Chris Ash and Erin Albright

Recorded May 12, 2021 Archived May 11, 2021 41:29 minutes
0:00 / 0:00
Id: ddv000743

Description

Friends and colleagues Chris Ash (45) and Erin Albright (39) talk about first connecting with each other through finding common beliefs they share on social media about human trafficking and sex trade. Together, they discuss some of the opinions they share and how they were formed, and talk about the importance of how survivors are treated in anti-trafficking spaces in order to not perpetuate harm.

Subject Log / Time Code

Erin and Chris remember first "meeting" each other through social media and realizing they both had many shared beliefs about conversations on anti-trafficking.
Chris talks about live-streaming their 45th birthday party during the pandemic.
Chris talks about growing up in a family of performers and talks about how that influenced their interests in performance.
Chris talks about volunteering with a rape crisis center.
Erin talks about her childhood and what it was like to spend a lot of it sick and in the hospital. She talks about how this influenced the creation of her "symbol of resilience," a tiara.
Chris discusses the ways that work in human trafficking has included and also used survivor trauma in ways that are harmful to the community.
Chris talks about a conference they went to, remembering a specific session that was particularly discouraging to survivors and their position in advocacy.
Erin wonders about how many people are not comfortable sharing their true opinions on human trafficking because of their positions in the work. She gives advice to people to research to form an opinion.
Chris talks about the fact that poorly researched anti-trafficking advocacy can actually do more harm than good.
Erin gives advice to her past self. Both Erin and Chris share their hopes for the future.

Participants

  • Chris Ash
  • Erin Albright

Partnership

Partnership Type

Fee for Service

Transcript

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00:00 Erin Albright, I am 39 years old and today is Wednesday, May 12th to that are 2021. I am recording this from the basement of my sister's house in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And my recording partner is Chris Ash. And I know them, they are a friend and a colleague, they've known for a couple of years and I'm grateful for their presence in my life.

00:28 You're my name is Chris Ash and I'm 45 years old and today is Wednesday, May 12th, 2021. And I am recording from Carrboro, North Carolina. I'm recording the day with Erin Albright who is a colleague and a friend and someone who has helped me feel less alone in the anti-trafficking movement.

00:53 And so I guess Aaron head there when we first met and was going to ask if you wanted to share the story of how we met and what you for what you remember about meeting me.

01:11 I would love to share that. And Chris. I have to be honest. I don't remember if we first met via Twitter or Facebook, but it was something social-media asked, and I think I followed you. Do you remember Twitter, followed you? But somehow we became,

01:30 Facebook friends then because I remember there was an event going on in the world and you had stood out to me because like, me, you were someone that was willing to vocalize some, some critical thinking around the trafficking movement and some challenges that's in the trafficking movement. And that really resonated with me and there's any point in time where there was an event happening and it was something that I was pretty critical of and you were also being critical of and I think I deemed you instead. Let's talk, is that my is my recollection correctly. That was it. It was it was pretty funny. It was during that there was a hearing and we were streaming it and hearing people talk about trafficking and how to engage of people in the sex trades and what helped make people safer. And a lot of the things they were saying, was just like, just figuring an expensive. Any emotional sensationalism in and you message to ask if I wanted to chat, and I remember that I was about to leave work to drive home.

02:30 And had an hour commute and I'm like, so I can't text cuz I'm driving. But dear random internet stranger. Here's my cell phone number. I want to call. I can have a phone call with you on the way home and you were like, okay, and then I was like, please don't be a murderer and Erin Albright.

02:51 I think that, I

02:53 Given the fact that we not one of the last people I hung out with in-person pre-pandemic, so and I did not murder you. So that's a good sign, but I do remember and I very distinctly remember pacing around the kitchen in my apartment in DC talking to you for over an hour and just really I think that's the first time that we really bonded and we really got to know each other and understand that we were both coming from. Very similar place is very similar place. So I really appreciate that. So thank you for answering my diem that day. And thank you for tolerating me and not also being a creepy internet person, you know, no more no more creepy than the rest of us.

03:44 It was me. Chris. Who else is going to get on his? You meeting with me wearing a feather boa or which, which is definitely not the one that said that that was actually pretty funny. I know we met in DC when I had to go on a business trip there in January a year ago January, but I did that last year during the pandemic. My birthday happened. I had my forty-fifth birthday during the pandemic and was trying to figure out what to do. When was going through, just a rough time in my personal life. And so I wanted to connect with some friends, but I was also feeling really fired up about the trafficking moving at that time. And I remember inviting you and a few other trafficking professionals across the country to join me for zoom and this is why she went on was like at it. You didn't really get coming up in a Wayfair and all the stuff.

04:44 So I kind of multitasking and had like a fun birthday social and a myth busting sessions. So we live streamed. My zoom birthday party to my Facebook page for my friends to watch, and we were all wearing Tiaras and featherbelle. I didn't find a tiara on my child's Thor helmet in their dress up box was great. It was a good time and I appreciate that about you as well. The fact that we, you know, we deal with him pretty hard stuff in the trafficking world through the actual reality of trafficking, as well. As you know, some of the other parts of the anti-trafficking world that are pretty toxic and we could we still know how to sort of, you know, take a step back and we can, we can relax a little bit and we can have, you know, nobody's ever going to say they're doing it at talking. Work is fun per se, but being able to add some fun elements and do it like that. I think are really valuable and I appreciate it at birthday party for

05:44 So, and, you know me, I'm a big fan of, with a tiara, which is actually a funny story. I'll tell a little later, but I'm curious though. One of the things that also dawned on me about that time that you're in, DC is

06:01 How I call it playing, you know, the two degrees of separation in the anti-trafficking world. It is a very small world and I always remember we were walking by the White House, I think. And I was asking you for some advice on a law enforcement training that I was putting together. And remember you said. Oh, I I know this guy in North Carolina, I noticed any detective. He's really great. You should talk to him and you met you but Rick Hoffman at an event before and it was one of those moments that just brought home and real, real clear light, just how small the anti-trafficking world is. And how does people that are really great at what they do somehow, we all end up finding each other and working together happenstance, so,

06:46 That's a pretty good memory. I think that plus you telling me all about drilling fire. Just again, I'd sort of just the complexity to what everything is going. So I think so, you know what we've never really talked about the two of us.

07:07 We sort of met, NY September, October, 2019 and everything is good, but I'm not sure that we've talked too much about our origin stories for the little bit about yours, but not, you know, the force, I'm curious. If that's something that you be willing to share of just influence you either in this direction from those early days. I know this isn't something. I thought when I was a kid, this is definitely not something that was even on my radar which I always laugh when you hear people say no little girl wants to grow up to be a sex worker. I'm like one of those little girl wants to grow up to be a training and technical assistance provider either, because we've never heard of it, but when I was little, I grew up in a family full of performers. My mom sang and danced in country, western dinner theaters, and was a dance teacher and a performer. My stepdad was a magician and he, he caught a bullet in his mouth on, that's incredible and 1980s that he was a stunt for.

08:07 Former, so they would practice, I grew up watching my parents, practice the bullet. Catch, my mom would set up like target practice at one end of the hallway, in our tiny apartment and a 22 caliber rifle on stand on the other end and would practice and then they would travel the world doing the sun reality TV in the 80s. Before reality TV was, did you not know? I don't mean that we work in a few of its all about trauma and I just keep thinking that your father's head on a regular basis. We can say that my therapist finds it very intriguing.

08:54 She would practice on targets, like with a bunch of phone books. Duct tape together, at the end of the hall, and I'd be like, don't shoot. I have to come out and go to the bathroom when I would leave my bedroom. So, whatever this was my child and it was really weird. But because they were the performers and that was like, valued. That's what I thought. I was going to be. Like, I never my mom couldn't afford childcare. And so I was at the dance studio all the time after school, when with her and took all the dance classes. And I thought I was going to be a star, like I would. My make-believe wasn't just like pretending as a little kid to do performance. My make-believe was like, Oscars, acceptance speeches that I would just give in my bedroom and I was pretty sure that was the direction. I was going to go and then ended up jumping through a whole bunch of different things. Cuz I think once I hit adolescence, it sort of started to spiral and be less clear for me.

09:46 And I had a few teachers, who believed in me went through, like a phase where I thought I was going to be a band director cuz I was also in Symphony and then just kind of crashed and burned for a long time. And to be honest. I started answering suicide hotlines in 1994. While I was still struggling a lot myself with suicidal ideation, and it was something that helped keep me afloat, but I I came back in 2009.

10:16 To a Rape Crisis Center as a volunteer On The Hotline because we had moved to a new city. And I honestly did it to make friends because I thought I'll make friends with the other volunteers and these will be left similar interest. So that was kind of that the Rape Crisis Center is what started to bring me back in but I still don't have any confidence. You know, I was finally got hired at the Rape Crisis Center in was doing that, you know, shift work, while also working as a front end, supervisor at a co-op grocery full of uptight yoga. Ladies, who like to yell about their supplements, not being in stock and that's what I was doing when I went to my new job in 2018, where I was the anti-human trafficking specialist at a Statewide nonprofit. And I think my supervisor there, I will be forever grateful to her. When I think about people who influenced me. She had been doing a lot of work in the trafficking movement.

11:15 But I think what was special about her and continues to be is that she believed in me when I was not believing in myself. I thought I was under qualified to do this work, my life and had so much drama. And I had struggled to recover from the trauma and look back on this history of like struggling with money and not being able to do good jobs, not having sustainability, having mental health crises as being like this evidence that I wasn't worse than any job where anybody listen to me. And she saw something in me that I didn't see in myself and it has continued to sort of

11:52 Foster that and Mentor me and encouraged me to be myself even when I'm afraid. And also reminded me that sometimes, as I get more success in the, the work I'm doing, people aren't going to like me, cuz as a trauma Survivor, that's still really hard for me, sometimes, which is rough in this movement, so they can be mean other survivors can do mean,

12:16 We are but I think and not I didn't actually know that about you Christie that has Chris. Sorry, they

12:28 Blessed. Be your supervisor because you hurt me and you have gone from City of. And I'm sure that that self-doubt might still exist. But I consider you one of the leaves, like the thought leaders of the movement of your name comes up in. I mean, so often when I'm having conversations and people are asking for recommendations of, you know, who she would get to speak, of,, we should we get to speak about Survivor informed. We should we get to this really good at training, your name, just comes up all the time. So, I think that that

13:03 I'm proud of you and good for her, for recognizing that and helping cultivate that of, you know, really seeing you how much value to that you have to add to the field. I mean, I know I'm grateful for you because I know it's not easy to be the person. That's critical of the anti-trafficking world.

13:25 But knowing the other folks like you are out there that are right there alongside is, what gets you through and make, it makes it makes it easier. You know, there's always been a risk and you get this pylon. Then you're right. Good people get mean.

13:43 And it must really unfortunate, but I appreciate your voice and

13:52 I've never had to ask my mom not to shoot so I could go and do that. That's pretty low on the childhood trauma scale. I mean comparative Lee. That's actually one of the more amusing child. That's pretty intense.

14:19 Yeah, and you know, I feel like

14:23 Well, I guess I'll pause there.

14:28 You just making me think about a lot of different things.

14:40 Great, we have this deep,, breathe in, breathe out.

14:53 Okay, I can you said a couple of things there, that sort of really resonate.

15:02 I did not have you know for me. I was really sick as a kid. I spent.

15:10 More than a little bit of time in the hospital.

15:17 But I've learned a lot. I didn't like, either one of them is that we talked about his resiliency in this field, and I think it made me really resilient and it would have taught me that made me who I am today, because I was really sick. And because of that, I was always doing something a little bit different than everybody else where you make I went to school part-time because I was too sick to go full-time or I never really had to make up the work that I missed it cuz I don't know. Teachers just figured I already knew it which taught me like you don't always have to follow the rules. When you do not have to follow the path and just do your own thing. That is a story that I would like to share them about your birthday party and I was rocking a tiara at that birthday party.

16:04 Also thinking about some fun moments in our experience. I'm a sad that it was pandemic and I didn't get to see you in person at Freedom Network this year. If I had you would have gotten a temporary tattoo, cuz that started my thing, I bring temporary tattoos conferences and I I bring Tiara a temporary tattoos and there's a story behind that. There's when I was when I was 15, I was in the hospital for about 12 days and then I got out of the hospital and then a feeding tube and it things are really rough and I remember my grandmother saying, she want to take me out shopping. So what do you want? I said, I want a tiara.

16:49 I like shiny things all day driving around to stores looking for a tiara and then we can write. And here I am like I'm on a feeding tube going to school for half days. I am very very sick. Right, but I'm like, rock and mighty or whatever week. So this became like a symbol of resiliency for me.

17:15 Up to the point where at this is trafficking related 2015 at Justice for victims of trafficking Act was on Deck to be passed and I started the policy committee and it was intense. Where can you at some point? I kind of I drew a line in the sand with my colleagues where I started responding to every email they sent with, I want a tiara. This is also waiting on the time that there was a New York Times article about. It said, our Tiaras the new Power scrunchie. It was a whole article about Hillary Clinton Howard. So, it ended my from my good friend, Katie Adamo ended up buying us all Tiaras for that year. And we wore them at the conference where they're at now is translating moving forward into that like symbol of like just, you know,

18:05 Hard work, resiliency bringing it. And so I bring them to the freedom Network Conference it is and then and anybody who wants one can have one and two and that was her to my trajectory into this world of Britney's. My Funny Story into his world, even though I do like, you know, and it's not easy, but I think that also makes me more equipped and I don't know if this resonates with you or not, but makes me more equipped to be critical of it to to take a step back instead of critically. Think about it, because some of that other experience with trauma, has been there a survivor of trafficking with my trauma was different, but I do think that it gives me a lens through which to see things. Not the only ones cuz we both know that there's multiple and yes, right. Which is one of the things that's that's particularly triggering for me as a trafficking Survivor.

19:05 The movement is that a lot of times. It's like this is the Survivor lens or survivors, believe or survivors need or survivors. Want them like which survivors and like, how do we determine which survivors in the movement, get power and get voice and get access to spaces, right? How do we know who is voices? Get elevated? In a lot of times that presentation, that this is what this is the Survivor Lynn's, then when it does. It can be really but doubly infuriating. Cuz on the one hand, it's like, I don't fit into this. I don't fit into what you're telling me. I should be in. Secondly, you're speaking for me or you're letting other survivors speak for me in a way that I know there's other survivors who have the same experience as I do, you know, but yet it's hard, navigating this, whatever your trauma history. I think about that. When we do training Zone, the Aces and people are like, you know, talking about people with high a scores like they're silly animals and you're like, are you serious? They let you near survivors? I cannot believe this.

20:09 To close the loop on The Tiara story. Would, that was eventually leading to your way. I see it now is like what I really love about the field now, is being able to Mentor other people and be able to see those lessons. And when I'm typing, I needed to close that before I ask a question.

20:35 That really strikes me and it really resonates. That that concept of you feeling like you don't fit from folks or

20:49 You know what? I got to like that in this case you are theme of you and I have both been like Boca Lee critical of parts of the trafficking world, and I get a lot of private messages from people.

21:00 Saying that that really resonates with them, but they're not really in a position to speak out on it because and not go to the point of exclusion. So I'm just wondering if you can talk a little bit and tell me more about what that looks like. What that feeling is cuz I do think that it's one of the more toxic elements of the anti-trafficking world. These days is that there's certain narratives that are very very exclusive. I think like there's two tracks of answers and hopefully by the time I get to the second one. I remember what it is, but the first thing is to you, maybe type A I am typing and also neurodivergent. So I get the closing, the loop, by the way good job movement didn't start with Survivor leaders that started with people on the outside who wanted to save or help or rescue or civilized people properly or whatever. Give me to give look at the history of of the anti-trafficking movement.

22:00 White slave Panic. It's just dripping with paternalism in it. And by the time they started bringing in Survivor leaders and begin to realize we needed to be Survivor informed. The places. They found survivors to work with were the ones who'd graduated. Their programs are still had relationships with law enforcement. And so, we have people where we already have like a biased sample of people that they're reaching out to you to be Survivor leaders in to give them put their not reaching out to the people who dropped out of their program after 5 days because it was a horrible fit or not a good program, their labeling. Those people is problematic or, you know, somehow trauma bonded to the idea of the Sexes trades or whatever. They level these accusations against, you don't get at, we don't get their voices. When a lot of times, it's not that person's broken. It's that the program wasn't a good fit because we don't have a big umbrella. We only want to serve a certain kind of Survivor. So those Survivor voices get elevated and then because they're not,

23:00 Really giving at least in the past are starting to do this more and more, but they weren't really giving the people the people with the power, the nonprofit's, the people running it, the people who were funded weren't giving survivors jobs of like developing curriculum or giving good feedback. It's like, okay, we're Survivor informed because we pay you to come to our event and tell your trauma story in as many gory details. You can provide and so, that's how you make your living. Now, all the sudden your entire living, like your your salary, your income. Your Consulting fees are coming from from people hiring you to tell your story and if you don't have the right story you don't get contracted with. You're not the one who gets the gig. The kid goes to someone else. Who tells the right story that fits the pre-existing narrative, which means we have this erroneous assumption. That all survivor leaders have the same belief system and we also have set up a situation where survivors are tearing each other down, you know, we have people in the movement like nonprofit lead.

24:00 Reason people who are running really big well funded programs pitting, Survivor leaders against each other. Like we're scrambling for scraps to see who's going to get what contracts and get their voice elevated. Instead of encouraging survivors, who want to be leaders in the movement to have this broad. Advocacy Lynn's. We're we're like realizing, but not everybody's experience was like, men. Not everybody had the same experience as I did. And if I want to serve all survivors, I need to be prepared for some people to have different experiences. So, like that's the first thing that comes up. And, and then it leads to those survivors, who are elevated feeling like they can't speak openly. I get messages on Twitter, like, you do more people like, I'm so glad you're speaking out. I can't do that. By the way, I'm dming you from my Anonymous also account where they have a Survivor leader account, that's got thousands and thousands of followers where they do their marketing for their Survivor leadership gig.

25:00 And then they're dming me, from a secret Anonymous account, they keep, so they can follow. Like, I don't want anyone to see that. I follow a sex worker rights organization. You have survivors, so scared of blowback that they're creating fake, social media accounts, where they can live their values more freely and not fear, losing their income and that's toxic.

25:22 That's that is toxic in it. Something that we we do not talk about in the Tropicana Field.

25:29 Conversation right now is the first time, you think that I've ever liked be no audibly, had that conversation and you're absolutely right. And I'll cuz I get I get similar ones, and it's heartbreaking.

25:44 You know, and I always kind of feel like I'm I'm honored that you're asking me for advice. I don't know what to do with this. That feels like a lot of responsibility and then getting really angry at the trafficking world and kind of wanting to jump ship and go somewhere else because it's hard, but I think that's a really good point. And I think for me.

26:06 Gosh, do I hope moving forward? We can find a way beyond that. It one other thing. You said it's super interesting to me, is I think

26:16 It all goes back to sort of the ngos sometimes, right? And what they're looking for, and what they're paying for end up hitting survivors against each other. Rather than that encouraging folks to have a broad perspective of, you know, a multiplicity of experiences, you know, so and I think that that I think it's way too easy to sort of focus, only on the tension between, you know, very well, you know, different Survivor groups and not recognize that there is a larger system at play here, that encourages the setup. And I think that speaks to the need the need for a lot of critical thinking and introspection on the part of the trafficking field, which I'm hoping, you know.

27:05 If our presence through there is, we can

27:10 Facilitate and I heard what you said about wanting to jump ship. And I I get there too. I am I went to a conference in, I think September of 2019 which might explain why I was already at the end of my wits in October of 2019 and was ready to have an hour of yelling and do a phone with you, but I went to a conference in in Fall of 2019 and I almost left the movement. I skipped out of the last session of the conference because the next to the last session with an anti-trafficking presentation, actually the next to the last session, was it a training for Rape Crisis centers on how to more sensitively support survivors who call their hotline to our sex working survivors? And there was a team of about 10 to 12. Anti-prostitution anti-pornography activists who were operating under the banner of anti-trafficking who went to this. This presenters, presentation and intentionally, and systematically disrupted.

28:09 Her whole thing. We were 20 minutes, and then she was on her second slide, because they kept doing the thing that you do, where you raise your hand. Like you have a question and then you spend a few minutes pontificating and like preaching instead of letting her give her presentation. And I was watching this at a sexual assault conference and I was like if this is what the anti-trafficking movement is doing to the sexual violence movement, I want out because I am one person who as we mentioned earlier, does not always have a whole lot of self-confidence about what I'm doing and really needs a lot of support and mentoring from my supervisor to keep putting one foot in front of the other some days. And if I'm up against this kind of concerted effort, what can I do? And I went down to the, the hotel lobby and found two of my colleagues from a different states, Coalition and cried and send it to them and cried, my entire flight back from Philadelphia to stopped and spent a week or two. Think and do I quit my job. What would I do?

29:09 I don't know what I would do, you know, because it's, it's horrible, you know, it it causes people to jump ship and I've talked to a ton of people who are in the sex worker Rights Movement. Now, who would I talk to them? They're trafficking survivors. They may not publicly disclosed and some of them started out a Survivor leaders, and the trafficking movement, but they got so frustrated with the movement. They jump ship and are now aligning themselves with labor, rights organizations for labor trafficking, and sex trafficking. And I hear them when I see, I know they're survivors, even if they don't publicly disclose cuz I told me and don't make a post on Twitter about something, they feel will help reduce trafficking by by making sure sex workers are safer. And there will be very well known Survivor leaders to start replying to them. And being like, of course, you think that you're part of the pimp Lobby and just like start trash-talking them in a way. I'm like, you're talking to another Survivor that way.

30:07 This is why they left your movement. You're going to lose everyone who doesn't agree with you and then the movements a big damn echo-chamber, right? You know, and I know that I didn't want to get too fired up on the thing but it is. It's hard because I want to in trafficking I think of myself as being more of an anti-trafficking person than a sex worker rights person. I just happen to believe that sex workers having access to safety as hell will end trafficking in the sex trade, but there's, there's not always room for that.

30:39 Yeah, when and you know that I'm a line with that and I think that's one thing I appreciate you. Appreciate about you. Is that like me like very often were both willing to say the quiet part out loud. Yes. Of like. This is literally the reality of the traffic and curled in the things behind the scenes and I think you know what you would strike me also is when I say, when I was the director of the New Hampshire human trafficking, task force.

31:10 I had members of the task force. It would reach out to me and either say that they were a Survivor or that they had a relative that was a Survivor or that a relative that was a sex worker and stuff. And it was something that nobody else asked, first, meetings new, but he was always something that I was very, very careful to create a culture around those meetings to make sure that everybody's experience was valid. And there was no piling on and judgment and sort of language around that. And I think that I would love to see that in the anti-trafficking. Brewed some sort of move like, shift toward you're allowed to Define your experience. And there's a broad spectrum of those experiences. And

31:51 And your hireling on. Yeah, you're not allowed to defend someone else experience for them, right, you know, and I've seen a lot and I think

32:03 Yeah, we're not in and it's frustrating cuz I remember there's a lot, you know, what I always wonder is.

32:14 How many folks out there?

32:17 Our Dead behind the scenes too afraid to speak out or not in a position to speak out, you know, and is which is the dominant force. It like narrative these days. Is it just that everybody's too afraid of, you know, a handful of really sort of influential people in groups or is it? We need to have some more conversations cuz I'll tell you, I went through the learning curve. I started my career working for Boston, Police Department. I started my career fully supporting the Nordic model approach. It didn't take me too long to learn that. That was not the right way that that traded more harm, but I'm wondering how many other people are so early on that learning curve the same way, by the way, I started to. Yeah, I started out there and it was actually my work in the anti-trafficking move it, that shifted me more into a labor rights lens to make me think like, people getting started with this. We hear a lot with like people who want to come in and make a difference and they're like, buy one. I want to help. What can I do in?

33:17 What do you recommend? And I'm just curious I sometimes find myself wanting to tell them what I recommend is. Don't do anything yet. You sit on that and do a little research get through but I'm wondering what you would tell someone like what advice you would have for people who want to make a difference. It's funny. I wear or sometimes I called, like, dig in which means do your research. I need a you need a, I need to know what trafficking is being. You need to know who's doing what?

33:54 And see. You need to actually spend. You need to combine those two things to be able to vet what's going on. You need to learn enough to be able to vet, who's doing, what and figure out, who is legit versus who was a giant Griffin. ER, because unfortunately, as you I think you can agree like we have so many sort of these like weird like vigilante groups that are all about fundraising and sensationalism that are just kind of toxic. We all have a lot of what I call pop up groups that do a lot of training and awareness, but don't have any substantive background. So they end up perpetuating, false information and I think so, I think that's one thing that I would say to people is Junior homework.

34:41 Yeah, I got the biggest wanted to take the time to learn about what's going on. I know that you have good intentions. I know you have a lot of energy and you was that to connect with the people connect with people in the field and learn more before you go out and start your own NGO. I think that's one of the things that people don't realize as you can actually do harm by doing bad anti-trafficking work in. So doing that research you talkin about pop-up groups, we had some of that happened not too far from me recently and somebody who has no background doesn't know anything about traffic and got very much in the qanon managed to raise like $30,000.

35:21 In a county where there's an ant, a strong anti-trafficking program, that's underfunded right down the street. And now that pop-up group Dawn. It was what, a few months, who knows where the money went and the agency that's been doing solid. Work is still struggling, but you can do harm. If you aren't, I, I have been asked traumatized. This is maybe controversial, but I have been as traumatized by the trafficking movement. As I have met some of the violence that was an act against me as a child and young adult because when you Gaslight the crap out of people and tell them that their experiences aren't real, that's hard, that's violence, you know, which kind of

36:02 Makes me think like if I could go back in time as someone who spent a lot of time trying to be like, what people want me to be and give my past self guidance. Enos thinking, that would be maybe an interesting way too kind of wind it down, but for me.

36:20 It would be like, giving myself permission to be in perfect. You know, I'm loud. I swear. I'm so anxious that have 90% of the presentations. I give I break out in a red rash across my face and neck because I fear of public speaking that much even though I do it all the time and I think

36:41 Past me, I would be like you you don't have to fit someone else's Narrative of what a professional public speaker and trainer looks like, you know, just be yourself. You are some people's capacity.

36:54 Some people are really going to dislike you and that is also not your problem, but you don't have to make yourself palatable or small for someone else or more refined. Be yourself take me to take it or you know.

37:15 Chris, when you go back in time and give advice to your past self, can you just stop by Pennsylvania visiting place to my house?

37:26 That's that's literally what I would say to myself. And I've always been said of the same personality, but I would say, you know, keep being you cheap, charting your own path and being okay, with not doing things. The typical way. And I think for me of the biggest thing would like have confidence in its really easy to get distracted or drawn towards things where you feel like I should be doing it this way, but that has never been my Mo and I'm, I'm lucky to have you no like a family but just inflows with it, but that would be my advice here to my pastel. Very similar to what you were saying if it's okay to be different. And in fact, I personally have found in this world that people often. Welcome them, right? I think about the weird right, call it out. Stay it, you know, and sometimes a lot of other people around, you are thinking the same thing and they're just grateful that you've brought it up.

38:24 Sarah. It's about suit of trusting your own instincts on that, you know, and I know that you're a brilliant person and I would trust your instincts. So again, when you go back to Kennewick, do it. It's doing the scary thing cuz it's scary when you have a trauma history, being yourself is not always been safe.

38:46 Yeah, I mean that's really true and I am grateful there that where it seems like we're living in a world where

38:55 Acceptance of trauma and other things as becoming more prevalent than before. So there's a little bit more room I think for that, but I know what kind of time I'm wondering, you know.

39:11 30 second version.

39:13 Where do you want to see the traffic and movement, go?

39:17 I would love to see it. Honestly. Take a whole gosh. Take more keys from domestic violence sexual violence and labor rights movements because traffic in in sexual violence and domestic violence. We don't Define the Violence by the criminal definition like their forms of violence that are broader than what the criminal legal definitions can hold. And get the trafficking movement. Seems like a criminal definition, that include so many forms of violence, domestic violence, sexual violence, child abuse, child sexual abuse, labor exploitation. It's not its own form of violence at the criminal definition. So, we need to be looking to the experts in the, in the fields that have been studying in fighting these forms of violence that comprise trafficking for decades and learn from them and listen to them.

40:08 Yeah, I don't know. I want to just add a little bit, do it. I would love to hear it 3 phase. I would love to see the trafficking movement and move more into a harm-reduction space. I would like to see the anti-trafficking movement move more into labor rights perspective. And I would love to see the anti-trafficking movement, you a lot more to reckon with history to record, you know.

40:42 Well to reckon with history cuz there's a lot going on there. So that's where I hope we can move in the next 5 or 10 years maybe even shorter if I'm feeling optimistic, but I just also Chris want to thank you for inviting me to be your partner in this conversation with you and your station with you any day.

41:11 Next time, Tiara and beer.

41:16 Where feathers? I last night?

41:23 Thanks.