WEBVTT - The Democrats Turn on Trans People 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:04.920 Alone media. 0:00:05.160 --> 0:00:08.320 It could happen here. It's it could happen here. The 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:13.080 podcasts that is about. I don't know how everyone hates 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:15.240 trans people and how this has become a sort of 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:19.239 cross partisan thing. I'm your host, Bio Wong. We are 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:21.840 we have been doing. Oh god, I don't even know 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:25.439 what sort of number of RNC episodes are going to 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:28.760 have come out before this thing before you hear this episode. 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:32.640 But we are once again turning away from their republic 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:36.640 from the sort of chaos and despair of the Republican Party, 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:38.360 to turn it towards the chaos and despair of the 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:42.080 Democratic Party. Yeah, we're gonna specifically be talking about a 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:46.400 series of what I think we're kind of high profile 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:49.920 fights in trans circles over sort of the administration very 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:53.680 publicly starting to write off trans kids. I don't think 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:55.960 it got that much news attention because as as you 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:57.920 may have noticed, it is. Yeah, a lot of this 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:00.960 is by very specifically Biden administration stuff. We are recording 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:03.000 the Sunday Warning the morning of the twenty first. There 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:04.480 is a real chance that by the end of the 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:08.160 day Biden is no longer the nominee. So we'll get 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:10.440 into that a little bit, but as of right now, 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:13.320 he's still the guy and he is fucking us. So, yeah, 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:15.440 with you to talk about this is Karin Green, who 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:18.800 we have had on the show before. Is a trans 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:23.959 policy expert of many organizations and much experience, and yeah, 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:25.600 welcome back on this. Welcome back to the show. 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:29.479 Hey, thanks to having a mea. Yeah, it's kind of 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:32.039 fun to come back on to talk more about this, 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:34.000 because the timing of when you had me on last 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:37.319 time was pretty much just before a montha four he 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:39.240 went public with this new stuff we're going to talk about. 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:42.399 Yeah, so the last time we were talking about this, 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:45.319 it was largely about stuff that was kind of like 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:48.040 plausibly deniable for the administration. It was a lot of 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:51.840 sort of stuff buried in bureaucratic medutia. Whether or not 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:54.840 any of that stuff even exists anymore given recent Supreme 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.559 Court rulings that have effectively annihilated the administrative state, who knows. 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:03.080 But now having had the Supreme Court get their ability 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:05.760 to do this sort of non plausibly, they have full 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:08.760 lot gone on the record against trans kids. So I 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:11.000 guess I want to start there. Can can you sort 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:13.840 of explain what happened with this New York Times story 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:15.680 that kind of kicked this whole saga off. 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:19.880 Yeah, so kind of the context is, I'm a trans 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.160 policy analyst. It's what I do. Unfortunately, are not that 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:25.560 many of us in the country, and all those of us, 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:27.639 many of us are still employed in the movement organizations, 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:29.760 so they can't talk about this stuff humbly. But so 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:32.760 he's been putting out the regulations that the Biden administration 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:36.919 has been putting out are not good regulations for trans people, right, 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:41.320 But it's hard to help people understand that they're transphobic 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:44.639 because it's a five hundred page regulation and so you know, 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:47.799 it's kind of wonky, a little weird. And if there 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:51.520 is comms like the Biden administration and the orgs have 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:54.040 been putting out calling him pro trans and all this stuff, 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:56.799 there's a big barrier to overcome there with a wonky 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:59.680 stuff like that. But what happened a couple of days 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:04.160 after the debate, which I'm sure everyone saw, or if 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:06.720 you didn't want didn't watch it live, you realized in 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:08.360 a horror that you now had to watch it to 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:13.120 understand what this country is going through. They there was 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:17.520 some initial reporting around how the w PATH Standards of 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:20.040 Care Version eight came out. So WPATH is the World 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:23.240 Professional Association for transter or Health. It's either last year 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:25.880 or the year before they updated the Standards of Care 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:28.960 seven to Standards of Care eight. This is a little background, sorry, 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:33.320 And at the time there was discussion among WPATH members, 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:38.680 doctors and kind of policy people to some degree about 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:43.680 whether mentioning kind of rough ages for what time, what 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:48.720 age people tend to start certain treatments like purity blockers, hormones, 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:52.480 that kind of thing, what kind of normal normal age 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:55.720 ranges those things happening. We know from years and years 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:59.800 of advocacy and work and activism is that if some 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:03.000 write something like those things down, even if they present 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:06.200 it as a kind of loose guideline or this is 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:09.880 where things typically fall, policymakers will write that stuff into 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:13.080 law and rig and take what is supposed to give 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:16.760 doctors and patients, you know, room to figure out what 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:19.720 works best for them, and make it a very strict regime. 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:23.960 And so transactivists did not want ages in the WPATH 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:27.200 sock eight for that reason. And in the one and 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:30.720 only instance of pro trans advocacy that I'm aware of 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:35.760 her ever engaging in it. Rachel Levine in AHHS kind 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:40.640 of advocated with w Path not to include those age 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:41.719 ranges in it. Yeah. 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:46.000 Levine, by the way, is like the o WT A 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:49.800 health secretary. I think, Yeah, she's like the only trans Like. 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:54.040 She's the highest ranked trans like you know, White House 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:54.799 official ever. 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:56.640 By like an order of magnitude. She's like, she's like 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.280 the only transperson, like openly transperson possibly in history to 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:04.160 ever like get to a position where she has some authority, 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:07.880 and she doesn't use it ever except this one time. 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:11.280 It's a bit disappointment too. I was her biggest fan 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:14.880 in the world because she passed. She wrote Pennsylvania's Narkann 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:19.440 Standing Order, and I based my law in Louisiana legalizing 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:22.160 Narkhann and our subsequent standing order on hers. So I 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:24.039 thought it was really cool that Transforms had done this 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:26.080 in both places, and I really really was a big 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:29.360 And then she just crickets nothing. It's all this terrible 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:32.720 stuff happens. So that's the context in which The New 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:38.120 York Times was reporting they somebody had gotten, like some 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:40.839 bad guys had gotten some of the emails between Levin 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:43.800 and w Path and we're like trying to make it 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:47.000 into a scandal, right, and they and the bad guys 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:52.480 misrepresented kind of what the issue and discussion was about. Right, 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:54.440 So we discussed what it was, but the way that 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:57.760 they would present it as, oh, you know, w Path 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:03.320 was trying to limit treatments to kids being old enough 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:05.200 of a certain age, which is not what they were doing. 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:08.760 And they were trying to present Levine as trying to 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:10.640 get rid of those so that five year olds could 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:12.880 have surgery or whatever. It's so, you know, just very 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:16.719 very insincere. But so the media was kind of reporting 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:19.120 just on that because they love muck breaking. 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:22.440 Yeah, and partially the other thing we should mention it 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:25.560 is it was really it was extremely hard to figure 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:27.719 out what was going on for the issue reporting because 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:30.960 the New York Times, instead of employing trans journalists, they 0:06:30.960 --> 0:06:33.719 employed transphobic journalists. And the thing about transherbic journalists, they 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:36.680 don't fucking understand policy at all. They're like, they're absolute 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:38.640 fucking clouds. These people have no idea what the fuck 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:41.320 they're talking about, and so you know, when they're trying 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:46.120 to write a story that's about like leaked technical policy documents, 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:48.640 they have no fucking idea what they're doing, and the 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:52.680 reporting is gibberish. It's like I was trying to understand it. 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:56.120 And this is a real issue because the only source 0:06:56.200 --> 0:07:01.400 we had was this document of this New York Times 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:04.800 writer who like couldn't like the New York Times writer 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:06.599 who like couldn't find the back of their hand with 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:10.320 a map right trying to like write out these skinned emails. 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:13.600 I'm convinced SIS people don't even understand that they don't 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:15.960 know what they're talking about, because I think they just 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:19.360 inherently feel like, oh, I have a gender, therefore I 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:21.800 know everything about gender idea. 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:24.840 It's like, you know, and like I I I, and 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:28.600 it's this is like mostly kind of like fine ish. 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:31.320 But the problem is when you have you know, when 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:35.240 you have CIS journalists who don't know anything about trans 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:37.720 like people at all, who in a lot of places 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:42.400 don't think trans people exist, trying to write these policy things. 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:44.560 It's they they have nothing. 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:47.680 And yeah, so it wasn't presented super clearly, and so 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:52.440 other people had questions, some justified, some based on misunder 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:55.480 that misunderstanding, some not. But anyway, there was additional kind 0:07:55.480 --> 0:07:59.160 of back and forth between the media and the White House, 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:02.800 they were asking about it, and in that the White 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:06.920 House at one point told them that they opposed surgery 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:13.000 for transgender youth. And then, obviously that is, at least publicly, 0:08:13.000 --> 0:08:16.800 that is a new position for the President who has 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:20.800 has been called not by me but by other people, 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:24.239 you know, one hundred percent pro trans super great ally 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:27.400 his entire administration. I disagree with that, but other people 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:29.600 have been saying that for a long time. And so 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:32.640 that took a lot of people by surprise and was 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:34.640 a big kind of kurf lefvel. And so that's kind 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:37.400 of the jumping off point for where we're going here. 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:41.200 And so that happened. That came out on a Friday 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:45.679 in the New York Times that the White House opposed 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:52.760 surgery for trans miners, and nobody talked like. There were 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:57.520 no responses from the orgs, There was no additional reporting, 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:00.840 no follow up from the White House that Friday, not 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:07.240 that Saturday, not that Sunday, although that Sunday Sunday evening, 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:14.640 the heads of three national large National LGBTQ Advocacy orgs, HRC, 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:19.960 Family Equality Council, and National LGBTQ Task Force went on 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:25.800 all three together an MSNBC show. The host I don't 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:28.839 remember his name, but he has an MSNBC show, writes 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:33.400 for Washington Post and then also contributes to PBS News Hour, Right. 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:37.440 And so none of these three people that we pay 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:43.040 to advocate for us or this journalist brought up this 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:49.840 very fresh, very pertinent, very relevant New White House position. 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:52.160 They just talked about like how important it is to 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:53.960 vote and how much fun they had at pride parades 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:57.400 instead of garbage, right, And so it was very weird 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:01.080 to me that these three people who represent LGBT obviousy 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:07.000 organizations would not immediately vocally condemn that kind of anti transtance. 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:10.200 And it also blew my mind that this journalist must 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:14.000 be like allergic to scoops or something like why yeah, 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:16.280 why wouldn't you like that's your chance right there? 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:18.680 I mean I I genuine And you think the journalists 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:22.200 didn't know because like this stuff didn't break out of 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:27.800 like a very small sort of like transphere by this point, right, I. 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:29.520 Mean it's in the New York Times. 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:33.400 You're given like but like like nobody cares about like people. 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:35.560 People don't care about us like you. You would think 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:38.600 that these people would know but like, I genuinely don't 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:40.520 even know if this person had any idea what was happening, 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:45.319 because I trust journalists to write about trans people about 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:47.760 as much as I trust myself to be able to 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:48.640 bench for us a car. 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:53.839 So you know, yeah, So that came and went Sunday evening, Nope, 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:56.880 And I was going insane the whole time, right, because 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:00.800 for me, as a trans policy analyst, you know, I've 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:05.000 been I've noticed and been and been calling Biden's transphobic 0:11:05.040 --> 0:11:08.480 REGs and executive words and stuff problematic and transphobic since 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:10.640 I first noticed it and picked up on it, which 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:13.800 was you know, two or three years ago now. And 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:18.079 so for me, it was a very kind of complicated 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:22.120 feeling of Okay, now, at least other people don't have 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:24.800 to take my word about the rags. There's something they 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:27.280 can look at and see it themselves. But I was 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:30.440 also you know, completely threw off my sleep schedule. I 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:32.360 was bouncing off the walls, going and see and trying 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:37.880 to you know, or organize responses. And so the first org, 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:41.760 actually I think I believe it was HRC, issued a 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:47.520 statement Monday night, and it was a decent statement. I 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.559 might have critiques of them whatever, and then the rest 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:54.440 of the orgs kind of didn't issue statements until Tuesday evening, 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:58.080 and so that Tuesday also the White House issued a 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:04.280 statement that to clarify their position, and the statement actually 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:07.920 made it worse. So what the statement said was that 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:12.800 they do oppose surgery for transgender youth. So they reiterated that, 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:17.199 and then it went on to say, however, we continue 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:23.080 to support gender affirming care for youth, such as mental 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:26.800 health care. Period. I mean, it wasn't it was a 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.320 common the THEA said other but they didn't list other 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:31.160 things that they supported, right, So, like the only thing 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:32.840 they put in the list that they supported was mental 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:36.760 health care, which to a policy person, again, you're not 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:39.400 sneaking those things past me. If you're talking about trans 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:41.840 healthcare and the only thing that you say that you 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:47.280 support is mental health care, I'm very worried. I'm very concerned, right, 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:51.000 because if you're pro trans and you support trans access 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:54.920 to healthcare, it is not complicated or hard or controversial 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:57.240 for you to say, yeah, you know, I support trans 0:12:57.240 --> 0:12:58.800 people and their access to health care. They should have 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:02.680 access to therapy, hormones, pubity blockers, surgery, whatever they need, 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:05.640 like it's not complex there, right, But they didn't do that, 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:08.800 And so to me that felt even worse than kind 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:12.720 of the initial position, because it signaled to me that 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:19.760 there's likely we're likely kind of losing them on not 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:22.679 just surgery, it's all this other stuff. And so two 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:29.560 hours later that statement was updated, revised, and it took 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:33.440 out saying they support mental health care and was changed 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:38.319 to say we support gender affirming care like a continuum 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.520 of care and used the words continuum of care instead 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:45.640 of mental health care. Now that doesn't that feels like 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:49.520 tripling down to me, because the problem was that it 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:54.559 was very overt what you left out, and you had 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:56.520 the opportunity to go back and fix it, and then 0:13:56.559 --> 0:13:59.720 you continued. You just made new words that very overtly 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:02.640 leave out the kind of things that we would need 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:07.240 reassurance about. Right, And so that's kind of where things 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:08.960 were at at that point. 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:11.800 And yeah, we're gonna let's let's leave it there for 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:14.600 a seconds. You turn to the people who are funding 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:18.040 us talking about this, which is the I was gonna say, 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:20.440 the noble product products and services. I cannot promise their 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.600 nobility at all, but the products and service system support 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:38.280 this podcast here they are. Yeah, and we are back. 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:40.000 And there's one other thing I want to mention before 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:42.320 we sort of get into where this went, which is 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:44.840 part of the fear that was going on, is that 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:47.960 at the same time as this is all happening, Labor 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:51.680 has taken power in the UK, and the Labor government 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:56.560 they're fucking okay, what what what can what? What can 0:14:56.600 --> 0:15:00.240 I say about the about West streeting? That won't get 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:07.200 me impaled across They're militantly transphobic piece of shit. I 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:11.600 think it's like their health secretary now, yes, yeah, masters 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:14.280 over there, don't forget Yeah, yeah, they're ministers came out 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:16.120 and said we're going to ban all children from getting 0:15:16.120 --> 0:15:17.280 puberty blockers. 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:20.600 Not just on the NHS but. 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:23.840 All private healthcare everyone. Yeah. And this is a this 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:26.480 is an absolutely sort of terrifying step. It is going 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:29.960 to get a lot of kids killed. Want to reiterate, Yeah, 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:32.520 already already has there's a whole scandal over there about 0:15:32.960 --> 0:15:34.040 like about the number of. 0:15:33.920 --> 0:15:36.480 Trus The Good Law Project has you know, done the 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:39.000 research into like NHS minutes and all this stuff, and 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:42.280 as thinks that there have been sixteen suicide since this. 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:45.440 Yeah, and I I also want to there's like a 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:48.240 sort of debunking thing that's going on. That was from 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:50.760 data that like that that the party released. I was like, oh, 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:52.520 there weren't actually that many suicides. And the thing you 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:54.480 have to understand about those numbers is that those numbers 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:58.480 don't count people on waitlists, and the waitlists are not 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:01.040 the only place that people die, but they kill a 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:03.320 lot of people. So I want to sort of like, yeah, 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.040 we got to get that sort of context in which 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:07.680 is we're in this position. 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:10.280 Not justreting right the farmers and then there are a 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:13.360 whole lot have very vocally transphobic labor impis. 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:16.240 Yeah, and and that you know, that's there's a lot 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:19.040 of fear that the Democratic Party can sort of take 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:21.760 this even more extreme path than the sort of stuff 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:24.280 we've been saying. And you know, I'm going to include 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:26.280 the standard thing about puberty blockers, which is we give 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:30.160 these we give puberty blockers to like literal like five 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:33.600 year old CIS children. They're fine, it's complete, like they're 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:35.880 completely safe. There's no there's no downside. 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:40.320 Apparently blockers only have dangerous terrifying side effects used, and 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:42.000 they can tell when they're in a trans body and 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:45.440 it's the spot. Yeah, I only do the bad things. 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:50.400 We've created the trands specific bio weapon like you know, 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:52.520 so like that this all of this stuff is safe, 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:55.480 and it's not only safe, it saves lives, like the 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:58.760 difference between you know, like any transperson can tell you, 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:01.880 the difference between being on your hormones and being off 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:04.200 your hormones is night and day. It is the difference 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.159 between being alive and not being alive. Like it is 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:09.840 the difference between having sort of like a stable like 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:14.360 stable interiority and feeling like you don't exist every fucking day. 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:18.480 So we're not just talking about being on your right hormones, 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:21.960 but in this case, we're also talking about preventing being 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:25.080 on the wrong hormones right, which can be even more experciated. 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:29.040 Yeah, it's terrible, like yeah, and so there's there's this 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:32.840 real fear that what we're seeing here is a pivot 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:34.320 to UK style stuff. And one of the things I 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:36.359 do in the UK that was specifically worrying about that 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:39.560 language about mental health care is one of the big 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:41.840 turf tactics is pushing this thing where we go, oh, well, 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:43.760 we're going to have this, like you know, we're going 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:45.800 to give you mental health care. We're going to like 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:48.120 help you figure out what your gender is. Is they 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:51.680 call it like exploratory care. This is conversion therapy. Yeah, 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:54.520 that's what they are talking about. And you know, seeing 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:57.840 the White House suddenly pivot to this language that is 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:02.920 like effectively identical to again the UK thing where they're 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:05.560 like we're going to give these conscivers therapy was terrifying. 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:11.200 Yeah. And then so I think that the space between 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.560 that Friday with the New York Times article and then 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:18.159 the Tuesday with that clarification, I think the fact that 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:22.960 the orgs were so quiet and didn't offer any pushback 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:27.560 and didn't organize community to demand better to ban their 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:29.840 retract it like, I think that that's what gave them 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:32.520 the room to essentially double and triple down in that 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:40.000 statement on Tuesday. And so that coincided, unfortunately with a 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:43.679 couple other anti transdevelopments and the Democratic Party in a 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:46.639 way that I find very worrying, especially when taken kind 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:51.000 of as a constellation. Right, So that same week, the 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:54.040 Senate Armed Services Committee, So the NDAA is a large 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:57.960 military funding bill. It's the National Events Authorization Act, and 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:02.160 the House has been passing versions with lots of transphobic 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:04.840 riders in them, and then for the last couple of 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:07.840 years the Senate has been taking those out and passing 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:09.800 a clean version, and then ultimately it's a clean version 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:12.680 of that gets enactive. Last year, I was very, very 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:16.560 worried that we would lose on that and that it 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.560 would go through with the writers and the implications here. 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:24.040 So the DoD Department of Defense funds healthcare for the 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:28.240 VA and trycare. I think there's one other smaller program 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:29.800 kind of similar that's a different name and effort, but 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:33.959 largely VA and tricare so for active service members and 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:37.280 their families and veterans, which is I think I last 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:40.159 read like ten million people or something. And so if 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:44.040 they cut off public funding for trans healthcare through those programs, 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:45.800 a whole lot of people are going to lose it, 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:47.760 and we're going to very quickly wind up in a 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:50.679 situation like abortion is with the High Amendment, where no 0:19:50.720 --> 0:19:53.639 public money can be used on our healthcare. And so 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:56.600 that week, at the same time, the Senate Armed Services 0:19:56.600 --> 0:20:01.000 Committee had their version of the NDAA and commit Joe 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:05.639 Manchin voted with Republicans to attach to these transphobic writers 0:20:05.720 --> 0:20:09.720 to it. And then it was everyone in the committee 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:12.880 except for three people. I believe it was Warren, one 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.199 other Democrat, and then I think possibly one Republican who 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:18.760 voted against it. But all the other Democrats on the 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:23.160 committee voted to pass it out of committee with those 0:20:23.200 --> 0:20:29.000 transphobic riders, which is terrifying. Yeah, and Senator Kelly has 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:32.480 introduced a floor amendment to take those out, but whether 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:35.600 his mimite even makes it to the floor, I don't know. 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:38.439 And what the vote looks like that like on that, 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:40.480 I don't know. So I'm really worried that the NBA 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:43.840 will pass with these riders in it, and then subsequent 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:47.560 spending bills for other departments will as well. And then 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:51.439 simultaneously there's the third thing. Over Biden's term, there have 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:55.200 been over he's had over two hundred of his judicial 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:59.399 nominees that he's offered up and over his whole term, 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:02.679 not a single time has a Democrat opposed one of 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:08.720 his judicial nominees. But that week us Off actually opposed 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:12.000 one of his judicial nominees over the fact that she 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:16.280 had sent a trans woman to women's prison, so specifically 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:19.960 a transphobic reason for objecting, and so she didn't be 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:23.040 denominated and that's the first time that has happened over 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:26.080 Biden's term from what I read, And so there are 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:32.040 just lots of these signals that kind of back me 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:35.640 up in my feeling that the support that you know, 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:38.800 everyone has been pretending that the Democratic Party has for 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:41.520 trans people. I mean, I read their eggs, so I 0:21:41.560 --> 0:21:45.080 know better, but it is not. It is an illusion, right, 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:49.080 and when it shatters, it's going to come apart really fast, 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:51.320 and people are going to be really surprised by it 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:54.080 because our organizations have not been kind of educating people 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:54.680 along the way. 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:56.720 Yeah, we're going to we're going to come back and 0:21:56.720 --> 0:21:58.480 talk more about this, and we're also going to come 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:02.560 back very specifically to the transom in women's prisons thing, 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:07.479 because I really truly do not think since people understand 0:22:07.520 --> 0:22:10.480 how fucking bad that is. Yeah, we're gonna come back 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:12.040 to that after these ads. 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:23.840 Yeah, so we're back. 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:28.000 Yeah. So I wanted to specifically highlight the prisons thing 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:32.000 in the context of you know, okay, so there's a 0:22:32.040 --> 0:22:33.680 chance by the time this comes out that bite is. 0:22:33.600 --> 0:22:36.159 No longer than on me your lips to God's tears. 0:22:36.440 --> 0:22:40.639 Yeah. The issue with this is that the strongest possibility 0:22:40.680 --> 0:22:44.760 for replacing Cana is Kamala Harris. And you know, I'm 0:22:44.760 --> 0:22:48.959 gonna ask you to explain Kamala Harris's record on trans 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:52.399