New Episodes & Show Notes

The first openly transgender person Sara ever knew lived down the hall from her, during their first year at Harvard. This was 1996 - in other words, a time when being transgender wasn’t a common point of discussion, and most people likely weren’t aware if they’d met someone who was transgender.

But this classmate didn’t just talk about it in the walls of their first-year dorm, he talked about it on national television. And today, after thirty years, they’re crossing paths again to discuss his new novel and a question we can’t stop thinking about: what happens when we stay silent?

Author, educator and transgender rights advocate Alex Myers has spent about 25 years in prep schools, as a student, teacher, coach and now school director. His latest novel, While We Were Silent, imagines what real accountability could look like when the “boys will be boys” explanation no longer holds.

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Early voting is already underway, and along with it comes the reemergence of age-old election-integrity claims. Let's be 100% clear: there was no systemic voter fraud in 2020.

But these claims aren’t from a new playbook. 

"Ballot integrity" campaigns, fraud accusations, and even people saying they were entitled to take over because the elected government wasn't "fit to run" have been around almost as long as the premise that our nation was founded on (that voters have the right to choose their leaders). And yet every decade brings a new challenge to voting rights, culminating in SCOTUS gutting the 1965 Voting Rights Act in the last decade or so.

None of what’s happening is really new; yet there are new developments that mean turnout and vigilance matter now, more than ever.

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Five years ago, Sara and Misasha published Dear White Women: Let's Get (Un)comfortable Talking About Racism - and almost immediately got an email accusing them of being the racist ones for naming it. 

On this anniversary episode, they finally answer the questions they've never asked each other out loud: What was the hardest feedback they ever received? What’s the most quoted, most powerful section of the book? And in a moment of DEI rollbacks and book bans, does the book's message still hold up - or does it hit even harder now?

This isn't a nostalgia lap. It's an honest look at what it costs to have these conversations, what changes when the political weather shifts, and why "getting uncomfortable" is still the whole point.

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Picture a newsroom in Rome under dictator Benito Mussolini's fascist regime in the 1930s. A censor's red pencil moves down a page before it ever reaches a printing press. 

Now picture a cell phone, right now, tonight: someone typing out a post, reading it back to themselves, and deleting it before they hit send.

Two moments, nearly a hundred years apart, but with the same instinct. 

Silence isn't just what's left when words are cut, or people are quiet. It's something regimes - and sometimes just fear, or habit, or a culture - intentionally manufacture. 

And that’s why we think talking about silence is so important, especially given where we are currently in the United States. 

Today we're tracing the history of silence across three pivotal moments: the silence embedded in the American nativist movement in the 1800s, the fascist engineering of silence in the 1900s, and how observers today argue silence is being imposed again, with some tips as to how we best fight back (hint: we question. A lot).

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If you were with us back in our early days, you remember we did a whole episode on redlining: the history of it, the literal red lines drawn on maps in the 1930s to keep Black and immigrant families out of the mortgage market, and how that legacy still shapes segregation and the racial wealth gap today. We’re including that full episode, edited slightly for context, in this conversation.

What we didn't fully appreciate back in 2019 is that the episode wasn't just a history lesson where we were looking back in time. Rather, it was actually the opening scene of this update you’re getting today. 

A lot happened immediately after we recorded that episode that set the stage for everything that is occurring right now, in this second Trump administration, that directly impacts something that we care a LOT about: community, neighborhoods, and who gets to belong. 

So we thought we’d revisit redlining as a way to show just how the fight for community itself is shifting over time, and how we’re all impacted by federal policy shifts designed to target those of us who are most vulnerable. 

We hope you listen, share widely, and think about these issues as we head into a contentious midterm season.

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Here’s your chance to listen to a firsthand account of one of the most horrible parts of our recent human history, and how we stop it from happening again. This episode features a conversation with a psychologist whose life's work sits at the intersection of two of humanity's most extreme capacities: the capacity for cruelty, and the capacity for courage. 

A survivor of the Holocaust in Hungary, hiding in Budapest as a six-year-old, he became a leading researcher on the psychology of genocide, group violence, and altruism - work that has shaped police training programs on "active bystandership," informed reconciliation efforts in Rwanda, and produced decades of research on what leads ordinary people to help others, even at personal risk.

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Do you know someone who's been incarcerated? Have you ever actually asked them their story, instead of judging them on that one fact?

Because 95% of incarcerated people eventually leave prison and come home. They are our neighbors, our coworkers, our family members. 

Here’s why this is relevant to you today: This administration has made "tough on crime" the centerpiece of its second term - among other things, reviving the federal death penalty, pushing back against cashless bail reform, and pressuring prosecutors nationwide to seek harsher sentences (when, of course, it benefits them and/or the MAGA agenda). The message from Washington is loud and clear: punishment first, everything else second.

But here's a question nobody in Washington seems to be asking: what happens after?

How we treat people when they come home - whether we see them as people, or permanently as their worst mistake - says as much about us as any policy coming out of Washington.

So today we're going straight to a conversation that is one of our favorites, with someone who's lived both sides of this story: Marcus Bullock, CEO of Flikshop, who was incarcerated as a teenager and built a company helping formerly incarcerated people stay connected to their families and rebuild their lives. This is a conversation about what "law and order" actually looks like on the ground and in people - not just in the abstract.

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On June 30th, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled that states can bar transgender girls and women from competing on girls' and women's teams. Six to three. It's now the law in over half the country.

And however you feel about that ruling, here's what we noticed in the days after it came down: almost none of the coverage actually talked to a transgender kid, or the parent raising one. 

It was all policy. All abstraction. It is a decision that, on paper, is about Title IX and biological sex and constitutional interpretation. 

But underneath all that legal language is something much more personal: real kids, real families, real teams, and real decisions about who gets to belong. And let’s not forget: argued by people who've never sat across from an eight-year-old who already knows she's going to be treated differently.

So we went back into our archive. A while back, we sat down with a remarkable mom, Jaime, raising a transgender daughter in Florida. And more recently, we talked with Schuyler - you might know him as Pink Manta Ray - a multiethnic Korean American trans educator, the first transgender Division 1 athlete on a men’s team while at Harvard, and author of He, She, They: 

How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters.

We're combining pieces of both conversations into one episode, because we think you need both things right now: Jaime's story, to feel it - and Schuyler's clarity, to know what to actually say and not say when it comes up in your own life. 

These aren’t talking points. These are ways to simply see the humanity in each other. Please listen, and share widely.

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Crystal Echo Hawk's daughter gets asked if she still lives in a teepee. And Crystal's response isn't rage - it's something more unsettling. 

She gets it. 

Because 87% of American schools stop teaching about Native peoples after 1900, and 78% of Americans know very little about Native people. So that question, as painful as it is, makes a terrible kind of sense. The last data point most Americans have on Native people is somewhere around third grade. And then nothing.

Crystal Echo Hawk is a citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, the former executive director of IllumiNative, a national, native-led, non-profit organization born out of the “Reclaiming Native Truth Project“, a research project from 2016-2018, and was the largest public opinion research project ever conducted about native people.

She is one of the most important voices in the country on what it actually means to be Native American in America today - not in a history book, not in a Halloween costume aisle, not doing the horrifying tomahawk chop in a stadium.

This is a conversation you won’t want to miss.

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Imagine you're six years old. You look out past a barbed wire fence at a highway in the desert, and every single car that passes by is driven by someone white. The teachers who come to your school? White. The guards in the towers above you, also white. And you think to yourself: is this America? Or is America out there? 

That child was John Tateishi. He was almost three years old when the U.S. government forced his entire family - along with 120,000 other Japanese Americans - from their homes and into concentration camps on American soil. His family ended up at Manzanar. And when the war ended, they were handed $25 and told to find their way home.

What John did with that childhood - with that rage, that clarity, that love of country despite everything this country did to him - is an important story in American history, and honestly one that many adults may not have even learned in their history classes growing up. 

He went on to lead the Japanese American redress campaign, helping secure a formal government apology and reparations. He's the author of Redress: The Inside Story of the Successful Campaign for Japanese American Reparations. He shares a lot about what that fight means today - for the Black reparations movement, for anti-Asian hate, and for the question that sits at the center of all of it: Who gets to be American? 

As we move towards a celebration of America’s birthday, that question sits front and center for many of us, as we’re actively being told that we’re not American. These stories show us not only how we reject that narrow view, but also how to fight for ourselves and one another while loving our communities, families, and country at the same time.

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Six people. That's all it took. Six young men sitting in a law office in Pulaski, Tennessee, in December of 1865 - just eight months after the Civil War ended - decided to start a secret club. One that, 150 years later, still impacts our country today. 

To combat the recent erasure of history and ensure these stories remain not only alive but top of mind, this summer we are re-releasing some of our most important historical episodes from the last seven years. 

We hope you listen, share, like, and all those things, but most importantly, learn from them, and translate that into action, even if it’s just telling one other person about this. 

Change doesn’t have to be big. 

But these episodes show us how we got to where we are currently - and now, it’s time to do something about it.

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What does it mean to be American? What does it mean to be Asian American — and why, in 2026, are so many of us still leading with worry?

Today, in honor of AANHPI Heritage Month, we're diving into the TAAF STAATUS Index 2026 by unpacking some stats that are eye-opening, some that are infuriating, and some that are deeply familiar. We'll talk about how Asian Americans are seen - and how we see ourselves - from the food on our plates to the question of whether you even have to be born here to belong here.

It's AANHPI Heritage Month, and we have some thoughts (unsurprising to all of our regular listeners, we’re sure!). If this episode resonates with you, please share widely - and let us know what action step you decided to take after listening.

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What if the thing holding back justice isn't lack of will — it's lack of access? 

Today's guest is doing something about that after coming up from a really rough time in high school, a near-fatal car crash, a parent who believed in him endlessly, and ending up not only at Stanford Law but also with one of the most powerful mentors in the field of law.

For those of you who - like Sara - have liked to tease lawyers for being miserable people with secret languages, this episode brings the absolute best in the field to rehabilitate that image, infuse us with hope and humanity, and remind us that, even if we’re not lawyers, there is a LOT we can each do to make the world a better place.

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The choice before us in 2026 is similar to the choice before Americans in the latter half of the 19th century, and the way we’re framing it today is this: 

Which straight White male President’s line of thinking do you want to get behind?
Choice #1 is Abraham Lincoln, who not only signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but was a firm believer in human rights for all, or Choice #2, the President who followed him, Andrew Johnson, who was perhaps the biggest Confederate sympathizer that we’ve had as President (minus, perhaps, our current one)?

In other words, the choice is between believing in equal rights for all of us, or believing in rights only for rich, landowning, straight White men. Ultimately, this was the question before us in America 150+ years ago. It’s the same question we’re facing today. 

To unpack this, we’re having a conversation with a political leader, lawyer, and author who thinks deeply, systematically, and convincingly to capture your attention with boldness and walk you through some great ways to take action. We hope you listen, share widely, and be bold in how you envision 2026.

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7 Years, One Big Rebrand, and Everything We Know Now: An Honest Anniversary ConversationHave we ever thought about quitting the podcast? What did we think when we were starting Dear White Women seven years ago? Why did we rebrand the show to What Do You Mean By That? What do we want the next chapter of this show to feel like?Those are all questions that we’re asking each other as we celebrate SEVEN YEARS of this podcast, and many more as well. Listen in to find out what we really think about the work that we’re doing, where we see the podcast going, and things that we thought about (or didn’t) when we first started this seven years ago. We’d love to hear more about what you might want to hear as well - please email us at hello@whatdoyoumeanbythat.com with any show ideas!

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Sara. Misasha. Megumi. All three of us are the daughter of one Japanese parent and one White parent each. All three of us had dual citizenship with the United States and Japan at one point. But the trajectories of our citizenship are distinctly different, and only one of us holds a Japanese passport now. Are we all still Japanese?

Today, we speak with Megumi Nishikura, a documentary filmmaker who focuses on stories not often told in our history books, despite their themes impacting so many of us, Japanese or not.

We explore belonging, identity, citizenship, and what history teaches us about where we are now - and the stories we want to carry forward with us.

If you’ve ever wondered if you’ve belonged, or if you’ve ever been told you’re not ____ enough, we hope you listen, and join our conversation.

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What if the very programs designed to make workplaces fairer are actually making the problem worse?

In this episode, we begin with the famous “Cobra Effect”—a colonial-era policy that unintentionally increased the problem it was meant to solve—and explore how the same dynamic shows up in modern diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

Our guest, Lily Zhang, argues that many corporate DEI initiatives fail not because the goals are wrong, but because the strategies are. Drawing on decades of research, Lily breaks down why performative programs, surface-level solutions, and “band-aid” workplace initiatives rarely create real change—and what leaders, employees, and communities can do instead to build truly fair organizations for human beings who deserve better.

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Today’s conversation is one about history — but also about now. About 1968 and about 2026. About who gets control over their own body — and who never truly has. About the quiet, complicated ways parents try to protect their children, and the unintended harm that can hide inside “what’s best.” About the tension between safety and freedom. Between acceptance and autonomy. Between love and control.

We’re so excited to talk with a podcast favorite, Kate Schatz, about her new book Where The Girls Were, in today’s episode, and we REALLY dive into everything we mentioned above, and more. If this resonates, please share - we think this is a book and conversation that everyone should be having and reading right now.

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Here we are, February, which is also Black History Month (and for the record: Black history is American history. We’ll say this all day, every day, until everyone gets on this train.). It’s not lost on us that this is the shortest month of the year. It’s also not lost on us that, currently, our administration is actively erasing or whitewashing our nation’s history in real time, including this month itself, and we are being gaslit in the process.

So, this Black History Month, we encourage everyone out there to take a moment to learn our real history, expand the narrative of Black excellence in our country, and actively question the racist tropes and more subtle - yet still overt and noticeable - rewriting of history that is taking place. Many things can be true at once, including fear and the need to not stay silent. Listen in to hear more about what we think about that and simple ways to get these conversations started.

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IHorns honking, people chanting ICE OUT as they crowd busy intersections.

Horns honking, ICE agents smashing car windows, and grabbing people from their cars.

Which scenario sounds like the America you know? 

Which one, more importantly, sounds like the America you want to be fighting for?

Regardless of what you answered, this episode is a must-listen. We unpack the history of ICE (it’s not a long one, despite what might be suggested by our current administration), why ICE acting as the secret police for the administration is not only incredibly illegal today but also reminds us of another secret police which rhymes with Schmestapo, and what we can all DO about ICE in our communities, especially when it seems like we have no agency.

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