, Riaz had another life entirely. At 21, he gained viral acclaim for his percussive-guitar performances on YouTube. He was the youngest-ever Senior TED Fellow, and rode the influence of a 3.8 million-view talk to move to California to attend Berklee College of Music. He shrugs off titles like “guitar prodigy” and “whiz kid”—judge his talks and Tiny Desk Concert for yourself—but studying in the US helped him realize that animation was his true passion. “I was at music school for three years constantly wondering, Why am I here?” he said.

Riaz used his TED connections to visit Tokyo and give a talk about his love for animation, then lucked into a rare tour of Studio Ghibli. “I started crying at the entrance,” Riaz said. The Wind Rises, then thought to be Miyazaki’s last movie, had already been released, so he saw the machine behind My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away in a moment of idleness. “Nobody was there,” said Riaz. “Miyazaki had a small team working with him, but the rest of it was empty.” Nevertheless, he wanted what he witnessed. Riaz stopped wondering why he was in music school, and summarily dropped out.

Back in Karachi, he had to create a hand-drawn animation industry from the ground up. He learned the basics before coming to America, studying graphic design and illustration at the Indus Valley School of Art. Before that, he had taught himself to make flipbooks with his father’s copy of the Looney Tunes tome, Bugs Bunny: 50 Years and Only One Gray Hare.

There's no CalArts in Pakistan. No Pixar, Disney, or Studio Ghibli. There are a few animation houses, most of which make commercials, 3D shorts, or computer graphics for live-action movies. Riaz took The Glassworker to an existing company first, but the artists “burst out laughing and said I must be crazy,” he told me. “When I say there is no industry in Pakistan for professional hand-drawn animation, I mean there really is nothing.”

He showed the artists old Disney films and Japanese animations, but they didn’t understand the appeal. Another studio was interested in his story, he explained, but demanded the film be done with CGI. “I said, ‘Forget it, I’ll do it myself. I’ll find people to be a part of this. It has to be hand-animated.'”

Making The Glassworker was a trudge at first. The final film will have between 900 and 1,000 shots, and in the first two years, Riaz has only finished about 85. But Mano began as a duo consisting of himself and his wife, Miriam Riaz Paracho. It has since blossomed into a team of 20 animators, storyboarders, producers, character and environment designers, background artists, and sound mixers. Many of them were personally taught by Riaz. The delays were largely due to the steep learning curve, but now Mano is in its groove.

Despite the enormous challenges ahead, Riaz remains cautiously optimistic. “It all feels like smoke and mirrors,” he said of the experience. “It will only be once I finish this film that I feel like I’ve accomplished something.”

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For the most part, Los Angeles locals stay as far away from Hollywood as possible. Despite living less than two miles from the intersection of Hollywood and La Brea Blvd, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve willingly ventured through the area—and three of those times were to shoot for this article. However, tourists flock there in exorbitant numbers, with an image of the former Tinseltown glamour, glitz, and Gatsby-like effervescence ingrained in their minds.

That glistening vision of LA’s most famous neighbourhood is not totally fabricated; Hollywood once resembled what the film La La Land sought to recreate in 2016. But today, such decadent iconography is only a memory. The reality of Hollywood is that it is losing both its mystique and its monopoly on the movie industry. Films are being outsourced to other cities and countries with lower taxes. Hollywood Blvd has increasingly become an overcrowded street lined with litter, overpriced souvenir shops, vacant theaters-turned-museums, people dressed up as movie characters simultaneously posing for pictures and panhandling for money, and self-proclaimed rappers heckling passersby with their homemade mixtapes.

While perhaps Los Angeles natives such as myself seem to be disenchanted, visitors keep coming, and seem to enjoy it. Regardless of the time of day, Hollywood Blvd is bustling, with tourists taking photographs of their loved ones posed next to fictional characters or squatting behind their favorite celebrity’s star. And then they board Starline Buses and purchase Star Maps to seek out where local celebrities live. According to the Hollywood & Highland leasing brochure, the area hosts 25 million visitors annually, averaging 5,000 people per hour. Clearly, everyone else still see some magic left.

The Hollywood that Gary Winogrand and Julius Shulman photographed in the late 1960s was iconic—both photographers documented a lifestyle that people around the country aspired to. The reality now is that Hollywood is a small—and quite frankly homogenous and curated, microcosm of a culturally rich and diverse city. In this series of images, I have photographed how Hollywood’s once idyllic balance between grit and glamour has lost its essence, and become a commercialized, gritty, tourist trap.

At this point, it would be impossible for you not to have noticed that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is on business in India. He and his family’s wardrobe choices have left no room for ambiguity.

Though Trudeau is technically in India for official business, people have pointed out that he’s yet to meet with a senior Indian politician. What he has done a lot of is pose in matching traditional costumes with his family while pressing his hands together.

They did it at the Sabarmati ashram, where Mahatma Gandhi lived, and at least three times while getting off an airplane. At one point in the trip, the PM even sported a groom’s outfit complete with a flower garland normally worn at weddings. Dressed in a heavily embroidered gold sherwani, Trudeau also met with a cohort of Bollywood stars, including hugely popular actors Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan—both of whom wore black suits.

While the Trudeaus’ efforts to pay tribute to Indian culture are admirable, it seems some people feel it’s a little extra.

Speaking to CNN, Vivek Dehejia, a senior fellow at Mumbai-based think tank IDFC Institute, said, “all you can see are the Lonely Planet-style pictures of his family at the Taj Mahal and in Gujarat, but he's not had a single official event.”

This isn’t the first time Trudeau’s foray into brown culture has raised eyebrows. His “Diwali Mubarak” greeting back in October also sparked a minor controversy. The fruits of his latest trip have yet to be seen, though he will almost certainly never be able to hold a candle to Laureen Harper’s bhangra dancing.

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BoJack Horseman, Netflix's exploration of depression and self-loathing disguised as a talking animal cartoon, is one of the best-written shows currently in production, but, good lord, it is sad. But now the team behind the show is creating a brand-new animated Netflix series that, from the sound of the plot, might scale back on the emotional devastation—and it stars Tiffany Haddish as a lady toucan with legs, because what else do you expect from the BoJack people?

According to Netflix, the upcoming series, Tuca & Bertie, will center on "two 30-year-old bird women who live in the same apartment building." Haddish will play the "cocky and care-free" Tuca who befriends an "anxious, daydreaming songbird" named—yeah, you guessed it—Bertie.

Sure, the basic premise sounds like The Odd Couple with beaks, but with Haddish onboard and judging by how well BoJack Horseman subverted washed-up actor tropes, it's safe to say that Tuca & Bertie won't just be another mismatched duo story. It'll also likely be a bit lighter in tone than BoJack, since the main character is an outspoken toucan and not an alcoholic horse with a self-destructive streak—but these are still the people who made a goofy sci-fi episode that turned out to be about a miscarriage, so Tuca & Bertie will probably find a way to break your heart at some point, too.

There's no word yet on who Netflix is eyeing for the role of Bertie or the rest of the cast, but it's nice to see Haddish has some time to star in the series between scoring an HBO deal, drunkenly talking about WWII, becoming friends with P.T. Anderson, and all the other massive stuff the Girls Trip star has coming her way lately.

Tuca & Bertie was created by BoJack producer and general comics wizard Lisa Hanawalt who confirmed Tuesday that the show will be a stand-alone series and not set in the same universe. So don't expect this to be the start of some sprawling, complicated BoJack Horseman cinematic universe—no matter how much the world needs a Jekyll and Hyde–inspired spinoff focused on Kevin and Vincent Adultman.

The new series is still in its early stages, so we're still a long way from a release date. In the meantime, keep an eye out for season five of Bojack Horseman—which should drop sometime toward the end of this summer, if Netflix keeps up the same release schedule it's used for the past four seasons.

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Just as the long Canadian winter now edges towards its terminus, so too can we see the first furtive signs of the country’s creeping cannabis spring. The thaw will come across the land in uneven patches thanks to Justin Trudeau downloading all the regulatory work to our varyingly dysfunctional provincial governments. And based on the Request For Proposals put out by the Newfoundland Liquor Corporation this week to prospective cannabis retailers, the cannabis industry in this province certainly risks coming out half-baked.

The recreational cannabis regime in Newfoundland and Labrador has been left predominantly to private sector retailers. (Consumers in particularly far-flung areas will likely be able to buy mail-order from an NLC online store.) In this initial phase of legalization, the NLC intends to give out 41 licenses, on average one per postal code—except for a few places like the Southern Shore or A0K across the Strait of Belle Isle. In the St. John’s metro region, there will be at least seven stores—and only one in the already head-shop heavy downtown core.

Four types of marijuana outfits can apply for a NLC license. Tier 1 is the standalone, dedicated marijuana shop curated by true sommeliers of skunk. Tier 2 is an enclosed store-within-a-store that minors cannot enter, otherwise known as the porno hutch model. Tier 3 is a dedicated service desk kept away from the cash where all the cannabis is kept, not unlike the way many natural health stores will also sell three-foot bongs in the shape of Bob Marley’s head on the second floor. Tier 4 is basically just like smokes in the corner store, tucked on a shelf behind a plastic flap.

So far, so good. But the devil is always in the details.

Applications are ranked according to a points system, with licenses granted to those retailers who score the highest. These points are awarded for a range of categories from interior product display requirements to the business’ distance from a “games arcade.” Cannabis is also classed as a form of hazardous waste, and retail applicants need to prove they have factored in the cost of its safe disposal. In cases where the top applications for an area only come from Tier 1 or 2 establishments, the NLC reserves the right to select from additional Tier 3 and 4 establishments that meet or exceed the minimum point requirement.

On top of all this, as per their supply deal with the provincial government, Canopy Growth is guaranteed at least four retail locations in the province. One will be for its production facility (location TBD but probably the northeast Avalon). The other three locations have yet to be decided, but according to the RFP they “could include locations where other retailers have been granted a license to retail cannabis.” In other words, they can rightfully usurp a retail license from up to three people that the NLC think have tapped a profitable market.

Any aspiring cannabis retailer who makes it through all these hurdles and gets a license is then faced with the problem of making any money at it. The NLC has established a cap of eight percent commission on cannabis sales, despite downloading all associated costs to the retailer.

The NLC is confident that these thin margins will not deter applicants: interim president and CEO Sharon Sparkes told The Telegram as much yesterday. “My view of this right now is that we've put out a very flexible model such that individual retailers can look at their models and see if this will be something that will work with their business," she further explained to CBC. "Depending on their circumstances that eight percent might be quite attractive and depending on other circumstances maybe not."

There are already some concerns that the licensing process has made the marijuana retail prohibitively expensive for most applicants.

“Look at the geographical area in question,” a source familiar with the process told VICE. “It’s huge. No one's going to be able to do anything with that, let alone meet the sales targets they will need in order to make any money off of it. You’ve got to move ten million dollars of marijuana to make a hundred grand. Unless you have a ton of money hidden in a safe somewhere like Scrooge McDuck, you can’t open a Tier 1 store.”

“It’s set up to favour people who deal with the NLC already, who already know how the scoring system operates,” they continued. “It's impossible to do what [the NLC] want in this timeframe unless you already have an inside track on the process.”

Given all the costs downloaded to the retailers, the eight percent margin quickly disappears. Jon Keefe, co-owner of High Street on Duckworth, took to Twitter to draw up some napkin math.

Meanwhile, High Street’s other co-owner opined about the scale problems in the RFP to the St. John’s Morning Show on Wednesday. “Tomorrow for all I know the Costco of cannabis might open down on the waterfront, and all my hopes and dreams will dissipate.”

The RFP (and most of the province’s marijuana policy) appears to have been crafted to meet the since-abandoned July 1 legalization deadline. This, at least, was their justification for their generous supply and retail agreement with Canopy last December. Given their peremptory production and retail rights—along with the sheer scale of operation necessary to turn a profit under this system—suggest that the scales are already fully tipped towards Big Weed.

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On Valentine's Day, a gunman opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 of his former classmates and teachers. In the week following the shooting, Parkland students have demanded legislation that could prevent future tragedies, becoming spokespeople for the gun control movement overnight.

"If all our president and government can do is send 'thoughts and prayers,' then it's time for victims to be the change we need to see," said Emma Gonzalez, a Stoneman student, in a teary speech last week. "They say that tougher gun laws do not decrease gun violence—we call BS!"

Obviously, the majority of right-wing politicians and media personalities are not going to be convinced that assault weapons need to be banned by either the shooting or its aftermath. But surely they would be respectful to teenagers who had just watched their classmates get murdered, right? Nope! While some GOP figures like Florida Senator Marco Rubio have been relatively restrained, some right-wing media websites and personalities and tried to discredit the Parkland shooting victims as "false flags" and "crisis actors," taking a note from the Alex Jones's playbook—the unhinged InfoWars host famous for being a Sandy Hook truther, among other things.

On Wednesday, a video claiming David Hogg, a Stoneman senior, was an actor "bought and paid by CNN and George Soros" was the number-one trending video on YouTube until the video platform took it down after the media noticed. On Tuesday, the president's eldest son, Donald Jr., was caught liking two tweets that pushed the same BS conspiracy theory about Hogg.

“I’m not a crisis actor,” Hogg told Anderson Cooper on CNN. “I’m someone who had to witness this and live through this and I continue to be having to do that.”

Here are the right wingers who have attacked its student survivors:

The Gateway Pundit

On Tuesday, Lucian Wintrich, the "D.C. Bureau Chief & White House Correspondent" for the Gateway Pundit, a particularly toxic conservative blog known for propagating hoaxes and its exceptional disregard for what's actually true, penned a post headlined "EXPOSED: School Shooting Survivor Turned Activist David Hogg’s Father in FBI, Appears To Have Been Coached On Anti-Trump Lines." Wintrich accused Hogg being "heavily coached on lines" and "merely reciting a script," using the fact that his father works for the FBI as evidence that he's part of a larger mainstream media conspiracy to push the "anti-Conservative/anti-Trump narrative."

Later on Tuesday, Wintrich published another post, this one headlined, "Exclusive: Soros-Linked Organizers of 'Women’s March' Selected Anti-Trump Kids to Be Face of Parkland Tragedy – And Excluded Pro-Trump Kids," which cites an anonymous source the Gateway Pundit claims is the father of a shooting victim, and goes on to find sinister implications in the fact that these students are drama kids.

"These children are being used as political tools by the far left to further anti-Conservative rhetoric and an anti-gun agenda," Wintrich wrote. "The students at the forefront of this agenda were all peers of his child, they were all members of the same drama club at their high school. This fact was verified and confirmed by Buzzfeed who sent a reporter to visit the student activists at their “command center” at one of their homes. Buzzfeed reported on, but left unexplored, the fact that these students are theater-trained."

InfoWars

Not to be outdone by the Gateway Pundit, Alex Jones's InfoWars has pushed a number of false theories about the Parkland shooting. As reported by the New York Times, Jones "suggested that the mass shooting was a 'false flag' orchestrated by anti-gun groups."

An article with the headline, "STUDENT ANTI-GUN ACTIVIST FEATURED IN CBS NEWS STORY – SIX MONTHS AGO" that was written by Dan Lyman, the "InfoWars/NewsWars foreign correspondent," tries to discredit Hogg's newfound role as an anti-gun activist by pointing out that he appeared in a local CBS news report six months ago. It also mentions the same video the Gateway Pundit video used, which Lyman claims "appears to show Hogg being walked through rehearsed lines in an interview after the shooting."

InfoWars has published many conspiratorial articles about the shooting in the last week—accusing liberals of "exploit[ing] the tragic event, as they often do, by voicing their disdain for the Second Amendment," blaming antidepressants for the tragedy, and arguing that there was a secret second shooter in the attack.

Rush Limbaugh

The conservative radio host, whose program draws about 13 million listeners per week, went after Parkland survivors in his broadcast, asserting: “Everything they’re doing is right out of the Democrat Party’s various playbooks. It has the same enemies: the NRA and guns.”

Fox News

The conservative cable news network hasn't gone after students like Gonzalez and Hogg as vigorously as its more conspiratorial counterparts have. An op-ed published Tuesday on FoxNews.com, however, asserted, "The mainstream media is cynically using a lot of traumatized teens from Parkland, Fla., in their latest shameful attack on President Trump and the National Rifle Association."

"It's right out of the pages of 'Rules for Radicals,'" complained author Todd Starnes in a passage that sounds like a right-wing version of Mad Libs. "Turning innocent children into propaganda pawns to peddle a fake news narrative."

Dinesh D'Souza

The right-wing activist, convicted felon, and National Review contributor, whose latest book accuses the American left of having roots in Nazism, had some astonishingly unkind words for the Parkland survivors.

"Worst news since their parents told them to get summer jobs," D'Souza commented on a photo of Parkland survivors crying after Florida lawmakers declined to vote on a bill banning assault rifles.

"Adults 1, kids 0," he also wrote in response to the same news.

Ted Nugent

On his Facebook page, which has almost 3.5 million likes, the right-wing activist and music dude posted a link to an article from Natural News—which purports to be "the world's top news source on natural health"—headlined, "It’s all THEATER: Florida high school shooting survivor caught on video rehearsing scripted lines, coached by camera man," which is an aggregation of Wintrich's Gateway Pundit story.

Bill O'Reilly

The former Fox News host, who was fired after multiple allegations of sexual harassment and once paid $32 million to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit, didn't go as far as D'Souza or the Gateway Pundit, but echoed the idea that the surviving students are leftist pawns on Twitter and "debated" the topic on his personal website.

David Clarke

The former Milwaukee sheriff, who was once investigated by the FBI for sending his officers after a guy who got into an argument with him on a plane and on whose watch a mentally ill jail inmate died of dehydration, is another right-wing talking head being an asshole to the teenage mass shooting survivors. According to Media Matters, Clarke was on something called the Joe Pags Show on Monday, which began with host Joe Pagliarulo opining that Gonzalez “a far-lefty propagandist—well, I don’t know that she’s a propagandist... Maybe her parents are, maybe the community is." Later in the program, Clarke said, “My dad would have backhanded me” for “popping off” against an authority figure like President Trump.

It's worth noting that Clarke spent years popping off against Barack Obama, but it's not like calling him—or any of people on this list—out for hypocrisy is particularly useful.

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On Tuesday night, folks watching the Olympics in Los Angeles saw their screens pivot to live coverage of a car chase, which isn't uncommon in a city known for high-speed pursuits. At first, things seemed pretty standard: Cops trailed the pickup truck while it wove in and out of traffic, hopped a curb, tore down the wrong side of the road, and completely bashed into a taxi.

But then the driver of the truck turned things up a notch. In a move straight out of Grand Theft Auto V, he hopped up on a set of train tracks and careened down into a subway tunnel, evading the cops by heading underground.

At that point, the good people of LA stopped rooting for the US men's hockey team and turned their attention to the unnamed driver, doing whatever he could to escape the police. Never mind the fact that they didn't know if he was drunk, or if his car was stolen, or if he was fleeing the scene of some heinous crime—the dude pulled off a stunt most people could only imagine trying on an Xbox controller, and he did it like a goddamn pro.

But the driver's ambitious move down into the depths of LA would inevitably be his downfall. The city ended up having to shut down its Metro Rail, sending commuters a bizarre travel warning, so cops could go in after the guy. While a chopper scanned the road with a searchlight, officers eventually tracked down the driver and brought him back up to the street in handcuffs.

For as impressive as his trip underground might've been, the Grand Theft Auto–inspired spree didn't cause quite the same spectacle as this drunken beach pursuit, or the two lovebirds who ended their chase with a smooch. Alas, it came to an unremarkable close, and things returned to normal on LA's airwaves—but not everyone was psyched to leave the high-speed chase behind.

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Related: U-Haul Police Chase

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On a new episode of VICELAND's SLUTEVER, Karley Sciortino links up with members of the trans community trying to start a more active dialogue about trans sex. Exploring the topic brings her to Buck Angel, an outspoken adult film producer and educator meeting with other trans men and women to talk about getting comfortable with their bodies.

SLUTEVER airs Wednesdays at 10 PM on VICELAND.

Then it's time for a new episode of THE TRIXIE & KATYA SHOW, featuring two former RuPaul's Drag Race queens digging into life's most pressing issues—from love and sex to fear and death, one topic at a time. Today they're talking all about ass, delving into everything from products custom-made for your butt to an art duo fixated on derrières.

THE TRIXIE & KATYA SHOW airs Wednesdays at 10:30 PM on VICELAND.

Want to know if you get VICELAND? Find out how to tune in here.

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The legend of cynical reality show producers looms large. Thanks partly to behind-the-scenes satire UnREAL, we’ve come to understand television’s most guiltily enjoyed genre as manipulative and humiliating—often for the audience as much as the contestants. But to maintain their cultural dominance in a world where television is an increasingly called upon coping mechanism and distraction, reality shows have recently made a more concerted effort to soothe. The “reality” they tend to depict now is often kinder and woker, wherein contestants compete to bake the best cakes or perform the best drag routines. Or find unlikely love on islands. Or be given life-affirming makeovers from a diverse cast of talented and charismatic gay men.

If optimism is the new standard for reality TV success, Netflix has nailed the brief with 2018’s Queer Eye reboot. It is the least cynical viewing you’ll enjoy this month, maybe this year; an artfully produced, thoughtfully edited, and cleverly political series that is extremely fun to watch from start to finish. The streaming service has been slow to commission original reality shows— Queer Eye has only two predecessors, the critically-panned YouTuber joint Chasing Cameron and American Ninja rip-off Ultimate Beastmaster—but with Queer Eye, it finds its (scrubbed and manicured) feet.

It could have gone the other way. As is the norm with reboots, the announcement of a new Queer Eye last year was met with an even split of excitement and trepidation as its fandom cautiously re-awakened. The original Fab Five were beloved back in the day, but nostalgia for that weird half-decade where the word “metrosexual” fell into common usage felt problematic at best. Additional questions arose: should a show about “queer” culture feature only the most privileged group of people living under the LGBTI banner? Do straight men need to be any more empowered than they already are? Must we continue to conceive of all gay men as stereotypically sassy arbiters of taste? Can anyone ever truly replace 2003 icon Carson Kressley?

All of these concerns were anticipated, and have been countered, mainly through a smart setting swap. The reboot leaves New York behind and moves to Georgia—a second season is scheduled to take place within the Midwest. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a well-organised evacuation from the liberal bubble. Some of the men getting made over include devout Christians, red trucker hat-wearing cops, and self-confessed rednecks. Their houses are adorned with American flags and their cars are SUVs. We’re making over a very particular brand of masculinity, here.

You’d be forgiven for assuming we’re in Georgia on a stealth mission to convince hillbillies to vote Democrat as part of their new daily skincare routines, but here’s where things get compelling: with little visible effort, the Fab Five resist the urge to preach. Nobody is getting an ideological makeover on the new Queer Eye, although everyone–gay guys, straight guys—is open to learning new things. The relationships formed between the Five and their contestants, all of which appear to be totally genuine, are based on trust and acceptance of the other side’s beliefs. As a result the show is full of raw, sometimes tear-inducing, and most importantly gentle discussions about race, gender, religion, and sexuality. Ideas are swapped in an informal, after-class way. No lectures, and any occasional seriousness is balanced out with a lot of hair flicking and quipping courtesy of hairdresser Jonathan, the dude from Funny or Die’s Gay of Thrones, as well as the endearingly earnest attempts by food adviser (and totally capable cook, despite people’s arguments to the contrary) Antoni to make avocado the straight man’s go-to snack.

“I didn’t ever think I’d be out planting vegetables with a gay guy in my front yard,” a deeply religious father of six tells design expert Bobby Berk in episode five. Berk carefully begins to ask him about religion and homosexuality—it turns out that he, too, was brought up in an evangelical Christian home. The two swap childhood anecdotes. “Growing up [I was taught] that gays were crazy, gays were wrong,” straight guy admits, but says he has noticed a contrast between that mentality and the words of the Bible. “Maybe you think we’re judgemental. Maybe you think we hate gays. But that’s not us. God told me to love my neighbour.”

Fashion expert Tan France generally takes the role of gay cultural educator. In the show’s pilot, he declares that while the first incarnation of Queer Eye was fighting for tolerance, “we’re fighting for acceptance”. But the goal is actually more ambitious than that, as the series makes clear over time. “Just don’t make me look feminine,” one contestant requests as France assesses his wardrobe. “I want to mention that word you just used, ‘feminine’,” France replies, going on to unpack stereotypes a little. Another memorable moment sees Bobby and Jonathan—enthusiastically, and without bristling or judging—dispel a straight guy’s misconception that married gay men divide their relationships into husband-and-wife roles.

In a notable episode that makes over a Trump-supporting police officer and NASCAR enthusiast, culture expert Karamo brings up the Black Lives Matter movement during an initially tense car ride. “My kid didn’t want to get his licence because he was scared of getting pulled over and shot by a cop,” Karamo tells his passenger. It’s worth watching, so without giving too much away: the conversation concludes with concessions on both sides of the vehicle, and both men expressing a sincere wish that white police officers and BLM activists find a way to work together. They also bond over Wu Tang and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. “If everybody had a conversation like we just did, things would be a lot better,” says the cop. “Everybody wants to talk but no one wants to listen.”

Queer Eye isn’t so much about giving Trump voters a voice as it is acknowledging their existence and seeking, in a surprisingly nuanced and unpatronising way, to understand it. There’s a difference between these conversations and, say, a newspaper publishing an opinion piece by a neo Nazi in the supposed interests of balanced journalism. For one thing, no screen time is given to racism, homophobia, or misogyny. For another, contestants may have been nominated by friends or family members, but they’re ultimately there by personal choice, and all of them have decided to receive lifestyle advice with an open mind—from a group of gay men from the big city who are more than willing to participate in cultural exchange. Nobody is ever humiliated or scorned, and unsurprisingly this makes for much more productive conversation.

Just as not every Southerner votes red, not every contestant on Queer Eye is a white Trump sympathiser; the show also makes an effort to peel back layers of masculinity-based Southern stereotypes as they apply to the non-white, and non-straight (there’s a reason the show’s title was chopped in half) men of Atlanta and its small town surrounds. In a stand out episode the Five help a closeted gay man come out to his mother, and come to terms with the death of his father—who never knew his sexuality.

Is all of this real? Maybe not. Strings are being pulled for sure. But you don’t feel like you’re being manipulated by Queer Eye as much as you could be—there are subtleties and grey areas where there are usually just hokey scripted narratives, and that’s a rare feeling when watching an American reality TV show produced for a mass audience. All five men get along well on and, you therefore suspect, off camera. There’s a sincere sense that they’re having fun doing this, which is something that’s hard to fake.

And the made-over men seem happy, too. You can actually see the relief in everyone’s eyes when elephants in the room are pointed out. The show is driven by a deep sense of curiosity, the human desire to be seen, and to be seen as an equal.

A Queer Eye reboot was no doubt pitched during an earlier stage of the Trump presidency when liberal media players were scrambling to understand what the hell had gone wrong, and wondering whether their own insular reporting was at fault. Its bubble-leaving logic has fast fallen out of favour as debates between the left and right (over gun control, over immigration, over race, over the right to life) escalate and darken. Still, this show makes a persuasive and moving case for putting the barriers down instead of up. For love and understanding, as well as a good daily SPF.

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This article originally appeared on VICE AU.