Interview with Roger Smith | Ep #43

The Trump Administration’s explicit animus toward transgender people is a well-documented and very public fact. 

Starting in his first term and now in his second, President Trump and his Administration have carried out a systematic, years-long effort to roll back protections for LGBTQ+ people. 

Beginning in January 2025, the Administration issued a series of executive orders specifically targeted at trans people. Trump’s directives include targeting transgender students, banning trans Americans from military service, and giving federal agencies the go ahead to overtly discriminate against their trans employees.

While the Administration’s discrimination against transgender people is taking many forms, and fostering fear in people who identify as trans, it’s also impacting the friends and families of those who identify as transgender. 

Roger Smith is a novelist and retired history teacher who lives in Brewster, MA.  He’s also the father of a transgender son, Alex, whom he loves dearly. 

In this poignant interview with PFLAG Cape Cod’s Rick Koonce, Rog describes the fear -- and outrage -- he feels at how the U.S. government is singling out and discriminating against transgender people today. 

But, discrimination against people who don’t fit neatly into certain social, ethnic, cultural, and sexual categories has a long, long history in America, says this former history teacher.  

Sadly and historically, Smith says, the “othering” of people seen as being on society's margins is part of our nation’s DNA. 

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