Speaker 1: Anti-transgender bills are sweeping the country. Right wingers are obsessed. This
is what they call a culture war. We call it a campaign of persecution and a move in the
continued authoritarian direction that these right wingers have gone in for some time.
But it is Anti-transgender sentiment that is now fueling much of what we are seeing
among cultural right wingers. I don't even want to call them cultural conservatives,
cultural conservatives who might be like, Oh, I don't know. My wife makes dinner four out of
seven weeks for two, seven days of the week or whatever. This is not cultural conservatism.
This is something very, very different. And Vice has a report on new data released by the
trans legislation tracker. There are. It's February. There are already twice as many
anti-trans bills making their way through state legislatures as what we saw in 2022.
And in fact, this legislative session that started on January 1st, this calendar year
of legislation has seen more than 350 anti-trans bills introduced in 36 states, compared with 170
in all of 2022. We are six weeks into the year. So last year was a record breaking year and this year
is already doubling it. And only six out of 52 weeks through the year anti-trans bills are being
proposed at the state level. We are seeing them at the national level. We are seeing municipalities
push this stuff. And this includes everything from proposed legislation in Wyoming which would equate
gender affirming care to child abuse, despite the fact that every serious medical authority
has said, Oh, no, no, no. Gender affirming care is good. It improves outcomes and well-being.
We have seen bills that just try to narrow and codify biological definitions for man and woman.
And so far, three different states. We've seen this in Tennessee, we see it in South Dakota,
we see it in Utah, have already passed bans on gender affirming care. The South Dakota bill that
was passed into law has an element in it which can force trans youth to detransition, at least as far
as the state is concerned. In Oklahoma, there's a proposal for a bill which would ban gender
affirming care if you're under 26. There was a bill attempted in North Dakota, but it failed,
which would fine teachers if they use the pronouns preferred by the trans person. Trans person says,
you know, I go by she even though I was born biologically male teacher says, okay,
I'll do that. Teacher can get fined based on the bill that fortunately failed in North Dakota.
So this is a very serious issue and this is a serious issue. Even if you are someone in
my audience and I know that there are some of you who aren't yet really totally sure where you land
on all aspects of what's going on in the trans community. And let me tell you, you can say as
I do. We still got to figure out when it comes to some sports, when we're talking about trans women,
really, Because remember, even the sports issue, you've got all trans issues and then within that
you have issues related to sports. And then within that you have issues related to trans
women in sports. And then within that, it's only some sports. Nobody's getting all shaken up about,
Oh, you know what? There is a trans woman who wants to play with the women in chess. I've
not heard anybody bring that issue up. It's some sports only trans women. Okay. So this is a very,
very narrow issue. You can take the position that you're not yet sure how that should be dealt with.
That's totally fine. While still recognizing that the 99% of all of this legislation that's being
proposed is dangerous and it's the new scapegoat, as we talked about. You know, I did an interview
for some of our other platforms with a drag performer earlier this week, which we're going to
be publishing for you soon. And in that interview, we talk about how the tropes have shifted from
many of the ones used against gay men. 15 or so years ago, when I started interviewing some of
the homophobes. They've shifted a lot of the same stuff over to trans people and it's, oh, you know,
sexual assault and pedophilia bathrooms. You got to be worried about the bathrooms. This is just
shifting the hate to target trans people and their families. And one of the things that we're seeing
and it's horrible that this is happening is in some states, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, we are
seeing families with trans kids moving, moving out, moving out of the states altogether. And
this is potentially going to go in a very, very dark direction. And one of the reasons that these
bills are dangerous is that they really push the boundaries of demonizing trans people by
codifying that this is a group that's a problem. We need to pass special laws because this group is
so problematic and this is going to expand and we know it's going to expand because it is expanding.
It used to be just about bathrooms. Now it's about what are teachers allowed to say if they
don't want to get fined? It's about so many things beyond that. So I'm putting it on your radar. This
is all to fix problems that really don't exist. The issue of, oh, people will pretend to be trans,
to go into bathrooms, to spy on people in stalls of it's not happening. It's not happening. And
that's against the law, no matter what your gender identity is. And it is not an issue, it just
doesn't exist. And then lastly, this anti-trans group. It's not a group in the collective
anti-trans movement also wants many of us to believe that gender affirming care is harmful. But
there is extensive research from medical governing bodies. The American Medical Association, American
Psychological, American Psychiatric Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, they have endorsed
gender affirming care, even for minors. When you go through the correct protocol now, the
right will say they're chopping off the breasts of prepubescent women. Well, they're not women and
they don't have breasts if they're prepubescent. And it's really not happening. And when push comes
to shove, they really struggle to present any data that suggests that this is an epidemic. But
it doesn't matter. It's about what can you trick people into believing? So we're going to follow it
extraordinarily closely. And it is just as scary as it sounds. Not exactly small government. N