November 11, 2024 • 31 mins
Gare and Mia discuss Trump's policies targeting trans rights, and how we can prepare to mitigate harm.
Sources:
https://diyhrt.wiki/
https://www.glad.org/transgender-id-project-updating-your-passport/#ds-11
https://www.transjusticefundingproject.org/
https://www.transincomeproject.org/
https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/united-states-v-skrmetti/
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/11/harris-trump-trans-rights-election-lgbtq/
https://www.axios.com/2023/01/31/trump-transgender-rights-lgbtq
https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/amp/rcna178755
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/08/us/politics/trump-republican-transgender-ads.html
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-anti-transgender-political-ads-are-dominating-the-airwaves-this-election
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/8/26/21374948/trump-second-term-lgbtq-people
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
All media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. I'm
joined by Mia Wong. It's a sort of a new week,
so let's start preparing for what these next few months
are going to look like in the wake of Trump's
election victory last week, So one thing I was thinking
about after the results kind of rolled in and seeing
(00:25):
everyone's reactions online, you have a you know, a mix
of people going full doomer, some people trying to get
hopped up on hopium, some people on copium right, just
trying to like find any psychological way to survive. And
for me, kind of the way I like to survive
is just through information. So this episode, we're going to
get into how we see life for trans people under
(00:46):
a second Trump term, based on both what he's done
in the past, what he's promised to do in the future.
And I know, in like the days after the election,
like LGBTQ, like crisis hotlines all saw massive spike in
people calling in to the point where some people were
even unable to reach someone, And like I understand, this
(01:06):
is a very scary moment in time, and as much
as it might not be fun to hear about how
things are all gonna get worse. There's also some misconceptions,
and I think there's also a degree of power in
actually being able to reasonably ascertain what things could look
like instead of just kind of feeling it out and
just going purely on vibes. So to kind of start,
(01:29):
I guess I'll mention some things that Trump did in
his first term that then got undone by Biden, which
will probably just end up being reinstated. We don't know
these for sure, but that's like a decent guess. So
one of the first things Trump did when he got
into office is he rolled back in Obama era memo
directing schools to protect trans students from discrimination.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah, and that, by the way, discrimination protection is a
constant theme in this episode. It's gonna get a lot worse.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Trump later went on to ban trans people from serving
in the military. He also went after trans making it
so that trans people usually would need to be housed
in prisons and jails according to their assigned sex at birth,
which is of course a very dangerous situation for people incarcerated,
specifically trans women.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yeah, and I think there is good reason to expect
that treatment there is going to get worse. There's been
you know, we'll get into this more later in the episode,
but there's been a real focus on incarcerated trans people
getting health care. Yeah, and this is one of the
things that's kind of ambiguous as to how Trump could
go about trying to stop these people from getting health care.
(02:35):
So the thing about providing healthcare to trans people who
have been incarcerated is that they have to do it. It
is something that is required by the Constitution of the
United States. The Eighth Amendment holds that there is a
ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and withholding medical care
is so obviously a form of cruel unusual punishment that
even staggeringly right wing Supreme courts have been like, no,
(02:57):
you actually have to give people medical care in prison.
So this is one that's going to be a little
bit difficult for him to do. I don't know, he
might find some way to do it. This is one
of the ones where there's a real potential for it
to get worse, and we simply do not know enough
about what legal strategy is going to be here to
say for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
But it's also worth mentioning, like people have had to
fight for access to healthcare in prison, Like, it's not
something that comes easily, Like people have had to sue
to make sure that they get the healthcare that they
are legally required to receive. And we can just assume
that that process will probably be slightly more difficult under
a second Trump term like it was under a first
(03:38):
Trump term, then it may kind of currently be now.
So that's kind of one shift in how things might
be slightly more challenging.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Yeah, And I want to also mention so that analysis
and a lot of the analysis, the policy analysis that
I'm going to be doing going forward, is heavily indebted
to trans policy expert Carin Green, who we've had on
the show a couple of times before Amazing. She was
one of the people who ended up working on compliance
for that lawsuit where Kamala Harris tried to keep transprisoners
(04:07):
from getting healthcare, and she came in and like had
to like ensure that the state of California was doing
it and they weren't. So that's something that has been
fought for, and that's something I mean, the trans community
is small enough that that is the thing that has
specifically been fought for by people who I consulted to
make this episode. So, yeah, these these rights have been
dearly one and it's going to be very hard to
(04:27):
protect them. If I'm doing something where there's there's something
about policy implementation, assume that I talked to Krinn about
this and that's why it's accurate.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
And while I'm.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Doing this, I want to plug a couple of the
projects that she works on. But there's there's something you
can do very immediately right now, before we get into
all of the terrible stuff that's going to happen, which
is you can donate to the Trans Income Project, which
is the project that supports trans people and transsex workers
in particular, which is a lot of trans people and
supports them by just giving them direct cash transfers. They
(04:57):
used to their work too, but yeah, and it direct
caast transfers are one of the most effective ways that
you can help trans people. And if you give money
to this organization, they'll be links in the chat you
can help do this. So let's get into how things
are going to get worse. Unfortunately, trudministration, Congress, and state
legislators have an enormous amount of power to make everything worse.
We're mostly going to be focusing on what Trump and
(05:21):
Congress can do well. We'll get into the legislator's a
bit at the end. So there are a lot of
levers of state power and sort of policy techniques that
Trump can pull here to make things worse. We're going
to go roughly from easiest to hardest to pull off.
So the first lever is federal funding. Probably the easiest
(05:42):
place that this lever can get pulled is in the
education system. Trump can unfortunately fairly easily implement what amounts
to a don't say trans ban on a federal level
by threatening to withhold federal funding for any school that
doesn't mandate things like misgendering and dead dating students and
banned And this is I think he's explicitly talked about
is like banning anyone in classes, any teachers from talking
(06:04):
about traditioning at all. He's also threatened to have teachers
who talk to students about being trans like investigated by
the Department of Justice. We'll get more into Department just
investigations in a bit. He's also used an explicit threat,
the same threat of cutting state funding to stop schools
some letting kids use the right bathroom in the locker
room it's also possible he will do that through Title nine.
(06:27):
But there's a lot of ways that he can do
this very easily that are probably not going to be
able to be stopped. And this is going to get
extremely bad very quickly. Another sort of avenue that he
has is I guess what you'd call like the High
Amendment for trans people. So for people who don't know
what the High Amendment is, the High Amendment is a
writer that bans federal spending on abortion. It's been like modified,
(06:53):
it's not like the one hundred percent band that he
used to be because now there's like exceptions for rape
and incests and stuff life of their parents too. But
it is a very very effective Republican tool. It's actually
also Joe Biden helped implement that that's been used to
limit are access to abortion, and we already have seen
the start of these kind of things even under Biden.
(07:14):
There was a version of this of a kind of
High Amendment for trans healthcare that was an attempt to
get the DoD to not be able to spend money
on trans healthcare. That's already a provision that's been tacked
onto one of the most recent spending bills. That went
through because Joe Manchin like defected and joined the Republicans
to get it onto one of the spending omnibuses, and
(07:35):
that was again just for the Department of Defense. We
are very likely to see versions of these attached to
every single spending bill that explicitly say that government funding
cannot be used for trans healthcare. It will definitely be
used to do to say you can't use it for
trans healthcare for minors. It is possible this will be
expanded to adults. We don't know. It depends how far
(07:55):
there's sort of anti trans I don't know the arrangement goes,
but that that is a real danger. And this can
also be expanded to refusing to allow Medicare and Medicaid
to pay for anything at a clinic that does trans healthcare,
even if the money isn't funding the healthcare. That's also
possible that would be absolutely catastrophic for the medical system.
(08:19):
Even just a government band that you know, prevents things
like Medicare and Medicaid and like government health care from
covering transition in the first place is a disaster. But
if they go further and you know, prevent clinics who
like provide trans healthcare from taking Medicare and Medicaid. That's
bad enough that I think that is in terms of
(08:40):
what is the thing we most need to be worried
about right now, I think that's the worst possible thing
that can happen very quickly, because.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
It could basically pressure medical clinics into refusing to offer
any kind of gender affirming care because it would threaten
their just base ability to operate as a medical clinic
taking Medicare, Medicaid, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Yeah, this is the thing I talked about a bit
in our Agenda forty seven episode on this. But this
is this effectually create It's like Sophie's choice for these
clinics because it's either you treat trans people who have
private insurance, right, or you can treat like people who
have who are a medicaa Medicaid. So it's like, okay,
either either you let trans people get fucked or you
(09:15):
let like every poor person or old person in the
US like eat shit.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
So there aren't good options here for that.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
How do we think something like this would be implemented?
Like is this an executive order or does this have
to go through Congress?
Speaker 4 (09:29):
So that's the other part about this. That's very bad.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
The way this is being done is these things are
attached to what are called writers to spending bills. So
any spending bill Republican's put in front of the House,
they will have this like provision in it, right, And
the really big problem for us is that spending bills
usually get past now out of this thing called Senate reconciliation.
And the thing about Senate reconciliation is that you can't
(09:53):
fill a buster them, so these can just get rammed
through really really quickly, and there's not going to be
enough opposition in the House to stop it either. So
I mean, some of this stuff probably could be done
with executive orders, but it's quite possible you won't even
need that because it can just be rammed through in
spending bills, which.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Is a little bit harder to undo from my understanding.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, yeah, executive orders can be overturned by the next guy,
whereas getting these provisions out is going to take a
long time. Yeah, you know, this is another issue that
we have. The map for the Democrats retaking the Senate
is terrible in twenty twenty six, and it's bad in
twenty twenty eight two. So I still don't think this
is being recorded Friday. I don't think we still actually
know what their majority in the Senate's going to be.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
But it's a lot.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
And also we know that Joe Manchin is willing to
vote for stuff like this because he's done it already,
So this is probably coming quickly. It basically depends on
how good their policy people are, which who knows. But yeah,
this is not going to be difficult for them to
implement and it's going to be extremely damaging.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Well, that was a lot. Let's take a little bit
of a break and will we come back, take another
look into what life could be like under a second
Trump term.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
We are back.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
So the threat to trans people does not only come
from Congress and the President. One of the things that's
almost certainly going to happen very soon is there is
currently a case about a trans healthcare band from Miners
and Tennessee in front of the Supreme Court. It's called
Scrimetti versus Us. We are almost certainly going to lose this.
(11:40):
Not losing this requires a bunch of extremely unlikely things happening,
and this is very, very bad. What Scrimetti versus Us
is probably going to cost us is trans people as
a group being protected by the fourteenth Amendment. So the
fourteenth Amendment is supposed to provide everyone equal protection under
the law. The way that's been interpreted is that if
(12:01):
you're passing a law that directly targets a group, there
are certain levels of scrutiny that have to be applied
to it to see whether or not it's discriminatory and
can be allowed to proceed. What's probably going to happen
here is that trans people aren't going to be held
as protected at all, which means that the fourteenth Amendment
will not protect us from things that are unbelievably obviously discriminatory,
(12:22):
like healthcare bands for youth, which is again literally the
same procedures that are happening for trans children are done
to SIS children all the time, and it's fine. Yeah,
so this is very obviously discrimination. We're probably going to
lose it because the Supreme Court is full of a
bunch of the worst people in the entire world. It
is technically possible that Gorstch defects and drags someone else
(12:42):
over and we get a thing that says we have
intermediate scrutiny. That would be the best win we could
possibly get on this. It's extremely it's unlikely. We're probably
going to lose it. And this is also going to
overturn the landmark case Bostock versus Clayton County, which is
the one that rules that you can't discriminate against transpeople
based on gener identity.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Specifically for like employers as well.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Yeah, for employees. Is specifically for employers. So what we
could very well be about to lose. And again, this
is another thing that's very high likelihood because this case
they're ready in front of the Supreme Court, and the
Supreme Court hates us. We could be about to lose
employment discrimination protections now. To be fair, and I think
most trans people who are listening to the show know this.
I don't know how many SIS people understand this, but
(13:25):
the level of trans employment discrimination in the workplace is unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah, this isn't really enforced at all. Yeah, it's pretty bad.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
It is something that right now is technically possible to
do and you're not allowed to just straight up to
say it. But you know, like there is a reason
that the unemployment rate for trans people is like three
times as high. No, it's actually it's Yeah, I think
it's about three times as high as the rate for
SIS people. Right we don't have great data. There's some
data from the Trans Student Survey from twenty twenty two,
(13:56):
but the full report isn't out yet. But what I
will say is that the the trans level of unemployed
unemployment right now in the US is very low. The
level of unemployment for trans people is nineteen thirty six,
great depression levels, and this is before we lose these protections.
It is also worth noting this will not overturn like
state level of protections. So if you're in a state
that like has specifically bandit, you will have some more recourse.
(14:19):
But we're losing fourteenth medic protections. But a federal level
would basically allow explicit employment discrimination. Yeah, if someone's trans,
it's possible that case goes like marginally better for us
and that doesn't happen. But it's hard to see how
that would happen. The lawyers I talked to you will
say this is not this is not a legal opinion,
(14:40):
but they seem to think that this is how this
would go, and the policy people seem to think it'd
be going the same way. Yeah, there's some other things
that can happen. Trump has been promising, We're going to
get federal investigations into clinics that provide gender affirming care,
also into hospitals. You know, there's gonna be enormous legal harassment.
This has already been happening on a sort of lower level,
but from sort of individual lawsuits and state attorney generals.
(15:03):
But this is going to be happening with the full
backing of the Department of Justice. You can look at
like what Texas has been doing the past four years. Yeah,
with them investigating not just clinics, but also like parents
of trans kids. Yeah, parents, like individual health care providers.
He was also pledging to investigate like the companies that
make hormones.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
So that's bad.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
There's also the Department of Justice has been making some
incredibly half assed attempts to try to go after some
of the healthcare bans.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
That's all going to stop. They're just going to give
all that up.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
There's also a bunch of bills that could be passed,
depending on the Democrats' willingness to filibuster them. So Trump
has called for a ban of trans people like playing
sports that correspond with their gender, and that may well
pass because the Democrats are cowards, and the Republicans are
going to have a large majority in the Senate. Trump
(15:51):
has also pushed for a ban on gender firming care
for minors, including hrits homo replacement therapy, which is like
one of the main ways transition and puberty blockers. That
one is less likely to make it through the Senate.
But it also again depends on how cowardly the Democrats
are and how much they decide to cave. And this
is the moment that there is another thing that you
(16:11):
can do and you should start doing this right now,
which is this is the moment right now to start
pressuring your congress person about this, like start calling them,
start pressuring them, and start making sure that they don't
fully sort of turn on trans rights. This is just
something that you can concretely do right now, because these
people need to understand that there are consequences for turning
(16:32):
on trans people, because if there aren't consequences, they are
going to do it now. Trump has also called for
a ban on recognizing trans people at a federal level
on like all identification documents things like that also would
outlaw non binary marketings on passports and stuff. That would
also be really bad. That's also something that probably requires
a law. And that's again and everything. Call your congress people,
(16:55):
like pressure them now, start doing it now, do not
wait until he's actually an office.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Like, all of these issues are things that public opinion
has been shifting on greatly the past like two years. Yeah,
these things used to be much more kind of seen
as like, yeah, this like makes sense. This is like
a humane and reasonable effort to include a group of
discriminated people. And now we see in a growing number
a majority of people pull on this issue do not
support these measures. They don't support having the ability to
(17:23):
have your gender marker match your gener identity. They don't
support your ability to participate in public life. And that
is the result of an intentional misinformation campaign and essentially
like a hate crime campaign and a hate speech campaign
that that has been going on for the past like
four years because Republicans knew that they already lost the
battle on like regular gay people, so they moved on
(17:45):
to the next subjugated class. And that's something we've talked
about for a while. And this is like something that
is shifting. So you have to actually verbally express to
your representatives that this is something that you actually do
care about. Otherwise they will look at these like general
polls and be like, oh, this isn't popular anymore and
shift and cave on it. They need to know that
their constituents actually do care about these things if we
(18:06):
want these things to not get passed through Congress.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Yeah, and it's also worth mentioning that a lot of
this people just don't know anything about about trans people
because we're like one percent of the population right now.
Part of the reason the Republican campaign is working is
that people are susceptible to being told things about trans
people and believing them. But that also works for us, right,
it goes both ways. Part of what's been going on
is that, like, we haven't had the kind of giant
(18:30):
advocacy push outside of some trans people, but we have
no money, we have no resources, and we need there
to actually be large, widespread and vocal public support because
otherwise all of the stuff that's happening here is going
to get even worse. And you know the word when
we could get very well, the worst case scenario things
which are full bands for adults. That's the thing that
(18:53):
they could pass through Congress, But right now they don't
have the support for it. Yeah, However, Comma's going to
get to there are signs that the Democratic Party is
deciding to throw us under the bus.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah, not as steadfast on this issue then what we
will probably prefer.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Yeah, And on the state level, I guess the important
thing for the state level is that once we lose
fourteenth Ament protections, it's going to be so much harder
for there to be legal challenges to any of this.
And this means we're going to see a proliferation of
these state level bans on healthcare, even sort of marching.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
Ahead of where the federal government is.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Let's have our last break, and when we come back,
we will close the episode by discussing Trump's focus on
trans issues during his campaign, as well as things that
you can start doing, like right now, to get ready
and prepare for these next four years.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
All right, we are back.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
During the last few months of Trump's campaign, his team
shifted away from the key issues of the economy and
immigration in their national election ad efforts, and specifically honed
in on trans issues as a wedge against Kamala Harris
and the Democrats in general. The infamous Kamala is for
they them ad being the prime example of this. According
(20:17):
to a PBS report, from October seventh to October twentieth,
Trump's campaign and pro Trump groups spent an estimated thirty
nine million dollars on anti trans ads, and Trump ended
up spending more money on these ads than on housing, immigration,
and the economy combined. This was his main focus in
his final ad push, specifically after the September debate. A
(20:41):
new report from journalist Casey Parks using data from ad Impact,
shows that Republicans spent nearly two hundred and fifteen million
dollars on anti trans ads this election cycle. And this
figure does not include cable or streaming ads, this is
just network TV. And these anti trans ads weren't just
focused on the presidential election. Other Republicans in various Senate
(21:04):
races picked up on the success of these anti trans
ads and used them in Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Now,
initially some thought that maybe this would be a repeat
of twenty twenty two. Maybe this extra focus on this
small group of the population wouldn't lead to kind of
electoral successes, pointing to how a similar strategy failed during
(21:25):
the twenty twenty two mid terms, but then election Day
came and we saw that there was a degree of
success or at least these did not hurt them in
any substantial way, and Republicans won many of the Senate
races on anti trans campaign messages. I'm going to quote
from an article in The New York Times called it
Trump and the Republicans bet big on anti trans ads
across the country.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
The kamala Is for the Them ad was rated as
one of his campaigns more effective in September in some
Democratic testing, according to results reviewed by The Times, Republican
strategists said the focus on transgunter women and girls sports
had been particularly effective with a key group of voters
the party had hemorrhaged support from in recent years, college
(22:07):
educated women. One of the things you see in the
focus groups is that the moms get really visibly angry
on this issue, said Jim McLaughlin, a Republican polster who
works for mister Trump and other Republican campaigns. Quote it's
a fairness issue. They don't want their daughters to lose
a scholarship, and they don't want them to get hurt.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Unquote.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
The enthusiasm for this issue kind of lines up with
what me Sophie and Roberts saw at the RNC, where
anti trans statements consistently got the loudest applause. Though some
state level Democrats like Representative Seth Multon of Massachusetts and
Tom Soulsey of New York, as well as some mother
DNZ advisors, have jumped onto the blame game, citing trans
(22:47):
issues as if not the reason, then a reason Democrats
just completely fumble this election, claiming that the Democratic Party
is far to the left on trans issues and the
average American. But largely the Dems were not out campaigning
for trans people loud and proud the selection cycle. Oh,
Trans issues were intentionally pushed off stage at the DNC,
and the Harris campaign tried their hardest to sidestep this issue,
(23:10):
giving vague non answers and whether trans people should be
able to receive healthcare by just stating that her administration
would quote unquote follow the law and invoking states rights
type framing. And I see this as just a massive
failure to confront an issue that Republicans have like slingshot
into the spotlight, and it shows a failure to do
(23:30):
things because it's like the right thing to do, not
just necessarily for some like electoral gain, well.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
Even even on a strategic level.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Right, we saw this with border policy too, Right, exactly
Democrats adopted the Republican's sport policy and then they look
exactly and it's like, yeah, if you just agree or
refuse to contest them on their core issues, then that's
what people are going to believe, because people have a
tendency to believe what their elites are telling them. You
can't defeat these people's ideology by just agreeing with it
or star stepping out of the way a bit.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
That's just lets it's and I think this is going
to be proven to be like the biggest mistake Democrats
made this election cycle, Like, you can't just sed territory
to the right based on a massive disinformation campaign, which
is exactly what the Democrats did on immigration and crime,
and they showed a willingness to do that on trans rights. Now,
even if some of these people that Democrats included claim
to not like hate trans people individually, they have allowed
(24:23):
questions around access to bathrooms, sports and government fund and
healthcare to be used as a wedge against trans rights
as a whole and the ability for trans people to
be able to exist in public life. To close. I
think we should have just a brief discussion on what
people can do specifically during these next seventy five days
and even in the months after, like what people can
(24:43):
do to prepare for some of the worst aspects of this,
specifically on the healthcare front. Now, we did a series
of episodes a few years ago on DIYHRT there are
both pharmaceutical and home brewed options for homones that can
be ordered online. Now since that episode, home brewed distribution
networks have spread throughout the United States. There's probably one
(25:04):
already in whatever city is closest to you. Now, access
to those networks does require a degree of, like in
person community, and I know that can be challenging. You
can certainly do organizing online on discord. You can certainly
find trans people on discord that can help you learn
where pharmaceutical grade estrogen can be ordered online. But that
(25:24):
type of online organizing will only get more dangerous under
a Trump term, especially if the legal status of these
hormones change. So I will always emphasize the importance of
in person community, and it might just take like learning
if there's a trans band in the city you're in
going to some shows, learning where trans people go. Where
(25:45):
trans people gather is their community picnics is their book
fares is their zine fares? Like? Is there like even
gaming conventions? Right, just places that there might be a
number of trans people gathered and talk to them about
being transd talk to them about the issues that you're facing.
It might take a few months to gain trust and
become friends, but that's just how friendships work anyway, and
(26:08):
that can be challenging. And there may not be something
like this in a city super close to you, which
is why online connections are useful, and sometimes it might
require a little bit of travel. Now, what we can do,
at least right now is stockpile things in case things
get harder to maintain or produce. There's multiple forms of
these hormones that can be stored, and I do believe
that there will be some form of home brewed option
(26:31):
that will most likely continue to exist even if prescribed
hormones get restricted. And a part of why I emphasize
kind of doing this in person as well, especially if
you're a minor, that will just get more dangerous to
do under a second Trump term. I will point people
to the website diyhrt dot wiki. It's currently the best
information source on dosing testing, how to find supplies and
(26:54):
options for ordering hormones now, because changing legal paperwork on
the federal or state level often takes a while. If
that's something that you want to do, now is the
time to start. There's still seventy days until Trump takes
office and some of these changes could start being put
into effect. You should absolutely apply for a passport now.
(27:18):
Depending on many variables, it may be advantageous to have
your legal name and gender marker match whatever you more
easily pass as, rather than your gender identity. Now I
understand why this is less than ideal and if you
think that this might just inhibit your transition progress and
push you further back into the closet, especially if the
(27:40):
option of changing your gender marker on federal documents just
like goes away during the next four years, then people
should just go ahead and get that stuff changed asap.
But it's something to reflect on and consider. Lastly, I
want to mention something about personal safety. Over the course
of the past week, I've from friends around the country
(28:02):
experiencing a spike in anti queer and misogynistic violence chuds,
frat boys, and just asshole men have been way more
willing to just openly harass queer people out in public.
Some of this I think is just Trump supporters quote
unquote celebrating the election results. But once Trump takes office,
I expect this type of harassment to start slowly increasing
(28:25):
as truds feel like they can get away with more
just open misogyny, homophobia, racism, etc. I know a lot
of people have been talking about or posting about buying firearms,
and firearms is one of the last things you should
buy in a panic. This is a very careful and
calculated choice for you need to make about your own
personal safety, your own mental health, your own willingness to
(28:48):
carry and train with the gun. This is its own topic,
but I do recommend buying and carrying pepperjel for basically
all queer people and women. It's a great self defense tool.
It spreads less than pepper spray, so you're going to
be less likely to just spray yourself. Saber is a
good brand. Buy it for yourself, buy it for your friends.
(29:10):
Uh Mia, do you have anything else you want to add?
Speaker 4 (29:12):
Yeah? Yeah, two things. One.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
People have been asking for book macrumentation, so we're giving
them to you.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
We're only given to you to you at the end
of the episodes. You got to stay around.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
And I think something that's good to read in this
moment on trans isssues is Julius Serrano's book Whipping Girl.
I've had Julius Runnold on the show before. She is
one of the most important, I mean, honestly like feminist
theorists of the last of this century. And there's a
new additional Whipping Girl that's come out recently, and it
is it is one of the fundamental sort of texts
(29:43):
to understand the experience to transfent people in this country
and why things have gotten the way that they've gotten.
So yeah, go go read Whipping Girl. It's spectacular. And
then I want to plug one more thing that you
can give money to. So I mean again, another very
effective way for s people to support trans people is
give them money, because all of us are unbelievably broke
(30:04):
like all of the time. Another place you can give
money to is the TRANSSICE Funding Project. We'll have that
in this too, when they they give out grants to
other just like trans groups who are doing organizing or
doing other kinds of support work. Mutual land, et cetera,
et cetera. So that's money that goes directly to trans people. Yeah,
and then, obviously, as we've said, this is the forces
(30:25):
people part of the episode. After our after our four
trans people part, go call your congress people, Go pressure them,
Go show up to their offices and make it extremely
clear that it is unacceptable to write off trans people
and that they need to be willing to successfully stop
these writers and successfully do whatever they can to chant
out the works to make sure that the Republicans cannot
(30:48):
pass bills that will harm us even more than the
things that they're already going to do.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
It's happened Here is a production or pool Zone Media.
More podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website foolzonmedia
dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
You listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
You can now find sources for it could Happen here
listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
All media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. I'm
joined by Mia Wong. It's a sort of a new week,
so let's start preparing for what these next few months
are going to look like in the wake of Trump's
election victory last week, So one thing I was thinking
about after the results kind of rolled in and seeing
(00:25):
everyone's reactions online, you have a you know, a mix
of people going full doomer, some people trying to get
hopped up on hopium, some people on copium right, just
trying to like find any psychological way to survive. And
for me, kind of the way I like to survive
is just through information. So this episode, we're going to
get into how we see life for trans people under
(00:46):
a second Trump term, based on both what he's done
in the past, what he's promised to do in the future.
And I know, in like the days after the election,
like LGBTQ, like crisis hotlines all saw massive spike in
people calling in to the point where some people were
even unable to reach someone, And like I understand, this
(01:06):
is a very scary moment in time, and as much
as it might not be fun to hear about how
things are all gonna get worse. There's also some misconceptions,
and I think there's also a degree of power in
actually being able to reasonably ascertain what things could look
like instead of just kind of feeling it out and
just going purely on vibes. So to kind of start,
(01:29):
I guess I'll mention some things that Trump did in
his first term that then got undone by Biden, which
will probably just end up being reinstated. We don't know
these for sure, but that's like a decent guess. So
one of the first things Trump did when he got
into office is he rolled back in Obama era memo
directing schools to protect trans students from discrimination.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah, and that, by the way, discrimination protection is a
constant theme in this episode. It's gonna get a lot worse.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Trump later went on to ban trans people from serving
in the military. He also went after trans making it
so that trans people usually would need to be housed
in prisons and jails according to their assigned sex at birth,
which is of course a very dangerous situation for people incarcerated,
specifically trans women.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yeah, and I think there is good reason to expect
that treatment there is going to get worse. There's been
you know, we'll get into this more later in the episode,
but there's been a real focus on incarcerated trans people
getting health care. Yeah, and this is one of the
things that's kind of ambiguous as to how Trump could
go about trying to stop these people from getting health care.
(02:35):
So the thing about providing healthcare to trans people who
have been incarcerated is that they have to do it. It
is something that is required by the Constitution of the
United States. The Eighth Amendment holds that there is a
ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and withholding medical care
is so obviously a form of cruel unusual punishment that
even staggeringly right wing Supreme courts have been like, no,
(02:57):
you actually have to give people medical care in prison.
So this is one that's going to be a little
bit difficult for him to do. I don't know, he
might find some way to do it. This is one
of the ones where there's a real potential for it
to get worse, and we simply do not know enough
about what legal strategy is going to be here to
say for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
But it's also worth mentioning, like people have had to
fight for access to healthcare in prison, Like, it's not
something that comes easily, Like people have had to sue
to make sure that they get the healthcare that they
are legally required to receive. And we can just assume
that that process will probably be slightly more difficult under
a second Trump term like it was under a first
(03:38):
Trump term, then it may kind of currently be now.
So that's kind of one shift in how things might
be slightly more challenging.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Yeah, And I want to also mention so that analysis
and a lot of the analysis, the policy analysis that
I'm going to be doing going forward, is heavily indebted
to trans policy expert Carin Green, who we've had on
the show a couple of times before Amazing. She was
one of the people who ended up working on compliance
for that lawsuit where Kamala Harris tried to keep transprisoners
(04:07):
from getting healthcare, and she came in and like had
to like ensure that the state of California was doing
it and they weren't. So that's something that has been
fought for, and that's something I mean, the trans community
is small enough that that is the thing that has
specifically been fought for by people who I consulted to
make this episode. So, yeah, these these rights have been
dearly one and it's going to be very hard to
(04:27):
protect them. If I'm doing something where there's there's something
about policy implementation, assume that I talked to Krinn about
this and that's why it's accurate.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
And while I'm.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Doing this, I want to plug a couple of the
projects that she works on. But there's there's something you
can do very immediately right now, before we get into
all of the terrible stuff that's going to happen, which
is you can donate to the Trans Income Project, which
is the project that supports trans people and transsex workers
in particular, which is a lot of trans people and
supports them by just giving them direct cash transfers. They
(04:57):
used to their work too, but yeah, and it direct
caast transfers are one of the most effective ways that
you can help trans people. And if you give money
to this organization, they'll be links in the chat you
can help do this. So let's get into how things
are going to get worse. Unfortunately, trudministration, Congress, and state
legislators have an enormous amount of power to make everything worse.
We're mostly going to be focusing on what Trump and
(05:21):
Congress can do well. We'll get into the legislator's a
bit at the end. So there are a lot of
levers of state power and sort of policy techniques that
Trump can pull here to make things worse. We're going
to go roughly from easiest to hardest to pull off.
So the first lever is federal funding. Probably the easiest
(05:42):
place that this lever can get pulled is in the
education system. Trump can unfortunately fairly easily implement what amounts
to a don't say trans ban on a federal level
by threatening to withhold federal funding for any school that
doesn't mandate things like misgendering and dead dating students and
banned And this is I think he's explicitly talked about
is like banning anyone in classes, any teachers from talking
(06:04):
about traditioning at all. He's also threatened to have teachers
who talk to students about being trans like investigated by
the Department of Justice. We'll get more into Department just
investigations in a bit. He's also used an explicit threat,
the same threat of cutting state funding to stop schools
some letting kids use the right bathroom in the locker
room it's also possible he will do that through Title nine.
(06:27):
But there's a lot of ways that he can do
this very easily that are probably not going to be
able to be stopped. And this is going to get
extremely bad very quickly. Another sort of avenue that he
has is I guess what you'd call like the High
Amendment for trans people. So for people who don't know
what the High Amendment is, the High Amendment is a
writer that bans federal spending on abortion. It's been like modified,
(06:53):
it's not like the one hundred percent band that he
used to be because now there's like exceptions for rape
and incests and stuff life of their parents too. But
it is a very very effective Republican tool. It's actually
also Joe Biden helped implement that that's been used to
limit are access to abortion, and we already have seen
the start of these kind of things even under Biden.
(07:14):
There was a version of this of a kind of
High Amendment for trans healthcare that was an attempt to
get the DoD to not be able to spend money
on trans healthcare. That's already a provision that's been tacked
onto one of the most recent spending bills. That went
through because Joe Manchin like defected and joined the Republicans
to get it onto one of the spending omnibuses, and
(07:35):
that was again just for the Department of Defense. We
are very likely to see versions of these attached to
every single spending bill that explicitly say that government funding
cannot be used for trans healthcare. It will definitely be
used to do to say you can't use it for
trans healthcare for minors. It is possible this will be
expanded to adults. We don't know. It depends how far
(07:55):
there's sort of anti trans I don't know the arrangement goes,
but that that is a real danger. And this can
also be expanded to refusing to allow Medicare and Medicaid
to pay for anything at a clinic that does trans healthcare,
even if the money isn't funding the healthcare. That's also
possible that would be absolutely catastrophic for the medical system.
(08:19):
Even just a government band that you know, prevents things
like Medicare and Medicaid and like government health care from
covering transition in the first place is a disaster. But
if they go further and you know, prevent clinics who
like provide trans healthcare from taking Medicare and Medicaid. That's
bad enough that I think that is in terms of
(08:40):
what is the thing we most need to be worried
about right now, I think that's the worst possible thing
that can happen very quickly, because.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
It could basically pressure medical clinics into refusing to offer
any kind of gender affirming care because it would threaten
their just base ability to operate as a medical clinic
taking Medicare, Medicaid, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Yeah, this is the thing I talked about a bit
in our Agenda forty seven episode on this. But this
is this effectually create It's like Sophie's choice for these
clinics because it's either you treat trans people who have
private insurance, right, or you can treat like people who
have who are a medicaa Medicaid. So it's like, okay,
either either you let trans people get fucked or you
(09:15):
let like every poor person or old person in the
US like eat shit.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
So there aren't good options here for that.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
How do we think something like this would be implemented?
Like is this an executive order or does this have
to go through Congress?
Speaker 4 (09:29):
So that's the other part about this. That's very bad.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
The way this is being done is these things are
attached to what are called writers to spending bills. So
any spending bill Republican's put in front of the House,
they will have this like provision in it, right, And
the really big problem for us is that spending bills
usually get past now out of this thing called Senate reconciliation.
And the thing about Senate reconciliation is that you can't
(09:53):
fill a buster them, so these can just get rammed
through really really quickly, and there's not going to be
enough opposition in the House to stop it either. So
I mean, some of this stuff probably could be done
with executive orders, but it's quite possible you won't even
need that because it can just be rammed through in
spending bills, which.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Is a little bit harder to undo from my understanding.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
Yeah, yeah, executive orders can be overturned by the next guy,
whereas getting these provisions out is going to take a
long time. Yeah, you know, this is another issue that
we have. The map for the Democrats retaking the Senate
is terrible in twenty twenty six, and it's bad in
twenty twenty eight two. So I still don't think this
is being recorded Friday. I don't think we still actually
know what their majority in the Senate's going to be.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
But it's a lot.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
And also we know that Joe Manchin is willing to
vote for stuff like this because he's done it already,
So this is probably coming quickly. It basically depends on
how good their policy people are, which who knows. But yeah,
this is not going to be difficult for them to
implement and it's going to be extremely damaging.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Well, that was a lot. Let's take a little bit
of a break and will we come back, take another
look into what life could be like under a second
Trump term.
Speaker 4 (11:18):
We are back.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
So the threat to trans people does not only come
from Congress and the President. One of the things that's
almost certainly going to happen very soon is there is
currently a case about a trans healthcare band from Miners
and Tennessee in front of the Supreme Court. It's called
Scrimetti versus Us. We are almost certainly going to lose this.
(11:40):
Not losing this requires a bunch of extremely unlikely things happening,
and this is very, very bad. What Scrimetti versus Us
is probably going to cost us is trans people as
a group being protected by the fourteenth Amendment. So the
fourteenth Amendment is supposed to provide everyone equal protection under
the law. The way that's been interpreted is that if
(12:01):
you're passing a law that directly targets a group, there
are certain levels of scrutiny that have to be applied
to it to see whether or not it's discriminatory and
can be allowed to proceed. What's probably going to happen
here is that trans people aren't going to be held
as protected at all, which means that the fourteenth Amendment
will not protect us from things that are unbelievably obviously discriminatory,
(12:22):
like healthcare bands for youth, which is again literally the
same procedures that are happening for trans children are done
to SIS children all the time, and it's fine. Yeah,
so this is very obviously discrimination. We're probably going to
lose it because the Supreme Court is full of a
bunch of the worst people in the entire world. It
is technically possible that Gorstch defects and drags someone else
(12:42):
over and we get a thing that says we have
intermediate scrutiny. That would be the best win we could
possibly get on this. It's extremely it's unlikely. We're probably
going to lose it. And this is also going to
overturn the landmark case Bostock versus Clayton County, which is
the one that rules that you can't discriminate against transpeople
based on gener identity.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Specifically for like employers as well.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Yeah, for employees. Is specifically for employers. So what we
could very well be about to lose. And again, this
is another thing that's very high likelihood because this case
they're ready in front of the Supreme Court, and the
Supreme Court hates us. We could be about to lose
employment discrimination protections now. To be fair, and I think
most trans people who are listening to the show know this.
I don't know how many SIS people understand this, but
(13:25):
the level of trans employment discrimination in the workplace is unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah, this isn't really enforced at all. Yeah, it's pretty bad.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
It is something that right now is technically possible to
do and you're not allowed to just straight up to
say it. But you know, like there is a reason
that the unemployment rate for trans people is like three
times as high. No, it's actually it's Yeah, I think
it's about three times as high as the rate for
SIS people. Right we don't have great data. There's some
data from the Trans Student Survey from twenty twenty two,
(13:56):
but the full report isn't out yet. But what I
will say is that the the trans level of unemployed
unemployment right now in the US is very low. The
level of unemployment for trans people is nineteen thirty six,
great depression levels, and this is before we lose these protections.
It is also worth noting this will not overturn like
state level of protections. So if you're in a state
that like has specifically bandit, you will have some more recourse.
(14:19):
But we're losing fourteenth medic protections. But a federal level
would basically allow explicit employment discrimination. Yeah, if someone's trans,
it's possible that case goes like marginally better for us
and that doesn't happen. But it's hard to see how
that would happen. The lawyers I talked to you will
say this is not this is not a legal opinion,
(14:40):
but they seem to think that this is how this
would go, and the policy people seem to think it'd
be going the same way. Yeah, there's some other things
that can happen. Trump has been promising, We're going to
get federal investigations into clinics that provide gender affirming care,
also into hospitals. You know, there's gonna be enormous legal harassment.
This has already been happening on a sort of lower level,
but from sort of individual lawsuits and state attorney generals.
(15:03):
But this is going to be happening with the full
backing of the Department of Justice. You can look at
like what Texas has been doing the past four years. Yeah,
with them investigating not just clinics, but also like parents
of trans kids. Yeah, parents, like individual health care providers.
He was also pledging to investigate like the companies that
make hormones.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
So that's bad.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
There's also the Department of Justice has been making some
incredibly half assed attempts to try to go after some
of the healthcare bans.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
That's all going to stop. They're just going to give
all that up.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
There's also a bunch of bills that could be passed,
depending on the Democrats' willingness to filibuster them. So Trump
has called for a ban of trans people like playing
sports that correspond with their gender, and that may well
pass because the Democrats are cowards, and the Republicans are
going to have a large majority in the Senate. Trump
(15:51):
has also pushed for a ban on gender firming care
for minors, including hrits homo replacement therapy, which is like
one of the main ways transition and puberty blockers. That
one is less likely to make it through the Senate.
But it also again depends on how cowardly the Democrats
are and how much they decide to cave. And this
is the moment that there is another thing that you
(16:11):
can do and you should start doing this right now,
which is this is the moment right now to start
pressuring your congress person about this, like start calling them,
start pressuring them, and start making sure that they don't
fully sort of turn on trans rights. This is just
something that you can concretely do right now, because these
people need to understand that there are consequences for turning
(16:32):
on trans people, because if there aren't consequences, they are
going to do it now. Trump has also called for
a ban on recognizing trans people at a federal level
on like all identification documents things like that also would
outlaw non binary marketings on passports and stuff. That would
also be really bad. That's also something that probably requires
a law. And that's again and everything. Call your congress people,
(16:55):
like pressure them now, start doing it now, do not
wait until he's actually an office.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Like, all of these issues are things that public opinion
has been shifting on greatly the past like two years. Yeah,
these things used to be much more kind of seen
as like, yeah, this like makes sense. This is like
a humane and reasonable effort to include a group of
discriminated people. And now we see in a growing number
a majority of people pull on this issue do not
support these measures. They don't support having the ability to
(17:23):
have your gender marker match your gener identity. They don't
support your ability to participate in public life. And that
is the result of an intentional misinformation campaign and essentially
like a hate crime campaign and a hate speech campaign
that that has been going on for the past like
four years because Republicans knew that they already lost the
battle on like regular gay people, so they moved on
(17:45):
to the next subjugated class. And that's something we've talked
about for a while. And this is like something that
is shifting. So you have to actually verbally express to
your representatives that this is something that you actually do
care about. Otherwise they will look at these like general
polls and be like, oh, this isn't popular anymore and
shift and cave on it. They need to know that
their constituents actually do care about these things if we
(18:06):
want these things to not get passed through Congress.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Yeah, and it's also worth mentioning that a lot of
this people just don't know anything about about trans people
because we're like one percent of the population right now.
Part of the reason the Republican campaign is working is
that people are susceptible to being told things about trans
people and believing them. But that also works for us, right,
it goes both ways. Part of what's been going on
is that, like, we haven't had the kind of giant
(18:30):
advocacy push outside of some trans people, but we have
no money, we have no resources, and we need there
to actually be large, widespread and vocal public support because
otherwise all of the stuff that's happening here is going
to get even worse. And you know the word when
we could get very well, the worst case scenario things
which are full bands for adults. That's the thing that
(18:53):
they could pass through Congress, But right now they don't
have the support for it. Yeah, However, Comma's going to
get to there are signs that the Democratic Party is
deciding to throw us under the bus.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah, not as steadfast on this issue then what we
will probably prefer.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Yeah, And on the state level, I guess the important
thing for the state level is that once we lose
fourteenth Ament protections, it's going to be so much harder
for there to be legal challenges to any of this.
And this means we're going to see a proliferation of
these state level bans on healthcare, even sort of marching.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
Ahead of where the federal government is.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Let's have our last break, and when we come back,
we will close the episode by discussing Trump's focus on
trans issues during his campaign, as well as things that
you can start doing, like right now, to get ready
and prepare for these next four years.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
All right, we are back.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
During the last few months of Trump's campaign, his team
shifted away from the key issues of the economy and
immigration in their national election ad efforts, and specifically honed
in on trans issues as a wedge against Kamala Harris
and the Democrats in general. The infamous Kamala is for
they them ad being the prime example of this. According
(20:17):
to a PBS report, from October seventh to October twentieth,
Trump's campaign and pro Trump groups spent an estimated thirty
nine million dollars on anti trans ads, and Trump ended
up spending more money on these ads than on housing, immigration,
and the economy combined. This was his main focus in
his final ad push, specifically after the September debate. A
(20:41):
new report from journalist Casey Parks using data from ad Impact,
shows that Republicans spent nearly two hundred and fifteen million
dollars on anti trans ads this election cycle. And this
figure does not include cable or streaming ads, this is
just network TV. And these anti trans ads weren't just
focused on the presidential election. Other Republicans in various Senate
(21:04):
races picked up on the success of these anti trans
ads and used them in Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Now,
initially some thought that maybe this would be a repeat
of twenty twenty two. Maybe this extra focus on this
small group of the population wouldn't lead to kind of
electoral successes, pointing to how a similar strategy failed during
(21:25):
the twenty twenty two mid terms, but then election Day
came and we saw that there was a degree of
success or at least these did not hurt them in
any substantial way, and Republicans won many of the Senate
races on anti trans campaign messages. I'm going to quote
from an article in The New York Times called it
Trump and the Republicans bet big on anti trans ads
across the country.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
The kamala Is for the Them ad was rated as
one of his campaigns more effective in September in some
Democratic testing, according to results reviewed by The Times, Republican
strategists said the focus on transgunter women and girls sports
had been particularly effective with a key group of voters
the party had hemorrhaged support from in recent years, college
(22:07):
educated women. One of the things you see in the
focus groups is that the moms get really visibly angry
on this issue, said Jim McLaughlin, a Republican polster who
works for mister Trump and other Republican campaigns. Quote it's
a fairness issue. They don't want their daughters to lose
a scholarship, and they don't want them to get hurt.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Unquote.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
The enthusiasm for this issue kind of lines up with
what me Sophie and Roberts saw at the RNC, where
anti trans statements consistently got the loudest applause. Though some
state level Democrats like Representative Seth Multon of Massachusetts and
Tom Soulsey of New York, as well as some mother
DNZ advisors, have jumped onto the blame game, citing trans
(22:47):
issues as if not the reason, then a reason Democrats
just completely fumble this election, claiming that the Democratic Party
is far to the left on trans issues and the
average American. But largely the Dems were not out campaigning
for trans people loud and proud the selection cycle. Oh,
Trans issues were intentionally pushed off stage at the DNC,
and the Harris campaign tried their hardest to sidestep this issue,
(23:10):
giving vague non answers and whether trans people should be
able to receive healthcare by just stating that her administration
would quote unquote follow the law and invoking states rights
type framing. And I see this as just a massive
failure to confront an issue that Republicans have like slingshot
into the spotlight, and it shows a failure to do
(23:30):
things because it's like the right thing to do, not
just necessarily for some like electoral gain, well.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
Even even on a strategic level.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Right, we saw this with border policy too, Right, exactly
Democrats adopted the Republican's sport policy and then they look
exactly and it's like, yeah, if you just agree or
refuse to contest them on their core issues, then that's
what people are going to believe, because people have a
tendency to believe what their elites are telling them. You
can't defeat these people's ideology by just agreeing with it
or star stepping out of the way a bit.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
That's just lets it's and I think this is going
to be proven to be like the biggest mistake Democrats
made this election cycle, Like, you can't just sed territory
to the right based on a massive disinformation campaign, which
is exactly what the Democrats did on immigration and crime,
and they showed a willingness to do that on trans rights. Now,
even if some of these people that Democrats included claim
to not like hate trans people individually, they have allowed
(24:23):
questions around access to bathrooms, sports and government fund and
healthcare to be used as a wedge against trans rights
as a whole and the ability for trans people to
be able to exist in public life. To close. I
think we should have just a brief discussion on what
people can do specifically during these next seventy five days
and even in the months after, like what people can
(24:43):
do to prepare for some of the worst aspects of this,
specifically on the healthcare front. Now, we did a series
of episodes a few years ago on DIYHRT there are
both pharmaceutical and home brewed options for homones that can
be ordered online. Now since that episode, home brewed distribution
networks have spread throughout the United States. There's probably one
(25:04):
already in whatever city is closest to you. Now, access
to those networks does require a degree of, like in
person community, and I know that can be challenging. You
can certainly do organizing online on discord. You can certainly
find trans people on discord that can help you learn
where pharmaceutical grade estrogen can be ordered online. But that
(25:24):
type of online organizing will only get more dangerous under
a Trump term, especially if the legal status of these
hormones change. So I will always emphasize the importance of
in person community, and it might just take like learning
if there's a trans band in the city you're in
going to some shows, learning where trans people go. Where
(25:45):
trans people gather is their community picnics is their book
fares is their zine fares? Like? Is there like even
gaming conventions? Right, just places that there might be a
number of trans people gathered and talk to them about
being transd talk to them about the issues that you're facing.
It might take a few months to gain trust and
become friends, but that's just how friendships work anyway, and
(26:08):
that can be challenging. And there may not be something
like this in a city super close to you, which
is why online connections are useful, and sometimes it might
require a little bit of travel. Now, what we can do,
at least right now is stockpile things in case things
get harder to maintain or produce. There's multiple forms of
these hormones that can be stored, and I do believe
that there will be some form of home brewed option
(26:31):
that will most likely continue to exist even if prescribed
hormones get restricted. And a part of why I emphasize
kind of doing this in person as well, especially if
you're a minor, that will just get more dangerous to
do under a second Trump term. I will point people
to the website diyhrt dot wiki. It's currently the best
information source on dosing testing, how to find supplies and
(26:54):
options for ordering hormones now, because changing legal paperwork on
the federal or state level often takes a while. If
that's something that you want to do, now is the
time to start. There's still seventy days until Trump takes
office and some of these changes could start being put
into effect. You should absolutely apply for a passport now.
(27:18):
Depending on many variables, it may be advantageous to have
your legal name and gender marker match whatever you more
easily pass as, rather than your gender identity. Now I
understand why this is less than ideal and if you
think that this might just inhibit your transition progress and
push you further back into the closet, especially if the
(27:40):
option of changing your gender marker on federal documents just
like goes away during the next four years, then people
should just go ahead and get that stuff changed asap.
But it's something to reflect on and consider. Lastly, I
want to mention something about personal safety. Over the course
of the past week, I've from friends around the country
(28:02):
experiencing a spike in anti queer and misogynistic violence chuds,
frat boys, and just asshole men have been way more
willing to just openly harass queer people out in public.
Some of this I think is just Trump supporters quote
unquote celebrating the election results. But once Trump takes office,
I expect this type of harassment to start slowly increasing
(28:25):
as truds feel like they can get away with more
just open misogyny, homophobia, racism, etc. I know a lot
of people have been talking about or posting about buying firearms,
and firearms is one of the last things you should
buy in a panic. This is a very careful and
calculated choice for you need to make about your own
personal safety, your own mental health, your own willingness to
(28:48):
carry and train with the gun. This is its own topic,
but I do recommend buying and carrying pepperjel for basically
all queer people and women. It's a great self defense tool.
It spreads less than pepper spray, so you're going to
be less likely to just spray yourself. Saber is a
good brand. Buy it for yourself, buy it for your friends.
(29:10):
Uh Mia, do you have anything else you want to add?
Speaker 4 (29:12):
Yeah? Yeah, two things. One.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
People have been asking for book macrumentation, so we're giving
them to you.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
We're only given to you to you at the end
of the episodes. You got to stay around.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
And I think something that's good to read in this
moment on trans isssues is Julius Serrano's book Whipping Girl.
I've had Julius Runnold on the show before. She is
one of the most important, I mean, honestly like feminist
theorists of the last of this century. And there's a
new additional Whipping Girl that's come out recently, and it
is it is one of the fundamental sort of texts
(29:43):
to understand the experience to transfent people in this country
and why things have gotten the way that they've gotten.
So yeah, go go read Whipping Girl. It's spectacular. And
then I want to plug one more thing that you
can give money to. So I mean again, another very
effective way for s people to support trans people is
give them money, because all of us are unbelievably broke
(30:04):
like all of the time. Another place you can give
money to is the TRANSSICE Funding Project. We'll have that
in this too, when they they give out grants to
other just like trans groups who are doing organizing or
doing other kinds of support work. Mutual land, et cetera,
et cetera. So that's money that goes directly to trans people. Yeah,
and then, obviously, as we've said, this is the forces
(30:25):
people part of the episode. After our after our four
trans people part, go call your congress people, Go pressure them,
Go show up to their offices and make it extremely
clear that it is unacceptable to write off trans people
and that they need to be willing to successfully stop
these writers and successfully do whatever they can to chant
out the works to make sure that the Republicans cannot
(30:48):
pass bills that will harm us even more than the
things that they're already going to do.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
It's happened Here is a production or pool Zone Media.
More podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website foolzonmedia
dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
You listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
You can now find sources for it could Happen here
listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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