Resisting, Elevating, and Humanizing with Laverne Cox

More than a decade ago, Katie asked a question she now regrets—one that sparked a meeting with her guest today, Laverne Cox. In this deeply personal conversation, the two revisit that moment and the friendship that grew from it. Laverne shares why she believes transformation is still possible–even under the Trump administration—if we’re willing to be uncomfortable and to listen. They also tackle the rising wave of anti-trans legislation, the right-wing propaganda machine, and how fascism takes root. It’s part masterclass, part catch-up, and a powerful reminder that teachable moments can change more than one life—they can change the culture.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Trans people were more visible post Orange and New Black.
We had transparent Caitlyn Jenner a year after I was
in the cover Time magazine choosing the cover Vanity Fair
and Caitlyn's transition wise international news in a way that
shook the world.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
And we had a few.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Good years of progress, like more, a little more representation,
more influencers, more trans people feeling comfortable coming out.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
And this is the inevitable backlash to that.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Hi everyone, I'm Kittie Couric, and this is next question
Laverne Cox. I'm so happy to see you again. I've
run into you on a couple of occasions, but I'm
always so thrilled and delighted to talk to you because
I learned so much from you every time we meet.

(00:55):
And I thought we should probably give a quick synopsis
of our backstorre because for people who are listening or watching,
you and I met Gosh. I think it was in
twenty thirteen. Perhaps, yeah, it was twenty thirteen. I think
we shot the show. I feel like it was the
day before Thanksgiving. Wow, I know I remember because I
had just gotten back shooting a documentary called Free CC,

(01:19):
and i'd just gone back from Saint Cloud, Minnesota, and
I visited CC in prison. She's a trans woman who
was incarcerated at the time, and I was shooting Oranges
a New Black, and it was the story I wanted
to cover before I booked Oranges and New Black. It
was for a show called In the Life that was
a PBS show. We're going to do a segment on CC.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
And then they lost their funding, and then I booked
Orange and I was like, I think we may have
an opportunity to tell CC's story because of this show.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
And then it happened.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
And so I had just gone back from Saint Cloud, Minnesota,
and I've been doing a college lecture tour. So that time, though,
I just think about all the stats that I listed
because I was doing I was triving the country like,
so all of that was fresh in my mind. So
everything I said on the show, I'd been saying on
the road. So I remember all of that. And I
also remember that Todd was your booking agent at the time,

(02:14):
and he emailed me directly and he told me, I
don't know why I remember. I know why I remember this.
He emailed me directly and said, we do come on
the show.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Karma Career.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
It is going to be on and then I was
like absolutely. And then he's like, we were so sad
you were unavailable the first time. And I was like,
what do you mean, Kate, because you'd had a few
other people from Orang John earlier in your season, think
in September Jason and I think I'm Taylor and tats
it your Katie's favorite character.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
And I was like what.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
And I hadn't heard anything about like not being available,
and I was just like Netflix and asked me, you
know about any of this, and so I was just
sort of like, Okay, that's weird.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
And so I remember that.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
But then what is so beautiful about it is that
I think things happened way they were supposed to.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
Can I talk about how the show went, because I
think it's so important and you really saved my bacon
in many ways. So this is what happened everyone. We
had Carmen Carrera on, she's a trans woman, wanted to
be the first Victoria's Secret Model, and.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
There was a petition.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
I've changed that org petition to make sure that first
trans Victoria's Secret Model.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yeah, so I had not done I had had little exposure.
I would say, I mean probably more than the average
place you had interviewed.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
I mean, you had interviewed a number of trans children, transfers.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
Right right, right, I think I had done one other
show on that, and Carmen came on and she was lovely,
and I asked a really dumb question. I asked, what
is happening? I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed even admit this. Now,
what is going on with your private part? You said
you have different private parts? Now I'll never forget it. Okay,

(04:01):
all right, all right, okay, like I'm praying.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
All so it's twenty twenty five, Like, how do you like,
how do you feel like? I mean, you can't even
say it now, so like now, like, how do you
feel like all these years later?

Speaker 3 (04:15):
Oh my god? Well, clearly I'm embarrassed, of course, and
I was also embarrassed at the time, but this was
my thinking. I asked this an appropriate question, intrusive in
every way, and Carmen understandably rejected that question appropriately. Later

(04:36):
you came on and we talked about it and talked
about her reaction to the question and why that was
so offensive. And I learned a tremendous amount from you,
and you were incredibly loving and gracious about it, and
my producers came to me later and said, do you
want to cut that question out that you asked Carmen. Now,
I've often thought about this, what I have done this again?

(04:59):
But I said, do you know I'm a relatively well
read person. I consider myself super open minded. If I
ask a dumb question like that, or I want other
people to understand why that's an offensive question, So I
don't mind making me look clueless if it's instructive to

(05:22):
the general population, So I say keep it in. It
will be useful for people. It'll be a teachable moment.
It was for me and hopefully it will be for
people watching. Well after that episode ran the condemnation and
the fury was unleashed social media. At the time, I

(05:45):
guess it was primarily Twitter. It was horrible because I
was so attacked and I knew there was a lot
of anger and hurt in the trans community that I
had asked that clueless question. I kind of tried to
explain my thought process and keeping it in because it
was taped, it wasn't live, and later I ended up

(06:08):
doing a documentary to educate myself and to go on
a journey of learning and discovery for myself that I
hope would help other people learn and discover through it all. Laverne,
you were so kind and compassionate to me and understanding.
In fact, a few years after that, you presented me

(06:29):
with an award for that documentary, and I also was
recognized by Family Equality, an organization that supports all different
kinds of faith.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
Your Revolution is the name of the documentary. Yes, promote it.
It's really wonderful.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
It was quite a journey for me, but you were
a constant throughout that journey, and I just so appreciate
you and your support as a result of that situation,
And so I think now I am quite educated about
trans issues. I consider myself a proud ally of the

(07:06):
trans community, and I wanted to have you on this
podcast because I have been so upset about what's happening
to so many people in our country, and to prepare
for this, I asked my team to get a copy
of your cover on Time magazine June ninth, twenty fourteen,

(07:32):
so eleven years ago, almost to talk to you about
what's happening, what has changed, and really to kind of
explore why I thought it was so interesting that the
transgender tipping point is what the cover said, America's next
civil rights frontier. And I was so excited to see
you on the cover of Time, and I thought it

(07:53):
was such an important cultural moment. What do you think
has happened, Laverne?

Speaker 1 (08:00):
There's I mean, there's so much there. First of all,
before we get to why we're here. And I have
a lot of theories and I think you know empirical
data about how we got here. But over the years,
I've cited our friendship, your evolution, your willingness to be
uncomfortable publicly, as a really important example of transformation that

(08:28):
so often, particularly in the environment there we're in now,
with predatory algorithms, with the profit motive having us sort
of Atajose throats instead of in a space where where
we can be educated and teachable, and we have so
few examples of people having transformations where they truly become allies.

(08:51):
I didn't even know you were making gender revolution. So
when I found out that the documentary was done, I
think I got an email or something.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
I was like, oh my God, Like she's really serious, Like.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
So she's not only because if you recall, it'd be
the episode aired. I don't know why I remember all
these details. The episode aired on a Monday. It's the
first Monday of January.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
And it was I think it aired on my birthday, the.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
First Monday in January twenty fourteen. And then on Fridays
you were having like a talk back, and so you
talked about the backlash and how it was a teachable moment.
And then like June, I think was after the time
magazine covery, you had me back and we had seen
each other at a few events, and we kind of
remember being at the time one hundred and going to
like a little corner and chatting about how hard it

(09:34):
had been to receive that backlash and what was different
about I think what's really really important for people to
understand is that up until that moment, it was acceptable
for interviewers to ask trans people about their genitalia, their surgeries,
and their transitions, and it was to rigor actually on

(09:56):
television talkships. I had been doing a presentation for a
few years where I looked at the history of TV
talk shows starting with Christine Jorgensen, and how the narrative
about trans people had sort of developed from Christine Jorgensen
into you know to like twenty twelve or so, and
every single talk show Christine Jorgenson's story was so much

(10:17):
about surgery and it was just acceptable Renee Richards, but
every sing if you look at all these talk shows,
and we have a little bit of this in Disclosure
our documentary. Everyone asked about Genitalia. Even I noted an
Oprah moment, and I live for Oprah, Live for Oprah.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
So there's not a criticism of Oprah.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
But a woman named Kimberly Reid Kimberly Reed Prodigal Son.
She's an editor and documentary filmmaker. She had directed a
film about her life story called Prodigal Sons, and in
the telling of her own story as a filmmaker, the
only thing she said about her transition is that it
was like a second puberty. But when she was on
the Oprah Winfrey Show, Oprah added that she had therapy,

(11:01):
she had gender reassignment surgery. She added that because it's
for Oprah at the time, it's like, this is what
people want to know. People are curious, and we have
to clarify, like what's going on in people's pants, because
that's what people want to know. And what I theorized
at the time is that even when there is a

(11:21):
humanized and it was a very humanizing interview because that's
what Oprah does, but even a humanized interview is undercut
when we focus on surgery and transition, that the audience
is like, oh my god, you know what happens in
that surgery if it comes to humanizing, because that becomes
the takeaway for audiences and it leads to a kind

(11:41):
of misinformation, and so so much of how we've gotten
here now is a lot of misinformation, but that we
still haven't even with the work that you and I
have done other trans people have done, a lot of
journalists since then have not been going there. The right
wing has done a really really good job of reducing

(12:01):
trans people to medicalization and dehumanizing us like this, it's
a dehumanizing process and they've done it in a lot of
different ways right. So specifically, if we look back at
twenty I think twenty sixteen was the big moment with
HB two in North Carolina that infamously the bathroom bill
that attempted to ban trans people from bathrooms. Well it

(12:24):
did ban bathrooms to North Carolina. That bill was fought,
it ended up being overturned there.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
The NBA said that they wouldn't play games there.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
Right, there was a movement where businesses in Ncuba, all
these athletic groups divested from North Carolina and they were like,
this is bad for business. So they were like, we're
not going to do this. And bathroom bills had been
tried and attempted in other states too. After marriage equality
became the law the land, the Republican think tanks like
mainly like Alliance Defending Freedom focus grouped trans issues and

(12:59):
what issue will sort of galvanize or outrage Americans most,
and it was transluple in sports. And so in twenty
nineteen we saw the first anti trans girls in sports
bill introduced are forgetting what state. It didn't pass, but
the next year they introduced in another state and it
did pass. And what we should know about this all

(13:21):
the anti trans legislation now hath the country bands trans
girls from sports. There is a national band now because
of this current administration through executive order and some people
are resisting, but all the executive words.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
Are being folded in the courts. We should all know.
But sports was the gateway.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
They were like fairness and it was also in the
language that they used. They language that they used is
not trans women or trans girls in sports. It's biological
men competing against girls. So it's not even like boys
against girls, it's biological men. So the language again becomes dehumanizing,
it's miss gendering, and so it's been a really effective

(14:02):
propaganda campaign to dehumanize trans people. Say it's not fair,
you know, trans people in sports, when now we know
there's there's less than one hundred trans athletes in the
country and the NC doublea of fifteen of or fifteen hundred,
I think trans athletes there's less than ten, right, So
we're talking about like trans people are less than one
percent of the population, and trans people actually playing sports

(14:25):
there's even fewer. There's this really genius. It just lives
free in my head. He was the governor of West
Virginia being interviewed by Stephanie will in MSNBC. He signed
a sports bandage and he was like, you know, we
don't want people taking advantage. You know this bill and dules,
can you cite anybody you know taking advantage? Because the
theory is like anybody can say that there are trans

(14:46):
and then compete and dominate, you know, women's sports.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
He could name an example.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
And so there's laws being passed anti sports bands being
passed in states with no known trans athletes. Maybe there's
one trans athlete two who The right wing is really
good at making something an issue that isn't an issue
and then fear mongering around it and then making law
and policy around it. And people say often say it's

(15:12):
a distraction, and I don't think it's a distraction.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Took part of their overall agenda.

Speaker 1 (15:17):
In my opinion, the big piece is that, I mean,
we saw it with critical race theory, for example, and
it's always a backlash. So I think that, like if
we just stay on trans folks, we had a transiter
tipping point right, trans people were more visible post Orange
and New Black. We had transparent Caitlyn Jenner a year

(15:38):
after I was in the cover Time magazine choosing the
cover Vanity Fair and Caitlyn's transition was international news in
a way that shook the world.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
And we had a few.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
Good years of progress, like more a little more representation,
more influencers, more trans people feeling comfortable coming out. And
this is the inevitable backlash to that. Whenever I think
CRT emerged the year after critical rights theory emerged. The
year after Black Lives Matter, the biggest, the largest mass

(16:13):
protests in like American history, and that happened in twenty twenty.
The next year, CRT is something that most of us
had never even heard of, becomes the talk of America
and the target and the target right. And so there
is a really well funded, relentless right wing through the

(16:37):
through thing thanks like Alliance Defending Freedom. They're at the
heart of a lot of the anti abortion, anti LGBTQ
plus legislation. They write a lot of the legislation. Sometimes
state legislators copy their legislation verbatim. Alliance Defending Freedom and
they started as an anti LGBTQ organization, but they've literally
been at the Supreme Courts arguing against abortion, against gay rights,

(16:58):
trans rights. They're really well did a lot and their
global organization obviously they've worked with Heritage Foundation and all
these other thing tanks as well. And if you read
a document like Project twenty twenty five, so much of
the agenda is this Christian nationalist agenda that's returned to
traditional values. There's a unitary executive theory which is sort

(17:18):
of about power.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
And you know sort of executive branch.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
The executive branch is stripping away the deep state and all,
and we see that happening right that I think they're
like forty nine percent completed.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
If there's a project twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
Track, Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (17:32):
I think they're like.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
Forty nine percent the last time I checked. So it's
part of like this Christian nationalist agenda. But there is
this wonderful quote Jason Stanley, who has written a lot
of wonderful books, but he's an expertal fascism. He wrote
with specifically how fascism works. And actually just yesterday I
was watching an interview with him and Chris Hedges and
he said something that.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Really it was like I need to write this down.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
And he said that whatever they target are the conceptual
resources you need to see what's going on. Whatever they're
targeting are the conceptual resources that you need to see
what's going on. For example, the book bands right, so
much of what fascism and when he talks about fascism,
he talks about propaganda, misinformation. He lists he gives like

(18:18):
ten components of it, and any one of these can
exist without fascism.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
But when they all exist.

Speaker 1 (18:24):
We're talking about fascism, and so rewriting history, for example,
is a huge part of that. All the books that
are being banned, any history that might make white people
feel scared or guilty about their past. All the book banning,
I mean, banning Tony Morrison for example. It's just seems
so egregious. But a lot of this, you know, Texasts

(18:47):
in Florida have been like the kind of you know,
incubators for a lot of the things that we're seeing
on a federal level now. But banning books and changing
history and our access to information is a huge part
of this. And when he had a press conference to
Santis banning AP African American history several years I think
was twenty twenty two, he said, you know, they're not

(19:09):
teaching AP African American history. They're trying to indoctrinate our children.
They're throwing in things like, you know, prison abolition and
queer theory. I mean, what does queer theory have to
do with AP African American history? And then I'm sitting here,
I sit there as like a black trans woman from
the South, and I'm like, can I immediately think about

(19:31):
Buyer Rustin who a lot of people now know because
of the film. And I'm like, well, by a resident
organized the legendary marsh on Washington, where Martin Luther King
made that I have a dream speech that is often
referenced by a Rustin was a gay man, and I
think if you're teaching an African American history class, you
kind of have to talk about the march on Washington,

(19:52):
and so then you kind of need to talk about
who organize it.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
And I was a gay man, and that's.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
And he was queer, So like queer theory like comes
in because of intersectionality. And then literally in the next
sentence he says, they're me including things like intersectionality.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
What does that have to do with anything? I'm like, well,
that's the answer.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
So again, the things that they are attacking are the
things that we actually need to understand what's going on.
Because I know that I can't understand my life fully
in its complexity if I only look through a gender lens.
I can't understand it effectively. If I only look through
a race lens or a class lens. I understand my
life as a trans woman, as a transoman of color

(20:35):
from a working class background who has raised religious who's
an artist. There is an intersectional there's intersecting identities that
are affected through power that help me understand not only
my life but the world around me and how power works. Right,
And so these are the things they want to ban
because they don't want people to have an intersectional understanding.

(20:57):
They don't want an educated population. I mean funding the
Apartment of Education is there's a lot of reasons why
they're doing that. Obviously a lot of it is about
not wanting people to be educated, but I'll say, you
want to privatize and make a lot of money. So
the combination of like this predatory capitalism with miseducating people
and other risings and other rising them us versus them

(21:20):
as another component of fascism. But trans, when I think
about that, then I'm like, trans people really are if
we think about how, because I think trans people are beautiful.
I started the hashtag trans is beautiful in twenty fifteen.
It's been like millions of people have since used it.
But we transiople in so many ways are really the
answer to a lot of the gender stuff. If we

(21:44):
look at the lived experiences of trans people, the reality
of trans people through history, that there are different choices
we can make around gender, and that's so much about
what feminism has always been about, that we can make
different choices as women. But another thing about fascism is
that equality becomes a threat to the dominant group. The

(22:05):
dominant group sees equality as oppression, and so then that
has to be suppressed. So trans people, in so many
ways are like, if I can live my life on
my own terms and defind my gender on my own
terms and be the person I want to be, anybody
can do it right. And it's not easy. It's not

(22:25):
like I haven't. There have been obstacles there. They have
tons of policing of my gender, trying to make me
a boy or a man, and all that stuff, and
the ridicule and the physical violence and discrimination, all of
that was real. But the joy on the other side
despite all of that is incredible, like being true to

(22:46):
who you are. So many of us, I think women
who date straight men, I see so many of them
in prisons. I see so many of them imprisoned by
this idea of who they're supposed to be as that's
not liberatory, that's like still based in domination, and so
much of the anger. I think that when we see

(23:08):
the MANI sphere on the Internet, these guys who are
like pissed off at women and feminism, and they're pissed
off because the world has told them that they should
be on top.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
Right.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
They're raised to think that they should be providers and
that women should be subserving it. Every boy is not
raised that way, but the culture reinforces it, and then
wages don't keep up with inflation. Most jobs have been
shipped overseas, so they actually can't afford to be that

(23:39):
bread winner, to be that patriarch that they've been told
that they're supposed to be, and they're frustrated and they
want someone to blame. And instead of being educated enough
to blame predatory capitalism, corporations that have shipped jobs overseas,
depleted manufacturing unions being just you know, death made it,

(24:00):
et cetera, et cetera. Let's blame immigrants, let's blame trans people,
let's blame women. And that's what fascism does. I think
it's so important to call it fascism too, because when
we don't, it's like we're equivocating and the fear. I
love what Jason Stanley and this is another note that
I made about Jason Stanley in his book How Fascism Works,

(24:22):
names ten components the mythic passed. Right, So make America
great again. There was a time when America was wonderful.
There's a time when Germany was wonderful, and we should
return to that. Many people have asked Trump when it
was America great. Now he's saying, it's.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
The Gilded Age. Girl. He's like, you've heard me. You're aware,
so you've heard.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
I'm sure you've heard him talk about how we were
just so everybody was rich during the Guilded Age. I'm like,
everybody wasn't rich, girl, Like there are about ten people
who were rich and the rest of us were, like
it was child labor and tenement housing. But he's been
talking about the Guilded Age. Propaganda, the misinformation like that
pivotal to a fascist state. We see that everywhere, and

(25:03):
the extent to which they just lie to us, and
they can with impunity because there's a whole media equosystem
that's not challenging them. Right, So that way, Steve and
Miller basically said that nine zero Supreme Court decision was
actually in their favor, right, like that they would get
up and lie about that that they blatantly lie about
just kind of everything at this point, anti intellectualism on

(25:27):
reality again lies steals like hierarchy, hierarchy again, I'm talking
about that dominant class, that there is a dominant class,
that there's you know, men are better, Whites are better,
you know than Jews, you know historically, but like that hierarchy, right,
and that like white men should be in let hararky,

(25:47):
And if you read probably twenty twenty five, it sort
of talks about God man patriarch in the family and
those two first and then women and.

Speaker 3 (25:55):
Right and women need to have more children and stay at.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
Home exactly, victimhood and victimhood of the dominant class. Right,
all of this conversation by reverse racism that white people
are so being so the most discriminated against people right
now are white men in America and they're so put
upon and they're just such victims and we need to
like fix that all of this anti white racism.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
Well, how about the Africaners coming to America because they've
been persecuted.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
They've been persecuted in South Africa when seven percent of
the population owns seventy percent of the land, but they're oppressed. Yeah, victimhood,
law and order. So the law and order piece becomes
in a dictatorial, authoritarian way. That law and order piece
becomes like and we see it, and it's so sad.

(26:48):
What the law is is what Trump says it is.
I mean we see very clearly in that press conference
with the Governor of Maine when he's like, is she
here are you and follow our order to like band
transits to see you in court. She says, see you
in court, and she says, I'm going to follow the law.
I'm going to file the state in para la. And
he says, we.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
Are the law.

Speaker 3 (27:09):
And by the way, she won and.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
She won, yeah, which is really beautiful.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
But the way he's defied the Supreme Court and the
Supreme Court enabled it obviously with the immunity.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
Oh the Supreme Court. What a mess.

Speaker 1 (27:22):
But the law and order becomes whatever he says it is.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
Hi everyone, it's me Katie Couric. You know, if you've
been following me on social media, you know I love
to cook, or at least try, especially alongside some of
my favorite chefs and foodies like Benny Blanco, Jake Cohen,
Lighty Hoik, Alison Roman, and Ina Garten. So I started
a free newsletter called good Taste to share recipes, tips

(27:54):
and kitchen mustafs. Just sign up at Katiecuric dot com
slash good Taste. That's a t I E c O
U r ic dot com slash good Taste. I promise
your taste buds will be happy you did. It also

(28:18):
takes attention away from a movement that was gaining so
much steam that resulted in Black Lives Matter, George Floyd
and a true examination of bias in police departments and
police brutality. And now nobody is talking about it.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
It's been demonized so successfully and without any pushback. And
I think that, like so many people like because he won,
because they're in power, we have to capitulate to power,
and so conversations about implicit bias, those conversations are like
they're too woke. They make it unpopular, and then so
the conversation is no longer, so no one wants to

(29:00):
talk about it, and it's bad to talk about it,
and then it's banned. It's actually banned to talk about
it at Columbia University. Now, anything that suggests DEI, that suggests,
I mean the way he's taken over Columbia University is atrocious.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
And the way they've allowed that, it's horrible.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
Sexual anxiety, the sexual anxiety piece is really about the
trans folks. It's about the trans folks, it's about gay
and lesbian people. It's about women being in their place.
So if you think about vymar Berlin, right, but this
very very liberal progressive society in Berlin, uninhibited environment, uninhibited

(29:40):
environment that actually was very open and accepting to trans
people and gay and lesbian people. Magnus Hirschfeld had an
Institute for Sexuality and Berlin. It started in nineteen nineteen
and then existed until you know, the Nazis. The first
major Brooke burning that happened was of Magnus Hirschfeld's research
was of trans research, research into gain lesbian folks. Magnet

(30:02):
Schurst film made it possible for trans people to have
an ID document in Berlin to like identify them as
trans so they could like just have rights that other
people could have. In the nineteen thirties, let's say so,
Major and Hitler and his regime saw this as a
huge problem, and that first book burning happened. And we

(30:23):
know that with pink triangles that like gay folks and
trans people were also in concentration camps, and I didn't
know this until the Aides Movement Act Up reclaimed the
pink triangle as a sign of persecution in the eighties.
So all this sexual anxiety is also a part of fascism. Next,
Sodom and Goamoor. When he talks about Sodom Moore, he

(30:44):
talks about it's really cities versus rule. That in the cities,
this is horrible Sodom and Gomora, awful things happening to
the crime in the sties, when whenever we hear Republicans
talking about, you know, crime Chicago, Baltimore, and you know
black and black crime and all these things happening in
like Democrat or blue cities versus like our safe suburbs

(31:05):
and our rural areas. So that, like dichotomy between Solom
and Golmore, is another a spect of fascism. And then
the third one is it's a phrase I cannot say
because it's in German. This last one I break mach
free and I forget exactly what how he broke that
one down. But all of these things are happening right now,
and so I think like it's important because a lot

(31:27):
of people, like even John Stewart was reluctant to call
this fascism. And I think that when we look at
not just a general definition of fascism, but what are
the components of fascism, and we break them down and
look at them in relationship to what's going on now,
this is fascism. And so with that in mind, it's
like then when we see you know, people like you know,

(31:48):
Gavin Newsom or even thinking wit More, you know, sort
of standing with Trump, these Democrats sort of standing with Trump, it's.

Speaker 3 (31:55):
Well, they don't really stand with Trump. No, well, well,
I mean when they need certain things for their.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
State more I did do an event or something with him.

Speaker 3 (32:05):
I think that from what I understand, they are trying
to have some kind of relationship because a lot of
their states welfare depends on federal dollars. And my understanding
Laverne and I should check this was she had a
meeting and she didn't realize it was going to be
like a photo op, and I think she was sort

(32:28):
of embarrassed about it. From what I read, How.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
Do you work with when he is taking away state funding,
if you know, capitulate when he's retaliating if you against journalists,
against people who sue him, law firms.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
Law firm exactly.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
It's scary, and it's actually scary to actually speak up
against what he's doing because he's very retaliatory in many ways.
A streamer, Hassan Piker would just recently returned to the
country and was pulled aside in Global Entry and asked
all these questions about what he does, and he's controversy
in live ways, but he's left to streamer and he
was like, you know, detaining he's an American citizen. Eventually

(33:04):
he was let go, but they, you know, stopped him
and questioned this American citizen.

Speaker 3 (33:08):
A lot of intimidation happening and death threats even from
some followers for judges and things like that.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
So the trans piece is part of it. It's part
of a larger project. And for me, it's always been
amazing watching the ambidextrous nature of Republicans once they get
into power that they weren't just passing. I think this
year is like nine hundred anti trans laws have been
introduced in state legislatures.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
I know there have been eight executive orders.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
Eighty executive orders, nine hundred. I thought we had got
to five hundred like last year. I was like, okay,
that's but nine hundred anti translots is like, what what
are we doing? But I think it's also important to
note that when they couldn't get bathroom bands through in
twenty sixteen, they've gotten them through now that sports was
the trojan horse. Then they were like, they're attacking the children,

(34:02):
and what about children, demonizing healthcare for children that the
American Medical Association, of the American Academy of Beadrez, the INCANCIDE,
every reputable sort of medical institution is said that gender
firming care is the best course of action, and then
they've demonized that. A lot of it is about misinformation
about trans people. A lot of it is still when

(34:23):
people think about trans people, they think about surgery. Right.
They don't understand that gender firming care, particularly for a
pre prevescent child, is just a name change, maybe growing
out their hair or cutting their hair, and they wear
different clothes. No one pre pubescent is having any surgery.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
First of all, the very few people really under the
age of eighteen are having surgery exactly.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
And then hormone blockers are in fact reversible like these
are in.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
This they say've been studied enough.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
They say that, but we mormone blockers have existed probably
since the seventies or eighties for precocious puberty, so they
actually have been studied. And literally it was an Arkansas
They argued in court that hormone blockers for CIS kids
for precocious puberty healthy fine, but for trans kids no.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
So the same medication.

Speaker 1 (35:22):
That would block puberty for precocious puberty is healthy for
a CIST child, but it's not healthy for a trans child.
Just defies logic and it's clearly bigotry. They don't want
trans people to exist, have the ability to transition and
live our lives authentically, period point blank. How are they
safe for CIS kids and not safe for trans kids?

(35:44):
You can't like, actually look up puberty blockers like online.
It's everything's trans transtrands, So you have to look up
prokosis puberty to actually do research on puberty blockers and
progosis puberty. And when you do that research, a lot
of it's about if you developed to early, you have
a growth spurt, but then that growth spurt stops at

(36:05):
like eleven twelve, and then a lot of kids want
to go through puberty with their peers.

Speaker 2 (36:09):
But then there is a bone issue if you go
through puberty too.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
Early, and so part of the work of into chronologists
with proghosist puberty is studying like your bone growth of
the child, and this has been happening for decades, right,
And so when you go off the puberty blockers and
you have the puberty there you're supposed to have at
any age, the only issue is potential bone density loss.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
But that's only if you're on them a really long time.

Speaker 1 (36:36):
Usually it's you know, no more than four years, because
you make a decision if you're trans, to either go
on hormones or not, and you go off the puberty
blockers and then you do hormone replacement therapy. And at
the end of the day, though, for me, why is
it anybody's business, Like, I think any left leaning person,

(36:56):
obviously the Republicans and Conservists wanted to make this an issue,
But any left leaning person that's that capitulated to saying
that it's up for debate whether trans kids should have
access to gender from and care, I think I've already
conceded the argument, and we're having the argument on the
oppressor's terms. When a kid has cancer and the doctor
says we should be doing this care to save their lives.

(37:18):
There's not a public debate about that. There's not, like,
you know, from people who aren't healthcare professionals, who aren't like,
what do I know about cancer research? What do I
know about how to treat kids with cancer? Don't it's
not up for debate. But when it's trans people, it's
something we have to debate because you know, these trans
people and I don't understand it, and what are they
doing and and it's a dehumanization of trans people. It's

(37:40):
a mis education and misunderstanding of us. But that's by design.
When I was on your show, and probably for a
couple of years after that, when they would talk about
trans issues, they would actually bring on trans people.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
For the past five years or so, tons of.

Speaker 1 (37:56):
Conversations about trans people with narya transperson insight in the media.
They don't want to talk to us because when we
talk to trans people, we become human beings and not
these sort of monsters or caricatures that they can kind
of like make up things.

Speaker 3 (38:12):
About forty percent of trans children now live in states
that have banned any kind of intervention puberty blocker's hormone therapy,
and it's made me wonder a lot since I've met
a lot of trans families when I did my documentary
in twenty eighteen, the impact this is having on these families.

(38:35):
Can you talk about that?

Speaker 2 (38:38):
This is when it gets hard for me, for you know,
it was twenty it was two years ago.

Speaker 1 (38:45):
I was in twenty twenty two after Dilomovany calls it
beer gate in her vot. But when butt Light, you know,
had that moment and kit Rock was shooting up butt
lights and then target people were sort of terrorizing target
workers because they had pride merchandise. I was like, We've
lost We've lost the culture. I was like, We've lost
the culture. And that year, close to half the country

(39:07):
had banned de firming care for young people, and there
were all these things are being challenged in courts, but
there is so many families who were making decisions to
flee states, to flee Texas, to flee Florida, to flee states,
and then these were families who could afford to do it, And.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
It just broke my heart.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
I spent a lot of time crying and just and
kind of feeling like as a public figure, like, what
more could I be doing?

Speaker 2 (39:32):
Have I somehow failed?

Speaker 1 (39:33):
As this is my fault because we're so visible now
and they were kind of ignoring us. So I've had
a lot of feelings about it. But it's devastating, and
you hear from these families and they relocate. There's some cities,
like places like Minnesota that have become sort of sanctuary
states for trans people. So if you can afford to relocate,
right the whole family's relocating. Sometimes what happens is that

(39:55):
like if there's a two parent household, like the mother
and kids will go and then the fall will stay
back and work, or vice versa if they have a
better job. Because you have to get a new job
in a new state, you have to be able for
to do it.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
A lot of people can't afford to do it.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
And then even when you think about getting access to
gender or firming care as a young person, it's actually
a really privileged thing. A lot of insurance doesn't actually
cover gender affirming care still for adults or children. They're
actually supposed to cover it according to Affordable Care Act,
but that's been challenged and so many different ways. But
the devastation of a family having a move, and then

(40:31):
if you do have to stay in a state that
discriminates against you, then where you have to go to
another state sometimes to get a gender firm in care.
There was the main clinic in the South where young
people were going to get gender firming care was actually
the University of Alabama either Birmingham tessk Loosen.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
I'm from Alabama.

Speaker 1 (40:50):
When the band happened in Alabama, then that clinic was
closed down. So all these people in the South who
were going to Alabama to get gender firm in care
for their kids don't have that resource anymore. There is
a wonderful organization called Campaign for Souther Inequality that for
many years has been raising money and if people can
afford to donate to them, been raising money to give

(41:11):
scholarships to families to get them to a state where
their child can get access to gender firm in care,
get them to a state to transport them either by
car plane, get them a hotel state so they can
just visit a doctor, and also to relocate if they
need to. So this has been happening for years and
the demand is really strong. And also what happens when

(41:33):
people are migrating places like New York and California, the
gender affirming clinics are overrun and there's long wait lists
because so many people have migrated, and so the people
who already are in New York are having hard times
getting appointments, is what I'm hearing. Or in California or
San Francisco, where you can get access to gender firming care,

(41:53):
wait times so longer because so many people have fled
states where they can get access.

Speaker 3 (41:58):
What about those people love learned who can't afford to leave,
who haven't been supported through the fund you mentioned or
other resources. They are stuck in states that refuse to
help them.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
They don't have the opportunity to transition. They There's always
been black markets for us.

Speaker 3 (42:19):
Was just going to ask you about that.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
It's always been black markets for gender firm and care.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
And that's kind of where my focus is right now.
Not necessarily a black market, but like mutual aid. And
there's a history like when I started transitioning in nineteen
ninety eight, there was a doctor that had access to
here in New York and he retired like a year
after I started with him, and before I discovered calm Lord.

(42:45):
Then there was this guy named Ralph who had hormones
for the girls. And he found out about Ralph and
he would love it when we were all together, so
we can sell to a lot of girls. And Ralph
would come to my house and I'd buy hormones from Ralph.
I don't know where he got them from. I wasn't
getting blood worked. So like, these are the things you
know that like, trans people have always gotten access to

(43:07):
gender firm and care at various ages.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
If you know trans.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
Folks legal, illegal, we've always gotten access. There's a wonderful
story that Susan Striker, who literally wrote the book on
Transhi history. She's a professor in Arizona. She told me
a story that she interviewed Miss Major Griffith Gracie, who
was a Stonewall legend. She was also part of the
Attaka Riots. And she's still alive. She's in her eighties,
I think. And she was fifteen years old in Chicago

(43:34):
in nineteen fifty five and told a story about the
fifteen year old like the sex workers in Chicago's interesting
sex work in nineteen fifty five and on the streets
of Chicago, And she said the girls had hormones in
nineteen fifty five and so when I think about that history,
I'm like, this is a few years after Christine Jorgenson,
and then hormones were possible, and the girls were like,
we're getting these hormones, and so they found a way

(43:56):
to get access to hormones to transition and earth control bills.
But obviously you always want a healthier way to do it,
like I since I've been on you know, it's been
twenty seven years, Like I get blood work twice a year.
You want to get your hypothalamus checked, you want to
get make sure your blood closed. There are things you
want to make sure that you're you're healthy with with

(44:17):
your transition, and though when it's criminalized, you don't get
that access, but trans people have always found a way.
And so now what I'm interested in is like how
we as a community come together and support each other
in the face of a government that is really not
going to be effectively there for us. And so we

(44:40):
have to really look at infighting, at the ways in
which that US versus them to pieces and another part
of fascism that we don't allow divide and conquer tactics
to divide us as communities within LGBTQ communities, there's this
conversation happening now that's not new, but it's popularized again.
I think because the Trump adminished as the Trump Administration

(45:01):
is like left lg and B on different websites that
have taken out the t It's like these conversations have
been happening in LGBTQ plus community since civil rights has
been an issue.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
Is there infighting right now within the LGBTQ plus.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
Oh yeah, a lot of There's a lot of people
who are saying that the trans people have taken it
too far with pronouns and the non binary people and
they've messed it up for all of us. That conversation
is happening now online, but that's not a new conversation.
That is a conversation that's been going on for decades
when it comes to those gay, lesbian, and bisexual people

(45:38):
who are a little more respectable and have always felt
like drag queens and trans people and non binary.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
People were not.

Speaker 3 (45:45):
Good looks, second class.

Speaker 1 (45:47):
Yeah, I mean there's a there's I mean, historically, there's
a there's an iconic video of Sylvia Rivera, who was
literally their night.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
One of the Stonewall rebellion.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
Stem Wall lasted for like I think about five days
for week where they were fighting the police because they
were just tired of, you know, being criminalized as LGBTQ
plus folks. She was there night one, Silvia Rivera and
a founder as she founded Star Street, this organization called
Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
She and Marsha P. Johnson.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
They were doing direct a two trans people, housing them,
they were doing sex work and getting like an apartment
where all the girls can stay so they wouldn't be
on the street at night, and getting them fed, just
real basic stuff when they were incarcerated. When transfer were incarcerated,
because it was illegal to be trans on the street,
you had to have three articles of clothing, so we

(46:39):
were routinely arrested.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
They would go and bail the girls out of jail.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
They were doing grassroots activism directly for the community, and
she was one of the reasons that Stonewall in the
modern LGBTQ civil rights movement happened in nineteen seventy four
at the Pride Rally become Pride I think by this
time and not just scale liberation movement. They did not
want her to speak. They did not want her to

(47:05):
speak on the station She had to fight her way
onto the stage, and people booed her as she finally
got onto the stage, and she's like, you need to
quiet down. I've gotten my nose broken for gay liberation,
she said at the time, I've been raped, I've been arrested,
and you treat me this way.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
Nineteen seventy four. So it's not new, girl.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
I can go on about other examples of how kay
and lesbian folks. If you think about SONDA, the Sexual
Orientation on Discrimination Act that was passed in New York State,
and think in two thousand and one that initially included
trans people, and we're not going to get this passed
if we include trans people. So it took the trans
people out, got SONDA passed, and then we'll get to
you later trans people. Eighteen years later, the Gender Expression

(47:49):
Non Discrimination Act passed. I was going at almany like
almost every year for Equality and Justice Day talking to
legislators about gender and it took eighteen years for us
to have legal productions in New York State. So this
is not new, but it's a tactic that the Trump
administration is like now that like people outside the community

(48:12):
because they're dropping the tea and keeping L and B.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
They're like, let's it's the trans people's fault.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
And so again it's another divide and conqueror strategy that
we should resist because at the end of the day,
the Trump administration is coming for I think it's very
important to understand that. When Dobbs was overturned, Clarence Thomas
wrote a concurrent opinion. He said any decision that was
made based on the Fourteenth Amendment and substantive due process

(48:38):
should be revisited, including Lawrence v. Texas, which basically decriminalized
gay sex, Griswold versus Connecticut, which decriminalized contraception for married couples, Obergefeld,
which legalized gay marriage. He said, all of these decisions
need to be revisited. And then late a few months later,

(48:59):
cong Grace the Republicans, who had a majority in Congress
at the time, voted whether there should be gay marriage,
and the majority I think two hundred and fifty something
Republicans in the House voted against gay marriage, voted against
right to contraception, voted against the RATU and abortion. Obviously,
they didn't have the Senate to do this, but if
it's up to Republicans, they want to ban a right

(49:23):
to contraception, to abortion and gay marriage. So it's really
important that we don't succumb to divide and conquer strategies
as diverse communities. And so when I think about this,
I don't think about just LGBTQ plus or straight people
or non trans people. I think about working people, and

(49:43):
I think about like when I was on the View
when it sort of went viral, Less said, I think
they're worried about the wrong one percent. Trans people aren't
the reads and you can't afford eggs, We're not the reason,
like that your rent is too high, you can't, you know,
buy a house. I think there's a different one percent.
And I think that it's so clear with Doge. I
think it's like it was just so clear with this billionaire,

(50:05):
the richest man in the world, like gutting the Social
Security Administration and instead of doing it through legislation, firing people,
making it inefficient, making all these government agencies inefficient, to
basically dismantle them.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
That's part of part twenty twenty five.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
And for years they wanted to privatize education so that
they could like get vouchers so rich people go to
school and then poor people a lot of it's about
privatizations in this neoliberal kind of thing, to privatize everything
so that they can make everything part of the stock
market and make more money.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
So much of it's about that.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
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been following me on social media, you know I love
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(51:09):
kitchen mustaves. Just sign up at katiecurreic dot com slash
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promise your taste buds will be happy you did.

Speaker 1 (51:32):
If there's an US versus them, which I don't like
to subscribe to, it's a it's.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Not a culture war, it's a class war.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
So then if I think it's about if we are
to come together, we have to find ways as working people.
When I say working people, if your money is not
made through the labor of someone else, you're a working person.
If you have to show up somewhere to make your money.
You're a working person, and so working people are being

(52:00):
screwed over across the board.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
And so I think if we can get broad coalition
of workers.

Speaker 1 (52:06):
Across gender, race, age, workers coming together because there's a
tradition with labor movements that we can understand like that
people should have. You know, we have a five day
work week because of labor movement, right, coming together across
these differences. But I think that it becomes difficult when

(52:27):
a lot of people if don't want to work with
someone who maybe hasn't like interrogated the ways in which
they've internalized white supremacy or internalized transphobia, and we don't
trust each other. And when I say this, so there's
like this systemic piece that has to happen, but then
there's a personal thing that has to happen, the individual
thing and the interpersonal thing. I invite all of us

(52:48):
to interrogate the ways in which we've internalized transphobia, patriarchy,
white supremacy. I often say, if I a black trans woman,
I'm mobile Alabama. I'm not automatically anti racist because I'm black.
I grew up in the same culture I've internalized the

(53:08):
same anti blackness, the same white supremacist ideas about myself
and my people that other people have had that I've
had to unlearn. I've had to decolonize my mind. It
took me twenty six years to transition because I internalized
so much transphobia as a child and was learned to
hate the feminine part of myself that I couldn't transition
until I moved to New York and met trans people

(53:31):
and then start to unlearn that internalized transphobia, which is
a continuing process. Internalized classism. I did an episode of
my podcast where we shame poor people. We shame poor
people in this country. I grew up with so much
shame about being working class, and so we have to
do this work to understand how we've internalized oppression, oppression

(53:54):
that can hurt us and then hurt other people. That
work has to happen, I think, so that we can
come together, and there is a concerted effort right now
to say that you don't need to do any of
that work. That anybody's saying that like there's internalized bias,
or there's you know, we are racist country, like they're

(54:15):
lying to you and they're like, you know, saying America
isn't great.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
And it's not that America isn't.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
Great because we have a racist history, that we were
born on a genocide of a Native people.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
Those are just facts. Those are facts. It's like, what
do we do with that? How do we heal from that?

Speaker 1 (54:33):
And we have never ever in the United States really
fully reckoned with the legacy of that genocide.

Speaker 2 (54:41):
A little bit more with reservations, but that's a mess.

Speaker 1 (54:45):
You know. When I interviewed dot To Jeory degru who
coined the term post traumatic slaves syndrome, she would say,
after emancipation, there wasn't a mass movement to like do
therapy for black folks who had been brutalized for hundreds
of years and made to work for free, work for
free to build this country, and the reparations that were

(55:06):
allegedly supposed to have them from free labor, that that
didn't happen. And then in the wake of emancipation and reconstruction,
the klu Klux Klan emerged. Right, we have not been
able to reckon with and it's every generation when we
talk about racism, it's like, let's not talk about it,
let's just move past it.

Speaker 2 (55:25):
Let's let it go in the past.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
That's in the and it's not it's it just isn't
the effects of if you just look at housing. I'm
Richard Rosstein's wonderful book Color of Law.

Speaker 3 (55:36):
If you look at just My daughter loves that book.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
It's so good. I interviewed him from my podcast too.
It's so good.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
And when you look at the areas that were redlined
back in the day, if they haven't been gentrified, there's
still quote unquote slums. There's still low income neighborhoods with
bad schools that are dilapidated neighborhoods.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
The areas that were redlined that were.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
Black people bull couldn't buy homes, and so that legacy
because even when I'm ross seen in his books says, well,
they passed the Fairhousing Act in nineteen sixty eight, but
they didn't do anything retroactively to fix all of the
discrimination that it happened before that. Nothing, And so it

(56:20):
just keeps happening. And then there's real estate agents now
who don't rent. There was a football star who's from
Alabama who wanted to buy a house in like a
wealthy neighborhood in Alabama, and the real estate agent wouldn't
even show him houses, you know.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
So there's like so.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
Many institutional things that are still happening with real estate agents.
And then when we gentrify neighborhoods, real estate agents and
colluding with mayors and police to get certain groups out
of neighborhoods so they can gentrify them. There's structural things
in place still to keep us segregated, to reinforce an inequality.

(56:56):
And if you just look at the wealth gap between
black and white people, there's just so there's like so
much evidence that racism is still structural in this country,
and we have not done the work to undo that
because there's such a resistance to actually like talk about
the problem, because I think part of it is power

(57:19):
people in power who just want to keep that power.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
But for those of us who are well.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
Meaning and want to learn and want to evolve, it's
the fight, flight or freeze thing. Instead of calling someone
racist or transphobic, I prefer to like say this behavior
is consistent with a history of transphobic behavior, because behavior
can be changed, Racism can be unlearned. I've unlearned so

(57:46):
to exist as myself now I've had to unlearn a
lot of racism, a lot of internalized transphobia.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
Be myself. I'm a work in progress. I still have
to do that work, but that work is possible.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
You are a great example of learning implacit bias or
just misinformation about trans people and what's You are a
great example of transformation. Someone who got it wrong publicly
was publicly shamed. And I'm not a fan of publicly
shaming people. I don't think that's effective. But you've transformed

(58:17):
and you're now a fierce ally for our community, and
I wish we had more examples of that, and we
don't have a lot of them. The only way that
we can have that is through that Oh my god,
save space. And the reason we have to have safe
space is because neurobiologically we are programmed.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
It's just biological.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
We feel threatened, unsafe, fight, fight fleas and once we're
in that flight or freeze, we go into limpic brain.
We're not in our prefrontal cortex. We can't hear. We're
just in defense mode. So we have to create a
safe space where there is love. I'm not going to
attack you. Maybe it's going to be a little uncomfortable,

(59:00):
but discomfort is not unsafety, right, So we have to
also create a tolerance for discomfort, that distinguishing between being
uncomfortable and being unsafe, so that we can have the conversations,
have those transformative moments, so that we can get past this.

Speaker 3 (59:20):
It was hard before the Laverne. I mean, it's almost
impossible now. It feels like in the current climate, this
was something that was considered almost radical ten years ago,
and now there's so much silencing. How do you create
that space and how do you possibly in this current

(59:44):
environment change this narrative.

Speaker 1 (59:47):
Well, for me, I think there's some people who are
fascist and capitulating the fascism because they're afraid, because they
just want to be alive with power, And I'm not
convinced that those are the people we're going to be
able to change.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Right, And so.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
You can't meet fascism with like let's sit down and
have a conversation. I'm so upset with Evin Usome sitting
down with all these white supremacists because it's like he's like,
let's sit down with Charlie Kirk, who is a white bandmisist,
or Steve Bannon, who are white supremacist, you know, transphobic,
you know, they don't think I should exist, Like, what's

(01:00:30):
the conversation going to be? So I think, like you said,
who are we having the conversations with? First of all,
and I think we have to fight. It has to
be a fight against fascism, and we can't capitulate. There's
not a conversation to be had with a fascist.

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
And to your point, we need to bring all these
diverse groups together and not do in fighting and not say, well,
this is good for you, it's going to be bad
for me, or you're going to hurt us in some
ways in terms of the problem.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
But it can't be like let's just agree on one
thing and still be racist and transphobacan like that doesn't
really work, I think in terms of building coalition because
we don't trust each other.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
Because we don't, we can't come together. So we have
to be wary of in fighting, but.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
Understand who the if stakeholders are, well the stakeholders are,
who actually has power is Ultimately this is about power.
There is the changing of hearts and minds, and there's
the empathetic piece that's interpersonal and what we can do
in our lives.

Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
I wanted to mention that when my documentary came out,
Doctor Oz, who's now working for the administration, said something
to me. He said, it's hard to hate up close.
So I think what you mean about that interpersonal that exposure,
those conversations one on one or with a small group
of people.

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
But then you know, the structural piece is requires you know, movements,
and at this point, our government is captured, captured by
fascists now, and they're capitulating the fascists. If in the
midterms there could be some kind of reckoning, is there
a benevolent billionaire who can fund and I and I've
talked to expose this to Sam Seat or a few

(01:02:05):
other people who could fund a fifty state ballot initiative
to get money out of politics. That is the first
order of business I think for structural change in the
United States is to get money out of politics. The
politicians still happening incentive to do this. Is it constitutional
because it is since United These are questions I have.

(01:02:26):
But if there's a Mark Cuban or Oprah, I don't
know who the billionaire is. I believe in my heart
that Republicans, Democrats independence, if they had a ballot initiative
and had the clear information. I think they would vote
to get money out of politics. I think most of
us understand that our politicians aren't working for us, and
that we vote people in and nothing changes because of

(01:02:48):
special interest money corporations funding politicians. So I think on
a structural level, that has to be a fundamental change
first and foremost, and then maybe we can talk about
healthcare and wages. I was salted with the Biden administration
up front when they didn't fight for minimum wage. When
Bernie dropped out, it said all he asked for and

(01:03:11):
you should have asked for more, said fifteen dollar minimum wage,
and Biden just said a Senate parliamentarian, had you heard
the center parliamentarian before twenty twenty one? I mean maybe
you have, you're in this business. I had not heard
the Senate parliamentary. I was like, Senate parliamentary. What I
do know now is that when the Senate parliamentarian challenged
the Bush administration, they fired the c Intate parliamentarian got

(01:03:32):
a new one.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
So that is like there is a bully pulpit that
you have when you're president.

Speaker 1 (01:03:38):
And I just but at again, the business interest that
fund the Biden campaign did not want to raise minimum
wage so like, I think we got to get money
out of politics and have structural change, but interpersonally, and
then I think with as storytellers and the media, we
have to do a better job of humanizing everyone. And
it's the problem is that it's not the algorithm is

(01:03:59):
not really set up for empathy and love. The algorithms
are set up for like us being at each other's
throats and fighting. So again resisting that in capitalism, how
do we elevate voices that are loving, that are humanizing,
and beware of dehumanization even when we disagree with people,
And dehumanization happens primarily through words and images to put

(01:04:25):
a certain class into a space of moral exclusion, meaning
like we aren't as human beings hardwired to be violent
against each other, to discriminate against each other.

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
But when we put this group into moral exclusion.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
And dehumanize them, then we can take away their rights,
then we can discriminate against them. We've done that with
the dehumanization of immigrants. I mean, it's so clear how
the immigrants have been dehumanized. They're eating the cats, they're
eating the dogs. I mean that was like such a
clear example of dehumanization. They successfully dehumanized trans people, like

(01:04:58):
saying that, you know, calling us predator and so are you.

Speaker 3 (01:05:01):
Seeing that as the most effective campaign commercial in twenty
twenty four with Kamala Harris, you know Donald Trump, Kamala
Harris is for they them, Donald Trump is for you.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:13):
And the trans prisoners, it was it was.

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
Trans immigrant prisoners. They like really brought it out.

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
They brought it brought yeah, and it was the trifecta.

Speaker 2 (01:05:22):
And I was, you know, I have to say I was.

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
I had moments of being afraid to speak up too
much during that campaign because I was like, well, my
transigentity is kind of toxic right now. And I think
Republicans thought about transit were more than Democrats did. Kamala said, out,
follow the law, and instead of following up and saying
that this is a policy under Trump as well, that
like basically, if someone is in prison, then they are

(01:05:45):
entitled to healthcare. It's inhumane that that is the law.
And transalthcare is healthcare. And if a person is an
immigrant and they're incarcerated, they're entitled to healthcare. And that
healthcare can be trans healthcare or could be whatever. And
so often when people need health care in prison diabetic
if you're a diabetic. Yeah, but a lot of times,

(01:06:05):
if it's really expensive, they'll release them. They'll do a
compassion release. They don't have to pay for it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
But that is the law.

Speaker 3 (01:06:10):
Do you think they were too afraid. Yes, they wanted
to change the subject.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
It was clear that Republicans had successfully dehumanized trans people.
Any mention of trans people was like bad, and I
think that was a misstep. Now, I think if she
had addressed it and said this is the law, clearly,
this is the law. It is cool and unusual punishment
to deny people health care when they're incarcerated in the

(01:06:35):
United States of America, and this is the law, and
this is the law under Trump as well, and explain
that and really leaning into we want equality for everyone,
we want health care for everyone. And so she But
part of the problem with Harris, I think and the
words out that that would happen is that for me,
what I saw, it's her triangulating between what the donors want.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
The rollout was good, and Tim Walls with the weird
was good.

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
We're not going back was good, and then typical Democratic
consultants came in and said, you can't say weird anymore,
which was really working. We need to appeal to the
suburbs and get list chaining out those missteps and her
not talking about price scouging enough, like there was a
few issues, like the price scouging was great, healthcare and

(01:07:25):
then standing up for trans people and just civil rights
in general, picking a few issues because people like.

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
What is she about?

Speaker 3 (01:07:33):
Would you ever run for office?

Speaker 1 (01:07:37):
I always say that you are so smart, the upper research,
the upper research would be fierce.

Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
I own everything in my past. It's people have asked
me that before.

Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
And when I think about what they do to politicians
like with AOC and how they've demonized her, it's so
vicious and so mean, and I'm really sensitive. The answer
right now is no, it's something I've thought. It's I
thought about it a little bit more, but running a
campaign raising money. I'm an artist more than I am
like a politician. Like I've always loved and been intrigued

(01:08:10):
by politics and followed it my whole life. But right now, no,
there are other effective ways I think to make an.

Speaker 3 (01:08:17):
Impact, and hopefully this is one of them.

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
Hopefully because I think that, like there's an inside strategy
and outside strategy.

Speaker 2 (01:08:24):
When AOC went in.

Speaker 1 (01:08:25):
She's a good example because she came in with this
mandate and then you saw Nancy Pelosi just like not
have her own commit You have to be on the
committees when you're in Congress right to actually have power.
And then the outside game I have agitating using her followers.
You just alienate the people there. And unfortunately the Democrats
have this seniority thing too that they really need to

(01:08:46):
let go of that the Republicans don't have. The Republicans
are more responsive to their base than the Democrats are.
But the problem with the Democratic base is that is progressive.
It's tends to want healthcare for everyone and to check
co operations, and that is against again, the corporate interests
that the Democratic Party as well as the Republican Party

(01:09:07):
is beholden too.

Speaker 3 (01:09:08):
So that's why we need to get money out of politics.

Speaker 1 (01:09:10):
That's why, and that's why when you look at a
Bernie or an AOC, those are the ones that I
don't trust any politicians really, but I trust more the
politicians who don't take corporate money.

Speaker 3 (01:09:22):
Whoo wow, Laburne, I'm exhausted and you must be too.

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
I've invigorated. Strangely enough, I'm invigorated. I love these conversations.

Speaker 3 (01:09:30):
I love listening to you. I love sharing from you. Honestly,
I always appreciate your perspective and your depth of not
only knowledge, but sort of your bottomless compassion for people.

Speaker 1 (01:09:46):
It's all about love, but I'm also learning. I'm a student,
like I'm learning. I'm like, I got to learn about fascism.
I got to learn about this. So being a constant
student is really important to me. And then it has
to be about love. This is wonderful video with Cornell
West and Bell Hooks Fro nineteen ninety seven where they
talk and they talk about like how Belle has disagreed

(01:10:07):
with Cornell West big millionaire in March and other things,
and it's hard. It's just hard to like, have I
haven't seen you in a while. I still love you
even though I disagree with you. And then they quote
Martin Luther King's one of his speeches and the quote,
I've chosen to love is the beginning.

Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
I've chosen to love.

Speaker 1 (01:10:27):
And I think that in this very cynical society and
when politics, when people I remember joy and re laughing
and Corey Booker's face when you talked about love, when
he was running for a resident, literally laughing his face,
and I was just like, oh, this is sad. There's
a cynicism. And I think when we love and have
empathy and rehumanize, those are the that's the work to
love each other better, to have more empathy, and to

(01:10:50):
rehumanize ourselves in each other, because when we dehumanize other people,
we also dehumanize ourselves. And so how do we get
into that space of rehumanization and empathy? And I think
the love, love for ourselves, love for each other. Empathy.
Sympathy is feeling for us. Empathy, It is feeling with
and rehumanizing that everyone is a human being, deserving of rights,

(01:11:14):
deserving of grace. People can do something wrong, maybe it
needs to go to jail, but you're still a human being.
Accountability punishment, yes, but you're still human.

Speaker 3 (01:11:26):
Thank you Laverne, Thank you Katie, Thanks for listening everyone.
If you have a question for me, a subject you
want us to cover, or you want to share your
thoughts about how you navigate this crazy world, reach out,

(01:11:47):
send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to
hear from you. Next Question is a production of iHeartMedia
and Katie Kuric Media. The executive producers are Me, Katie Kuric,
and Courtney Ltz. Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz, and
our producers are Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller

(01:12:08):
composed our theme music. For more information about today's episode,
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(01:12:31):
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