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Speaker 1: Welcome to The Laverne Cox Show, a production of Shondaland

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Speaker 1: Audio in partnership with My Heart Radio. Girls can take

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Speaker 1: testosterone suppression um if they have, you know, act related

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Speaker 1: to testosterone production. I mean, there's a million ways the

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Speaker 1: end of chronologies will prescribe it, and it is simply

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Speaker 1: not harmful, And it is simply being banned for only

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Speaker 1: trans people because the goal, once again, to come back

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Speaker 1: to it, is not to protect anyone. It's to prevent

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Speaker 1: us from being trans. Hello everyone, and welcome to the

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Speaker 1: Laverne Cox Show. I'm Laverne Cox. When I think about

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Speaker 1: this current cultural moment when it comes to trans people,

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Speaker 1: I often think it's the best of times and the

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Speaker 1: worst of times. To quote that famous book. There are

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Speaker 1: more trans and non binary characters on televis Vision. Lana

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Speaker 1: Bloom became the first openly trans model on the cover

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Speaker 1: of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. I mean, come on,

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Speaker 1: American Vogue finally had his first cover star, Ariel Nicholson.

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Speaker 1: We had our first trans Olympians this year. But in

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Speaker 1: this same year, an unprecedented number of anti trans bills

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Speaker 1: have been introduced in state legislators targeting trans children, thirty

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Speaker 1: five states introduced over a hundred pieces of legislation targeting

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Speaker 1: mostly trans girls and sports, and the ability of trans

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Speaker 1: children to access gender affirming healthcare. This discriminatory legislation is

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Speaker 1: being crafted and financed by many conservative organizations and being

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Speaker 1: relentlessly pushed through vitriolic, vicious misinformation and propaganda and mostly

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Speaker 1: conservative media. But beyond I'm seeing no response at a

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Speaker 1: comparable media level to the manufactured outrage and rick that

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Speaker 1: is doing harm to the lives of real trans people.

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Speaker 1: This episode is about addressing misinformation, education and correcting the record,

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Speaker 1: and I have the absolute perfect guest for today's conversation.

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Speaker 1: Chase Strangeo is Deputy director for Transgender Justice with the

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Speaker 1: a c L USED LGBT and HIV Project and a

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Speaker 1: nationally recognized expert on transgender rights. He was counseled and

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Speaker 1: the challenge to Trump's trans Military band and the challenge

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Speaker 1: to North Carolina's notorious anti trans law HB two, the

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Speaker 1: bathroom Bill, and counsel in a civil rights case of

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Speaker 1: transgender employment discrimination that went to the Supreme Court and one.

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Speaker 1: He is currently counseled and the a c L used

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Speaker 1: challenges to anti trans laws in Idaho and Arkansas. Please

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Speaker 1: enjoy my conversation with Chase STRANGEO. We just want to

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Speaker 1: give you a quick trigger warning. This episode include conversations

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Speaker 1: about discrimination against trans people and specifically trans children. Listener

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Speaker 1: discretion is advised. Hello. Hello, Hello, Chase Stranger. Welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. How are you feeling a day, darling. Well,

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Speaker 1: it is really nice to see you and be here

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Speaker 1: with you, so that is making me feel good. Um,

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Speaker 1: and I'm doing okay. You know, it's a rainy day

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Speaker 1: here in New York. UM, stand inside? How are you

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Speaker 1: staying inside? Sounds like the story of the past year night.

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Speaker 1: I am, I'm good, but I'm actually kind of nervous

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Speaker 1: about this conversation today because I've never done a podcast

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Speaker 1: quite like this, Because I, um, I try to you know,

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Speaker 1: it's from my mental health. I try to shield myself

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Speaker 1: from negative media coverage of trans people. I try not

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Speaker 1: to engage in those arguments, and then I don't want

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Speaker 1: to use my public platform to add to the noise

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Speaker 1: of the US versus them, to the noise that further

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Speaker 1: divides us. I always want to come from a place

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Speaker 1: of love, loving individuals and being critical of policies and

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Speaker 1: mindsets and ideologies. So I'm nervous because I don't want

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Speaker 1: this podcast to be used as part of some sort

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Speaker 1: of cultural war thing. It just feels like a cess pool.

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Speaker 1: So I'm nervous, but I think we can do this

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Speaker 1: if we come from our share deep love of trans people,

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Speaker 1: are deep love of justice for for everyone and not

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Speaker 1: doing harm. You know. So yeah, that was along like

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Speaker 1: how I'm doing. But I mean, I hear that, and I,

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Speaker 1: you know, bless you for bringing me on. Uh if

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Speaker 1: you're trying to avoid the cess pool. Um, but I

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Speaker 1: do think that, you know, I too share that that vision,

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Speaker 1: that goal, and and I you know, I I do

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Speaker 1: sort of hope for a time when it is you're

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Speaker 1: not seen as politically controversial or cause for backlash, to

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Speaker 1: simply just show up and say, you know, I love

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Speaker 1: being trans, I love trans people, because I think that

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Speaker 1: is where we're coming from. But even that, I think,

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Speaker 1: in this moment that we're in, has become a site

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Speaker 1: of contestation. The idea that we should be allowed to

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Speaker 1: love ourselves and tell people that we do is is controversial,

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Speaker 1: and that is troubling. And I think that's, you know,

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Speaker 1: the sad reality of where we are, Yeah, and I

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Speaker 1: think ignoring it from me, I can't ignore it any

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Speaker 1: longer because it this year has been correct me if

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Speaker 1: I'm wrong. There have been more legislative attacks on trans

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Speaker 1: people and say legislatures this year than ever. Am I right?

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Speaker 1: I know there's been a lot over the years. This like,

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Speaker 1: is this comparable or is this the most this? This

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Speaker 1: is definitely the most. So both in terms of I

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Speaker 1: would say, you know, net numbers were definitely you know,

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Speaker 1: far exceeding anything in terms of number of anti trans

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Speaker 1: bills introduced in UM, I would say it's the most

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Speaker 1: in terms of how many bills actually advanced in state legislatures,

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Speaker 1: so you know, many, many more than we typically see

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Speaker 1: ended up passing out of one chamber, most of them

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Speaker 1: got hearings. These were not just throwaway bills. These were

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Speaker 1: bills that were being moved, considered, publicly debated, and then

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Speaker 1: more became law than in the past ten years combined

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Speaker 1: in this single year. So we are facing an escalation

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Speaker 1: that is you know, it is staggering, staggering indeed, and

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Speaker 1: we learned and disclosure my documentary on on Netflix that

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Speaker 1: the media plays a huge part in public perceptions of

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Speaker 1: trans people, and what we're seeing from mostly conservative, right

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Speaker 1: wing media about trans people is deeply disturbing. But what

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Speaker 1: inspired this podcast is I was watching the Bill Marshaw

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Speaker 1: a few weeks ago um August six one, and he

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Speaker 1: did a segment with Donna di Varono that was supposed

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Speaker 1: to be about trans people at the Olympics, but it

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Speaker 1: I was very disturbed by it. I mean, this is

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Speaker 1: the first year the trans athletes have been allowed in

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Speaker 1: the Olympics. Just now as they're wrapping up, what I

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Speaker 1: read is they didn't do too good. So he goes

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Speaker 1: on to talk more about the trans folks who competed

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Speaker 1: in the Olympics this year, but I just wanted to

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Speaker 1: stop there because that's factually incorrect. So I think it's

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Speaker 1: important to point out that that's actually incorrect because trans

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Speaker 1: people have actually been eligible to compete in the Olympics

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Speaker 1: since two thousand four. Right since two thousand four, the

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Speaker 1: International Olympic Committee has had standards in place where trans

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Speaker 1: people can compete. In twenty fifteen, the International Olympic Committee

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Speaker 1: amended their guidelines and this year is the first year

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Speaker 1: trans people have qualified. So I think when we say

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Speaker 1: in the context of a lot of media being anti

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Speaker 1: trans women in sports thing, this is the first time

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Speaker 1: trans people are allowed to compete. It supports a narrative

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Speaker 1: that like there's something going on that's new and weird

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Speaker 1: and strange, when trans people have been able to compete

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Speaker 1: for a really long time. And that's why I wanted

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Speaker 1: to highlight that moment. What what do you have to

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Speaker 1: say about that chase? Yeah, I mean, you know, almost

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Speaker 1: every piece on trans people, period, on trans athletes specifically,

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Speaker 1: is just full of misinformation. And I think the challenge

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Speaker 1: we're facing in this moment is that the right wing media,

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Speaker 1: the anti trans media, is covering trans issues a hundred

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Speaker 1: times more free really then you know any other media source.

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Speaker 1: And so what we get is we are inundated with

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Speaker 1: factual misinformation, deliberately told lies, but that are presented with

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Speaker 1: such certainty over and over again. And so even just

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Speaker 1: something as simple as when trans people could begin competing

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Speaker 1: in the Olympics, that is easily verifiable, and what Bill

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Speaker 1: Mare said was factually wrong, and of course it goes

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Speaker 1: on from there, and many many more factual errors are

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Speaker 1: are in that episode, as is true in every single

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Speaker 1: episode of media attacking trans people. And I think what

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Speaker 1: in the sports piece, right, that the the ground that

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Speaker 1: anti trans legislation has been able to gain has been

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Speaker 1: around specifically trans girls in sports. I believe it's nine

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Speaker 1: bills now, right, when I say girls, I mean girls

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Speaker 1: under the age of eighteen? Am I correct with that? Yes? So,

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Speaker 1: so there's nine states that banned trans athletes from sports

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Speaker 1: and have some variation. Some of them go up to college. Um,

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Speaker 1: so you know, for example, Idaho, which was the first

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Speaker 1: state to ban trans women and girls from sports, was

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Speaker 1: a band from kindergarten through the collegiate level. And then

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Speaker 1: there are a few of the bills Tennessee, for example,

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Speaker 1: that bands all trans people, so it does actually cover

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Speaker 1: transports as well. Um. But but it's largely we're largely

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Speaker 1: talking about girls, and we're largely talking about the k

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Speaker 1: through's wealth context. Yeah, and that is mostly what we see,

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Speaker 1: like debate after debate in conservative media about fairness and

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Speaker 1: trans women in sports. And what I will say about

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Speaker 1: that is that, um, we'll see a couple of things. So,

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Speaker 1: trans women have been able to compete in the Olympics

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Speaker 1: for the past fifteen years. This is the first year

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Speaker 1: we've actually had a trans woman compete Laurel Hubbard, the

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Speaker 1: trans woman who competed in weightlifting. She's in New Zealand

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Speaker 1: weightlifter failed to make her lists and didn't even metal. Right,

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Speaker 1: So the science is still there's not enough studies that

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Speaker 1: have been done on actual trans people and whether we

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Speaker 1: have an advantage or disadvantage. But empirically there's probably about

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Speaker 1: a handful of trans people who in um, you know,

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Speaker 1: high school sports and and other sports who have won.

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Speaker 1: And then those trans women are constantly cited when we

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Speaker 1: talk about trans women in sports and whether it's fair

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Speaker 1: or not. But empirically, since trans folks have been able

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Speaker 1: to play, trans women are not taking over women's sports. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean separate and apart from getting into the minutia

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Speaker 1: of you know, the science of our bodies, the science

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Speaker 1: of testosterone, all the conversations about that, I think your

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Speaker 1: point is incredibly important one, which is that it is

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Speaker 1: not new that trans women and girls have been competing

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Speaker 1: in women and girls sports, not just at the Olympic level.

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Speaker 1: We have had the n C double A across the

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Speaker 1: United States, hundreds of thousands of athletes total competing in

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Speaker 1: colleges and universities in the United States. Trans people have

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Speaker 1: been included through the current policy for a decade. And

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Speaker 1: when I go to testifying these state legislatures, when I

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Speaker 1: listen to all of these conversations about trans dominance, and

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Speaker 1: they can point to a grand total of two collegiate

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Speaker 1: trans athletes who have even won anything. That's out of

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Speaker 1: you know, if you think about the hundreds and thousands

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Speaker 1: of collegiate athletes that have gone through these systems, and

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Speaker 1: so that is that is a percentage that is closed

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Speaker 1: to zero and saying when you look at the K

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Speaker 1: through twelve levels. So we have states across the country

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Speaker 1: that allow trans inclusion, you know, based on gender identity.

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Speaker 1: California has a state law that was passed in that

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Speaker 1: requires trans inclusion based on gender identity and athletics. I

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Speaker 1: have never and that is a huge state. I've never

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Speaker 1: even heard of a trans athlete winning anything in California.

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Speaker 1: So what we know is that we have at least

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Speaker 1: a decade, in some cases two decades of experience no

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Speaker 1: dominance of any kind, and yet we have these handful

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Speaker 1: of examples that become weaponized to tell a story that

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Speaker 1: is based on fear and misinformation to make people reflectively

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Speaker 1: feel like trans people are dominating. And what is so

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Speaker 1: scary about that it's not really trans people winning sporting events.

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Speaker 1: It's the sort of specter of transness and being confronted

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Speaker 1: with trans people in our bodies. And that is sort

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Speaker 1: of what we're being fed over and over and over again,

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Speaker 1: because when we listen into these debates. For example, thirty

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Speaker 1: five states introduced bills attempting to ban trans women and

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Speaker 1: girls from sports. All of these hearings, you would seriously

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Speaker 1: think that Lebron James is stepping on as seventh grade

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Speaker 1: basketball court with girls. That's how they're talking about this.

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Speaker 1: This isn't a real conversation that we're having, and I

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Speaker 1: think we have to sort of take down the temperature

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Speaker 1: and really remind ourselves of what's going on here. And

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Speaker 1: I think why the fourth thing has caught on so

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Speaker 1: strongly is because when we talk about sports and we

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Speaker 1: talk about physical advantages, then we have to talk about

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Speaker 1: bodies and strength, and then we can reduced trans people

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Speaker 1: to bodies. And I have been saying since I've had

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Speaker 1: a public platform, is when we reduce trans people, do surgery,

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Speaker 1: transition bodies, body parts, chromosomes were objectifying trans people, we

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Speaker 1: reduced them to a body part, to a limb, to

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Speaker 1: a chromosome. We're objectifying them, and we objectify people, were

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Speaker 1: dehumanizing them. And so that has been the most disturbing

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Speaker 1: part for me, And partly why I haven't wanted to

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Speaker 1: talk about this publicly is because it is so dehumanizing

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Speaker 1: and I don't want to engage in conversations that dehumanized

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Speaker 1: trans people. And what I also find curious is that

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Speaker 1: with most of the anti trans sports bills that have

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Speaker 1: been introduced, many of them have been accompanied by bands

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Speaker 1: on gender affirm and care for trans kids. And I

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Speaker 1: literally was thinking, like, wait a minute, what is undisputed

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Speaker 1: is that most of the advantage that a trans person

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Speaker 1: would have, or that someone assigned mail at birth um

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Speaker 1: would have, would happen after puberty. If trans girls have

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Speaker 1: access to puberty blockers, there's absolutely no advantage. So while

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Speaker 1: puberty blockers and you know, gender firming care isn't the

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Speaker 1: right answer for every trans youth, I'm not saying that's

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Speaker 1: the case. I think that is something that should be

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Speaker 1: decided between the trans youth, their parents, and their doctor.

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Speaker 1: But if we make that care available and the trans

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Speaker 1: kids who want to have puberty blockers, have access to it,

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Speaker 1: then the whole question of an advantage with children at

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Speaker 1: least becomes moved. Yeah, I mean, and I think this

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Speaker 1: is a reminder again it's it's not about protecting women's sports.

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Speaker 1: It's not about competitive advantage, because when you look at

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Speaker 1: what's happening, these bills are being introduced together. These bills

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Speaker 1: at their core are about stopping people from being trans,

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Speaker 1: which of course you cannot do other than by killing them.

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Speaker 1: But that is the goal here. They don't think, you know,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's written right into the preamble of the

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Speaker 1: health care bills. It is inherently harmful to be trans.

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Speaker 1: We want to stop kids from having access to transition

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Speaker 1: because they're more likely to become trans adults. And they're

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Speaker 1: introducing these bills in conjunction with each other because it

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Speaker 1: situates the conversation on the body. Like you said, it

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Speaker 1: forces people to have a conversation about kids bodies, which

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Speaker 1: nobody should be having in the way that they are.

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Speaker 1: It is incredibly creepy. It's opening the door to all

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Speaker 1: hosts of regulations of children's bodies that everyone should be

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Speaker 1: very much afraid of, you know, trans kids and sis kids,

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Speaker 1: like all of these bills have mechanisms for enforcements that

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Speaker 1: could seriously erode the privacy and bodily autonomy protections of

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Speaker 1: young women and girls in particular. Um, but ultimately you know,

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Speaker 1: these are pre drafted bills part of a well coordinated

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Speaker 1: movement that are designed for the sole an exclusive purpose

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Speaker 1: at their core, to stop kids from being trans at all. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're I think it was in Florida where one of

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Speaker 1: I don't know if the bill passed or not, but

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Speaker 1: if I could call correctly, if a child's gender within question,

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Speaker 1: their genitals could be inspected in the chromosome test, am

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Speaker 1: I Yeah, so they can't even like saying it out

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Speaker 1: loud feels like I don't, I feel like I need

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Speaker 1: take a shower. Yes, we should all be is just

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Speaker 1: like really just like such a violation that we would

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Speaker 1: be doing this in the name of protecting anyone? Is

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Speaker 1: is you know a dystopian? You know? Well, so Florida

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Speaker 1: passed an anti trans sports bill. It's not they had

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Speaker 1: multiple One of the versions, I think the one that

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Speaker 1: you're referring to had in it this panel of physicians

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Speaker 1: that could be convened to inspect the records and bodies

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Speaker 1: of young people to quote unquote determine who was eligible

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Speaker 1: to play. And again we have to remind ourselves that,

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Speaker 1: you know, trans people are incredibly small percentage of the population,

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Speaker 1: and we are already pushed out of school and sports

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Speaker 1: at incredibly high rates. So what these bills are largely doing,

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Speaker 1: are too thinks. You know, first is just entrenching discriminatory

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Speaker 1: norms of sex that ultimately are designed to you know,

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Speaker 1: hurt trans people across the board. But second is expanding

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Speaker 1: the power of the state to surveil all the bodies

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Speaker 1: of young athletes, and because most young athletes are gonna

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Speaker 1: be SIS, it's gonna hurt them, and that I think

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Speaker 1: is just you know, one of the things that has

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Speaker 1: really been lost in this conversation is that, you know,

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Speaker 1: the policing of particularly SIS young women and girls of

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Speaker 1: color in sports is so high. The screwiny of their bodies,

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Speaker 1: especially if you look at black young women and professional

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Speaker 1: athletes who are black, you know, you have high rates

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Speaker 1: of policing their you know, subjects to extra scrutiny, extra

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Speaker 1: drug testing. You know. The intended targets, of course are

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Speaker 1: trans people, but but the the impact will be felt

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Speaker 1: for many other people, and I think you know that

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Speaker 1: is really troubling. And all of the bills, like the

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Speaker 1: Florida one that you alluded to, do you have some

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Speaker 1: sort of enforcement mechanism that authorizes the state to inquire

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Speaker 1: in one way or another into the genitals, the reproductive anatomy,

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Speaker 1: and the chromosomes of children. And if you think about

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Speaker 1: the contacts that we're living in right now, we're on

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Speaker 1: the one hand, you have the Supreme Court eroting abortion

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Speaker 1: rights left and right, that the ability to control one's

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Speaker 1: body being eroded left or right, while at the same time,

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Speaker 1: you know, we're having conversations about mass mandates in fringe

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Speaker 1: upon people's bodily autonomy. There's a core hypocrisy in all

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Speaker 1: of this. And in some ways, trans people are the

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Speaker 1: canaries in the coal mine because we have been one

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Speaker 1: of the first lines of attack in so many of

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Speaker 1: these state legislatures over the past five years, and we're

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Speaker 1: only seeing the expansion of those types of attack. And

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Speaker 1: I think it's incredibly concerning to see how easy it's

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Speaker 1: been for states to move these anti transports bills, given

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Speaker 1: the degree to which they intrude upon the bodies and

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Speaker 1: the autonomy and the self determination of children in schools,

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Speaker 1: and I think part of it is um I the

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Speaker 1: media has a lot to cover, but the media is

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Speaker 1: not covering it, and our lgbt Q plus organizations are

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Speaker 1: not pressuring the media to coverage, so a lot of

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Speaker 1: people don't even know that it's going on. I want

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Speaker 1: to go to the next clip, and it's a It's

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Speaker 1: a moment on being Shapio show. He recently did a

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Speaker 1: debate with scientists Neil Degrass Tyson, and I want to

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Speaker 1: play this clip because I think it sets us up

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Speaker 1: nicely for the rest of the conversation. My general take

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Speaker 1: on all of this stuff, climate change to gender dysphoria,

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Speaker 1: to all these issues is bring out the science and

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Speaker 1: then let's hash it out. I think that the problem.

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Speaker 1: I'm seeing a lot of science motivation. Why Why does

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Speaker 1: that matter? It matters because if you have political power,

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Speaker 1: you could end up creating legislation that subtracts freedoms from

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Speaker 1: people who previously were enjoying the same freedoms as you

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Speaker 1: the history of that exercise and make a better argument.

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Speaker 1: I encourage people to go and watch. The clip is

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Speaker 1: from the July one episode of The Bentrepio show on YouTube. Um,

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Speaker 1: but what with really interesting about the debate is that

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Speaker 1: Ben Superior is often sort of citing science and biology

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Speaker 1: and and what I loved about Neil de grass Tyson's

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Speaker 1: argument is like, well, well, what's your motivation. It's like

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Speaker 1: science has historically been used to take away people's liberties, right,

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Speaker 1: And I think for me, the science question around trans

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Speaker 1: people is utterly incompletely irrelevant in most situations. We don't

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Speaker 1: know people's genitalia, We don't know their chromosomes. You know,

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Speaker 1: if you listen to a Ben Superio you know episode

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Speaker 1: he's constantly talking about men and women based on chromosomes

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Speaker 1: and genitalia in the capacity to reproduce. And these are

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Speaker 1: things that are not things that we interact with I

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Speaker 1: walked down the street or I like interact with. I

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Speaker 1: have no idea what someone's genitials are. And that the

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Speaker 1: space of using science to take away people's liberties is

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Speaker 1: really a huge part of what the talking points and

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Speaker 1: conservative media are about. Can you taught to us a

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Speaker 1: little bit about your understanding from a legal perspective around

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Speaker 1: how biology and biological sex are used and weaponized against

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Speaker 1: trans folks? Yeah, I mean I think it's such an

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Speaker 1: important point, not to say that we should abandon science,

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Speaker 1: but we should always be asking the question, what is

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Speaker 1: our motivation for utilizing what we're claiming as a scientific

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Speaker 1: discourse and why? And I think, um, you know, when

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Speaker 1: you look at the history of the regulation of trans

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Speaker 1: people in the law, what you see is that the

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Speaker 1: very first time in the United States that biological sex

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Speaker 1: as a term was used in a law was in

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Speaker 1: when North Carolina passed HB two. There was no biological

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Speaker 1: sex as a legal concept. There was sex, and in fact,

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Speaker 1: in the law, sex and gender are used interchangeably. We

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Speaker 1: talked about protections based on sex, which includes sex stereotypes.

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Speaker 1: There was no concept of biological sex. So when you

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Speaker 1: say there's no such thing, is biolaw tical sets you're

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Speaker 1: talking in legal terms, and the idea of biological sex

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Speaker 1: being a recent phenomenon, Am I correct? Yeah, it's a

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Speaker 1: recent phenomenon that emerged for the sole and exclusive purpose

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Speaker 1: to exclude trans people from space, that emerged with the

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Speaker 1: bathroom bills, and it's now being used in healthcare bands

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Speaker 1: and sports bands and locker room bands and bands on

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Speaker 1: pronoun used. And the reason why I say it doesn't

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Speaker 1: exist is because it's an ever changing concept in the

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Speaker 1: law whose definition changes so that it can always mean

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Speaker 1: not trans people. Protections for anyone, but not trans people.

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Speaker 1: And I think that one of the best examples of

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Speaker 1: this was in Gavin Groom's case in in Gloucester County, Virginia,

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Speaker 1: when Gavin's in high school in and they, you know,

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Speaker 1: seek to ban him from the restroom after he uses

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Speaker 1: it for a period of time, just because he's the

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Speaker 1: young man who's trans. They've passed the policy saying that

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Speaker 1: you can only use restrooms based on quote unquote biological gender.

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Speaker 1: Did they say biological gender? And in this case they

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Speaker 1: say biological gender. So again, you know, these are folks

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Speaker 1: who are just flying around with terms. You know, they're

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Speaker 1: googling things. Who knows where they're getting it. So in

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Speaker 1: the six years that we litigated Gamin's case, they changed

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Speaker 1: the definition of biological gender repeatedly. It was never defined

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Speaker 1: by the way in the policy. Um and you know,

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Speaker 1: it took many forms. At first, it was oh, it's

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Speaker 1: your genitals, and then it's like, actually, no, it's your

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Speaker 1: birth certificate. But when Gavin changed his birth certificate, they're like, actually,

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Speaker 1: it's not the birth certificate, it's surgery. And then when

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Speaker 1: Gavin had surgery, they're like, actually, it's not surgery, it's chromosomes.

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Speaker 1: And then in you know, the course of litigation, when

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Speaker 1: they were claiming that the interest that they were protecting

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Speaker 1: was privacy, they couldn't explain how chromosomes connected to privacy,

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Speaker 1: and so they kept changing the definition again. And so

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Speaker 1: I think what we have to remember is biological gender.

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Speaker 1: Biological sex as legal terms, are moving targets that are

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Speaker 1: constantly being reshaped to hurt trans people. They're weaponized against

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Speaker 1: trans people, and they have no history in American law. Um,

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Speaker 1: And so when we would hear those words, we have

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Speaker 1: to ask ourselves why is this being deployed and who

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Speaker 1: is it intending to hurt. This is a good time

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Speaker 1: to take a little break. We're back in a piece

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Speaker 1: you wrote titled There's no such thing as a male body,

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Speaker 1: which I love you wrote. At birth, we classify infants

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Speaker 1: as male or female based solely on the appearance of

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Speaker 1: their external genitalia. Notably, this classification serves population control and

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Speaker 1: surveillance and not medical purposes. The medical experts I have

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Speaker 1: spoken with could not identify a single medical purpose for

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Speaker 1: assigning sex at birth and explain that the components of

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Speaker 1: sex are far more complex than just external genitalia, and

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Speaker 1: include at least chromosomes, genes, hormones, internal genitalia, gender identity,

430
00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:15,080
Speaker 1: and secondary sex characteristics. By embracing a narrative that one

431
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:19,119
Speaker 1: is born with a male body, we reinforce the idea

432
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:22,720
Speaker 1: that only the bodies we assign at birth, bodies that

433
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:27,920
Speaker 1: have medically normative penises, are male. I love that. I

434
00:26:28,280 --> 00:26:30,600
Speaker 1: love that it actually um, because I think that can

435
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:33,680
Speaker 1: take us into the next clip. Actually um. This is

436
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:38,640
Speaker 1: from Bill Maher's show August six, Real Time with Bill

437
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:42,840
Speaker 1: Maher and the in the guidance on the Olympic coverage

438
00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:46,399
Speaker 1: that Fox Sports put out, Listen to the statement, no

439
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:49,560
Speaker 1: one is born with a gender identity. Everyone is born

440
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:52,760
Speaker 1: a baby and their gender is assigned to them by doctors.

441
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:56,680
Speaker 1: This attempt to make, you know, overturn the whole world

442
00:26:57,720 --> 00:27:00,639
Speaker 1: and pretend that this is something that we just you know,

443
00:27:00,920 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 1: a penis, Well, it could be an indicator of anything exactly.

444
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:08,320
Speaker 1: I mean, that's funny. Penis. It could be an indicator

445
00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:11,639
Speaker 1: of anything. What I love about that is like I'm like, yeah,

446
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:15,640
Speaker 1: it actually can be like was the problem for me.

447
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:19,480
Speaker 1: What's the problem? I think this whole thing around a

448
00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:22,680
Speaker 1: penis being destiny. I mean, so much of the anxiety

449
00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:26,359
Speaker 1: usually is not about men with vaginas. It's usually about

450
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:28,919
Speaker 1: like the possibility of a woman with a penis, and

451
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 1: people are just really really terrified of the idea of

452
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:34,480
Speaker 1: a woman with the penis or having once had one.

453
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:37,760
Speaker 1: And so to also just break down what happened there,

454
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:43,080
Speaker 1: Bill Maher conflated gender identity and sex assigned at birth.

455
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:46,600
Speaker 1: So we have sex assigned it birth based on genitalia,

456
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:48,480
Speaker 1: as we just heard from your piece, and then we

457
00:27:48,520 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 1: have gender are Sociologists for years have said that gender

458
00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:57,040
Speaker 1: is an understanding of like how we express ourselves in

459
00:27:57,160 --> 00:28:00,160
Speaker 1: terms of being male female, both are neither in it's

460
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 1: different in every culture, it's different in different times, and

461
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:06,280
Speaker 1: so gender is something that is socially constructed. For the

462
00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:10,560
Speaker 1: most part, most people, their gender aligns with the sex

463
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 1: that they are assigned at birth um. But for some people, transfolkes,

464
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:18,160
Speaker 1: non binary people are gender doesn't align and we do

465
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:22,000
Speaker 1: things or don't do things to make ourselves more um integrated,

466
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:24,920
Speaker 1: And so the conflation it's so weird because I was like,

467
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:27,440
Speaker 1: I because I a few years ago, like I'm done

468
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:30,560
Speaker 1: with the trans one oh one, But apparently we can't

469
00:28:30,560 --> 00:28:32,560
Speaker 1: be done with the trans one oh one when we

470
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:36,440
Speaker 1: have statements like that that conflate gender gender identity with

471
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:39,720
Speaker 1: sex assigned at birth. And I think that the whole

472
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 1: thing of like is it possible to move away from

473
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 1: the penis is destiny because when we say like, you're

474
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:52,240
Speaker 1: born this way, it's just based on external genitalia, and

475
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:55,800
Speaker 1: we are so much more than that. Men, women, non

476
00:28:55,800 --> 00:28:59,200
Speaker 1: binary people are so much more than like what's between

477
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:03,000
Speaker 1: our legs that a doctor decides at birth. Like my

478
00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:05,920
Speaker 1: empathetic part of it is like, oh my god, you know,

479
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:07,800
Speaker 1: and I've been saying this for years. The first thing

480
00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:09,720
Speaker 1: we ask when someone is pregnant is like, is it

481
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:11,920
Speaker 1: a boy or a girl? And so there's something so

482
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:15,040
Speaker 1: fundamental about it. And I guess it's destabilizing for people

483
00:29:15,480 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 1: to think of the presence of a penis and not

484
00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:22,840
Speaker 1: automatically think that the person who might have that is male.

485
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:28,320
Speaker 1: But like, for me, I go to the real lived

486
00:29:28,320 --> 00:29:31,440
Speaker 1: experiences of trans people, right, even if that's like a

487
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 1: weird concept. Free right, If if we love trans people

488
00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 1: and if we respect trans people and believe they're deserving

489
00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:41,479
Speaker 1: of respect and love. It means that we respect how

490
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:44,400
Speaker 1: they identify themselves. So what a trans woman says that

491
00:29:44,480 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 1: she's a woman, we respect that we believe them when

492
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 1: they say who they are. That trans woman might have

493
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:57,160
Speaker 1: a penis, So then you know, Bill Maher or a

494
00:29:57,160 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 1: Ben Saperia might say we're insane, that that's that's what

495
00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:01,840
Speaker 1: they say. They say they're trans people are crazy. But

496
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:05,520
Speaker 1: if we don't pathologize trans people and believe that we

497
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 1: are who we say we are in love and respect us,

498
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:12,840
Speaker 1: then we must think differently about the presence of a

499
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:15,720
Speaker 1: penis and a vagina and a baby when that baby

500
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:20,800
Speaker 1: is born, taking into consideration the existence of trans people,

501
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:25,680
Speaker 1: the fact that we manifest, and so this means, yes,

502
00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:30,640
Speaker 1: a penis can be an indication of many things. Yeah,

503
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 1: well I mean and and well sudden and and how

504
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 1: important because I think the sort of deeply entrenched, sort

505
00:30:38,080 --> 00:30:43,000
Speaker 1: of structural myth that a penis must be an indicator

506
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:46,720
Speaker 1: of maleness and vagina must be an indicator of femaleness

507
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:52,760
Speaker 1: is the animating driver of this notion of transness as fraud.

508
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:55,440
Speaker 1: The idea that if you are a trans person, you

509
00:30:55,440 --> 00:30:59,240
Speaker 1: are concealing something from the world, and that the exposing

510
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:02,520
Speaker 1: that becomes also the source of an incredible amount of violence.

511
00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 1: The idea that if someone is discovered to have body

512
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 1: parts that don't line up with our story that we

513
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:11,959
Speaker 1: tell ourselves in this country and in this world about

514
00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 1: you know, how these body parts have to align with

515
00:31:14,520 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 1: someone's identification and external presentation. And we have essentially sort

516
00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 1: of created the condition that excuse people violently enacting uh,

517
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 1: you know, their resistance to that concept on people's bodies

518
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:29,080
Speaker 1: and so much of this. Let's let's let's go into

519
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:30,640
Speaker 1: the next clip and then we'll talk it because I

520
00:31:30,640 --> 00:31:33,200
Speaker 1: think we're talking about having a conversation about language, is

521
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:37,120
Speaker 1: if um a deeper conversation about language. Um. It's been

522
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:39,800
Speaker 1: Shapiro chatting with Blair White, and the clip is from

523
00:31:39,840 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 1: Blair White's YouTube channel, from a January ten, eighteen episode

524
00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:49,080
Speaker 1: titled Debate Ben Shapiro and Blair White. You know, I'm

525
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:51,040
Speaker 1: the editor of a pretty major site, and my basic

526
00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:53,719
Speaker 1: rules that when we're discussing people are friends, we immediately

527
00:31:53,720 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 1: say in the first paragraph trans woman, and then refers

528
00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:58,440
Speaker 1: to them by their biological pronoun because biology is the

529
00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:03,040
Speaker 1: nature of the pronoun. This is a special bad Shapiro moment.

530
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:07,240
Speaker 1: Biology is the nature of the pronoun. I guess we

531
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 1: are assigned pronouns at birth too. Huh Um, you know

532
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:16,160
Speaker 1: this is not too you know again, I don't want

533
00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:21,120
Speaker 1: to derive Mr Shapiro. I don't know him. But biology

534
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:24,800
Speaker 1: is the nature of the pronoun is hilarious when it's

535
00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 1: really really funny. And then also in another interview with

536
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:33,440
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan, um, Mr Shapiro says that he will call

537
00:32:33,520 --> 00:32:36,479
Speaker 1: Caitlyn Jenner Caitlyn Jenner, but he will not call Caitlyn

538
00:32:36,520 --> 00:32:38,440
Speaker 1: Jenner sheet because you can change your name and you

539
00:32:38,520 --> 00:32:41,560
Speaker 1: can't change your sex. Um, he says that Caitlyn Jenner

540
00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 1: is a man, she has male chromosomes. Blah blah blah.

541
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 1: That that sort of argument. And then, um, what's actually

542
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:49,800
Speaker 1: really beautiful. I encourage people to go and watch ContraPoints

543
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:54,640
Speaker 1: video titled Pronouns published on November two on YouTube because

544
00:32:54,680 --> 00:32:57,840
Speaker 1: she talks about them that this is really about language

545
00:32:57,920 --> 00:33:05,120
Speaker 1: and how we assign meaning. We assigned meaning to body parts. So, um,

546
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:08,320
Speaker 1: I think what I want to say about pronouns, and

547
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:11,280
Speaker 1: I've been saying this for years, is that miss gendering

548
00:33:11,360 --> 00:33:14,400
Speaker 1: trans people. I've said that it's an act of violence,

549
00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:17,200
Speaker 1: and I've been criticized for that. UM, and I always

550
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 1: talk about those different kinds of violence, of structural violence.

551
00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 1: There is a direct violence, there is systemic about there's

552
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:25,360
Speaker 1: different kinds of violence. And oftentimes when we missed gender

553
00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:29,320
Speaker 1: trans folks, it's in the in the context of my life.

554
00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:32,640
Speaker 1: It's often led to my safety being in question when

555
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:35,400
Speaker 1: someone has called me a man on the street or

556
00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:39,720
Speaker 1: that's that's a dude. It's being yelled at me, and

557
00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 1: it feels very much like I need to get out

558
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 1: of there or I might you know, get beating up

559
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:50,240
Speaker 1: or killed. Um. I mean, beyond the disrespect is the

560
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:54,600
Speaker 1: insisting that trans people are always and only their gender

561
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 1: we were assigned at birth. You know, people have asked

562
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:59,080
Speaker 1: me what's the biggest, you know, thing that trans people

563
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 1: have to face, and really that and it's baked into

564
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 1: all of this that trans people can never really be

565
00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:08,960
Speaker 1: who we say we are based on some genitalia that

566
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:12,440
Speaker 1: a doctor you know, as signs meaning to yeah. I mean,

567
00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:15,320
Speaker 1: you know, there's obviously the ways in which like people

568
00:34:15,560 --> 00:34:19,000
Speaker 1: accidentally mispronoun people all the time. Since people and trans

569
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 1: people and that's you know, part of life. And then

570
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:23,200
Speaker 1: and I yeah, and for me, I want to give

571
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:25,600
Speaker 1: people grace. I'm not into attacking people if they get

572
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:30,040
Speaker 1: someone's pronoun wrong, but you know, try, yeah, like trying.

573
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:32,800
Speaker 1: And then also we're not talking about casualness, gendering and

574
00:34:32,840 --> 00:34:34,600
Speaker 1: a lot of these contexts. We are talking about the

575
00:34:34,680 --> 00:34:39,920
Speaker 1: deliberate and repeated insistence, as you know, of referring to

576
00:34:40,320 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 1: individuals by their assignce sex effort, despite the fact that

577
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:47,000
Speaker 1: they are telling us who they are. And this idea

578
00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:51,000
Speaker 1: that trans people simply cannot know who we are um

579
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:53,719
Speaker 1: and that who we know ourselves to be is is

580
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:55,759
Speaker 1: actually a delusion. I mean, that's what we're seeing in

581
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:59,600
Speaker 1: litigation now, is the argument that, you know, affirming a

582
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:03,480
Speaker 1: trans person is akin to feeding a delusion, and the

583
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:06,960
Speaker 1: arguments that are being leveraged largely against trans young people,

584
00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:09,040
Speaker 1: you know, because that's where we're seeing, you know, the

585
00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:13,719
Speaker 1: majority of these state legislative attacks, and the insistence in

586
00:35:14,080 --> 00:35:17,920
Speaker 1: legislative hearings talking about trans girls repeatedly as not just

587
00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 1: biological males, as males, as boys, over and over again

588
00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:24,719
Speaker 1: to send a message that we will never see you

589
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:27,400
Speaker 1: for who you are, and we are working day and

590
00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:31,040
Speaker 1: night to entrench a set of policies to not only

591
00:35:31,080 --> 00:35:33,440
Speaker 1: push you out of spaces with your peers, but to

592
00:35:33,640 --> 00:35:38,080
Speaker 1: create governmental interests that are essentially that it is harmful

593
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:40,560
Speaker 1: for you to be you um. And then that gives

594
00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:43,160
Speaker 1: the power of the state to then come in and

595
00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:45,319
Speaker 1: try to stop people from being trans. And and so

596
00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:47,840
Speaker 1: I see the mis gendering as part and parcel to

597
00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:51,279
Speaker 1: that erasure of the dignity of trans people, of our

598
00:35:51,320 --> 00:35:54,560
Speaker 1: ability to have legal protections, and of of our humanity

599
00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 1: full stop. And now I think that's what we're seeing,

600
00:35:57,200 --> 00:35:59,960
Speaker 1: you know, in court, in legal papers and briefs. You know,

601
00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:02,759
Speaker 1: in the context of these healthcare bands, there's you know,

602
00:36:02,880 --> 00:36:07,040
Speaker 1: this incredibly patronizing and misogynistic discourse about the idea that

603
00:36:07,120 --> 00:36:10,839
Speaker 1: quote unquote girls are being pressured into transition um and

604
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:14,640
Speaker 1: that we're losing lesbians, we're losing you know, we're losing tomboys.

605
00:36:14,680 --> 00:36:19,240
Speaker 1: All to this you know, sort of mass hysteria of transition.

606
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 1: And in the process, the repeated reference to trans boys

607
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:26,640
Speaker 1: as girls, as as biological girls, as girls who are

608
00:36:26,719 --> 00:36:30,480
Speaker 1: mutilating their bodies by having top surgery, for example, is

609
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:33,040
Speaker 1: so deliberate. It is so calculated, and it is not

610
00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:36,560
Speaker 1: simply about language. It's not about oh, well, I you know,

611
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:38,560
Speaker 1: I want to use up to hear language. It's about

612
00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:43,320
Speaker 1: weaponizing language in the service of a very scary project

613
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:46,560
Speaker 1: to inhibit the ability of trans people to survive. And

614
00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:48,960
Speaker 1: that's why it's violent. That's why, and that's why it's violent.

615
00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:52,080
Speaker 1: It has a eugenics undertone and a eugenics impulse because

616
00:36:52,120 --> 00:36:55,480
Speaker 1: what we're seeing now over and over again is the

617
00:36:55,520 --> 00:36:59,920
Speaker 1: idea that the goal of this legislation is to decrease

618
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 1: the number of trans people that there are. And when

619
00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:06,120
Speaker 1: you have government, we just actually paused. The goal of

620
00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 1: this legislation is to decrease the number of trans people

621
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:13,120
Speaker 1: that there are. I think that we just need to

622
00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:16,000
Speaker 1: let that settle in for a second. That's clearly the truth.

623
00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:20,799
Speaker 1: Please continue chase. Yeah. And when you have governments, you know,

624
00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:26,280
Speaker 1: being pushed by global well funded movements to enact policies

625
00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:30,239
Speaker 1: to decrease the numbers of a population, that is a

626
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:34,080
Speaker 1: eugenics program at core, and that is what we're up against.

627
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:37,880
Speaker 1: And they are tapping into people's fears. They are using

628
00:37:38,200 --> 00:37:41,880
Speaker 1: tools like the systemic nous gendering of people, um trying

629
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 1: to appeal to notions of science and notions of biology

630
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:49,480
Speaker 1: and things that we reflexively believe because we're taught our

631
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 1: whole lives, which is that there are two sexes and

632
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:55,200
Speaker 1: that we can easily identify them. But but that isn't

633
00:37:55,239 --> 00:37:58,080
Speaker 1: true as a scientific matter, that isn't true as a

634
00:37:58,160 --> 00:38:00,920
Speaker 1: legal matter, and that just simply isn't true a social matter.

635
00:38:01,239 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 1: And so I think that yes, the world as you know,

636
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:05,879
Speaker 1: It's like why Bill Maher was like, oh, these people

637
00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:08,040
Speaker 1: are trying to overturn everything in the world. It's like

638
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:12,360
Speaker 1: in maybe in your world, the things that are important

639
00:38:12,400 --> 00:38:16,200
Speaker 1: to you, Bill Maher are being challenged. That doesn't mean

640
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:19,439
Speaker 1: that the world is being overturned. Well, you know, our

641
00:38:19,560 --> 00:38:23,000
Speaker 1: norms change over time about everything. You know. It's like

642
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:25,880
Speaker 1: the people in the United States used to drink and

643
00:38:25,880 --> 00:38:28,160
Speaker 1: smoke cigarettes when they were pregnant, and then they didn't.

644
00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:30,920
Speaker 1: You know, It's like we were instructed all the time

645
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:34,319
Speaker 1: about what is good and bad, what everything changes. And

646
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:38,080
Speaker 1: I think that should not be a threat to you

647
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:42,840
Speaker 1: if you are securing who you are, if you I

648
00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:44,880
Speaker 1: mean some I think there's two things going on. I

649
00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:50,120
Speaker 1: think some people trans people invite them to question their

650
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 1: own gender, I think too, honestly, and a patriarchal culture.

651
00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:56,319
Speaker 1: I can't help but think that that's part of the

652
00:38:56,360 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 1: anxiety too. It is part of the anxiety that men

653
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:03,839
Speaker 1: want to know for sure that the person he's womanizing

654
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:07,279
Speaker 1: on the street was assigned female at birth. And so

655
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:10,560
Speaker 1: there's this whole other element I think to this where

656
00:39:10,640 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 1: it's like people want this certainty around gender because it's

657
00:39:15,160 --> 00:39:18,440
Speaker 1: also about power. Some people are uncomfortable because they don't

658
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:20,000
Speaker 1: want to think about all this stuff, but I think

659
00:39:20,120 --> 00:39:22,920
Speaker 1: sometimes it's about power, and we in the intersectional nature

660
00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:30,480
Speaker 1: of how all this works cannot be overlooked. Um On

661
00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:34,279
Speaker 1: an episode of sixty Minutes that aired on May, there

662
00:39:34,360 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 1: was a lot of controversy around it. It It was a

663
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:40,800
Speaker 1: segment done by Leslie Stall that focused on de transitioners,

664
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:45,720
Speaker 1: those folks who undergo gender transition, regretted and transition back.

665
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:48,480
Speaker 1: The segment got a lot of backlash. Opponents of the

666
00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:51,360
Speaker 1: segment feared that it would be used to invalidate trans

667
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:55,280
Speaker 1: identity by anti transforces. I spoke out about the episode

668
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:57,760
Speaker 1: at the time because I felt, once again in the media,

669
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:02,160
Speaker 1: we were reducing trans identity to transition hormones and surgery.

670
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:05,279
Speaker 1: De transitioners felt that they were they were they were

671
00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:09,439
Speaker 1: attempts to silence them and their experience. What are your

672
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:13,560
Speaker 1: thoughts on that sixty minutes segment and then the way

673
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 1: in which de transition can be used in this current

674
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:24,279
Speaker 1: environment of the proliferation of anti trans legislation. Yeah, I mean,

675
00:40:24,360 --> 00:40:28,440
Speaker 1: I think this is incredibly you know, complicated conversation, in

676
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:31,880
Speaker 1: part because it's it's not about, you know, who gets

677
00:40:32,040 --> 00:40:35,799
Speaker 1: to tell their story, it's about why our story is

678
00:40:35,880 --> 00:40:39,720
Speaker 1: being told and how because right now, we don't live

679
00:40:40,080 --> 00:40:44,960
Speaker 1: in a world that stops people from de transitioning. We

680
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 1: live in a world that is invested in people not

681
00:40:49,239 --> 00:40:53,800
Speaker 1: being trans And so what these stories are being used

682
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:57,480
Speaker 1: for and what the media is capitalizing on is this

683
00:40:57,640 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 1: larger narrative that trans people regret their transition and are

684
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:07,880
Speaker 1: harmed by being trans And so it's playing right in

685
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:11,759
Speaker 1: to the fundamental premise of every piece of legislation that

686
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:15,480
Speaker 1: we're fighting against, because ultimately what they're trying to do

687
00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:17,640
Speaker 1: and and and frankly, they did this in the abortion

688
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:20,439
Speaker 1: context too, with abortion regret, which is to say, there

689
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:23,880
Speaker 1: are a very very very small number of people who

690
00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:27,319
Speaker 1: didn't get the care they wanted, regretted the care they had.

691
00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:30,399
Speaker 1: And within that very very small number of people, there's

692
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:32,840
Speaker 1: an even smaller number of them who are invested in

693
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:35,520
Speaker 1: using their stories to harm trans people. There are many

694
00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:37,440
Speaker 1: who just go about their lives, and then there's the

695
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:40,280
Speaker 1: small number of the already small number, and it gets

696
00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:42,759
Speaker 1: just like the trans athletes who are good at sports,

697
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:45,520
Speaker 1: of which there is an incredibly small number, it gets

698
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 1: completely oversaturated in the media, becomes disproportionately talked about, so

699
00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:57,120
Speaker 1: that there is a sense that transition, that gender affirmation

700
00:41:57,400 --> 00:42:01,000
Speaker 1: is harmful, and that kids are being rushed into it

701
00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:04,520
Speaker 1: um And that is a problem for so many reasons,

702
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:08,720
Speaker 1: because first, it is already incredibly difficult to get access

703
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:11,840
Speaker 1: to gender affirment care in this country and around the world,

704
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:14,759
Speaker 1: and so this idea that people you know, and then

705
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:17,400
Speaker 1: you know, they'll find people to say, oh, I walked

706
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:19,319
Speaker 1: into you know, they make it sound like you can

707
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:23,120
Speaker 1: walk into a CBS and get purity blockers. Well, the

708
00:42:23,239 --> 00:42:26,560
Speaker 1: sixty minutes segment featured a number of trans people who said,

709
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 1: after two therapy sessions they were given testosterone. I think

710
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:33,120
Speaker 1: they were televisits and they were given testosterone after two visits,

711
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:35,640
Speaker 1: and after three one of the de transitioners said that

712
00:42:35,680 --> 00:42:37,680
Speaker 1: they went to have an orchiac to me, right, So

713
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:41,560
Speaker 1: one de transitioners say that they transitioned and de transitioned

714
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:43,719
Speaker 1: within the space of a year. Right that once they

715
00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:47,120
Speaker 1: had their top surgery, they started having this this feeling

716
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:50,400
Speaker 1: of regret or whatever. So and I think about that.

717
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:52,360
Speaker 1: I'm just you know, I've been in this game for

718
00:42:52,360 --> 00:42:54,839
Speaker 1: a minute. I'm like, how did you Where did you go?

719
00:42:55,680 --> 00:42:57,680
Speaker 1: You could get I know a lot of trans people.

720
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:01,760
Speaker 1: I don't know anybody who's gotten form that legally that quickly,

721
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:04,120
Speaker 1: and you certainly can't get them without your parents, and

722
00:43:04,160 --> 00:43:06,880
Speaker 1: there's a huge process and there's tons of bureaucracy, and

723
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:09,439
Speaker 1: insurance doesn't always cover it, and it's a huge fight.

724
00:43:09,600 --> 00:43:11,799
Speaker 1: So the idea that we're you know, and yes, there

725
00:43:11,840 --> 00:43:14,800
Speaker 1: may be a few examples, like with anything like of

726
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:18,319
Speaker 1: of care being administered unaccountably, um, and we use that

727
00:43:18,560 --> 00:43:21,439
Speaker 1: you know, someone wasn't you know, properly diagnosed. That's true

728
00:43:21,440 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 1: of every single mental condition. That's just always going to

729
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:27,160
Speaker 1: be true. But you know, it's like if someone's misdiagnosed

730
00:43:27,320 --> 00:43:29,920
Speaker 1: with cancer, and given the wrong treatment, it's a tragedy.

731
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:33,080
Speaker 1: But we don't stop cancer treatment as writ large. We

732
00:43:33,160 --> 00:43:35,680
Speaker 1: just simply don't engage with medicine that way. And when

733
00:43:35,719 --> 00:43:37,640
Speaker 1: you think about the fact that you know, there's not

734
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:40,480
Speaker 1: a sixty minute special about all of the people who

735
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:42,759
Speaker 1: were lucky enough to have access to gender firm and

736
00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:45,320
Speaker 1: care as young people, and how it saved their lives,

737
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:47,719
Speaker 1: and that how harmful it is for these bands to

738
00:43:47,800 --> 00:43:50,400
Speaker 1: be coming out and what it will do to kids

739
00:43:50,400 --> 00:43:52,880
Speaker 1: to have their care cut off, Like why in a moment,

740
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:55,040
Speaker 1: I would love to see that segment and we are

741
00:43:55,120 --> 00:43:57,760
Speaker 1: not seeing that segment. And we're but in the midst

742
00:43:57,840 --> 00:44:00,760
Speaker 1: of this set of attacks, what we're hearing is about

743
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:03,479
Speaker 1: how there's people who regret their transition, how people rush

744
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:06,160
Speaker 1: into transition. That feeds right into the narrative that we

745
00:44:06,200 --> 00:44:08,800
Speaker 1: are fighting in state legislatures, that we are fighting in court.

746
00:44:09,040 --> 00:44:11,759
Speaker 1: We hear from the same quote unquote detransitioners and every

747
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:14,960
Speaker 1: single piece of litigation who claimed that you know, it

748
00:44:15,080 --> 00:44:16,920
Speaker 1: wasn't right for them and that it should be available

749
00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:19,319
Speaker 1: to no one um. And you know, if you are

750
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:22,719
Speaker 1: using your personal experience to take away legal protection, to

751
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 1: take away health care for other people. Then I think

752
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:27,520
Speaker 1: I have a lot of questions for for for you

753
00:44:27,560 --> 00:44:29,759
Speaker 1: about why that is your journey. But at the end

754
00:44:29,800 --> 00:44:32,680
Speaker 1: of the day, it's not about restricting people's stories. It's

755
00:44:32,680 --> 00:44:36,680
Speaker 1: about asking why we hear disproportionately about something that is

756
00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:39,799
Speaker 1: so rare in a moment when you know we're we're

757
00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:42,400
Speaker 1: fighting so hard just to maintain the already meagul or

758
00:44:42,480 --> 00:44:44,840
Speaker 1: health care that we are able to get. And in

759
00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:48,799
Speaker 1: the context of these you know, attacks on on trans youth,

760
00:44:48,840 --> 00:44:51,359
Speaker 1: in particular in the medical care that you know many

761
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:55,840
Speaker 1: trans and people need, there is such an incredible amount

762
00:44:55,920 --> 00:44:59,880
Speaker 1: of distortion about the society and and what we know

763
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:01,840
Speaker 1: to be true about about this care, which is that

764
00:45:01,920 --> 00:45:04,320
Speaker 1: it is you know safe, in the case of blockers,

765
00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:07,480
Speaker 1: it is reversible, and in the case of all of it,

766
00:45:07,480 --> 00:45:10,880
Speaker 1: it is effective, and that almost no one regrets the

767
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:13,760
Speaker 1: treatment percentage wise. That doesn't mean you can't find people,

768
00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:17,279
Speaker 1: but in terms of percentages um, this care has is

769
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:21,560
Speaker 1: incredibly effective. Insofar as you know you have people for

770
00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:24,440
Speaker 1: whom this is the difference between life or death, that

771
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:28,880
Speaker 1: their dysphoria, their distress goes down so significantly when they

772
00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:31,040
Speaker 1: have access to this care. And what we're seeing is

773
00:45:31,200 --> 00:45:34,000
Speaker 1: states trying to ban it, some states trying to criminalize it,

774
00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:38,399
Speaker 1: using these very rare circumstances in which people regret some

775
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:41,719
Speaker 1: aspect of their care um as a justification. Uh and

776
00:45:41,920 --> 00:45:44,759
Speaker 1: and I think that's really scary. But deep to me

777
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:48,839
Speaker 1: is that someone would have their de transition experience and

778
00:45:48,920 --> 00:45:53,839
Speaker 1: say no one should be to experience this. That's just

779
00:45:54,000 --> 00:45:57,000
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to wrap my head around that, and

780
00:45:57,040 --> 00:46:00,439
Speaker 1: it's just I'm in preparing for this. I did watch

781
00:46:00,480 --> 00:46:03,680
Speaker 1: a documentary where someone who had de transition and he

782
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:06,440
Speaker 1: was on a mission, you know, to make sure that

783
00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:09,480
Speaker 1: other people didn't, which makes me so sad because I

784
00:46:09,520 --> 00:46:11,799
Speaker 1: think about my own life and how life saving my

785
00:46:11,840 --> 00:46:15,400
Speaker 1: transition was it really was, and how happy I was

786
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:17,600
Speaker 1: even as I struggled, even before I was like famous

787
00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:21,040
Speaker 1: Laverne Cox and I was struggling to pay rent and like,

788
00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:23,200
Speaker 1: you know, doing my thing in New York. But I

789
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:26,440
Speaker 1: was so much happier in my truth than I was

790
00:46:26,480 --> 00:46:30,880
Speaker 1: trying to live a lie, and it was just wonderful.

791
00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not saying my life has been easy.

792
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:37,360
Speaker 1: Discrimination is awful. It sucks, and that's real. But I

793
00:46:37,400 --> 00:46:42,360
Speaker 1: wouldn't trade myself. I wouldn't trade being myself. You know,

794
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:46,040
Speaker 1: we changed the discrimination we don't like. You know, we

795
00:46:46,040 --> 00:46:49,720
Speaker 1: we stay ourselves, so I you know, and everyone's story.

796
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:54,120
Speaker 1: I've known personally known people who do transition and that

797
00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:57,239
Speaker 1: was the right thing for them. But I think for me,

798
00:46:57,400 --> 00:46:59,480
Speaker 1: the bigger thing that we haven't said is that the

799
00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:02,760
Speaker 1: stage and not be involved in medical decisions that people

800
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:06,439
Speaker 1: make about their bodies. I think that is I need

801
00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:08,880
Speaker 1: to drive that home. I believe in bodily autonomy and

802
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:11,440
Speaker 1: pro choice. I don't think the states should be involved

803
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:15,080
Speaker 1: in making decisions about people of lotties. If their children

804
00:47:15,160 --> 00:47:17,480
Speaker 1: should be between the child, their parents and their doctor,

805
00:47:17,520 --> 00:47:20,520
Speaker 1: if we're adults should be between that doctor and us

806
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:24,480
Speaker 1: and the government. Really it's really not the government's business.

807
00:47:24,520 --> 00:47:26,000
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's also important to stay that

808
00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:27,920
Speaker 1: they're we're just sort of being used as a political

809
00:47:27,920 --> 00:47:31,080
Speaker 1: football as well, Like they're real consequences to this, we're

810
00:47:31,080 --> 00:47:34,840
Speaker 1: real people, but we're also just being used because the

811
00:47:34,920 --> 00:47:38,879
Speaker 1: Republican Party has nothing really to offer beyond these sort

812
00:47:38,880 --> 00:47:42,560
Speaker 1: of cultural battles, I mean, like their legislative agenda and

813
00:47:42,560 --> 00:47:46,560
Speaker 1: state legislators. This year has been critical race theory voter

814
00:47:46,680 --> 00:47:49,560
Speaker 1: suppression and trans bills. Yeah, I mean, and that's what

815
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:52,560
Speaker 1: we're seeing over and over again. And I think that

816
00:47:52,640 --> 00:47:56,120
Speaker 1: when you look at you know the way these bills

817
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:58,759
Speaker 1: are are being pushed, and that's true of all three

818
00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:00,960
Speaker 1: of those categories. A lot of times you're seeing them

819
00:48:00,960 --> 00:48:03,960
Speaker 1: being pushed through in a matter of hours, um. And

820
00:48:04,000 --> 00:48:06,120
Speaker 1: what that is signaling is that you know, people aren't

821
00:48:06,160 --> 00:48:09,600
Speaker 1: debating them, people aren't looking at studies. They're getting pre

822
00:48:09,760 --> 00:48:12,960
Speaker 1: drafted bills from groups that are solely committed to this

823
00:48:13,200 --> 00:48:15,719
Speaker 1: draft in the bills, shipping them out. And then you

824
00:48:15,719 --> 00:48:19,279
Speaker 1: know lawmakers who are afraid of being primaried from the

825
00:48:19,360 --> 00:48:22,440
Speaker 1: right just speaking out about how they hate trans people.

826
00:48:22,640 --> 00:48:24,839
Speaker 1: They don't know what they're talking about nine at the time,

827
00:48:24,880 --> 00:48:26,799
Speaker 1: especially in these healthcare bills. I mean, they couldn't even

828
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:29,560
Speaker 1: pronounce the care that they were banning because they didn't

829
00:48:29,640 --> 00:48:32,879
Speaker 1: sit with it. They didn't know um. And it wasn't

830
00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:35,320
Speaker 1: like there were a bunch of people calling up lawmakers

831
00:48:35,320 --> 00:48:37,960
Speaker 1: in Arkansas and being like, you know, the most important

832
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 1: thing to me is your constituent is to make sure

833
00:48:40,200 --> 00:48:43,160
Speaker 1: no one gets puberty blockers. That's not the crisis that

834
00:48:43,200 --> 00:48:46,840
Speaker 1: people are contending with in masks in the middle of

835
00:48:46,880 --> 00:48:50,000
Speaker 1: a pandemic. It is now a crisis because there's hundreds

836
00:48:50,000 --> 00:48:52,800
Speaker 1: of trans kids who might lose their care. But you know, again,

837
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:56,799
Speaker 1: these are very specific, you know, politically motivated attacks that

838
00:48:56,960 --> 00:49:02,160
Speaker 1: unfortunately have devastating and catastrophic car Absolutely, let's go to

839
00:49:02,200 --> 00:49:05,680
Speaker 1: the next clip from the Joe Rogan Experience August second,

840
00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:12,600
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. Now, when people say that there's suicide rate

841
00:49:12,640 --> 00:49:15,920
Speaker 1: amongst transgender people, um, one of the arguments that I've

842
00:49:15,960 --> 00:49:18,040
Speaker 1: heard is it's because they're not accepted, right, I've heard

843
00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:20,080
Speaker 1: this day yet, and that if they were accepted and

844
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:22,879
Speaker 1: then they felt themselves and they felt loved for their

845
00:49:22,880 --> 00:49:26,080
Speaker 1: true self, then it would be just like everybody else.

846
00:49:26,120 --> 00:49:29,040
Speaker 1: And if there have seen no evidence to suggest that

847
00:49:29,120 --> 00:49:32,120
Speaker 1: if there's if there is a decrease based on treatment,

848
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:35,319
Speaker 1: then it's marginal at best. What do you have to

849
00:49:35,360 --> 00:49:38,200
Speaker 1: say that, Chase, Oh my god, so many things. So

850
00:49:38,280 --> 00:49:40,799
Speaker 1: again going back to like coming back to the core

851
00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:42,880
Speaker 1: of what we're seeing right now again is there is

852
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:47,520
Speaker 1: a desire to cast transmits that's inherently harmful. So they

853
00:49:47,560 --> 00:49:50,360
Speaker 1: are they are invested in the narrative that it is

854
00:49:50,400 --> 00:49:53,279
Speaker 1: harmful to be us. And then their solution to that

855
00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:55,799
Speaker 1: is to make fewer trans people, So they use this

856
00:49:55,920 --> 00:49:59,440
Speaker 1: rhetoric of actually transition doesn't help, it's still harmful, so

857
00:49:59,480 --> 00:50:02,319
Speaker 1: we should devene. And even in the sports bills in

858
00:50:02,520 --> 00:50:06,000
Speaker 1: our litigation in Idaho, for example, you know, they're arguing

859
00:50:06,080 --> 00:50:11,040
Speaker 1: that the law doesn't actually harm our transplaintiff because according

860
00:50:11,080 --> 00:50:13,680
Speaker 1: to them, you know, quote and I'm reading now from

861
00:50:13,719 --> 00:50:16,920
Speaker 1: ads brief in in the district of Idaho and in

862
00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:19,399
Speaker 1: our Key Cocks to be little case saying quote, many

863
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:22,880
Speaker 1: studies document that those who persist in living in a

864
00:50:22,920 --> 00:50:27,840
Speaker 1: transgender identity into adulthood suffer severely poor mental and physical

865
00:50:27,840 --> 00:50:32,520
Speaker 1: health throughout their lifetimes, even after quote transition, quote affirmation

866
00:50:32,800 --> 00:50:36,680
Speaker 1: and cross sex hormones, and even after so called sex

867
00:50:36,719 --> 00:50:40,960
Speaker 1: reassignment surgery. As a result, Key Cops can show no

868
00:50:41,200 --> 00:50:44,640
Speaker 1: likelihood of tangible harm from the law. And this is

869
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:47,000
Speaker 1: what we're seeing over and over again, that the harm

870
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:49,359
Speaker 1: is being trans and and there is no benefit to

871
00:50:49,440 --> 00:50:53,200
Speaker 1: the care um and and and they're lying, I mean

872
00:50:53,239 --> 00:50:55,040
Speaker 1: they're not so so they're lying in a number of

873
00:50:55,040 --> 00:50:58,319
Speaker 1: different ways. And I think it's really important. First, that's

874
00:50:58,360 --> 00:51:00,640
Speaker 1: why I brought the clip because it's it's real bad,

875
00:51:00,719 --> 00:51:04,799
Speaker 1: it's dangerous, it's dangerous, it's dangerous as because so so

876
00:51:04,880 --> 00:51:07,759
Speaker 1: there's a number of ways they're they're using this statistic,

877
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:09,640
Speaker 1: but one of the lives that they're sort of they

878
00:51:09,920 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 1: cite a lot to this. This Swedish study which is

879
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:17,480
Speaker 1: from I think eleven that you know, essentially has certain

880
00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:23,920
Speaker 1: conclusions about the the mental health outcomes post surgery from

881
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:28,520
Speaker 1: a cohort of people, and the numbers that they often

882
00:51:28,560 --> 00:51:33,200
Speaker 1: cite to compare the mental health outcomes for the trans

883
00:51:33,280 --> 00:51:37,840
Speaker 1: population post surgery to SIST people, not to trans people

884
00:51:37,960 --> 00:51:41,640
Speaker 1: who did not have surgery, and so, yes, trans people

885
00:51:41,920 --> 00:51:45,759
Speaker 1: have worse mental health outcomes often then SIS people, even

886
00:51:45,800 --> 00:51:50,440
Speaker 1: after transition in many cases because we experience discrimination and violence,

887
00:51:50,680 --> 00:51:53,239
Speaker 1: and that is to be expected. But that does not

888
00:51:53,440 --> 00:51:56,719
Speaker 1: mean that the gender transition, that the gender affirmation, that

889
00:51:56,800 --> 00:51:59,400
Speaker 1: the health care that we're receiving made us worse. It

890
00:51:59,560 --> 00:52:03,920
Speaker 1: just didn't bring us to our SIS peers. However, those

891
00:52:04,000 --> 00:52:08,040
Speaker 1: are studies about surgery on adults over a decade ago,

892
00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:12,720
Speaker 1: not the data that we currently have about affirming youth,

893
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:17,200
Speaker 1: and that data shows unequivocally that in fact, you affirm

894
00:52:17,520 --> 00:52:22,120
Speaker 1: young people in their identity through whatever is medically indicated,

895
00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:26,120
Speaker 1: whether that's blockers or social transition or hormones, that you

896
00:52:26,160 --> 00:52:28,879
Speaker 1: do see mental health outcomes comparable to their to their

897
00:52:28,920 --> 00:52:32,440
Speaker 1: sis peers um. And again, we have the possibility to

898
00:52:32,520 --> 00:52:35,560
Speaker 1: improve the mental health outcomes for younger people in ways

899
00:52:35,560 --> 00:52:37,920
Speaker 1: we didn't in the hostile world that are you know,

900
00:52:37,960 --> 00:52:40,080
Speaker 1: adults who are living in that the you know, older

901
00:52:40,080 --> 00:52:43,440
Speaker 1: studies are documented, but even those older studies aren't saying

902
00:52:43,480 --> 00:52:46,160
Speaker 1: that the care made us worse. And the study authors

903
00:52:46,160 --> 00:52:49,640
Speaker 1: themselves say, do not use this study to claim that

904
00:52:49,680 --> 00:52:52,000
Speaker 1: the surgery was not effective. And yet here we are,

905
00:52:52,200 --> 00:52:54,920
Speaker 1: and one of the main right wing talking points, despite

906
00:52:54,960 --> 00:52:58,080
Speaker 1: the study itself, despite the very clear language UM, is

907
00:52:58,120 --> 00:53:01,160
Speaker 1: to say that the care itself is harmful and that

908
00:53:01,480 --> 00:53:03,560
Speaker 1: being trans is harmful and there's nothing you can do

909
00:53:03,600 --> 00:53:05,480
Speaker 1: about it. So the goals should be to stop people

910
00:53:05,520 --> 00:53:11,400
Speaker 1: from being trans. So, after listening to this episode and

911
00:53:11,520 --> 00:53:15,839
Speaker 1: Chase bringing up this Swedish study specifically, I thought it

912
00:53:15,880 --> 00:53:18,520
Speaker 1: was really important to include a clip from Tucker Carlson

913
00:53:18,520 --> 00:53:21,799
Speaker 1: where he stites this Swedish study. So our next slip

914
00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:25,839
Speaker 1: is from Tucker Carlson posted on YouTube on MA one

915
00:53:25,920 --> 00:53:30,480
Speaker 1: titled most Americans aren't aware of the research. Researchers in

916
00:53:30,480 --> 00:53:33,600
Speaker 1: Sweden found the same thing. After ten years of study,

917
00:53:33,600 --> 00:53:37,080
Speaker 1: the Swedes concluded that people who underwent sex reassignment surgery

918
00:53:37,280 --> 00:53:41,360
Speaker 1: were ninetent more likely to commit suicide. The risk of

919
00:53:41,360 --> 00:53:45,320
Speaker 1: psychiatric hospitalization was nearly three times greater. In other words,

920
00:53:45,520 --> 00:53:50,200
Speaker 1: it was an utter disaster. So to listen to the

921
00:53:50,239 --> 00:53:56,239
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson clip as it is suggest that if you

922
00:53:56,280 --> 00:54:01,600
Speaker 1: are trans and you have gender affirming care, that you're

923
00:54:01,760 --> 00:54:05,920
Speaker 1: nineteen times more likely to commit suicide than if you don't.

924
00:54:06,280 --> 00:54:10,319
Speaker 1: That is the suggestion that Tucker Carlson is making. But

925
00:54:10,600 --> 00:54:14,879
Speaker 1: what he is misstating based on the study is that

926
00:54:14,960 --> 00:54:17,640
Speaker 1: he um, what what the study is doing, and Chase

927
00:54:18,000 --> 00:54:21,719
Speaker 1: points this out, is that, Um, the flaw in the

928
00:54:21,840 --> 00:54:25,560
Speaker 1: study is that they're not comparing the psychological and emotional

929
00:54:25,600 --> 00:54:30,000
Speaker 1: health of trans people who underwent gender confirming surgery with

930
00:54:30,040 --> 00:54:33,480
Speaker 1: trans people who did not undergo gender confirming surgery. They're

931
00:54:33,520 --> 00:54:38,000
Speaker 1: comparing trans people with non trans people. So Turcko Carlson

932
00:54:38,080 --> 00:54:43,279
Speaker 1: in this moment is misstating the actual results of the

933
00:54:43,680 --> 00:54:46,920
Speaker 1: study that he is citing. First of all, and to

934
00:54:47,160 --> 00:54:50,200
Speaker 1: read from the study itself and Chase alludes to this.

935
00:54:50,760 --> 00:54:53,960
Speaker 1: The authors concluded, though, that the evidence base for sex

936
00:54:54,000 --> 00:54:58,160
Speaker 1: reassignment is a very low quality due to this serious

937
00:54:58,239 --> 00:55:04,239
Speaker 1: methodological limitation sins of included studies. The methodological shortcomings have

938
00:55:04,440 --> 00:55:09,240
Speaker 1: many reasons. First, the nature of sex reassignment precludes double

939
00:55:09,320 --> 00:55:14,440
Speaker 1: bind randomized control studies of the results. Second, trans sexualism

940
00:55:14,480 --> 00:55:17,560
Speaker 1: is rare and many follow ups are hampered by small

941
00:55:17,680 --> 00:55:23,080
Speaker 1: numbers of subjects. Third, many sex reassigned persons declined to

942
00:55:23,120 --> 00:55:27,680
Speaker 1: participate in follow up studies or relocate after surgery, resulting

943
00:55:27,680 --> 00:55:32,760
Speaker 1: in high dropout rates and subsequent selection bias. Four, Several

944
00:55:32,800 --> 00:55:36,520
Speaker 1: follow up studies are hampered by limited follow up periods.

945
00:55:36,840 --> 00:55:44,279
Speaker 1: Taken together, these limitations preclude solid and generalizable conclusions. A

946
00:55:44,440 --> 00:55:48,080
Speaker 1: long term population based control study is one way to

947
00:55:48,120 --> 00:55:52,880
Speaker 1: address these methodological shortcomings. So again, this is from the

948
00:55:52,920 --> 00:55:58,960
Speaker 1: Swedish study itself, which concedes the methodological limitations of the

949
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:01,920
Speaker 1: study itself. It's this that we basically need more research,

950
00:56:02,320 --> 00:56:04,759
Speaker 1: and just from my own personal experience, the study was

951
00:56:04,800 --> 00:56:07,800
Speaker 1: done about ten years ago when a lot of trans

952
00:56:07,920 --> 00:56:12,839
Speaker 1: people transition um Historically, the standards of care suggests that

953
00:56:12,840 --> 00:56:16,600
Speaker 1: that you transition and then you do not talk about

954
00:56:16,680 --> 00:56:19,960
Speaker 1: being trans anymore, you change location so that no one

955
00:56:20,000 --> 00:56:22,600
Speaker 1: else ever knows that your trans. This was the medical

956
00:56:22,640 --> 00:56:25,640
Speaker 1: protocol for decades. And one of the things, you know,

957
00:56:25,640 --> 00:56:28,799
Speaker 1: I just want to as a side note, data inclusion

958
00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:34,719
Speaker 1: and data collection around trans people is sorely, sorely um inadequate.

959
00:56:35,080 --> 00:56:38,239
Speaker 1: There's so much data that we don't have on trans people.

960
00:56:38,280 --> 00:56:40,640
Speaker 1: We don't actually even count the numbers of trans people

961
00:56:40,640 --> 00:56:42,640
Speaker 1: in the United States because we don't include us in

962
00:56:42,640 --> 00:56:48,400
Speaker 1: the census. So whenever a commentator, conservative commentator is citing science,

963
00:56:48,680 --> 00:56:54,440
Speaker 1: they're citing science from really limited research. So referring to

964
00:56:54,840 --> 00:56:58,000
Speaker 1: this Swedish study in sight and making it, you know,

965
00:56:58,080 --> 00:57:01,280
Speaker 1: seeing as if trans people are more likely to commit

966
00:57:01,280 --> 00:57:05,920
Speaker 1: suicide after sex reassignment surgery is misinformation. It's misuse of

967
00:57:06,040 --> 00:57:09,759
Speaker 1: this study, and it is dangerous. Now back to our

968
00:57:09,840 --> 00:57:16,400
Speaker 1: regular schedule programming. And this type of distortion of what

969
00:57:16,440 --> 00:57:20,840
Speaker 1: studies are are showing is done incredibly affective by the right,

970
00:57:21,120 --> 00:57:25,360
Speaker 1: and it is incredibly insidious and um and and it's

971
00:57:25,440 --> 00:57:27,720
Speaker 1: it's so upsetting because as trans people, we know we're

972
00:57:27,720 --> 00:57:31,840
Speaker 1: like all people do better where we get our healthcare. Absolutely,

973
00:57:31,920 --> 00:57:33,680
Speaker 1: And so there's a couple of things that came up

974
00:57:33,680 --> 00:57:36,480
Speaker 1: for me. There the study there, So there's the U

975
00:57:36,560 --> 00:57:40,640
Speaker 1: S Trans Survey, the latest one that says of trans

976
00:57:40,640 --> 00:57:43,800
Speaker 1: folks have attempted suicide in our lifetime. I believe it's

977
00:57:43,800 --> 00:57:47,440
Speaker 1: a glistened study that said that of trans young people

978
00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:52,480
Speaker 1: have attempted suicide. This is in our lifetime, right. There's

979
00:57:52,640 --> 00:57:57,680
Speaker 1: no statistics anywhere that site a suicide rate of trans

980
00:57:57,760 --> 00:58:01,920
Speaker 1: people after we transition, and this is an attempt of suicide.

981
00:58:02,120 --> 00:58:05,920
Speaker 1: I'm like, wait, you're just completely distorting the statistics. That's

982
00:58:05,960 --> 00:58:10,040
Speaker 1: like that we've attempted suicide. Yes, because it's hard being trans. Yes,

983
00:58:10,080 --> 00:58:12,760
Speaker 1: because people don't accept us. Yes, And I know people,

984
00:58:14,440 --> 00:58:17,240
Speaker 1: it's just like something that you just don't want to

985
00:58:17,360 --> 00:58:21,480
Speaker 1: we're real people. You can't like take statistics like suicide

986
00:58:21,760 --> 00:58:25,040
Speaker 1: when many of us have attempted suicide, have had people

987
00:58:25,240 --> 00:58:28,760
Speaker 1: who we've lost, and then you take statistics and distort

988
00:58:28,840 --> 00:58:31,920
Speaker 1: them for some political game when it's like our real lives,

989
00:58:31,920 --> 00:58:34,240
Speaker 1: like we're real people. It's like so upsetting to me.

990
00:58:35,040 --> 00:58:37,880
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, give me a second, um no, I mean

991
00:58:37,920 --> 00:58:42,120
Speaker 1: it's it's it's so it's so so so upsetting and

992
00:58:42,760 --> 00:58:46,800
Speaker 1: it's so harmful. Mhmm. This is really hard to talk

993
00:58:46,840 --> 00:58:51,760
Speaker 1: about because we are real people just reduced to to surgery.

994
00:58:51,800 --> 00:58:54,520
Speaker 1: And I think too, what's frustrating from me too, is

995
00:58:54,560 --> 00:58:57,320
Speaker 1: that we still have not been able to change the

996
00:58:57,440 --> 00:59:01,160
Speaker 1: narrative that being trans is about surgery. When Rand Paul

997
00:59:01,320 --> 00:59:04,960
Speaker 1: was was interviewing that Biden appointee whose name escapes me

998
00:59:05,080 --> 00:59:08,240
Speaker 1: right now, Dr Levine, Yes, Dr Levine, when he was

999
00:59:08,320 --> 00:59:11,320
Speaker 1: interviewing Dr Levine during her confirmation, he was talking about,

1000
00:59:11,640 --> 00:59:16,040
Speaker 1: you know, genital mutilation, and people still think that being

1001
00:59:16,160 --> 00:59:19,680
Speaker 1: trans is about surgery. I know so many trans people

1002
00:59:19,680 --> 00:59:21,840
Speaker 1: who have never had a surgical procedure in their life

1003
00:59:22,200 --> 00:59:26,240
Speaker 1: and they're still trans. And so I wish that we

1004
00:59:26,440 --> 00:59:30,760
Speaker 1: can stop thinking about transis in terms of surgery, stop

1005
00:59:30,920 --> 00:59:34,600
Speaker 1: talking about surgery, and just talk about like the human

1006
00:59:34,640 --> 00:59:37,600
Speaker 1: beings and the lived experiences. And that's part of what

1007
00:59:38,080 --> 00:59:43,200
Speaker 1: is so detrimental about the nature of this conservative coverage

1008
00:59:43,240 --> 00:59:47,560
Speaker 1: on trans people. They make it all about bodies and surgery,

1009
00:59:47,800 --> 00:59:51,160
Speaker 1: and they do that to objectify us. They do that

1010
00:59:51,560 --> 00:59:55,520
Speaker 1: to dehumanize us. They miss gender us to have the

1011
00:59:55,640 --> 00:59:58,440
Speaker 1: specter of a man in a a in a girl's

1012
00:59:58,520 --> 01:00:01,320
Speaker 1: locker room, you know. So, so the mis gender ing

1013
01:00:01,520 --> 01:00:04,080
Speaker 1: is to outrage people and the fact that there's just

1014
01:00:04,200 --> 01:00:07,000
Speaker 1: not enough pushback. I know it's hard, it's hard to watch.

1015
01:00:07,360 --> 01:00:12,200
Speaker 1: I sat through over the weekend watching a lot conservative

1016
01:00:12,240 --> 01:00:15,400
Speaker 1: media and I was sick to my stomach. It's really

1017
01:00:15,520 --> 01:00:19,000
Speaker 1: hard stuff to watch as a real life trans person

1018
01:00:20,800 --> 01:00:32,000
Speaker 1: set time again, A lot more is coming now without

1019
01:00:32,040 --> 01:00:37,240
Speaker 1: further ado. When I started transitioning in most of the

1020
01:00:37,280 --> 01:00:39,360
Speaker 1: girls I knew, I went to the doctor, But most

1021
01:00:39,360 --> 01:00:41,560
Speaker 1: of the girls I knew got through hormones from God

1022
01:00:41,640 --> 01:00:44,840
Speaker 1: named Ralph who came by. You know, he would I

1023
01:00:44,920 --> 01:00:46,720
Speaker 1: prefer when the girls were in a group so he

1024
01:00:46,760 --> 01:00:49,080
Speaker 1: could sell like to all the girls. But we got

1025
01:00:49,040 --> 01:00:51,120
Speaker 1: our hormones on the street, like a lot of girls

1026
01:00:51,160 --> 01:00:53,960
Speaker 1: got hormones on the street back in the day. And

1027
01:00:54,000 --> 01:00:57,120
Speaker 1: like denying trans people healthcare is not going to deny

1028
01:00:57,160 --> 01:01:00,240
Speaker 1: us hormones. You know, we're gonna get our hormones, right

1029
01:01:00,560 --> 01:01:03,040
Speaker 1: and people are gonna get it. Yeah, we're getting You're

1030
01:01:03,080 --> 01:01:06,200
Speaker 1: not gonna stop us from being trans. And the idea

1031
01:01:06,280 --> 01:01:08,640
Speaker 1: is that we wanted to be healthy. We want to

1032
01:01:08,680 --> 01:01:11,320
Speaker 1: make sure that trans folks have access to the best

1033
01:01:11,320 --> 01:01:13,640
Speaker 1: care because that's what we deserve. But you're not going

1034
01:01:13,680 --> 01:01:20,520
Speaker 1: to stop us from being trans. Just just leave us alone. Yes, yeah,

1035
01:01:20,560 --> 01:01:22,760
Speaker 1: I mean, that's it's it. And you know, we will

1036
01:01:22,800 --> 01:01:25,360
Speaker 1: we will take care of our people. We will find

1037
01:01:25,440 --> 01:01:27,760
Speaker 1: a way. We will make sure people get the health

1038
01:01:27,760 --> 01:01:29,680
Speaker 1: care that they need. But it will be less safe,

1039
01:01:29,800 --> 01:01:33,280
Speaker 1: it will be you know, more precarious, and especially for

1040
01:01:33,320 --> 01:01:36,600
Speaker 1: people who aren't as connected to community, people in rural places,

1041
01:01:36,920 --> 01:01:40,280
Speaker 1: people who you know, don't have access to any money,

1042
01:01:40,400 --> 01:01:44,439
Speaker 1: there are gonna be markets for care that are much

1043
01:01:44,520 --> 01:01:47,640
Speaker 1: more dangerous. And that is true when you ban health care.

1044
01:01:47,840 --> 01:01:49,680
Speaker 1: It's true. When you ban abortion, it's true, when you

1045
01:01:49,760 --> 01:01:52,680
Speaker 1: ban hormones, it's just gonna be true. But I also

1046
01:01:52,720 --> 01:01:54,440
Speaker 1: want to say two in the in the context of

1047
01:01:54,440 --> 01:01:57,160
Speaker 1: the media, it's the going back to your point about

1048
01:01:57,280 --> 01:02:00,680
Speaker 1: waiting trans people's surgery. Um, it's not even just the

1049
01:02:00,800 --> 01:02:02,800
Speaker 1: right wing media. It's like you can see so many

1050
01:02:02,800 --> 01:02:05,280
Speaker 1: news articles, for example, about these bands on healthcare for

1051
01:02:05,320 --> 01:02:08,920
Speaker 1: trans youth, and they have like a stock image of

1052
01:02:08,960 --> 01:02:12,000
Speaker 1: like a surgeon with a scalpel, reinforcing the idea that

1053
01:02:12,120 --> 01:02:15,080
Speaker 1: kids are getting surgery. And again they're not, you know,

1054
01:02:15,160 --> 01:02:16,960
Speaker 1: And yes, there are a small number of kids who

1055
01:02:17,000 --> 01:02:19,560
Speaker 1: have top surgery, who have a various kinds. There are

1056
01:02:19,560 --> 01:02:22,040
Speaker 1: not kids getting genital surgery, and there are no kids

1057
01:02:22,120 --> 01:02:25,000
Speaker 1: who are pre puberty getting surgery except for the intersex

1058
01:02:25,120 --> 01:02:27,680
Speaker 1: infants who have forcibly who are forced in the surgery.

1059
01:02:27,720 --> 01:02:29,760
Speaker 1: And I think we I want to stop there because

1060
01:02:29,760 --> 01:02:32,840
Speaker 1: I think this is really really important kids. When Chris,

1061
01:02:32,960 --> 01:02:35,280
Speaker 1: for what's difficult for a lot of people out there

1062
01:02:35,400 --> 01:02:38,080
Speaker 1: is like, well, kids don't know what they want. So

1063
01:02:38,160 --> 01:02:43,800
Speaker 1: let's just say transgender children are not having genital surgery. Period,

1064
01:02:43,840 --> 01:02:50,560
Speaker 1: no want period period, Transgender children are not having genital surgery. Period.

1065
01:02:50,640 --> 01:02:53,760
Speaker 1: That you can't do that to your eighteen We're talking

1066
01:02:53,960 --> 01:02:58,560
Speaker 1: puberty blockers and possibly cross sex hormones when they are indicated,

1067
01:02:58,920 --> 01:03:01,800
Speaker 1: and it's actually none of your business anyway. It should

1068
01:03:01,800 --> 01:03:04,960
Speaker 1: be between the doctor and the parent. And like the

1069
01:03:05,000 --> 01:03:09,640
Speaker 1: fact that we're like having conversations about children's bodies, it's

1070
01:03:09,760 --> 01:03:12,600
Speaker 1: just deeply disturbing to me. It's like when you're a

1071
01:03:12,600 --> 01:03:17,480
Speaker 1: trans kid, your dignity is just taken away, and I

1072
01:03:17,600 --> 01:03:21,000
Speaker 1: we need we need to restore the dignity of trans people.

1073
01:03:21,040 --> 01:03:26,240
Speaker 1: I mean we have it, but we Wow. This is why,

1074
01:03:26,280 --> 01:03:27,960
Speaker 1: this is why it's hard for me to talk about

1075
01:03:28,000 --> 01:03:33,280
Speaker 1: this because I always try to be the magnanimous, loving um,

1076
01:03:33,320 --> 01:03:35,840
Speaker 1: you know, create the message so people can hear me,

1077
01:03:35,960 --> 01:03:39,880
Speaker 1: Laverne Cox. But this is just fucked up. It is

1078
01:03:40,120 --> 01:03:43,360
Speaker 1: utterly and completely upsetting. There were months when I was like,

1079
01:03:43,400 --> 01:03:44,880
Speaker 1: I'm not going to talk about this. I'm not going

1080
01:03:44,920 --> 01:03:46,960
Speaker 1: to talk about this. This is too much, and then

1081
01:03:47,000 --> 01:03:50,320
Speaker 1: it just kept getting worse and worse and worse, and

1082
01:03:50,400 --> 01:03:53,240
Speaker 1: no one else is talking about it, and here we

1083
01:03:53,280 --> 01:03:57,840
Speaker 1: are and there's just no pushback. I am so pissed

1084
01:03:58,240 --> 01:04:01,080
Speaker 1: that there's not like this huge cry that this is

1085
01:04:01,120 --> 01:04:04,040
Speaker 1: happening right now. And I'm just I'm just I'm honestly

1086
01:04:04,040 --> 01:04:07,320
Speaker 1: pissed the Democratic Party in general with not just this,

1087
01:04:07,400 --> 01:04:11,840
Speaker 1: with like everything, like we have a Democratic president, Senate,

1088
01:04:11,880 --> 01:04:14,040
Speaker 1: and House, and we can't get an Equality Act, we

1089
01:04:14,120 --> 01:04:17,320
Speaker 1: can't get a fifteen dollar minimum wage, we can't pass

1090
01:04:17,480 --> 01:04:21,200
Speaker 1: for the People Act, we can't do anything nothing. We're

1091
01:04:21,200 --> 01:04:23,520
Speaker 1: not you know, we're not reforming the court. We we

1092
01:04:23,560 --> 01:04:29,840
Speaker 1: are in a intractable, disastrous situation. Um. And I think, um,

1093
01:04:29,880 --> 01:04:32,000
Speaker 1: you know the other thing that's always so painful about

1094
01:04:32,000 --> 01:04:36,959
Speaker 1: this is like all trans people have tried, in one

1095
01:04:37,000 --> 01:04:39,880
Speaker 1: way or another to not be trans, and you know

1096
01:04:39,960 --> 01:04:42,160
Speaker 1: what you know and that has been one of the

1097
01:04:42,160 --> 01:04:44,160
Speaker 1: most painful part of all of our lives. You do

1098
01:04:44,280 --> 01:04:48,440
Speaker 1: all sorts of soul searching, a self inquiry of you know,

1099
01:04:48,840 --> 01:04:51,320
Speaker 1: is this really who I am? We tried that it

1100
01:04:51,360 --> 01:04:53,640
Speaker 1: does not work. The only way that we can live

1101
01:04:53,760 --> 01:04:56,600
Speaker 1: is as ourselves, and so it is not a revelation

1102
01:04:56,840 --> 01:04:59,840
Speaker 1: to us to think about not being trans. It is

1103
01:05:00,040 --> 01:05:02,960
Speaker 1: us an impossibility. And so I think that that is

1104
01:05:02,960 --> 01:05:05,800
Speaker 1: why in so many ways it's it's so incredibly painful

1105
01:05:06,040 --> 01:05:09,680
Speaker 1: to feel and experience this mass movement to try to

1106
01:05:09,760 --> 01:05:12,800
Speaker 1: take away our ability and prevent us from being who

1107
01:05:12,920 --> 01:05:16,760
Speaker 1: we are UM. And there's just so much disinformation and

1108
01:05:17,040 --> 01:05:19,920
Speaker 1: false narrative about this notion that it's harmful to be us.

1109
01:05:20,120 --> 01:05:24,080
Speaker 1: Every single type of medicine like that gender affirmation medical

1110
01:05:24,120 --> 01:05:27,840
Speaker 1: care that miners get CIS miners get pup people. Offers

1111
01:05:27,840 --> 01:05:31,640
Speaker 1: are available to SIS people for precocious purity. Hormones are

1112
01:05:31,640 --> 01:05:34,720
Speaker 1: taken all the time for for a range of endocrine

1113
01:05:34,720 --> 01:05:37,720
Speaker 1: conditions and other reasons, some of which have everything to

1114
01:05:37,760 --> 01:05:41,080
Speaker 1: do with you know, one's gender expression. So, for example,

1115
01:05:41,240 --> 01:05:45,080
Speaker 1: CIS girls can take testosterone suppression UM if they have

1116
01:05:45,360 --> 01:05:49,439
Speaker 1: you know, acne related to testosterone production. I mean, there's

1117
01:05:49,440 --> 01:05:52,960
Speaker 1: a million ways that endochronologists will prescribe it, and it

1118
01:05:53,320 --> 01:05:58,040
Speaker 1: is simply not harmful, and it is simply being banned

1119
01:05:58,240 --> 01:06:01,320
Speaker 1: for only trans people because has the goal once again

1120
01:06:01,360 --> 01:06:04,200
Speaker 1: to come back to it, is not to protect anyone,

1121
01:06:04,360 --> 01:06:08,040
Speaker 1: it's to prevent us from being trans. That's that's a

1122
01:06:08,120 --> 01:06:12,800
Speaker 1: really interesting point that you make about, um, puberty blockers

1123
01:06:12,840 --> 01:06:15,400
Speaker 1: being prescribed to someone who has a precocious puberty who

1124
01:06:15,440 --> 01:06:18,600
Speaker 1: identifies this this gender, right, So is there an equal

1125
01:06:18,640 --> 01:06:22,560
Speaker 1: protection argument there um when it comes to that that

1126
01:06:22,640 --> 01:06:27,920
Speaker 1: a this boy can get puberty blockers but trans girl can't.

1127
01:06:28,840 --> 01:06:31,680
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, yeah in Arkansas for example, So we have

1128
01:06:31,920 --> 01:06:34,640
Speaker 1: you know, in Arkansas, Um, we're the only state that's

1129
01:06:34,640 --> 01:06:36,840
Speaker 1: actually passed a trans ault there. Man, we we sued

1130
01:06:36,920 --> 01:06:40,400
Speaker 1: them and we've got an injunction of culiminary injunction. And

1131
01:06:40,440 --> 01:06:44,919
Speaker 1: the judge completely could not understand the state's argument, why

1132
01:06:45,000 --> 01:06:47,520
Speaker 1: can assist person have this if you if you're saying

1133
01:06:47,600 --> 01:06:50,960
Speaker 1: that it's because it's unsafe, why is it safe for

1134
01:06:51,040 --> 01:06:54,240
Speaker 1: the CIS minor and not for the transliter And then

1135
01:06:54,440 --> 01:06:56,000
Speaker 1: you know, the judge asked the state, well, if you

1136
01:06:56,040 --> 01:06:59,240
Speaker 1: read the transcript, it's it's astounding I'm not understanding, like

1137
01:06:59,400 --> 01:07:03,240
Speaker 1: why and the six minor get testosterone suppression but the

1138
01:07:03,280 --> 01:07:05,840
Speaker 1: trans miner cannot. Well, it's to treat a different condition,

1139
01:07:05,920 --> 01:07:07,880
Speaker 1: but is it safe or is it not safe? And

1140
01:07:07,920 --> 01:07:10,320
Speaker 1: that you know they went in circles. And in the

1141
01:07:10,400 --> 01:07:13,120
Speaker 1: judge in our case that even under rational basis, even

1142
01:07:13,160 --> 01:07:16,680
Speaker 1: under the most deference to the state, you cannot justify

1143
01:07:16,720 --> 01:07:19,880
Speaker 1: this unequal treatment um. And the judge rule that we

1144
01:07:19,880 --> 01:07:23,400
Speaker 1: were likely to prevaient on our equal protection claims um

1145
01:07:23,600 --> 01:07:27,240
Speaker 1: on our fundamental rights of parents claims because these are

1146
01:07:27,240 --> 01:07:31,080
Speaker 1: situations you need parental consent, so the state is overriding

1147
01:07:31,480 --> 01:07:33,640
Speaker 1: what parents believe to be in the best interests of

1148
01:07:33,640 --> 01:07:35,800
Speaker 1: their children. There is a long tradition in this country

1149
01:07:35,880 --> 01:07:38,240
Speaker 1: of respecting the rights of parents to govern the safety

1150
01:07:38,280 --> 01:07:40,680
Speaker 1: care and while being of their of their children. And

1151
01:07:40,720 --> 01:07:42,560
Speaker 1: then also that we're likely to prevail on our First

1152
01:07:42,600 --> 01:07:46,000
Speaker 1: Amendment claims because not only does a law ban the care,

1153
01:07:46,160 --> 01:07:49,760
Speaker 1: it bans the referral for the care, which is obviously

1154
01:07:50,000 --> 01:07:52,960
Speaker 1: an intrusion upon the speech of the doctors and the

1155
01:07:53,080 --> 01:07:56,520
Speaker 1: rights of patients and parents to hear information. And so

1156
01:07:56,560 --> 01:07:58,760
Speaker 1: now you know the law is not in place because

1157
01:07:58,760 --> 01:08:02,000
Speaker 1: we have an injunction. It's an appealed um. So you know,

1158
01:08:02,120 --> 01:08:04,080
Speaker 1: this is obviously going to be a long fight, but

1159
01:08:04,120 --> 01:08:07,400
Speaker 1: it is such a clear equal protection violation in this case.

1160
01:08:07,760 --> 01:08:10,120
Speaker 1: That is where we are so with the appeal is

1161
01:08:10,120 --> 01:08:15,120
Speaker 1: going to go to an appellate court. Is which which court?

1162
01:08:15,360 --> 01:08:17,479
Speaker 1: The A circuit? We're going to the A Circuit and

1163
01:08:17,520 --> 01:08:19,439
Speaker 1: that if we have to, we're going, you know, to

1164
01:08:19,520 --> 01:08:23,080
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. Obviously, again they're coming back to the

1165
01:08:23,120 --> 01:08:25,599
Speaker 1: structures that we're dealing with. We're not in a good

1166
01:08:25,600 --> 01:08:28,240
Speaker 1: situation with the courts, We're not in a good situation

1167
01:08:28,280 --> 01:08:31,439
Speaker 1: with state legislatures, and and we need drastic change. We

1168
01:08:31,479 --> 01:08:34,280
Speaker 1: need drastic movements or change, you know, without an expanded

1169
01:08:34,439 --> 01:08:36,920
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. We're seeing what's happening in the Supreme Court

1170
01:08:37,320 --> 01:08:39,960
Speaker 1: just hoping that it works. With this court isn't gonna work.

1171
01:08:40,200 --> 01:08:44,160
Speaker 1: What's really interesting for me is the equal protection piece,

1172
01:08:44,560 --> 01:08:47,120
Speaker 1: the First Amendment piece of the parents right to governing

1173
01:08:47,160 --> 01:08:50,640
Speaker 1: what they're doing with their children. So the law is

1174
01:08:50,680 --> 01:08:55,320
Speaker 1: clearly on our side, but the law might not matter.

1175
01:08:55,560 --> 01:08:58,920
Speaker 1: It's what it seems like what we're up against and

1176
01:08:59,200 --> 01:09:02,679
Speaker 1: what you were year might be chased. Is that what

1177
01:09:02,600 --> 01:09:06,680
Speaker 1: what I'm hearing. Yeah, the fear is, you know, the

1178
01:09:06,760 --> 01:09:10,320
Speaker 1: law is political, law is whatever the judges say it is.

1179
01:09:10,520 --> 01:09:15,200
Speaker 1: And there's so much misinformation and they are just taking

1180
01:09:15,320 --> 01:09:19,120
Speaker 1: right wing talking points and repackaging them as constitutional arguments.

1181
01:09:19,200 --> 01:09:22,439
Speaker 1: And I think we have incredible arguments. If there is

1182
01:09:22,479 --> 01:09:26,280
Speaker 1: any justice or legitimacy to the law, then we should win.

1183
01:09:26,320 --> 01:09:28,200
Speaker 1: We should win at every level. It should not even

1184
01:09:28,240 --> 01:09:31,559
Speaker 1: be a close question. But you know, I I never

1185
01:09:31,680 --> 01:09:34,719
Speaker 1: trust these courts, and I think if people are quiet,

1186
01:09:34,960 --> 01:09:37,479
Speaker 1: if we're not making an uproar, then we will lose

1187
01:09:37,720 --> 01:09:41,080
Speaker 1: because then the judges are just gonna reflexively do what

1188
01:09:41,200 --> 01:09:43,360
Speaker 1: is natural to them, and that is to be scared

1189
01:09:43,400 --> 01:09:46,479
Speaker 1: of trans people. But if we are engaged, if we

1190
01:09:46,520 --> 01:09:49,720
Speaker 1: are countering this media narrative, if we are countering what

1191
01:09:49,800 --> 01:09:53,120
Speaker 1: people are hearing over and over again about trans people,

1192
01:09:53,360 --> 01:09:55,280
Speaker 1: then we can we can prevail. But it is not

1193
01:09:55,360 --> 01:09:57,719
Speaker 1: simply about arguments made in court, and it's not simply

1194
01:09:57,760 --> 01:10:00,240
Speaker 1: about us in that courtroom. It's about what all us

1195
01:10:00,280 --> 01:10:04,120
Speaker 1: decide to do in the next year. Amazing. Thank you

1196
01:10:04,200 --> 01:10:07,040
Speaker 1: for the fight that you u wage every single day. Chase.

1197
01:10:07,160 --> 01:10:09,240
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful for you. I'm so grateful for your

1198
01:10:09,280 --> 01:10:10,600
Speaker 1: work at the a c l U. And for the

1199
01:10:10,600 --> 01:10:14,559
Speaker 1: a c l U, you are truly invaluable right now.

1200
01:10:19,720 --> 01:10:22,680
Speaker 1: I like to in the podcast with the question that

1201
01:10:22,760 --> 01:10:26,920
Speaker 1: comes from my therapy. My somatic therapy based in the

1202
01:10:26,920 --> 01:10:29,519
Speaker 1: community resiliency model, and it's based on the idea of

1203
01:10:29,560 --> 01:10:32,400
Speaker 1: both and when there's something challenging in our lives, that

1204
01:10:32,479 --> 01:10:34,439
Speaker 1: there's some pain that we might have in our body,

1205
01:10:34,800 --> 01:10:37,800
Speaker 1: somewhere in our body, it's neutral positives and we can

1206
01:10:37,840 --> 01:10:40,840
Speaker 1: focus on that thing and then we can mitigate the

1207
01:10:40,840 --> 01:10:43,960
Speaker 1: thing that's painful. It's about those things that we can

1208
01:10:44,080 --> 01:10:47,640
Speaker 1: use to get us through. So, Chase Strangeo on this

1209
01:10:47,880 --> 01:10:52,640
Speaker 1: day for you, what else is true? I mean, I

1210
01:10:52,680 --> 01:10:56,080
Speaker 1: think this is such a good practice, And um, I

1211
01:10:57,320 --> 01:10:59,040
Speaker 1: it is true today and it's true every day that

1212
01:10:59,040 --> 01:11:02,320
Speaker 1: I have a life full of trans people and people

1213
01:11:02,320 --> 01:11:06,720
Speaker 1: who love trans people. And even in these really horrible, depressing,

1214
01:11:07,280 --> 01:11:11,120
Speaker 1: truly dystopian times, I go to bed each night feeling

1215
01:11:11,200 --> 01:11:15,200
Speaker 1: loved and feeling like I have the tools to continue

1216
01:11:15,200 --> 01:11:17,360
Speaker 1: to reflect on how be a better version of myself

1217
01:11:17,400 --> 01:11:20,360
Speaker 1: the next day. And and that's really comforting to me.

1218
01:11:20,439 --> 01:11:23,480
Speaker 1: And I did not always feel that way, um And

1219
01:11:23,479 --> 01:11:25,800
Speaker 1: and so that is true and I I also for

1220
01:11:25,840 --> 01:11:29,080
Speaker 1: all the backlash, for all the challenges. You know, we're

1221
01:11:29,080 --> 01:11:33,040
Speaker 1: winning a lot still and and we've blocked so many

1222
01:11:33,080 --> 01:11:35,880
Speaker 1: anti trans loss in court and I'm so proud of that,

1223
01:11:36,160 --> 01:11:43,200
Speaker 1: and we will just keep fighting. Yeah, that's really beautiful.

1224
01:11:43,200 --> 01:11:45,160
Speaker 1: If that's really beautiful, I love you so much, Chase,

1225
01:11:45,240 --> 01:11:50,160
Speaker 1: and I just what's what's what's astounding to me is

1226
01:11:50,200 --> 01:11:54,120
Speaker 1: how um, in so many ways, how unassuming you are.

1227
01:11:54,160 --> 01:11:57,599
Speaker 1: But I think you're a legal giant. And I'm really

1228
01:11:57,600 --> 01:11:59,880
Speaker 1: really happy you're in the world. Thank you for the war,

1229
01:12:00,320 --> 01:12:03,400
Speaker 1: thank you for your deep, deep knowledge of all this stuff.

1230
01:12:04,120 --> 01:12:15,160
Speaker 1: Appreciate you. I love Chase so much. He was my

1231
01:12:15,360 --> 01:12:20,640
Speaker 1: date to the two thousand nineteen Emmys and I had

1232
01:12:20,680 --> 01:12:25,120
Speaker 1: a purse made that said UM Supreme Court Title seven

1233
01:12:25,600 --> 01:12:30,120
Speaker 1: October eight UM. If we lost that case, they would

1234
01:12:30,120 --> 01:12:33,880
Speaker 1: have made it legal to virus someone for being lgbt Q.

1235
01:12:34,960 --> 01:12:40,120
Speaker 1: And in a six three decision the lgbt Q plus

1236
01:12:40,160 --> 01:12:45,679
Speaker 1: community we won that case. Chase was on the legal

1237
01:12:45,720 --> 01:12:48,400
Speaker 1: team that argued that case. To the planets did not

1238
01:12:48,479 --> 01:12:54,880
Speaker 1: survive to hear that verdict. U. And here we are

1239
01:12:54,920 --> 01:13:01,400
Speaker 1: in with all of this, the slew of bills targeting

1240
01:13:01,640 --> 01:13:08,240
Speaker 1: now trans kids. I'm I'm exhausted, and i am I'm

1241
01:13:08,280 --> 01:13:12,400
Speaker 1: piste off, I'm pissed off, and I'm exhausted. These are

1242
01:13:12,479 --> 01:13:16,760
Speaker 1: real people's lives that politicians are playing with, people who

1243
01:13:16,920 --> 01:13:21,520
Speaker 1: who are worthy of love, people who are human beings.

1244
01:13:22,240 --> 01:13:24,320
Speaker 1: My brother I was talking him about this the other

1245
01:13:24,400 --> 01:13:27,880
Speaker 1: night because that was so anxious about this podcast, and

1246
01:13:27,920 --> 01:13:32,559
Speaker 1: he said, either you believe people are worthy of dignity

1247
01:13:32,640 --> 01:13:37,400
Speaker 1: and respect or you don't. And I just keep thinking

1248
01:13:37,439 --> 01:13:41,040
Speaker 1: about that, and I just keep thinking about how the

1249
01:13:41,160 --> 01:13:47,440
Speaker 1: reltless the dehumanizing of trans people is and the consequences

1250
01:13:47,479 --> 01:13:50,880
Speaker 1: are dire. Twenty was the deadliest year on record for

1251
01:13:50,920 --> 01:13:56,800
Speaker 1: trans people talking about trans murders. I want to be

1252
01:13:56,920 --> 01:13:59,680
Speaker 1: in this space of focusing on the positive. There's so

1253
01:13:59,760 --> 01:14:02,000
Speaker 1: much good in the world. I don't want to live

1254
01:14:02,000 --> 01:14:06,000
Speaker 1: in the space of oppression and discrimination, and like, I

1255
01:14:06,080 --> 01:14:08,200
Speaker 1: don't want to be there, but I also don't want

1256
01:14:08,240 --> 01:14:11,680
Speaker 1: to be in denial about what's really happening and the

1257
01:14:11,720 --> 01:14:14,400
Speaker 1: real people who are being affected. And I feel like

1258
01:14:15,800 --> 01:14:19,360
Speaker 1: it's just devastating people who are still dying and people

1259
01:14:19,360 --> 01:14:22,160
Speaker 1: who's still experiencing discrimination, and I mean, it'll go digging

1260
01:14:22,240 --> 01:14:36,880
Speaker 1: away and oh, so um yeah. In the show notes,

1261
01:14:36,960 --> 01:14:39,920
Speaker 1: there will be links to the audio that we have

1262
01:14:40,240 --> 01:14:45,720
Speaker 1: referenced in the podcast, So go and listen to the

1263
01:14:45,920 --> 01:14:49,439
Speaker 1: entire interviews. We encourage you to do that, and we

1264
01:14:49,520 --> 01:14:54,160
Speaker 1: encourage you to step into and lean into your own

1265
01:14:54,240 --> 01:14:58,639
Speaker 1: humanity and the humanity of everyone around you, no matter

1266
01:14:59,040 --> 01:15:07,839
Speaker 1: how they identify. Thank you for listening to The Laverne

1267
01:15:07,840 --> 01:15:10,840
Speaker 1: Cox Show. You must join me next week. From my

1268
01:15:10,920 --> 01:15:14,840
Speaker 1: conversation with the one and only Valerie Spencer. She's a

1269
01:15:14,880 --> 01:15:19,360
Speaker 1: dear friend and she is a unique, incredible empowering voice

1270
01:15:19,600 --> 01:15:23,280
Speaker 1: and l g B t q I plus activism and spirituality.

1271
01:15:24,000 --> 01:15:27,760
Speaker 1: She's the creator of the Holistic Empowerment Institute, an organization

1272
01:15:27,760 --> 01:15:30,360
Speaker 1: which addresses empowerment for l g B, t q I

1273
01:15:30,439 --> 01:15:36,400
Speaker 1: plus communities, and she is a full Kiki. Come join

1274
01:15:36,640 --> 01:15:41,040
Speaker 1: us for a psycho spiritual shift hunting. Please rate, review

1275
01:15:41,120 --> 01:15:44,120
Speaker 1: and subscribe and share with everyone you know. You can

1276
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Speaker 1: stay in the love. The Laverne Cox Show is a

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Speaker 1: production of Shonda Land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, Visit the I Heart

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