Speaker 1: Zone media.
Speaker 2: The past few weeks, my social media feeds have been
Speaker 2: more apocalyptic than usual, Oddly enough, not due to the
Speaker 2: escalating war with Ron, the shell shocked economy, or oil prices,
Speaker 2: but because of a wave of posts and news articles
Speaker 2: proclaiming impending doom for trans people in the United States.
Speaker 2: Attacks on trans rites are obviously not new and have
Speaker 2: steadily risen the past ten years, but this recent collection
Speaker 2: of worrying claims are especially grim or outright genocidel justice months,
Speaker 2: I've seen viral posts citing online articles saying that ICE
Speaker 2: is going to round up and quote unquote disappear trans people,
Speaker 2: that the FDA is making a quote unquote registry of
Speaker 2: trans women, and that an adult trans healthcare ban is imminent.
Speaker 2: Welcome to it could happen here? A show about things
Speaker 2: falling apart. I'm Garrison Davis for this episode. I'd like
Speaker 2: to emphasize the could in it could happen here. It's not.
Speaker 2: It will definitely happen here, and there's nothing you can
Speaker 2: do to stop it. These panic inducing claims and the
Speaker 2: articles they're sourced from are referring to real things or
Speaker 2: movements happening in either right wing activism or anti trans
Speaker 2: policy and legislation, but are framed in a way to
Speaker 2: maximize catastrophe, rather than actually understanding what's happening at the
Speaker 2: moment and what we can do about it. Left unchecked,
Speaker 2: panic clickbait reduces the process of staying informed to being
Speaker 2: in a state of constant doom and feeling hopeless against
Speaker 2: an unstoppable enemy. Or it makes someone completely check out
Speaker 2: and not believe anything they see online even if there
Speaker 2: is a real pressing threat, both of which cloud our
Speaker 2: ability to assess and respond to very real threats. For
Speaker 2: the book of this episode, I'm going to focus on
Speaker 2: an article that claims ICE is now permitted to detain
Speaker 2: anyone for quote unquote looking trans. This reporting and the
Speaker 2: online discussion around it is a microcosmatic example of how
Speaker 2: we understand both the Trump Administration's attacks on trans people
Speaker 2: and how and why ICE operates as an agency. This
Speaker 2: story could be traced to a sub stack post with
Speaker 2: the headline trump administration opens the door for ICE to
Speaker 2: target anyone suspected of being trans. The sub headline continues
Speaker 2: by reading quote under a new rule, the State Department
Speaker 2: will be able to revoke trans people's visas over quote
Speaker 2: unquote misrepresentation. It'll give ICE grounds to suspect all trans
Speaker 2: people of being in the US illegally unquote. The information
Speaker 2: contained in this headline is the furthest many people will
Speaker 2: engage with the content of this article. Combining that headline
Speaker 2: with preconceis notions about how ICE functions under the second
Speaker 2: Trump administration makes us a very frightening claim. So what
Speaker 2: evidence does the substack article include to support this claim?
Speaker 2: Earlier this month, the State Department updated its policy for
Speaker 2: the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, also known as the Green
Speaker 2: Card Lottery. The new rules require that applicants upload a
Speaker 2: scan of their foreign passports, biographic and signature page to
Speaker 2: cut down on fraudulent Diversity Visa Program entries. The policy
Speaker 2: update also changed the gender entry to sex on application forms.
Speaker 2: In the policy rule update, the State Department wrote the
Speaker 2: marker reflected in the sex field on any visa application,
Speaker 2: including the entry form, should match the applicants' biological sex
Speaker 2: at birth, even if that differs from the sex listed
Speaker 2: on the applicants foreign passport or other identifying documentation. The
Speaker 2: substack article claims this could form, say, quote, mismatch between
Speaker 2: trans people's applications and their passports, something it can then
Speaker 2: use to declare their applications fraudulent and disqualify them entirely.
Speaker 1: On quote.
Speaker 2: The first half of that sentence is true. A mismatch
Speaker 2: may occur between the gender listed on foreign documents and
Speaker 2: the sex the US government wants you to list on
Speaker 2: a visa application, but it is simply not the case
Speaker 2: that this mismatch will inevitably result in an application being
Speaker 2: deemed fraudulent and then denied. The kind of fraud this
Speaker 2: rule change is trying to combat by requiring a passport
Speaker 2: scan is not unique to trans people, according to Malita Picasso,
Speaker 2: staff attorney for the ACLUS LGBTQ and HIV Rights Project.
Speaker 2: Picasso said in an email that the new rule quote
Speaker 2: seems to more directly target fraudulent activities involving third parties,
Speaker 2: basically entering the lottery on behalf of individuals without their
Speaker 2: knowledge and consent, shorting them for large amounts of money
Speaker 2: if they are selected.
Speaker 1: Unquote.
Speaker 2: The stipulation requiring an applicant to list their biological sex
Speaker 2: at birth on forms has actually already been State Department
Speaker 2: policy for both immigrant and non immigrant visa applications for
Speaker 2: over a year, effectively since Trump's executive order mandating the
Speaker 2: use government officially recognized two biological sexes, which are determined
Speaker 2: at birth, and that quote government issued identity documents, including visas,
Speaker 2: and all forms that require an individuals sex, shall accurately
Speaker 2: reflect an individual's immutable biological classification as either male or
Speaker 2: female unquote. There's just no basis for the claim that
Speaker 2: a mismatch between the gender listed on a foreign document
Speaker 2: and the sex marked on application forms will itself quote
Speaker 2: unquote disqualify someone from receiving a visa. ACLU staff attorney
Speaker 2: Melita Picasso told me that the new policy itself recognizes
Speaker 2: this could cause discrepancies, and that she doesn't see a
Speaker 2: quote new or heightened risk of being accused of fraud
Speaker 2: or wilful misrepresentation if a transgender person follows the instructions
Speaker 2: by listing their sex assigned at birth on the application,
Speaker 2: even if they also file a per certificate that has
Speaker 2: been updated to reflect.
Speaker 1: Their gender identity.
Speaker 2: The State Department has been aware for a while that
Speaker 2: this kind of policy will create these kinds of mismatches.
Speaker 2: A February twenty twenty five State Department memo reads, quote,
Speaker 2: there may be instances when a consular officer becomes aware
Speaker 2: that the sex listed on the foreign passport may not
Speaker 2: be the applicant sex as defined in the executive order.
Speaker 2: In such cases, the adjudicator should confirm the applicant sex
Speaker 2: as defined in the executive order, indicate that sex on
Speaker 2: the visa, and add a case note documenting any discrepancy
Speaker 2: between the passport and the visa to prevent issues at
Speaker 2: the port of entry unquote. Later, in April of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five, the United State States Citizenship Immigration Services officially
Speaker 2: updated their policy on requiring quote unquote biological sex on
Speaker 2: immigration applications. The policy also states that quote USCIS does
Speaker 2: not deny any immigration benefits solely based on a failure
Speaker 2: to properly indicate that benefit requesters sex unquote. A sale
Speaker 2: U staff attorney Milita Picasso told me that USCIS officials
Speaker 2: have quote unquote a lot of discretion and that the
Speaker 2: policy says that failure to list biological sex quote will
Speaker 2: cause delays in processing the application while USCIS tries to
Speaker 2: verify your sex assigned at birth unquote. Now, the State
Speaker 2: Department has said there are grounds to deny these applications
Speaker 2: for trans people if they make a quote willful affirmative
Speaker 2: material act of misrepresentation by misrepresenting their quote unquote biological
Speaker 2: sex at birth in application forms or to a consular
Speaker 2: officer to gain entry to the United States under false pretenses.
Speaker 2: Legally qualifying as willful mess representation is a relatively high bar,
Speaker 2: and this language was specifically written with the intent to
Speaker 2: restrict trans athletes from entering the country to play sports.
Speaker 2: The sort of misrepresentation the State Department is talking about
Speaker 2: is if a trans woman quote unquote misrepresents her birth
Speaker 2: sex to procure a visa or admission into the United
Speaker 2: States for the purpose of competing in a women's sports competition.
Speaker 2: This same sports related memo, dated February twenty fourth, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five, also states, quote if there is a discrepancy
Speaker 2: either in the applicants documents or in electronic constantly records,
Speaker 2: or if other evidence casts reasonable doubt on the applicant sex,
Speaker 2: you should refuse the case under two to two one
Speaker 2: G and request additional evidence to demonstrate sex at birth unquote.
Speaker 2: Section two two one ng G of the Immigration and
Speaker 2: Nationality Act is a temporary visa refusal pending further documents
Speaker 2: or information provided by the applicant. For an athlete visa,
Speaker 2: the bar is very high and the burden is on
Speaker 2: the applicant to prove they have the special un rare
Speaker 2: qualities required to be eligible for a visa. But the
Speaker 2: substat article doesn't just claim that being trans could disqualify
Speaker 2: you from receiving a visa. The article escalates its claims,
Speaker 2: stating that trans people who already have a valid visa
Speaker 2: could have it revoked and be deported for misrepresenting their
Speaker 2: sex in the past, citing US law that if an
Speaker 2: alien is found to have obtained a visa quote by
Speaker 2: fraud or wilfarely misrepresenting a material fact, they are ineligible
Speaker 2: to be in the United States. The article also refers
Speaker 2: to a section of the Foreig Affairs Manual which includes
Speaker 2: providing quote a fake birth certificate in support of an
Speaker 2: immigrant visa application as misrepresenting a material fact unquote. The
Speaker 2: article goes on to assert that the Trump administration could
Speaker 2: refuse to recognize trans people's amended birth certificates from foreign
Speaker 2: countries and essentially consider them quote unquote fake, thus making
Speaker 2: their visa eligible to be revoked by quote unquote misrepresenting
Speaker 2: a material fact. The author of the substack links to
Speaker 2: another one of her own articles on a new policy
Speaker 2: regarding the issuing of US passports with sex markers reflecting
Speaker 2: biological sex at birth. The passport policy instructs the state
Speaker 2: department employees to check birth certificates for signs of being amended,
Speaker 2: and if they are amended, request more documents that list
Speaker 2: sex at the time of birth, such as medical records,
Speaker 2: hospital records, or early school records. ACLU staff attorney Picasso
Speaker 2: says that this does not mean entire amended birth certificates
Speaker 2: or quote unquote fake for the purposes of establishing fraud
Speaker 2: or willful misrepresentation, which is again a high and that
Speaker 2: Trump administration has never argued this as such.
Speaker 1: Quote.
Speaker 2: I think it's dangerous to even suggest that a legally
Speaker 2: obtained and valid birth certificate could be viewed as quote
Speaker 2: unquote fake without a much clearer statement from the federal
Speaker 2: government to that effect.
Speaker 1: Picsto advised in.
Speaker 2: Trump's recent travel bands, they have specifically mentioned the availability
Speaker 2: of fabricated birth certificates in certain countries, and this whole
Speaker 2: claim about trans people's visas being revoked because of applications
Speaker 2: of misrepresentation is contradicted by the State Department, which said
Speaker 2: last year quote. Currently, valid US visas issued prior to
Speaker 2: the effective date of this guidance bearing a sex that
Speaker 2: differs from the visa holder's sex as defined in executive
Speaker 2: order will remain valid through its expiration date. The visa
Speaker 2: holder does not need to apply for a new visa
Speaker 2: with an amended sex marker until the current visa expires unquote.
Speaker 2: So the first half of this article covers what I
Speaker 2: argue are gross misrepresentations of State Department visa policy. The
Speaker 2: second half of the article speculates on how this misrepresentation
Speaker 2: could be enforced by ICE. In it Supreme Court ruling
Speaker 2: last year, just as Kavanaugh wrote that ICE could detain
Speaker 2: people based on a combination of factors such as working
Speaker 2: a certain kind of job, ethnicity, and speaking Spanish or
Speaker 2: talking with an accent, Kavanaugh said that ICE can detain
Speaker 2: someone for questioning quote if they have a reasonable suspicion
Speaker 2: based on specific articulable facts, that the person being questioned
Speaker 2: is an alien illegally in the United States. The author
Speaker 2: of the substat article argued that Kavanaugh's concurrence quote unquote,
Speaker 2: effectively permitted ICE to use the fact that someone looks
Speaker 2: trans as the quote specific articulable fact, allowing its officers
Speaker 2: to question, harassed, detain, and even deport both citizens and
Speaker 2: non citizens as long as it has a reason to
Speaker 2: claim that being trans makes a person more likely to
Speaker 2: be in the US illegally unquote, with this substacker adding
Speaker 2: that because of State Department policy requiring applicants to list
Speaker 2: biological sex at birth on forms, quote, ICE now have
Speaker 2: the enforcement rationale to assert that trans people are more
Speaker 2: likely than says people to have misrepresented themselves during the
Speaker 2: visa process and therefore are more likely to have entered
Speaker 2: the country unlawfully unquote. This assertion from this substacker rests
Speaker 2: on the idea that looking trans makes someone more likely
Speaker 2: to be in the US illegally. This idea is not
Speaker 2: supported by any immigration policy memo or guideline that also
Speaker 2: assumes that the justification for a Kavanaugh stop is the
Speaker 2: same as the legal process of removal, which it is not.
Speaker 2: This idea was invented by the author of this article.
Speaker 2: It's not based on any enforcement directive from ICE, and
Speaker 2: misrepresents what the State Department means by intentionally misrepresenting biological
Speaker 2: sex in the visa application process. Discrepancies in gender markers
Speaker 2: across government documents is not its self grounds for detention
Speaker 2: or deportation. In fact, it's federal policy to create such discrepancies. Furthermore,
Speaker 2: dealing with potential discrepancies between gender markers on foreign documents
Speaker 2: and the Trump Admin's insistence on only using biological sex
Speaker 2: at birth on federal documents is handled by State Department
Speaker 2: consular officers and USCIS employees, not ICE Enforcement and Removal
Speaker 2: operations officers who work under an entirely different agency. But
Speaker 2: the main thing that makes me believe that ICE will
Speaker 2: not suddenly start targeting people for being trans is that
Speaker 2: this state department policy requiring sex at birth on visa
Speaker 2: applications isn't actually new. It's existed in some form since
Speaker 2: February twenty twenty five for both immigrant and non immigrant visas.
Speaker 2: The only recent change is that the Green card lottery
Speaker 2: rules have been updated to use this same language.
Speaker 1: Quote.
Speaker 2: Nothing about this new rule makes it more or less
Speaker 2: likely that ICE will be free to scrutinize trans people's
Speaker 2: documents and detain those whose documents show any inconsistencies unquote,
Speaker 2: affirmed a CLU staff attorney Melita Picasso put plainly state
Speaker 2: department restrictions on stating assigned sex at birth on Green
Speaker 2: card or visa applications does not give ICE any new
Speaker 2: justification to roam around disappearing random people who quote unquote
Speaker 2: look trans. But it could make border crossings more risky
Speaker 2: for non citizens and visa applications harder to navigate and
Speaker 2: subject to delays. This policy from the State Department is bad,
Speaker 2: but turning that into saying that ICE is now going
Speaker 2: to round up trans people and vcode them doesn't understand
Speaker 2: how this will actually affect immigrant trans people or trans
Speaker 2: people currently in federal custody. Side note vcoding refers to
Speaker 2: this systematic enabling of sexual abuse towards incarcerated transwomen to
Speaker 2: please male prisoners. Near the end of the substackic article,
Speaker 2: the author suggests that transpeople in Kansas could be at
Speaker 2: extra risk of getting detained by ICE because of a
Speaker 2: new law invalidating driver's license and birth certificates with amended
Speaker 2: gender markers, possibly leaving some US citizens temporarily unable to
Speaker 2: prove citizenship with a valid birth certificate. This new law
Speaker 2: is certainly dangerous, and any attempt to strip away people's
Speaker 2: legal id is very worrying and carries potential for abuse.
Speaker 2: In the case of Kansas, already, having a passport would
Speaker 2: be really ideal. Otherwise, a hospital birth certificate or early
Speaker 2: school records can theoretically be used to help prove citizenship,
Speaker 2: and it is worth saying that a citizen temporarily losing
Speaker 2: documentation does not put them at the same level of
Speaker 2: marginalized risk as an undocumented immigrant. The new Kansas law
Speaker 2: does direct the Office of Vital Statistics to quote reissue
Speaker 2: birth certificates when necessary to correct this sex identification unquote. Similarly,
Speaker 2: DMVs were instructed to reissue a quote unquote corrected license
Speaker 2: once the invalidated one was turned in. We'll be right
Speaker 2: back after these messages welcome back to it could happen here.
Speaker 2: The unsubstantiated claims made in that substack article went viral
Speaker 2: across multiple social media platforms like TikTok, blue Sky, and Twitter,
Speaker 2: bolstering further speculation. Social media posts further extrapolated the potential
Speaker 2: harm facing trans people by ICE agents beyond the claims
Speaker 2: made in the article by saying that ICE will now
Speaker 2: deport or disappear trans citizens anyone who tried to push
Speaker 2: back on the legitimacy of those claims, were labeled dangerous
Speaker 2: or fence for trying to quote unquote downplay the threat
Speaker 2: posed by ICE assertions of new pressing danger In this
Speaker 2: back and forth, discourse largely took three forms. One saying
Speaker 2: that because ICE is already doing ex bad thing, that
Speaker 2: means they could also start doing this new bad thing.
Speaker 2: Two people asserting that ICE is in fact actually already
Speaker 2: doing this, and three arguments based on distrust of the
Speaker 2: government and ICE's general lack of legality. Much of the
Speaker 2: discussion emerged from the genuine belief that ICE has been
Speaker 2: granted new power or has been quote unquote authorized to
Speaker 2: detain someone for looking trans, that Trump has quote unquote
Speaker 2: opened the door for ICE to start profiling trans people,
Speaker 2: that like the stream Course ruling last year, profiling has
Speaker 2: been essentially greenlit for trans people, or that checking the
Speaker 2: consistency of gender markers has been added to ICE's quote
Speaker 2: unquote jurisdiction. And to be one hundred percent clear, there's
Speaker 2: not been any new ICE memo or policy related to transpeople,
Speaker 2: gender markers or documentation being in their jurisdiction. State Department
Speaker 2: policy on requiring biological sex on applications has existed for
Speaker 2: over a year. The real danger posed by this policy
Speaker 2: is that more trans immigrants could have their visas delayed or,
Speaker 2: in extreme cases, denied, and people may need help navigating
Speaker 2: this increasingly confusing application process. Still, people have tried to
Speaker 2: assert that ICE's intentional targeting and profiling of people for
Speaker 2: being trans was quote unquote already happening. In the past year,
Speaker 2: ICE has detained transpeople. It's hard to to get exact
Speaker 2: numbers on this because I stopped collecting detention data for
Speaker 2: trans people last year to comply with Trump's anti trans
Speaker 2: executive orders. Though we do know of attempts to deport
Speaker 2: trans people from news reporting. Last August, ICE detained a
Speaker 2: transwoman who over stated a visa by six years, and
Speaker 2: in November, a transwoman who lost her lawful permanent residence
Speaker 2: status in twenty twenty three after pleading guilty to a
Speaker 2: felony was quote unquote inadvertently deported to Mexico despite a
Speaker 2: court order specifically barring her from being sent to Mexico.
Speaker 2: We have no evidence that these women were targeted for
Speaker 2: removal on the basis of being trans.
Speaker 1: But what happened to them is still horrific.
Speaker 2: As of now, there has been no reporting on people
Speaker 2: being targeted for detention based on looking trans, because the
Speaker 2: government has not actually argued that being transit self qualifies
Speaker 2: as reasonable suspicion of illegal presence. When I voiced skepticism
Speaker 2: about the claims sourced from this substack article, people responded
Speaker 2: to me saying that even if this has yet to happen,
Speaker 2: one could argue that ICE still could expand their operations
Speaker 2: to include profiling and targeting trans people for detention, since
Speaker 2: they're already profiling and rounding up quote unquote random brown people.
Speaker 2: After all, this podcast is called it Could Happen Here,
Speaker 2: and ICE has detained both citizens and legal immigrants and
Speaker 2: sent them to quote unquote camps. Though this show is
Speaker 2: called it Could Happen Here, that doesn't mean we should
Speaker 2: spread unsubstantiated doom spiraling, disconnected from the material reality of
Speaker 2: real policies advancing a fascist project. The Trump administration has
Speaker 2: been very clear and open about targeting groups of people
Speaker 2: flooding through our southern border, that is who ICE is
Speaker 2: designed to target, and they have policy directing them to
Speaker 2: do so, and new permission from the Supreme Court. It
Speaker 2: is true that ICE has temporarily detained US citizens when
Speaker 2: looking for people they suspect our undocumented immigrants. This has
Speaker 2: been for two reasons, US citizens accused of interfering with
Speaker 2: ICE activity while protesting, or because ICE suspects US citizens
Speaker 2: may be undocumented based on factors like skin tone, occupation,
Speaker 2: or speaking a foreign language, usually Spanish. This second group
Speaker 2: of people then must demonstrate proof of citizenship or, if
Speaker 2: they are immigrants, their legal status. The period they're detained
Speaker 2: is supposed to be relatively short, usually a few hours,
Speaker 2: though in extreme cases that's stretched into multiple days. When
Speaker 2: I posted about this online, someone sent me a Wikipedia
Speaker 2: article claiming it proved that ICE has deported one hundred
Speaker 2: and seventy US citizens during Trump's second term. The article
Speaker 2: actually said one hundred and seventy citizens have been detained
Speaker 2: since Trump took office. Again, there have been a few
Speaker 2: reported instances of US born citizens being deported. These are
Speaker 2: citizen children who are deported with immigrant parents to avoid
Speaker 2: child separation, though many many children do end up being
Speaker 2: separated from their parents when their parents are deported. The
Speaker 2: last argument that people fall back on is simply that
Speaker 2: ICE is a completely lawless agency, and they can do
Speaker 2: whatever it wants, including going after trans people. After all,
Speaker 2: ICE has murdered US citizens on camera in broad daylight,
Speaker 2: but it's important to remember that happened for a reason.
Speaker 2: Those weren't random acts. ICE and CBP murdered people protesting
Speaker 2: ICE rates targeting their immigrant neighbors. Federal agents killed people
Speaker 2: because the protesting was an inconvenience, and there was use
Speaker 2: of force policy and training directing them to do so.
Speaker 2: For decades, CBP agents have killed people at the border
Speaker 2: and gotten away with it. The Trump administration may not
Speaker 2: carible the law, but this analysis is not based on
Speaker 2: any assumptions about legality. It's based on the administration's own
Speaker 2: stated goals, which they've been very open about, and the
Speaker 2: policies and practices currently in effect, none of which relate
Speaker 2: to ICE targeting.
Speaker 1: People for quote unquote looking trans.
Speaker 2: From what we know, the Kavanash stops framework have never
Speaker 2: been used to target transpeople for being trans as the
Speaker 2: reasonable suspicion of being illegally in the country, and there's
Speaker 2: been no changing guidelines saying that being trans can be
Speaker 2: the basis for certain stops.
Speaker 1: Asserting otherwise is simply false.
Speaker 2: Insisting that because of State Department application policy, ICE will
Speaker 2: now randomly arrest transpeople is conflating two very different things.
Speaker 2: It isn't about the potential legality of ICE targeting trans people.
Speaker 2: I'm simply saying there is no such directive instructing ICE
Speaker 2: to do that. Asserting that the Trump administration is completely
Speaker 2: one hundred percent unbounded by law also ignores the fact
Speaker 2: that federal and immigration courts are still an active terrain
Speaker 2: of battle. While the administration has repeatedly ignored courts and judges' orders,
Speaker 2: people have also been successfully released from ICE custody by
Speaker 2: filing habeas corpus petitions. It's not that I believe in
Speaker 2: the personal integrity of ICE agents, far from it. But
Speaker 2: this concept of ICE as this vague fascist desk squad
Speaker 2: that will go after any group the Trump administration hates
Speaker 2: turns ICE into this abstract idea rather than a single
Speaker 2: material agency with concrete motivations and limits that leaves a
Speaker 2: wake of destruction in the course of achieving their purpose.
Speaker 2: ICE does raids where there's high concentrations of immigrant workers.
Speaker 2: The targeting isn't actually random. ICE is going after undocumented
Speaker 2: immigrant workers, sometimes using skin and language as a rough
Speaker 2: proxy to do document checks to assert the inevitability of
Speaker 2: ICE going after trans people, People invoke comparisons to the Nazis,
Speaker 2: and as rhetorically useful as it is to equate ICE
Speaker 2: to a modern version of the Gestapo. This is not
Speaker 2: Germany in the nineteen thirties. Ice is a contemporary version,
Speaker 2: but the current world is different. The chronically online doomer
Speaker 2: may retort, but once ICE is done with immigrants, then
Speaker 2: they will go after transpeople. After all, what's the purpose
Speaker 2: of increasing ICE's staffing and funding, or building a network
Speaker 2: of detention camps across the country if not to use
Speaker 2: them against the undesirables. There's about fifteen million undocumented immigrants
Speaker 2: in the United States and about three million trans people.
Speaker 2: That's five times as many undocumented immigrants than trans people.
Speaker 2: Last year, ICE reached a record high number of deportation,
Speaker 2: over six hundred thousand. This number still leaves millions and
Speaker 2: millions of undocumented immigrants. ICE will never be quote unquote
Speaker 2: done with immigrants. This logic again reduces ICE to this vague,
Speaker 2: abstract evil and fails to consider the purpose of ICE
Speaker 2: and why it currently operates as it does. So what
Speaker 2: motivates ICE. Do individual ICE agents share the same motivations
Speaker 2: as the agency itself or the people directing it. Individual
Speaker 2: agents certainly could be motivated by racism, political ideology, a paycheck,
Speaker 2: or a combination thereof, but the motivating factors across the
Speaker 2: entire agency cannot solely be based on ethnicity itself, else
Speaker 2: you wouldn't see as many Hispanic ICE and CBP agents.
Speaker 2: People tend to think of hate as a vague causal
Speaker 2: force itself, rather than it being the result of complex
Speaker 2: societal factors shaped by material forces like the economy, in security,
Speaker 2: and housing shortages. These material forces are often expressed as
Speaker 2: racial or ethnic prejudice, but the underlying motivation of ICE
Speaker 2: as an agency and by extension, DHS still rests on
Speaker 2: material forces, not racial hatred as an abstract ideal. Rank
Speaker 2: and file employees could have entirely different motivations compared to
Speaker 2: some of those at the top of the agency or
Speaker 2: the agency as a whole, and people in charge of
Speaker 2: the agency may themselves even be confused as to the
Speaker 2: material motivations that underline the existence of immigration enforcement agencies.
Speaker 2: But this lack of alignment is a weakness in the
Speaker 2: agency and DHS more broadly, as demonstrated by the fallout
Speaker 2: of Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis, which left ICE and
Speaker 2: DHS in a compromised state. So why does ICE exist?
Speaker 2: What material role does it fulfill? It seeks to stabilize
Speaker 2: the social order by target surplus populations, and what's the
Speaker 2: most efficient way to do that By going after the
Speaker 2: most marginalized populations with the least amount of legal and
Speaker 2: economic protections, which are undocumented immigrants. This operation may be
Speaker 2: sold to the public, and indeed it's enforcers by marketing
Speaker 2: it in the language of race and crime categories, which
Speaker 2: are often equated, but underneath that, it's still an attempt
Speaker 2: to solve problems caused by material economic forces. In reality,
Speaker 2: this material motivation establishes a certain direction of impact, as
Speaker 2: well as material limits like budget, personnel, and balancing between
Speaker 2: public approval and public opposition. So with that in mind,
Speaker 2: does it make sense to claim that Immigration and Customs
Speaker 2: enforcement is going to conduct the targeted massed attention of
Speaker 2: trans people as a class signs points to know. It's
Speaker 2: not that I disagree with the ide that trans people
Speaker 2: are under threat from the government, but they're under a
Speaker 2: different threat than that of undocumented immigrants or people detained
Speaker 2: by ICE based on profiling. Obviously, trans immigrants have an
Speaker 2: overlapping threat vector. As such, migrant support should remain focused
Speaker 2: on things like ICE watch, rapid response networks, and providing
Speaker 2: immigrants legal resources, including to trans immigrants who made an
Speaker 2: assistance navigating the visa process, and working to get people
Speaker 2: out of ICE detention. The latter is especially important considering
Speaker 2: Trump's executive order forcing transwomen in federal custody to be
Speaker 2: detained with men, and the Trump Administration's plan to end
Speaker 2: of federal prison rape protections for trans people. But most
Speaker 2: people engaged in this discourse genuinely don't understand how state
Speaker 2: department policy on visa applications will actually affect transimmigrants and
Speaker 2: what we can then do to support trans immigrants. But
Speaker 2: this whole discourse takes the phone away from the people
Speaker 2: most at risk of ICE, which are still undocumented immigrant workers.
Speaker 2: Lilith in Seattle with a one hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars a year tech job is not at high risk
Speaker 2: of being detained by ICE. Believing otherwise prohibits people who
Speaker 2: are actually safe and secure from using their wealth and
Speaker 2: status to support others who do not have the same
Speaker 2: safety provided by wealth or status, whether they're transgender and immigrant,
Speaker 2: or both. Misleading articles in the larger panic driven information
Speaker 2: economy encourages people with financial or legal security to be
Speaker 2: scared into paralysis because they believe that any amount of
Speaker 2: opposition to the government will result in being disappeared to
Speaker 2: a concentration camp. This justifies a retreat from the world
Speaker 2: by framing it as safety, allowing one to focus on
Speaker 2: maximizing their own power and wealth to achieve security, retreating
Speaker 2: solely into the rule of the victim achieved. It's a
Speaker 2: sort of emotional catharsis, But this also alienates you from
Speaker 2: the world and ends up doing propaganda for the enemy.
Speaker 2: In this discourse, there's a tendency to make the enemy
Speaker 2: out to be an unstoppable monster, which further justifies in
Speaker 2: action because it doesn't allow you to understand the limits
Speaker 2: of the enemy, whether logistical or ideological, and resigns us
Speaker 2: to cower before an omnipotent all powerful evil. Ice operations
Speaker 2: are an expensive, unpopular, destabilizing thing. We must keep an
Speaker 2: eye on the fragility of power, as that informs us
Speaker 2: on how to fight it. When removed from action in
Speaker 2: the real world, people have no way to confront truth.
Speaker 2: It is a frightening time to be transgender. On top
Speaker 2: of what feels like never ending attacks on healthcare and
Speaker 2: our ability to exist in public life. You now see
Speaker 2: news stories about a US state invalidating people's IDs at
Speaker 2: the same time as viral social media posts to claim
Speaker 2: ICE has been given new authority to detain transpeople and
Speaker 2: deport immigrants for having the wrong gender marker. Various attacks
Speaker 2: on trans rights separated through time could be viewed as
Speaker 2: a coherent, centralized strategy towards a singular, horrific end, but
Speaker 2: they also may be in fact disparate, often petty attempts
Speaker 2: at cruelty, intending to demoralize transpeople and make translife prohibitively difficult.
Speaker 2: The way Red States and the Trump admin Are trying
Speaker 2: to eliminate transgenderism, as Michael Knowles would say, is to
Speaker 2: simply make it incredibly difficult to socially and medically transition,
Speaker 2: like by not recognizing gender on government documents, be excluded
Speaker 2: from public bathrooms, and continuing efforts to restrict healthcare. We'll
Speaker 2: do one more break and return for a final segment.
Speaker 2: The state of catastrophic fear I've been talking about is
Speaker 2: maintained by a near constant wave of articles with panic
Speaker 2: inducing headlines, which fuel social media posts that further escalate
Speaker 2: an abstract claims maiden headlines to a Nazi Germany esque
Speaker 2: level of potential danger facing trans people. One such impending
Speaker 2: danger circulating online this month is the claim that the
Speaker 2: FDA is making a registry of trans women and moving
Speaker 2: to criminalize DIY estrogen. This claim originated from an article
Speaker 2: in a trans news outlet published March twelfth, reporting that
Speaker 2: anti trans lobbyan groups sent a petition to the FDA
Speaker 2: to create a registry of trans women who take estrogen
Speaker 2: and restrict the use of feminizing HRT, which, if implemented,
Speaker 2: could quote fast track pathway to criminalizing estrogen use. Importantly,
Speaker 2: this citizens petition is not US law or proposed government legislation,
Speaker 2: nor is it FDA policy or regulation. It was written
Speaker 2: by an anti transactivist coalition and sent to the FDA
Speaker 2: over three months ago in December of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: The petition requests quote unquote immediate action by establishing a
Speaker 2: new docket for the public to officially comment on the
Speaker 2: safety and effectiveness of estrogen in gender transitions, and to
Speaker 2: schedule a public hearing on the subject. That is mainly
Speaker 2: what the petition is for, though it does make further
Speaker 2: recommendations following the conclusion of a public hearing. These recommendations
Speaker 2: include adding a warning label to estrogen, conducting a safety review,
Speaker 2: having clinicians report adverse effects to the FDA, and requiring
Speaker 2: the drug manufacturers quote establish a patient registry as a
Speaker 2: part of a risk evaluation and mitigation study to capture
Speaker 2: real lials world safety data unquote, and that is the
Speaker 2: registry mentioned in this panic headline. This article, or more
Speaker 2: accurately distorted versions of its claims, went viral across trans Twitter,
Speaker 2: with tens of thousands of likes and hundreds of thousands
Speaker 2: of quote unquote views, but the article received strong pushback
Speaker 2: on Blue Sky for being quote unquote sensationalist and inflammatory.
Speaker 2: The outlet that originally published the story later updated the article,
Speaker 2: clarifying that the FDA receives hundreds of petitions a year
Speaker 2: and even if implemented, they can take years to.
Speaker 1: Go into effect.
Speaker 2: From twenty one, twenty thirteen, only six point six percent
Speaker 2: of FDA citizen petitions were approved and resulted in new regulation.
Speaker 2: A study from twenty sixteen found that, on average, quote,
Speaker 2: these petitions require two point eight five years for a
Speaker 2: final agency decision, and many decisions remained pending ten to
Speaker 2: thirteen years after their initial submission.
Speaker 1: UOTE.
Speaker 2: This FDA petition story was not the only article this
Speaker 2: month theorizing about a trans registry or adult HRT restrictions.
Speaker 2: In mid March, multiple LGBTQ news outlets reported that Republican
Speaker 2: lawmakers in Tennessee advanced a bill that would quote unquote
Speaker 2: create a public list of trans residents in the state.
Speaker 2: The bill in question mandates insurance companies also cover d transition,
Speaker 2: and would require that care providers submit statistics on gender
Speaker 2: affirming care to the Tennessee Department of Health, which must
Speaker 2: quote not contain individually identifiable information defined in HIPPA unquote.
Speaker 2: The Tennessee Department of Health would then use that information
Speaker 2: to make a publicly available statistics report. But online accounts
Speaker 2: are spreading this story as if Tennessee is making a
Speaker 2: quote unquote sex offender style public registry with the names
Speaker 2: and locations of all trans people in this state. A
Speaker 2: bill like this could potentially be used for harm and
Speaker 2: it may face court challenges for possibly violating parts of
Speaker 2: HIPPA by collecting data on county of residents and procedure dates.
Speaker 2: But the reporting on the bill and the viral reaction
Speaker 2: online make it out to be something completely different. There's
Speaker 2: no reason to believe this bill would create a publicly
Speaker 2: accessible registry or list identifying trans people by name in
Speaker 2: this state. The bill has not yet passed the state Senate,
Speaker 2: and it may not in its current form. Right now,
Speaker 2: it's unclear what exact form the collected data will take
Speaker 2: within a statistics report and what level of anonymizing data
Speaker 2: aggregation will be employed. This is something to keep an
Speaker 2: eye on if the bill does pass and the state
Speaker 2: Department of Health drafts guidelines for the mandatory statistics reporting,
Speaker 2: but the way it's being reported is incredibly misleading. Interestingly,
Speaker 2: the source for this public list claim is the same
Speaker 2: the sub stec outlet that created the false story about
Speaker 2: ICE now being able to detain people for looking trans.
Speaker 2: Also earlier this month, multiple LGBTQ news outlets reported that
Speaker 2: the Fourth Circuit Court approved state bans on gender affirming
Speaker 2: healthcare for adults. On March tenth, a Republican appointed three
Speaker 2: judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled
Speaker 2: that states can prohibit gender affirming surgery from being covered
Speaker 2: by Medicaid. The ruling affirmed ban on Medicaid coverage for
Speaker 2: quote sex change surgeries in West Virginia, with the panel
Speaker 2: arguing it doesn't discriminate against trans people because it applies
Speaker 2: to specific procedures, not specific individuals. This is certainly bad
Speaker 2: news for trans people in West Virginia on Medicaid, but
Speaker 2: reporting that this decision could soon result in trans people
Speaker 2: losing healthcare in other states or nationally is misleading and
Speaker 2: removes key context. This is not a total ban on
Speaker 2: these procedures. It's a ban on state Medicaid coverage of
Speaker 2: these surgical procedures. The ruling is not a ban on
Speaker 2: other forms of gender affirming healthcare like HRT, nor does
Speaker 2: it threaten the hospital's ability to receive Medicare and Medicaid
Speaker 2: funds for providing gender affirming healthcare, like the Trump administration
Speaker 2: has threatened so far unsuccessfully. Still people postulated on how
Speaker 2: this ruling could be laying the legal groundwork to eliminate
Speaker 2: adult transgender healthcare, but trans journalist to David Forbes noted
Speaker 2: that this ruling will likely be appealed to the wider
Speaker 2: Fourth Circuit, which has recently ruled in the opposite direction
Speaker 2: of this three panel ruling. What panicked assertions of an
Speaker 2: impending total ban on trans healthcare tends to overlook is
Speaker 2: that going from a state ban on Medicaid coverage for
Speaker 2: surgery straight to an all ages ban on gender affirming
Speaker 2: healthcare skips a lot of steps, and those steps are
Speaker 2: crucially important. The panic, clickbait induced doomer mindset treats every
Speaker 2: horrific potentiality as an inevitable eventuality. This underminds our ability
Speaker 2: to accurately assess risk and effectively dedicate resources to oppose
Speaker 2: what are pressing threats. So what purpose does this sort
Speaker 2: of posting serve and why are people so primed to
Speaker 2: believe it? These panic driven claims rest on the very
Speaker 2: real fact that trans people are facing present danger. Oftentimes,
Speaker 2: people boosting these panic stories are genuinely trying to help
Speaker 2: inform their own community of potential harm. In the case
Speaker 2: of that Ice story, it was based on the assumption
Speaker 2: that there was a legitimate recent rule change enabling ISO
Speaker 2: target people under suspicion of being trans it makes sense
Speaker 2: that people would want to raise the alarm about ICE
Speaker 2: gaining new powers, but acel U Staf Attorney Melita Picasso cautioned, quote,
Speaker 2: we are supporting our community by trying to warn people,
Speaker 2: but these warnings need to be clear and accurate, otherwise
Speaker 2: we end up inadvertently contributing to the chaos and fear unquote.
Speaker 2: Other times, these panic stories are spread with the hope
Speaker 2: of scaring allies into caring about the ongoing attacks on
Speaker 2: trans people. Perhaps this is successful in some cases, I
Speaker 2: don't know, But as a side effect, this strategy deals
Speaker 2: significant damage to the people it's trying to protect. Forecasting
Speaker 2: doom twenty four to seven can drive people into hopeless
Speaker 2: despair and push them away from strategies to fight against
Speaker 2: the current attacks on trans writes. Panic driven agit prop
Speaker 2: could also contribute to a Girl Who Cried Wolf scenario
Speaker 2: where allies start to discount concerns about certain attacks on
Speaker 2: transwrites due to previous, unsubstantiated viral claims. Though many people
Speaker 2: spreading these claims may have genuine good intentions, the people
Speaker 2: creating these claims may develop certain material incentives. Traditional mainstream
Speaker 2: journalism has failed to question the massive government overreach into
Speaker 2: the lives of trans people, and in some cases helped
Speaker 2: manufacture consent for the stripping away of trans rights. This
Speaker 2: state of affairs has made transpeople lose faith into big outlets,
Speaker 2: leading to small upstart outlets filling in the information gaps
Speaker 2: in trans news coverage, but without any institutional backing. Independent
Speaker 2: news sites and sub stack style blogs have to build
Speaker 2: an audience to generate traction and stay operating. It turns
Speaker 2: out thousands of people constantly freaking out creates high social
Speaker 2: media engagement. This creates a loop where trans panic fear
Speaker 2: mongering boosts social media engagement, which further encourages more irresponsible
Speaker 2: clickbait framing. Those who are successful may slowly develop a
Speaker 2: new class position, which then needs to be maintained. Financial
Speaker 2: incentive may even pressure journalists who have done good work
Speaker 2: in the past to fall back on panic driven engagement
Speaker 2: bait to attract new traffic. This isn't exclusive to trans
Speaker 2: outlet's either. Following the assassination of Charlie kirk Ken, Klippenstein
Speaker 2: reported on his substack that the FBI was about to
Speaker 2: quote designate transgender people as violent extremists. His report contained
Speaker 2: no new verifiable information. The core evidence was an unnamed
Speaker 2: quote unquote senior official who told the Clippenstein he quote
Speaker 2: unquote feels like trans people could be labeled nihilist violent extremists.
Speaker 2: Clippenstein has previously misunderstood the nihilist violent extremists and label.
Speaker 2: The term actually predates the second Trump administration and refers
Speaker 2: to groups like seven sixty four Child's Extortion Rings and
Speaker 2: communities like the school Shooter fandom TCC. Hours before Clippenstein's
Speaker 2: report was published, the Heritage Foundation and the Oversight Project
Speaker 2: publicly released a petition calling for a new classification of
Speaker 2: extremism called trans ideology inspired violent extremism to categorize attacks
Speaker 2: they believed are motivated by transgender ideology. The petition memo
Speaker 2: denied that all trans people and their allies would be
Speaker 2: designated domestic terrorists. Under this label, only those who quote encourage, promote, condone, take,
Speaker 2: or insight unlawful violent action or threats based on this
Speaker 2: ideology unquote. The Heritage petition also runs contrary to Clippenstein's
Speaker 2: report by advocating against the use of the nihilist violent
Speaker 2: extremism label to describe transgender motivated violence. A Heritage petition
Speaker 2: to establish a new category of extremism is different from
Speaker 2: an unnamed official who feels like trans people as a
Speaker 2: whole could be labeled as nihilist violent extremists. And it's
Speaker 2: important to un stand that distinction. That was last September.
Speaker 2: It's now half a year later, and neither of these
Speaker 2: things has come to fruition. The closest we got was
Speaker 2: in late September, following Trump's Antifa terrorism executive Order with
Speaker 2: the National Security Posdential Memorandum Number seven, which listed quote
Speaker 2: extremism on migration, race, and gender as common recurrent motivations
Speaker 2: and indica of violent and terroristic activities under the umbrella
Speaker 2: of self described anti fascism unquote, among many other threads
Speaker 2: animating violent conduct. Regardless of that, people online interpreted both
Speaker 2: Clippenstein's report and the Heritage petition as meaning the FBI
Speaker 2: classified the entire class of trans people as domestic terrorists.
Speaker 2: Social media both amplifies and distorts already misleading claims, turning
Speaker 2: news into a massive game of telephone and the siloing
Speaker 2: of certain users and platforms. Mix Countering this misinformation incredibly difficult.
Speaker 2: The social media economy carries certain incentives for the producers
Speaker 2: of panic bait that could be attention, status, and money,
Speaker 2: but the consumers of panic also stand to gain something
Speaker 2: catharsis justification for their actions or lack thereof, as well
Speaker 2: as attention from fellow consumers. These clickbait panic pieces explode
Speaker 2: around trans Twitter, which is still quite active, consisting of
Speaker 2: sex workers, gamers, TTT style posters, and zoomers who think
Speaker 2: Blue Sky is crnch and liberal. Some of these panic stories,
Speaker 2: like the FDA Registry, don't do very well on Blue
Speaker 2: Sky because that's where a lot of trans journalists who
Speaker 2: do actual journalism are, but those journalists are not active
Speaker 2: on Twitter and TikTok, making it harder to counter our
Speaker 2: misinformation on those platforms. Countering trans panic clickbait also suffers
Speaker 2: from algorithmic suppression because it doesn't get people as ryled up.
Speaker 1: A wave of.
Speaker 2: Emotionally charged doom posting is boosted much farther than a
Speaker 2: calm and calculated rebuttal. The biggest TikTok about ICE detaining
Speaker 2: people under suspicion of being trans has one point two
Speaker 2: million views. The biggest TikTok fact checking this claim has
Speaker 2: two hundred and ninety thousand views. So much of social
Speaker 2: media politics is emotional manipulation based on anger, fear, or catharsis.
Speaker 2: Posting about perceived danger is essentially viewed as a form
Speaker 2: of activism, and if someone casts a doubt on what's
Speaker 2: seen as an existential threat, that person becomes emotionally equated
Speaker 2: with the enemy. Panic produces helplessness, but helplessness can actually
Speaker 2: be cathartic for the individual. It's not helpful for people
Speaker 2: currently in the most danger. So then what is there
Speaker 2: to do in terms of the trans panic information economy?
Speaker 2: Don't be afraid to openly question the legitimacy of certain
Speaker 2: reporting due to fear of backlash from the community. If
Speaker 2: it's good reporting, it should be able to stand up
Speaker 2: to scrutiny. So when you see a new story that
Speaker 2: triggers an emotional response, stop a moment before clicking share
Speaker 2: and find out where this claim is coming from. A
Speaker 2: reliable journalistic outlet, an independent publication. What other reporting has
Speaker 2: this publication done? Has it been accurate? Who is the reporter?
Speaker 2: Are you familiar with their reporting? What else have they
Speaker 2: reported on? Is it speculative? Are there logical jumps without
Speaker 2: supporting evidence? Again, I'm not trying to minimize the danger
Speaker 2: coming from attack on trans people. Quite the contrary. The
Speaker 2: right is continuing to take away trans rights, and these
Speaker 2: threats should be treated seriously. But when trying to counter
Speaker 2: these real attacks, one must be cautious about looking so
Speaker 2: far ahead into this speculative future that it takes the
Speaker 2: focus away from the clear and present harms. This isn't
Speaker 2: about trusting the government, It's about understanding the world in
Speaker 2: order to change it. See you on the the other side.
Speaker 2: You can find a text version of this episode on
Speaker 2: the Shatterzone substack, with hyperlinks available for many of the
Speaker 2: terms or reporting referenced.
Speaker 1: It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.