Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome to It Happened Here, a podcast that played some
Speaker 2: role in the defeats of the Republicans reposed ban on
Speaker 2: using Medicaid to pay for trans healthcare. I am your host,
Speaker 2: Mia Wong, and with me are three of the people
Speaker 2: who helped make this whole thing possible. This is David Forbes,
Speaker 2: a journalist from the Ashual Blade and Medica's News. Mattie
Speaker 2: Castigan of the namesake Medicast News, and Mira Laisine of
Speaker 2: Free Radical and also Medicast News, and all of you
Speaker 2: welcome to the show. Congratulations on your defeats of the
Speaker 2: Republican Party and helping to save trans healthcare for unbelievably
Speaker 2: large numbers of people in this country.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like a sentence that's kind
Speaker 3: of hard to accept, and you know, in a lot
Speaker 3: of ways, it is really what we've been trying to say.
Speaker 3: It's been like a collective effort of everyone involved, especially
Speaker 3: the people at the grassroots, and you know, like I
Speaker 3: guess to give there's a little bit of context. So
Speaker 3: going back to May, there in the big beautiful bill
Speaker 3: that unfortunately did pass, originally Republicans included a ban on
Speaker 3: government funding for Medicaid for gender transition procedures, and originally
Speaker 3: just from miners in the House. Then right before they
Speaker 3: passed it through the House, they actually removed the miners claw,
Speaker 3: so it was applying for all adults on Medicaid who
Speaker 3: are trans. At this point, everyone started kind of freaking out,
Speaker 3: which is very reasonable because you know, there's over two
Speaker 3: hundred thousand trans people on Medicaid depending on numbers like
Speaker 3: hundred and seventy thousand depending on her us. And so
Speaker 3: what we found is that, you know, a lot of
Speaker 3: other sources have told us this that the bird rule,
Speaker 3: which is basically you know, parliamentary procedure in the Senate
Speaker 3: that only exists in the Senate because of the filibuster
Speaker 3: pretty much, is one way that we could kill this
Speaker 3: is what they told us back in May. And so
Speaker 3: that's something that we reported on and tried to take
Speaker 3: like you know, basically like a don't panic angle or
Speaker 3: don't panic yet at least you know like that there's
Speaker 3: a lot of ways to fight back against this, and
Speaker 3: we provided you know, templates for here's how you can
Speaker 3: email your senators and this is exactly what you should
Speaker 3: tell them. You should call them you could call specific
Speaker 3: people on specific committees and tell specific things to them.
Speaker 3: And you know, of course a lot of other organizations
Speaker 3: and people also chipped into this, you know, a for
Speaker 3: t te head of campaigns and whatnot. But I think
Speaker 3: you know, at the end of the day, what really
Speaker 3: pushed the needle was the people calling in and waking
Speaker 3: Democrats up to this issue. And basically what ended up
Speaker 3: happening is we both sent it. Widen basically argued to
Speaker 3: the parliamentarian that hey, this trans medicaid ban, it's not
Speaker 3: a budgetary matter, it's actually a policy matter. And the
Speaker 3: parliamentarian agreed and ruled that it was basically a sixty
Speaker 3: vote threshold and not a fifty vote threshold. So what
Speaker 3: that meant is that as long as all Democrats, or
Speaker 3: at least forty Democrats forty one Democrats were opposing this measure,
Speaker 3: it was basically guaranteed to be kicked out of the bill.
Speaker 3: And we did end up having enough Democrats basically ensure
Speaker 3: that the that provision didn't make it into law, even
Speaker 3: though unfortunately the bill did pass in to day.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think one thing that's notable about this. I
Speaker 4: think one thing to emerge in our discussions, and while
Speaker 4: she's not in the podcast, I really want to thank
Speaker 4: Koreean Green for very invaluable like policy insight into some
Speaker 4: of this and some of the specific ways and weaknesses
Speaker 4: to go after politicians on this. And you know, certainly
Speaker 4: we were not alone in this. I think there were
Speaker 4: a lot of grassroots organizations as well, and I think
Speaker 4: kind of the approach that emerged and was successful, I
Speaker 4: think it's kind of important how it happened, because one,
Speaker 4: it identified a specific weakness who weren't just vaguely asking
Speaker 4: legislators to do something about this. And two I think
Speaker 4: it did something which traditionally definitely democratic politicians but even
Speaker 4: a lot of the gay ink to use a term
Speaker 4: popular among a lot of transactivists like big lobbying groups
Speaker 4: and establishment nonprofits, been loath to do, which is it
Speaker 4: got angry at democrats. It warned them that people were watching.
Speaker 4: It wasn't like, pretty please, you know, will you do
Speaker 4: something to stop this? And from two decades dealing with politicians,
Speaker 4: that's a much more effective way to approach. If you're
Speaker 4: just going to ask nicely, they'll ignore you. They'll ignore
Speaker 4: your entire demographic. If you're marginalized if they're afraid of you. However,
Speaker 4: if they're worried about their phone lines being shut down
Speaker 4: with pushback, people are getting angry at them, then they
Speaker 4: get worried and feel like they need to do something.
Speaker 4: So I think both with our article and with some
Speaker 4: of the other grassroots groups involved, it really kind of
Speaker 4: put the focus back on what people can do. But
Speaker 4: it did it by identifying a weakness and then pressing
Speaker 4: really hard on it. And I think that's kind of
Speaker 4: a break with how some of the very unsuccessful higher
Speaker 4: level tactics that have been used or not been used
Speaker 4: against transphobic legislation before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think I think it's important to, you know,
Speaker 2: look at the changing terrain of this all because a
Speaker 2: lot of the sort of gain lobbying efforts were based
Speaker 2: on conditions that don't exist anymore. And you could argue
Speaker 2: how effective they were back in like you know, like
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, right, and I still think there were more
Speaker 2: effective things that could have been done. Then there is
Speaker 2: no argument now like you can't just rely on sort
Speaker 2: of like access democratic politicians and being like, oh hey,
Speaker 2: we're this org. You want this thing to happen. And
Speaker 2: we saw this a lot. This is something that our
Speaker 2: policy analyst friend Karine Green, who have had in the
Speaker 2: show before, was talking about with like with the Biden
Speaker 2: administration was the way that all of these orgs sort
Speaker 2: of just fell in line behind the Biden administration, like
Speaker 2: fucking over trans people's healthcare in ways that no one
Speaker 2: ever really talked about, and that kind of access model
Speaker 2: got flipped, you know, whatever they were trying to do before,
Speaker 2: and you can ar you know, you can have arguments
Speaker 2: about like what they thought they were doing. At this point,
Speaker 2: it's just like no, like you're not existing to like
Speaker 2: protect queer people. You're existing to protect the Democrats from
Speaker 2: queer people.
Speaker 5: And yeah, you.
Speaker 2: Know, and and and the situation we're in now is
Speaker 2: one where and there was some very very scary reporting
Speaker 2: coming out of the Democrats were like it wasn't clear
Speaker 2: if they were actually going to try to whip the
Speaker 2: votes together, like to actually vote against this stuff. And
Speaker 2: so like we're at a point where regardless of whatever
Speaker 2: you would have supported before, and again like I think
Speaker 2: I think they were wrong before, but like now no,
Speaker 2: you had this is the only way to do this shit,
Speaker 2: Like there's no other mechanism.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so this has been something I've especially noticed in
Speaker 5: like reporting on this terms. Myself and Matty, we both
Speaker 5: co reported on the initial story breaking the the fact
Speaker 5: that the Medicaid bandage going in there. Mattie especially did
Speaker 5: all the stuff with the birds role. When we initially
Speaker 5: started working in the story, it was just a small
Speaker 5: tip we had that there was going to be something
Speaker 5: big coming in the next funding bill, and I can
Speaker 5: definitely speak that at the time, Democrats, lobbyists and so forth,
Speaker 5: they were just very like business as usual, right, They
Speaker 5: were just even knowing that a lot of this was
Speaker 5: kind of had the chance of emerging, and that there
Speaker 5: was going to be a lot of bad stuff emerging.
Speaker 5: A lot of it was still like trying to use
Speaker 5: these whole tactics Streme way back when to just act
Speaker 5: like everything is still as if it's you know, twenty fifteen,
Speaker 5: twenty fourteen, and once everything started to unferral and the
Speaker 5: medicaidvand became added in to the bill itself. Witnessing it
Speaker 5: all from just a reporting perspective with like it felt
Speaker 5: like watching them all go into panic mode and yet
Speaker 5: at the same time be like trying to find ways
Speaker 5: to kind of push us to the side. Yeah, and
Speaker 5: and of course, like god so incredibly thankfully were able
Speaker 5: to play any type of role in getting this done.
Speaker 5: Like so it's becomon narrative among so many for lack
Speaker 5: of better phrasing, proponents of gay ink, proponents of the
Speaker 5: status quo, proponents of just you know, your social democracy types,
Speaker 5: that the way forward is to be nice, to beg
Speaker 5: and plead for our rights, so hopefull they give us
Speaker 5: it if we ask really, really nicely and we beg
Speaker 5: in clead and we say thank you and we don't
Speaker 5: be too rude or else we'll earn it and we'll
Speaker 5: deserve what a will give. You know, It's like what
Speaker 5: ultimate need became. The final stroll was like we sent
Speaker 5: out a push for every single just reader follower, every
Speaker 5: single listener podcast like everyone at home who just bread
Speaker 5: this around. Put pressure on the politicians, made it clear
Speaker 5: the wasn't acceptable, made it clear that no, they can't
Speaker 5: just ignore us and act like we don't exist, and
Speaker 5: that no, they can't just wash their hands away and
Speaker 5: pretend like this is all fine, and that their records
Speaker 5: came that No, it's this is something that matters. This
Speaker 5: is something that has to be thought, and it really
Speaker 5: boiled down to just the endtense like pressure everyone put
Speaker 5: publicly like yeah, And I think it is just a
Speaker 5: very ultimate testing to how the true power in any
Speaker 5: political system lies not with just a handful of elected
Speaker 5: NEPO babies that end up getting into office, but with
Speaker 5: the regular people who make their voice heard, who band
Speaker 5: together and aren't afraid to say, hey, this shit is
Speaker 5: fucked up, we need to do something about it.
Speaker 4: You are mentioning, how like whatever debate about the gag
Speaker 4: approach before, it's it's not just dead now it's catastrophically failed.
Speaker 4: I honestly think that's kind of beyond debate at this point.
Speaker 4: But what one thing that I think kind of this
Speaker 4: shows is that when you're dealing with politicians, if all
Speaker 4: you have is hey, pretty please be nice to us,
Speaker 4: but earlier you not just can you be ignored, but
Speaker 4: like if they go no, what else do you have then?
Speaker 4: If you don't have some other kind of leverage? And
Speaker 4: one thing I've seen consistently local, state, and federal levels
Speaker 4: is the odds are a lot better if people are
Speaker 4: angry and the politicians are afraid. So I think living
Speaker 4: that that's the real vantage the grassroots have, you know,
Speaker 4: stop caring about if politicians are your friends or really
Speaker 4: care about us, because generally the answer is they don't.
Speaker 4: None of them are our friends, and more focus on
Speaker 4: what can you and your communities, your friends, the larger
Speaker 4: networks you're part of, do to make their lives miserable
Speaker 4: until the part of the sascore you're trying to fight
Speaker 4: becomes unsustainable for them too.
Speaker 3: What I heard from people on the hill or people
Speaker 3: close to people on the Hill is basically that the
Speaker 3: whole bird rule maneuver. For this specific provision, there was
Speaker 3: you know, definitely whispers of it, you know, especially among
Speaker 3: Lompias and maybe some staffers. But until it was being
Speaker 3: publicly advocated for this specific tool to be used by
Speaker 3: constituents towards senators Democratic senators specifically, it wasn't really like
Speaker 3: hugely in consideration or like that wasn't something they were
Speaker 3: planning to do in a very strong way, Like maybe
Speaker 3: it would have happened eventually, But it definitely does seem
Speaker 3: like the constituent pressure specifically did help kind of make
Speaker 3: Democrats realize that hey, we're watching, you're watching you do
Speaker 3: like whether you're invoking these parliamentary procedures that you aren't
Speaker 3: supposed to know about. Like you're not supposed to know
Speaker 3: about this stuff, right, And it's like it's really obscure
Speaker 3: stuff that no one knows about except like super autistic
Speaker 3: paulicy Neer. It's like like me and a current probably,
Speaker 3: but yeah, and this kind of stuff is really what
Speaker 3: turns the needles. And like you can look at the
Speaker 3: other side too, right, Like, you know, there are extremely
Speaker 3: effective lobbies in Congress you can look at you can
Speaker 3: look at the lobby that literally got this provision into
Speaker 3: the bill. They sent a letter to Speaker Johnson saying, hey,
Speaker 3: you should expand this from miners only to adults because
Speaker 3: we think this will actually help it survive the bird
Speaker 3: rule better. And this was a public letter, right, And
Speaker 3: you know you might say, oh, well, that's not a
Speaker 3: big deal, right, it's a letter. Right, But how many
Speaker 3: gay rights organizations released a letter to Democrats saying they
Speaker 3: should invoke the bird rule. I'm not aware of any, like.
Speaker 4: Well, I think that's the key part of this is that, yes, eventually,
Speaker 4: some of those groups did start belatedly moving against this. Yes,
Speaker 4: eventually it's progi into a second some politicians did in
Speaker 4: various ways start moving against this. But I think it's
Speaker 4: important not to get kind of the cart before the horse.
Speaker 4: That came after the grassroots pressure, came after weeks of
Speaker 4: people getting angry at them, blowing up their phones, very
Speaker 4: public criticism, all the things that I think we're told
Speaker 4: a lot of the time by liberals and Democrats we're
Speaker 4: not supposed to do, you know, be nice or you know,
Speaker 4: your concerns won't be heard. Well, it turns out is
Speaker 4: that the Isaac alas is the case. And you mentioned
Speaker 4: that those conservative lobbyists people know, you know, I don't
Speaker 4: think it's always a rule that the tactics or enemy
Speaker 4: can be adopted for various reasons. But the NRA and
Speaker 4: all of these terrible groups don't go into Congress going, hey,
Speaker 4: please be nice to us. They go in going do
Speaker 4: this or we're going to make your life hell yeah.
Speaker 4: And if you're if this is a terrain people are
Speaker 4: going to fight on, that's how you have to fight
Speaker 4: as far as because that's what moves politicians at every
Speaker 4: level is it's oh my god, I do not want
Speaker 4: this group angry at me.
Speaker 5: And it's one thing I want to add to is
Speaker 5: since the bird rules and soil in the band was
Speaker 5: taken out. There has emerged a common narrative online. It's
Speaker 5: not really one specific person doing this, it's just kind
Speaker 5: of something that's kind of collectively emerged in that claiming
Speaker 5: that the credit lies with politicians, with lobbyists, with staffers,
Speaker 5: with all these anonymous people behind closed doors who are
Speaker 5: supposedly the ones that actually did the work, and no
Speaker 5: one else matters. I want to strongly emphasize that that
Speaker 5: is not only not true, but dangerous rhetoric.
Speaker 4: It's propaganda.
Speaker 5: It's propaganda. Yes, it's an attempt to reinforce the role
Speaker 5: that the state has in subjugating everyone, to reinforce the
Speaker 5: fact that, oh no, the way things are is perfect.
Speaker 5: You can trust all these leaders to protect you when
Speaker 5: you can't. They are the reason we got in this mess.
Speaker 5: The gay en tactics are the things that have failed
Speaker 5: and led to this in the first place. Liberals have
Speaker 5: plenty of opportunities prevent this and they didn't. And ultimately,
Speaker 5: the reason that this narrative spreads is because, at the
Speaker 5: end of the day, gay yank is called back for
Speaker 5: a reason because well, yes, their interests happen to align
Speaker 5: on the realm of queer rights because they themselves are queer.
Speaker 5: At the end of the day, they are still representing
Speaker 5: the upper class, and their primary interests are still going
Speaker 5: to be with protecting the upper class and protecting the
Speaker 5: role they have in subjugating the lower class and subjugating
Speaker 5: marginalized people who are not in their economic class.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is most trans people, like all of us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is.
Speaker 4: Like really important because I don't think the intersections of
Speaker 4: queerness and definitely not transists in class get talked about
Speaker 4: nearly enough. Yeah, which is is that queer and transy
Speaker 4: are overwhelmingly working class demographics. Yep, like the legislators you know,
Speaker 4: like Sara McBride, but also like the people running gang
Speaker 4: crimanizations are not just like not generally representative of our
Speaker 4: wider communities in a lot of ways. They also just
Speaker 4: have had incredibly different lives almost always, with some exceptions,
Speaker 4: they've been part of the gentry their entire lives, and
Speaker 4: most queer trans people, especially trans people, are as far
Speaker 4: from the gentry as you get. So that does create
Speaker 4: like this massive gulf. But also I think it's one
Speaker 4: reason these groups are so out of touch. But also
Speaker 4: I think it does. You know, if we put the
Speaker 4: power back on ourselves, if we realize that this kind
Speaker 4: of grassroots anger is much more representative of where queer
Speaker 4: and trans people are, If this willingness to fight directly
Speaker 4: in whatever tactics people choose is much more like in
Speaker 4: keeping with like queer culture and tradition and history, then
Speaker 4: I think there's a lot of power there. And I
Speaker 4: think this is an example of successfully wielding that. I
Speaker 4: think Mirror was correct about this propaganda that's kind of
Speaker 4: been spreading in the wake, and it was particularly I
Speaker 4: think egregious because it specifically like tried to credit Sarah McBride,
Speaker 4: who had just come off a really obnoxious interview with
Speaker 4: The New York Times where she was literally against all
Speaker 4: the aggressive trans rights, and then after the band finally
Speaker 4: got killed, this you know, various sources and honestly, I
Speaker 4: don't know anyone hearing this stuff, and whatever capacities the
Speaker 4: journalist act is, whatever, I think it's just professionally good
Speaker 4: to be more skeptical when these kind of convenient narratives emerge.
Speaker 4: But kind of embers, Oh, behind the scenes, she'd been
Speaker 4: doing so much. Yeah, sure, in public, she'd been you know,
Speaker 4: very either low key or refusing defend trains rights at all,
Speaker 4: even justifying some of the narratives of our enemies. But
Speaker 4: sure she was doing all this behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: She refused to fucking do anything when they banned trans
Speaker 2: people from fucking bathrooms in DC.
Speaker 5: Yes, like in Capitol him, wouldn't even defend her own staffers, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 4: So like it's worth being skeptical to claim that she
Speaker 4: was doing so much behind the scenes. However, you know
Speaker 4: if she was prompted in the last week of a
Speaker 4: multi week effort to suddenly start taking some action based
Speaker 4: on anger. Great part of the point of these strategies
Speaker 4: is to prompt people who don't want to act into
Speaker 4: feeling like they're forced to act. But I think in
Speaker 4: twenty years of covering politics at various levels, if politicians
Speaker 4: don't like something, you will know. If they support something,
Speaker 4: you will know they will be very loud and very public,
Speaker 4: because the public platform is one of the biggest powers
Speaker 4: they have, as well as doing whatever behind the scenes.
Speaker 4: If they're quiet about something or even seem opposite to
Speaker 4: especially if it involves a group on the front lines
Speaker 4: like trans communities, and then later on they try to
Speaker 4: kind of take back credit of saying, oh, look, you know,
Speaker 4: we were doing so much behind the scenes that is
Speaker 4: pretty universally attacked to commit to demobilize people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I want to note that the point of
Speaker 3: us saying this is not to say that you know,
Speaker 3: Sarah McBride or you know Saffers or other people didn't
Speaker 3: do anything. Like, of course they did stuff right like,
Speaker 3: they voted, they were voting. Note, they probably made some
Speaker 3: phone calls and stuff, right, But what we're saying is like, Okay,
Speaker 3: they basically did the bare minimum of what they're supposed
Speaker 3: to do, right like, and that was only after a
Speaker 3: huge pressure campaign from the grassroots and from people who
Speaker 3: they would literally not be even in office without. Like
Speaker 3: I did the math in an article way back in
Speaker 3: that last November, and there's like exit polls showing that
Speaker 3: like eighty six percent of LGBTQ people voted for Democrats
Speaker 3: last year. That's like a crazy margin. That's like it's
Speaker 3: up there with you know, black voters and LGBTQ people
Speaker 3: are like the biggest bass of the Democratic Party, right Like,
Speaker 3: they would have lost three or four more Senate seats
Speaker 3: they it would have been like a fifty six or
Speaker 3: fifty seven seat chamber if it were not for literally
Speaker 3: the people that are advocating for this healthcare. And it's
Speaker 3: it's so absurd that, like Sarah McBride, what she did was,
Speaker 3: if we assume everything that's been said is true about
Speaker 3: this is what she's done is basically she got Democrats
Speaker 3: to not vote to take away the healthcare of two
Speaker 3: hundred thousand trans people, which is like, why was that
Speaker 3: even a qu question like this? This is the actual
Speaker 3: story that came out of this. In my opinion that
Speaker 3: was bigger is that this was ever in question that
Speaker 3: there might be like seven or eight Democrats who would
Speaker 3: vote to ban Medicaid from two hundred three hundred thousand
Speaker 3: trans people, like and the fact that we're supposed to
Speaker 3: like give them a huge applause for not doing that
Speaker 3: is is kind of obscene to me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the readiness to thank politicians kind of
Speaker 4: cuts against the grassroots anger and organizing that works.
Speaker 2: So well here.
Speaker 4: Yep, because you don't want them. Actually, I think it's
Speaker 4: cerally a good rule not to thank politicians because what
Speaker 4: you want to constantly keep them in. If that's the
Speaker 4: terrain you're going to fight on is they need to
Speaker 4: feel like they're on thin ice. They need to worry
Speaker 4: their staff needs to worry about Okay, we got to
Speaker 4: keep this out of the bill, because holy hell, you
Speaker 4: do not want those queers mad at you. That's where
Speaker 4: you want to get closer to if putting pressure on
Speaker 4: politicians is is what needs to happen, And so buying
Speaker 4: these narratives thanking them, that takes the pressure off.
Speaker 5: Don't ever do that, you know, yes, and.
Speaker 4: So I think it's it's kind of important. And you know,
Speaker 4: to quote the internet masterpiece of old drill tweet like
Speaker 4: you do underneath circumstances.
Speaker 5: Have to hand it to them.
Speaker 4: At best, they acted late, grudgingly after they faced a
Speaker 4: ton of anger that resulted and was help amplified by
Speaker 4: a ton of work from bluntly like working class trans
Speaker 4: people and working class for your people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I would argue that what Representative McBride did specifically,
Speaker 3: even assuming that it did like help us in the
Speaker 3: short term with this bill, the way that she's been
Speaker 3: kind of talking about this internally and in the New
Speaker 3: York Times interview is actually extremely dangerous for trans people because,
Speaker 3: like believe it or not, they're not going to stop
Speaker 3: with this bill. They're going to do it again. They're
Speaker 3: going to do it again, probably in budget bills or
Speaker 3: another reconciliation bill. And at some point it's going to
Speaker 3: come down to the wire where Democrats will have to
Speaker 3: publicly defend the right of trans people to have healthcare
Speaker 3: and to be alive and to exist. That's that's going
Speaker 3: to happen at some point. And what McBride has been
Speaker 3: telling everyone, what she's been telling as her client on
Speaker 3: New York Times, what she was telling Democrats behind the scenes,
Speaker 3: according to the notice article, is that you can't talk
Speaker 3: about these issues. You have to be really quiet. You
Speaker 3: just have to do it behind the scenes because it's
Speaker 3: too hot topic of an issue. You know, you don't
Speaker 3: want to accidentally, like I don't know, show the world
Speaker 3: that trans people might actually deserve to exist. It doesn't
Speaker 3: it doesn't even make sense. I think they just it doesn't.
Speaker 3: They just like feel gross arguing it, like personally like
Speaker 3: they don't there's no political like, there's no like good
Speaker 3: political calcitalists. They just feel gross talking about trans people.
Speaker 3: Is my opinion that this is why they don't want
Speaker 3: to do it. There's it's like it's bad for them politically.
Speaker 3: They will lose votes, they will like lose political power.
Speaker 3: They just like hate us. Basically, I don't know.
Speaker 5: We should never be nice or kind or thank politicians
Speaker 5: like both Maddie and David had said they are not
Speaker 5: our friends. Like there is a popular approach that I
Speaker 5: think a lot of people end up having towards these
Speaker 5: kind of quote unquote leaders that they are somehow these
Speaker 5: like mythical faviors of everyone, that they're all leading these nonprofits,
Speaker 5: they're leading these companies, these governments save us. They are
Speaker 5: not our friends. They do not give a shit about us.
Speaker 5: You would be surprised to things I've heard behind closed
Speaker 5: doors that they have said they are not your friends.
Speaker 5: They hate every single fucking poor person. They will never
Speaker 5: say that bocally, but they.
Speaker 4: Hate us, especially the transplants.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, oh yeah. And it's like us to be
Speaker 5: subservient to them until the day we fucking die, because
Speaker 5: it's all about consolidating their own power. And the kind
Speaker 5: of corn I'm getting at here is kill the idol
Speaker 5: in your head. You should never have an idol, Like,
Speaker 5: there is no person worth idolizing, not only not Dayank,
Speaker 5: not even only not anyone in this call, this podcast. Now,
Speaker 5: no one at all should be idolized, because doing that
Speaker 5: is placing all the power in the hands of people
Speaker 5: you don't know, in the hands of people who are
Speaker 5: just as human as anyone else. And even if they're
Speaker 5: very good, people who do good things are fundamentally capable
Speaker 5: of fucking up and doing bad. And if you idolize someone,
Speaker 5: you end up condoning everything they do, whether you even
Speaker 5: stay it or otherwise. It comes with the territory. Fundamentally,
Speaker 5: you should not rely on other people to save you.
Speaker 5: You should rely on you and your community. You need
Speaker 5: to fucking work with your community to bring about the
Speaker 5: outcomes you want. And I mean you, the listener, like
Speaker 5: you specifically, Yes, you need to work with your community
Speaker 5: to bring about what you need.
Speaker 4: I think that's that's kind of the message that should
Speaker 4: emerge from this is no one in Washington, organization and
Speaker 4: politician are the ones of the power here.
Speaker 5: You are.
Speaker 4: You and your friends are you and your community are
Speaker 4: And I know we've said that a little bit before,
Speaker 4: but it's worth re emphasizing how much people can do
Speaker 4: when they get together and decide to do something about
Speaker 4: these issues.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that's a really good note to
Speaker 2: end on. However, come up before we do that very
Speaker 2: exciting news. Do you all want to introduce introduce the
Speaker 2: new news network.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, we have huge news to announce that's related
Speaker 3: to the news website that we used to write this
Speaker 3: article about the bird Roll, formerly known as Maddicast News
Speaker 3: will now be known as trans News Network. And we're
Speaker 3: basically relaunching completely. We're switching up our business models from
Speaker 3: technically was a for profit before, but now it's going
Speaker 3: to be part of fiscally sponsored nonprofit of community Partners.
Speaker 3: And we're also moving off subset to beehive. And so,
Speaker 3: you know, as Mirat and David were saying earlier, like
Speaker 3: we don't want you to rely on us to stay
Speaker 3: you like it's kind of like a team effort, right, Like,
Speaker 3: we do have a part to play. Will help will
Speaker 3: help you give you information, but we also could use
Speaker 3: help from you. We could use help from the listener,
Speaker 3: especially people who do have you know, some people have
Speaker 3: more time, some people have more resources or money. And
Speaker 3: one thing that we are looking to do with our
Speaker 3: relaunch is to fundraise so we can basically, you know,
Speaker 3: ensure that basically our journalists, like you know, Mirah and
Speaker 3: David have the financial stability they need to continue making
Speaker 3: journalism like this. And so we're launching with a fundraiser
Speaker 3: and we're gonna we'll have a link, I guess with
Speaker 3: the podcast description and there will be like you know,
Speaker 3: you can get a free gift if you donate a
Speaker 3: certain amount. That's a huge way to help. But as well,
Speaker 3: you know, you also need to actually listen to the
Speaker 3: things that people in your community to say, like what
Speaker 3: are the things people in your community are saying that
Speaker 3: can help? What are other ways that you can contribute
Speaker 3: back to save yourselves, basically because we're all in this together.
Speaker 4: And yeah, I think also one of the reasons I'm
Speaker 4: really excited about the trans News Network and the transition
Speaker 4: as it were, to the trans News Net it is
Speaker 4: that I think our collective experiences and our experience with
Speaker 4: this fight as well, have shown that there is a
Speaker 4: real need for hard hitting, powerful, unrepentantly radical and trans journalism,
Speaker 4: trans journalism that actually gets trans communities and proceeds kind
Speaker 4: of to take the fight from there. And so that's
Speaker 4: that is badly needed. And I think we are from
Speaker 4: our own experiences and from kind of what we've all
Speaker 4: built working together, like able to be part of that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and just to add one thing, because I know
Speaker 5: how many trans people artistic and need to hear this
Speaker 5: about out. I'm one of them. This is explosively a
Speaker 5: worker's co op. We are doing this radical from the
Speaker 5: ground up. Everyone gets eqal say this is a community thing.
Speaker 5: This is not some light Oh you know, we're doing this.
Speaker 5: But then there's a nice CEO who makes five hundred K. No,
Speaker 5: this is the money is going to the journalists who
Speaker 5: need it. Is the group of us basically deciding, hey,
Speaker 5: we need to fucking keep doing this work. We want to,
Speaker 5: we need to support, we need help. Yeah, and we're
Speaker 5: joining the bandwagon of all these news outlets doing workers
Speaker 5: co ops because that's the only way you can fucking
Speaker 5: make money in this industry nowadays.
Speaker 4: It's also the fairest and best way to do it.
Speaker 5: Yep. It is. It's it's objectively the best and most
Speaker 5: ethical way to do this under the healthscape of capitalism. Yep.
Speaker 3: And uh Tamira's plan and I'm gonna we went on
Speaker 3: this podcast earlier this year to talk about trans journalism
Speaker 3: and you might want to listen to that as well
Speaker 3: if you're curious on like just the struggles that a
Speaker 3: lot of us have dealt with. And number one is,
Speaker 3: you know, the material need for money basically, and I'm
Speaker 3: going to say what I said in that episode again,
Speaker 3: which is that one hundred dollars for some people, like
Speaker 3: you know, let's say a working class transferson is very
Speaker 3: different compared to one hundred dollars for people in other
Speaker 3: social classes. You know, maybe someone in tech or something like,
Speaker 3: maybe you'll get a dinner at the one hundred dollars
Speaker 3: and it's not a big deal to you, right, it
Speaker 3: could be life changing for someone else who's literally like
Speaker 3: spending their life creating news to help trans people like
Speaker 3: you know, this article that we wrote, it wasn't a
Speaker 3: huge amount of money that that took to create that.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, we don't have a lot
Speaker 3: of money to go around, like it's it's being basically
Speaker 3: a small number of people. We have a we have
Speaker 3: a good number of like paid subscribers to but really
Speaker 3: in order to keep expanding the way we want to,
Speaker 3: we really need more money. And it's going to be
Speaker 3: so huge to trans people everywhere.
Speaker 4: So yeah, so if someone has money and it's interested
Speaker 4: in supporting trans journalism. That is all the things we've
Speaker 4: just talked about and I think makes a real difference. Yeah,
Speaker 4: please sign up as a paid subscriber. Donate to the fundraiser.
Speaker 4: Every single dollar of that we will put to use.
Speaker 5: Yeap.
Speaker 3: Our first goal is basically to hire one of our
Speaker 3: journalists as a part time W two employee, which should
Speaker 3: be literally life changing.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, And when we said this in the
Speaker 2: last episode, and we're going to say it again, working
Speaker 2: class trans journalism can exist if you support it. And
Speaker 2: every single dollar that you sent to a working class
Speaker 2: trans journalist is going one hundred times further that it's
Speaker 2: going for any other thing you can do to, like, like,
Speaker 2: it's going so much further that it is giving it
Speaker 2: to like fucking the Human Rights Committee or whatever the fuck,
Speaker 2: Like wait, what is what's the actual name with the
Speaker 2: organ human Rights Campampa? Yeah, yeah, you resume that one.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, by the way, did I mention it's tax seductible, So.
Speaker 4: Got to throw that in there.
Speaker 3: If you item measure deductions, if you give like one
Speaker 3: hundred dollars to us, then you get to pay like,
Speaker 3: you know, whatever like thirty dollars less goes to the
Speaker 3: federal government, which means slightly less money for Ice and Israel.
Speaker 3: That's how I see it anyway.
Speaker 5: Okay, please, Dear God, I'm tired of living off my
Speaker 5: measly savings.
Speaker 3: Dear God, please, Yeah, you can tell her really trying
Speaker 3: to sell this well.
Speaker 4: And also I think like Yo Mirror and myself both
Speaker 4: do other trans journalism work. I'm part of the editor
Speaker 4: at the Ashville Blade, which is a local trans journalist
Speaker 4: co op. And you know, we've seen how far that goes,
Speaker 4: so so yeah, like the more support for trans journalism, period,
Speaker 4: trans News Network, the Free Radical Asheville Blade, some of
Speaker 4: the other projects out there, the better.
Speaker 5: Yep.
Speaker 2: And this has been It could Happen here, support support
Speaker 2: trans journalism, and we keep fighting the good fight.
Speaker 1: It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
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