Latest / Dumb Defenses / 13. Accomplices, not Allies
Transcript
- Frankie: Hello and welcome back to Dumb Defenses, the podcast where we go around the world and through time to bring you the weirdest legal theories. I'm Frankie. Judah: I'm Judah. Frankie: And Judah, what fresh hell have you brought for us today? Judah: Okay, so this is not fresh hell. This is I mean it it's been ongoing hell. Frankie: mildly stale hell. Judah: It's been ongoing hell. But I wanted to talk to you about Hunter Biden. Frankie: Okay, that is mildly stale hell. Judah: no it's not because it goes with our topic of the week. So Hunter Biden Frankie: I must've missed this. Judah: have you not heard this? Frankie: I may not have. Judah: Hunter Biden is of course the son of former president Joe Biden. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: He's a person in recovery Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: and the right wing has really gone after Hunter Biden in particular, Frankie: Yeah Judah: accusing him of all kinds of things that were proven absolutely false. But then out of nowhere, he shows up on a podcast that I've never listened to. But Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: I mean go ahead, listen to it. The podcast is I've had it with Jennifer Welch. Frankie: Okay. Judah: And he asserted that there's a closeted gay mafia, or what he calls it a closetocracy among right wing politicians in Washington, DC. Frankie: I believe it. Judah: Yeah, he says, okay, so there's this open like it's an open secret. There's all these super like repressed, closeted, but sexually active. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: specifically gay men in Frankie: I believe it. Judah: power in DC. And he's been on other things and they're like, Do you really believe this? And yeah, a hundred percent. he's doubling down this has come back to attention recently, but he had some theories on Seth Myers a couple of Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: years ago. But now this is going around and what I'm loving is just how stern he is about this. He's just listen, listen. Frankie: He's like, this is truth. Judah: This is the truth. and I remember a period, I would say first term second term of George W. Bush, Frankie: Okay. Judah: where there was this very active religious movement that claimed to be able to change your sexuality through what they called reparative therapy. Frankie: Conversion therapy. Judah: Conversion therapy. Frankie: which is child abuse. Judah: Yeah. it is, I know, I've experienced some of it. It definitely is. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: and this had been hanging around for a long time, this idea that, here's all these things that are gonna fix your sexuality and which doesn't need fixing. Frankie: For those who don't have video because we don't do videos yet, I just said fixed with air quotes very very quietly. Judah: Quotes It's not fixed there was this prominent movement, the most prominent one, that linked itself strongly to some very high powered right wing political groups. And it was called Exodus International. And supposedly their purpose you know, we're seeing a a lot of decades of work come to fruition and a lot of queer and trans rights starting to get protected across Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: the country, not federally, about this time. And so they're coming in and saying, well, we can fix you. it's a mutable thing and there was this series, like one right after the other, where all of the all All Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: of the profiled leaders of this Exodus movement were caught like in gay bars or picking Frankie: You Judah: up sex workers or people who just left and spoke out against it. there's a documentary about it I felt really bad for her, this woman, very, very young woman who was like stuffed into this movement against her will as a literal child. who was very young was talking about it. She's now happily married to a woman. she left, and these people who used to lead the movement have come out and spoken out against it. I think two of them were in a relationship with each other. You know, find love in the most awkward place. so that happened and shortly thereafter there was A very anti-gay United States senator named Larry Craig Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: who was busted by an undercover police officer at an airport doing this indication, this foot tapping thing that you like bump against somebody else's foot and it's a sign That you want to get down in this airport bathroom. And he's got this famous quote that like he wasn't trying to do this foot tapping thing, just when he poops, he's got a really wide stance. But his leg was like under the divider Frankie: Under the next door. Judah: next door. this has come out a few times and Now nearly twenty years later, 'cause the Larry Craig thing happened in two thousand and seven. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: we have Hunter Biden being like there's still this closetocracy and there's all these repressed, open secret, gay men who are privately having Frankie: Relations Judah: sexual relations with other men and publicly trying to tear apart all of gay rights and denouncing gay people. And I just wanted to bring that forward 'cause I watched a subsequent interview with Hunter Biden. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: I'll try and find it so we can put it in the show notes. Frankie: That'd be great, yeah. Judah: And I was like, you know what? I never really thought that much about Hunter Biden. I like him. Frankie: Yeah. with how much stuff is going on these days too, I wouldn't doubt that there's some of that going on. Judah: Well, what you can take away with you is this argument that former United States Senator Larry Craig just his Frankie: has a really wide stance. Judah: I mean, how wide do you're just think about how Frankie: Was he, I tall? Like, long-legged? Maybe? Judah: Well let's just Google. How tall was Larry Craig? There's no Frankie: No indication. Judah: no public records documenting the measurements of Frankie: Cause like, I could imagine if somebody's like super tall, cause some of those stalls are tiny, right? Judah: But his feet were tapping on another person's foot in the stall next door. So it's not just like he's in the other stall. He's gone and he's hitting the foot of somebody else and tapping on it to be like, Hey, you want some action? Frankie: I mean, I am a small person. I am five foot two, okay? I am little. And there are some public restroom stalls that are very claustrophobic for me. Judah: Okay, so I guess you're defending this homophobic senator. Frankie: I'm not necessarily defending the autism is like, what is the physics of this? Judah: it says here on Pioneer Press that he was less than six feet tall. Frankie: Okay, so less of an excuse to be like, Judah: Well Frankie: just have a wide stance. Judah: I just have a wide stance. so you tell us, listeners, and I hope this makes the clip, how far apart are your feet when you're taking a dump? 'Cause Frankie: Yeah. Judah: it would have to be, four or five feet apart, your feet. With your ass still on the toilet. Frankie: I, there's some, there's some like reaching going on there. I don't know. Anyways, moving on. I had not, I had Judah: Okay. So I can't believe you hadn't heard about Hunter Biden's closetocracy theory. Frankie: not, I mean, he's not the only one, right? Like Judah: No. Frankie: there are plenty of other people insinuating that various members of Congress are in fact gay. but I had not heard that this is a theory that he broadcasts. Judah: He's broadcast. And bless him. Bless you for saying what we're all thinking, Hunter Biden. Frankie: Yep. Judah: I wanted to do something a little bit more lighthearted since we're doing two pretty Frankie: Pretty heavy, yeah. Judah: pretty heavy anyway, Senator Larry Craig, the wide pooper, Frankie: Yes. Judah: ultimately did plead guilty to just disorderly conduct. Frankie: for playing footsie with the cop? Judah: Yeah. I think he was charged with solicitation. Frankie: yeah. Judah: Yeah. Frankie: That is a thing that they do. Judah: I'm looking at a picture of him. He's not cute. There's this mug shot. Nope. Frankie: Well, we can drop that in the show notes also. So things that we're talking about today Judah: Yeah it Frankie: are the opening riots that led to the current Pride movement. I'm gonna be talking about the Stonewall riot. My sources are a... article called June 29th, 1961, Stonewall Riots from the Zin Education Project, a PBS article on milestones in the American gay rights movement. Today in History on June 28th from the Library of Congress. Queer Power, a column in Rat Subterranean News, July 1969 edition, subtitled. Fags Against Pigs in Stonewall Bust. I will be putting that into the show notes because it is a primary source and it's a lot of fun. So we're looking at the 1950s where there were increasing movements against the gay community. Such things included on December 15th, 1950, the Senate distributed a report entitled employment of homosexuals and other sex perverts in government to members of Congress, just to give you an idea of which direction they were leaning. The government as part of the Lavender Scare during the Cold War was investigating federal employees' sexual orientation, and during this 4,380 military members were discharged and 500 federal employees were fired as a result. The report stated that, quote, those who engage in overt acts of perversion lack the emotional stability of normal persons, end quote. And this leads into the next thing that happened. In 1952, the American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disturbance in the first edition of the DSM. The DSM, Diagnostic and Statistics Manual for Mental Health, is the handbook. for diagnosing mental illness. Not to be used for forensic evaluations, and yet we do it anyways. It says, in the disclaimer, like, please don't use this for forensic evaluations. Judah: Well, another anti-gay leader who is I think not as well known today, but does famously have, I believe, a gay granddaughter, is Anita Bryant. Frankie: Mmm. Judah: she came later in the late seventies. She was best known for being a spokesperson for Florida Orange Juice. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: I don't know why orange juice needs a spokesperson. It's orange juice. Frankie: Right. Judah: and she started this vitriolic campaign called Save Our Children. Frankie: Hmm. Allow me to roll my eyes out loud. Hmm. Judah: That was trying to overturn a local ordinance in Florida that was banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. And she was pretty awful. I mean, just very open, saying the inside thoughts out loud. Which is is back. It's back with force. Frankie: Yeah, but just coming back. Yeah, it's back with force. Judah: But something. to hold in your heart on those dark days like today is a gay rights activist famously pied her on live television. Frankie: Nice. Judah: And for all of our queer and trans listeners, we are a part of your community and Frankie: Yep. Judah: I'm gonna share with you Anita Bryant getting pied, and I want you to have that in your heart. Frankie: Yep, that will be in the shownotes So when the DSM came out with this diagnostic criteria in it, there was definitely some criticism of it due to lack of empirical evidence because as it turns out, queer people are not inherently bad. there were, other opinions turning against this theory later in the 50s after Evelyn Hooker did a study that showed that queer and straight people performed similarly on Rorschach testing and other psychological testing. Now, it's bullshit, Judah: Even though Rorschach testing is Frankie: but it was commonly used at the time and the fact that people were scoring similarly whether they were gay or straight, even though it's a bullshit test, if people are performing equally on the bullshit test, then It's still statistically significant. Judah: Yes. so on this classifying queerness as an illness Frankie: sociopathic illness. Judah: sociopathic illness, Sweden adopted that policy later and they Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: classified homosexuality as an illness, kind of as it's out of vogue in the States. Frankie: Well, so gender dysphoria, I believe, is still in the DSM-5, but I think that is more of as necessity because you can't get medical treatment without a diagnosis. So, Judah: Yes, okay. That's not what that's not where I was going. Frankie: okay. Judah: Let me finish my thoughts. So Frankie: Okay. Judah: homosexuality was classified as an illness in Sweden in 1979. Frankie: That's recent. Judah: Briefly. Briefly. Because a bunch of Swedes in protest called in gay to work. Frankie: well played. Judah: Just feeling too gay to come into work. Frankie: I love it. Judah: And that is one of my favorite protests ever. I'm sorry, I'm just I'm feeling a little too gay to come in. You have to give me sick time. Frankie: That is amazing. That is amazing. That's amazing. Some other stuff that was going on in the 50s. On April 27th, 1953, Eisenhower signed executive order 10-450 banning homosexuals from working for the federal government or any contractors citing, quote, security risks. Judah: And he's another where there's closet rumors. Closet rumors are bound. Frankie: Where there's closet rumors. So laws regulating the queer community were abundant throughout the United States at the state level. There were laws criminalizing homosexual conduct as well as utilizing nuisance laws such as disorderly conduct to harass the queer community. It was also illegal to sell alcohol to queer people in New York City until 1966 under New York Penal Code 240.35 sub four, an individual could not wear more than three items of clothing that did not match their gender assigned at birth. Judah: And I would like to actually pick it up here in nineteen sixty six with that law to talk about the Comptons Cafeteria riot. Frankie: Right, because that chronologically happened before Stonewall. OK, go for it. Judah: Yes, three years before Stonewall. Frankie: Yep. Judah: So talking about these so called cross-dressing laws, they are prevalent across the United States. And if we're thinking about a framework of understanding queer and trans people at the time, it's not at all like we understand. queer and trans people today. So Frankie: Correct. Judah: in a lot of ways, historically, you don't see separation in gender expression and sexual orientation. there is not what we understand today as like transgender movement. So there's kind of cross dressers, drag queens, and trans people that are shoved into kind of the same melting pot and a lot of that is understood kind of socioculturally as just kind of queerness which then is a slur. Frankie: Yes. Judah: Well San Francisco for a long time because of its you know international connections, navy connections, being a port city, has been a haven For queer and trans people and gender diverse people. But in nineteen sixty-six, it's still very dangerous and very outlawed to be Frankie: Yes. Judah: a queer and trans person in San Francisco. And I was first made aware of the Comptons Cafeteria Riot because of a fabulous work of art called Tales of the City. and it's a really seminal queer work and I and I recommend checking it out. where that was referenced. There is a documentary by Susan Stryker that interviews people who are actually involved in the Comptons Cafeteer riots. Now say what you want about Susan Stryker because she's not without her problems. seeing That work I still think is really important. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: And I looked at web archive articles from glbthistory.org, and there is a good article called Before Stonewall. where there was the Cooper's Donuts and the Compton's Cafeteria riots Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: by Daniel Villarreal. And And important side note is that today LGBDQ plus activists are fighting against the current ownership of the building and fighting for recognition for the Comptons cafeteria building, which is currently owned by a private prison corporation with close ties to ICE. Frankie: Ew. Judah: Yes, so you can currently support that effort to reclaim the Comptons cafeteria site from a from a private prison company, which is pretty high on the level of peak evilness, and was exactly the kind of people benefiting the most from Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: queer and trans oppression, and still do today. so there's these laws, these anti-cross-dressing laws, and the other important thing that's drawing trans people to the tenderloin district in San Francisco, and specifically trans people, is an individual by the name of Dr. Harry Benjamin. Dr. Harry Benjamin is one of the absolute first and probably first public physician. To provide medical gender affirming treatments. He famously treated a woman named Christine Jorgensen, who's the first trans woman really public and out with her transness in the United States. And also in nineteen sixty-six before the riot, he published a book called The Transsexual Phenomenon. which begins a medical understanding of trans people and is a push towards acceptance. Also in San Francisco, in the Tenderloin district, is the Glide Memorial Church. And people might be surprised to learn how involved a Christian church was in this really early queer and trans rights. So they're a super progressive, radical offshoot of the United Methodist Church. And they are open and accepting and advocating on behalf of queer and trans people in San Francisco in the 60s and a lot of organizing is going on in the church. Frankie: Which is awesome. Judah: Which is awesome. And as we see as we will see In the Stonewall riots, a lot of similar social conditions are existing for specifically trans women and trans femmes. They are hyper-marginalized, Frankie: Yes. Judah: most frequently targeted by law enforcement, regularly victims of violence, and a large number of trans women and trans femmes are forced into sex work because that was the option available to them and it's also really dangerous. Frankie: and it's super dangerous. Judah: what was particularly making this extra dangerous, also sex work is real work. and it's Yeah. As yeah. Frankie: It is as long as it's done, as long as people are allowed to do it ethically, right? As long as people are being treated as employees and as workers and not as ragdolls. Judah: Yes and that is not something that was available. So Frankie: Right. Judah: businesses are kicking people out, they don't want it's called hustling, they don't want any hustlers in. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: And the early gay rights movement started what we still see today was like we are gay and they are trans and we are okay and we can Frankie: There was a deaf vision, yeah. Judah: Yeah, and we can be normal. I'm d normal in big quotes and but they can't and we are not them. And so even in gay clubs, transgender women and femmes are pushed out. So where do they go? They are going to the Compton's Cafeteria. by the way, the documentary is called Scre Screaming Queens The Ride at Compton's Cafeteria. It's from 2005. so they are collecting and socializing at just a like a regular cafeteria joint. It's not a bar, it's not a club, it is a cafeteria. And also just kind of like hanging out. And the cafeteria managers, it was kind of a chain. so there was more than one Compton's cafeteria. Didn't like these people hanging out in there. So regularly called the cops on them. Regularly. And This night in nineteen sixty six it was described by a woman who was there as being really hot. Comptons calls the cops on a group of women for being raucous and loitering. The cops show up and get pretty immediately violent with this group of women. women or trans femmes. Some people aren't around to tell us, you know, how they're identifying. We don't want to historically put a label on people. And a woman stands up and hucks a cup of hot coffee in one of the cops' faces. them just chucks a cup of coffee at him. And then the cops start going really at the trans women, we'll just call ladies, because a lot of are around to say, yeah, I'm a lady. they are over it. They are Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: over it. And they fight back. Well, who joins in the ruckus? But two groups of queer youth, the Vanguard and a group called the Street Orphans, which is a group of radical lesbian young people. And I love Frankie: You Judah: them all. And so they have this big fight, this right, they take it to the street. The Comptons big picture window is smashed. And they're going after each other. The next day, the vanguard and the street orphans organize a massive protest in front of Compton's. Compton's had replaced the big picture window and they smashed that. the kids are alright. Now they're older kids, but the kids are alright. those groups are really some that are sponsored by the Glide Memorial Church. The riot itself generates a movement in San Francisco. And what's really interesting about the Comptons cafeteria riot that is different than how we see Stonewall being portrayed is this is really a trans specific Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: movement. riot and the after effects of that Frankie: Right. Judah: riot. There's an article I didn't put in there and I didn't read, but Young Homo's Pickett Comptons. in one of the local San Francisco Frankie: The titles of these articles are amazing. Judah: the Vanguard later that year host a protest of the massive police sweeps that are happening in the tenderloin that are targeting queer and trans people and they call it the street sweep. And they had about fifty people and they're literally sweeping up the streets and cleaning up, but they're also trying to demonstrate that this is trash, what we're cleaning up is trash, and that queer and trans people are not garbage. their slogan was all trash is before the broom and it's pushing back against the idea that this community, the trans and queer community, is is trash. And from this riot, a couple of years later, an organization called the National Transsexual Counseling Unit is formed, which is thought to be in by all records the first Ever peer run counseling support resource Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: for trans people in the United States and in the world. Frankie: Yep. Yep. Judah: And this event. is starting to kick off all the movements that make San Francisco the queer haven that it became. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Yep. Judah: And once again, we are relying on trans women and trans femmes 'cause but then it's like trans men don't exist. Even though there's like this trans man who funded a lot of Frankie: Mm-hmm Judah: this research and a lot of these gender clinics, we see other gender clinics popping up. in large cities across the United States, some are Harry Benjamin's clinics. but it's seen here that it didn't solve the police violence issue against trans people and that's still a major issue but the collective action and how this drew the community together decreased the amount of violence and oppression that trans people were experiencing in the Tenderloin in San Francisco. And that Compton's cafeteria went out of business not too long after the riots because people just stopped stopped going. Frankie: stop going to it. Judah: so Stonewall has been unfairly co opted as a gay rights movement issue. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: Compton's cafeteria never had that rework and it remains less well known, but I'm gonna argue not less important Frankie: Mm-hmm Judah: for what what's happening across the United States. And like I said, there's a really good set of queer work called Tales of the City and you can watch the mini series on Netflix and it's got Olympia Dukakis and nobody knows who she is and I love Olympia Dukakis. She's also in Steel Magnolias. just Frankie: So Judah: So that is the conference cafeteria riot and it should be celebrated. Frankie: It should. And then moving on to Stonewall, the Stonewall Inn was a bar in Greenwich Village, New York that catered not only to the queer community, but also a racially diverse community, which was also a pretty big thing back then, especially. Judah: And was mob run. Frankie: Yes, yes. It was one of the most popular gay bars in New York City and run by the mafia. But essentially as long as it turned a profit, the mafia didn't really care what happened because that's really all they cared about. So it was an unlicensed establishment because even though the law against selling alcohol to queer people had sunset in 1966, there was still a practice of denying liquor licenses to establishments that catered to the queer community. So on Saturday, June 28th, 1969, about 1 a.m., police raided the bar. They arrived in plain clothes with a search warrant under the guise of cracking down on unlicensed alcohol sales. But of course, the true reason behind the raids were to rid the city of, quote, sexual deviance. They began interrogating patrons and locked the door so people were locked into the establishment. Those who had ID on them were eventually let out, but those who were cross-dressing as well as the employees were not let out. police started arresting people and there is confirmation that at least two of the drag queens that were there were among the arrested. Unfortunately for the police, the patrons were ready and they would not go quietly. As people were being released outside as they were like, hey, here's my ID, okay, you can leave. A crowd was beginning to gather of around 300 to 400 people taunting the cops. One firsthand account, said the cops yelled against the wall faggots and the crowd responded, beat it off pigs, which is just fantastic. So a quote from Full Over the Moon by Howard Smith, which was from the Village Voice Magazine July 3rd, 1969, said, the turning point came when the police had difficulty keeping a dyke in the patrol car. Three times she slid out and tried to walk away. The last time a cop bodily heaved her in. The crowd shrieked, police brutality, pigs! A few coins sailed through the air, escalated nickels quarters. A bottle, another bottle. Pine says, let's get inside, lock ourselves inside. It's safer. So, yeah, yeah. So Judah: And that's rock and roll. That's punk rock right there. Frankie: the squad car eventually drove off and was replaced with a paddy wagon, likely to accommodate additional arrests. The crowd began banging on the wagon. People started shouting for the people that they knew were detained inside by name. And people began throwing pennies and beer cans at the wagon. There was talk of freeing people from the van and turning it over, but that didn't wind up happening. And in the chaos, there was a scuffle at the door, someone who didn't want to be detained. Multiple cops were working to secure him and multiple protesters worked to free him. And while the cops were distracted, the people in the unguarded van escaped. Judah: Hell yeah. I hadn't heard that part. Hell yeah. Get out. Frankie: Yeah, I love the story. So the van ultimately pulled away, leaving the cops by themselves to either run for their lives or barricade themselves inside the Stonewall Inn. And this is when the true pandemonium broke out. Bottles, rocks, trash cans, and a parking meter were thrown against the building. A makeshift wooden wall blocking the front plate glass windows was taken down, and the parking meter was used as a battering ram for the crowd to gain entry. The cops were quote, scared shitless and dodging projectiles. Nobody was trying to calm or deter the crowd and the cops began drawing their guns, aiming them at the crowd. Objects were being thrown back and forth until a cop apparently at the loss of what else to do hurled his service weapon at the crowd. He just chucked his gun. It Judah: He just threw his gun at him? Frankie: wound up hitting the door frame and landing on the ground. Luckily it didn't fire. So as this is all just going into complete pandemonium, riot officers had arrived and began aiming fire hoses at the rioters through the door. Someone lit a trash can on fire and shoved it through the window. It was unclear whether the trash can was going in or out of the building when it was shoved through the window. When people heard sirens, they began spilling out and all told an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 people had collected outside. Mostly looky-loos rather than rioters. But still, that's a fuckton of people. Judah: Yeah. Frankie: So by 4 a.m., the crowd was dispersing and word was quickly spreading. That same evening, so this all started at 1 a.m., by 4 a.m., the crowd was dispersing, but then that same evening, thousands of protesters gathered at and near the Stonewall Inn and the protesting spilled over into the following week, lasting a total of six days. There was another violent uprising during the riot the following Wednesday. And so that was about four-ish days in. The raid on the Stonewall Inn sparked three days of riots and protests, one source said three days, one source said six, riots and in the streets of Greenwich Village. Thousands of protesters filled the streets, though there was minimal news coverage. And while there had been activism and advocacy before, The Stonewall Riots are hailed as the beginning of the moderate LGBTQ plus advocacy movement and activists began cropping up all over the place representing the interests of multitudes of the identities in the queer community. When people say the first Pride was a riot, they meant Stonewall because on the following year on June 28th, 1970, the first Pride March was held. It was called the Christopher Street Liberation Day, named after the street the Stonewall Inn stood on, and was the culmination of Gay Pride Week held June 22nd to 28th, 1970. Yeah. Judah: Rock on. I mean, I knew so much I didn't know about the the paddy wagon escape. man, Frankie: the people escaping. Judah: that's good. I like that. That's another fun fact that tuck away in your heart. Frankie: yeah, no, the police were wholly unprepared. They thought they were just gonna go in and serve a search warrant and arrest some people, but they were wholly unprepared and the patrons were completely prepared for what was about to go down. And they used every advantage that they could, just their sheer numbers, the ability to confuse these cops who were clearly caught flat-footed. and then just hurling whatever, like fucking taking a parking meter and using it as a battering ram. so much just sheer brute creativity and anger coming together. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Judah: But it's it's the culmination of so much of this anger that 'cause I had read somewhere that Stonewall was targeted that night because the mob had failed to pay kickbacks to law enforcement. And that's when we Frankie: Wouldn't be surprised. Judah: saw people coming in that there had to be this kickback system and There hadn't been kickbacks or we had to let them arrest some people. But this is a community that's being chased from place to place Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: and Just had it. You know, it's just like we've had it. We've got this critical mass and we're done. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Yep. Judah: And we have the Icons that came from this, Miss Major, Silvia Rivera, Frankie: Yep. Yep. Judah: and Marsha P. Johnson. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: And these are all trans femmes of color. And Frankie: Yep. Yeah. Judah: ultimately, Marcia P. Johnson and Silvia Rivera formed star. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: An organization where sex workers, trans women, were working the streets to get money and houses for human children who had had to run away and came to New York for shelter, Frankie: Yeah. Judah: developing this familial system. And if you want another fantastic must watch historical documentary, Paris is burning. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: And that is set later, it's in the the eighties I think, the early eighties. Frankie: Yeah, 80s. Judah: but it shows the system of drag houses and all the different forms of drag and voguing and it's a ten out of ten, Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: must watch, for queer history. Frankie: Yeah, Stonewall has that intersectionality of both the queer community and the community of color that just both and were so repressed and legislated against and shoved into corner for so long and everybody was just fucking done. Judah: Well, you know how I love a fun fact? Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: When I was in college, I did a huge project where I by hand analyzed thousands of advertising images that were compiled by GLAD, Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: targeted towards the queer community. And through that I thought, let's answer the question, why do lesbians love Subarus Frankie: I hope you got credit for this. Judah: Well, my project was actually on representation of queer relationships Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: in media over time. And so I did this project somewhere around two thousand and ten. But in that I got to answer why do lesbians love subarus? Frankie: So why do lesbians love Subarus Judah? Judah: Ha ha. Subaru, not an American company, is kind of floundering in the United States in the early nineties. So they do a focus group about who is still buying Subarus consistently in America. So we didn't know why lesbians were already buying them, but in the early early nineties, they narrowed in. on well lesbians are buying our cars. So that's a group Frankie: Hehehehehe Judah: that we can identify that's still buying Subarus in the United States is queer women. And instead of like pulling back from that, Subaru Frankie: They just leaned in. Judah: Subaros like, we're going all in and we are going to market to queer women. so there's different types of gay representation. So this is what we call queer coded, where it's not like super overt, but they Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: had print ads that came out with license plates on the vehicles that are queer coded. Like Camp Out, P Town and my favorite, Xena Lover. Frankie: Nice. Judah: And they also did a really important thing to target it on the queer community is that they hired one of our first major openly queer women in public eye, Martina Narvatilova. The Frankie: Mmm. Judah: and I'm not a tennis person, I understand she was a phenomenal tennis player. Good for Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: her. I know her is a famous gay lady. So she's a spokesperson. They start sponsoring Pride and really importantly, they openly and are some of among the first corporations in the United States, period, to offer benefits to same sex couples, regardless Frankie: Hmm. Judah: of like there's no domestic partnership, but you could still get benefits working at Subaru. you saw a lot of people jumping on like the Pride bandwagon later Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: on, like banks and evil corporations. Subaru's in there doing this when it's still dangerous. They're like, Frankie: Yeah. Judah: You know who's our market? Is gay people. Specifically gay women who appreciate a durable utilitarian vehicle that just works. It just w Frankie: that just works, yeah, that you can drive into the ground. Judah: I mean those nineties supers, you still see on the road. It's like how many Yeah, Frankie: They are bulletproof. Yeah. Judah: my car has eight hundred thousand miles on it. so early adopters into queer positive. you see some alcohol companies first absolute vodka starts doing very overtly queer ads in the Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: early eighties and Miller Budweiser. But for things that are not alcohol, our next niche is Subaru. Frankie: Yeah. It's funny that you Judah: And Frankie: bring up Budweiser because they did a partnership three, four years ago with a trans individual, I believe. And people started posting social media videos of them, like, taking their shotgun and just blasting cases of Bud Light because how dare you. tie our super masculine beer to this trans person. Judah: No, they they have been since mid late eighties, they have been very openly Frankie: Tell that to the people on Facebook who think that it was a betrayal for this partnership to happen. Judah: Well if you're going back through things that are not like adult products or Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: designed I'm thinking of like adult products that are really designed for the queer community. You Frankie: Right. Judah: see like leather daddy stuff, Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: you know, marketing just in the advocate. Miller, Bud Light, Subaru, Absolute Vodka was the first, Frankie: Yep. Judah: are in there and they're like, Yeah, no, we're being open in our support of the LGBTQ plus community and they have for decades and so if if you wanna see like, hey why you know, y why are so many queer people, especially queer women driving Subarus, it's because Subaru Frankie: has been supporting them. Judah: has been supporting them now for more than thirty years. So here's a little fun fact. Why do you can tag that? Why do so many lesbians drive Subarus? I I think we can still love a Subaru. Frankie: Yep. But yeah, I mean, my husband just bought one, so. Judah: I've driven Subaruus, I've we can still love a Subaru. Frankie: Yeah. So we talked a lot about historical. queer community stuff. And, you know, I started off my talk a little bit talking about the Lavender Scare and Judah talked about the Lavender Scare a little bit when we talked about McCarthyism a few weeks back. It's coming back round. We are dealing with all sorts of bathroom law, which I had my own like bathroom law experience that I don't think I've told you about. So I was, I have family in South Carolina. I was visiting South Carolina. who I'm pretty sure has passed a bathroom bill or at least if they haven't and I thought they had. don't recall if they actually have or not, but I was concerned that they had. And so I was. doing what I was supposed to do and using the restroom that matched by gender assigned at birth, although my birth certificate has an X on it. The cleaner lady was like. you need to use the other one. And I was like, no, I was assigned female at birth. I'm following the law. This is where I'm supposed to be. And she like, didn't understand what I said. I was using less explicit language, but I felt like I was sitting there yelling at her, I have a vagina. Judah: It's Frankie: And like, she was just like, woo. And I just went in and peed. it's a women's room. It's all stalls anyways. Who flying gives a fuck. Judah: The my gosh. Let me reel back. All of this is so confusing to our European friends who have l Frankie: who all have non-gender bathrooms. Judah: who have lovely floor to ceiling doors. So you can in non-gendered bathrooms. Frankie: Yeah, in non-gendered bathrooms. And you each get your own little personal bathroom inside of a larger bathroom. Judah: So our bathroom designs are also really inaccessible for a lot of people. if you've ever tried to have diarrhea silently in a public restroom Frankie: It's not possible. Judah: the way specifically only the United States does public restrooms doesn't work for you. And transphobia can affect anyone. It's just a perception of being trans. So I walk down the street, I look like a meatball that's rolled Frankie: You Judah: across a barber shop floor. I never get misgendered. But under Frankie: I get misgendered both ways, it's interesting. the people who know me more, not like more personally, because people who actually know me will properly gender me, but like judges and prosecutors, people who I know acquaintance wise will tend to misgender me female. Random strangers will misgender me male. Which is Judah: I Frankie: like, Judah: So I'm a trans man, I look like this, and I have IBS. Do you want me to go into the ladies' room? Frankie: Well, so that's the thing, right? when these bathroom bills first started coming out, I saw an article about two cis-gendered women, each accusing the other of being a trans man. So good job protecting women if that's the ultimate goal of things, Judah: There have also been a grand total of zero zero reported incidents of a trans woman attacking or attempting to attack another woman in the restroom. None. Zero. The the amount is zero. Frankie: Yeah. Yeah. Cause turns out trans people go into the bathroom to pee. Judah: Well for me I have IBS, could be anything. Frankie: Well, yeah, but I mean like... I pee. I don't care about anybody else in there. I'm just gonna go pee. Judah: When I was still transitioning for about two years, I had chronic bladder infections because I was so scared to go to the bathroom and I like wouldn't drink enough water because I never wanted to have to go to the bathroom outside of my home because I was so worried about getting attacked. And then what I experienced a lot of in early transition is getting called the bad F word. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: 'Cause the people were like just like, I'm confused, so just we're gonna call you this. I had somebody throw a beer bottle at me when I was walking in downtown Eugene and yell that at me. Frankie: Yeah, and like I am, non-binary. I am purposefully presenting as somewhere in between because that's where I'm comfortable because gender is a fucking construct that shouldn't exist. Anyways. So, well, let me, let me, Judah: Can I tell you a cute story? Okay. Frankie: so I do tend to still use, if I have to use a gendered bathroom, I do tend to still use the ladies room because I don't feel safe using the men's room, Cause who the fuck knows if some jackass is going to see my long hair and think, ooh, I'm gonna take advantage of this person, right? I feel significantly safer using the women's rooms cause it's all fucking stalls. Judah: You know what Megan said when you came out to me as non binary? Frankie: Hmm. Judah: Do you remember? Frankie: About damn time? no, you said about damn Judah: No, she goes I Frankie: time. Judah: I said about downtime and Megan goes, I knew it. So Frankie: I'm glad everybody else knew before I did. Judah: so here's a cute story back from when I was living in Eugene and I was just kind of testing out being in faith community and I wound up not staying. But I go and there's this sweet older woman, very sweet, very earnest, very well meaning, and somebody had told her that I was trans and her experience was exclusively with trans women. So Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: she thought that I was just like a butch trans woman with a beard. And so she would run around yelling at people if they called me he. She's Frankie: noooo Judah: like, Listen, it doesn't matter what she looks like. If she's a girl, then she's a girl. And then later I had to sit down and explain to her the concept of trans men and she felt really bad. And Frankie: yeah. Judah: I said, You know what? I just like so genuinely appreciate knowing that no matter what y you were in my corner that Frankie: Yeah. Judah: you thought, hey, if this person is s saying that they are a lady then this person is a lady and I will fight to the death for you And I was like, Frankie: Mm-hmm Judah: let me explain about do you know about trans men? She did not. she was she was in her eighties. Frankie: Well, I mean, to be fair, like all of the focus in the public light is about trans women because apparently who gives a shit about trans men being in men's spaces, right? Like when all the talk about the the bathroom bills, the sports bills, which there are no trans N-C-double-A, N-C-double-A? I don't sport. Judah: No, last recorded of any major sport there was of the like hundred and fifty thousand athletes in the United States that there were six trans people total. Frankie: Yeah, yeah. And none of them are in college sports. I'll just say college sports. None of them are in college sports. So this whole like, must protect our girls from having to compete against men. First of all, when you go on hormone therapy, your body stops making the other hormone, right? Like I had a conversation with my hormone doc at one point being like, hey, my family does menopause kind of early. does that interact with the medications that you're giving me?" And she was like, you're already in menopause because of the testosterone. I'm like, yeah. Judah: Yeah, it's over. Yeah. That's it's a hormone replacement therapy. It replaces it. There's a really this it's old now, like twenty years old. There was a Canadian downhill mountain biker. named Michelle Dumarek, who made Canadian sports history by transitioning and competing as a woman as her own gender. I think she had to take a break from sports. I wanna say like this lady is brave as shit. 'cause Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: she is like the first and it's in downhill mountain biking, not traditionally known as a heavily gendered sport. And she had to go through so so much invasive testing for her to be able to compete in the women's downhill mountain biking and established that her body composition on estrogen and progesterone was besides her bone structure was identical to someone who is assigned female at birth and has not taken any other hormones. So besides her bone structure, which did not provide her an advantage in downhill mountain biking, and I'll I don't know if I can even find that anymore 'cause it's so old, but I remember Frankie: Well, and there's research that shows that even like elite athletes, when they transition from male to female, they don't go from first to first, they go from like first to like 10th, right? They actually lose place amongst the field when they transition because of their body needing to relearn how to build muscle when they don't have the testosterone. Judah: transgender men, I am fully accepting that I am in so much less danger. Not zero. new hate crime in Spokane, A transman was horribly, horrifically beaten in a transphobic attack, and the Spokesman Review published his full name and address in the newspaper. Frankie: You fucking kidding me? Judah: This was like last week. Frankie: my god. Judah: horrible. So it's it's still very, very high. Frankie: Yeah. Judah: Much lower than a white trans woman and so much lower than a trans woman of color. Frankie: Yep. Judah: their risk for being murdered ten years ago was like one in ten. Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: so hashtag support trans women. Frankie: Yeah. Well, if you are in a state if you're in an area which is trying to pass these archaic bills about which bathroom to use. Talk to your legislators, talk to your, Judah: Talk to your neighbors about how stupid it is. I want you, if you have a bathroom bill coming up in your state and you want to help convince someone, I want you to tell them and show them this video that I would have to use the ladies' room looking exactly like this, and I have IBS. Show that to your friends and neighbors. Frankie: Yeah, it's ridiculous. Trans people have been around forever. For Judah: For as long as there have been people. Frankie: as long as there have been people, there have been trans people, there have been queer people, there have been people who fall in love with gender diverse people Judah: what my mom just pointed out, you are, as we have established, Jewish. Like super duper. Frankie: Yes Yes Judah: If we're talking about very historic biblical expressions of gender, Judaism has eight. Frankie: Yeah. Yep. I'm not, yeah, Judah: Thousands of years of history. Frankie: yeah, thousands of years of history. I'm not going to go through and list all of them, but yeah, I mean, that's Judah: Cause you don't know them. Frankie: the main part of it. There's actually a lot of stuff not just like the Torah and the rest of the parasha, but in the teachings of Rambam and stuff like that, that modern day reads really liberal. Sort of like how there is rabbinical teaching that until the child actually takes its first breath, it is considered part of the mother's body. Judah: Yeah, that's that was until the fifties. and also there have been trans positive laws, legislations, and protections in Islam Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: for like a thousand years or something like that. I have a book on it that I'm planning on reading. but that can be enough for today. you can figure out what to cut from this. But leave in Frankie: Yeah, Judah: and make a video clip, even if you cut it of me saying, If you want to talk about bathroom laws Frankie: Right. Yeah, and I just really want to encourage people to be vocal because this is one of those situations where we don't need allies, we need accomplices. Judah: Yeah. And also in nineteen eighty eight gender reassignment surgery was declared acceptable under Islamic law by scholars at Egypt's Al Azhar University, the oldest Islamic university Frankie: Mm-hmm. Judah: in the world, Frankie: If they can do it, you can do it. Judah: Well, I mean, I'm not traditionally I'm gonna say that Islamic scholars have been a lot more forward thinking and on the ball than Western Christianity. So let's follow their example. Frankie: yeah, most definitely. It's a little frustrating that these ideas have been preached about for literally millennia and now it's 2026 and we are literally going backwards. Judah: And the first non Jewish convert to Christianity was of course a member of the gender diverse community. Frankie: So Judah: And with that next week I forget what we're doing. Frankie: next week we're doing disability rights. Judah: yeah. Frankie: I'm going to talk about the passage of the Americans with Disability Act and looks like Judah was planning on talking about ending forced institutionalization. Judah: Yeah, and we'll see how I feel. I might throw in 504 Frankie: Okay. So as always, like, subscribe, leave a rating, leave a review, reach out to us on Facebook, Instagram and blue sky or at dumb defenses podcast at gmail.com with any questions, thoughts, concerns, or, an idea that you'd like us to cover. Judah: Send me a recipe. Frankie: Judah's still looking for cookie recipes and, and we'll see you next week. Judah: See you next week. Frankie: Bye.