Deborah Frances-White was bombarded with death threats. Then she sent one of the trolls a message.

Deborah Frances-White is having the conversations that make everyone else squirm — and she's doing it with a smile.

There's something deliciously subversive about being made to laugh while having everything you thought you knew about society's most pointed questions dismantled. It's a balancing act that Deborah Frances-White pulls off with ease.

Best known for her wildly popular podcast, The Guilty Feminist, Deborah has now published a book titled, Six Conversations We're Scared to Have. But Deborah's journey to becoming a professional question-asker began in the most unlikely place: the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Born in Brisbane, adopted at 10-days-old and raised on the Gold Coast, she spent her mid-teens and early twenties in the faith before making the difficult decision to leave.

"It can either crush you or make you rise. It's so hard to get out. It's so hard to stay in, and it's so hard to get out," she told Kate Langbroek on Mamamia's No Filter.

"Once you've knocked on the door of some stranger on Sunday morning and said, 'you're going to die horribly in Armageddon unless you take this magazine,' stand-up comedy is nothing. At least they paid to be here."

Listen to Deborah Frances-White's conversation with Kate Langbroek on No Filter. Post continues below.

But Deborah's commitment to difficult conversations has come at a personal cost.

She recalled that once, after appearing on a right-wing podcast to engage in cross-aisle dialogue, she received death threats from what she calls "the manosphere" — otherwise known as the men influenced by figures such as Andrew Tate.

One particularly memorable message read: "You are an ugly, stupid, dangerous, disingenuous c—. You are literally the downfall of the Western world. All I could do is pray for you." The praying hands emoji finished the message off.

"I just went, 'oh my god, what would that prayer be? Dear beloved Lord, dear lord. Through the name of Jesus, can I beseech you to bless this ugly, stupid, dangerous, disingenuous c— who was the downfall of the Western world'. I want to not stop laughing, but I actually screenshot that," she said.

"Mostly I just block and delete, block and delete, block and delete, block and delete, because people say the worst. Men say the worst things."

Messaging a troll.

Deborah likens social media to a cult.

"Social media demands that we become more and more empathetic to fewer and fewer people. And that is a cult," Deborah continued.

"So every day it says the people on our team who agree with us must be empathised with, to the max must be must there must be solidarity, there must be defending, there must be endorsing.

"But if you were outside this circle in any way, outside this community in any way, or you defer in any way, or you deviate in any way, then no empathy at all. You're cast out."

It's not just the obvious trolls that concern her.

She also described an occasion where she tracked down one particularly vicious commenter, only to discover he was a wholesome guy, a family man who goes to The Lion King with his family and had photos of his children all over his social media.

"I normally block and delete, but I did write to him because his DMS were open," she recalled.

"I said, 'I want you to read out these posts to your wife and your daughter and if you can't do that, you're ashamed. And if you can do that, you need help'."

Unsurprisingly, the man deleted the comment.

The encounters have clearly left their mark on Deborah.

"It worries me about the world girls are growing up into," she said.

"It worries me very much the manosphere, because that violence has to go somewhere, the violent talk has to go somewhere, and we are still in a situation where far too many women and girls are being killed by men, and hashtag, not all hashtag, it's not all men. Most men will never hurt anybody, and I think that's what we need to be very clear about. It is not all men. It is not all men, but women know that.

"What we need is for the men who it isn't, to tell the men who it is."

The secret to changing minds (hint: it's not shouting).

Deborah said her experience leaving a religious group and the trauma of being shunned, has profoundly shaped her approach to difficult conversations.

She likened cancel culture to the process of shunning as both "mean you end up with nobody".

"I don't believe you can create a compassionate society using uncompassionate means," she explained. "When you tell someone off, their amygdala is activated, and then fight or flight goes into effect. The worst time to try and teach someone something is when their fight or flight is activated."

For this reason, Deborah is not particularly bothered if people disagree with her.

"I really, really hope that my readers don't agree with everything I say, because that would be weird," she said. "Everyone's a different person. You've all had different life experiences."

Despite being the centre of divisive topics, Deborah maintains we desperately need each other, even when — especially when— we disagree.

"Community is what makes us human," she said. "We would not be (at) the top of the food chain if it were not for community, because one human cannot beat a lion in a fight, but six people can outsmart a lion."

She said the recent Netflix series Adolescence serves as a perfect example of a drama that can start a conversation, by promoting empathy.

"We need to be coming to the table with kindness, openness, compassion, curiosity and holding space," she said. "You do not have to take on all of my ideas wholesale. But I ask you to take off a little bit of armour and be open to them."

In a world increasingly divided, Deborah offers something extreme: the suggestion that we might actually try talking to each other.

Revolutionary stuff, really.

Deborah's book, Six Conversations We're Scared to Have tackles everything from gender identity, cancel culture, and abortion and asks six crucial questions: "Are you ready to talk?", "Why have disagreements become so flammable?", "Why are progressive people calling for censorship in comedy?", "How has the so-called 'transgender debate' become so toxic?", "How is our empathy being manipulated by the internet?", and "How does AI operate like a psychopath?".

Six Conversations We're Scared to Have is available now. Frances-White's play Never Have I Ever is running at Black Swan Theatre Company in Perth.

Feature image: Getty.