July 21, 2025 • 31 mins
Mia talks with journalists David Forbes, Mady Castigan, and Mira Lazine of the new Trans News Network about how mass grassroots action driven by trans journalism defeated the GOP's ban on Medicaid covering trans healthcare and how we can do it again.
Sources:
https://transnewsnetwork.networkforgood.com/
Social Media: @thefreeradical.org, @davidforbes.bsky.social, @madycast.com
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome to It Happened Here, a podcast that played some
role in the defeats of the Republicans reposed ban on
using Medicaid to pay for trans healthcare. I am your host,
Mia Wong, and with me are three of the people
who helped make this whole thing possible. This is David Forbes,
a journalist from the Ashual Blade and Medica's News. Mattie
Castigan of the namesake Medicast News, and Mira Laisine of
(00:30):
Free Radical and also Medicast News, and all of you
welcome to the show. Congratulations on your defeats of the
Republican Party and helping to save trans healthcare for unbelievably
large numbers of people in this country.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like a sentence that's kind
of hard to accept, and you know, in a lot
of ways, it is really what we've been trying to say.
It's been like a collective effort of everyone involved, especially
the people at the grassroots, and you know, like I
guess to give there's a little bit of context. So
going back to May, there in the big beautiful bill
(01:05):
that unfortunately did pass, originally Republicans included a ban on
government funding for Medicaid for gender transition procedures, and originally
just from miners in the House. Then right before they
passed it through the House, they actually removed the miners claw,
so it was applying for all adults on Medicaid who
are trans. At this point, everyone started kind of freaking out,
(01:26):
which is very reasonable because you know, there's over two
hundred thousand trans people on Medicaid depending on numbers like
hundred and seventy thousand depending on her us. And so
what we found is that, you know, a lot of
other sources have told us this that the bird rule,
which is basically you know, parliamentary procedure in the Senate
that only exists in the Senate because of the filibuster
(01:46):
pretty much, is one way that we could kill this
is what they told us back in May. And so
that's something that we reported on and tried to take
like you know, basically like a don't panic angle or
don't panic yet at least you know like that there's
a lot of ways to fight back against this, and
we provided you know, templates for here's how you can
email your senators and this is exactly what you should
(02:08):
tell them. You should call them you could call specific
people on specific committees and tell specific things to them.
And you know, of course a lot of other organizations
and people also chipped into this, you know, a for
t te head of campaigns and whatnot. But I think
you know, at the end of the day, what really
pushed the needle was the people calling in and waking
Democrats up to this issue. And basically what ended up
(02:30):
happening is we both sent it. Widen basically argued to
the parliamentarian that hey, this trans medicaid ban, it's not
a budgetary matter, it's actually a policy matter. And the
parliamentarian agreed and ruled that it was basically a sixty
vote threshold and not a fifty vote threshold. So what
that meant is that as long as all Democrats, or
at least forty Democrats forty one Democrats were opposing this measure,
(02:54):
it was basically guaranteed to be kicked out of the bill.
And we did end up having enough Democrats basically ensure
that the that provision didn't make it into law, even
though unfortunately the bill did pass in to day.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Yeah, I think one thing that's notable about this. I
think one thing to emerge in our discussions, and while
she's not in the podcast, I really want to thank
Koreean Green for very invaluable like policy insight into some
of this and some of the specific ways and weaknesses
to go after politicians on this. And you know, certainly
we were not alone in this. I think there were
(03:28):
a lot of grassroots organizations as well, and I think
kind of the approach that emerged and was successful, I
think it's kind of important how it happened, because one,
it identified a specific weakness who weren't just vaguely asking
legislators to do something about this. And two I think
it did something which traditionally definitely democratic politicians but even
(03:52):
a lot of the gay ink to use a term
popular among a lot of transactivists like big lobbying groups
and establishment nonprofits, been loath to do, which is it
got angry at democrats. It warned them that people were watching.
It wasn't like, pretty please, you know, will you do
something to stop this? And from two decades dealing with politicians,
(04:13):
that's a much more effective way to approach. If you're
just going to ask nicely, they'll ignore you. They'll ignore
your entire demographic. If you're marginalized if they're afraid of you. However,
if they're worried about their phone lines being shut down
with pushback, people are getting angry at them, then they
get worried and feel like they need to do something.
So I think both with our article and with some
(04:36):
of the other grassroots groups involved, it really kind of
put the focus back on what people can do. But
it did it by identifying a weakness and then pressing
really hard on it. And I think that's kind of
a break with how some of the very unsuccessful higher
level tactics that have been used or not been used
against transphobic legislation before.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, And I think I think it's important to, you know,
look at the changing terrain of this all because a
lot of the sort of gain lobbying efforts were based
on conditions that don't exist anymore. And you could argue
how effective they were back in like you know, like
twenty fifteen, right, and I still think there were more
(05:20):
effective things that could have been done. Then there is
no argument now like you can't just rely on sort
of like access democratic politicians and being like, oh hey,
we're this org. You want this thing to happen. And
we saw this a lot. This is something that our
policy analyst friend Karine Green, who have had in the
show before, was talking about with like with the Biden
administration was the way that all of these orgs sort
(05:41):
of just fell in line behind the Biden administration, like
fucking over trans people's healthcare in ways that no one
ever really talked about, and that kind of access model
got flipped, you know, whatever they were trying to do before,
and you can ar you know, you can have arguments
about like what they thought they were doing. At this point,
it's just like no, like you're not existing to like
(06:04):
protect queer people. You're existing to protect the Democrats from
queer people.
Speaker 5 (06:08):
And yeah, you.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Know, and and and the situation we're in now is
one where and there was some very very scary reporting
coming out of the Democrats were like it wasn't clear
if they were actually going to try to whip the
votes together, like to actually vote against this stuff. And
so like we're at a point where regardless of whatever
you would have supported before, and again like I think
I think they were wrong before, but like now no,
(06:30):
you had this is the only way to do this shit,
Like there's no other mechanism.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Yeah, so this has been something I've especially noticed in
like reporting on this terms. Myself and Matty, we both
co reported on the initial story breaking the the fact
that the Medicaid bandage going in there. Mattie especially did
all the stuff with the birds role. When we initially
started working in the story, it was just a small
tip we had that there was going to be something
(06:57):
big coming in the next funding bill, and I can
definitely speak that at the time, Democrats, lobbyists and so forth,
they were just very like business as usual, right, They
were just even knowing that a lot of this was
kind of had the chance of emerging, and that there
(07:18):
was going to be a lot of bad stuff emerging.
A lot of it was still like trying to use
these whole tactics Streme way back when to just act
like everything is still as if it's you know, twenty fifteen,
twenty fourteen, and once everything started to unferral and the
medicaidvand became added in to the bill itself. Witnessing it
(07:44):
all from just a reporting perspective with like it felt
like watching them all go into panic mode and yet
at the same time be like trying to find ways
to kind of push us to the side. Yeah, and
and of course, like god so incredibly thankfully were able
to play any type of role in getting this done.
(08:06):
Like so it's becomon narrative among so many for lack
of better phrasing, proponents of gay ink, proponents of the
status quo, proponents of just you know, your social democracy types,
that the way forward is to be nice, to beg
and plead for our rights, so hopefull they give us
(08:27):
it if we ask really, really nicely and we beg
in clead and we say thank you and we don't
be too rude or else we'll earn it and we'll
deserve what a will give. You know, It's like what
ultimate need became. The final stroll was like we sent
out a push for every single just reader follower, every
(08:50):
single listener podcast like everyone at home who just bread
this around. Put pressure on the politicians, made it clear
the wasn't acceptable, made it clear that no, they can't
just ignore us and act like we don't exist, and
that no, they can't just wash their hands away and
pretend like this is all fine, and that their records
(09:11):
came that No, it's this is something that matters. This
is something that has to be thought, and it really
boiled down to just the endtense like pressure everyone put
publicly like yeah, And I think it is just a
very ultimate testing to how the true power in any
(09:32):
political system lies not with just a handful of elected
NEPO babies that end up getting into office, but with
the regular people who make their voice heard, who band
together and aren't afraid to say, hey, this shit is
fucked up, we need to do something about it.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
You are mentioning, how like whatever debate about the gag
approach before, it's it's not just dead now it's catastrophically failed.
I honestly think that's kind of beyond debate at this point.
But what one thing that I think kind of this
shows is that when you're dealing with politicians, if all
you have is hey, pretty please be nice to us,
(10:20):
but earlier you not just can you be ignored, but
like if they go no, what else do you have then?
If you don't have some other kind of leverage? And
one thing I've seen consistently local, state, and federal levels
is the odds are a lot better if people are
angry and the politicians are afraid. So I think living
(10:41):
that that's the real vantage the grassroots have, you know,
stop caring about if politicians are your friends or really
care about us, because generally the answer is they don't.
None of them are our friends, and more focus on
what can you and your communities, your friends, the larger
networks you're part of, do to make their lives miserable
(11:03):
until the part of the sascore you're trying to fight
becomes unsustainable for them too.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
What I heard from people on the hill or people
close to people on the Hill is basically that the
whole bird rule maneuver. For this specific provision, there was
you know, definitely whispers of it, you know, especially among
Lompias and maybe some staffers. But until it was being
publicly advocated for this specific tool to be used by
constituents towards senators Democratic senators specifically, it wasn't really like
(11:33):
hugely in consideration or like that wasn't something they were
planning to do in a very strong way, Like maybe
it would have happened eventually, But it definitely does seem
like the constituent pressure specifically did help kind of make
Democrats realize that hey, we're watching, you're watching you do
like whether you're invoking these parliamentary procedures that you aren't
(11:53):
supposed to know about. Like you're not supposed to know
about this stuff, right, And it's like it's really obscure
stuff that no one knows about except like super autistic
paulicy Neer. It's like like me and a current probably,
but yeah, and this kind of stuff is really what
turns the needles. And like you can look at the
other side too, right, Like, you know, there are extremely
(12:14):
effective lobbies in Congress you can look at you can
look at the lobby that literally got this provision into
the bill. They sent a letter to Speaker Johnson saying, hey,
you should expand this from miners only to adults because
we think this will actually help it survive the bird
rule better. And this was a public letter, right, And
you know you might say, oh, well, that's not a
big deal, right, it's a letter. Right, But how many
gay rights organizations released a letter to Democrats saying they
(12:39):
should invoke the bird rule. I'm not aware of any, like.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
Well, I think that's the key part of this is that, yes, eventually,
some of those groups did start belatedly moving against this. Yes,
eventually it's progi into a second some politicians did in
various ways start moving against this. But I think it's
important not to get kind of the cart before the horse.
That came after the grassroots pressure, came after weeks of
(13:03):
people getting angry at them, blowing up their phones, very
public criticism, all the things that I think we're told
a lot of the time by liberals and Democrats we're
not supposed to do, you know, be nice or you know,
your concerns won't be heard. Well, it turns out is
that the Isaac alas is the case. And you mentioned
that those conservative lobbyists people know, you know, I don't
think it's always a rule that the tactics or enemy
(13:25):
can be adopted for various reasons. But the NRA and
all of these terrible groups don't go into Congress going, hey,
please be nice to us. They go in going do
this or we're going to make your life hell yeah.
And if you're if this is a terrain people are
going to fight on, that's how you have to fight
as far as because that's what moves politicians at every
(13:48):
level is it's oh my god, I do not want
this group angry at me.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
And it's one thing I want to add to is
since the bird rules and soil in the band was
taken out. There has emerged a common narrative online. It's
not really one specific person doing this, it's just kind
of something that's kind of collectively emerged in that claiming
that the credit lies with politicians, with lobbyists, with staffers,
(14:15):
with all these anonymous people behind closed doors who are
supposedly the ones that actually did the work, and no
one else matters. I want to strongly emphasize that that
is not only not true, but dangerous rhetoric.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
It's propaganda.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
It's propaganda. Yes, it's an attempt to reinforce the role
that the state has in subjugating everyone, to reinforce the
fact that, oh no, the way things are is perfect.
You can trust all these leaders to protect you when
you can't. They are the reason we got in this mess.
The gay en tactics are the things that have failed
and led to this in the first place. Liberals have
(14:55):
plenty of opportunities prevent this and they didn't. And ultimately,
the reason that this narrative spreads is because, at the
end of the day, gay yank is called back for
a reason because well, yes, their interests happen to align
on the realm of queer rights because they themselves are queer.
At the end of the day, they are still representing
(15:16):
the upper class, and their primary interests are still going
to be with protecting the upper class and protecting the
role they have in subjugating the lower class and subjugating
marginalized people who are not in their economic class.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Yeah, which is most trans people, like all of us.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah, this is.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
Like really important because I don't think the intersections of
queerness and definitely not transists in class get talked about
nearly enough. Yeah, which is is that queer and transy
are overwhelmingly working class demographics. Yep, like the legislators you know,
like Sara McBride, but also like the people running gang
crimanizations are not just like not generally representative of our
(15:59):
wider communities in a lot of ways. They also just
have had incredibly different lives almost always, with some exceptions,
they've been part of the gentry their entire lives, and
most queer trans people, especially trans people, are as far
from the gentry as you get. So that does create
like this massive gulf. But also I think it's one
(16:21):
reason these groups are so out of touch. But also
I think it does. You know, if we put the
power back on ourselves, if we realize that this kind
of grassroots anger is much more representative of where queer
and trans people are, If this willingness to fight directly
in whatever tactics people choose is much more like in
(16:41):
keeping with like queer culture and tradition and history, then
I think there's a lot of power there. And I
think this is an example of successfully wielding that. I
think Mirror was correct about this propaganda that's kind of
been spreading in the wake, and it was particularly I
think egregious because it specifically like tried to credit Sarah McBride,
who had just come off a really obnoxious interview with
(17:04):
The New York Times where she was literally against all
the aggressive trans rights, and then after the band finally
got killed, this you know, various sources and honestly, I
don't know anyone hearing this stuff, and whatever capacities the
journalist act is, whatever, I think it's just professionally good
to be more skeptical when these kind of convenient narratives emerge.
(17:24):
But kind of embers, Oh, behind the scenes, she'd been
doing so much. Yeah, sure, in public, she'd been you know,
very either low key or refusing defend trains rights at all,
even justifying some of the narratives of our enemies. But
sure she was doing all this behind the scenes.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
She refused to fucking do anything when they banned trans
people from fucking bathrooms in DC.
Speaker 5 (17:45):
Yes, like in Capitol him, wouldn't even defend her own staffers, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
So like it's worth being skeptical to claim that she
was doing so much behind the scenes. However, you know
if she was prompted in the last week of a
multi week effort to suddenly start taking some action based
on anger. Great part of the point of these strategies
is to prompt people who don't want to act into
feeling like they're forced to act. But I think in
twenty years of covering politics at various levels, if politicians
(18:14):
don't like something, you will know. If they support something,
you will know they will be very loud and very public,
because the public platform is one of the biggest powers
they have, as well as doing whatever behind the scenes.
If they're quiet about something or even seem opposite to
especially if it involves a group on the front lines
like trans communities, and then later on they try to
(18:36):
kind of take back credit of saying, oh, look, you know,
we were doing so much behind the scenes that is
pretty universally attacked to commit to demobilize people.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Yeah, and I want to note that the point of
us saying this is not to say that you know,
Sarah McBride or you know Saffers or other people didn't
do anything. Like, of course they did stuff right like,
they voted, they were voting. Note, they probably made some
phone calls and stuff, right, But what we're saying is like, Okay,
they basically did the bare minimum of what they're supposed
to do, right like, and that was only after a
(19:07):
huge pressure campaign from the grassroots and from people who
they would literally not be even in office without. Like
I did the math in an article way back in
that last November, and there's like exit polls showing that
like eighty six percent of LGBTQ people voted for Democrats
last year. That's like a crazy margin. That's like it's
(19:28):
up there with you know, black voters and LGBTQ people
are like the biggest bass of the Democratic Party, right Like,
they would have lost three or four more Senate seats
they it would have been like a fifty six or
fifty seven seat chamber if it were not for literally
the people that are advocating for this healthcare. And it's
it's so absurd that, like Sarah McBride, what she did was,
if we assume everything that's been said is true about
(19:49):
this is what she's done is basically she got Democrats
to not vote to take away the healthcare of two
hundred thousand trans people, which is like, why was that
even a qu question like this? This is the actual
story that came out of this. In my opinion that
was bigger is that this was ever in question that
there might be like seven or eight Democrats who would
(20:10):
vote to ban Medicaid from two hundred three hundred thousand
trans people, like and the fact that we're supposed to
like give them a huge applause for not doing that
is is kind of obscene to me.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Yeah, I think the readiness to thank politicians kind of
cuts against the grassroots anger and organizing that works.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
So well here.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Yep, because you don't want them. Actually, I think it's
cerally a good rule not to thank politicians because what
you want to constantly keep them in. If that's the
terrain you're going to fight on is they need to
feel like they're on thin ice. They need to worry
their staff needs to worry about Okay, we got to
keep this out of the bill, because holy hell, you
(20:51):
do not want those queers mad at you. That's where
you want to get closer to if putting pressure on
politicians is is what needs to happen, And so buying
these narratives thanking them, that takes the pressure off.
Speaker 5 (21:05):
Don't ever do that, you know, yes, and.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
So I think it's it's kind of important. And you know,
to quote the internet masterpiece of old drill tweet like
you do underneath circumstances.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
Have to hand it to them.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
At best, they acted late, grudgingly after they faced a
ton of anger that resulted and was help amplified by
a ton of work from bluntly like working class trans
people and working class for your people.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yeah, and I would argue that what Representative McBride did specifically,
even assuming that it did like help us in the
short term with this bill, the way that she's been
kind of talking about this internally and in the New
York Times interview is actually extremely dangerous for trans people because,
like believe it or not, they're not going to stop
with this bill. They're going to do it again. They're
going to do it again, probably in budget bills or
(21:54):
another reconciliation bill. And at some point it's going to
come down to the wire where Democrats will have to
publicly defend the right of trans people to have healthcare
and to be alive and to exist. That's that's going
to happen at some point. And what McBride has been
telling everyone, what she's been telling as her client on
New York Times, what she was telling Democrats behind the scenes,
according to the notice article, is that you can't talk
(22:16):
about these issues. You have to be really quiet. You
just have to do it behind the scenes because it's
too hot topic of an issue. You know, you don't
want to accidentally, like I don't know, show the world
that trans people might actually deserve to exist. It doesn't
it doesn't even make sense. I think they just it doesn't.
They just like feel gross arguing it, like personally like
they don't there's no political like, there's no like good
political calcitalists. They just feel gross talking about trans people.
(22:38):
Is my opinion that this is why they don't want
to do it. There's it's like it's bad for them politically.
They will lose votes, they will like lose political power.
They just like hate us. Basically, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
We should never be nice or kind or thank politicians
like both Maddie and David had said they are not
our friends. Like there is a popular approach that I
think a lot of people end up having towards these
kind of quote unquote leaders that they are somehow these
like mythical faviors of everyone, that they're all leading these nonprofits,
they're leading these companies, these governments save us. They are
(23:22):
not our friends. They do not give a shit about us.
You would be surprised to things I've heard behind closed
doors that they have said they are not your friends.
They hate every single fucking poor person. They will never
say that bocally, but they.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Hate us, especially the transplants.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
Oh yeah, oh yeah. And it's like us to be
subservient to them until the day we fucking die, because
it's all about consolidating their own power. And the kind
of corn I'm getting at here is kill the idol
in your head. You should never have an idol, Like,
there is no person worth idolizing, not only not Dayank,
(24:00):
not even only not anyone in this call, this podcast. Now,
no one at all should be idolized, because doing that
is placing all the power in the hands of people
you don't know, in the hands of people who are
just as human as anyone else. And even if they're
very good, people who do good things are fundamentally capable
(24:22):
of fucking up and doing bad. And if you idolize someone,
you end up condoning everything they do, whether you even
stay it or otherwise. It comes with the territory. Fundamentally,
you should not rely on other people to save you.
You should rely on you and your community. You need
to fucking work with your community to bring about the
outcomes you want. And I mean you, the listener, like
(24:45):
you specifically, Yes, you need to work with your community
to bring about what you need.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
I think that's that's kind of the message that should
emerge from this is no one in Washington, organization and
politician are the ones of the power here.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
You are.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
You and your friends are you and your community are
And I know we've said that a little bit before,
but it's worth re emphasizing how much people can do
when they get together and decide to do something about
these issues.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah, and I think that's a really good note to
end on. However, come up before we do that very
exciting news. Do you all want to introduce introduce the
new news network.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Hell yeah, we have huge news to announce that's related
to the news website that we used to write this
article about the bird Roll, formerly known as Maddicast News
will now be known as trans News Network. And we're
basically relaunching completely. We're switching up our business models from
technically was a for profit before, but now it's going
(25:41):
to be part of fiscally sponsored nonprofit of community Partners.
And we're also moving off subset to beehive. And so,
you know, as Mirat and David were saying earlier, like
we don't want you to rely on us to stay
you like it's kind of like a team effort, right, Like,
we do have a part to play. Will help will
help you give you information, but we also could use
(26:04):
help from you. We could use help from the listener,
especially people who do have you know, some people have
more time, some people have more resources or money. And
one thing that we are looking to do with our
relaunch is to fundraise so we can basically, you know,
ensure that basically our journalists, like you know, Mirah and
David have the financial stability they need to continue making
(26:25):
journalism like this. And so we're launching with a fundraiser
and we're gonna we'll have a link, I guess with
the podcast description and there will be like you know,
you can get a free gift if you donate a
certain amount. That's a huge way to help. But as well,
you know, you also need to actually listen to the
things that people in your community to say, like what
are the things people in your community are saying that
can help? What are other ways that you can contribute
(26:47):
back to save yourselves, basically because we're all in this together.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
And yeah, I think also one of the reasons I'm
really excited about the trans News Network and the transition
as it were, to the trans News Net it is
that I think our collective experiences and our experience with
this fight as well, have shown that there is a
real need for hard hitting, powerful, unrepentantly radical and trans journalism,
(27:17):
trans journalism that actually gets trans communities and proceeds kind
of to take the fight from there. And so that's
that is badly needed. And I think we are from
our own experiences and from kind of what we've all
built working together, like able to be part of that.
Speaker 5 (27:36):
Yeah, and just to add one thing, because I know
how many trans people artistic and need to hear this
about out. I'm one of them. This is explosively a
worker's co op. We are doing this radical from the
ground up. Everyone gets eqal say this is a community thing.
This is not some light Oh you know, we're doing this.
But then there's a nice CEO who makes five hundred K. No,
(27:58):
this is the money is going to the journalists who
need it. Is the group of us basically deciding, hey,
we need to fucking keep doing this work. We want to,
we need to support, we need help. Yeah, and we're
joining the bandwagon of all these news outlets doing workers
co ops because that's the only way you can fucking
make money in this industry nowadays.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
It's also the fairest and best way to do it.
Speaker 5 (28:21):
Yep. It is. It's it's objectively the best and most
ethical way to do this under the healthscape of capitalism. Yep.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
And uh Tamira's plan and I'm gonna we went on
this podcast earlier this year to talk about trans journalism
and you might want to listen to that as well
if you're curious on like just the struggles that a
lot of us have dealt with. And number one is,
you know, the material need for money basically, and I'm
going to say what I said in that episode again,
which is that one hundred dollars for some people, like
(28:52):
you know, let's say a working class transferson is very
different compared to one hundred dollars for people in other
social classes. You know, maybe someone in tech or something like,
maybe you'll get a dinner at the one hundred dollars
and it's not a big deal to you, right, it
could be life changing for someone else who's literally like
spending their life creating news to help trans people like
you know, this article that we wrote, it wasn't a
(29:14):
huge amount of money that that took to create that.
But at the same time, we don't have a lot
of money to go around, like it's it's being basically
a small number of people. We have a we have
a good number of like paid subscribers to but really
in order to keep expanding the way we want to,
we really need more money. And it's going to be
so huge to trans people everywhere.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
So yeah, so if someone has money and it's interested
in supporting trans journalism. That is all the things we've
just talked about and I think makes a real difference. Yeah,
please sign up as a paid subscriber. Donate to the fundraiser.
Every single dollar of that we will put to use.
Speaker 5 (29:51):
Yeap.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Our first goal is basically to hire one of our
journalists as a part time W two employee, which should
be literally life changing.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
So yeah, yeah, And when we said this in the
last episode, and we're going to say it again, working
class trans journalism can exist if you support it. And
every single dollar that you sent to a working class
trans journalist is going one hundred times further that it's
going for any other thing you can do to, like, like,
it's going so much further that it is giving it
(30:19):
to like fucking the Human Rights Committee or whatever the fuck,
Like wait, what is what's the actual name with the
organ human Rights Campampa? Yeah, yeah, you resume that one.
Speaker 5 (30:27):
Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Well, by the way, did I mention it's tax seductible, So.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Got to throw that in there.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
If you item measure deductions, if you give like one
hundred dollars to us, then you get to pay like,
you know, whatever like thirty dollars less goes to the
federal government, which means slightly less money for Ice and Israel.
That's how I see it anyway.
Speaker 5 (30:48):
Okay, please, Dear God, I'm tired of living off my
measly savings.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Dear God, please, Yeah, you can tell her really trying
to sell this well.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
And also I think like Yo Mirror and myself both
do other trans journalism work. I'm part of the editor
at the Ashville Blade, which is a local trans journalist
co op. And you know, we've seen how far that goes,
so so yeah, like the more support for trans journalism, period,
trans News Network, the Free Radical Asheville Blade, some of
(31:21):
the other projects out there, the better.
Speaker 5 (31:24):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
And this has been It could Happen here, support support
trans journalism, and we keep fighting the good fight.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can now find sources for It could Happen here
listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Welcome to It Happened Here, a podcast that played some
role in the defeats of the Republicans reposed ban on
using Medicaid to pay for trans healthcare. I am your host,
Mia Wong, and with me are three of the people
who helped make this whole thing possible. This is David Forbes,
a journalist from the Ashual Blade and Medica's News. Mattie
Castigan of the namesake Medicast News, and Mira Laisine of
(00:30):
Free Radical and also Medicast News, and all of you
welcome to the show. Congratulations on your defeats of the
Republican Party and helping to save trans healthcare for unbelievably
large numbers of people in this country.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like a sentence that's kind
of hard to accept, and you know, in a lot
of ways, it is really what we've been trying to say.
It's been like a collective effort of everyone involved, especially
the people at the grassroots, and you know, like I
guess to give there's a little bit of context. So
going back to May, there in the big beautiful bill
(01:05):
that unfortunately did pass, originally Republicans included a ban on
government funding for Medicaid for gender transition procedures, and originally
just from miners in the House. Then right before they
passed it through the House, they actually removed the miners claw,
so it was applying for all adults on Medicaid who
are trans. At this point, everyone started kind of freaking out,
(01:26):
which is very reasonable because you know, there's over two
hundred thousand trans people on Medicaid depending on numbers like
hundred and seventy thousand depending on her us. And so
what we found is that, you know, a lot of
other sources have told us this that the bird rule,
which is basically you know, parliamentary procedure in the Senate
that only exists in the Senate because of the filibuster
(01:46):
pretty much, is one way that we could kill this
is what they told us back in May. And so
that's something that we reported on and tried to take
like you know, basically like a don't panic angle or
don't panic yet at least you know like that there's
a lot of ways to fight back against this, and
we provided you know, templates for here's how you can
email your senators and this is exactly what you should
(02:08):
tell them. You should call them you could call specific
people on specific committees and tell specific things to them.
And you know, of course a lot of other organizations
and people also chipped into this, you know, a for
t te head of campaigns and whatnot. But I think
you know, at the end of the day, what really
pushed the needle was the people calling in and waking
Democrats up to this issue. And basically what ended up
(02:30):
happening is we both sent it. Widen basically argued to
the parliamentarian that hey, this trans medicaid ban, it's not
a budgetary matter, it's actually a policy matter. And the
parliamentarian agreed and ruled that it was basically a sixty
vote threshold and not a fifty vote threshold. So what
that meant is that as long as all Democrats, or
at least forty Democrats forty one Democrats were opposing this measure,
(02:54):
it was basically guaranteed to be kicked out of the bill.
And we did end up having enough Democrats basically ensure
that the that provision didn't make it into law, even
though unfortunately the bill did pass in to day.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Yeah, I think one thing that's notable about this. I
think one thing to emerge in our discussions, and while
she's not in the podcast, I really want to thank
Koreean Green for very invaluable like policy insight into some
of this and some of the specific ways and weaknesses
to go after politicians on this. And you know, certainly
we were not alone in this. I think there were
(03:28):
a lot of grassroots organizations as well, and I think
kind of the approach that emerged and was successful, I
think it's kind of important how it happened, because one,
it identified a specific weakness who weren't just vaguely asking
legislators to do something about this. And two I think
it did something which traditionally definitely democratic politicians but even
(03:52):
a lot of the gay ink to use a term
popular among a lot of transactivists like big lobbying groups
and establishment nonprofits, been loath to do, which is it
got angry at democrats. It warned them that people were watching.
It wasn't like, pretty please, you know, will you do
something to stop this? And from two decades dealing with politicians,
(04:13):
that's a much more effective way to approach. If you're
just going to ask nicely, they'll ignore you. They'll ignore
your entire demographic. If you're marginalized if they're afraid of you. However,
if they're worried about their phone lines being shut down
with pushback, people are getting angry at them, then they
get worried and feel like they need to do something.
So I think both with our article and with some
(04:36):
of the other grassroots groups involved, it really kind of
put the focus back on what people can do. But
it did it by identifying a weakness and then pressing
really hard on it. And I think that's kind of
a break with how some of the very unsuccessful higher
level tactics that have been used or not been used
against transphobic legislation before.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, And I think I think it's important to, you know,
look at the changing terrain of this all because a
lot of the sort of gain lobbying efforts were based
on conditions that don't exist anymore. And you could argue
how effective they were back in like you know, like
twenty fifteen, right, and I still think there were more
(05:20):
effective things that could have been done. Then there is
no argument now like you can't just rely on sort
of like access democratic politicians and being like, oh hey,
we're this org. You want this thing to happen. And
we saw this a lot. This is something that our
policy analyst friend Karine Green, who have had in the
show before, was talking about with like with the Biden
administration was the way that all of these orgs sort
(05:41):
of just fell in line behind the Biden administration, like
fucking over trans people's healthcare in ways that no one
ever really talked about, and that kind of access model
got flipped, you know, whatever they were trying to do before,
and you can ar you know, you can have arguments
about like what they thought they were doing. At this point,
it's just like no, like you're not existing to like
(06:04):
protect queer people. You're existing to protect the Democrats from
queer people.
Speaker 5 (06:08):
And yeah, you.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Know, and and and the situation we're in now is
one where and there was some very very scary reporting
coming out of the Democrats were like it wasn't clear
if they were actually going to try to whip the
votes together, like to actually vote against this stuff. And
so like we're at a point where regardless of whatever
you would have supported before, and again like I think
I think they were wrong before, but like now no,
(06:30):
you had this is the only way to do this shit,
Like there's no other mechanism.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Yeah, so this has been something I've especially noticed in
like reporting on this terms. Myself and Matty, we both
co reported on the initial story breaking the the fact
that the Medicaid bandage going in there. Mattie especially did
all the stuff with the birds role. When we initially
started working in the story, it was just a small
tip we had that there was going to be something
(06:57):
big coming in the next funding bill, and I can
definitely speak that at the time, Democrats, lobbyists and so forth,
they were just very like business as usual, right, They
were just even knowing that a lot of this was
kind of had the chance of emerging, and that there
(07:18):
was going to be a lot of bad stuff emerging.
A lot of it was still like trying to use
these whole tactics Streme way back when to just act
like everything is still as if it's you know, twenty fifteen,
twenty fourteen, and once everything started to unferral and the
medicaidvand became added in to the bill itself. Witnessing it
(07:44):
all from just a reporting perspective with like it felt
like watching them all go into panic mode and yet
at the same time be like trying to find ways
to kind of push us to the side. Yeah, and
and of course, like god so incredibly thankfully were able
to play any type of role in getting this done.
(08:06):
Like so it's becomon narrative among so many for lack
of better phrasing, proponents of gay ink, proponents of the
status quo, proponents of just you know, your social democracy types,
that the way forward is to be nice, to beg
and plead for our rights, so hopefull they give us
(08:27):
it if we ask really, really nicely and we beg
in clead and we say thank you and we don't
be too rude or else we'll earn it and we'll
deserve what a will give. You know, It's like what
ultimate need became. The final stroll was like we sent
out a push for every single just reader follower, every
(08:50):
single listener podcast like everyone at home who just bread
this around. Put pressure on the politicians, made it clear
the wasn't acceptable, made it clear that no, they can't
just ignore us and act like we don't exist, and
that no, they can't just wash their hands away and
pretend like this is all fine, and that their records
(09:11):
came that No, it's this is something that matters. This
is something that has to be thought, and it really
boiled down to just the endtense like pressure everyone put
publicly like yeah, And I think it is just a
very ultimate testing to how the true power in any
(09:32):
political system lies not with just a handful of elected
NEPO babies that end up getting into office, but with
the regular people who make their voice heard, who band
together and aren't afraid to say, hey, this shit is
fucked up, we need to do something about it.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
You are mentioning, how like whatever debate about the gag
approach before, it's it's not just dead now it's catastrophically failed.
I honestly think that's kind of beyond debate at this point.
But what one thing that I think kind of this
shows is that when you're dealing with politicians, if all
you have is hey, pretty please be nice to us,
(10:20):
but earlier you not just can you be ignored, but
like if they go no, what else do you have then?
If you don't have some other kind of leverage? And
one thing I've seen consistently local, state, and federal levels
is the odds are a lot better if people are
angry and the politicians are afraid. So I think living
(10:41):
that that's the real vantage the grassroots have, you know,
stop caring about if politicians are your friends or really
care about us, because generally the answer is they don't.
None of them are our friends, and more focus on
what can you and your communities, your friends, the larger
networks you're part of, do to make their lives miserable
(11:03):
until the part of the sascore you're trying to fight
becomes unsustainable for them too.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
What I heard from people on the hill or people
close to people on the Hill is basically that the
whole bird rule maneuver. For this specific provision, there was
you know, definitely whispers of it, you know, especially among
Lompias and maybe some staffers. But until it was being
publicly advocated for this specific tool to be used by
constituents towards senators Democratic senators specifically, it wasn't really like
(11:33):
hugely in consideration or like that wasn't something they were
planning to do in a very strong way, Like maybe
it would have happened eventually, But it definitely does seem
like the constituent pressure specifically did help kind of make
Democrats realize that hey, we're watching, you're watching you do
like whether you're invoking these parliamentary procedures that you aren't
(11:53):
supposed to know about. Like you're not supposed to know
about this stuff, right, And it's like it's really obscure
stuff that no one knows about except like super autistic
paulicy Neer. It's like like me and a current probably,
but yeah, and this kind of stuff is really what
turns the needles. And like you can look at the
other side too, right, Like, you know, there are extremely
(12:14):
effective lobbies in Congress you can look at you can
look at the lobby that literally got this provision into
the bill. They sent a letter to Speaker Johnson saying, hey,
you should expand this from miners only to adults because
we think this will actually help it survive the bird
rule better. And this was a public letter, right, And
you know you might say, oh, well, that's not a
big deal, right, it's a letter. Right, But how many
gay rights organizations released a letter to Democrats saying they
(12:39):
should invoke the bird rule. I'm not aware of any, like.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
Well, I think that's the key part of this is that, yes, eventually,
some of those groups did start belatedly moving against this. Yes,
eventually it's progi into a second some politicians did in
various ways start moving against this. But I think it's
important not to get kind of the cart before the horse.
That came after the grassroots pressure, came after weeks of
(13:03):
people getting angry at them, blowing up their phones, very
public criticism, all the things that I think we're told
a lot of the time by liberals and Democrats we're
not supposed to do, you know, be nice or you know,
your concerns won't be heard. Well, it turns out is
that the Isaac alas is the case. And you mentioned
that those conservative lobbyists people know, you know, I don't
think it's always a rule that the tactics or enemy
(13:25):
can be adopted for various reasons. But the NRA and
all of these terrible groups don't go into Congress going, hey,
please be nice to us. They go in going do
this or we're going to make your life hell yeah.
And if you're if this is a terrain people are
going to fight on, that's how you have to fight
as far as because that's what moves politicians at every
(13:48):
level is it's oh my god, I do not want
this group angry at me.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
And it's one thing I want to add to is
since the bird rules and soil in the band was
taken out. There has emerged a common narrative online. It's
not really one specific person doing this, it's just kind
of something that's kind of collectively emerged in that claiming
that the credit lies with politicians, with lobbyists, with staffers,
(14:15):
with all these anonymous people behind closed doors who are
supposedly the ones that actually did the work, and no
one else matters. I want to strongly emphasize that that
is not only not true, but dangerous rhetoric.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
It's propaganda.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
It's propaganda. Yes, it's an attempt to reinforce the role
that the state has in subjugating everyone, to reinforce the
fact that, oh no, the way things are is perfect.
You can trust all these leaders to protect you when
you can't. They are the reason we got in this mess.
The gay en tactics are the things that have failed
and led to this in the first place. Liberals have
(14:55):
plenty of opportunities prevent this and they didn't. And ultimately,
the reason that this narrative spreads is because, at the
end of the day, gay yank is called back for
a reason because well, yes, their interests happen to align
on the realm of queer rights because they themselves are queer.
At the end of the day, they are still representing
(15:16):
the upper class, and their primary interests are still going
to be with protecting the upper class and protecting the
role they have in subjugating the lower class and subjugating
marginalized people who are not in their economic class.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Yeah, which is most trans people, like all of us.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Yeah, this is.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
Like really important because I don't think the intersections of
queerness and definitely not transists in class get talked about
nearly enough. Yeah, which is is that queer and transy
are overwhelmingly working class demographics. Yep, like the legislators you know,
like Sara McBride, but also like the people running gang
crimanizations are not just like not generally representative of our
(15:59):
wider communities in a lot of ways. They also just
have had incredibly different lives almost always, with some exceptions,
they've been part of the gentry their entire lives, and
most queer trans people, especially trans people, are as far
from the gentry as you get. So that does create
like this massive gulf. But also I think it's one
(16:21):
reason these groups are so out of touch. But also
I think it does. You know, if we put the
power back on ourselves, if we realize that this kind
of grassroots anger is much more representative of where queer
and trans people are, If this willingness to fight directly
in whatever tactics people choose is much more like in
(16:41):
keeping with like queer culture and tradition and history, then
I think there's a lot of power there. And I
think this is an example of successfully wielding that. I
think Mirror was correct about this propaganda that's kind of
been spreading in the wake, and it was particularly I
think egregious because it specifically like tried to credit Sarah McBride,
who had just come off a really obnoxious interview with
(17:04):
The New York Times where she was literally against all
the aggressive trans rights, and then after the band finally
got killed, this you know, various sources and honestly, I
don't know anyone hearing this stuff, and whatever capacities the
journalist act is, whatever, I think it's just professionally good
to be more skeptical when these kind of convenient narratives emerge.
(17:24):
But kind of embers, Oh, behind the scenes, she'd been
doing so much. Yeah, sure, in public, she'd been you know,
very either low key or refusing defend trains rights at all,
even justifying some of the narratives of our enemies. But
sure she was doing all this behind the scenes.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
She refused to fucking do anything when they banned trans
people from fucking bathrooms in DC.
Speaker 5 (17:45):
Yes, like in Capitol him, wouldn't even defend her own staffers, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
So like it's worth being skeptical to claim that she
was doing so much behind the scenes. However, you know
if she was prompted in the last week of a
multi week effort to suddenly start taking some action based
on anger. Great part of the point of these strategies
is to prompt people who don't want to act into
feeling like they're forced to act. But I think in
twenty years of covering politics at various levels, if politicians
(18:14):
don't like something, you will know. If they support something,
you will know they will be very loud and very public,
because the public platform is one of the biggest powers
they have, as well as doing whatever behind the scenes.
If they're quiet about something or even seem opposite to
especially if it involves a group on the front lines
like trans communities, and then later on they try to
(18:36):
kind of take back credit of saying, oh, look, you know,
we were doing so much behind the scenes that is
pretty universally attacked to commit to demobilize people.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Yeah, and I want to note that the point of
us saying this is not to say that you know,
Sarah McBride or you know Saffers or other people didn't
do anything. Like, of course they did stuff right like,
they voted, they were voting. Note, they probably made some
phone calls and stuff, right, But what we're saying is like, Okay,
they basically did the bare minimum of what they're supposed
to do, right like, and that was only after a
(19:07):
huge pressure campaign from the grassroots and from people who
they would literally not be even in office without. Like
I did the math in an article way back in
that last November, and there's like exit polls showing that
like eighty six percent of LGBTQ people voted for Democrats
last year. That's like a crazy margin. That's like it's
(19:28):
up there with you know, black voters and LGBTQ people
are like the biggest bass of the Democratic Party, right Like,
they would have lost three or four more Senate seats
they it would have been like a fifty six or
fifty seven seat chamber if it were not for literally
the people that are advocating for this healthcare. And it's
it's so absurd that, like Sarah McBride, what she did was,
if we assume everything that's been said is true about
(19:49):
this is what she's done is basically she got Democrats
to not vote to take away the healthcare of two
hundred thousand trans people, which is like, why was that
even a qu question like this? This is the actual
story that came out of this. In my opinion that
was bigger is that this was ever in question that
there might be like seven or eight Democrats who would
(20:10):
vote to ban Medicaid from two hundred three hundred thousand
trans people, like and the fact that we're supposed to
like give them a huge applause for not doing that
is is kind of obscene to me.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
Yeah, I think the readiness to thank politicians kind of
cuts against the grassroots anger and organizing that works.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
So well here.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Yep, because you don't want them. Actually, I think it's
cerally a good rule not to thank politicians because what
you want to constantly keep them in. If that's the
terrain you're going to fight on is they need to
feel like they're on thin ice. They need to worry
their staff needs to worry about Okay, we got to
keep this out of the bill, because holy hell, you
(20:51):
do not want those queers mad at you. That's where
you want to get closer to if putting pressure on
politicians is is what needs to happen, And so buying
these narratives thanking them, that takes the pressure off.
Speaker 5 (21:05):
Don't ever do that, you know, yes, and.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
So I think it's it's kind of important. And you know,
to quote the internet masterpiece of old drill tweet like
you do underneath circumstances.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
Have to hand it to them.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
At best, they acted late, grudgingly after they faced a
ton of anger that resulted and was help amplified by
a ton of work from bluntly like working class trans
people and working class for your people.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Yeah, and I would argue that what Representative McBride did specifically,
even assuming that it did like help us in the
short term with this bill, the way that she's been
kind of talking about this internally and in the New
York Times interview is actually extremely dangerous for trans people because,
like believe it or not, they're not going to stop
with this bill. They're going to do it again. They're
going to do it again, probably in budget bills or
(21:54):
another reconciliation bill. And at some point it's going to
come down to the wire where Democrats will have to
publicly defend the right of trans people to have healthcare
and to be alive and to exist. That's that's going
to happen at some point. And what McBride has been
telling everyone, what she's been telling as her client on
New York Times, what she was telling Democrats behind the scenes,
according to the notice article, is that you can't talk
(22:16):
about these issues. You have to be really quiet. You
just have to do it behind the scenes because it's
too hot topic of an issue. You know, you don't
want to accidentally, like I don't know, show the world
that trans people might actually deserve to exist. It doesn't
it doesn't even make sense. I think they just it doesn't.
They just like feel gross arguing it, like personally like
they don't there's no political like, there's no like good
political calcitalists. They just feel gross talking about trans people.
(22:38):
Is my opinion that this is why they don't want
to do it. There's it's like it's bad for them politically.
They will lose votes, they will like lose political power.
They just like hate us. Basically, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (22:59):
We should never be nice or kind or thank politicians
like both Maddie and David had said they are not
our friends. Like there is a popular approach that I
think a lot of people end up having towards these
kind of quote unquote leaders that they are somehow these
like mythical faviors of everyone, that they're all leading these nonprofits,
they're leading these companies, these governments save us. They are
(23:22):
not our friends. They do not give a shit about us.
You would be surprised to things I've heard behind closed
doors that they have said they are not your friends.
They hate every single fucking poor person. They will never
say that bocally, but they.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
Hate us, especially the transplants.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
Oh yeah, oh yeah. And it's like us to be
subservient to them until the day we fucking die, because
it's all about consolidating their own power. And the kind
of corn I'm getting at here is kill the idol
in your head. You should never have an idol, Like,
there is no person worth idolizing, not only not Dayank,
(24:00):
not even only not anyone in this call, this podcast. Now,
no one at all should be idolized, because doing that
is placing all the power in the hands of people
you don't know, in the hands of people who are
just as human as anyone else. And even if they're
very good, people who do good things are fundamentally capable
(24:22):
of fucking up and doing bad. And if you idolize someone,
you end up condoning everything they do, whether you even
stay it or otherwise. It comes with the territory. Fundamentally,
you should not rely on other people to save you.
You should rely on you and your community. You need
to fucking work with your community to bring about the
outcomes you want. And I mean you, the listener, like
(24:45):
you specifically, Yes, you need to work with your community
to bring about what you need.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
I think that's that's kind of the message that should
emerge from this is no one in Washington, organization and
politician are the ones of the power here.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
You are.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
You and your friends are you and your community are
And I know we've said that a little bit before,
but it's worth re emphasizing how much people can do
when they get together and decide to do something about
these issues.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah, and I think that's a really good note to
end on. However, come up before we do that very
exciting news. Do you all want to introduce introduce the
new news network.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Hell yeah, we have huge news to announce that's related
to the news website that we used to write this
article about the bird Roll, formerly known as Maddicast News
will now be known as trans News Network. And we're
basically relaunching completely. We're switching up our business models from
technically was a for profit before, but now it's going
(25:41):
to be part of fiscally sponsored nonprofit of community Partners.
And we're also moving off subset to beehive. And so,
you know, as Mirat and David were saying earlier, like
we don't want you to rely on us to stay
you like it's kind of like a team effort, right, Like,
we do have a part to play. Will help will
help you give you information, but we also could use
(26:04):
help from you. We could use help from the listener,
especially people who do have you know, some people have
more time, some people have more resources or money. And
one thing that we are looking to do with our
relaunch is to fundraise so we can basically, you know,
ensure that basically our journalists, like you know, Mirah and
David have the financial stability they need to continue making
(26:25):
journalism like this. And so we're launching with a fundraiser
and we're gonna we'll have a link, I guess with
the podcast description and there will be like you know,
you can get a free gift if you donate a
certain amount. That's a huge way to help. But as well,
you know, you also need to actually listen to the
things that people in your community to say, like what
are the things people in your community are saying that
can help? What are other ways that you can contribute
(26:47):
back to save yourselves, basically because we're all in this together.
Speaker 4 (26:50):
And yeah, I think also one of the reasons I'm
really excited about the trans News Network and the transition
as it were, to the trans News Net it is
that I think our collective experiences and our experience with
this fight as well, have shown that there is a
real need for hard hitting, powerful, unrepentantly radical and trans journalism,
(27:17):
trans journalism that actually gets trans communities and proceeds kind
of to take the fight from there. And so that's
that is badly needed. And I think we are from
our own experiences and from kind of what we've all
built working together, like able to be part of that.
Speaker 5 (27:36):
Yeah, and just to add one thing, because I know
how many trans people artistic and need to hear this
about out. I'm one of them. This is explosively a
worker's co op. We are doing this radical from the
ground up. Everyone gets eqal say this is a community thing.
This is not some light Oh you know, we're doing this.
But then there's a nice CEO who makes five hundred K. No,
(27:58):
this is the money is going to the journalists who
need it. Is the group of us basically deciding, hey,
we need to fucking keep doing this work. We want to,
we need to support, we need help. Yeah, and we're
joining the bandwagon of all these news outlets doing workers
co ops because that's the only way you can fucking
make money in this industry nowadays.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
It's also the fairest and best way to do it.
Speaker 5 (28:21):
Yep. It is. It's it's objectively the best and most
ethical way to do this under the healthscape of capitalism. Yep.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
And uh Tamira's plan and I'm gonna we went on
this podcast earlier this year to talk about trans journalism
and you might want to listen to that as well
if you're curious on like just the struggles that a
lot of us have dealt with. And number one is,
you know, the material need for money basically, and I'm
going to say what I said in that episode again,
which is that one hundred dollars for some people, like
(28:52):
you know, let's say a working class transferson is very
different compared to one hundred dollars for people in other
social classes. You know, maybe someone in tech or something like,
maybe you'll get a dinner at the one hundred dollars
and it's not a big deal to you, right, it
could be life changing for someone else who's literally like
spending their life creating news to help trans people like
you know, this article that we wrote, it wasn't a
(29:14):
huge amount of money that that took to create that.
But at the same time, we don't have a lot
of money to go around, like it's it's being basically
a small number of people. We have a we have
a good number of like paid subscribers to but really
in order to keep expanding the way we want to,
we really need more money. And it's going to be
so huge to trans people everywhere.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
So yeah, so if someone has money and it's interested
in supporting trans journalism. That is all the things we've
just talked about and I think makes a real difference. Yeah,
please sign up as a paid subscriber. Donate to the fundraiser.
Every single dollar of that we will put to use.
Speaker 5 (29:51):
Yeap.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
Our first goal is basically to hire one of our
journalists as a part time W two employee, which should
be literally life changing.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
So yeah, yeah, And when we said this in the
last episode, and we're going to say it again, working
class trans journalism can exist if you support it. And
every single dollar that you sent to a working class
trans journalist is going one hundred times further that it's
going for any other thing you can do to, like, like,
it's going so much further that it is giving it
(30:19):
to like fucking the Human Rights Committee or whatever the fuck,
Like wait, what is what's the actual name with the
organ human Rights Campampa? Yeah, yeah, you resume that one.
Speaker 5 (30:27):
Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
Well, by the way, did I mention it's tax seductible, So.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Got to throw that in there.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
If you item measure deductions, if you give like one
hundred dollars to us, then you get to pay like,
you know, whatever like thirty dollars less goes to the
federal government, which means slightly less money for Ice and Israel.
That's how I see it anyway.
Speaker 5 (30:48):
Okay, please, Dear God, I'm tired of living off my
measly savings.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Dear God, please, Yeah, you can tell her really trying
to sell this well.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
And also I think like Yo Mirror and myself both
do other trans journalism work. I'm part of the editor
at the Ashville Blade, which is a local trans journalist
co op. And you know, we've seen how far that goes,
so so yeah, like the more support for trans journalism, period,
trans News Network, the Free Radical Asheville Blade, some of
(31:21):
the other projects out there, the better.
Speaker 5 (31:24):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
And this has been It could Happen here, support support
trans journalism, and we keep fighting the good fight.
Speaker 1 (31:33):
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
You can now find sources for It could Happen here
listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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