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This Is Not a Culture War: Trans Rights Under Siege · Queer 101 with Peppermint

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hey y'all, welcome to Queer 101.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_04: I'm Kevin and Do the Historians, and we're here to bring you all things queer history that you didn't learn in school.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is a podcast where we dive deep into queer culture, books, and a queer experience, past, present, and future.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: From the history that shapes us to the culture that keeps us driving, we have got it all out.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_04: Grab a seat, and let's spend a lot on queer history because these stories demand to be heard and must be celebrated.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Queer 101.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Class is now in action.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Hey y'all, welcome back to Queer 101, the podcast where we talk about any and everything under the sun, including queer art, queer literature, queer culture, honey, whatever the hell we want.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: I am Peppermint.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm Hugh Ryan, aka Hugh the Historian.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Who has got a book coming out in just a few minutes, as in months, that is.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_04: Pre-orders available.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_04: Now, my bad.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_04: Oh my God.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_04: It's going to be, you're going to be hearing a lot about it on this podcast.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_04: I apologize in advance.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: You do not need to apologize for nothing, honey.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: We wanna we wanna hear every five minutes.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say it every five minutes.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, uh, when we talk about survival uh in honestly in our community, um, I think that's one of the methods we is self-promotion because we're we're in this.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: As much as we talk about like as much as we rightfully acknowledge the impact of capitalism uh and corporatism and and everything else that is in involved in in the world we live in.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um all the isms.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: All of this is isms and systems, uh, you know, survival oftentimes, it's not just it's not really it's it is a key word, it's not a buzzword.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: It it comes up often amongst marginalized communities because we in order to survive, there is a notion, uh uh uh, you know, or at least it's worth thinking about for some people.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: How do we survive in spite of, but also in cooperation with these systems that exist?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, I can't if I could snap my fingers and change it, I would.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: But we can't just disappear from the world.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's a level of either assimilation or working with, and you know, you you know, and that I think that says, I hope that that says more about the um the the monopolistic nature of these systems that take over all of your resources and and and abilities to to to provide for yourself so that you're dependent upon it, which is obviously the design.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I hope it says more about that horrible system than it does about the participants and the people, the individuals who are who left with very little options and then have to to participate in order to, you know, survive and enjoy ourselves and have joy and and experience other people and build community.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like we, you know, yes, you can go live in the woods somewhere and and that's fine, and you could survive, but like we are human, we're social animals, and we we need all these things.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so self-promotion is one of those things.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: But um I know when we talk about community sound like yeah, exactly.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that's all part of it, yeah.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it if and I at the risk of sounding like a slogan, um, you know, I know it sort of sounds like something that we've already mastered because we're still here, but this week survival feels super concrete as a subject.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um watching the federal government affirming care from trans people in prison, controlling our bodies in every single way.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, in addition to a couple of weeks ago, and in the last episode, we acknowledged uh stripping licenses and birth certificates from trans people in Kansas, which is now it's been announced that other states are going to copycat that um tactic or that strategy, uh, and then also blocking gender-affirming care.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And and two things that uh two new additions to the proposed SAVE Act, which has already passed in the House, um, that President Trump is basically saying that he's gonna hold future legislation hostage until Congress passes the SAVE Act, now includes uh the um two anti-trans components, which is blocking gender-affirming care and um, you know, uh blocking b bathroom access, essentially, uh, and which is connected to the right to ident self-identify with uh for trans adults.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so like Trump is tying, you know, an anchor to uh the trans movement, which is constantly sinking us.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_04: And then at the same time, the Supreme Court is like allowing young people to be outed at school, being forcibly disclosed to their parents, lawmakers trying to redefine sex in ways to just completely write trans people out of existence.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_04: Like, I think we're seeing really like a coordinated furthering of this assault uh, you know, on trans people, on queer people, on our lives.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's structural, it's organized in a way that like, you know, I love the queer community, and I think that we are responding to this like we were just talking about a second ago by supporting each other in many ways, but we don't have the kind of like reach and structure that the Republican Party has been building for decades to do this kind of like organized destruction.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, and it's coming down from the top on top of onto all of us, you know.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_04: And it's it's been like you said, a week where like survival seems to be the the top priority.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_04: I I don't know about you, but all week long I've been talking to people who have been telling me out of nowhere their plans for like if I have to leave the country, this is what I'm gonna do.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm getting my documents in order right now, you know, and I I feel like we're all having these conversations.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the things that uh can um sort of well, yes and yes and yes, and and you know, it really is very terrifying to s I did not ever think that I would be considering any of these things that we're talking about.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like even knowing that grow growing up and that as a young adult and then someone who lives in the big city, which is always, you know, a tough place to live, you know, always lots of hurdles, that I I knew that I'd have challenges.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that like picking uh entertainment as a field meant I might not be having dinner a few times, or that I might lose my access to a place to live and things like that.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And those are those are definitely s uh impacts of this of systemic.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I knew that I was accepting that risk.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And but I didn't realize that I'd be working so much against the state as in the federal government um to you know to just to assert who I am, and that's the thing that really kind of is taken me aback.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm here, I'm adjusting to it, you know, but it is like, damn, that's definitely not what I was, you know, thinking about.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I know that there's so many people, the the the the the part that tugs me and pulls me and tears me is as um God, what are my neighbors cooking?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Stop it.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um the that's an assault on your rights.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um as a person who's tries to be politically astute, politically uh aware, um, you know, I know that like ultimately a lot of people, I'll hear a lot of people saying, especially the the uh establishment democrats, the consultants that they hired, and then the alleged report that we talked about, I think a couple weeks ago that has not been released, but it's basically an open secret now because everybody's referring to it and talks about it.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if they were gonna prove us wrong and be like, that's not true, then they would just release the report, but they haven't released the report, but we know that they did the report.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: They spent all this money, taxpayer money, creating this report, and then or at least uh potentially it's probably donations, but you know, some of that comes with taxpayers.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if it's from corporations, it's you know what every every single cent is taxpayer money.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: It is, it's money from the people.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it is.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what I mean?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: At some point it passed through our hands, it's our damn money.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, anyway.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: Or it should pass through our hands, it has not.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Hello.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um well it came out of our pockets.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the the um the notion that you know Kamala lost in 2024 because of uh, you know, the Democratic Party being too woke and paying too much attention to trans uh issues, uh so famously in that Trump ad, um really is so was so damaging.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it it did sell home to a lot of people that many of these uh issues are considered cult what are considered culture war issues are used as a distraction from the candidates talking about material quality of life issues that impact everyone, not even most of us or some of us, but like every person on the baseline needs to needs to be concerned about how where they're going to like their housing or where they're going to be able to do.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Housing, their health care, what their health care, how they're gonna survive and be healthy and safe, what they're uh and what they're how they're gonna do those things, whether it's money, things like that.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um every those are the three main issues that like every human being needs to consider, like, you know, to do.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: And but the thing is, you know, while those while issues of immigration, issues of you know LGBTQ issues, trans issues, and things like that are a diversion, they're being used as a diversion, they still have real harm.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because when we talk about trans issues, we're not just talking about the bathroom because we'd like to pee.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about access and safety, physical safety.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then health.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't use the bathroom as a human being, that's um it it it does impact your health.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's it sounds like a joke, but it is it is part of function.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and it makes it so hard to plan your entire day.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like these are things that make life livable.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, these these are things that boil down to those three main issues.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we the thing that's so upsetting to me is that we see these headlines, and I don't even know if people are seeing the headlines anymore because that doesn't even necessarily make it into all of the headlines.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um just the lack of participation from uh other parts of the community for sure, but then the greater um population is really upsetting.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: I do see people coming out, not everyone, not surely, but I do see a heartening amount of people coming out um to advocate and fight for the needs and the rights of immigrants, undocumented immigrants, yeah, people who are falling victim to ICE, not because they are also undocumented, in fact, most of the people who are undocumented immigrants are probably not out there on the front lines fighting.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, they can't.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_04: It's not safe to be that way.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: They need safety, so it's everybody else.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: So why the fuck can't people see the trans community like that?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_04: I think it is really a good, you know, this is what I think a lot.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_04: When when these political donor class, these consultants, these folks call something a distraction, what they're really saying is like, oh, it doesn't affect me.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_04: And they think what affects them, these really niche people who are generally these consultants are rich, they are white, they are highly educated from elite institutions in elite professions, they are so removed from the actual concerns of most people that I'm like, how dare you even say what you think is a distraction because it doesn't affect you, because the things that affect you are so limited, so small.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_04: And in fact, one thing, you know, I I will I will credit the right with very little, but I will tell we'll say this they are very good at mobilizing anger.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_04: And I think a lot of the Democrat consultant class, they have no interest in figuring out, like, oh, this makes people angry.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_04: We should mobilize around it, we should get people in the streets screaming, right?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_04: Their whole thing is this kind of like tamp it down, just vote, you know.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, no, that that's not helping us.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: I I you are right, but I I I'm coming into a new sort of awareness or having a different sort of um occurrence in my mind, uh, that it's not that the Democrats aren't skilled or don't know.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: I just think that they're already, they are a paid opposition.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're they're paid and and and supported to not really effectively do anything that would change the situation.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're they're incentivized to just be like, I can't believe they just you know canceled everyone's life.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh well, you know, like that's it.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and that they're incentivized to only go that far.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was at an event with um Chuck Schumer, uh, who was speaking at the inauguration of Eric Botcher, who is someone who I consider, you know, friendly and a really a wonderful acquaintance.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been we've shared space, and Eric does.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_04: And that's a city council member in New York, right?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Who, yeah, sorry, uh city council member in New York City, who has been in the sit serving in city council for a few years now, and now is uh has just been in inaugurated as uh state senator, New York State, one of the New York State Senators.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so he uh but he has always historically shown up at trans specifically for the trans community in in many ways.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, which is not that typical for cis white gay guys, you know what I mean?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so uh but I was at so I was at his inauguration because I wanted to support him.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, there are other electeds, um, people like Chuck Schumer, and uh you know, it's it's it's a state governmental office.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, there's gonna be other people from the state who are in office, um Governor, uh you know, um Chuck Schumer, people like that.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm surprised there weren't more.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um but Chuck Schumer had the nerve to get up there and lecture to the audience that we gotta fight.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: What the fuck are you talking about?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Telling voters that we have to fight.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: You shut your fucking mouth.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so sick of these politicians.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so, like, they know what's up because when I was in Chuck Schumer's office last year lobbying for uh for HIV funding not to get cut, um honey, we had to wait in line because we were in the there was two groups the lobbyists who were either professional lobbyists or were representing uh enough money that they could get to the front of the line, and those of us who were just there to beg uh and had to wait until all of the corporate ones finished what they had to do.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: So we were waiting for hours, honey.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we had an appointment.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we went and we were like, okay, well, we'll wait.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we waited, and then you know, then he 90% of the meeting was him, it was his staffers listening to our concerns.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and honestly, they seemed engaged.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then he came in, so it was their job to listen on his behalf, and they'll probably distill for him what what we said if we're lucky.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and him coming out and being like, Oh, hi, you heard about HIV healthcare, LGBT, he just to capture the subject before he goes into his speech about how great he is for the LGBTQ community, how he has a gay daughter.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And we had to sit and then we had to listen to him.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, fuck you.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't say that, but that's what I'm saying now.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Fuck Chuck Schumer, fuck Hakeem Jeffries, fuck all these people that are throwing the trans community under the bus, fuck Gavin Newsom, fuck them all.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_04: Oh god, yes.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_04: No, they're all useless, they're all not helpful, they're all part of that, as we're talking about the top of this, that consumer capitalist, it's that neoliberal unified party around capitalism that is not interested in the lives of the people, particularly the people who cannot give them a lot of money.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that that is just the nature of it.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that those who are not, because I do believe that there are politicians, like you talked about with Eric Butcher, you know, or your AOCs, or people who genuinely do want to better the world for the people, uh, very few of them, the AOC is a rare exception, but few of them seem to understand that like mobilizing people through the things that frustrate us, that make us angry, getting us into the streets, getting us to run for local elections or to campaign and organize amongst ourselves, like we were talking about queer community survival being a collective process.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_04: The more that they can do that, the more that will eventually energize whatever party, democratic, working family, whoever has to be part of this electoral process, if that's got to be part of the change, you know?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_04: And I just think that so much of what I see coming out of most of these uh democratic offices is about uh taking the power away from people, making us less engaged, less excited, less angry.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_04: You know, like I think that being angry is important.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_04: And historically, when I look back through like queer movements, uh all of the queer movements were any kind of rights for anyone under this umbrella, it's anger that motivates.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_04: It is anger that keeps people going and community care, right?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_04: We all have to look out for each other, you know.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_04: But I I was working on a project a few years ago, and they were trying to talk about Larry Kramer as like a role model for young people, and they and for those of you who don't know, Larry Kramer, famously uh really a gay organizer who helped start act up and was famously crotchety angry.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_04: He could harangue with the best of them, and they could not deal with that anger, and so instead they created this sort of like fake version of Larry Kramer who would tell people not to bully gay people.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_04: And I was like, that's not that's not what we need right now.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_04: Like, that's not who Larry Kramer was.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_04: We need to embrace the anger.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that was this no, no, not to bully.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_04: It was this weird, like, no, there's a ghost of Larry Kramer who's gonna step up and be like bullying is wrong.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_04: And I was like, actually, I think Larry Kramer would say the right people should be bullied.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_04: We should be bullying straight people.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you mean the whitewashed memory of anger or whitewashed version of him?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and I'm like, we need to embrace this anger and and harness it and channel it.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's the same thing.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, uh the the the industry makes a lot by um selling Martin Luther King's picture, but like not talking about his populist, uh sort of democratic socialist uh, you know, uh nature and and things that he said and and really being radical on many, many ideas and um his own.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, especially economically and towards the end of it.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_04: The way he and and Malcolm X kind of like their views came together towards the end, like we never talk about that, you know.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about them as diametric opposite, and that you know, MLK was the acceptable version of black um um patience waiting for someone to give you your rights.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but we know that like it never, it never does.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I I actually did a video about that, and that's why I'm so fired up because right now people are starting to talk about politics and how we should engage.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that one of the things that occurred to me is I was so um uh uh um ignorant about how civics works and worked, and and then how a lot of these issues um sort of play out and and break down.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think we should break down to people just for once and for all about some of these issues um that I know we talked about in last week's episode, um, things that are being escalated and sort of formalized.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: But we have to keep this conversation top of mind for everybody because I I know that people I I I love it when people say, Pepperman, I love the way you fight for your own rights by yourself, but I don't want to be doing that.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: I want everyone to join.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know what I mean?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Go, oh, you want to survive, go try to fight.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: I admire it.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: And like, you know, come on, because I'm I don't I don't just show up for just trans rights.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: I show up for everything I show up for HIV rights.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have HIV, but I'm out there because I know it's important.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: So like let's go.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm so sorry.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so spirited about this.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's add a little bit of historical context, shall we?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Can we talk about prisons on the on the document?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, absolutely.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, that's one that I think is is so important to think about historically because having written a book about a women's prison in New York City, you look at prisons and you see the ways in which all of this is just a series of lies, that prisons have nothing to do with justice, they have nothing to do with rehabilitation.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_04: We don't even know what it would mean to try to rehabilitate people through incarceration, which has no literal connection to rehabilitation or changing people's minds or the material circumstances that drive them to commit what we're calling crimes.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_04: You know, prisons instead, I think when you look at them historically, they are just places where we put people who we refuse to take care of, right?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_04: People that we do not give health care to, people who do not have private space, people who have no way of earning a living that is legal, right?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_04: Prisons, the more you look at them in history, the more you see the ways in which we try to reform them and then they go right back to being Just as bad as they were before, I think really show what you were talking about in terms of these like democratic class that has no interest in real change, right?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_04: The more we look at prisons historically, the more we see they are used for the same reasons over and over and over again.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_04: And that that when it comes to like queer folks is never good reasons.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_04: Like queer people, trans people, lesbians, gay men have always made communities through prisons, in prisons of a million kinds, from found families to voguing being invented in Rikers Island, right?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_04: But the prison itself is created to try to atomize us, separate us, keep us powerless.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_04: And yet in those spaces, so often queer people meet other queer people, have revelations about how our fights are connected to all other kinds of social justice movements.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_04: But really, they're about controlling us, not about bringing us any closer to justice or rehabilitation.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_04: And that is so uh parallel to what is happening these days with the way we're criminalizing trans people.
• 23:00
  unknown: Yeah.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I also want to acknowledge that like as a black trans woman, I was so shocked to hear that the you know the history, but when when it goes from uh enslavement to the pol the the you know the sort of reaction by um the I can't I don't even know who you would call it, but certainly people who were um former slave owners was basically to turn around and get people back into shackles and chains with these sort of like codes and laws that they were, you know, um you know levying on f newly freed uh black or formerly enslaved black uh folks in this country uh by way of these slave patrols that were going out rounding people up because they didn't have their shoelace tied or they looked to the right when they should have looked to the left, and then putting them back in jail, and then basically having them perform the same exact job that they were doing when they were enslaved.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the things that you said, people in prison don't have health care, they don't have this, they don't have that.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the big things they don't have rights, they just don't have rights, and they are not seen as a person.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: And that it's like a catch-all, like, you know, let's get them back into prison.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is a group where we're like in modern times, they can't vote, they don't have the right to their own sort of self-determination, they can't make their own decisions, and they have to take what we give them.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: They also have to be busy doing something every day.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: They're not just sitting around looking at the wall, we're sending them to work.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: They I mean, famously, I had always heard you're gonna go to prison and make license plates, which I was like, license plates?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: So much more than that, you know what I mean?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think the first time I'd sort of pennies on the hour.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: The first time I got wind of that was watching the wonderful movie Um uh Shawshank Redemption, where there was like, you know, the uh corrupt prison warden was undercutting a uh professional construction company and saying, I can do this for a lot cheaper, and you give me the money that you were gonna give that construction company and we'll get it done.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then not paying the inmates who were doing the work and just like cracking the whip.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we saw that in centers, of course.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: We and you know, so it's it's forced labor, but it is I I was surprised to see that during those terrible floods that happened, I think, in North Carolina last year or the year before, that you know, um floods, fires, natural disasters, prisoners are not rescued or saved.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: They just ability to forced to work.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_04: If they are in the the flood zone or the fire zone, they're forced to work in those zones.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_04: Uh many of the fire out in the West Coast last year were fought by incarcerated people who then, on top of that, when they leave prison, if they survive, are not allowed to apply for jobs as firefighters because being in prison makes you ineligible for those kinds of careers.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_04: Being in prison has for decades made people ineligible for all kinds of things.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_04: Beauty licenses for a long time in New York State.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_04: If you had a criminal record, you could not get a beauty license.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_04: All of these things where we know getting a good job, having income, having health benefits, all of that is one of those things that will keep people from recidivism, from going back to prison.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_04: And yet we specifically ban people who have been incarcerated from having so many kinds of jobs because, like you said, then they end up back in prison where they can be used for forced labor, just like this continuation of slavery that we've had in America for 150 years.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_04: I it is one of those issues that I think is so e uh intimately connected to queer rights because so much of it is about bodily autonomy and care.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_04: The people in prison have no bodily autonomy and they are often there because they are uncared for.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_04: And queer people so often are uncared for and denied the rights to have sex as we want to, to express our gender, as we want to, to dress or perform, as we want to.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_04: To me, abolition and queerness, they they go hand in hand.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: They absolutely do.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: But this time around, this new version of the anti-trans legacy that the Trump is trying to give to us in prisons uh is to de-transition people in prison by taking away their access to gender-affirming care.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that is more than just a preference thing, because I don't, you know, there's there's a lot of trans people who have obviously transitioned to some degree, and many of those people pass a certain point.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: It is too late because if you don't have, if you have, if you've had certain surgeries, particularly bottom surgeries, um, then some of your organs and gonads are removed.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people don't know that, which means you don't are not able to create certain chemicals and certain hormones and things that the human body does need to live a healthy life.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um contrary to popular belief, all human beings need a series of hormones for your endocrine system, but also estrogen and testosterone.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Women have testosterone, men have estrogen.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's humanity, it's human life.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it is.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: And if there's many trans people who, you know, because of where medicine has gotten us to, um, their transition leads them to a place where they're able to uh um have maintain their transition and maintain those uh healthy hormone levels only with medical intervention.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's taken away, i.e.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: in prison, then their health is at risk for bone loss, for cancers, for all types of things.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's one way that this is very pointed at you know the trans community beyond sort of some of the more social things that we um associate with uh pr uh the experience of LGBTQ people in prison.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah, God.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_04: Uh listeners at home, I bet you can tell we are fired up about it.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_04: This week this has been a bad week in a lot of ways.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_04: And we are furious.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_04: We could we could go on about this for a while, I think.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_04: There is so much to make us angry about and so many connections between this.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, but for today, let's just I want to throw this back to the listeners.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_04: If you are listening right now, what is getting under your skin this week?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_04: What is the thing that is making you angry, furious?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_04: What's the thing that you want your community rallying around and what are you doing about it?
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_04: What are you doing?
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't want to care what you what you're rallied around.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: I want you fuckers to go out and call your senators now and tell them do not pass a SAVE act because it has anti-trans stuff in there and it also has anti-women, anti-LGBT, anti-evody things in there because they wanted to keep us from voting.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Anti-immigrant stuff.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's all it's like can it's like the it's like the entire last six months of Trump's administration in one piece of legislation.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: And we thought we already got that with a big quote, beautiful bill.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: I also want you to go out there and make sure that you are supporting organizations that help quality of life people for that are that for the trans community specifically, helping trans people with their passports, helping trans people with their licenses, helping trans people with their birth certificates and passports.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: There are attorneys and uh organizations that are doing that work now and they need your funding because they don't get it.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Not only do they have very few donations, but they were also lost all their donations because of the big beautiful bill that cuts off uh uh federal funding for DEI programs.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so that is what I need you all to go out and do.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you're listening to this, please do share this, like this, comment this, but then get your ass out there and get in the fight.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because if they come for us and succeed, which they are succeeding, then you are next.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_04: You heard it here, folks.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_04: Anyway, get your asses on the line in the streets and on the phones.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_04: Call your senators, call your friends.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_04: Now is the moment.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_04: If you're not doing it now, you're never gonna get to do it.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: We'll be back next week on Tuesday.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, if we're still alive and not in prison, please come and join us again everywhere you listen to your podcasts.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let me go.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, yes, that is 100% true.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: And make sure that you like and subscribe.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: It costs you absolutely nothing.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you all so much for watching, and we'll see you next time.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for joining us today.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: This podcast is part of Pride House Media, hosted by us, Peppermint and Cube, produced and edited by Josh Rosenzweig with original music composed by Nel Balavan.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed this episode, then don't forget to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: And while you're there, leave us a rating and a review.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: It really helps others discover the show.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_03: You can stay connected and join the conversation by following us at Peppermint 247 or write to us at questions at queer101podcast.com.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening, and remember, our history is your history.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Stay proud, stay curious, and we'll see you next time on Queer One One.