The Relentless Assault on Transgender Health and Rights

Across the country, measures are being introduced to restrict gender-affirming healthcare, ban LGBTQ+ books, and prevent trans girls and women from participating in sports. Katelyn Burns, the first openly trans Capitol Hill reporter in U.S. history, freelance journalist, MSNBC columnist, and co-host of podcast Cancel Me Daddy, sits down to talk with us about recent and increasing attacks on the health and rights of transgender people across the U.S.

Conservatives around the country have stepped up their attacks on trans rights with the attacks falling into a couple of different buckets. Conservative lawmakers are working to ban books about LGBTQ+ orientations and identities in schools and libraries. Florida has recently passed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which explicitly bans classroom discussion about LGBTQ+ issues, further empowers parents to sue school districts, and requires schools to disclose to parents when their child receives mental health services. At the same time, more than a dozen states have passed legislation that limit transgender girls competing in school sports. A total of 15 states this year have enacted or are considering laws that would limit or ban gender-affirming care—including puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy—for transgender youth. In Texas, the most recent law attacking gender-affirming care has arranged for the state’s Department of Family and Child Services to class provision of gender-affirming care to someone under 18 as child abuse.

Even with all of these attacks on trans rights it’s not all terrible news, on the Transgender Day of Visibility, the White House unveiled a host of meaningful policy rollouts, including having an “X” as one’s gender marker on one’s U.S. passport, working with airlines and the TSA on deprioritizing gender altogether when it comes to air travel, and the replacement of gender binary airport security scanners.

Links from this episode

Katelyn Burns on Twitter
Cancel Me Daddy
Human Rights Campaign rally information
White House Release on Transgender Day of Visibility
The massive Republican push to ban trans athletes, explained
Critics accuse trans swimming star Lia Thomas of having an unfair advantage. The data tells a different story
Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' bill would erase families like mine
Greg Abbott's death wish for trans kids is on full display
The Latest Transphobic Laws are a Natural Evolution from Abortion Bans
The GOP’s attack on trans kids’ health care, explained

Transcript

Jennie: Welcome to rePROs Fight Back, a podcast where we explore all things reproductive health, rights and justice. I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and I'll be helping you stay informed around issues like birth control, abortion, sex education and LGBTQ issues and much, much more-- giving you the tools you need to take action and fight back. Okay, let's dive in.

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Jennie: Welcome to this week's episode of rePROs Fight Back. I'm your host, Jennie Wetter, and my pronouns are she/her. So I'm super excited for today's episode. Not only do I get to talk to the co-host of one of my favorite podcasts, Cancel Me, Daddy, we're finally getting to talk about all of the attacks on trans rights that have been happening at the state level. So since today is kind of a heavy episode. I figured I'd do a lighter intro. So maybe just catch you up on some of the things that I've been doing that are fun and nothing serious. So, you know, I'm still continuing my adventures in baking. I don't know that I've tried anything new since I've talked to y'all. I think the most different thing I made recently was a big pan of cinnamon rolls that were delightful. Otherwise, I'm kind of sticking to bagels and bread and kind of that area, or muffins. I haven't attempted like a new recipe in a while. So I guess maybe I'm due sometime soon. I'll have to think of one. I don't know what yet, but I will figure out something to tackle. I need to start a new sourdough starter cuz I managed to kill mine. It's not because, I mean, it's not like I make sourdough a ton, but I really loved using it for sourdough English muffins. And I killed my starters. So I guess I need to start over anyway. It had a good life. It lived well for two years until it died from neglect. My bad. Let's see here. I, anything else exciting. Ooh, I finally watched, I went finally I watched Turning Red from, I think Pixar, right? I think it's a Pixar. It was so cute. Y'all it was so great to see a young girl's story and that getting into talked about like menstruation came up and it was just adorable. I loved it. I will definitely watch it again. And you know, she turns into a giant red panda and I love red pandas. They're so cute. And I think one of my favorite things about them is when they get scared, they like stand up and put their front paws up. So they like, you know, look big and scary, but somehow they just managed to look so much cuter. Anyway, she does that in the film when she gets scared as a red panda and it just, it made me laugh. It's so cute. So I highly recommend it. I, I loved it a lot and you should definitely check it out.

Jennie: Let's see here. I don't know that I've listened to any new podcast. I have a very heavy rotation of podcasts. I listen to, like I mentioned at the top, I definitely always listen to Cancel Me, Daddy. I love that podcast. And also I've been listening to lately, a lot of Maintenance Phase by Aubrey Gordon and Michael Hobbs. I really love that podcast. It's so wonderful. Taking on a diet culture and wellness culture. I love that podcast. Let's see. The other one I've been listening to is also one of Michael Hobbs' it's You're Wrong About, kind of looking back on a whole slew of issues. There are a ton of episodes and looking at, you know, how our perception of some of them are wrong. A lot of it involves, but like basically how women have been covered badly in the media. So it, I have been enjoying catching up with that one. I'm all caught up in Maintenance Phase, but I just haven't listened to all of You’re Wrong About yet. So I am still trudging my way through and by trudging, I mean, delightfully trudging my way through, cause I really do love it. I think those are like the big, I mean, not big, but those are like the exciting things that have been going on recently. Like I said, nothing super exciting. Been going out a little bit, was able to go out winery with a friend, not that long ago. And it was delightful cuz it was like a snowy day and nobody else was out, very few people were out and it was just nice to see a friend and go and drink some wine and eat good food and get out of DC for a little bit. Yeah. I think those are, those are probably the biggest highlights. I'm pretty boring. I guess with that, we'll turn to this next episode. And as I said at the top, we have the wonderful Kate Burns on again. I am so excited to talk to Kate about all of the attacks on trans rights at the state level. So like I said, it's a pretty heavy episode because man, y'all… stuff is terrible, but she as always is a delight to talk to. So, uh, I guess we'll turn to my interview with Katelyn Burns, who is a freelance journalist and the co-host of the wonderful Cancel Me, Daddy podcast.

Jennie: Hi Kate. Thank you so much for being here.

Katelyn: Thanks for having me.

Jennie: So before we get started, do you wanna do a real quick introduction of yourself and include your pronouns?

Katelyn: Yeah. My name is Katelyn Burns. My pronouns are she/her. I was the first openly trans Capitol Hill reporter in US history. Uh, currently I am a columnist for MSNBC and a freelance journalist and I am the co-host of the podcast Cancel Me, Daddy,

Jennie: Which I love and always listen to. And I mean, I always read your stuff too, but uh, I really love yours and Oliver's podcast.

Katelyn: We have a lot of fun with it. It's very topical.

Jennie: I always, whenever I hear things come up like, oh my God, I can wait to hear, Cancel Me, Daddy talk about whatever the new nonsense was.

Katelyn: Oh my God, there's been so much stuff lately. And unfortunately Oliver hasn't been able to work for health reasons. I don't think they've mentioned it publicly, but so we unfortunately missed out on some great things, but we're coming back soon. We're excited.

Jennie: Well, I'm very excited to have y'all back when you come back. Okay. Unfortunately we have to turn to the horrible things. Now we can't just talk about your podcast, although I would love to, and there's just been so much anti trans nonsense. So I figured we would kind of jump a bit into a couple different buckets of nonsense instead of doing like state by state or anything like that. Cause it's too much to do state by state.

Katelyn: Yes.

Jennie: So I guess the first like bucket has been, there has been a lot of things around banning books or making sure that classrooms can't talk about LGBTQ people. Do we wanna talk about kind of that strain of attack that we've been seeing?

Katelyn: Yeah. So the short story is that conservatives, I think on the backs of the critical race theory panic that we saw last year have kind of seized on issues for a similar sort of, I don't know if hate campaign is the right way to say it. I think we typically describe those things as hate, but it's… the way that I explain it to people is every year, since I've been an adult going back to the year 2000 and, cuz I'm old, the GOP has always come up with something really obnoxious and just borderline fantastical. Right? So you remember the, what was it? The refugee caravan or whatever it was?

Jennie: That was exact one I was thinking of.

Katelyn: Yeah. So like, and then, and then last year for the Virginia governor's race and a couple other handful, smattering of other races that were run last year was the, the critical race theory and the trans bathroom stuff. Like in 2004, when W. Bush was running for reelection, they of course had all those referendums on marriage quality. It's all, it's like, this is the one that I think is the closest to that sort of. What can we do to whip our right-wing base into a fury? And, and this is the latest thing is this banning books. And it's really, I think it's been quite scary for LGB people who aren't trans because I think that like cisgender gay people and lesbians and bisexuals kind of thought they were in the clear from being targeted by the right wing. I never really believed that. But what you're saying is sort of a pivot where yes, anti trans sentiment is driving this. If you listen to like Governor DeSantis in Florida, when he is at his signing ceremony for the Don't Say Gay bill, he's talking about trans people in gender ideology and making sure it doesn't spread in schools, but make no mistake. Like it's not just trans people that they're targeting. I actually think it was a mistake to call it the Don't Say Gay bill. And I think it was another example of sort of the quote unquote big gay rights movement, brushing aside the underlying transphobia of these things to, to sort of protect their own if you will. I'm not sure I'm making a whole lot of sense on this, but we can talk a little bit about sort of the origins and how this came to be come about because I think it's directly tied to the anti-trans movement.

Jennie: Sure.

Katelyn: So what you saw over… I wanna say the last three years or so is you saw a lot of anti-trans pundits like Abigail Schreyer and some others who I refused to name, who really came out strong with this theory that there were trans kids who were turning trans because of peer pressure or some sort of social contagion. And what ended up happening was conservatives, as they do with every issue, they see this one little glimpse of this theory, which was made up to begin with, but they run with and they seize on it and they take it way too far. So now what you have is this entire movement trying to ban books with any mention of trans identities or trans kids, they're extending it into classroom discussion now. And they're saying, you know, we wanna stop this social contagion and this is the best way to do it. So I think it's in a sick way, it's a vindication for, you know, trans activists and journalists like myself who saw those campaigns for what they were back then and took them to their logical conclusion. And it was really an immense failure by, I would say advocacy and mainstream media.

Jennie: Yeah. Uh, I, I feel like a lot of people were caught by surprise a little bit, and I think,

Katelyn: Which, how?

Jennie: I agree, right? Like it's, it's been coming. It's like the people who were shocked that like we're probably gonna lose Roe I'm like, but like it's been happening right?

Katelyn: Yes.

Jennie: So it happens slowly until it doesn't right? And like it's easy to not listen to the people screaming until it's like super in front of your face.

Katelyn: Yeah. Which is super frustrating.

Jennie: Yeah. Okay. So that's the first bucket. The next bucket is preventing trans kids from playing sports.

Katelyn: Yes.

Jennie: Which I know you have written a ton about. And I will definitely include links to some of Kate's pieces throughout on multiple topics. But, um, I just remember reading some really great ones of yours in this area.

Katelyn: Yeah. I am frankly, sick of talking about this issue. This is…one of the first pieces I ever wrote as a quote unquote professional writer was about growing up myself as a closeted trans girl who also loved playing sports. And I had no idea back then that it would turn into sort of the leading political issue of a midterm election. But, you know, I remember, I, I went back and read that piece. I think it's on my Medium page now because the publication I wrote it for no longer exists, but you know, the thesis that I had back then, and we're talking about 2016, was I couldn't imagine… I mean, first of all, when I was younger, I had no idea that transitioning was a thing that anybody could do much less kids or adolescents. But had I known that I couldn't have imagined trying to choose between my athletic career and my gender identity. Like sports taught me so much about working in a team environment and building social skills. Right? Cause you can't just like cut yourself off from your teammates. If you're playing a team sport, like, you know, basketball and soccer, which were the two team sports that I played. So this, this issue in particular hits really close to home for me. And I also think it's the one that people are frankly, most ignorant on.

Jennie: Yeah. I've definitely had people, you know, asking me for clarification around it, who would definitely understand it, like once it's explained to them, but when they like first hear it. Yeah. They're like, oh yeah, no that, okay. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Like that's… no. And like need to like break it down and then they're like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That makes sense.

Katelyn: Yeah. Unfortunately the, the field, the information field here is littered with a lot of, I think purposefulness, misinformation and scaremongering imagery, you know, there has never been a truly dominant trans woman athlete in a woman's sport. And it's gonna be a tough pill for some people to swallow because they look at Lia Thomas and they go, well, she won every race she swam this year. Well, no, that's not true. She lost a bunch also she's in the [inaudible] league, which is not the highest like competition that you can get in NCAA division one. And then when she got to the national meet, she was not the most standout swimmer in any way since or form as a UVA swimmer that broke like eight NCAA records at the same meet. But nobody talks about her. They're just talking about Lia Thomas. I think part of the problem is, is that if you just take people off the street who have never met a trans person, right? Like they would say, oh yeah, of course men generally are better athletes than women, which is true. Like there are no trans people who deny that the point that I keep coming back to is once trans women start hormone replacement therapy, there are very real changes that happen to our bodies. And they all contribute to making us significantly less athletic. If you look at Lia Thomas' times from when she was a freshman in college, to what now, when she's a senior, she, her body matured for three years. And you would think three years of having a college workout would make her times dropped significantly like her in her best event, she got 15 seconds slower. And that's all because of her hormone replacement therapy, despite all of the hard work that she had, you know, maintaining her athletic ability. So we know for a fact that trans women lose the significant amount of athletic [ability]. So all I've ever asked is that if you're using data to look at your trans sports inclusion policy, the data has to compare trans women's bodies with cis women's bodies. And often what you see is the anti-trans side will just say, oh, well, you know, the there's this under 14, under age 14 soccer team that beat the US women's national team, of course women can't compete. And it's like, well, no, those are cisgender boys, right? None of 'em have trans bodies or they'll say, oh, well the, you know, men are always 10% faster than women, but they're comparing. And I'm just saying include trans women's bodies in this. And if your conclusion shows that trans women have this insurmountable advantage, go ahead and ban us at that point. Like if the data truly shows that I would support a ban, I don't believe that data shows that there has never been a dominant trans woman athlete in any sport.

Katelyn: I think you see a lot of these niche cases of, you know, there's a cyclist who won a world championship last year or a couple years ago. And everybody is like, she, you know, it's not fair. Nobody else could compete and it's like, well, yeah, but she's competing in like the 35 to 40 age range of master cycling. And like the best 35 year old cyclists on the women's side are still competing in like elite races. Like there's two different divisions like masters, which is the older person division. And then elite, which is, is the sort of that's the best of the best. And if you put the trans cyclist in the elite races, she would get her ass kicked. And you had, you know, an Olympic weight lifter and everybody's going, this is not fair. She's just gonna win because you know, she's a man or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she finishes last. She doesn't even get her weight up at all to begin with. And it's like, everybody needs to calm down because every time there's a new panic with a trans athlete, that's supposedly going to take over a sport. It never works out. Right? And the frustrating thing for me is trans women shouldn't have to continuously point out how bad we are at sports to justify our inclusion. And it's so frustrating to me to go around going well, yeah. But really she didn't dominate and it's like trans women should be free to dominate if they are good enough to do that. And so far, just because there hasn't been one like doesn't mean, I dunno, it's, it's incredibly frustrating. All I ask is that you just use trans bodies for your data. There have been trans men who have done incredible things in men's sports. You know, Chris Mosier is the only trans athlete ever to make a United States national team in his like transitioned gender. So he is a trans man. He transitioned from female to male and he made the men's USA team. And it's like, we never talk about that. Well, that's why I wish no trans women has done that. And it's like, hello, somethings going on here that people I think are missing. I want people to look at those things, but people are so set in their ways. And I think that cis men in particular are extremely threatened by this conversation because I think, and this is my own sort of meta-analysis. I think if it became established scientific fact that taking a couple pills for a year can turn and, or bring men to the level of women, I think that's terrifying for a ton of misogynist cisgender men out there. I think it actually threatens the undergirding of patriarchy. And I must sound like a lunatic when I say this, but I think that there's something to that and they just cannot, they refuse to look at facts when they're very existence is under threat like that.

Jennie: Well, it's also just the patriarchy of it all. I think you really like laid your finger on a, it is like, look at the bill signings and it's all these white girls who are at those preventing trans kids from playing sports.

Katelyn: It's creepy.

Jennie: It's really kinda creepy. And like, you're right. They only focus on trans women playing sports and not trans boys. Like it's all the patriarchy of it. And like, we need to protect the girls and like, you know what, let trans women play sports. I, I don't understand. Yeah.

Katelyn: Well, and I also, when it comes to these bills, like they're mostly targeted at high school athletes, but I think that the examples that they mostly use our adult trans women, and I don't think that's fair either. Cause I think that there's a big difference between a 24 year old body and a 16 year old body.

Jennie: Oh, for sure.

Katelyn: So again, like I think this is overreach on their part. I think this is a solution and search of a problem. I realize that it's, that I probably hold a minority opinion if you hold everybody in the United States, but I just want people to look at the facts.

Jennie: And I think it kind of goes back to that first thing we said it's so just the lack of familiarity and like, uh, having a deeper understanding of these issues. It's like new and scary.

Katelyn: Yeah. There's another part of this too. Where like, I think pictures like still pictures drive a lot of the discourse on this. So there'd be, there was a picture that like the National Review ran that said “this one picture should end the trans debate.” And it was Lia Thomas, like off to the side on the podium. And then the three, the next three finishers in her race were like huddled together. And it looked like they were excluding her, but actually like one of the women who was in the, the other group came out and said, no, actually these were my Olympic teammates. And we wanted a photo of the three of us and, and somebody snapped a wide angle photo, including Lia, where she wasn't really meant to be. And those swimmers, each of them have come out and said like, we support Lia’s right to compete against us. Right? There was another photo that went viral that seemed to show Lia like jumping higher into the water than the other women in the race. And it was really misleading. I, I think it was really that she got off to a slow start. So it looked like she was higher because like, when you jump into the pool, you don't jump straight out, you jump out and then you go down. Right. So I think, and, and you see this repeatedly with trans athletes where they'll, they'll just post pictures. And sometimes it's just a picture of a woman with muscles. I remember a couple years ago there was a picture of a Chinese track relay team. It was a women's relay team. And there was one woman with long hair and three women with short hair and this British, uh, gender critical feminist quote unquote, um, looked at it and said, woman, man, man, man. And it was like, well, what are you doing? You don't know who these people are. You're just judging it on appearance. This is misogyny actually. And none of the Chinese women were trans. Like that would've been a huge deal. I mean, quite frankly, LGBT rights in China are not in the greatest place. So that would actually really surprise me if that was the case. But I just don't…I want people to just take a deep breath, step back, read a broad of perspectives. Look at the actual data involving trans bodies. It tells a, a much different story than than most people have a knee jerk reaction to.

Jennie: OK.

Katelyn: I'm so sorry for the rant.

Jennie: No!

Katelyn: But I'm just like, oh, I wish we were done. I wish that was all we had, but wait, there's more.

Jennie: I know, right? Oh God. OK. So the next bucket, cause of course there's a next is banning gender affirming care for young people.

Katelyn: Yes.

Jennie: Again, ve've talked about this before. Yeah. Okay. Deep breath. Okay. Let's talk about this bucket, and that’s attacks on gender-affirming healthcare.

Katelyn: [I think this topic is the most] relevant to the topic of your show. I think this is the area where repro folks and trans people have the most synergy because, and I'm somebody who's obviously covered both repro and LGBT rights for a long time. The gender affirming care bans are, are, I mean, they're certainly implemented by the same people. Um, and often in very similar ways, I'm going to use Texas as the example because that's the one that's been in the news. The background on this is the Texas legislature over the last couple of sessions have tried to implement a gender affirming care for minors ban and they have not passed it yet. And so what you see is the ultra conservative activist base in Texas is real unhappy with Texas Republican leadership. Cause they want this band in place and they keep failing to pass it. So Governor Abbot and his Lackey, Ken Paxton, the attorney general, they're both facing primary challenges this year or they both face them and they were facing off against candidates that were even further to the right. Um, and the biggest issue was this lack of, uh, ban on trans care for kids. So what you saw was Abbot in the weaning days of his, well, both of them really came out with proclamations, like the proclamations to the Department of Family and Child Services to consider providing gender affirming care to somebody under 18 to be child abuse, which is essentially what the law would've done in a roundabout way, if it had passed or the bill, excuse me. So they basically circumvented the legislature to try to backdoor this in so that they could win a few other, other votes and beat off like this primary challenge from somebody to the right. It's actually really terrifying for families with trans kids. And when we're saying trans kids, like you don't start any gender affirming medical care until after puberty starts. So we're not talking about, you know, young, young kids, they're mostly teenagers. And I mean, when child protective services starts showing up at your door doing an investigation like that has the potential to really ruin your life. Right? So, and the other problem is, is that child abuse has no statute of limitations. So even if families like pick up and move immediately, like they could still be prosecuted because it happened like they were doing this thing before the proclamation. So it's a really dangerous situation that families can't really escape. And it runs the risk of loving parents, like losing their kids to frankly, a trash fire of a foster care system. And Texas they're simultaneously dealing with this huge scandal where one of the Christian foster homes down there that has the contract from the state actually was trafficking children, sex trafficking, children, and they've got busted. So like it's a horrible system and the Republicans in power like weaponized this, but the thing about it, I had to lay the background to sort of get to my point. And I apologize for that.

Jennie: No, it needed to happen. Cause like again, people need to understand kinda ins and outs of all of this.

Katelyn: Yes. I wanted to tie it back to, I think it's SB8 in that state, which is the abortion bounty law. So the abortion law works in a way that anybody can sort of bring a lawsuit against a provider if they have been found to perform an abortion. Right? So sort of like weaponizing the public to gang up on providers. The trans care directive works in a slightly different, but also very similar way in that anybody can report parents for child abuse. That's how the system works. So they're also weaponizing the public to sort of police their own in a way that I think is very similar to SB8. I think it's somewhat easier actually to end up reporting people [in the case of the trans law], you know, to the, to child protective services than it is to bring a lawsuit against an abortion provider. So in a lot of ways, they've like hypercharged SB8 and then pointed it at, at trans kids. And as we've talked about many times, like these are core issues of bodily autonomy. If the state can take away access to what is universally regarded as lifesaving treatment for trans care, they can certainly go ahead and do the same thing for abortion, for birth control, for any host of other reproductive related activities. So I will renew my call once again for solidarity between repro folks and, and trans, especially on this front,

Jennie: We are all in this together. Yeah. Uh, yeah, I agree. It, uh, I dunno it, this is, I mean they all make me so mad. Like all of the issues we've talked about so far today, but like, like when this Texas thing happens, like I, it just breaks my heart. Thinking that kids could be pulled out of a home with loving parents who are providing them with lifesaving care, like, yeah, it's just devastating.

Katelyn: I know at least one parent who, whose kid is over 18, but they had provided gender-affirming and care before they turned 18 before the directive. But the parent, the mom works in a childcare related field and she's being investigated now. Um, so it kind of circles back and ties back into the book banning, classroom bans where this is, this is really just a culture war to try to shut up, you know, trans people and, and our closest advocates.

Jennie: Yeah. Again, we all need to be in this fight together and I'm happy that it feels like a lot of the repro community is, but not enough. We all need to be really loud about this because we, it, it is, it's gonna impact all of us. These are both issues of bodily autonomy, and we need to fight them together.

Katelyn: Yep.

Jennie: Okay. Kate, that was a lot of terrible, um, let's is there any good news, like, come on, please tell me there's some good.

Katelyn: Uh, there is, it's not, it's not quite to the scale of bad news. Unfortunately. I know something that I am personally very happy to see. So yesterday we're recording this the day after Trans Day of Visibility and the White House actually had a series of really meaningful policy rollouts on TDOV that I'm excited about… the one I'm most excited about, I mean, so among those are, uh, people can now get an ‘X’ on their gender marker on their US passport, which is a huge deal. And we're not the first state to, you know, the first country to do this, but it's a really fantastic thing for nonbinary people. They're also, uh, partnering with like airlines and the TSA to provide education on what the means. And they're trying to deprioritize gender as sort of an identifier altogether when it comes to air travel, which leads me to the TSA change. So, so for those of you who don't know, when you go through those big, you know, body scanners, where they make you raise your arms up over your head and spread your legs, and then the x-ray machine sort of like whirs past you before you step into that machine. There's an agent on the, the other end who will push a button that's either male or female. If you ever like go through next time, you take a flight, turn back and look at the little computer screen on the scanner. And you'll see, like this there's two buttons, male and female, right? So it's telling the scanner to scan for a certain body types and trans people typically don't have those body types. So before I had bottom surgery, um, it was always a question of will I get like sexually assaulted by my government today just for getting on this flight. Um, because you know, if they're scanning me as female, it's going to register my penis… says an anomaly or an alarm, they call it. So it was always really awkward when that happened. A lot of times I would ask to get re-scanned as male so that my pat down was on my chest and not on my groin, because that was less of an invasion to me personally. What the Biden administration has announced is that they're replacing those machines.

Jennie: Yay!

Katelyn: So they're replacing them with machines who, which are not gender dependent, which are supposedly more accurate than the current scanners and with the goal of producing fewer alarms for trans people, which is something that we've frankly been asking for since the scanners came out, like there were articles literally the week that the scanners came out about trans people like getting harassed. And there have been several high-profile incidences of trans women who are, you know, not just singled out for pat downs, but also brought to the back. And then I think in one cases, a, a six year old trans girl, somewhere who was actually strip-searched without their parents present, which is really awful. So we're all extremely happy about the TSA change. Uh, we no longer have to get bottom surgery or top surgery to feel comfortable flying. It's actually a huge deal for us.

Jennie: That that is good news. Yes. I will take it. I will take it. Okay. So I always like to end with what can our audience do? So what can our audience do right now?

Katelyn: Pray.

Jennie: Yeah.

Katelyn: Yeah, I, I think I'm gonna answer this the way. I think I've always answered it and you know, if you're a repro advocate, like I just ask you to show up when there's a trans protest, I've told this story before, but you know, being based here in DC, I end up covering a lot of protests. And when I go to a repro protest, I see, you know, trans people and trans advocates there. And when I go to a trans you know, a rally for trans rights, it's just trans people there. And it's been my goal for a very long time to have that not happen anymore. And I just like, if you show up, we see that, and that's a big deal. Uh, we also notice when people don't show and that it, it really genuinely makes a big difference in our psyche.

Jennie: Yeah. It's one of the things I miss about going into my office. Cause I have not been in there for two yearsm is going to all of the rallies at the Supreme Court for all of the things. Cause as Kate knows, our office is literally right behind the Supreme Court. So like I always kind of felt like I would be going out of my way to not go.

Katelyn: There was always a security guard at the Supreme Court that I would waive to when I was coming to your office to record.

Jennie: Yeah.

Katelyn: Yeah.

Jennie: Always gonna, I mean, and I always, the other thing I do not miss as much, um, yeah, I'll say is, um, so I would walk down second street to our office and I seemed to be on the same schedule as when that Catholic church would get out.

Katelyn: Oh no.

Jennie: So I would run into Justice Thomas on my way. And I always had a really good knack for running into him and like having to wait on the corner, uh, before the Supreme Court with him on big decision days or big argument days. And like the, like don't say like all the things going through my head of like, you can't say it, you just, you can't say it. You can't say any of the things that you're thinking… so many times, Kate. So many times,

Katelyn: I remember when Obergefell was being argued. I was the only trans woman in the, like the media section and I had to pee the entire time. And all of the arguments were about where trans women should go to the bathroom and it doesn’t like, oh my god, no, it didn't help at all. I was freaking miserable.

Jennie: Yeah. So anyway, what we're saying is show up, go the, go the rallies. I try to go when I can, sometimes you have to make sure you're getting on the right list.

Katelyn: Yeah. That's a, I think that's a big thing.

Jennie: Cause sometimes I find about later.

Katelyn: Yeah. I think Human Rights Campaign is a good one. Especially if you're in DC, they do a lot stuff around DC. Yeah.

Jennie: I gotta make sure I get on all the right list. Cause I don't always know until after.

Katelyn: But they're the big one I know about.

Jennie: Okay. Well Kate, thank you so much for being here as always. It was a joy talking to you about terrible, terrible things.

Katelyn: Thank you for having me.

Jennie: Okay. Y'all I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Kate. I had a great time talking to her as ways there's so much going on and just don't forget. Even if your passions are in repro that this fight over bodily autonomy and trans rights is our fight too. And we need to be in the, in this fight with the trans community. We're all going down together if we do not fight together.

Jennie: Thanks for listening everyone. And we'll see you on our next episode of RePROS Fight Back. For more information, including show notes from this episode and previous episodes, please visit our website at reprosfightback.com. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter at RePROS Fight Back, or on Instagram at reprosfb. If you like our show, please help others find it by sharing it with your friends and subscribing, rating and reviewing us on iTunes. Thanks for listening.

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