Trans Lives Before the Moral Panic with Eli Erlick

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It's time for you and me to
stand up for ourselves.

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Welcome to Unwashed and Unruly,
where we make a mess out of neat

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little narratives.
Today we're talking about lost

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stories from transgender history
and the anti trans moral panic

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that erases them.
I'm your host Lola Michaels,

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joined by the venerable Ezra
Saeed.

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Hi, Lola.
Hi, everybody.

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And our distinguished Cam Cruz.
Hey everybody.

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And today we have a very
respected special guest as well,

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Eli Erlich.
Eli is a celebrated author,

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trans activist and educator
based out of New York City who

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recently published the
groundbreaking new book Before

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Gender Lost Stories from Trans
History 1850 to 1950.

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You can learn all about her,
order her book and check out her

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tour dates on her website,
eliehrlich.com.

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Eli, thanks for coming.
We're so excited to have you of.

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Course, thanks for having me.
And a reminder to our listeners

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that you can find all our
episodes on Spotify, Apple

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Podcast, and our website
unwashedun-ruly.com.

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We also pop up on YouTube,
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Please follow us and don't
forget to rate and review the

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show.
Right now we're living through

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an intense campaign against
trans and non binary people who

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are vilified, legislated
against, blamed for economic

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ills, and targeted by harmful
policies.

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Trans identity has become a
political scapegoat.

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In 2025 alone, over 100 anti
trans bills have passed across

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the US, from bathroom bans to
executive orders prohibiting

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trans athletes from sports.
In the middle of all this, Eli

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Ehrlich's new book, Before
Gender Lost Stories from Trans

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History, is something of a
revelation.

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It's a reminder that trans lives
have always been part of the

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human story.
Their existence is not new.

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What we're witnessing is a
hysterical drive to keep them

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oppressed.
Eli's book is based on extensive

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research from primary sources,
court records, and newspapers.

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It uncovers the untold stories
of 30 trans people who lived

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between 1850 and 1950, long
before words like gender

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identity or transgender even
existed.

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These are stories of kids,
activists, workers, and

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athletes.
People who fell in love, who

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accessed gender affirming care,
who organized, built community,

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and sparked uprisings decades
before Stonewall.

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These trans chronicles can help
us make sense of a past that's

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been deliberately erased and
help counter the backlash we're

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living through today.
Thank you again for being here,

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Eli.
I just want to start a little

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bit at the beginning.
I know that you started your

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research a while back, but
there's a quote in the

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introduction to the book by our
bigot imperialist in chief,

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Donald Trump that kind of
situates where we're at in

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presenting trans identity as an
invention or a kind of social

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contagion.
So Trump in 2023 says about

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trans children, quote, nobody's
ever heard of this, what's

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happening today.
It was all when the radical left

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invented it just a few years
ago.

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And I think behind this
statement is a political agenda

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to attack trans, non binary and
intersex kids, deny them medical

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care, slash funding for critical
services and remove them from

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public life altogether.
Can you talk a little bit about

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what motivated you to write your
book and why you think it's so

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critical in today's ultra
reactionary political climate?

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So I wrote this book because I
wanted to find a way that not

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only told entertaining stories
about trans history, but finding

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out how to actually locate
stories and histories that can

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make a difference that really
disrupt what we've been told

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about trans people, including
within our own community.

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Now, while there was a lot of
research done for this book,

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it's not academic.
It's meant for anyone to read

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and enjoy.
And starting with the Trump

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quote really gets down to the
core reason why I wrote this

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book, because trans people
obviously aren't new.

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We've been around for a while
and there's amazing stories

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about our community out there.
When Trump in another speech

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claimed that trans kids were
invented in 2015, I, I mean, I

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was really frustrated because I
was a trans kid in 2003 and I'm

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like 80% sure I existed then.
So it just really set me off on

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this search for our lost
histories and finding these

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known unknowns.
So yeah, one of the things that

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you introduced at the beginning
of the book is about language.

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The word gender didn't come into
common usage until around 1955.

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Transgender and trans as
terminology didn't come into

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common usage until the 1990s.
And So what you get is this

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awful argument against trans
people.

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Like, well if the words didn't
exist then these people didn't

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exist.
And of course, language and

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terms change over time, even if
the meaning behind them doesn't.

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You know, I think that this is
just basically another way of

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them selling the idea that there
have always been 2 genders and

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only two genders.
Why do you think the discussion

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on language is important to your
thesis that trans identities are

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not a modern phenomenon?
And also at some point can you

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talk about how you define trans
in the book?

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Well, that's a great question
because that's been one of the

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like central contentions among
scholars of trans history and

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also the right and general
denying trans existence before,

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I mean, the 1950s and 1990s, or
in Trump's case, 2015.

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So this has been a big argument
among trans people ourselves.

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Like could we call people from
the past before the word trans,

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existent trans?
And in this book, I'm arguing,

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yes, of course we can.
And in academia, we always we're

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always told we're supposed to
have this big intervention with

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our books.
And so unfortunately, I was kind

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of pitching hold into that for
mine, but I, I proposed this

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idea called the Cleopatra
problem.

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And all this is saying is that
we know that Cleopatra was a

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woman 2000 years ago.
Nobody's questioning that.

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And I don't think we should be.
But at the same time, like

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Egyptians had different gender
roles, different terminology,

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different, different expressions
of gender than we do today.

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And in fact, the word woman
wasn't invented for over 1000

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years after Cleopatra's death.
So how do we know that she was a

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woman?
And without going into the like,

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biological essentialism
trenches, we don't really.

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But we know because she embodies
this social category that seems

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to persist throughout time, and
trans people do too.

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We are transcending these
binauristic roles that are

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placed in Western among other
cultures that aren't necessarily

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factual or the actual lived
experience of people we may now

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call trans.
And so I really wanted to dive

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into this as a sort of solution
to this problem that we've spent

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the past like 100 years or so
arguing over whether we can call

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XY or Z trans, transgender, or
even, for that matter,

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homosexual or Latina.
All of these terms have

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arguments over their
temporality.

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And I think that this is too
much of A focus and it's being

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weaponized against us in this
very clear and I want to say a

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sinister way that is just
completely unnecessary.

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What do you mean by the word
woman wasn't invented for 1000

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years?
You're referring to the English

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word woman, right?
Yes.

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So different languages of course
have different terms for gender.

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Most languages actually had more
than two terms.

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And Egyptian gender roles 2000
years ago were also very

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different.
So how we are describing women

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today is going to be different
than it was then, but I don't

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think there's any problem with
calling Cleopatra a woman too.

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So you make this point about how
today, you know, transgender is

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a category that people identify
with, but people in the past,

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historical figures, don't get
the option to decide what we

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call them.
So can you explain a little bit

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about some of the criteria that
you go through in your book?

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So for this book, I set up the
most explicit, clear cut cases

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that I could find of trans
people who also tell us

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something more about trans
history that we don't get from

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well publicized or well known
cases.

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So I chose some kind of frankly
overly prescriptive qualifiers

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for these different individuals
and this man.

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Like people who were assigned
male at birth were declaring

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themself a woman.
Or in a couple cases the

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individual said I am neither a
man nor a woman verbatim, which

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is very cool for over 100 years
ago.

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And I also decided to not
include intersex people who of

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course today can absolutely be
trans, but this was a conscious

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decision because this book is
ultimately A rebuttal to all of

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the arguments and historical
arguments that are being made by

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the right.
They are saying there's only one

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category of trans person that
who's worthy of surgery, which

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are intersex people.
And they don't get to decide

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because they're usually infants
or children.

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So the only surgery trans
surgeries they support are the

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non consensual ones.
And so I did end up leaving out

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intersex stories, which I found
quite a few of.

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And I do tendentially include a
couple intersex people in the

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book and a chapter on the
runner.

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Stefan Bakar.
One of his teammates was also an

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intersex trans man.
So Danya Kovac, and he's been

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written about a bit before in
the book The other Olympians by

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my friend like waters.
Another great book.

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I know I'm pure to prevent my
own, but his is really great

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too.
So this history between intersex

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and trans people is obviously
very intertwined.

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It's not a binary.
But I still chose to leave out

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full narratives of intersex
people because I'm making a

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point here that non intersex
trans people were respected,

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they accessed medicine, they
were able to advocate for

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themselves, and for the most
part they were able to live long

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and happy lives.
Yeah, that was one thing I found

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so fascinating about the book is
that a lot of the stories were

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very uplifting and showed a
level of acceptance that is kind

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of shocking in today's world.
And then there's also a lot of

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stories about trans people who
had to make up narratives to

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avoid legal punishment or to
avoid violence and had to invent

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justifications for self
protection or for survival.

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Some had to say that they were a
different gender because their

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parents treated them that way or
claimed that they had to work

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and that was the only way they
could gain work.

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And so I found it interesting
that you mentioned how sometimes

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these motivations have been used
by other historians to undermine

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their legitimacy.
So I was wondering if you could

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explain how you took into
account all the factors that

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might motivate someone to
transition during this time

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period because of circumstances
and the historical context of

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the time, like how it influenced
the motivating factors for

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transitioning.
OK.

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So there's two very different
questions there.

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I'm good at making confusing
questions.

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Oh no, I pile them on.
I love to talk about these

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people.
I mean, to write this book, you

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have to get a little obsessed
with each figure and find some

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joy in their respective stories.
So for the your first question,

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I was really surprised by how
positive the reception was in

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media of some of these
individuals.

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And of course, obviously very
racialized, very gendered like

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media love white trans boys.
They thought they were brave.

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They called them courageous.
And I think that's great.

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Nothing wrong with that.
Now, I wish I could show the

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same respect to the trans people
of color and trans woman who

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were in there, who certainly got
a lot, a lot less act in terms

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of their genders.
Some of them did, some of them

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didn't.
Some were very mixed.

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So I was very surprised and also
very eager to learn these

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stories of acceptance and
support that were happening in

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the 1860s.
For example, one of the cases,

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Ray Leonard was of a trans man
who had the support of his

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family in around 1863 for his
transition when he was thirteen

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years old.
I think that's fantastic.

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You don't hear about those
stories.

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It I mean, transness doesn't
have to be suffering and it

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didn't ever have to be
suffering.

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Now for your second question, I
was very interested in unpacking

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why we are so eager to erase
trans people from history and

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also why this erasure happens.
That's a that's a lot of what

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this book is about, like these
various forms of erasure, of

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self erasure, of accidental
erasure, and of some malicious

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erasure while we're at it.
So historians are often very

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cautious about presentism.
They're cautious about applying

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these retroactive labels.
And I wouldn't even say that

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trans is a retroactive label any
more than woman is.

230
00:13:53,400 --> 00:13:55,720
Again, we're getting back to
Cleopatra problem here.

231
00:13:56,200 --> 00:13:58,760
There's been words for
transgender for centuries now.

232
00:13:58,960 --> 00:14:04,480
They had words like Ionism like
150 years ago after Chevalier

233
00:14:04,480 --> 00:14:09,640
Dion, who was a French cross
dressing possibly trans spy.

234
00:14:09,800 --> 00:14:13,640
While writing this book, I found
quite a few cases that had been

235
00:14:13,640 --> 00:14:16,520
listed maybe in lesbian
archives.

236
00:14:16,520 --> 00:14:19,360
It's like a little snippet of
history, like a sentence or two.

237
00:14:19,680 --> 00:14:24,320
And I became curious, like, what
are these people actually saying

238
00:14:24,320 --> 00:14:26,880
about themselves?
How are they identifying?

239
00:14:27,360 --> 00:14:31,200
And there's some authors out
there who are very eager to

240
00:14:31,200 --> 00:14:36,800
misgender trans people to a
really almost impressive point

241
00:14:36,840 --> 00:14:40,640
in some cases.
There were a few cases that I

242
00:14:40,640 --> 00:14:44,920
briefly discussed in this book
of trans men actually shooting

243
00:14:45,120 --> 00:14:48,880
people who are misgendering
them, and historians are still

244
00:14:48,880 --> 00:14:52,400
misgendering them.
Emilio Robles is one of those

245
00:14:52,400 --> 00:14:56,000
cases who's being harassed by a
couple men in the, I believe,

246
00:14:56,000 --> 00:14:59,560
1930s in Mexico.
They're misgendering him.

247
00:14:59,560 --> 00:15:02,720
They're calling him a woman, and
he shoots them.

248
00:15:03,040 --> 00:15:06,760
And there have been multiple
books and articles written in

249
00:15:06,760 --> 00:15:09,400
the past 10 years calling him a
woman.

250
00:15:09,920 --> 00:15:13,520
It's so ridiculous he changed
his legal documentation like he

251
00:15:13,520 --> 00:15:17,160
lived almost his entire life as
a man talking like 60 years.

252
00:15:17,160 --> 00:15:20,320
Really incredible.
Like bending over backwards to

253
00:15:20,320 --> 00:15:23,840
misgender someone.
But it's because of this context

254
00:15:23,840 --> 00:15:28,200
that he transitioned 100 years
ago now that people don't think

255
00:15:28,200 --> 00:15:30,960
we could call him trans.
It's also ridiculous because he

256
00:15:30,960 --> 00:15:36,560
died in 1989 and just really fit
this kind of stereotypical

257
00:15:36,560 --> 00:15:40,240
narrative of trans people.
Now, there's also these excuses

258
00:15:40,240 --> 00:15:43,800
that trans people often gave as
to why they transitioned.

259
00:15:43,800 --> 00:15:47,320
I had quite a few of those
cases, especially among those

260
00:15:47,320 --> 00:15:51,160
caught up in courts.
You would often see trans people

261
00:15:51,160 --> 00:15:55,080
saying, oh, I was just raised
this way, or especially for

262
00:15:55,080 --> 00:15:58,040
young white trans men, oh, I
just wanted to find work, so I

263
00:15:58,040 --> 00:16:00,680
threw on some men's clothes.
That would be understandable.

264
00:16:00,680 --> 00:16:03,200
There were plenty of cases like
that where this person was

265
00:16:03,200 --> 00:16:04,880
clearly SIS and they wanted a
job.

266
00:16:05,160 --> 00:16:06,880
It was hard to get work as a
woman then.

267
00:16:06,960 --> 00:16:11,360
But there are other cases where
they made this claim and then

268
00:16:11,680 --> 00:16:14,920
said they would detransition and
then immediately went back to

269
00:16:14,920 --> 00:16:18,240
living full time as a man.
And there's at least three

270
00:16:18,240 --> 00:16:22,480
stories in this book like that
where they're saying, oh, sorry,

271
00:16:22,480 --> 00:16:27,040
I just wanted a job.
And I promise I'll wear dresses

272
00:16:27,040 --> 00:16:29,840
from now on.
And two days later, you see them

273
00:16:29,840 --> 00:16:32,840
romping throughout the streets,
noted by a journalist, like

274
00:16:32,840 --> 00:16:35,680
wearing a suit and making out
with two women at once.

275
00:16:36,200 --> 00:16:39,800
You have no idea how many women
were throwing themselves at

276
00:16:39,800 --> 00:16:43,240
trans men during that time,
especially after they got

277
00:16:43,240 --> 00:16:46,360
notoriety from these court cases
outing them.

278
00:16:46,600 --> 00:16:50,240
Really incredible.
I was so surprised by like how

279
00:16:50,240 --> 00:16:52,520
much punani all these trans men
were getting.

280
00:16:53,200 --> 00:16:57,000
And it really is incredible.
You would not believe how many

281
00:16:57,000 --> 00:17:01,000
truffles and sex scandals these
boys went through.

282
00:17:01,240 --> 00:17:07,079
I was really amazed with how
many of them like had multiple

283
00:17:07,079 --> 00:17:12,079
engagements at the same time and
just how beloved they were.

284
00:17:12,440 --> 00:17:14,880
Also, like a lot of the people
you talk about in the book were

285
00:17:14,880 --> 00:17:18,400
married way before legalized gay
marriage, so that was another

286
00:17:18,400 --> 00:17:20,640
surprising part for me.
Absolutely.

287
00:17:20,640 --> 00:17:23,880
And that was something I was
really excited about too.

288
00:17:24,280 --> 00:17:28,960
In Carl Crawford Story, I was
able to uncover what's now the

289
00:17:28,960 --> 00:17:33,640
earliest known court record
allowing a trans man to change

290
00:17:33,640 --> 00:17:37,240
his legal sex.
And I'm sure there were earlier

291
00:17:37,240 --> 00:17:42,360
ones, but the fact he did this
in Tennessee in about 19 O1

292
00:17:42,760 --> 00:17:46,080
really amazing.
It certainly didn't hurt that

293
00:17:46,080 --> 00:17:50,040
his cousin married the judge's
daughter, but the fact he was

294
00:17:50,040 --> 00:17:53,520
able to do that, get it on
record, and now that record's

295
00:17:53,520 --> 00:17:57,680
preserved, it's incredible.
Speaking of records, Sally Tom

296
00:17:57,720 --> 00:18:01,880
is another one that's stands out
to me because as I was reading

297
00:18:01,880 --> 00:18:03,800
it, a number of things going
through my mind.

298
00:18:03,920 --> 00:18:06,320
One was the context in which it
happened.

299
00:18:06,320 --> 00:18:08,120
I thought it was interesting
that it was during the

300
00:18:08,120 --> 00:18:11,480
reconstruction in the period
right after the Civil War, and

301
00:18:11,560 --> 00:18:14,080
that for all its contradictions,
the Friedman's Bureau.

302
00:18:14,080 --> 00:18:18,680
I was wondering if you knew why
the Friedman's Bureau agreed to

303
00:18:18,680 --> 00:18:20,400
do that?
So you're talking about the case

304
00:18:20,400 --> 00:18:25,000
of Sally Tom, who was a trans
woman that had her gender

305
00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:28,520
legally recognized by the
Friedman's Bureau in around

306
00:18:28,520 --> 00:18:33,880
1869.
So Sally Tom was a newly freed

307
00:18:33,920 --> 00:18:38,880
enslaved person during
Reconstruction who just happened

308
00:18:38,880 --> 00:18:43,600
to almost coincidentally be out
of court case where she was just

309
00:18:43,600 --> 00:18:45,680
a witness in the case, nothing
major.

310
00:18:46,120 --> 00:18:49,920
But the judge at the Friedman's
Bureau picked up that she was

311
00:18:49,920 --> 00:18:51,760
wearing mixed genders of
clothing.

312
00:18:51,760 --> 00:18:54,600
She was at the time sometimes
wearing skirts and loose

313
00:18:54,600 --> 00:18:56,440
blouses.
She was sometimes wearing like

314
00:18:56,440 --> 00:18:59,360
masculine sailors hats.
It was a mix.

315
00:18:59,960 --> 00:19:04,520
And so the judge told her, well,
I'll let you be a man or a

316
00:19:04,520 --> 00:19:07,400
woman, but you have to pick one
which they would be very

317
00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:10,320
offensive, but at the time was
incredibly progressive.

318
00:19:11,120 --> 00:19:15,760
And this definitely ties back
into to black history and what

319
00:19:15,760 --> 00:19:17,880
the Friedmans Bureau was trying
to do.

320
00:19:18,200 --> 00:19:21,800
So I would, I had no sense of
what the Friedman's Bureau was

321
00:19:21,800 --> 00:19:23,640
before writing this book,
honestly.

322
00:19:23,640 --> 00:19:25,720
Like we don't teach it in
schools anymore because it's

323
00:19:25,720 --> 00:19:29,800
largely considered it a a
failure of US political history.

324
00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:32,040
Reconstruction was a failure
period.

325
00:19:32,640 --> 00:19:36,640
And what this was trying to do
was it was a new government

326
00:19:37,040 --> 00:19:43,000
branch overseen federally that
would provide Black people some

327
00:19:43,080 --> 00:19:46,320
autonomous decision making over
their own communities.

328
00:19:46,760 --> 00:19:50,120
Part of it, I mean, how we write
about it in the book is very

329
00:19:50,120 --> 00:19:51,800
mixed.
Like, part of it was really

330
00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:53,400
great.
It kept Black people out of

331
00:19:53,400 --> 00:19:58,240
prison and encouraged education.
It funneled funds from the

332
00:19:58,280 --> 00:20:01,160
federal government to Black
communities.

333
00:20:01,440 --> 00:20:05,720
And then at the same time, it
tried to force many Black people

334
00:20:05,720 --> 00:20:09,440
into underpaid, low Willow wage
work.

335
00:20:09,440 --> 00:20:13,600
It tried to.
Assimilate black people into

336
00:20:13,720 --> 00:20:18,400
this culture that didn't want
them in it instead of trying to

337
00:20:18,400 --> 00:20:22,440
change the culture itself.
And it ultimately was used to

338
00:20:22,520 --> 00:20:26,800
prevent potential rebellion from
black communities that were

339
00:20:26,800 --> 00:20:32,200
never given their 40 acres.
So it provided a lot of good and

340
00:20:32,200 --> 00:20:35,880
also a lot of bad, was a very
complicated, a very complicated

341
00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:37,840
system.
And part of that were the

342
00:20:37,840 --> 00:20:39,920
courts.
And this is where Sally Tom

343
00:20:39,920 --> 00:20:43,120
found herself.
And this judge, just by her

344
00:20:43,120 --> 00:20:46,600
presence, allowed her to exist
as a woman.

345
00:20:46,760 --> 00:20:50,120
When I first read this article,
which came out about 20 years

346
00:20:50,120 --> 00:20:54,520
later by an observer who turned
journalist, I wasn't sure if it

347
00:20:54,520 --> 00:20:56,520
was real.
There's a lot of questionable

348
00:20:56,520 --> 00:21:00,000
journalism at the time, and I
try to view everything with a

349
00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:02,720
lens of doubt.
But I actually found her

350
00:21:02,720 --> 00:21:07,120
obituary in the Georgia State
Archives, and everything

351
00:21:07,120 --> 00:21:09,520
matched.
It showed that she was living as

352
00:21:09,520 --> 00:21:13,520
a woman during that time.
It had the same name, and it

353
00:21:13,560 --> 00:21:17,320
matched her description.
And then I realized, wow, she

354
00:21:17,320 --> 00:21:21,440
was actually just living her
life in this Black neighborhood

355
00:21:21,440 --> 00:21:26,000
in rural Georgia called Hazard
Hill, and she had largely been

356
00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:28,480
left alone and respected by the
communities.

357
00:21:28,920 --> 00:21:31,760
You mentioned the Friedman's
Bureau reconstruction not being

358
00:21:31,760 --> 00:21:34,680
taught at all.
I mean, in so far as it's

359
00:21:34,680 --> 00:21:38,200
taught, it's in some ways what
taught as worse than even a

360
00:21:38,200 --> 00:21:40,600
failure.
It's taught as as a period of,

361
00:21:40,880 --> 00:21:44,280
to use the old terminology that
they used to use for it, a

362
00:21:44,280 --> 00:21:48,160
period of Negro domination when
basically the South was

363
00:21:48,160 --> 00:21:51,640
supposedly punished and all this
horrible things were imposed on

364
00:21:51,640 --> 00:21:56,360
the South after the Civil War.
And it was really the only

365
00:21:56,360 --> 00:22:00,760
period in U.S. history where
there was this real endeavor of

366
00:22:00,760 --> 00:22:02,640
interracial democracy in the
South.

367
00:22:02,840 --> 00:22:05,680
And I'm just thinking a parallel
case to this.

368
00:22:05,720 --> 00:22:07,840
As I was reading it, I couldn't
help but think of this other

369
00:22:07,840 --> 00:22:11,000
case again that you couldn't
imagine happened in Tennessee in

370
00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:14,040
1869.
An older black man, formerly

371
00:22:14,040 --> 00:22:17,160
enslaved, he is attacked by two
white men.

372
00:22:17,160 --> 00:22:21,400
He shoots and kills them, goes
to court, argue self-defense and

373
00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:25,040
wins, is acquitted by an whole
white jury as an act of

374
00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:26,960
self-defense for shooting 2
white men who were trying to

375
00:22:26,960 --> 00:22:30,200
attack him.
That was that was

376
00:22:30,360 --> 00:22:32,480
Reconstruction.
With all its flaws.

377
00:22:32,640 --> 00:22:36,480
I have to imagine that part of
the Sally Tom story was the fact

378
00:22:36,520 --> 00:22:39,280
that there was this very unique
period in American history that

379
00:22:39,280 --> 00:22:41,120
was happening in the South at
that time.

380
00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:44,720
Absolutely.
And I think if she went to a

381
00:22:44,720 --> 00:22:48,480
white court, she probably would
have been arrested by at the

382
00:22:48,480 --> 00:22:51,560
time they were trying to keep.
I mean, we could look at this a

383
00:22:51,560 --> 00:22:53,080
few different ways.
They were trying to keep black

384
00:22:53,080 --> 00:22:56,200
people out of prison, which is
actually amazing for the US

385
00:22:56,200 --> 00:22:58,680
federal government.
But this also meant they were

386
00:22:58,680 --> 00:23:02,360
trying to keep them in the labor
force and potentially force them

387
00:23:02,360 --> 00:23:07,200
into unjust working conditions.
And Sally Tom actually ended up

388
00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:11,440
working for a former Confederate
major in a housekeeping

389
00:23:11,600 --> 00:23:16,040
position.
So you see how this supposed

390
00:23:16,040 --> 00:23:20,120
punishment is actually just a
recycling of slavery in many

391
00:23:20,120 --> 00:23:22,240
ways.
Since you're talking a little

392
00:23:22,240 --> 00:23:27,120
bit about race and class, I'm
curious about how it played out

393
00:23:27,120 --> 00:23:29,240
in some of the rest of the
stories that you cover in the

394
00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:32,040
book.
Like you speak about the young

395
00:23:32,040 --> 00:23:36,360
brothers in the 1930s in England
who were supported by their

396
00:23:36,360 --> 00:23:40,960
family and community for their
entire lives, and a lot of white

397
00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:44,760
trans children who had access to
to medicine before black trans

398
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:48,560
children in that period between
1850 and 1950.

399
00:23:48,560 --> 00:23:52,200
What kind of patterns of
acceptance did you see depending

400
00:23:52,200 --> 00:23:55,560
on class or gender?
And I was kind of curious also

401
00:23:55,560 --> 00:23:58,040
if you think the size of the
community or the cultural

402
00:23:58,040 --> 00:24:01,880
traditions played a role in the
likelihood that they would be

403
00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:04,520
accepted.
I have to say yes to all of the

404
00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:08,240
above.
It was very racialized, very

405
00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:13,480
classed, and at the same time in
non western communities there

406
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:17,520
was a level of support that we
might not see in the US.

407
00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:21,120
So going back to the first part
of your question, young white

408
00:24:21,120 --> 00:24:25,320
trans boys were by far the most
celebrated individuals.

409
00:24:25,600 --> 00:24:29,280
Now, there were a few a few
people in there who were people

410
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:32,720
of color and were trans women or
were trans women of color who

411
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:36,360
were also very celebrated, not
by media but by their

412
00:24:36,360 --> 00:24:40,000
communities.
In the chapter on Georgia Black,

413
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:44,000
the community members who really
loved her actually chased

414
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:48,040
reporters out of town because of
their salacious reporting on her

415
00:24:48,040 --> 00:24:52,120
gender identity.
Some refused to believe that she

416
00:24:52,120 --> 00:24:55,640
was a trans woman when she was
outed around the year 1950.

417
00:24:56,160 --> 00:25:01,920
And others said, I don't care.
She she fed me food, she took me

418
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:04,280
and she worked at the church I'm
at.

419
00:25:04,560 --> 00:25:09,400
She was so beloved that they
were willing to support her no

420
00:25:09,400 --> 00:25:11,920
matter what.
And the cherry on top is that

421
00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:16,240
this is in Sanford, FL, which
was an infamously segregated

422
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:18,800
town that once chased out Jackie
Robinson.

423
00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:24,600
So it's all very complicated and
there's no definite pattern, but

424
00:25:24,720 --> 00:25:29,120
we can easily observe that the
young white trans boys were

425
00:25:29,120 --> 00:25:33,920
supported to such a higher
degree that it becomes very

426
00:25:33,920 --> 00:25:36,600
notable in here.
I mean, the story that you're

427
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:39,960
talking about with Mark and
David Farrow, like they are

428
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:44,640
called courageous and brave by
the Daily Mirror, the same

429
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:49,480
newspaper today that runs, I
mean, daily attack ads on trans

430
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:54,400
people and has been really
fundamental and undermining our

431
00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:58,840
basic rights.
So it's complicated because of

432
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:03,320
how things have changed now and
also the sort of

433
00:26:03,360 --> 00:26:06,880
conceptualization or lack
thereof, of trans people.

434
00:26:07,120 --> 00:26:11,720
I do think a lot of this has to
do with the supposed novelty.

435
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:17,200
During this period, especially
the 1890s to 1930s, there was a

436
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:20,080
lot of support for young white
trans boys that I found in

437
00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:23,080
papers.
They didn't have words for what

438
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:26,600
they were.
The term just now very

439
00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:31,120
problematic, but the term sex
change used to be a signifier of

440
00:26:31,120 --> 00:26:33,720
trans identity, but they didn't
have that word at the time.

441
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:38,120
They had almost nothing.
And because of this, because

442
00:26:38,120 --> 00:26:43,160
they weren't trained to demonize
trans people, they were actually

443
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:46,000
kind of supportive.
I mean, Mark and David Farrow

444
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:50,800
were represented as a triumph
over nature, and rightly so.

445
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:53,960
They were.
I mean, there were trans teenage

446
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:58,000
brothers who were able to access
surgery and hormones in the late

447
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:01,000
1930s.
So it's really incredible and

448
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:05,040
changes our entire understanding
of the history of trans.

449
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:07,200
Youth.
I thought that was interesting

450
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:11,200
how they weren't poisoned by
today's moral panic in the same

451
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:14,200
way.
So the novelty of it kind of

452
00:27:14,360 --> 00:27:18,000
propelled them to be more
accepting or interested in it as

453
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:21,160
like, oh, there's this variation
that there's this diverse.

454
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:23,600
Yeah, it seemed like there was
like a sense of curiosity in

455
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:25,600
some of the news articles and
things like that.

456
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:28,880
Exactly.
And I wouldn't say it's great to

457
00:27:28,880 --> 00:27:32,080
be treated as a medical
curiosity as someone who has

458
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:35,400
been before, but at the same
time, that's a hell of a lot

459
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:38,200
better than what newspapers are
putting out today.

460
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:43,280
It's interesting to see how the
moral panic developed over time,

461
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:45,800
too.
That was something I was keen to

462
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:50,480
track in this book because there
were actually other moments that

463
00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:54,440
this sort of social contagion
panic emerged.

464
00:27:55,080 --> 00:28:00,120
And here I'm thinking about the
story of Willie Ray, who was

465
00:28:00,120 --> 00:28:02,760
accused of reading too many dime
novels.

466
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:06,280
And that's what turned him trans
was his old Westerns.

467
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:09,640
He wanted to be a cowboy.
Now, of course, he spent almost

468
00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:13,600
his entire life living openly as
a man, but they had to come up

469
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:17,440
with some sort of excuse.
But this was largely dropped and

470
00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:20,760
people actually respected his
gender identity starting in the

471
00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:24,120
19 aughts or so.
There was also another

472
00:28:24,120 --> 00:28:30,440
interesting case of Gerda von
Zobel tits in 1912 Germany who

473
00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:34,840
interviewed with a German
newspaper about her gender

474
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:37,720
identity.
And this, this paper was pretty

475
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:41,440
progressive and very supportive,
but they slipped this paragraph

476
00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:43,880
in there that I found really
telling.

477
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:48,120
And during this time there was a
lot of concern about this

478
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:53,680
supposed explosion of
transgender people in Berlin.

479
00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:57,360
Now this newspaper could have
said it was some sort of moral

480
00:28:57,360 --> 00:29:00,600
decay, which became the rhetoric
starting in 1933.

481
00:29:00,600 --> 00:29:04,720
Of course, by instead they said
this is actually just the result

482
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:08,360
of more visibility and more
understanding.

483
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:12,040
There were social hubs opening
up of trans people where they

484
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:14,640
can meet each other and actually
form communities.

485
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:17,600
And this is the reason why there
were more trans people around,

486
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:21,160
because they could actually
exist openly for basically the

487
00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:25,120
first time in Germany's history.
And I think that particular

488
00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:29,800
article is really incredible for
its treatment of Gerda in 1912,

489
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:33,840
because this is in some ways
more supportive than the Daily

490
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:35,800
Mirror is today.
Yeah.

491
00:29:35,800 --> 00:29:39,680
We talked a little bit about how
class kind of factors into

492
00:29:39,680 --> 00:29:42,520
acceptance and the ability to
transition.

493
00:29:42,600 --> 00:29:46,200
And you talked a little bit
about how Gerda got something

494
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:50,280
called Transvestitenstein, which
was a legal document that

495
00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:53,680
recognized that she, you know,
was a she.

496
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:57,160
So can you talk a little bit
about a Transvestitenstein?

497
00:29:57,160 --> 00:29:59,760
I know I'm butchering this, but
what it what it that?

498
00:29:59,840 --> 00:30:01,120
Was pretty good actually what it
was.

499
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:03,080
I was like, impressed.
And yeah, what what is, what

500
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:05,440
were the benefits, like the
social benefits of having one at

501
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:08,320
the time?
So the transvestitenstein

502
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:11,880
allowed carriers to dress how
they wanted.

503
00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:16,200
Basically it was a legal pass.
Police weren't supposed to

504
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:18,400
address them if they were
carrying one.

505
00:30:18,600 --> 00:30:21,320
They sometimes did anyway.
I mean, since when do cops ever

506
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:25,600
follow the laws?
But they definitely help some

507
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:29,120
trans people escape danger and
escape harm by legal

508
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:31,960
authorities.
So the Transvestite and Shine,

509
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:35,200
which sometimes called
transvestite pass, but might

510
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:38,080
better be better translated as
transgender pass.

511
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:43,560
They emerged in the early 1900s
with the help of notable

512
00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:49,040
sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld,
who really was at the center

513
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:52,880
Berlin's work and study of trans
people.

514
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:57,680
And as a doctor, he would sign
off on trans people's need to

515
00:30:57,720 --> 00:31:02,600
address how they wanted and
these passes help them express

516
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:04,960
themselves.
Now Gerda was one of the first

517
00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:07,760
people to get this pass, and
like you were saying, this is

518
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:11,160
entirely class based.
She was from German nobility,

519
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:14,160
which is also the reason Nazis
didn't persecute her because

520
00:31:14,160 --> 00:31:17,560
they were aligned with her
family, with the people that

521
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:20,960
would ultimately benefit from
fascist regimes were the

522
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:23,200
wealthy.
Now she herself, she came from a

523
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:26,080
large family.
She wasn't super rich, but she

524
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:30,800
was wealthy enough to get away
with a lot of let's call them

525
00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:34,120
shenanigans.
At one point she almost had her

526
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:38,160
past taken away because she kept
on getting arrested for wearing

527
00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:41,520
shorts that were too short.
Apparently she nearly caused her

528
00:31:41,520 --> 00:31:42,920
she.
Was really abusing that past.

529
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:46,400
I know, yeah.
Talk about passing privilege.

530
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:50,480
She apparently once almost
caused a riot in Berlin around

531
00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:54,560
around 1913 because of how short
her shorts were.

532
00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:58,480
She was pretty out about her
gender identity, so props to her

533
00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:01,000
for that, honestly.
Like, if you're going to have

534
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:03,120
that privilege, definitely use
it.

535
00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:05,280
And it seems like she did
exercise it.

536
00:32:05,360 --> 00:32:08,320
One of the things that your book
does really well is it subverts

537
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:11,560
these ideas at 1st.
And I think when Americans think

538
00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:15,160
about the first queer resistance
movement, a lot of people think

539
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:17,480
about Stonewall.
Maybe some other people think

540
00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:20,840
about the Black Cat Tavern
protest or the Compton cafeteria

541
00:32:20,840 --> 00:32:24,200
riot.
But the OK, now I'm really now

542
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:25,920
I'm really going to have trouble
pronouncing this one.

543
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:30,360
Rashfash Wenger riots.
You can.

544
00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:32,840
Ralphings murder.
Yeah.

545
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:36,280
So this was a riot that Girder
Vonzo Boltis was involved in in

546
00:32:36,280 --> 00:32:39,880
the year 1930 where they had an
incident with the police and

547
00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:42,040
they fought back.
And like you were saying, she

548
00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:45,880
really exercised her class
privilege by fighting back and

549
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:48,280
being involved in, I think, a
newspaper, also a queer

550
00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:50,160
newspaper.
So yeah, it was a really, really

551
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:54,320
cool to hear these stories that
really changed my picture of the

552
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:57,360
first, like the picture of
resistance and how it has

553
00:32:57,360 --> 00:32:59,720
existed in other places too.
Absolutely.

554
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:03,440
And this was, I mean, Gerda's
story was really monumental

555
00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:07,560
because of her involvement in
the community and lack of

556
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:10,840
information on her.
I mean, a lot of this, a lot of

557
00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:13,280
the primary sources that I'm
working with are just newly

558
00:33:13,280 --> 00:33:15,240
digitized.
Nobody's looked over them

559
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:17,520
before.
They're not coming from queer

560
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:20,240
archives.
So it's really not it's not

561
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:24,080
picked over.
And some of these items we are

562
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:27,560
just getting.
So the newspaper or magazine

563
00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:31,400
that you mentioned is De
Freundin, which was largely

564
00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:36,160
lesbian and trans oriented
magazine from a well known queer

565
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:39,280
publishing group in Berlin,
particularly during the Weimar

566
00:33:39,280 --> 00:33:42,200
era.
And she knew a lot of people,

567
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:45,400
the paper, she was friends with
them, and she even had a little

568
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:49,840
article describing her
experiences as a trans woman in

569
00:33:50,160 --> 00:33:53,000
the 19 teens, which is really
fantastic.

570
00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:57,200
So she was deeply involved
despite like, the lack of

571
00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:01,520
English language writing on her.
And I do think one of the most

572
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:05,720
monumental findings in this book
is the Ralphing Swerter riots,

573
00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:08,679
which have only had about a
paragraph written about them in

574
00:34:08,679 --> 00:34:11,639
English in the last 90 years.
Wow, that's really cool.

575
00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:17,080
Yeah, I I was almost surprised
at the amount of reporting on

576
00:34:17,080 --> 00:34:20,840
them versus the amount of
consequent writing.

577
00:34:21,159 --> 00:34:23,360
And I mean, it's pretty obvious
why this happened.

578
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:27,719
It was 1930, and the newspapers
that were writing about this

579
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:31,000
riot were largely shut down in
1933.

580
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:34,320
Everyone forgot about, I mean,
every, like, so much

581
00:34:34,320 --> 00:34:36,159
information.
The Weimar era was just

582
00:34:36,159 --> 00:34:39,960
destroyed.
And so Long story short of this

583
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:44,960
riot, 300 queer people from the
gay organization League for

584
00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:50,000
Human Rights and including
GERDA, and then 150 police

585
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:54,520
officers and 150 of their guests
at these Police Sports

586
00:34:54,520 --> 00:34:59,280
Association meeting.
They were dining at the same

587
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:02,400
large restaurant.
And the chief of police who was

588
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:05,800
part of the association accused
the restaurant of unfairly

589
00:35:05,800 --> 00:35:10,560
discriminating against them and
giving favoritism to the gays

590
00:35:10,560 --> 00:35:14,320
because we know how much they
bought the gays in 1930.

591
00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:18,800
Completely ridiculous.
So he he kept on, he kept on

592
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:23,480
escalating and he started
drinking out of the beer tap in

593
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:27,040
the hall that was previously
reserved by the gay rights

594
00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:29,920
organization.
And then he starts throwing

595
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:31,880
plates at them.
He's insulting them, he's

596
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:34,080
hurling slurs, he's making fun
of them.

597
00:35:34,240 --> 00:35:36,680
You you can read all about it in
the book because it just keeps

598
00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:41,280
on escalating into a full scale
riot in which thankfully the

599
00:35:41,280 --> 00:35:44,000
queer people actually kind of
take charge and beat the hell

600
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:46,600
out of these cops.
Nobody got arrested because the

601
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:49,120
cops absolutely instigated all
of it.

602
00:35:49,160 --> 00:35:52,240
Although when they filed charges
against the police, of course

603
00:35:52,240 --> 00:35:54,440
the police investigate and
nothing happens.

604
00:35:55,040 --> 00:36:00,280
But we do have this amazing
history of queer people in 1930

605
00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:03,360
being the shit out of police
officers, which is always a

606
00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:06,120
great thing, yeah.
And guys, just so you know,

607
00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:07,560
there's a lot of details in the
book.

608
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:10,760
It's very cinematic.
It's it's very satisfying.

609
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:12,520
Really good.
Yeah, it's great.

610
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:15,680
So this chief of police who
really instigated all of it

611
00:36:15,680 --> 00:36:18,400
erman Sander, he ends up joining
the Nazis and committing

612
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:22,120
atrocities in Ukraine.
And so it just adds another

613
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:25,120
layer of satisfaction to it.
Not only were these cops, they

614
00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:29,040
were Nazi cops, and it's always
OK to punch a Nazi.

615
00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:32,680
So I would say it's a win for
all of us to read this chapter.

616
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:37,240
Yeah, by the early 1930s, before
Hitler took over, it was pretty

617
00:36:37,240 --> 00:36:39,920
indistinguishable between the
police and the SA.

618
00:36:40,720 --> 00:36:44,240
And I mean, many of these people
joined the SA and we're already

619
00:36:44,240 --> 00:36:46,240
like signed up Nazi party
members.

620
00:36:46,400 --> 00:36:47,920
They would patrol the streets
together.

621
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:51,120
In the between 1930 and 33 they
were indistinguishable.

622
00:36:51,240 --> 00:36:54,280
To basically go attack the
police was to attack the SA.

623
00:36:54,640 --> 00:36:57,200
Yeah, good thing we don't have
anything like that today, no.

624
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:01,240
Not at all.
I'm kind of curious about this

625
00:37:01,240 --> 00:37:05,200
period though, because Magnus
Hirschfeld really just had such

626
00:37:05,200 --> 00:37:09,640
trailblazing work and the
Institute for Sexual Sciences in

627
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:13,840
Berlin, where there were medical
consultations and counseling and

628
00:37:13,840 --> 00:37:17,760
gender affirming surgeries and
all this research on sex and

629
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:21,040
gender and sexuality and
allowing people to explore their

630
00:37:21,040 --> 00:37:23,720
identities.
All of these archives were

631
00:37:23,720 --> 00:37:26,360
destroyed and that by the Nazis,
as you mentioned.

632
00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:28,960
How did you get access to any of
those?

633
00:37:28,960 --> 00:37:31,280
How were you able to access that
information?

634
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:34,840
So not going too much into the
weeds, there was a lot of

635
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:38,320
information permanently
destroyed from the Manglas

636
00:37:38,320 --> 00:37:40,960
Ursfeld Institute and his
personal collections.

637
00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:44,680
But actually not all of it was.
What the Nazis got their hands

638
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:48,800
on was largely burned.
If you see pictures of Nazis

639
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:52,040
burning papers, it probably is
actually from the institute.

640
00:37:52,600 --> 00:37:56,080
But at the same time, there were
copies of other institutions

641
00:37:56,080 --> 00:37:59,160
too, of some of the information
there were.

642
00:37:59,200 --> 00:38:02,520
Again, it's these unknown knowns
and known unknowns.

643
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:06,120
We know that there's a lot of
medical records we'll never be

644
00:38:06,120 --> 00:38:08,720
able to get back.
Greta von Zoboltich's records

645
00:38:08,720 --> 00:38:11,080
are permanently gone.
We will never, we like, have

646
00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:14,200
photos of them being burned.
We'll never see them, but at the

647
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:17,920
same time, copies of the
magazine she contributed to

648
00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:21,040
Defreinden, some of those were
saved, some of them were sent

649
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:25,360
outside of the country and
rescued by people in

650
00:38:25,360 --> 00:38:28,920
Czechoslovakia, in the UK and
even in the USI.

651
00:38:28,920 --> 00:38:33,160
Actually was just in Berlin 2
weeks ago researching some of

652
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:37,000
these periodicals from the time
and reading trans narratives

653
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:41,840
that have been shared before.
I think there's a lot that we do

654
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:44,480
have access to that people don't
realize.

655
00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:48,720
The Bank of Hirschfeld Society
in Berlin today actually has

656
00:38:48,720 --> 00:38:50,880
been working on restoring its
collections.

657
00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:54,720
And every year we'll get a few
books back that are stamped with

658
00:38:54,720 --> 00:38:57,760
the original Institute for
Sexual Sciences.

659
00:38:59,720 --> 00:39:02,520
Well, their personal stamp, like
book collection stamp that might

660
00:39:02,520 --> 00:39:05,400
have been lent out or borrowed
by other institutions.

661
00:39:05,880 --> 00:39:09,120
So there's still some of this
information left, and sometimes

662
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:11,840
it feels like we're picking up
scraps, but other times there

663
00:39:11,840 --> 00:39:16,040
are amazing gems in there, like
Greta von Zobo Tzu's story.

664
00:39:16,120 --> 00:39:20,680
There's been a more recent
effort to recover some of these

665
00:39:20,680 --> 00:39:23,840
materials, which is part of the
reason why some of these stories

666
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:27,640
haven't been seen before.
Just in the past couple years,

667
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:31,480
there's been an immense
digitization effort of many of

668
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:35,000
the periodicals and newspapers
from the day that have

669
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:38,720
misinformation from, say, the
Ralph and Sweater riots or Fred

670
00:39:38,720 --> 00:39:42,600
Magnus Hirschfeld's letters to
colleagues in the US.

671
00:39:43,120 --> 00:39:48,800
So there's a lot more out there
that we haven't found yet and

672
00:39:48,800 --> 00:39:50,600
that we know might still be out
there.

673
00:39:50,600 --> 00:39:52,320
And there's a lot that we'll
never find.

674
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:56,000
So there's more than we think
there is, but there's still this

675
00:39:56,000 --> 00:40:00,280
like huge gaping hole in what we
have access to.

676
00:40:00,800 --> 00:40:03,720
One of the things I really
appreciated about the book was

677
00:40:03,800 --> 00:40:06,120
particular reading about
Germany, which kind of stands

678
00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:10,000
out within the European context
because, well, I knew about the

679
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:12,920
institute, Magnus Hirschfeld's
institute, but he didn't know

680
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:15,960
the extent of work that had been
done, that you had done, pulling

681
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:19,640
out the research and the stories
about trans people in Germany at

682
00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:22,000
that time and the level of
acceptance and so on.

683
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:25,320
And I had read about where it
applied to the question of gay

684
00:40:25,320 --> 00:40:28,080
rights, but not directly in
relation to trans.

685
00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:31,640
As I was reading this, I kept
wondering about is how much what

686
00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:34,560
made Germany stand out from the
other European countries.

687
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:37,840
German culture, if you were to
go back to the mid 1800s, is not

688
00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:40,120
particularly.
It's actually very conservative

689
00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:43,680
and it's very backward looking
and it's, this is the birth

690
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:45,440
place of, well, German
romanticism.

691
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:48,040
This is not historically a place
known for its sort of

692
00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:50,920
forward-looking and more, shall
we say, libertine culture.

693
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:54,040
But the one thing that made the
set Germany apart between the

694
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:58,840
late 1800s to up until the 1930s
was really the existence of this

695
00:40:58,840 --> 00:41:03,640
massive, the SPD, the Social
Democratic Workers Party, and a

696
00:41:03,640 --> 00:41:07,200
massive leftist, Marxist and
working class movement there

697
00:41:07,760 --> 00:41:11,680
that very early on took on the
question of gay rights.

698
00:41:11,720 --> 00:41:14,280
And at least said questions of
sexuality, whatever your

699
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:18,560
personal prejudices are, have to
be scrutinized in a scientific

700
00:41:18,560 --> 00:41:22,040
manner like everything else.
And so, for example, one of the

701
00:41:22,040 --> 00:41:24,520
things that, like Magnus
Hirschfield, there was this

702
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:27,680
petition in the late 19th
century that he had put forward

703
00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:29,640
in support of building his
institution.

704
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:34,560
And I ran into a speech by one
of the leaders of the SPD,

705
00:41:34,560 --> 00:41:37,640
August Babel, who himself was
fairly stodgy.

706
00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:41,560
But he talks about how this
thing called paragraph 175 in

707
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:44,240
the German Penal Code, which was
used to go after what they

708
00:41:44,240 --> 00:41:47,280
called sexual deviance.
And he ends his speech by saying

709
00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:49,880
we have before us a printed
petition signed by me

710
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:52,920
personally, among others, and by
a number of colleagues from

711
00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:56,040
other parties, and further by
people from literary and

712
00:41:56,040 --> 00:41:59,240
academic circles, by jurists of
the most illustrious standings,

713
00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:03,200
by psychologists, pathologists,
and by experts of the highest

714
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:06,440
rank in the field.
The petition advocated the

715
00:42:06,440 --> 00:42:09,360
revision of the Penal Code to
repeal the relevant provisions

716
00:42:09,360 --> 00:42:12,760
of paragraph 175.
And this was in the late 1800s.

717
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:16,120
It's just a very interesting
aspect of why Germany stood out

718
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:18,800
at that time as opposed to other
European countries.

719
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:22,280
Yeah, some people would think it
would be France, but Germany was

720
00:42:22,280 --> 00:42:23,320
way ahead.
I.

721
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:25,200
Was thinking exactly the same
thing I was.

722
00:42:25,240 --> 00:42:27,440
You would think on the face of
it, it would be France, but it

723
00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:28,080
wasn't.
Yeah.

724
00:42:28,240 --> 00:42:31,360
It was, I mean, it was the
dynamics that were also a bit

725
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:34,840
different to France certainly
had was known for a libertine

726
00:42:34,840 --> 00:42:37,560
lifestyle.
But during this interwar period

727
00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:41,120
it was a bit reversed.
I mean, there was this

728
00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:45,880
polarization happening in Weimar
Germany that created these

729
00:42:45,880 --> 00:42:49,560
opportunities for people from
social categories usually

730
00:42:49,560 --> 00:42:53,480
excluded from public life to
work together.

731
00:42:53,480 --> 00:42:58,200
And I mean, it was a very
interesting study in solidarity.

732
00:42:58,200 --> 00:43:01,880
During that time.
There was a strong communist,

733
00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:06,880
Marxist and socialist movement
that was actually aligning

734
00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:11,920
itself with the burgeoning gay
and trans movements, along with

735
00:43:12,160 --> 00:43:16,880
anti sterilization and pro
Jewish movements.

736
00:43:17,240 --> 00:43:19,120
It was, it was really
incredible.

737
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:22,120
Now also it wasn't all cheery.
There was a lot of infighting.

738
00:43:22,120 --> 00:43:25,320
There was a lot of anti-gay and
anti trans rhetoric.

739
00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:29,400
The Socialist Party and actually
a lot of gay rights campaigners

740
00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:33,520
at the time really skewered gay
members of a Nazi party and like

741
00:43:33,520 --> 00:43:37,520
kind of homophobic ways, which
is funny to see and very

742
00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:41,480
contentious.
So it's it's complicated, but I

743
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:44,080
also think it does show how
solidarity through these

744
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:46,800
intersections, through these
transversals, through these

745
00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:51,840
connections between race, class
and gender that we are able to

746
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:57,320
actually observe a fairly
progressive society 100 years

747
00:43:57,320 --> 00:44:00,280
ago that was doing well for a
few years.

748
00:44:00,280 --> 00:44:03,120
Yeah, and you're right, they
would throw out that homophobic

749
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:05,960
convective against their
opponents and particularly the

750
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:07,400
Nazis.
But I always think about it like

751
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:10,320
even within that context, what
they were actually pushing in

752
00:44:10,320 --> 00:44:13,120
terms of policy and changes.
I don't want to pretend that

753
00:44:13,120 --> 00:44:16,120
stuff away, but when you sort of
look at it as a whole, it was a

754
00:44:16,120 --> 00:44:19,200
very different environment than
what comes certainly, obviously

755
00:44:19,200 --> 00:44:21,760
what comes afterwards.
But even what you look at today

756
00:44:21,840 --> 00:44:25,000
in much of the world, and in the
case of the Social Democratic

757
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:28,760
Party, the question of paragraph
175, gay rights and so on, it

758
00:44:28,840 --> 00:44:31,080
goes back even to the late 19th
century.

759
00:44:31,080 --> 00:44:34,560
It's really quite extraordinary.
Yeah, campaigning in Western

760
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:39,160
countries to remove these
so-called sodomy laws was, I

761
00:44:39,160 --> 00:44:42,160
mean, it was really lacking.
And the fact they did that in

762
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:45,960
the 1890s in Germany is very
impressive.

763
00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:50,120
I want to go back to this idea
about kind of breaking down the

764
00:44:50,120 --> 00:44:52,400
misconception around the idea of
a first.

765
00:44:52,680 --> 00:44:55,600
You know, we often hear these
stories about, oh, this is the

766
00:44:55,600 --> 00:44:59,080
first trans person to get
surgery or this is the first

767
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:03,920
trans person to do XYZ.
And was there any case while

768
00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:07,000
you're researching that like
really, really surprised you

769
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:10,000
that challenge your own
conception maybe of the first

770
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:12,600
known time in history?
There were quite a few of those

771
00:45:12,600 --> 00:45:16,080
cases, and I had laid all of
them in the introduction.

772
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:19,160
I think that Mark and David
Pharaoh's transition in the

773
00:45:19,160 --> 00:45:24,160
1930s was really interesting to
me because it it opened up new

774
00:45:24,160 --> 00:45:29,080
questions for me.
It made me ask when and where

775
00:45:29,120 --> 00:45:32,000
were these hormones and
surgeries being distributed

776
00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:33,680
from?
Who was performing them?

777
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:38,720
How do they get access?
And I think their case is also

778
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:42,840
important to me in an evolving
way too, because after

779
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:46,480
publishing this book, I actually
found an earlier one from the

780
00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:50,360
story of this young trans man
named Alan Caldwell, who

781
00:45:50,360 --> 00:45:54,560
obtained surgery up in
Manchester, not too far from

782
00:45:54,560 --> 00:45:59,640
their home in London in 1937, a
couple years earlier than them.

783
00:46:00,400 --> 00:46:04,520
And the fact he was 16,
completely supported by his

784
00:46:04,520 --> 00:46:08,480
family and community, showed a
lot of parallels with Mark and

785
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:11,080
David Farrow.
But the fact that we can keep on

786
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:16,240
pushing back further and further
has me excited because of this

787
00:46:16,280 --> 00:46:19,440
being an indicator that we can
look even further back.

788
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:24,560
And in the book I mentioned
there's someone off cases also

789
00:46:24,560 --> 00:46:28,600
in Weimar Germany about young
trans people, largely trans men,

790
00:46:28,600 --> 00:46:33,680
interestingly, who were able to
obtain surgery and hormones as

791
00:46:34,040 --> 00:46:36,480
teenagers and in one case even a
minor.

792
00:46:36,680 --> 00:46:40,920
At the same time.
I'm curious to what point these

793
00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:45,560
were done on a systematic level.
I was in England last month

794
00:46:45,560 --> 00:46:48,120
trying to do some of this
research, but still much of it

795
00:46:48,120 --> 00:46:52,000
was just went undocumented.
And then where it was done

796
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:55,960
10/20, sometimes 30 years prior
in Berlin, while that

797
00:46:55,960 --> 00:47:00,280
information is now completely
gone and destroyed forever.

798
00:47:00,280 --> 00:47:04,520
So we have to rely instead of on
medical records there on

799
00:47:04,520 --> 00:47:07,560
personal narratives which are
frankly very unreliable.

800
00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:10,600
And in the case of the UK, many
of the records just weren't

801
00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:13,400
kept.
One of the archives they visited

802
00:47:13,400 --> 00:47:17,720
in the UK last month was their
Sex Hormone Committee, which was

803
00:47:17,720 --> 00:47:21,840
tasked with synthesizing
estradiol and testosterone for

804
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:24,600
the first time in the UK on a
mass scale.

805
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:27,640
They had to keep it secret, and
it was actually only

806
00:47:27,640 --> 00:47:32,720
declassified in the 1980s.
So we have these large, large

807
00:47:32,760 --> 00:47:38,640
spans of trans history that are
only accessible to us through

808
00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:42,920
second or third hand means or
only accessible to us that kids

809
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:45,360
after the fact.
Yeah, and I think this touches

810
00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:49,280
on trans people needing gender
firming care for a very, very

811
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:52,440
long time.
You also have a whole section on

812
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:57,280
athletes and again, poking into
this idea that trans athletes

813
00:47:57,280 --> 00:47:59,360
are something new.
And you talk about trans

814
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:02,680
athletes going back 120 years
and some of whom had their

815
00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:05,880
genders respected.
When did things start getting

816
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:08,280
really dangerous for trans
athletes?

817
00:48:08,280 --> 00:48:12,080
I'm not trying to say it was
all, you know, rainbows, but why

818
00:48:12,080 --> 00:48:16,120
do you think that it's such a
big part of the culture war

819
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:19,280
today?
Frankly, the panic over trans

820
00:48:19,280 --> 00:48:23,280
athletes is poll testing.
A few years ago, the Heritage

821
00:48:23,280 --> 00:48:28,160
Foundation conducted a research
poll of some of their members to

822
00:48:28,160 --> 00:48:30,280
find out what outraged them the
most.

823
00:48:30,520 --> 00:48:34,840
And trans women in sports, that
was way up there, of course,

824
00:48:34,840 --> 00:48:37,640
along with trans minors
accessing care.

825
00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:43,000
So this is, I mean, it's a very
artificial moral panic that can

826
00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:46,720
actually be traced back to a
very concrete moment, which is

827
00:48:47,240 --> 00:48:49,520
interesting and fun in a way
because most can't.

828
00:48:49,560 --> 00:48:54,320
But it's very clearly being
pushed because it's such a not

829
00:48:54,320 --> 00:48:56,760
only because it's such a popular
idea, but the fact that it's

830
00:48:56,760 --> 00:48:58,840
popular idea makes it a popular
idea.

831
00:48:58,840 --> 00:49:02,240
It's very tautological.
They realize that this is

832
00:49:02,240 --> 00:49:05,640
something like an anger people
and potentially when

833
00:49:05,640 --> 00:49:08,080
conservative some points with
the public.

834
00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:11,960
And so they have really latched
on to it now more than ever.

835
00:49:12,160 --> 00:49:15,160
But this also isn't the first
time this has happened in the

836
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:17,800
1930s.
They're at 1:00, the point where

837
00:49:17,800 --> 00:49:22,280
so many trans men in the sports,
particularly coming from Eastern

838
00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:25,680
Europe, that mothers were
withholding their daughters from

839
00:49:25,680 --> 00:49:28,280
playing sports because they were
fearful that it would turn them

840
00:49:28,280 --> 00:49:31,920
into men.
There were about 7 cases who

841
00:49:31,920 --> 00:49:35,840
became internationally famous in
AI want to say two or three-year

842
00:49:35,840 --> 00:49:41,560
period from 193435 until 1937.
And I got to talk about that a

843
00:49:41,560 --> 00:49:45,440
little bit and in the book and
Stephen Bakar's chapter, but

844
00:49:45,440 --> 00:49:51,080
there are also other panics that
developed during Hitler's regime

845
00:49:51,080 --> 00:49:55,200
that he was sending men
disguised as women into the

846
00:49:55,520 --> 00:49:59,760
Olympics.
And also in the 60s when the

847
00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:02,440
Cold War was happening, they
were worried that Russian

848
00:50:02,440 --> 00:50:05,520
athletes were doping and they
were pretending to be women,

849
00:50:05,520 --> 00:50:07,440
etcetera, etcetera.
This actually did happen a

850
00:50:07,440 --> 00:50:09,520
couple times.
It wasn't all trans people.

851
00:50:09,560 --> 00:50:12,960
But at the same time, like sex
testing is obviously very cruel

852
00:50:12,960 --> 00:50:15,760
and invasive and just
unnecessary.

853
00:50:16,360 --> 00:50:18,720
For sure, these institutions
like the Heritage Foundation,

854
00:50:18,720 --> 00:50:21,320
they, they're always looking for
these hot button issues to

855
00:50:21,320 --> 00:50:25,400
mobilize the base to vote.
And I'm, as I say, I'm old

856
00:50:25,400 --> 00:50:28,200
enough to remember gay marriage
being used as that in the

857
00:50:28,200 --> 00:50:32,040
earlier early 2000s.
And then at some point around

858
00:50:32,040 --> 00:50:35,280
20/15/2016 is when I became very
conscious of it.

859
00:50:35,280 --> 00:50:40,200
It became trans athletes and it
became the bathroom question.

860
00:50:40,520 --> 00:50:43,720
Those two things they sent, they
seem to go together and and it's

861
00:50:43,720 --> 00:50:45,600
just, it was like, wait, what
crisis?

862
00:50:45,600 --> 00:50:47,080
What are you talking about?
Why is this?

863
00:50:47,200 --> 00:50:49,600
Why is this an issue?
What, what, what is happening?

864
00:50:49,600 --> 00:50:53,000
And it's utterly cynical and
it's it destroys people's lives.

865
00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:56,160
I guess my curiosity is why is
it polling high?

866
00:50:56,520 --> 00:50:59,520
What is it that's driving it?
And I I don't know that I have

867
00:50:59,520 --> 00:51:01,360
the answer, but I was curious if
you do.

868
00:51:01,720 --> 00:51:03,960
Well, I don't think there is a
simple answer.

869
00:51:04,160 --> 00:51:07,720
What I like to think is that
people aren't born with

870
00:51:07,760 --> 00:51:10,640
ideologies.
They don't have a natural

871
00:51:10,640 --> 00:51:16,640
tendency to see trans people as
monstrous, abhorrent or

872
00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:21,320
undesirable.
But this is so intensely placed

873
00:51:21,320 --> 00:51:25,840
on them through media, through
repetition, through these speech

874
00:51:25,840 --> 00:51:30,280
acts that we're subjected to
every day, that they are deeply

875
00:51:30,280 --> 00:51:33,600
ingrained in the public's
consciousness.

876
00:51:33,640 --> 00:51:37,640
And part of this comes through,
I mean people being taught that

877
00:51:37,640 --> 00:51:41,240
there are inherent biological
differences between man and

878
00:51:41,240 --> 00:51:43,920
woman and anyone assigned male
or female at birth.

879
00:51:44,440 --> 00:51:48,240
And this isn't necessarily true,
of course, but we're taught it

880
00:51:48,240 --> 00:51:52,480
from such a young age that it
becomes an objective truth in

881
00:51:52,480 --> 00:51:56,000
many people's minds.
Now, the Heritage Foundation has

882
00:51:56,000 --> 00:52:00,680
found a way to really tap into
this rhetoric, and they have set

883
00:52:00,680 --> 00:52:04,760
the playing field in terms of
the rhetoric that, say, Fox News

884
00:52:04,760 --> 00:52:10,720
hosts use.
They use it to claim a sort of

885
00:52:10,720 --> 00:52:15,480
moral and scientific superiority
over liberals, progressives and

886
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:20,960
leftists because they want to,
well, their term is keep men out

887
00:52:20,960 --> 00:52:23,800
of women's sports, which is
absolutely not happening and

888
00:52:23,800 --> 00:52:27,400
actually forcing many men, many
trans men into women's sports.

889
00:52:27,800 --> 00:52:30,640
I mean, it's a frustrating case
because like, the facts don't

890
00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:33,960
matter whatsoever.
Like most studies show that

891
00:52:33,960 --> 00:52:37,680
trans women who've been on
hormones for long enough are

892
00:52:37,720 --> 00:52:42,760
like equally skilled if not less
skilled than their peers who are

893
00:52:42,760 --> 00:52:45,960
assess women.
And then also keeping trans men

894
00:52:45,960 --> 00:52:50,520
with like normal T levels off of
men's teams is just really

895
00:52:50,520 --> 00:52:53,640
absurd.
It kind of shows that this isn't

896
00:52:53,640 --> 00:52:57,240
actually about fairness, this is
about just harassing trans

897
00:52:57,240 --> 00:53:00,760
people and something that I do
really like to highlight

898
00:53:00,760 --> 00:53:03,400
especially in this book.
Or all of the trans men who are

899
00:53:03,400 --> 00:53:05,320
like kicking ass in men's
sports.

900
00:53:05,320 --> 00:53:10,320
Also Stefan Bakar played sports
after he transitioned with men

901
00:53:10,320 --> 00:53:15,640
and his friends hadn't yet Kovac
did too and these cases are just

902
00:53:15,640 --> 00:53:18,080
overlooked because they disprove
their point.

903
00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:20,520
There's a quality of a three
card Monte with all this because

904
00:53:20,520 --> 00:53:23,040
one of the ways they portrayed,
particularly in relation to

905
00:53:23,040 --> 00:53:25,840
women's sports, is this is to
protect women's sports.

906
00:53:26,280 --> 00:53:29,200
And we all know how much the
Heritage Foundation cares about

907
00:53:29,240 --> 00:53:32,200
women and women's rights.
The level of absurdity that it

908
00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:36,160
goes to is just absurd.
The same thing with the bathroom

909
00:53:36,160 --> 00:53:41,840
hysteria too, because so much of
the sex segregated toilets which

910
00:53:41,840 --> 00:53:45,480
appeared at the turn of the 20th
century was about Victorian

911
00:53:45,480 --> 00:53:48,880
prudishness and this kind of
social anxiety and reaction to

912
00:53:49,160 --> 00:53:53,040
women joining the labor force.
And the separate facilities were

913
00:53:53,040 --> 00:53:56,440
supposed to, you know, protect
women's modesty.

914
00:53:57,240 --> 00:54:01,040
And they did the same thing with
access to restrooms during the

915
00:54:01,040 --> 00:54:03,880
Jim Crow period.
That whole idea of the separate

916
00:54:03,880 --> 00:54:07,520
facilities for black people was
because, you know, then you

917
00:54:07,600 --> 00:54:11,120
they'll be black men will be
closer to white women and can

918
00:54:11,120 --> 00:54:13,320
prey on them or whatever.
So these kind of social

919
00:54:13,320 --> 00:54:17,520
anxieties that actually like set
policy by the bigots were always

920
00:54:17,600 --> 00:54:22,880
based on these systemic
structural terms of oppression

921
00:54:22,880 --> 00:54:28,560
that we see in society and the
deep entrenched models against

922
00:54:28,640 --> 00:54:33,200
women's sexuality, against gay
people and against black people.

923
00:54:33,280 --> 00:54:36,600
Well, I think part of why this
gets so complicated is because

924
00:54:36,600 --> 00:54:40,080
these gender roles are baked so
deeply into the capitalist

925
00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:42,360
culture.
One of the things that I found

926
00:54:42,360 --> 00:54:45,120
interesting too is there's so
much associated with, for

927
00:54:45,120 --> 00:54:48,320
example, Middle Eastern society
as though it's a hotbed of

928
00:54:48,720 --> 00:54:50,880
social reaction and social
backwardness.

929
00:54:51,040 --> 00:54:54,680
And when you look at the actual
history of it, it's a lot more

930
00:54:54,680 --> 00:54:58,520
fluid when it comes to gender
and gender identity and gender

931
00:54:58,520 --> 00:55:00,920
roles.
And you speak to that in the

932
00:55:00,920 --> 00:55:03,560
book.
And when you look at the actual

933
00:55:03,560 --> 00:55:07,680
laws that were passed throughout
much of the Middle East, the

934
00:55:07,680 --> 00:55:10,680
anti sodomy laws that were
passed, they were only became

935
00:55:10,680 --> 00:55:13,360
laws once the British occupied
these regions.

936
00:55:13,360 --> 00:55:16,240
It was actually the British who
forced through those laws.

937
00:55:16,240 --> 00:55:19,240
Now, some of them still exist to
this day after the British have

938
00:55:19,240 --> 00:55:21,760
left, but these were all British
concoctions.

939
00:55:21,880 --> 00:55:24,640
It's not to deny that we're
certain social mores and certain

940
00:55:24,640 --> 00:55:27,760
social norms, but these are
these tend to be very pliable,

941
00:55:28,040 --> 00:55:31,000
especially in depending on
region and class.

942
00:55:31,000 --> 00:55:35,080
But in terms of like a strict
law that applies to all, blind

943
00:55:35,080 --> 00:55:38,440
to these distinctions, that was
the doing of the also civilized

944
00:55:38,440 --> 00:55:40,240
British coming into these
regions.

945
00:55:40,240 --> 00:55:42,200
Colonial.
Yeah, under the under the

946
00:55:42,200 --> 00:55:45,640
colonial era, much like you see
happening in large parts of

947
00:55:45,640 --> 00:55:49,880
Africa today, like Uganda being
the product of mainly white

948
00:55:49,880 --> 00:55:53,440
American and European Christian
missionaries who can't quite

949
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:57,120
stone this the so-called sexual
deviance in the United States.

950
00:55:57,120 --> 00:55:59,920
So they go to Africa to
implement the laws.

951
00:56:00,400 --> 00:56:05,640
To do that exactly, a lot of the
conservatism in non western and

952
00:56:05,640 --> 00:56:09,600
also rural communities comes
from, I mean comes from

953
00:56:09,600 --> 00:56:12,240
reactionary backlash.
It comes from white supremacy,

954
00:56:12,240 --> 00:56:17,200
it comes from colonialism.
I mean, very famously, there's

955
00:56:17,200 --> 00:56:21,240
many different gender identities
among Native American cultures,

956
00:56:21,240 --> 00:56:24,240
or at least social roles we
could call gender identities.

957
00:56:24,240 --> 00:56:30,520
And these were heavily policed
by Western European colonizers.

958
00:56:30,760 --> 00:56:34,040
I don't think it gets talked
about just how many different

959
00:56:34,040 --> 00:56:37,160
social and gender roles are in
West Asia.

960
00:56:37,200 --> 00:56:41,440
Also, there is, I mean dozens
and dozens throughout the

961
00:56:41,440 --> 00:56:45,640
different regions and this
almost never gets discussed

962
00:56:45,640 --> 00:56:49,120
because there's this sort of
idea of barrenness in the

963
00:56:49,120 --> 00:56:52,080
ideological landscape of the
region.

964
00:56:52,240 --> 00:56:57,320
I was very excited to find and
learn about Masood Al Emiratli's

965
00:56:57,320 --> 00:57:02,880
story and before a gender too,
who was an Iraqi person we met

966
00:57:02,880 --> 00:57:07,600
called mustargeal, which is a
gender social role in

967
00:57:07,640 --> 00:57:10,880
traditional Iraqi, especially
southern Iraqi culture that's

968
00:57:10,880 --> 00:57:14,000
sort of analogous to trans man
in ours.

969
00:57:14,280 --> 00:57:18,640
And his story is again, one of
support.

970
00:57:18,680 --> 00:57:21,040
He was accepted by his
community.

971
00:57:21,040 --> 00:57:24,600
He was fairly out about his
assigned sex at birth.

972
00:57:24,600 --> 00:57:29,920
And he received so much support
that his talent for singing

973
00:57:29,920 --> 00:57:33,400
actually received a record deal
from a British label of all

974
00:57:33,400 --> 00:57:37,800
places that was of course run by
by another Iraqi man.

975
00:57:37,960 --> 00:57:42,840
So it really complicates this
sort of relationship that we see

976
00:57:42,840 --> 00:57:46,160
between at least the
relationship that's put before

977
00:57:46,160 --> 00:57:50,720
us and like media and common
discourse about about West Asia,

978
00:57:50,720 --> 00:57:53,920
like being reactionary,
conservative or hating queer and

979
00:57:53,920 --> 00:57:58,560
trans people, when this is so
clearly and obviously the result

980
00:57:58,560 --> 00:58:01,760
of colonialism that we should
know this.

981
00:58:01,760 --> 00:58:04,280
But God, we know it's never
going to be taught in school.

982
00:58:04,280 --> 00:58:06,680
So we have to bring it up again
and again.

983
00:58:07,240 --> 00:58:09,680
I'm sure you know this, but
boosters I do a literal

984
00:58:09,680 --> 00:58:13,840
translation with mean masculine
like one of the most famous

985
00:58:13,840 --> 00:58:17,040
medieval, probably the most
famous medieval poet from their

986
00:58:17,040 --> 00:58:21,960
region, what's now Iraq, is guy
named Abu Nawaz, whose most

987
00:58:21,960 --> 00:58:25,600
famous poetry was all about love
for young men and wine.

988
00:58:26,080 --> 00:58:29,880
That was at a time when I don't
believe there's any poets in

989
00:58:29,880 --> 00:58:31,280
Europe at that time writing
such.

990
00:58:32,480 --> 00:58:35,200
I mean, Liberace even wishes he
could have done that.

991
00:58:35,320 --> 00:58:38,920
So in the book you do talk about
these kind of what might be

992
00:58:38,920 --> 00:58:42,360
considered like third gender or
separate identity in particular

993
00:58:42,360 --> 00:58:45,800
culture.
So Mustajil and the 2 spirit,

994
00:58:45,800 --> 00:58:50,280
this kind of pan indigenous term
by native and First Nations to

995
00:58:50,280 --> 00:58:52,320
describe someone with like
masculine and feminine

996
00:58:52,320 --> 00:58:54,360
identities.
We also know about like the

997
00:58:54,360 --> 00:58:58,120
Hijra people and in South Asia
we're kind of considered like a

998
00:58:58,120 --> 00:59:02,560
third gender assigned male at
birth but live as feminine lady

999
00:59:02,560 --> 00:59:06,040
boys In Thailand.
Was thinking of the Moshe in

1000
00:59:06,040 --> 00:59:08,680
Mexico.
It's kind of 1/3 gender with

1001
00:59:08,680 --> 00:59:11,000
very important cultural
positions.

1002
00:59:11,640 --> 00:59:14,920
And I think in like old
rabbinical Jewish tradition,

1003
00:59:14,920 --> 00:59:19,160
there's also six genders.
Did you find any other instances

1004
00:59:19,160 --> 00:59:22,920
of this in your in your research
or was it just a question of

1005
00:59:22,920 --> 00:59:24,720
space that you couldn't include
them?

1006
00:59:24,960 --> 00:59:28,080
So there are so many of these
cases.

1007
00:59:28,080 --> 00:59:31,880
And actually part of the reason
I didn't include them is because

1008
00:59:32,400 --> 00:59:35,200
many of these stories are
already written.

1009
00:59:35,200 --> 00:59:39,560
How did in full?
There's entire books on people

1010
00:59:39,560 --> 00:59:46,240
we might now call to spirit and
there are really incredible vast

1011
00:59:46,240 --> 00:59:49,800
amounts of literature focused on
these different categories that

1012
00:59:49,800 --> 00:59:53,960
often get overlooked now.
There were four different

1013
00:59:54,440 --> 00:59:58,160
individuals who adopted non
western social roles.

1014
00:59:58,160 --> 01:00:02,360
We might call them gender
identities who fit into other

1015
01:00:02,360 --> 01:00:06,720
social categories outside of
male and female, or at least

1016
01:00:06,720 --> 01:00:09,040
outside of their sex assigned at
birth.

1017
01:00:09,600 --> 01:00:14,560
Maxim Selopoli, who was a
Klamath person we might call

1018
01:00:14,560 --> 01:00:18,400
trans feminine now.
Actually invented her own

1019
01:00:18,400 --> 01:00:22,560
pronoun in the Klamath language,
which is extremely cool.

1020
01:00:23,000 --> 01:00:27,720
And so when an ethnographer came
in to document the Klamath

1021
01:00:27,720 --> 01:00:31,080
language, they actually
documented her pronoun.

1022
01:00:31,080 --> 01:00:35,000
And I find this funny because
it's just like a pronoun Maxim

1023
01:00:35,000 --> 01:00:39,720
say loply uses to refer to
herself and there's no other

1024
01:00:39,720 --> 01:00:42,480
definition.
I mean, so many of these

1025
01:00:42,480 --> 01:00:44,880
individuals are very creative
with their gender.

1026
01:00:44,880 --> 01:00:49,720
Some of them clearly fit into
preexisting roles, others seem

1027
01:00:49,720 --> 01:00:52,000
to come up with their own gender
identities.

1028
01:00:52,440 --> 01:00:57,360
There's also Okiyo, who's just
known by her singular name, who

1029
01:00:57,720 --> 01:01:01,520
did publicly identify with a
category of Dan show which comes

1030
01:01:01,520 --> 01:01:04,200
from the Japanese characters,
unfortunately of male

1031
01:01:04,200 --> 01:01:06,920
prostitute.
But together they form something

1032
01:01:06,920 --> 01:01:10,920
like trans woman.
And she was with a group of

1033
01:01:10,920 --> 01:01:13,440
other Dan show and directly
worked with many of them

1034
01:01:13,440 --> 01:01:16,080
actually went on to take
hormones and identify with the

1035
01:01:16,080 --> 01:01:21,800
term transgender in later years.
But she also very clearly

1036
01:01:21,800 --> 01:01:25,680
embodied this social role, which
wasn't solely around gender

1037
01:01:25,680 --> 01:01:29,560
identity.
It was also wound up in sex work

1038
01:01:29,560 --> 01:01:32,600
and love for men in dressing
femininely.

1039
01:01:32,880 --> 01:01:36,440
And so I think it's always very
complicated to call these

1040
01:01:36,440 --> 01:01:39,400
individuals trans unless they
identified with it at a

1041
01:01:39,400 --> 01:01:42,800
different time.
I'm a big believer in Maria

1042
01:01:42,800 --> 01:01:45,240
Lugonis is the coloniality of
gender.

1043
01:01:45,240 --> 01:01:46,800
There's another reading for you
all.

1044
01:01:46,800 --> 01:01:49,400
It's a bit dense, but absolutely
worth it.

1045
01:01:49,520 --> 01:01:53,960
We shouldn't need to use these
historical categories from non

1046
01:01:53,960 --> 01:01:57,120
western vultures to justify
western trans people today.

1047
01:01:57,480 --> 01:02:01,920
The reason I do include them
along with obviously like

1048
01:02:01,920 --> 01:02:04,800
transness not just being a
western thing which is another

1049
01:02:04,800 --> 01:02:11,360
myth that often pops up, is that
these stories reveal why we are

1050
01:02:11,520 --> 01:02:13,960
lacking in some of this
information.

1051
01:02:14,440 --> 01:02:19,360
In Okeo's case, her original
records in Osaka were bombed

1052
01:02:19,360 --> 01:02:26,320
during unnecessary fire bombings
of Osaka in World War 2 that

1053
01:02:26,320 --> 01:02:29,840
almost all historians agreed
were just the result of US

1054
01:02:29,840 --> 01:02:33,640
cruelty and imperialism, not an
actual necessity to end the war.

1055
01:02:34,040 --> 01:02:39,000
In Masood Al Damarati's case, we
can actually trace the specific

1056
01:02:39,000 --> 01:02:43,120
bombs dropped by the US and
Britain on archives that would

1057
01:02:43,120 --> 01:02:47,280
have contained his records.
We can also see how US

1058
01:02:47,280 --> 01:02:52,920
destabilization in Iraq led to
the fire bombing of the central

1059
01:02:52,920 --> 01:02:55,800
Iraqi archives that held his
records too.

1060
01:02:55,800 --> 01:02:59,480
Like there are pictures of the
archives burning that contained

1061
01:02:59,480 --> 01:03:02,480
his information in them, which
is deeply frustrating.

1062
01:03:03,080 --> 01:03:05,480
There's actually a mass
digitization effort going on

1063
01:03:05,480 --> 01:03:08,720
right now with the surviving
records that hopefully will

1064
01:03:08,720 --> 01:03:11,600
reveal more about his life as
they move forward in the

1065
01:03:11,600 --> 01:03:14,280
project.
But what these really show is

1066
01:03:14,280 --> 01:03:19,520
how diverse gender identity was
in these non western and in some

1067
01:03:19,520 --> 01:03:24,640
cases Western cultures.
This is not entirely unrelated

1068
01:03:24,640 --> 01:03:28,840
to the burnings of the Institute
for Sexual Science, which

1069
01:03:28,840 --> 01:03:33,640
contained Gerda von Zoboltz's
record and also records of trans

1070
01:03:33,640 --> 01:03:38,200
people from Brazil to Japan that
Magnus Hershfeld collected.

1071
01:03:38,200 --> 01:03:43,360
So all of these attacks stemming
from white supremacy were deeply

1072
01:03:43,360 --> 01:03:47,080
intertwined with one another.
One of the things I would think

1073
01:03:47,080 --> 01:03:50,640
that the usefulness of the non
western narratives is it also

1074
01:03:50,640 --> 01:03:55,200
just captures the universal Ness
of the human experience.

1075
01:03:55,240 --> 01:03:58,880
That this is not unique to
western society and how it's

1076
01:03:58,880 --> 01:04:02,920
experienced in western society
is not the norm in every

1077
01:04:02,920 --> 01:04:05,640
society.
And to be absolutely fair about

1078
01:04:05,640 --> 01:04:09,760
it, there's much to learn from
others and to also not emulate

1079
01:04:09,760 --> 01:04:11,760
from others.
So I absolutely agree.

1080
01:04:11,760 --> 01:04:14,760
I don't think you have to go to
non western society to defend

1081
01:04:14,760 --> 01:04:17,400
trans rights and western
society, but there is a certain

1082
01:04:17,400 --> 01:04:21,680
beauty in the universality of
the human experience that the

1083
01:04:21,680 --> 01:04:24,000
West is not as unique as it
likes to think it is.

1084
01:04:24,160 --> 01:04:29,720
You mentioned Iraq, I remember
an article around 2004 on Iraq

1085
01:04:30,000 --> 01:04:35,200
and on the massive rise of
anti-gay violence in Iraq under

1086
01:04:35,200 --> 01:04:37,720
the American occupation and in
the wake of the American

1087
01:04:37,720 --> 01:04:40,200
conquest.
And it was just like wholesale

1088
01:04:40,200 --> 01:04:43,200
slaughter of I can't remember
how many people, but hundreds

1089
01:04:43,200 --> 01:04:46,080
and possibly thousands.
And I remember someone at the

1090
01:04:46,080 --> 01:04:49,680
time arguing with me and saying,
what was it better under Saddam

1091
01:04:49,680 --> 01:04:52,640
Hussein?
And in a certain sense, as

1092
01:04:52,800 --> 01:04:56,120
absurd as it might sound, yes,
You know, if you were political,

1093
01:04:56,120 --> 01:04:58,800
if you were a political activist
who in any way challenged Saddam

1094
01:04:58,800 --> 01:05:02,280
Hussein, it wasn't better
because whether you were gay,

1095
01:05:02,280 --> 01:05:04,640
trans or not, he was going to
crush you.

1096
01:05:05,240 --> 01:05:08,480
But if you were just going about
living your life, yeah, it was

1097
01:05:08,480 --> 01:05:11,440
actually better before the
Americans barged in and

1098
01:05:11,440 --> 01:05:14,200
destroyed that whole society.
And it's just again, in

1099
01:05:14,200 --> 01:05:17,840
microcosm what these Western
imperials have done in so much

1100
01:05:17,840 --> 01:05:20,400
of the world and including, as
you pointed out, destroy

1101
01:05:20,480 --> 01:05:23,880
archives that are useful not
only to Iraqi society but are

1102
01:05:23,880 --> 01:05:25,560
part of human heritage.
Absolutely.

1103
01:05:25,800 --> 01:05:29,480
Both in and outside of Iraq.
I feel like more people should

1104
01:05:29,480 --> 01:05:31,640
be reading Russia there these
days.

1105
01:05:31,640 --> 01:05:34,440
I mean, like we can talk about
it's the same thing every time,

1106
01:05:34,440 --> 01:05:38,520
like the US or some Western
Power comes and destabilizes the

1107
01:05:38,520 --> 01:05:42,800
country, reactionary nationalism
comes and there's this huge

1108
01:05:42,800 --> 01:05:46,760
backlash against other
communities and they're forced

1109
01:05:46,760 --> 01:05:50,240
to rebuild over the following
decades or hundreds of years.

1110
01:05:50,240 --> 01:05:55,160
And well, the cycle repeats and
hopefully we won't be seeing too

1111
01:05:55,160 --> 01:05:58,080
much anymore.
I do think that like, Donald

1112
01:05:58,080 --> 01:06:01,920
Trump is too incompetent to
start a war that ends like, ends

1113
01:06:01,920 --> 01:06:06,240
how the a lot of the invasion
set up by neoliberals have gone,

1114
01:06:06,240 --> 01:06:07,960
at least.
But we'll see.

1115
01:06:07,960 --> 01:06:09,520
Maybe I'm being too hopeful
here.

1116
01:06:09,560 --> 01:06:12,800
Yeah, he may be incompetent, but
he surrounds himself by people

1117
01:06:12,800 --> 01:06:16,800
who are driven and I fear may
know more what to do than he

1118
01:06:16,800 --> 01:06:18,080
does.
But we will see.

1119
01:06:18,160 --> 01:06:22,120
So bringing it forward to the
future, Eli, I'm going to quote

1120
01:06:22,120 --> 01:06:24,640
you to you basically.
And this is something that you

1121
01:06:24,640 --> 01:06:26,920
say in the conclusion to your
book that I really, really

1122
01:06:26,920 --> 01:06:28,920
liked.
You say, quote, our

1123
01:06:28,920 --> 01:06:31,920
understanding of the world is
regulated by those who seek to

1124
01:06:31,920 --> 01:06:34,280
maintain their power rather than
dismantle it.

1125
01:06:34,640 --> 01:06:37,680
History has always been a
malleable tool used for

1126
01:06:37,680 --> 01:06:40,320
political ends.
Only when we establish A

1127
01:06:40,320 --> 01:06:43,720
widespread desire to teach the
histories of the oppressed can

1128
01:06:43,720 --> 01:06:46,920
we finally access the broader
breadth of our human past and

1129
01:06:46,920 --> 01:06:49,160
fight for a fair future.
And I think that was kind of

1130
01:06:49,160 --> 01:06:50,920
connected to what we were just
speaking about.

1131
01:06:51,120 --> 01:06:53,600
But you also make the point
throughout the book that

1132
01:06:53,640 --> 01:06:57,400
supporting trans people is
insufficient when we live in a

1133
01:06:57,400 --> 01:07:01,040
capitalist society that's based
on race and class oppression.

1134
01:07:01,040 --> 01:07:04,760
And this feels very aligned with
a Marxist perspective that the

1135
01:07:04,760 --> 01:07:08,520
struggles of the oppressed go
hand in hand and that it will

1136
01:07:08,520 --> 01:07:11,920
take a fundamental social and
economic transformation to

1137
01:07:11,920 --> 01:07:14,960
change the institutions that are
the source of this bigotry.

1138
01:07:15,120 --> 01:07:17,680
Could you talk a little bit
about this and kind of what you

1139
01:07:17,680 --> 01:07:21,120
see as a connection to fighting
for freedom for trans people and

1140
01:07:21,120 --> 01:07:23,360
the oppressed?
As I'm sure all your listeners

1141
01:07:23,360 --> 01:07:27,760
know, all of these forms of
oppression and subjugation are

1142
01:07:27,760 --> 01:07:31,560
connected.
And I'm approaching history, I

1143
01:07:31,560 --> 01:07:36,040
mean pushing history from a
Fukodian perspective but also a

1144
01:07:36,160 --> 01:07:40,520
Marxist perspective I am
interested in.

1145
01:07:40,520 --> 01:07:43,240
I mean for those nerds out
there, I'm interested in joining

1146
01:07:43,240 --> 01:07:46,840
this post structural list and
non Marxist with materialist

1147
01:07:46,840 --> 01:07:53,480
ideas and questioning how V is
connections between different

1148
01:07:53,480 --> 01:07:56,280
ideologies.
Different communities will

1149
01:07:56,320 --> 01:07:59,040
ultimately help us uplift one
another.

1150
01:07:59,200 --> 01:08:04,280
And I try to do this throughout
the book with discussing these

1151
01:08:04,320 --> 01:08:07,680
connections between race and
gender, class and gender.

1152
01:08:07,680 --> 01:08:11,760
I mean, the entire worker
section discusses how the ruling

1153
01:08:11,760 --> 01:08:15,760
class is monopoly over work and
subjugating trans people

1154
01:08:15,760 --> 01:08:20,120
further, and developing class
consciousness is the only way to

1155
01:08:20,640 --> 01:08:24,479
really overcome this major
hurdle in trans people's

1156
01:08:24,479 --> 01:08:28,680
freedoms.
So it's about it's about making

1157
01:08:28,680 --> 01:08:31,640
these intersections more
comprehendible and

1158
01:08:31,640 --> 01:08:35,240
understandable.
It's about understanding that

1159
01:08:35,520 --> 01:08:40,880
the histories that were taught
are ultimately subjective and

1160
01:08:40,880 --> 01:08:47,840
not the result of some sort of
grand idea of history by instead

1161
01:08:47,920 --> 01:08:52,640
the textbook manufacturer.
What's acceptable to say or

1162
01:08:52,640 --> 01:08:55,319
celebrate or promote in some
way?

1163
01:08:55,439 --> 01:09:01,720
There were some lines and
stories in this book that some

1164
01:09:01,720 --> 01:09:06,359
readers weren't too sure about.
I mean, in Okeo's case, I was

1165
01:09:06,359 --> 01:09:08,520
going a little hard on the US
there.

1166
01:09:08,560 --> 01:09:16,520
Like they, Okeo and her friends
also started a riot in 1948

1167
01:09:16,520 --> 01:09:19,319
against the police.
But then we have to ask, why

1168
01:09:19,319 --> 01:09:23,920
were the police so hell bent on
arresting these dozens of Dan

1169
01:09:23,920 --> 01:09:26,040
show that night?
And the fact is, it was to

1170
01:09:26,080 --> 01:09:30,319
impress the new US
administration of Japan.

1171
01:09:30,359 --> 01:09:35,040
And so really connecting these
these different interests that

1172
01:09:35,040 --> 01:09:38,720
are at play here was necessary
and something that I hope that

1173
01:09:38,720 --> 01:09:41,479
will help people think about
when reading the book.

1174
01:09:41,880 --> 01:09:45,160
I I mean, I like to describe
myself as an obnoxious Fucodia

1175
01:09:45,160 --> 01:09:48,920
and history is constructed.
It's not something that we can

1176
01:09:48,920 --> 01:09:52,720
objectively see while at the
same time trying to can try to

1177
01:09:52,720 --> 01:09:55,760
string along some sort of truth
or theory from it.

1178
01:09:55,760 --> 01:10:02,040
But ultimately we are limited by
our distance and our ways of

1179
01:10:02,040 --> 01:10:05,080
knowledge.
So it's going to be difficult

1180
01:10:05,080 --> 01:10:08,240
moving forward when knowledge
and education is so

1181
01:10:08,240 --> 01:10:11,800
fundamentally under attack by
the political right.

1182
01:10:11,840 --> 01:10:16,240
But at the same time, we are
seeing this insurrection of

1183
01:10:16,240 --> 01:10:19,880
subjugated knowledges come out
from the woodwork.

1184
01:10:19,920 --> 01:10:25,440
And I mean everything from like
personal blogs to scenes to oral

1185
01:10:25,440 --> 01:10:29,720
histories of groups that whose
names couldn't even be mentioned

1186
01:10:29,720 --> 01:10:32,760
on Public TV until the past 20
years.

1187
01:10:32,760 --> 01:10:36,640
So there's a lot of work to do,
but I am also hopeful that the

1188
01:10:36,640 --> 01:10:40,200
explosion of personal media is
going to actually do some good

1189
01:10:40,200 --> 01:10:43,320
for our society too.
Just to jump off that, I mean,

1190
01:10:43,320 --> 01:10:46,120
if you look at today's political
climate, it's obviously

1191
01:10:46,120 --> 01:10:49,520
incredibly reactionary and anti
immigrant, anti black, anti

1192
01:10:49,520 --> 01:10:52,480
trans.
One of the things I know Cam,

1193
01:10:52,520 --> 01:10:56,040
Lola and I were talking about,
if you go back a few years, was

1194
01:10:56,040 --> 01:11:00,000
when the Democratic Party and
its acolytes were posturing as

1195
01:11:00,000 --> 01:11:04,240
friends of trans people.
Eli, Eli, grasp her pearls for

1196
01:11:04,240 --> 01:11:07,680
all of our listeners.
Hashtag loved ones.

1197
01:11:08,280 --> 01:11:11,000
Exactly, exactly.
And well, I mean, you remember

1198
01:11:11,000 --> 01:11:15,480
the flags and the corporations
for Pride month changing their

1199
01:11:15,480 --> 01:11:17,880
little low, their logos.
I remember all the Democratic

1200
01:11:17,880 --> 01:11:21,760
Party politicians and I always
read it as they're trying to do

1201
01:11:21,760 --> 01:11:24,480
to the trans movement what they
have more or less succeeded

1202
01:11:24,480 --> 01:11:26,640
doing with the gay rights
movement, which is turned

1203
01:11:26,840 --> 01:11:29,240
something that was associated
with a certain degree of

1204
01:11:29,240 --> 01:11:32,840
radicalness, a certain degree.
You used to think of things like

1205
01:11:32,880 --> 01:11:36,840
Stonewall and rebellion and the
Vietnam War and and the Black

1206
01:11:36,840 --> 01:11:39,160
Panthers.
And so that would sort of the

1207
01:11:39,160 --> 01:11:41,720
heyday of the gay rights
movement at least in the 1960s

1208
01:11:41,720 --> 01:11:45,760
years to now a very respectable
middle class movement.

1209
01:11:45,760 --> 01:11:48,520
And there was an element of
trying to do that with the trans

1210
01:11:48,520 --> 01:11:51,080
movement.
I just remember us talking about

1211
01:11:51,080 --> 01:11:53,920
at the time was nobody is
talking about the brutal

1212
01:11:53,920 --> 01:12:00,800
violence faced on a daily basis
by mainly black trans youth on

1213
01:12:00,800 --> 01:12:03,080
the streets of this country
because they don't fit that

1214
01:12:03,080 --> 01:12:05,480
narrative.
They're not part of that whole.

1215
01:12:05,680 --> 01:12:09,120
Respectability or.
White, respectable middle class

1216
01:12:09,400 --> 01:12:11,480
picture of that picture or
narrative or outlook.

1217
01:12:11,480 --> 01:12:13,880
Yeah.
And of course, once it became

1218
01:12:13,880 --> 01:12:17,560
politically inconvenient, it was
dropped like a hot potato and

1219
01:12:17,560 --> 01:12:19,960
left to the tender mercies of
the Trumpites.

1220
01:12:20,000 --> 01:12:22,960
I mean, this is what the
Democratic Party always does.

1221
01:12:22,960 --> 01:12:25,880
And it's it's obscene.
And it's there's an element of

1222
01:12:25,880 --> 01:12:29,200
it history repeating itself.
I remember more than a decade

1223
01:12:29,200 --> 01:12:33,240
ago being in the Bay Area when
Pride wanted to have as its

1224
01:12:33,240 --> 01:12:36,760
honorary chair Chelsea Manning.
Chelsea Manning was still in

1225
01:12:36,760 --> 01:12:39,360
prison under the Obama
administration for her

1226
01:12:39,360 --> 01:12:42,320
revelations and the role she
played in revealing all these

1227
01:12:42,320 --> 01:12:45,320
crimes of US imperialism,
particularly in Iraq.

1228
01:12:45,320 --> 01:12:48,880
And the main opposition to
having Chelsea Manning as an

1229
01:12:48,880 --> 01:12:51,480
honorary chair or grand
Marshall, sorry, as an RA Grand

1230
01:12:51,480 --> 01:12:54,000
Marshall for the parade was
coming from the Democrats and it

1231
01:12:54,000 --> 01:12:57,120
was coming from liberals
because, you know, Chase Bank

1232
01:12:57,120 --> 01:12:59,360
wouldn't like this, Apple
wouldn't like this.

1233
01:12:59,480 --> 01:13:02,680
The corporations, the police who
March who lead the parade now

1234
01:13:02,680 --> 01:13:05,000
wouldn't like this.
And remember going to these

1235
01:13:05,040 --> 01:13:08,320
organizing meetings and all
these veterans of Stonewall were

1236
01:13:08,320 --> 01:13:11,240
getting up and just bemoaning
the fact what has become of

1237
01:13:11,240 --> 01:13:12,960
this.
And it's it was the doing of the

1238
01:13:13,240 --> 01:13:15,720
of our movement and it's the
doing of the Democratic Party.

1239
01:13:15,720 --> 01:13:18,840
And, and there it was again with
being attempted with the trans

1240
01:13:18,840 --> 01:13:20,800
movement.
And when it didn't work, throw

1241
01:13:20,800 --> 01:13:24,160
into the dogs.
It happens every time and we see

1242
01:13:24,200 --> 01:13:27,520
these cycles and different
movements with similar

1243
01:13:27,520 --> 01:13:29,960
characteristics.
There's been a bunch of

1244
01:13:30,040 --> 01:13:33,080
different theories of social
movement cycles and

1245
01:13:33,080 --> 01:13:37,480
unfortunately, there is a a
tendency towards respectability

1246
01:13:37,480 --> 01:13:40,720
and assimilation that happens
from the top down.

1247
01:13:40,800 --> 01:13:44,240
I'm I'm always very interested
in these questions.

1248
01:13:44,240 --> 01:13:46,640
My dissertation was on
dissertation respectability

1249
01:13:46,640 --> 01:13:51,840
politics and how the trans
movement internally struggles

1250
01:13:51,880 --> 01:13:56,880
with itself to work within or
outside or abolishing different

1251
01:13:56,880 --> 01:14:00,640
systems.
And we are at a different point,

1252
01:14:00,640 --> 01:14:04,480
really an interesting turning
point right now where trans

1253
01:14:04,480 --> 01:14:08,040
people aren't being offered
respectability by the Democrats

1254
01:14:08,040 --> 01:14:10,840
in the same way that we were
five years ago.

1255
01:14:10,920 --> 01:14:13,320
I mean, I always say never trust
a politician.

1256
01:14:13,320 --> 01:14:15,200
They're they're professional
liars.

1257
01:14:15,200 --> 01:14:18,120
There's no reason to.
And anyone who gets fooled by

1258
01:14:18,120 --> 01:14:22,720
them probably shouldn't be too
foundational to any social

1259
01:14:22,720 --> 01:14:26,360
movement.
But ultimately there's this

1260
01:14:26,480 --> 01:14:30,000
pattern of uplifting the people
who are going to do the least

1261
01:14:30,000 --> 01:14:33,800
for released people.
I was very influenced by Dean

1262
01:14:33,800 --> 01:14:38,040
Spade's book Normal Life, one of
my all time favorite texts that

1263
01:14:38,040 --> 01:14:41,880
helped me understand this
tendency in that mostly in the

1264
01:14:41,880 --> 01:14:45,400
context of the gay rights
movement at the time it was

1265
01:14:45,400 --> 01:14:48,240
originally published in I
believe 2011.

1266
01:14:48,240 --> 01:14:52,520
But he also starts to go into
this future of trans community

1267
01:14:52,520 --> 01:14:56,640
organizing and how it might end
up in the same pattern.

1268
01:14:56,920 --> 01:15:00,880
It's, it's going to be difficult
to break out of it, but I

1269
01:15:00,880 --> 01:15:06,600
actually think that the
crackdowns on migrants and SNAP

1270
01:15:06,640 --> 01:15:11,160
and Medicaid are going to really
motivate a lot of trans people

1271
01:15:11,160 --> 01:15:14,400
who would otherwise be aligning
themselves with Democrats, with

1272
01:15:14,400 --> 01:15:18,000
the left, with people who are
actually going to fight for

1273
01:15:18,080 --> 01:15:21,200
universal health care or
abolishing prisons.

1274
01:15:21,200 --> 01:15:24,600
And this is going to be a
fundamentally different time

1275
01:15:24,600 --> 01:15:27,400
than in the past decades in the
trans movement.

1276
01:15:27,400 --> 01:15:31,520
It's always going to be
difficult because the people who

1277
01:15:31,520 --> 01:15:34,280
are calling for us to be
assimilated into the Democratic

1278
01:15:34,280 --> 01:15:36,360
Party are going to get the most
press time.

1279
01:15:36,360 --> 01:15:38,240
They're going to take all the
air out of the room.

1280
01:15:38,280 --> 01:15:42,360
But I do think with new forms of
media and new forms of outreach

1281
01:15:42,360 --> 01:15:45,080
and organizing, there's some
hope that we'll be able to break

1282
01:15:45,080 --> 01:15:48,440
out of this cycle.
And when Republicans are running

1283
01:15:48,440 --> 01:15:51,800
everything, trans people won't
have a horror structure to cling

1284
01:15:51,800 --> 01:15:56,120
to when they are targeting us
more explicitly even than they

1285
01:15:56,160 --> 01:15:59,640
are now.
I am curious by different

1286
01:15:59,640 --> 01:16:04,400
theories and ideas of organizing
can look like Dean Spade calls

1287
01:16:04,400 --> 01:16:08,480
it critical trans politics.
Or questioning why we want what

1288
01:16:08,480 --> 01:16:12,840
we want, asking what different
systems we might want to be part

1289
01:16:12,840 --> 01:16:18,400
of or dismantle or fundamentally
change or overhaul, and asking

1290
01:16:18,480 --> 01:16:22,800
why exactly our movements
operate in the ways that they do

1291
01:16:23,240 --> 01:16:25,360
sounds a lot more complicated
than it actually is.

1292
01:16:25,360 --> 01:16:28,280
It's really just fundamentally
questioning everything about our

1293
01:16:28,280 --> 01:16:33,040
social movements and why certain
nonprofits, organizations, and

1294
01:16:33,280 --> 01:16:36,960
demands get uplifted while
others get shut down.

1295
01:16:37,240 --> 01:16:40,320
In the case of trans people, I
mean, like universal Healthcare

1296
01:16:40,320 --> 01:16:45,440
is so obvious as a central
argument for movement, but at

1297
01:16:45,440 --> 01:16:50,880
the same time, people are really
fixated on things like bathroom

1298
01:16:50,880 --> 01:16:54,520
access and representation
government when our

1299
01:16:54,520 --> 01:16:57,720
representatives don't really do
much and they can't really do do

1300
01:16:57,720 --> 01:17:01,120
much.
It's very frustrating to see the

1301
01:17:01,120 --> 01:17:05,320
ways that trans liberalism has
increasingly impacted the

1302
01:17:05,320 --> 01:17:07,840
movement since it's become more
mainstream.

1303
01:17:07,840 --> 01:17:10,200
I mean, DN calls this
mainstreaming.

1304
01:17:10,200 --> 01:17:13,120
It's, it happens in every
movement, or at least every mass

1305
01:17:13,120 --> 01:17:16,040
movement.
And at the same time, I do think

1306
01:17:16,040 --> 01:17:19,080
there's a turning point now
where people are realizing the

1307
01:17:19,080 --> 01:17:21,120
government is not working in our
favor.

1308
01:17:21,320 --> 01:17:23,560
It won't be working in our favor
and never has.

1309
01:17:23,560 --> 01:17:29,040
And we need to find alternative
structures like mutual aid and

1310
01:17:29,080 --> 01:17:33,320
fair distribution of resources
to really actually fundamentally

1311
01:17:33,320 --> 01:17:36,320
change things in our society.
Yeah, I think there's always a

1312
01:17:36,320 --> 01:17:40,120
question of how identity
politics and visibility politics

1313
01:17:40,120 --> 01:17:43,280
kind of is part of that same
graveyard of the Democratic

1314
01:17:43,280 --> 01:17:45,840
Party.
But I think part of what I

1315
01:17:45,840 --> 01:17:49,120
always see as a way forward is
really looking at the

1316
01:17:49,120 --> 01:17:53,560
institution that prop up
capitalism that are also

1317
01:17:53,560 --> 01:17:58,000
responsible for the oppression
of trans people, of women, of

1318
01:17:58,000 --> 01:18:00,080
gay people.
And I think of the bourgeois

1319
01:18:00,080 --> 01:18:03,200
family and not the family as
like your own personal family,

1320
01:18:03,200 --> 01:18:05,760
but the family as an institution
and what role it plays

1321
01:18:05,760 --> 01:18:07,640
economically and socially in
society.

1322
01:18:07,640 --> 01:18:10,920
So economically in terms of
maintenance and the passing down

1323
01:18:10,920 --> 01:18:14,240
a private property, raising the
next generation of workers.

1324
01:18:14,240 --> 01:18:17,360
I think about the family
ideologically as instilling very

1325
01:18:17,360 --> 01:18:22,640
conservative gender norms and
social ideology for conforming

1326
01:18:22,640 --> 01:18:25,640
to what are the codes of
morality in society and stuff

1327
01:18:25,640 --> 01:18:27,640
like that.
And so fundamentally, I think it

1328
01:18:27,640 --> 01:18:30,880
kind of goes back to, and this
is part old school Marxism for

1329
01:18:30,880 --> 01:18:34,160
me, but like looking back at the
institution of the family and

1330
01:18:34,160 --> 01:18:37,120
having that real understanding
of how it serves as a prop of

1331
01:18:37,120 --> 01:18:41,200
capitalism and that everything
kind of flows from that in terms

1332
01:18:41,200 --> 01:18:44,960
of enforcing these gender norms
and the hysteria and everything.

1333
01:18:45,240 --> 01:18:47,160
And so you really have to tackle
that.

1334
01:18:47,160 --> 01:18:49,440
And that's that's a much bigger
task, I think.

1335
01:18:49,640 --> 01:18:52,120
Absolutely.
I mean, the norms instilled by

1336
01:18:52,120 --> 01:18:56,280
society always need to be
questioned and we train people

1337
01:18:56,280 --> 01:19:00,560
not to question them.
I can't recommend Sophie Lewis

1338
01:19:00,560 --> 01:19:05,920
and Emy O'briens work enough.
They are two of the most

1339
01:19:05,920 --> 01:19:10,760
accessible fund to read authors
who are writing about family

1340
01:19:10,760 --> 01:19:14,720
abolition these days, and they
have, they have excellent work.

1341
01:19:14,880 --> 01:19:20,280
Sophie Lewis's new book Enemy
Feminisms also details this deep

1342
01:19:20,280 --> 01:19:24,640
connection between empty trans
and racist feminism and family

1343
01:19:24,640 --> 01:19:27,720
structures, which I don't think
anyone has done in quite the

1344
01:19:27,720 --> 01:19:30,480
same way.
So it's, I mean, it's a lot of

1345
01:19:30,480 --> 01:19:34,360
questioning that'll need to be
done and I'm excited to see more

1346
01:19:34,360 --> 01:19:37,520
people doing it.
And lastly, I wanted to look at

1347
01:19:37,520 --> 01:19:39,680
some of the reviews about this
book.

1348
01:19:39,760 --> 01:19:42,520
And again, I encourage all of
our our listeners to pick up a

1349
01:19:42,520 --> 01:19:45,760
copy of this book and we'll
include your website in the show

1350
01:19:45,760 --> 01:19:47,920
notes.
It was really hard to find bad

1351
01:19:47,920 --> 01:19:51,000
reviews about your book.
I was expecting, you know, with

1352
01:19:51,000 --> 01:19:54,640
Eli, expecting some, some major
hate since you've dealt with

1353
01:19:54,760 --> 01:19:57,280
death threats basically every
day of your entire life since

1354
01:19:57,280 --> 01:20:00,640
you were an activist at what, 15
or something.

1355
01:20:00,880 --> 01:20:03,000
Yeah.
But I just want to read some of

1356
01:20:03,000 --> 01:20:06,360
the really good ones that were
nice for me to look at on

1357
01:20:06,360 --> 01:20:09,200
Goodreads quote.
One of the best nonfiction books

1358
01:20:09,200 --> 01:20:11,200
I've ever read.
Meticulously researched and

1359
01:20:11,200 --> 01:20:13,440
compellingly written.
Another one quote.

1360
01:20:13,440 --> 01:20:16,680
I feel lucky to be some of the
first to read what will one day

1361
01:20:16,680 --> 01:20:19,720
be a classic for generations of
queer history seekers.

1362
01:20:19,760 --> 01:20:22,480
Get it?
While it's not burned that that

1363
01:20:22,480 --> 01:20:25,680
one was good, another one quote
lots of new information.

1364
01:20:25,680 --> 01:20:29,160
To me it was quite uplifting but
also baffling to read that to an

1365
01:20:29,160 --> 01:20:32,560
extent society was way more
accepting of trans people than

1366
01:20:32,560 --> 01:20:35,880
today.
I did find one bad review.

1367
01:20:35,880 --> 01:20:38,520
It was only one.
It was on Amazon of course, but

1368
01:20:38,600 --> 01:20:41,600
I thought it was really really
funny so just wanted to end with

1369
01:20:41,600 --> 01:20:44,080
this one.
The title of the review is Bad

1370
01:20:44,080 --> 01:20:46,480
Faith Feminism.
I think you know where this is

1371
01:20:46,480 --> 01:20:50,160
going, quote.
It's hard to reconcile misogyny

1372
01:20:50,160 --> 01:20:53,440
with conversations about gender,
at least with conversations

1373
01:20:53,440 --> 01:20:55,080
about gender that are in good
faith.

1374
01:20:55,360 --> 01:20:58,280
Supporting trans folks does not
have to come at the expense of

1375
01:20:58,280 --> 01:21:00,360
CIS women.
What What was the date on that

1376
01:21:00,360 --> 01:21:01,800
review?
I feel like I've seen that one

1377
01:21:01,800 --> 01:21:04,040
before.
I don't know, but I'm like, did

1378
01:21:04,040 --> 01:21:06,560
you even read the book clearly?
What the hell?

1379
01:21:06,560 --> 01:21:08,640
Oh, 'cause I 'cause I'm pretty
sure that one was like,

1380
01:21:08,920 --> 01:21:12,200
published the day the book was
released and they clearly hadn't

1381
01:21:12,200 --> 01:21:15,320
read the book.
Yeah, it's Eli's against turfs.

1382
01:21:15,320 --> 01:21:17,960
Let's Yeah.
It's just the same sentence

1383
01:21:18,040 --> 01:21:20,640
regurgitated every few weeks
over and over again.

1384
01:21:21,280 --> 01:21:25,240
Oh yeah, they tried to review
bomb the book but I think they

1385
01:21:25,360 --> 01:21:26,880
they got caught.
Oh wow.

1386
01:21:27,160 --> 01:21:29,520
So what is your what is your
greatest wish for the book at

1387
01:21:29,520 --> 01:21:32,280
this point?
I want to see a review of the

1388
01:21:32,280 --> 01:21:37,520
book by Matt Walsh and Tucker
Carlson calling it gender

1389
01:21:37,520 --> 01:21:41,000
ideology and then burning it up
with a blowtorch.

1390
01:21:41,600 --> 01:21:43,080
Yeah, that's that's a beautiful
dream.

1391
01:21:43,640 --> 01:21:46,080
Aim high.
Yeah, absolutely.

1392
01:21:46,240 --> 01:21:50,720
But the book is actually being
used now at the Supreme Court to

1393
01:21:50,720 --> 01:21:54,280
defend trans athletes, which is
really nice to see.

1394
01:21:54,440 --> 01:21:55,120
That's.
Amazing.

1395
01:21:55,120 --> 01:21:57,000
That's very.
Good.

1396
01:21:57,080 --> 01:22:01,480
Ultimately, I just, I just hope
it can help people and help

1397
01:22:01,480 --> 01:22:05,880
people feel seen and also help
people express themselves.

1398
01:22:06,040 --> 01:22:08,520
Well, I have to say I really
enjoyed reading it.

1399
01:22:08,640 --> 01:22:12,280
Anytime I'm digging into trans
history, I'm kind of bracing

1400
01:22:12,280 --> 01:22:14,760
myself for pain and so that
things are going to be really

1401
01:22:14,840 --> 01:22:17,520
dark.
And there was so many uplifting

1402
01:22:17,520 --> 01:22:19,800
and funny moments.
I love that you chose to write

1403
01:22:19,800 --> 01:22:22,760
it in such a humanizing way
where you really get to know

1404
01:22:22,760 --> 01:22:24,520
these characters.
And like I said, there's so much

1405
01:22:24,520 --> 01:22:27,040
great detail in the book.
There's a shoplifting machine,

1406
01:22:27,160 --> 01:22:30,280
Trans men beats up other men
guys, there's good details.

1407
01:22:30,320 --> 01:22:31,600
Check out the book, It's
awesome.

1408
01:22:31,640 --> 01:22:33,520
It's a really fun and uplifting
read.

1409
01:22:34,040 --> 01:22:36,960
You will almost definitely find
out and learn something you

1410
01:22:36,960 --> 01:22:38,440
didn't know before by reading
this book.

1411
01:22:38,720 --> 01:22:42,160
It's absolutely worth a read.
And fuck Jeff Bezos, but do

1412
01:22:42,160 --> 01:22:44,720
review it on Amazon and
Goodreads.

1413
01:22:44,720 --> 01:22:55,680
No purchase necessary.
But we don't love anybody who

1414
01:22:55,720 --> 01:22:58,600
doesn't love us.
Thanks for listening to Unwashed

1415
01:22:58,600 --> 01:23:01,200
and Unruly and thank you to Eli
for joining us.

1416
01:23:01,200 --> 01:23:03,840
And please read her book links
in the show notes.

1417
01:23:03,960 --> 01:23:06,720
Please follow us also on
Spotify, Apple Podcast, or

1418
01:23:06,720 --> 01:23:09,360
wherever you find us.
And make sure to also rate and

1419
01:23:09,360 --> 01:23:12,640
review and check out our
website, unwashedun-ruly.com.