Speaker 1 [00:00:09] Hey fam, it’s me, Imara. Welcome to the TransLash Podcast. A show where we tell trans stories. To save trans lives. Marsha P. Johnson has become a global figure, both within and without. The trans community, but the stories around her are often flattened into myths. Or fragments. Very rarely is the person behind the myth exposed. That’s why I’m thrilled to be able to welcome Tourmaline. Who has written a new biography of Marsha. Which tells the expansive. Multi-layered. And powerful story. About Marsha Puchance. The book is entitled Marsha, The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson. It comes out on May 20th. And that’s why I am thrilled. To be able to have this conversation right before tourmaline goes. On her book tour. To tell us about the brilliance. And complexity of the one and only. Marsha P. Johnson.

Speaker 2 [00:01:09] Right after Stonewall. Marsha was talking about. You know, starting HRT and- She’s not in such a Marsha way. She’s like, you know, I got a I got a handful, my bust is a handful. But it’s like it’s a nice handful. And I was like, this is so beautiful, so Marsha.

Speaker 1 [00:01:26] So with that. Let’s start out as always. With some trans joy. Oral history has always been a way for our communities to pass down stories of survival. Joy and becoming. Caro de Robertis is the author of seven acclaimed books. Including Cantoras. As well as the president and the frog. With honors ranging from the Stonewall Book Award. To the Penn Faulkner finalist list. Their newest work So many stars. Is an oral history of trans- non-binary, genderqueer, and two-spirit people of color. And it just hit bookshelves this week. Sharing stories from activists. Artists and more. This collection captures the courage of trans lives. In poetry. And pose. Here’s Karo. To tell us more.

Speaker 3 [00:02:31] There are a couple of elders in the book who lived under authoritarian regimes in Argentina and in Cuba. So Nelson de Alerta Perez, you know, was. Arrested and tortured multiple times by the Cuban government for holding drag shows, which were illegal. And yet when she talks about these drag shows. They are so magnificent. And enjoy. In our descriptions are just palpable. She’s like, I dropped out of high school because I was. Bullied by homophobic people. And I was working construction, but I used money from my construction to just rent a house, go on the beach in Havana and say there’s gonna be. A show on Saturday. I always made sure that we rented a mansion that had a grand staircase. So all the queens could make a grand exit down the staircase. And then we would do the show and it would be packed. You know, 300 people would come in. And I find that story so inspiring. Today. Right now. And one of the things I take from it is that. Our sources of joy? Are defiant. And essential. Our defiant joy is one of the ingredients. Of resistance and resilience and on-goingness for us in… Times like the ones that we’re facing now.

Speaker 1 [00:03:50] Do you know someone like Haru who embodies trans joy? Then send us an email at trans slash underscore podcast. Translash.org and make sure to include their name. Contact information. And why you think they should get a shout out. In any future TransJoy segment. And with that… Let’s get into my conversation. With Tourmaline. I’m so glad to be joined today by award-winning artist, filmmaker and author. The one and only Tourmaline. A Guggenheim Fellow and one of Time 100’s most influential people Tourmaline is nationally recognized. For her storytelling work. Across Disciplines. Her films, including Happy Birthday, Marsha, and Salacia. Have been showcased at institutions like MoMA. Tape Modern. And the Venice Biennale. Her art is also held in the permanent collections at the Whitney. And the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among other prestigious institutions. Tourmaline’s upcoming book, Marsha. The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson. Is the first definitive biography. Of the iconic. Of black trans activists. Tourmaline also has decades of community organizing experience. Including leading the trans health campaign at the Silvia Rivera Law Project. She has also received more awards that I have time to list. Including the Stonewall Visionary Award. In the HBO. Queer Art Prize. Tourmaline, it’s great to see you in person. Great to be talking with you. Congratulations on. This triumph. The people who are listening won’t be able to see me holding up. Your biography of Marsha, but… Congratulations! On what is a labor of scholarship and love that you have been on. Since you were a teenager.

Speaker 2 [00:05:40] Yeah, it’s been a journey. It’s been. Honestly, I talk about it as a gift that I received, right? This understanding and desire to learn and know more about Marsha P. Johnson. And it has culminated in this biography, Marsha, The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson. It’s wonderful to be here and to talk to you about it.

Speaker 1 [00:05:59] And so because I knew that we were going to be speaking to Diane talking about Marsha. I wore flowers.

Speaker 2 [00:06:05] I see them. You are giving floral arrangement in the best possible way. It’s beautiful.

Speaker 1 [00:06:12] Thank you. And you’re giving pink. So we are honoring her even in our presentation. Your socks have like little tiny flowers on them.

Speaker 2 [00:06:19] Exactly. Thank you for clocking in. Yes, you know, we’re always… Yes, literally.

Speaker 1 [00:06:25] One of the questions that I have for you is… How did you go about getting your arms around someone? Who is an enigma? And what I mean by that is that. Even people who knew her really well, who were the closest to her. Such as Sylvia. Said that she was a person who lived in her own realm. That’s a quote that you have in the book. So if she’s a person who lives in her own realm, we knew that she. Engaged in religious visions, she had spiritual visions. You know, she communed and spoke with the dead. Right? Like she had all of these things going on around her. So how do you as a biographer, how do as a writer? Go about getting your arms around someone.

Speaker 2 [00:07:09] She was so expansive and abundant. In life and both. Her material sense. And her relationship with the immaterial. And so. Quote from Sylvia Rivera comes from Queens in Exile, The Forgotten Ones, this essay. Where she talks about. Marsha seeing the world through different eyes and that being part of brilliance and beauty because she didn’t just see what was around her, the material conditions that were. So often not enough. But she used that as a jumping off point. As a launching pad to dream and imagine and see the world. And world it into being. In the way that she wanted. And so for me. I was really interested in Seeing that. Great capacity to call those big, beautiful and Robin DG Kelley way freedom dreams into the material. From Elizabeth, New Jersey and talking to her family, right? From Times Square and learning more about the history of. The sex industry in Times Square and how Marsha was. Oh, yes, a waitress at Child’s and- Yes, hanging out at the porn theaters. And also, yes. Gathering community and bringing everyone into these hourly hotels in Times Square. They call them hot spring hotels. And as a place to like have some relief and refuge. And so. To me. The way that the book is structured is Just really the slices of life. In her expansive journey. Um, that allowed me to have like different insights. Organizing and activism around HIV AIDS and the AIDS epidemic. And how she like one of her entryways into that was. Dancing, right, the dance-a-thons and the AIDS walks and… Her life in Los Angeles. Part of why it took so long to write is, like you said, such an expansive person. And wanting to know. You know, from all aspects of her life. That’s unique. Part of Russia.

Speaker 1 [00:09:13] And one of the things that also I would imagine makes it. Hard or made it hard. Is the fact that trans lives in general, but specifically trans lives at this time. Were and are under Chronicles. Right? And so therefore. Now not only do you have this person who is expansive, right, who kind of is Inside of time and outside of time at the same time. I’m You also then have the challenge of. Sort of history, her history, their history, because it’s also a history of community that you wrote. Put together in fragments.

Speaker 2 [00:09:48] Well, I am really the beneficiary of people who came before me. So whether it’s Anoni, the incredible musician, singer who was archiving, writing, and learning about Marsha. Or people from her performance group called the Hot Peaches. There was a member named Tony Nunziata who started. Filming her making a documentary about her and the weeks before she died. And also there are a few other, you know, brilliant. Artists and activists who are like Who knew? Marsha’s Power? And wanted to. Write about it. Steve Watson of the Village Voice, you know, doing this beautiful profile on her. So to me it was. Wonderful to see. How my process really was in. Kind of a long line of other people who. Also beneficiaries of martial magic, as I call it.

Speaker 1 [00:10:42] Let’s also not discount your role in this. I think that one of the reasons why. That we. Actually know what we know about Marsha and even the way in which she had been. Re-centered in our culture. Driven largely by youth in the 2000s is because of a lot of your. Sort of painstaking. Sometimes ad hoc but you know, continually focused archiving of her life, right? You meeting people who knew her. Being willing and seeing as a trusted repository. For those things, right? And for the things that support her life. I mean, I think that, you know, you also are a big part of the story.

Speaker 2 [00:11:23] I mean That’s why I talk about. You know the gift of it all because to me it really felt When I was a teen, moving to New York and taking the one. To the village and hanging out. On the pier where my community was, you know, taking up space, showing up, showing out in these beautiful, profound ways. Hearing the whispers of Marsha. To me it was a gift because I got to turn the volume up. On my life. I got to feel all of who I was in that moment, right, and make connections. And friendships and relationships from that place. Which is a powerful place to build community. And so. Yes, I have been. Of like writing about her, sharing about her doing teachings about her. Receiving. Material from her friends and family and loved ones and also those moments really People were so generous with me. And I wanted to and continue to. Move in that generosity and that’s why I wrote the book.

Speaker 1 [00:12:24] I mean, also films about her.

Speaker 2 [00:12:25] Yes, yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 [00:12:27] I mean, and it is also interesting that kind of like her, you lived. In a duality when you were first coming. On her as a figure, as a person, right? Because you were. At Columbia, at an Ivy League school, right? Doing that, right. And then catching. The very long one train.

Speaker 2 [00:12:48] The very long one train

Speaker 1 [00:12:50] The very long one train down to Christopher Street, right? And then totally. Embedding yourself in a community that was trans, that was grassroots. That was the exact opposite. Of the world that you were leaving. These worlds couldn’t be. Further apart. In your person, you were bridging them. And in that, I mean, there’s so much in her life.

Speaker 2 [00:13:13] She would bridge communities all the time, you know, so she grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey. And I’ve been blessed to get to know. Her sister Jeannie and her brother Bob and her nephew Al and she would take her friends. Home, her fellow street queens, her friends. To Elizabeth, New Jersey. Al talks about how Sylvia and Marsha. Were his babysitters. And so it’s really beautiful to also kind of fill in that history, right? She or someone who. You know, broad. Fellow street queens up to the department stores to do their makeup at the beauty counters, right? Bridging these worlds. Through beauty and care. And in knowing that we get to have it all.

Speaker 1 [00:13:58] We are just steps away. We’re having this conversation just steps away. From where. Marsha would have been when she actually left. Elizabeth New Jersey as a teen.

Speaker 2 [00:14:08] That’s right.

Speaker 1 [00:14:09] In Times Square. And one of the interesting things that I think that you do is that you foreground. That history. I would say even slightly more than… The village, right? Because the village is so much identified with them and there’s… A lot of conversation and stories and mythology. But one of the things that you do is to talk about the way in which times square.

Speaker 4 [00:14:32] I’m sorry.

Speaker 1 [00:14:32] Was essential for for your life. And especially The way that I think of them as these like. Slithers of freedom, right? These very small places. Where queer and trans people could congregate, and from that… Begin to expand over time. Can you just talk a little bit about that world? Talk a little about. The restaurant where Sylvia worked as a teenager and that’s where Marsha met her. The hotels and sex work and all of that.

Speaker 2 [00:15:04] So… Marsha moved to New York City in 1963 after she graduated high school. She’d been coming back and forth to from Elizabeth to Times Square. And In Time Square was a powerful BEAUTIFUL. Community of trans and gender nonconforming people. Um, Sylvia Rivera was 13 when she met Marsha, right? And they were both working at this place called Child’s restaurant. Which I think Vanity Fair and I’m kind of review of. Eating establishments said there’s a dash of lavender here, right? It was a kind of underground queer place and Sylvia would go in full face makeup, right, and she’d be working in the accounting office. And Marsha was a waitress. And then she would do her bit, you know, like she was. Had such a strong desire to be in Times Square. You know, like there was. Thriving community here of queer and trans gender non-conforming people also Broadway She wanted to act, you know, so she would do. Her bit of Spared change for a starving actress like right in front of the Broadway theaters and people who were commuting and taking the train would give her money and so she was part of the Lively street-based performances that are happening here And then also she had a real community and I mentioned before, so. A lot of times they would rent. When they could get a little bit of money. Hourly hotels right to just have a place of sanctuary and refuge and a place to also dream they called them hot spring hotels because whether it was fall, winter, spring, or summer, you couldn’t open the window and it was boiling. It was a moment where people got to. Escape the scrutiny and surveillance of the police who would literally do these so they would come through time square. And whether you were working at Child’s Restaurant. Or you were hustling in the street, if you were a trans person, you would be. Arrested and put in jail. And so. This was a kind of constant. Scrutiny and surveillance. Of their lives and also. Miss Major was performing in Times Square, which is really incredible to think about just the fabric. With the jewel box review and and so there’s just This was… The place so much so that even after Stonewall. When Sylvia Rivera joined. The Gay Activist Alliance and wanted to. Petition for a non-discrimination bill. She came to Times Square today, right? She came too Times Square. Where she knew everyone. And that is just a place where they really. Created and received life.

Speaker 1 [00:17:40] Well, and also it was. It’s also really. Essential that in these spaces of… Self-actualization where they could be themselves, right? Is where they. Began to thought about a better future. So like in these hourly hotels, right? In kind of the back of bookstores where they would work as sex workers, right? That’s exactly right. Like in, you know, like… In even in the exchange.

Speaker 2 [00:18:08] That they would have in child. And so to me, that was. So powerful to understand that even in the midst of the most challenging, harsh conditions. There are the seeds of what we want to create. When we know what we don’t want as Marsha like taught me and teaches us. We have clarity also about what we do want. And we get to dream that world and then we get to chase that world into. A fully material thing that we share with each other.

Speaker 1 [00:18:37] And I think that one that’s really relevant for this moment, but it’s also the fact that, like, they live in a deeply challenging world. Like, this is an understatement, right, that I am saying, like, that’s a euphemism. We’re talking about a world in which. BING! Anything on the queer spectrum. Was made illegal in so many different ways. Whether or not it was the three articles law, like if you had three articles of clothing that didn’t conform to gender, that was a reason to put you in jail. That’s right. Whether or not It was the. What was it, sexual, psychopathy, designation. Which could end you in psychological. Essentially gulags where you could be experimented on, where they did lobotomies, castrations. The illegality and half the states, kind of the repressiveness of the Eisenhower administration. We’re talking about a- DEEPLY deeply repressive and oppressive time in which violence was kind of their constant companion. Right? Like they all experience. These intense levels of violence, right? I mean, Sylvia’s story. Is bone crushing, right, when you read. I mean, even from the time that she was practically before birth, her mother was at war with her. And then, you know, Marsha’s life of violence and all the rest of it. And at the same time. They refused to be crushed.

Speaker 2 [00:19:59] Exactly. The conditions were so harsh, and yet… They New. Such. Incredible intensity. Their value. And they’re deserving this. Of life. And so. That is why I think those moments in the hourly hot spring hotels. Are so beautiful. Because what they’re doing is planning and dreaming their future into being. In the midst of a mess of a thing. They’re downloading with such clarity. What they do deserve, right? Freedom to move with ease. Around the world. Sylvia in an interview with Steve Watson of the Village Voice. Talked about how The police would just, there used to be a restaurant here called Bickford’s. And the street queens would hang out at Brickford’s, you know, weather. Between hustling and Hang out or… After child’s restaurant. They would go and have a kiki and, you know, like a little coffee. At Bickford’s and the police would literally back… The van. Up to Bickford’s and empty the entire establishment out. And arrest them. And so. And Sylvia, you know, talks a lot, too, about, like… Learning so much about how to survive and navigate they would be taken to night court. After they were arrested and Sylvia. You know, didn’t want to. Be sent home to her grandmother. Her mother. Committed suicide and Attempted to kill Sylvia with rat poison and so Sylvia didn’t want to go home to her grandmother. There was just so much misunderstanding. And so she was, you know, she was so young. And she lied about her age. So that she could stay with her friends and and and be in jail with them but the judge. Came in and he looked at everyone. And, you know, you and that kind of. Transphobic ways like these are all men right there because they were done up and There were… Being themselves. And Sylvia laughed. You know, didn’t know that, like. You could just see it, right? Like she’s like 14 and you know. She thought it was funny, you know, like this, who’s this clown like coming in and passing judgment? Who’s probably a client also. Or wannabe client. Or wannabe client, you know what I mean? And then in her laughter, they were like. They got a longer sentence And so it was this moment where she was understanding. The rules of the street like and she was being taught them in Marsha. Had seen her earlier that day and was like. Do not go. On these streets like they’re doing a sweep. And so. And she was like, no, I’m just gonna let go. And then she got arrested and so. You can see the kinds of teachings and care and community. Right where we are in times square of that. Prefigured and It’s a foreshadowed star house. In the ways that later on when they moved from Times Square to the West Village. They were taking up space and creating life based off of these really harsh experiences that they had.

Speaker 1 [00:23:05] One of the things I think that gets lost often is that there’s a There’s methylization. Their lives. Yes. But the most fascinating things about their life as we’re touching upon is. The degree to which. They. Wanted to live lives of fulfillment. Right? They didn’t want to live lives of struggle. They didn’t want to lives of being marginalized. They didn’t want to live lives without love and without acceptance, right? And that that’s what they were battling for. And so. Like for them, it wouldn’t be hallmarks of our community. Too. Have those as the things that define kind of your worthiness and your. And the degree to which you are of community or not because what they were doing was fighting for a world. Where none of that would be at play when you read the star kind of manifesto.

Speaker 2 [00:23:59] That’s right. And also, you know, it’s so beautiful, too, how You know, they were talking about… The necessity for gender-affirming care. Marsha was talking about. You know, starting HRT and And she’s taught in such a Marsha way. She’s like, you know, I got a I got a handful, my bust is a handful. But it’s like it’s a nice handful. And I was like, this is so beautiful, so Marsha. And so… Clear the ways that care. Access to healthcare. Can help you. And support you coming to more of who you are, right? The denial of it. Can really push you far from that.

Speaker 1 [00:24:39] We also see the impact of the lack of. Material support. On their mental health and their ability to be activists, right? The longer these things went on, the more. Complications there were around their physical health, around their mental health, right? Around just their ability to be able to. Apply themselves in. The world in the way. That they did, but could have been so much more if they had just had. Decent income, decent housing, decent healthcare.

Speaker 2 [00:25:09] Yeah, the real basic needs. Organizer and the campaigns that I was doing were around. Access to healthcare. Welfare and housing, right, and also stopping a jail from being built in the South Bronx. And to me, it was really beautiful to see how. Marsha was an architect of these movements, right? Um… In nineteen seventy nine she was talking about right at Stonewall Stonewall have been turned into a bagel shop. And she was doing this interview with Steve Watson. She was talking about how. She didn’t have a home in that moment, and so she was keeping all of her clothes in a locker in Penn Station, and that really affected. Her capacity to just show up in the world. And so that speaks to. Star house and, and housing, right. When you have access to your most basic needs like. Health care, housing, food, welfare. You can thrive, right? So, yeah.

Speaker 1 [00:26:09] I want to get into a little bit of. I mean, there’s so much I could actually interview you. Interestingly for two hours because there’s so much, but we don’t have two hours but I wanna go into a little bit. And this may be strange for people, but I think it’s really important, especially when we’re living at a time of people erasing history. In the way that Maga has tried to totally. Twist Marsha and Sylvia’s story to undermine.

Speaker 2 [00:26:34] People. Yeah, right. And I think

Speaker 1 [00:26:35] And I think that one of the things that you’re a book. Does is it refutes that very clearly, right? And so one of the things that comes out all the time is that. It’s this conversation around nomenclature, right? Around what they call themselves. So what you will often hear amongst MAGA world, and they’re trying to get this stuff. I had to reserve myself like into history books and that sort of thing is to say. They really weren’t trans. Um, they were gay. Um, because… Marsha referred to herself as gay. Sylvia would say we’re fighting for gay rights. Right, these were essentially cross-dressing gay men and this idea of transness and trans people are real. And it was painful to hear. And ridiculous. Which are bookmates really plain. But this is one of the things that they’re saying. And I think that One of the things that we have to be clear about is that. Nomenclature at the time was different. Exactly. And additionally. They were using words. So that other people could attempt to understand who they were. Not necessarily. How they define themselves, right?

Speaker 2 [00:27:41] Yeah, so they were. In 1971, Marsha identified as a transsexual woman, right? As a pre-op transsextual woman and said, I want to go get bottom surgery, gender affirming surgery, and John Hopkins, right. Before that, she was accessing gender-affirming care, so was Sylvia. So was Andorra and Bambi Lamour, other people who are making up Star House. They talked on WBAI. In this. Two hour long interview that isn’t online that was just so wonderful to find. For hours about their dreams to access surgery and other forms of care. And understanding themselves as trans people. And Marsha and Sylvia both. We’re so generous in terms of that bridge work that we talked about where. They were. For gay rights, but. At the time there was Just language continued to evolve and evolve and evolved. You know, in 2001, Sylvia Rivera called herself a transgender woman at the LGBT Center. In New York City. And so. To me, that kind of rhetoric is purposeful misunderstanding. In order to continue our project of historical erasure. In order to continue to undermine the value and deservingness of our lives, and also it doesn’t reflect what they were doing. It’s just, it’s so, it so… And you know it’s like a historical counterfactual all the things it’s just part of a project where they’re really trying to Just invalidate our life.

Speaker 1 [00:29:09] I mean, it’s really interesting that you mentioned the center, because that was one of their early demands. It was the creation of a gay center that was run by LGBTQ people. That was like one of the early, so even that is a part of their vision. People will know about Stonewall and… Will have heard all the stories. I think one of the most interesting things for me is the way that. Kind of the confusion and the way in which the Stonewall story was able to be hijacked to erase them. Was the fact that the Stonewall itself was a confusing and segregated space. Exactly. So there are white people in the front. Yes. And then there’s this middle part, and then all the people of color and like lesbians and what we would call studs, everybody else is in the back. In the back! And everybody else was in the… That’s exactly right. And so we know from your book that actually Stonewall started from the back to the front. That’s actually right. Right, back to front with Marsha being… If not the first, among the first. Everybody has a different story, but she was definitely there in the mix. And so it’s really interesting the way in which people claimed that it was like white gay men, but it was actually the people who were in… The segregated marginalized space that actually started it.

Speaker 2 [00:30:19] And the inspector of the New York Police Department, Inspector Seymour Pine. Talks about that, talks about an interview with David Carter. About how it was trans and gender nonconforming people who were giving the most resistance, right? And how he wanted to go in there. And arrest trans people as evidence of Stonewall’s illegality. Trans people were there, right? Like trans and gender non-conforming, gender variant people. Were part of what was often called the black room, right, the back room. Barre and Marsha. So often could recall. The exact song that was playing. On the jukebox when the police raided. Marvin Gaze. Heard it through the grapevine. And so, there was a performance. Of this play called The Street by Doric Wilson. And Michael Michelle Lynch, who is. Part of the hot peaches with Marsha. Is an educator in the Bronx. And, um… Performance artist. Was performing the character Boom Boom, who was based off of Marsha, and Marsha was in the front row. And, you know, like… In Classic Marsha. The two of them didn’t know each other. Marsha was in the front row being like, Uh, and like, you know, and Michael Michelle was like, who is that, you know, like to. The other castmates. And people were like, that’s Marsha who was at Stonewall. And so. You know, they’re- were these beautiful moments where Marsha was You know, really trying to make sure that. That moment was understood by community. And then there was this beautiful kind of like. Other moment. Years later in the midst of that. HIV epidemic becoming more… And more. Sweeping of community and traumatic and really changing people. That Marsha was talking about how Stonewall happened in August on her birthday, right? And I write about that because a lot of people try to undermine Marsha’s contributions by saying She is being interviewed by Eric Marcasor. The one archive saying Oh, I wasn’t there, you know, till later. Until 2 a.m. Like one. Seymour Pine didn’t start the rate till 120. 2 a.m. Like That is so much later, but no, like. That’s 40 minutes into the rain, right? She talks about. How in that recounting I didn’t get there till later she talks about Stonewall happening in August on her birthday and so. What I write about is how trauma effects. Memory it is held and it shapes our understanding of the past. Especially when we’re in a moment as repressive. Grief and loss as was that Eisenhower pre-Stonewall moment. And how that really affects how people understand. What’s going on?

Speaker 1 [00:33:07] Well, it’s also the fact that as time went on, her life became more and more complicated. Yes. And that that would shape. Memory, right, because. Several nervous breakdown exactly gone through the trauma of the loss of her husband, which you should read about in the book she had contracted syphilis, which also like adds to the complexity around.

Speaker 4 [00:33:28] Yeah.

Speaker 1 [00:33:28] Mental health. And then on top of that, contending with a lot of people, even before she herself contracted HIV, the death of people around you. And it seems as if even when you write about her, that as she was going towards the end of her life, that time was like. Twisting and morphing. For her, right? It wasn’t, it was doing. She wasn’t as clear about what was happening when people say that around it. And it wasn’t in a way that it wasn’t what we would identify as schizophrenia. Really as if… There were. Other things that were happening.

Speaker 2 [00:34:02] Exactly. Shiasso! Was shot by… A client and lived from 1981. To 1992 with a bullet in her back. That’s right. It was too close to her spine. And that they couldn’t take it out and it affected her life in so many different ways like She was a performer. She did two performances a day with the Hot Peaches, the Downtown Theater troupe. And the angels of light. And then… After she was shot and living with a bullet in her back, it was hard for her to walk. She wasn’t able to go on tour to Europe. With the hot peaches because she couldn’t take long car rides, right? She had to sleep on the floor. Her life was really shaped by these. Incredibly harsh conditions. And also She had what I like to call a really privileged relationship with a divine Meaning, she had… Access to real conversations with saints. And God. She talked about seeing her dad in the water in the Hudson. about Hudson as the River Jordan and crossing it. She really had a profoundly spiritual… Understanding of the makeup of her life and everyone else’s.

Speaker 1 [00:35:07] That’s right, end of the world’s kind of around her. One of the things that I think is also really important about her and the political vision that they had. Is that it was an expansive one. In that time, it wasn’t only. About and for trans people. Thanks very much. Not only understood it to be connected, but actively worked with other groups. One of the most surprising things for me was the affinity, the affiliation with the learning from the cooperation from. The Black Panthers. The Young Laureates, a Puerto Rican group here, in addition to gay groups, right? And how Sylvia got into trouble for… Taking money from star the organization they founded Street Transmits Action Revolutionaries And because she went to a revolutionary conference with other, all these other groups in Washington, dressing down. Can you just talk a little bit about that? How they saw this as an expansive political movement?

Speaker 2 [00:36:04] But they really wanted to make sure that they’re. Liberation Movement and their organization Star was showing up in support of the Black Panther Party, of members who are. Incarcerated Afini Shakur or Angela Davis or… And then also going to actions and also. Part of the reason why they were so putting their focus on things like… Food was the Black Panther Party Breakfast Program, right? Than knowing that. People are too hungry, they can’t revolt. Right. Like in that kind of Fannie Lou Hamer sense and so. To me, they were students of these liberation movements. And also they were modeling how these really beautiful ideas of shelter and food and care. Mutual aid where profoundly necessary for their political and material future.

Speaker 1 [00:36:56] The other thing is how. What makes her hard to pin down. Is the fact that she was also. An artist.

Speaker 2 [00:37:03] Exactly.

Speaker 1 [00:37:03] Right, and we reference hot peaches. And for me, what was really interesting is, that’s how Andy Warhol got to know her.

Speaker 2 [00:37:10] That’s right.

Speaker 1 [00:37:10] And I saw the Warhol exhibit. Of a lot of his work in Chicago. Maybe five or six years ago. At the Art Institute there. Is. Pictures and paintings of Marsha. Were far more than I knew. It was, he was obsessed with her. Yes, literally. Right. Yeah, and there was something about her that shifted his vision. That’s right. And this goes to one of the things that you say is that there was something about that her very presence shifted consciousness, right? Right. Say it like… It moved something. And that is the very definition of a powerful artist.

Speaker 2 [00:37:48] That’s exactly right. Augusto Machado, who is still alive, is a dear friend and was so supportive. Generous with the research of the book talks about how when people would go. And get off the One Train. On Christopher Street. And see Marsha performing or standing there or sweeping the street. Or, you know, like doing spare change for a starving actress. Consciousness would be shifted. Because they would understand that they were in a place with a greater sense of freedom. And that they were allowed to turn up the volume of their lives and be all of who they are. In that place and in that moment. And that was exactly what happened with Andy Warhol. Andy Warhol saw Marsha perform multiple times. In the angels of light and also in the hot peaches. And Marsha. Was doing. An audition for this film called The Happy Hooker. And the producer saw it. And when she got to the taping, the casting director or whatever was like, no, you’re not right for this. So she really. Understandably took it personally and and then marched down to Andy Warhol’s office and said, you’re gonna do my portrait right now, wearing the same thing that she wore to the audition. And then she talks about that wasn’t the first time that. Anywhere high, taking her portrait, taking her photo. That this was actually like something that she had a previous ongoing relationship. Which speaks to exactly what you’re saying of like. These are. Beautiful portraits because Marsha is a beautiful person. And she shifted. His consciousness.

Speaker 1 [00:39:19] She was. Part of. That entire scene in the 1980s was totally shifted. Culture and Warhol and Basquiat and Keith Haring and Chris Jones and then, you know, and Madonna. Honestly, we have to honestly.

Speaker 2 [00:39:39] One of her music videos at the Gaiety, which was a club that Willie Bashir’s, you know, her friend and roommate was working and performing at. And Marsha talks about Madonna. It’s really interesting to listen to the audio and watch the video of Marsha talking about people like Madonna and. And, and also seeing that. Connection between the two and how Marsha as Marsha’s performance in life. Allowed for. So many others, right?

Speaker 1 [00:40:04] Sadly. This interview hasn’t come to an end. I’m very depressed about that, because I feel like I’m just. Because I feel like I’m just-

Speaker 2 [00:40:10] We are just scratching the ice. I know, I’m literally just-

Speaker 1 [00:40:11] I know, literally just scratching the surface, the iceberg. I feel like I’m walking across the ocean and just putting my foot on waves, right? Not getting any deeper than that. So we’ll have to figure out another way to do this again. Yeah, part two. Yeah, exactly. One of the things that I find really interesting and ironic is… The way that we are talking about her is being an expansive person and being in and outside of time. I think. There’s a lot of conversation around the tragedy of her death. I honestly think that. Ironically, she would be Please. Over the varying and competing versions of how she died. Because all of those versions. Arrrgh. Are versions of her life that are true. Right. That’s right. Did she walk into the water because she saw her father and because everyone says she kept being obsessed about that. Right. What did that happen? Was she murdered by these group of boys or men who someone saw? That’s also real and could not be possible because of. Street violence Was it the mafia, right? That’s another version, because there are all these other connections. What are the ways in which this happened? And all of them. All of them have staying power. Because all of them could be true given. How expansive and complicated. Her life was.

Speaker 2 [00:41:31] That’s right. Yeah, and I think that that part of the book I was really trying to honor all of those aspects. Right. And really follow the through line of each one with a lot of care. And, you know, it’s like she lived with a bullet in her back. Like this taxi driver tried to kill her, right? She talked about being. A cat who had nine lives because of the number of times she survived. Someone trying to kill her. And also. You know, at the same time. The peer was… It had holes in it, you know, like there was these kind of structural conditions and also at the same time. There was mental health and not being able to access care. You know, there’s just like an on and on and And so to me, it was really important to. Go through each part and aspect and You know, and also right before she died just a few weeks later. She wrote one of her only songs. Talking about when I die. Please don’t cry. I’m going to come back like she had a deep understanding right that this body this f*****g was simply a vessel for for God and for source and for spirit. And that it was not. The beginning or the end of her story in any way.

Speaker 1 [00:42:43] And also the fact that she lived the life that she wanted to live. Right more than anything. Right. Yeah. She said. Paraphrasing, but if I have to live a life without comfort in order to be who I am, then that’s what I’m gonna do. She lived the life she wanted to do and there’s no powerful statement. About someone’s existence than their ability to be able to live. The life, this brief time that we have exactly as they want to. That’s exactly right. Tourmaline, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Whether it be from your writing, your books. Your arts. York films. Films in the making. Like you continue to enrich our lives and our history and our vision. With your existence and just thank you so much.

Speaker 2 [00:43:30] It’s an honor to be here, so thank you.

Speaker 1 [00:43:33] And everyone needs to rush out. Buy this book. It’s gonna be a best seller. It is gonna be the best seller, I’m telling you. Thank you so much. Thank you. That was… Author and artist, Tourmaline. Thank you for joining me on the Translash Podcast. Now listen all the way through to the end of the show. For something extra. Did you like what you heard? Make sure to go leave a comment on Spotify. Or a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. You might just hear me read it out on the show. The TransLash Podcast is produced by TransLash Media. The TransLash team includes Oliver-Ash Kleine, and Aubrey Callaway. Xander Adams is our senior sound engineer and. Contributing producer. This episode also includes how- from Lucy Little, who is helping to produce it. This show gets to your ears with the help of our social media team, including Morgan Asprey. The music you heard was composed by Ben Draghi. And also courtesy of ZZK Records. TransLash podcast is made possible by the support of foundations. And listeners like you. I am looking forward to being at home for a little bit. But just for a little bit. As you’ve probably seen from social media. I was in Paris in part for my birthday, which was last week, and then… In London this week for meetings and such. And so it will be nice to just. Be home in New York in the spring. I’m hoping the weather will cooperate. So that I can just be in the streets.

Speaker 1 [00:00:09] Hey fam, it’s me, Imara. Welcome to the TransLash Podcast, a show where we tell trans stories to save trans lives. Well, the first 100 days of Trump’s second term have been a firestorm, maybe a nuclear bomb of attacks on democracy and marginalized groups of all kind. From his attempts to ban gender-affirming care for minors to attacks on trans athletes and military service members. The assault on our community has been relentless and overwhelming. Moreover, he perhaps inadvertently has targeted members of his base, well, the entire country, through the announcement of wide ranging and sky high tariffs, which possibly will lead to a recession, a decline in the stock market, as well as supply shocks along the lines of 2020. So, today we’re going to be taking a look. At all that we have endured over the past 100 days and look forward to what might come next with two journalists who have been covering this administration every step of the way. First, I sit down with Christopher Wiggins to lay out the major moments so far of the second Trump administration and what might be in their heads moving forward.

Speaker 2 [00:01:27] The fact that one of the first things that Trump did was make it the policy of the U.S. Government that trans and non-binary and intersex people don’t exist was shocking to me.

Speaker 1 [00:01:42] Then I’m joined by Katelyn Burns to discuss the impacts on our communities.

Speaker 3 [00:01:46] We have all these protests and we’re protesting things that aren’t necessarily trans-related and that’s okay, but bring your trans flag to that protest.

Speaker 1 [00:01:56] Now, if you want political analysis and to stay up to date with all of the headlines, including many of the ones that you have missed that are political in nature, then you should check out The Mess. And that is Imara’s Guide, that’s me, to our political hellscape. It’s where I share my breakdowns of the most important news stories that you need to know. And I also throw a lot of shade in the process, like way more than on this show, because I have to be, you know, all professional. You can access The Mess by signing up for a Translash Fam subscription. An Apple Podcast for only $4.99 a month, and it’s stayed the same even though there’s been inflation, okay? So with that, let’s start out as always this podcast with some trans joy. Music has always been a way to express who we are beyond the limitations of language. Millie A. Hearn is a Chicago-based composer and trumpet player, creating genre-blending soundscapes that reflects the complexity of trans life. She’s also the host of a weekly jazz jam for women and gender-expansive people in Chicago, helping to create more spaces for marginalized artists to perform and connect. Her upcoming album, titled They-ness, will trace the past three years of her journey, the self-exploration and love, across the cycles of the season. Here she is to tell us more.

Speaker 4 [00:03:39] One of the most beautiful things about trans experience for me is this continual cycle of change and the continual renewal of the self and allowing yourself to experience various rebirths based on the opportunities you get to be yourself. So I’ve tried to use the passing of the seasons and the passing of certain people through my life to explore the fact that we are all We all contain multitudes. I think so many more of us are days than we think, even if that’s not people’s gender identity. It’s like, well, you still contain so many versions of yourself at any one time. And so the album is going to be called They-ness, and it’s an exploration of the ability of human beings just to contain that many people within us at all times.

Speaker 1 [00:04:31] Millie, you are trans joy. Thanks to the listener who nominated Millie and you can do the same. And here’s how. If you know somebody who embodies trans joy, then send us an email at trans slash underscore podcast at transslash.org and make sure to include their name, contact information and why you think they should get a shout out in a future trans joy segment. And with that, Let’s get into my conversation with Christopher. It’s great to be talking today with senior national reporter for The Advocate, Christopher Wiggins. Based in Washington, D.C., Christopher covers the intersection of public policy, politics, and LGBTQ plus lives. His reporting has tracked how decisions from the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, and federal agencies impact our communities, which makes him a critical resource in this moment. Christopher has also written powerful cover stories for The advocate’s print magazine. Featuring the likes of former Vice President Kamala Harris and Congresswoman Sarah McBride. Crystal, thanks so much for joining me. The last time we spoke on air was during our special DNC coverage. Feels like 20 years ago.

Speaker 2 [00:05:54] Before the world came to an end.

Speaker 1 [00:05:56] I mean, well, first off, how are you holding up in DC? I mean you live in DC, you’re a reporter in DC. You are reporting on LGBTQ issues in Washington for an LGBTQ outlet. How are you hold up and what feels different to you day to day aside from, you know, the madness that you have to cover in your day job?

Speaker 2 [00:06:19] Well, I’m holding up pretty well, given that I have learned to set aside time for myself. So I garden and I pay attention to hummingbirds that are coming to visit now. I highly encourage it. That’s, that’s the thing that really keeps me grounded. But I worry that we maybe are getting inundated with so much craziness every day that the administration is trying to burn us out. And that’s one thing that I’m really trying to avoid. Like I pay attention to maybe a crazy thing that they do and then move away from that and write about something a little more substantive because I don’t think that everything they say is important. But what has changed for me is that, you know, I have my pronouns in my signature, in my email signature, like many people do, but this administration has made known that they no longer respond to anyone who has pronouns in their signatures. So I don’t get many responses anymore from government agencies that I generally had no problem before speaking to those people in the agencies with, but now can’t get a response from a lot of folks because of their blanket refusal to address anyone with pronouns in their signatures or bios. And I’m not going to remove mine from my emails because I’m not going be told by the government how to engage in my language.

Speaker 1 [00:07:43] I mean, it’s astounding how intense they are about stamping out anything that they believe shouldn’t exist, even to the point of policing signatures in the emails, and that being the basis for whether or not you get acknowledged as a person. I mean that is the stamp of a fascist.

Speaker 2 [00:08:12] Yeah. It started with this administration blocking the AP, right, from the press pool. And then the administration decided to take control of the press pool that covers the president and is part of the White House Correspondence Association, which has handled that since its inception. And now we’re at a place where the administration is forcing news organizations to use Gulf of America over Gulf of Mexico. They are not responding to people who have pronouns in their signatures and it just feels as though we’re not creeping but kind of blitzing into fascism and I worry that people are observing this moment and thinking they’re still watching something that’s happening somewhere else, but it’s actually happening here. And I think people need to wake up to the fact that this is now happening. We’re not watching it happen somewhere else. It’s happening to us and we really need to, to realize that.

Speaker 1 [00:09:20] I think that that’s right. First of all, let’s start with sort of the standouts to you over the last 100 days of the targeting of LGBTQ people. Like as a person who is in the Capitol and covering these issues, what stands out to you as true surprising markers or markers that you think the public should know about or be thinking about as alarming?

Speaker 2 [00:09:52] I mean, we can start with the fact that they are policing who uses what bathroom, just even in the U.S. Capitol, right? Sarah McBride from Delaware, the first trans member of Congress, she came into office, she immediately Nancy Mace, the South Carolina Congresswoman Republican, she wanted to have bathroom bills banning her from using the restroom. Then that didn’t really get done, Then- Speaker Johnson came up with the rule that said that people have to use the restroom that corresponds to the gender they were assigned at birth. And really recently, this kind of snowballed into a moment where they were on the House floor and Sarah McBride is minding her own business. Meanwhile, Lauren Boebert, the Colorado Republican, comes running out of the women’s bathroom off the floor of the US House. Grabs Nancy Mace, and those two then go investigate this woman with shoulder-length hair that they thought was Sarah McBride, who it wasn’t. It was cisgender, other lawmaker, and this became a kerfuffle. I mean, it’s silly and it’s ridiculous and it laughable, but if you broaden that out and you think about what that means for transgender people who go to the Capitol to visit the summers coming up, The weather is beautiful here in the Washington area. People are going on vacation and wanting to see the Capitol and go to other government buildings. If the rules are that folks cannot even use the restroom, I mean, I think we’ve lost the plot. I think, we have lost the plug. So those are small things that kind of blow outward to where they become things that affect everyday people. I think that the strength with which the Republicans are attacking the trans community. In every way, in legislation, in executive orders, in rules, in every element of life, is not only disgusting, but it is mind-boggling that they are wasting the first hundred days of being in complete power on marginalizing a small community in this terrible way. And fortunately the courts are kind of standing in the way of some of the things that they’re doing. I’m sure we’ll talk about the trans military ban in a bit, but the ongoing attack on the trans community that is remarkable to me and I don’t think that this is something that the American people support.

Speaker 1 [00:12:34] I mean, I think that it’s been the most focused and organized part of their 100 days, honestly, is the attack on trans people. I think, of course, we know of like the intense focus and the dramatic impact and the frightening realities surrounding the way that they’re handling immigration. But some of that is like kind of ham handed. Like, do you know what I mean? You know, who did what? And it’s not being executed with the same precision as the attack of trans people right? Even though the things that are happening to immigrants are, you know, deeply chilling and unconstitutional. But besides that, I think, and it’s been methodical the way they’ve rolled out. And so like, they rolled out all of those executive orders. And then from that now they’ve gone to implementation in the agencies and also like these court battles. Right, and then probably the next layer down from that is to begin to, you know, having district attorneys investigate doctors who provide gender affirming care to actually individuals and states and communities and that sort of thing. So like, it is actually a methodical approach. And I think for me, the thing that’s most worrying about it is the way that it, because it is so organized in the way that it’s unfolding, that it actually a test run for marginalization across the board. Right? Like it’s not only about trans people and the way that they’re doing it and it’s been the most organized thing that they’ve done. Far more organized, for example, than the tariff debacle.

Speaker 2 [00:14:04] Well, you know, I think what Republicans are good at doing is capturing the outrage of a moment and then amplifying that to an 11, right? They did this with the ads. Last year against Vice President Harris, where they came up with a little nugget about transgender surgeries in prison, something that, first of all, was not happening, and second of all was a policy about access to gender-affirming care that the previous Trump administration supported. But they twisted that into something that outraged people, or that they thought outraged people and they ran these ads. Millions hundreds of millions of dollars of ads on this attack on trans people and now to your point they are rolling out this legislative and policy-driven agenda that targets trans people because they found that this is something that resonates with their base and because most people think that they don’t know a trans person still because of that unfamiliarity there is enough of a nugget of truth for those people in what they’re saying that they feel they’re bringing people to their side it is really frightening and they will do that as they’re doing with immigrants now although they may be finding that that’s something that may be too much for some folks but they’re going to slice up the American population into groups that they will target them and strip them of their rights until at the end Only… Straight white men and people who don’t scare straight white men will be in power again. And that’s like a dystopian reality that I think we should never come to pass.

Speaker 1 [00:15:54] That’s right, I think that that’s exactly right. I don’t think that is far-fetched. I think it’s just a fact and it’s obvious at this point, and articulated by them. This is not hidden. And I think the thing that’s most disturbing for me is that when you look at the polls, some of the anti-trans stuff that he’s doing, such as the sports ban, are among the most popular things that he has done. It’s getting like 70% of approval. And that to me is deeply worrying, as much as what he is doing. Because at least on immigration, which again is deeply painful, and I know people who are impacted by all of the insanity that they are doing. But that, as you say, seems to be too much for the American people. Even when he was polling the best on a couple of weeks ago, it’s tanked now. So at least it’s unpopular, but a lot of the trans stuff is popular. And I think that that’s worrying.

Speaker 2 [00:16:56] I think it’s because the Republicans, again, they’re super good at taking something people are afraid of, or making people afraid of something. And here what you have is the invocation of children. Who doesn’t love their children? Who doesn’ want their children to succeed and to be the next football star? Or you know, this is the way that parents think. And of course, I mean, parents, they run the gamut. There are no monoliths there. LGBTQ parents, they’re straight parents, parents of all backgrounds. But if you’re continually being told that someone, right now it’s trans people, is taking something away from little Susie who is perfect at ice skating and should be the next Tara Lipinski, right? Like, if a parent gets consumed with that thought, then it’s easy to think, well… I don’t want my child to not benefit from something because someone else is taking it away from them. And so it becomes this kind of self-fulfilling prophecy where your child, who is never going to be the next Tara Lipinski, is doing their thing and now you’re going to continuously try to find someone else to blame for why they’re not successful or why they are not succeeding to that level. It’s that poison that the parents are now kind of using as a crutch, I think, for why their kids aren’t great. And they’re thinking that it’s other people’s blame. When we know that there are so few trans athletes in the NCAA, it’s fewer than 10 out of 500,000. I mean, these are non-issues. But because they’re framing it as children, I think that that’s why this is successful in so many ways.

Speaker 1 [00:18:52] Yeah, absolutely, you know. And meanwhile, like the budget that they are going to propose is going to be terrible for us, right? Like that’s the irony, of course. When you talk to people off the record in the administration about all of the things that they’re doing to target trans people, what do they tell you? What are the things that they are saying privately about what they’re doing that they don’t say publicly?

Speaker 2 [00:19:27] There are people in the administration who will turn it on the moment that the cameras are there or the moment they think that they can capture a piece of content that will play well, right? If you can make fun or belittle someone for pronouns or you can point to someone and say they shouldn’t be in a certain bathroom, if you can capture that as content, that’s great. You turn the camera off and suddenly they’re normal people again and they’re trying to talk to folks about, you know, what they’re doing for the weekend and this and that. I mean, it’s insane to me the amount of acting that goes on in Congress, or not even in Congress, in the government, among Republicans. A lot of these attacks are insincere. Now, there are people, Nancy Mace, for example, I haven’t spoken to her, but I get the sense that she is trying to become a Lauren Boebert, a Marjorie Taylor Greene. She wants the attention because I think she may have ambitions to run for governor. But she, I don’t think she believes the things that she believes about the LGBTQ community because she will point out that she voted in support of gay marriage twice. And she was a supporter. Before it became in vogue to be attacking trans people, right? So she is someone who I think, who puts on this mask, this facade, but she’s leading in so hard that I think maybe she has kind of passed the point of no return and has become someone who believes that, you know, but then there are other people who truly are hateful and spiteful and who believe it. And they’re the ones who… Thrive off of this attack because they will take anything any person is doing and and and twist it in a way that suddenly makes it dirty. Drag queens, for example, in the last few years, it was turned into something just so disgusting that there were laws being put into place to ban drug. I mean, it’s insane the level of the level to which we’ve gotten with all of this.

Speaker 1 [00:21:54] Yeah, I’m wondering what you’re hearing about where they might go in all of this. Cause I have to say that like, there’s so many things that they’ve done over the past hundred days that I thought were predictable once they got into power. So for example, the attack on gender affirming here, the attack on people using bathrooms that correspond with people’s gender identity, the attack on education and education not being a safe space. There are two things that did surprise me though. One was the deliberate erasure of trans people from history period in the government, from historical sites, from websites, you know, like that scrubbing. And the other thing was the very first one, the very executive order, which I think for me still is the most terrifying. Which is stating that it is the government’s interest, one, to define gender, and two, to not only define gender for people, but for gender to be defined for fetuses. That like, it’s in the government interest to know the gender of a fetus. That we have a, it seemed to me, a controlling interest, right? And wanting to know what that is and to be able to police people’s wombs solely on the gender of their fetus at this particular point. And that to me was really extreme. And I think the fact that you established it, that was the government’s interest, that means that’s the government interest in everything that the government does, right? Like it was sweeping in its nature. What do you think about that? And you know, the things that indicate where they’re actually gonna continue to head on this.

Speaker 2 [00:23:41] The fact that one of the first things that Trump did was make it the policy of the US government that trans and non-binary and intersex people don’t exist was shocking to me. It wasn’t surprising, but it was shocking because from that, to your point, stems all of the other bigotry that the government is now engaging in. Because once they say that you do not exist that you are not human you’re not part of the society you’re, not part, of you’re. Not covered by the constitution because if you’re not a person then the constitution doesn’t count for you the constitution covers people not things right totally if you take this to its logical and terrifying conclusion the fact that they are now testing disappearing people to concentration camps in El Salvador because those people, right, according to this government, they are not covered by the constitution because they’re an invading enemy force that just gets extrajudicial rendition out of the country without due process. So this is where these things are intersectional, where they, right? Like, so you have that as a test run, you hold that in over here, and then over there you have what they’re doing to trans people by not acknowledging that they exist. By taking away their access to medical care, by taking their ability to serve the country. I mean, try to scrub the existence of trans people from society, from current society and from history. And that is one of the most, not only disgusting, but ridiculous points too, because we have the way back machine. I mean everything on the internet is stored, so. Like I don’t know why you would try to delete it now because at some point you’re going to be able to revert it later unless we truly have fallen off the deep end. I fear that where they’re going with this is making, I mean some states are already trying it, is making just being trans illegal. That’s right. It is wild to me that people support all of this bigotry based just on this one executive order, right? The fact that. They’re going to take the rights of trans people away because the president has decided that these are people we don’t like is, I would hope, just like the immigration situation is becoming a step too far for the American people, I hope that the American people will stand in the way of this too. Because anytime in US history or in world history where you target a small group of people and take their rights away. It becomes Nazi Germany, right? And that brings me to what I said earlier, which is I think that people need to realize that this is happening now and not happening elsewhere.

Speaker 1 [00:26:40] What are you also seeing as the larger implications for the broader LGBTQ plus community? You know, that there are certain people, even people who are in power or prominent in the non-T part of the rainbow community, as they say, you know, who we’re like, oh, well that’s a, these are trans issues and we kind of need to separate ourselves from trans issues and, you know we can’t be seen as being. To pro-trans because that’s going to impact the ability for us to maintain our rights, et cetera. But it’s clear that the strategy, as laid out by the Trump administration, is to go after things that other parts of the community care deeply about, such as the recognition for gay marriage, for example. The threat isn’t only, and it’s never contained to one community. So I’m wondering what you think about the implications are for what they’re doing for the broader LGBTQ community, which you’ve alluded to before, but actually what are you hearing amongst movement leaders about the need to respond to this or not?

Speaker 2 [00:27:45] So you’re talking about the LGB without the T crowd and

Speaker 1 [00:27:48] Yes.

Speaker 2 [00:27:49] Yeah, that crowd. What bothers me the most is that when you’re part of a marginalized community that has made strides in some ways, why would you pull the ladder up behind yourself? It makes no sense to me. It offends me to my core because it is selfish, but it also opens the door to the leopards eating your face. Right? Because, like, if you were blocked from your rights, and you have now gotten some rights, but you say, okay, I have my rights, but they’re starting to target you, and we’re not really like you, so we’re gonna let them take your rights. What makes you think they’re not going to come after your rights again? I thought LGB people were supposed to be smarter than that. I mean, honestly. So that really gets me. But what I think people need to realize, people in the the Aussie bee community. Need to realize is that they will come for us too. They are not friends to our community. They have been quiet for a while because they have come to realize that the greater society has come to embrace us. They’ve realized that we are their neighbors, their relatives. Then you have the trans community where the country is still saying, who are these people? We don’t really know them. I mean, it took the same amount of getting to know lgb people as the is taking the country now to get to know to think they get to know trans people and for lgbe people to want to separate themselves from what’s going on is not only short-sighted and incredibly cruel and and hypocritical but also just stupid because you will end up on chopping block too you know the don’t say gay laws Those are don’t say gay and trans laws, right? So the primary thing that they’re going after is the LGB community. You can’t talk about the fact that LGBTQ people exist. You can tell stories of LGBTQ people. You can talk about your spouse if you’re an LGBTQ teacher. I mean, they are coming after anyone who is not a cisgender white man. It was in vogue for a while to dunk on, you know, on men. And I’m not saying that this doesn’t exist. I think that toxic masculinity exists. I think it needs to be called out. But for a little while, you will hear folks on the right argue that men just kind of became the target, the target to target, the target. And now men are rising up. Yes, well, it answers itself. Men are rising now, white men are rising up because they saw that other people were getting, and we’re starting to become… More successful than them or we’re becoming more prominent than them and that is so terrifying to this group of people who have always been in charge of everything that they’re willing to do anything to maintain that.

Speaker 1 [00:30:55] Yeah, I mean, I think it’s what’s fascinating to me it’s more the idea that they shouldn’t be in charge because when you actually look at wealth and you look at who’s CEOs, who’s president, right? Like, you know, who owns the NFL teams and the sports. Like when you go down the list, like that list things haven’t really changed, right. It’s like, do you know? It’s fascinating, to me, again, this like separation of like fact and reality. All right, but let’s try to leave people with some hope here. I mean, one of the things, well, there’s always hope. So not some hope, but let’s leave them with the hope that exists, right? And for me, one of the interesting things is the way that Trump is absolutely across the board has the lowest poll numbers of any president in the history of polling in the United States, which goes back 80 years at this point in their a hundred days. And he’s now in the red zone and some of them in the thirties, right. I mean it’s conventional wisdom that like His bedrock base is 35, like he’s never gonna go below 35. And so now he’s like getting in the red zone of just almost getting to the core believers, right? And so there is some accumulative impact of all of the things that he is happening in a way that people are rejecting it. Like they are rejecting the immigration stuff. They are rejecting, the terror stuff. They are, you know, they’re just Social Security and Doge and Elon Musk and the list goes on. That is a place of hope. I’m wondering. How you see that, do you see that there is hope in people standing up and saying, no, thank you.

Speaker 2 [00:32:31] You know, I get a lot of sod and Florida right out of out of.

Speaker 1 [00:32:37] That’s joy in the suffering of others.

Speaker 2 [00:32:39] Yes, that’s joy in the suffering of others. I’m from Germany. We have big words that mean a lot of really, really crazy things. I have a lot Schadenfreude over watching, you know, scrolling on social media and seeing people who admit that they voted for Trump who are now suffering and are wondering why they’re suffering along with the people that they thought would be suffering, right? The petty part of me. Like enjoy seeing that and and and but the greater message i think is that you can vote against your interests and if you’re willing to go online and take on the embarrassment of calling yourself out in that way i think you can be convinced right to not pull the lever for him next time when you understand the rope adobe like you maybe don’t fall for that trap a third time, or a fourth time, I guess, because I’m sure these people have voted for him several times. What strengthens my resolve is that, to your point, his poll numbers are very low, and he is continuing to mess up the economy. And I think that is the most important number to pay attention to, because Americans, they clearly don’t care about fascism, they cared about was Their their wallets and the perception that he would do something great for him and he’s not doing that So the prices are going to go up. That’s already kind of foretold Who knows if we’re already in a recession? We could be we couldn’t be it’s weird that you only find out if you’re in a recession later

Speaker 1 [00:34:22] That’s right.

Speaker 2 [00:34:23] I’m not an economist, but I don’t understand how that works. I think that the collective suffering that the American people are seeing, those who aren’t just getting their news from Fox News, because if you’re on Earth too, on Fox News none of this is happening and everything is great. So like that’s a whole different world. But I’m heartened to think that people are seeing the chaos and the destruction. And while a lot of them do get joy out of seeing others. Upset like I think there’s a whole group of folks who appreciate everything that Trump is doing. Although it’s outrageous and crazy and destructive Because they’re thinking ha ha these liberals. They’re all suffering and they’re all angry and upset and we like that The fact that we’re suffering too We’re setting that aside for now because we’re enjoying that so I guess they get schadenfreude out of that, too I guess it can can can bite you in the butt But you know, I think that also the courts stepping in and saying that, no, you can’t do a lot of the things that he’s doing, even though he’s ignoring the courts for the most part. But it really gives me strength to know that the courts are still there and still coming to logical conclusions that protect people’s rights for the most part, who knows what the Supreme Court is going to do. And the fact that people are really stepping up and calling themselves out for having voted for Trump, who are now suffering. And for the people who are responding to polls, although, you know, you and I both know polls are not an exact science and should probably not be believed for the most part, but it does seem to me the fact that his poll numbers are really sinking so low should mean that the pendulum might swing the other way again here coming soon with the elections. And in Virginia, we’ll probably see that in November because, you know, there the gubernatorial race will be decided this fall.

Speaker 1 [00:36:21] Well, a lot to continue to track and follow. Thank you so much for coming on and doing that with us right now. And of course, we look forward to you coming back on. Thank you, so much and make sure that in the middle of it, you’re taking care of yourself.

Speaker 2 [00:36:35] Thank you so much for having me. I’m gonna go check my hummingbird feeders to see if they need more nectar.

Speaker 1 [00:36:41] Sounds like a plan. Until next time, thank you so much. That was DC-based reporter for The Advocate, Christopher Wiggins. I’m so glad to have back journalist and longtime friend of the show, Katelyn Burns, to unpack the last 100 days of the Trump presidency. Katelyn has been writing about U.S. Politics for years, making history as the first ever openly trans reporter to cover Capitol Hill. She currently works as a columnist for MSNBC, an extra magazine, and is also a co-owner of the flytrap, a new feminist blog and newsletter. And if you want to hear more of Katelyn’s takes on culture and politics, make sure to check out her podcast, Cancel Me Daddy. Katelyn, thank you so much for joining me again, although we’re welcoming you back for all of the wrong reasons.

Speaker 3 [00:37:48] I think I’ve said this joke before on your show, but, you know, nobody ever calls me about good news.

Speaker 1 [00:37:54] Right, right. Let’s just start with the personal. We live these dual lives where on the one hand, like we are reporters and we’re journalists, we’re covering this thing. And there’s a way that we have to move about covering all of the fecacda. And if you don’t know that word, audience, look it up. It’s a Yiddish word. I think you can probably figure out what it means. And, you know, at the same time, we’re we’re. People and we’re personally moving through and absorbing these things. So let’s start with the person before we do the analytical thing. Like personally, how are you absorbing and navigating all of the

Speaker 3 [00:38:38] You know, I’m surprisingly in relatively good spirits about things. I don’t think that’s been true for the entire 100 days. You know, I’ve been really focused on building out a local support system, but I’ve made a bunch of new friends locally, a bunch new queer friends locally. And that has been a huge help. There’s a lot of really, really concerning things coming out of this administration. Particularly, they keep saying they want to deport U.S. Citizens who criticize the administration. And, you know, as a prominent trans journalist… I would consider myself to be high on their target priority list. So that has been really concerning, but at the same time, I’ve also taken steps to prepare for that possibility. You know, I have packed a go bag, I made escape plans, I done all the necessary things, and that has really helped me sort of not worry about that anymore, if you understand what I’m saying. Like, I have my plan. I know exactly what to do in certain situations. Now I don’t have to think about it anymore. It’s actually very strange that it’s kind of eased the worry for me in a lot of ways, making those preparations.

Speaker 1 [00:39:58] I mean, one, you’re channeling the energy, right? So that’s one thing, like you’re actually, the energy has a focus and you’re able to move it in a way where it’s able to be productive, right. You’re not paralyzed by it. But I also think, I wonder if it’s something like this for you, and this is something that I possibly could relate to, which is that when external reality begins to match your internal reality, there is something that’s remarkably grounding about that. And what I mean by that is that I think that you, like me, I think we share this, is that we’ve long on this show and in this forum and conversation with each other, and then separately, and you, of course, in your own work have been telling people how focused and serious these people were about the things they’ve been saying. That it’s not just. Rhetoric, it’s not just speculation, it is not just political positioning, that the things that they have been saying are things that they meant to do. And I think that for a long time, there have been so many people who have not taken those warnings seriously. And I think now that everyone is experiencing, sadly, unfortunately, tragically, everything that I’ve been saying, you’ve been saying, there’s something about that that’s actually sort of grounding. And I feel, I personally feel, even as sort of tired and disoriented and all the rest of it, I, I personally, feel less crazy.

Speaker 3 [00:41:48] Yes, that’s a good way to put it. I mean, we’re forever Cassandra in a lot of ways. I don’t know that I necessarily fault people for not believing us. Like I understand why they didn’t believe us. It was just too much for them to handle, but we’ve been expecting this for the most part for years. So the fact that it’s finally here and we’ve had exponential amount of time to think about and plan and figure out what we would do when this time comes, compared to everybody else. Like, it’s not surprising that we’re kind of in this, I don’t want to say Zen state, because that’s not the right word, but we’re like, we are more balanced about this and level-headed than I think a lot of people are across the country right now, especially like political analysts who are like, oh, no, no. So I’ll just render it.

Speaker 1 [00:42:45] So yeah, I think that our community and that there are a lot of people who are able to now take us seriously, but the people who still can’t take us seriously are like more of the mainstream thought leaders where they’re like, okay, well, that’s trans, but then over here, we’re okay. And I’m like, no, friends, you don’t understand that all the trans stuff is just… The prelude, the fine tuning of everything that they’re about to do to you. And like, it’s that connection. And maybe they’re experiencing kind of that disconnection, dissociation, denial that other people were that now, but like that still is there. And that kind of like, concerns me at this point, because we need more people in order to avoid the worst from happening to get it, right? To like, for it to click because Well, we’ll get to this in a minute. But I think that there are opportunities for us to make sure that the worst doesn’t happen, but there’s still this giant disconnect among like the more mainstream people and I, you know, I don’t know what, what do you, what are you saying?

Speaker 3 [00:43:51] Yeah, I mean, they certainly don’t understand the famous poem about the Nazis first they came for, which I’ll note, like, trans people should have been in that poem, and we are not. So, and when I say we should have put in that phone, we should put in a poem that was about the Nazis, because the Nazis came for the trans people extremely early on. And I wouldn’t say we were first or second even. But we were like a step along the way and we were not mentioned there. So I take issue with the person that wrote that famous poem because maybe more people would be realizing now that like Trump’s coming for everybody. And there will be a demographic of people who will be fine, you know, white, cishet men mostly I think will have their lives.

Speaker 1 [00:44:39] Who are extremely wealthy, by the way, not if you’re not if you’re working class or in any way.

Speaker 3 [00:44:45] Yeah, bad if you belong to a union, like wealthy white, like, you know, Matt Iglesias is probably fine in an extreme Trump administration. I’m just going to call that, that yokel out.

Speaker 1 [00:44:59] Yeah, yeah. Well, explain who Matt Iglesias is to the people who don’t follow him on Twitter.

Speaker 3 [00:45:03] He’s my former colleague, actually. Makes me sick to say. He is co-founder of Vox. He is now, I think, probably the wealthiest substacker. And he is like chronically centrist of late. Centrist is the kindest word that I can use.

Speaker 1 [00:45:24] And also, how do you be centrist in an authoritarian regime? Like, okay.

Speaker 3 [00:45:29] Yeah!

Speaker 1 [00:45:30] So all right, let’s, I feel like we’ve just kind of like, it’s as if like I picked up the phone and I called you and we started talking. So let me just be a little bit more professional for everyone who’s listening. Sorry, listeners. So let’s just recap in a way for the first 100 days. Although I don’t think we have to spend a lot of time doing that. I’m glad we started with the personal and now can put our glasses on and straighten our hair. But I think that like, although you’re wearing glasses right now, so.

Speaker 3 [00:45:57] My hair is not straight.

Speaker 1 [00:46:00] One of the things that I think I would argue about Trump is that one of the most coherent attacks that the administration has mounted, you could perhaps argue it’s the most coherent attack so far. I mean, even more coherent than the immigration one because that one’s been so roundly dismissed by the courts and it looks like he’s headed for a major loss of the Supreme Court on. Immigration and there’s going to be a big showdown, but is the attack on trans people like it has been the most coherent thing that they’ve done from day one through now. And I am wondering how that strikes you that for an administration that is known for chaos, that is where chaos abounds across the board, even on the things that they really care about. This is the most focused and coherent that they have been so far are the attacks on TransBeep.

Speaker 3 [00:46:54] Yeah, I think that’s probably correct analysis, although I will note that everything that’s been challenged in court so far has been put on hold. They certainly had a plan for us. They started that plan on day one. We’re here talking about the first hundred days of Trump, but he hasn’t done anything majorly trans related. I mean, there’s a few things here and there. You know, he announced some anti-trans stuff. Around the time of his tariffs. I think he was trying to make create a distraction. And it didn’t really work for him because nobody gives a fuck about trans people if they’re 401k is thinking. And so they had to roll the tariffs back. But like before that, there hadn’t been an anti-trans action since like, I think the first 30 days, but they have this all up blitz of the first four weeks that they were in office and they’ve been relatively quiet since then. Other than a few, you know, outliers here and there, and obviously the rhetoric is never going to change. But in terms of actual specific policy, it was very frontloaded for this administration. So I’m curious to see what else they might have in the pipeline. I think they’re kind of waiting to see how the courts settle on the things that they already have before they choose, where they go next. I don’t think they’ll take the step of banning gender-affirming care, but they are definitely taking steps to make it less available, and that has been something that they have done more recently.

Speaker 1 [00:48:29] I would couch it slightly differently. I would say that, yes, from the White House standpoint, but you’ve seen the action move to the departments. So you saw like HHS, you know, ban the LGBTQ hotline. You’ve seen, the Justice Department, you know recently filed suit against Maine. Like it’s now going down to the kind of administrative level. We saw, you now the lawsuit. Against the University of Pennsylvania for them to ban the non-existent trans athletes that they that they don’t, you know, so I think that like, yeah, out of the White House for sure, but at the department level is where you’re continuing to see kind of this, you know, freight train of activity. And of course, you know, the reverberations are continuing to be felt around the world in a way that’s wild. What I am curious from you, though, since you cover Capitol Hill, Know Washington really well So we had all these things, right? The bans on DEI, which also impact LGBTQ people. We have the health stuff. We have education stuff. Like, you know, it just went on and on and on and the Republicans all fell in line. And in a way that makes sense because the Republican party is an anti-trans party as an anti trans party. It was a key part of the pillars that they had over the summer and then part of their platform. So that makes like they’re an anti trans party there to be anti trans. I am wondering if you can just talk about like with this slew of things that- are deliberately targeting this community and then setting up the way in which they’re gonna take away citizenship from other people and take away their papers. All the things they’re doing with trans people that are just an experiment. What you make of the reaction from Democrats? What do you make of the reactions of people who say that they really care about equality and all these other things? Like, what do you makes of that? And have you been surprised by that or it’s very much in line with what you think? Is the way that these people normally move and act and behave.

Speaker 3 [00:50:27] I was very surprised that Senate Democrats united to vote against the anti-trans athlete bill. They voted on Bob, actually. I think there’s only one Democrat on Capitol Hill that voted for that, but otherwise every other Democrat voted against the trans athlete ban, which I was really surprised about. And I think that in our community we often dismiss or disparage the special interest groups that are supposed to represent us, like the Human Rights Campaign and the like. But I actually think those groups did a ton of work on that bill specifically.

Speaker 1 [00:51:08] That’s fair.

Speaker 3 [00:51:09] And from what I’ve heard behind the scenes, they basically kind of deadlifted Democrats into that vote. There’s a lot of behind the scene stuff that I don’t think anybody will ever learn about. So I did want to credit them. And I think that there was also a pushback from the public, you know, we saw on Blue Sky, there was a campaign to get people to contact their representatives about that bill specifically. And I think that those things kind of convalesce together into a really, really positive result from Democrats. And then of course, immediately you see Gavin Newsom with his new kind of pointless podcast, you know, Charlie Kirk saying, I agree with you on trans issues 100%. Now, the context of that conversation is, is he agreed on the trans athlete issue, but the quote made it seem like he was agreeing with everything that Kirk says about trans people. I do want to, like, offer some clarity. I mean, Newsom’s still kind of a scumbag in my mind, but maybe not as big of a Scumbag as the quote made it seem like he was. But you see, it’s really interesting to see the early presidential politics for 2028, kind of having a jumping off point with this issue in particular, as you see people taking sides. And Newsom certainly is going to run for president. And I think he thinks that By separating himself on trans athletes, he creates separation from anybody in the Senate now on the Dem side that would throw their hat in the ring. Kind of curious to see where that goes. I’m curious to even see if we have a presidential election in 2028, but maybe that’s my dark humor seeping through.

Speaker 1 [00:52:58] I mean, one, I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion. I also think that like, anyone who thinks that they’ve been able to outsmart the Republicans so far on an intelligent third way on trans politics has been made a fool of so far. So I think that given history, you know, it probably will be the same on this because it’s gonna get so bad that anything that you did to signal that you supported. Anything that was anti-trans is going to be seen as having been a catastrophic mistake, I think. That’s my assessment.

Speaker 3 [00:53:35] Well, you saw that already with Gavin Newsom’s approval ratings. And they, they just completely tanked. I mean, the guy started a podcast. People actually started hearing him talk and they’re like, Oh wait, I actually hate this guy.

Speaker 1 [00:53:49] Well, I think that it went to the question that I was kind of getting at. You stopped me in my tracks with the reminder of this vote, which is, so thank you for that. But I mean, I that it is this narrative that trans people are to blame for the loss in the election, right? So you not only hear the Pod Save America, people were all over that. I mean they recently had on Sarah McBride, which is great. It’s the first trans person they’ve ever had on their podcast, so that’s good for them.

Speaker 3 [00:54:14] It’s really, it’s taken that long.

Speaker 1 [00:54:16] So that is.

Speaker 3 [00:54:16] That is pathetic.

Speaker 1 [00:54:17] Yeah, so that’s good, but.

Speaker 3 [00:54:19] This really is like a phone call between friends. It really is.

Speaker 1 [00:54:21] It really is. So I mean, so yeah, so it’s totally, you know, good, good for them. Um, after, you know, those guys blamed us for months for the loss. Um so okay. But you know there was Gavin Newsom. There’s also recently Rahm Emanuel who kept saying that like, you know, the problem with the Democrats who apparently also is thinking about running for president next time. Oh, you know, all the Democrats were just obsessed with the bathroom that people use and this, and the third, and I don’t know. I mean, that… I have been surprised by the degree to which this is a story that Democrats, and establishment Democrats I should say, have been so willing to buy.

Speaker 3 [00:55:02] Yeah, it’s definitely a strange one. I mean, anybody who’s paying attention to the last election cycle, like Democrats, I wrote about this. They didn’t talk about us. Like they mentioned the word trans three times, I think, four times, maybe possibly at the democratic national convention. Like I don’t understand how anybody can look at that and say, oh yeah, that’s a party that’s obsessed with trans people. You want to talk about a party that’s obsessed with trans people is the Republicans. I think every single speaker at the Republican National Convention that got up on stage was ranting about trans people. So no, Democrats are not obsessed. I mean, we know this. Everybody that was listening to this knows this, but Democrats are no obsessed with transition issues. I think that a lot of these guys quite frankly ran losing campaigns. They are trying to distract from the fact that they had no answer on trans issues when Republicans attacked them. And that’s a different problem than being obsessed with trans.

Speaker 1 [00:56:06] One hundred percent.

Speaker 3 [00:56:07] And it stems from the fact that they don’t really have trans people on staff who understand the issues to be able to counter them. I’ve actually never told anybody this, but there was a point in time a couple of years ago, especially when Twitter was dying and I wasn’t sure about my future in journalism, where I very seriously thought about setting up a comm shop that helped politicians specifically message on trans issues. Part of me kind of wishes that I had gone through with it, a very small part of me, I will say, because, you know, the Kong side of the job is the evil empire compared to the journalism side. The big problem is, is they just don’t have, they don’t understand how to counter the frothing hate that Republicans generate on this issue, more so than thinking that Democrats are obsessed with this issue or, or whatever. Like you shouldn’t just be looking at a poll and sticking your finger in the air and figuring out which way the wind is blowing before like abandoning trans people. I think that actually the immigration stuff that’s happening with the Trump administration is giving Democrats a valuable lesson in actually making an argument because you see, you know, everybody thought Trump was unbeatable on immigration, even though Democrats tried to beat him going around to his right on immigration in the last election and Trump just went further to the right. But now that his policies are actually in action and people are seeing the results They’re kind of reconsidering their support and Trump in his most recent polling was underwater with voters on immigration for the first time, I think ever. And I think Democrats are realizing, Oh, we actually need to go out and make an argument. You saw Senator Van Hollen. He took a plane trip to El Salvador to meet with one of the illegally deported migrants and Now, all of a sudden, all the Democrats are getting on a plane to El Salvador because they want all of that attention, right? Like, I think Democrats have forgotten how to make an actual argument. And I would put that squarely, not just in the Democratic camp, but also on the, the consultant establishment that they depend on to run their campaigns. I think the consultants don’t understand how to make a political argument either. And Republicans are just running circles around them.

Speaker 1 [00:58:43] Yeah, I mean, there’s so many reasons for that, that, you know, we could spend a whole show, literally a whole, maybe we will. Maybe we’ll come back.

Speaker 3 [00:58:50] The whole series.

Speaker 1 [00:58:51] We’ll come back and like literally have an entire conversation about why this is. I think that this is actually a good thing for us to do. So thanks for that story idea. So we’ll have you back on for that. But I think, I think that that’s right. And I think that there’s certain things that Americans do get viscerally and they do get this really being kidnapped off the street as a person who’s legally here and taken away. And I’ve been shocked at how like upset people in rural parts of the country have been about this, like I’ve been very shocked by that. And I think that there are lots of arguments that people can make about trans issues, I think specifically around trans passports and the way in which they are limiting freedom of movement and having the state be able to say that you have the ability to be identified as a citizen or not, that I think you could probably make an argument on, among other things. But let’s move forward, right? Like we, I mean, we don’t have to spend a lot of time telling people about like what happened because everybody knows what happens over the past and trans communities are scrambling. Like that’s, we, don’t Moving forward, let me ask you two questions. One, what else do you see as the next moves by the Trump administration? I think that you’re right about, I think they’ve been kind of stopped during their tracks because the tariffs and the economy thing has really thrown them for a loop. And I think everything that I’m hearing and reading, the White House is spending a lot of time tied up in knots on that. And they’re spending a lotta time tied up in knots Immigration, like they’ve been kind of thrown off by the negative reaction. And so there, a lot of their brain power is on untangling those knots that they’ve tied. So with that as a backdrop, like what do you see happening? Let’s say for the next 90 days on trans issues and then prospectively in terms of where you see trans people organizing and putting their energy to stop some of this, like tell us where you, see both of those things, both administration wise and community wise.

Speaker 3 [01:00:55] Yeah. So on the administration side, I think we’ll continue to see these agencies and departments implementing the executive orders. You know, you mentioned earlier that the last 60 days or so have mostly been agency actions. And I meant to make the point, but we moved on to something else. But I meant the point that. Yeah, those agencies are responding to the executive orders. Like this is the second phase. And then the third phase is implementing actual rules. So, you know, you saw that recently with, um, HHS had a proposed rule that. Would bar insurance companies. And I think Medicare from listing gender affirming care is an essential service that must be covered, which there’s dispute. In the analysis of whether or not that would actually ban like Obamacare plans from covering gender affirming care. So I don’t feel qualified to speak on exactly what the rule is going to do, but it’s just bad, right? So you started to see stuff like that, uh, come through. And, but you’re also seeing legal battles. Like, um, the lawsuits are starting to move into the decision phase. We’ve recently saw a temporary restraining order. In the passport case, one of the passport cases. Now that doesn’t extend to all trans people seeking a passport change, but it did apply to the specific complainants in that suit. And just for me personally, like my passport expires in a year and a half. So I’m waiting to see a class certification in that case where it would apply to all Trans people. Hustling down and getting that renewal. And I suggest any trans listeners who are in a similar situation to me, like wait for that step and then just try to get it done as fast as possible. There’s no guarantee that it’ll work, but it’s literally our best shot right now, as opposed to getting stuck here with no passport. So I think we’ll continue to see agency actions and then lawsuits responding to them and going to get a Supreme Court judgment in the next probably six months in the case that they heard a couple weeks ago. There’s certainly lots of things happening. I think we’ll continue to see further restrictions in the healthcare side especially because I think that’s kind of the big outlier for this administration. Like they can’t unilaterally put in a bathroom bill that take congressional action. So yeah, I would expect more attacks on the healthcare front. And then from a community standpoint, like a really underrated thing is, we have all these protests and we’re protesting things that aren’t necessarily trans-related and that’s okay. But bring your trans flag to that protest. Remind people that, hey, we are in your communities too. You know, I got, my aunt went to her local protest and somebody was flying like a gigantic trans pride flag and she took a picture of it and she goes, look, you know, your people are here too. I’m like, yeah, we’re everywhere. Everywhere. Auntie Robin, what the heck? But I think that that is an underrated way that we can sort of make our presence felt, even as we’re protesting things that aren’t necessarily trans-specific. And I would encourage people to continue to make, you know, local contacts, local resources, you know meet people. I think our best protection is locally at this point, even if you’re in a red state. There are still Democrats and other trans people who are in your state. There can’t be any harm in getting to know those people and starting the beginning stages of organizing with them.

Speaker 1 [01:05:03] Yeah, I mean, I think that that’s all really sound advice. And I think, that I mean this is gonna be a weird thing to say and a weird place to, a weird note of hope to end on. We’ll see if this holds. But I do think that there is a people in their minds as wild as this is to me personally, I do you think that there is difference between people who want and wanted Trump rhetorically to beat up on people and to marginalize and to belittle versus actually doing it, right? And I think that you’re kind of seeing that on the immigration stuff. Like there’s some set of people that voted for him that like rhetorical, they were like, yeah, and that made him feel good. But then seeing like people separated from their pregnant spouses and then, whisked away to other parts of the country and essentially like black sites. Like there’s something about that that like made a rural farmer in Iowa get up and yell at Charles Grassley. You know what I mean? And he just goes, I’m pissed, you know? And he spent his capital as a person expressing that in that moment. And so I do think that this note that you’re ending on which is that like. Even though the backdrop is terrible, figuring out ways to reach out to people locally, even if you think that they may not necessarily be on your side, there’s a difference between rhetorically being against something and then actually being like, oh, this person should be removed or should lose their job or should be, you know, like there’s difference that people are starting to make. And so I do think that that advice that you are giving is actually a point of hope.

Speaker 3 [01:06:52] Can I tell you where I think a lot of this frustration on the immigration side is coming from?

Speaker 1 [01:06:56] Yeah, sure.

Speaker 3 [01:06:58] I think it’s the lack of due process, you know, we’ve had years and years and years of like men’s rights activists saying, Oh, these poor college boys accused of, you, the R word are not getting due process from their colleges and they’re obsessed with due process. And now they’re seeing other people who are like, just getting disappeared with no trial. And they’re like, wait, that could just as easily be me.

Speaker 1 [01:07:24] Oh, that’s interesting.

Speaker 3 [01:07:25] Like they’re picturing themselves in it, right? Like, I think that’s a big part of where this pushback is coming from, especially on the red side of the aisle. I’m wondering if there is a way that we can kind of capitalize on that and start framing our issues in a matter of due process. That’s something I’ll have to think about. Keep an eye on my work for maybe seeing that theme pop up.

Speaker 1 [01:07:50] Yeah. Well, now I’ve helped you to think through a possible idea that you have. So we’re even. Thank you so much, Katelyn. Really appreciate your insights and appreciate the listeners for listening to our private phone call that we’ve turned into a podcast, essentially.

Speaker 3 [01:08:04] You know, these are the best podcasts, let’s be honest. That’s true.

Speaker 1 [01:08:06] That’s true, that’s true. And, you know, like continue to prepare everyone and continue to make local connections because there is some hope out there that we’re saying thank you so much, Katelyn.

Speaker 3 [01:08:18] Thank you.

Speaker 1 [01:08:19] That was journalist and podcaster, Katelyn Burns. Thank you for joining me on The TransLash Podcast. Now listen all the way through to the end of the show for something extra. If you like what you heard, make sure to leave a comment on Spotify or a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. You might just hear me read it out loud on the show. The TransLash Podcast is produced by TransLash Media. The TransLash team includes Oliver-Ash Kleine and Aubrey Callaway. Xander Adams is our senior sound engineer and a contributing producer. The show gets to your ears with the help of our social media team, including Morgan Astbury and Hillary Esquina. The music you heard was composed by Ben Draghi and also courtesy of ZZK Records. The Trans H podcast is made possible by the support of foundations and listeners like you. So what am I looking forward to? Well, it’s officially Taurus season. Although Taurus’s don’t really get into seasons. That’s more like Virgos and you know, these other signs. In any event, it is technically Taurus Season. I’m a Taurus. My birthday actually is next week. So I am looking forward to my birthday and to celebrating with my friends, even though I will be on a work trip. I’m gonna carve out some time. For myself and then hopefully do some things later this month. So, yay, my birthday next week.