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Now, welcome to the award-winning BestOfALeft podcast with clips today from Backtalk, from Bitch Media, Talk Poverty Radio, Humorous Queers, Dan Savage, Democracy Now, Activism from the ACLU, and a TED Talk by Ivan Coyote.

Here's the deal. It's that a bunch of different states, including over the last year, you know, the Legislatures of South Dakota, Illinois, Washington, Oklahoma, and North Carolina, have all considered bills that are really trans-masoginistic.

And that here's the rallying cry of these bills, no men in women's bathrooms. So Republican and right-wing legislators in all those states have pushed these bills that say that the cities and counties in those states can't pass LGBT anti-discrimination measures.

And so, typically, they ban transgender people from using the bathroom that fits their gender identity. And so, really, these bathroom bills, the most recent one, just passed in North Carolina and was signed into law last week. And the governor of the state was really pushing hard for and was happy to sign it.

And so, the response to an anti-discrimination measure that the city of Charlotte, North Carolina passed last year after a lot of thought and consideration. It's clear that these bills, I mean, we should just call them what they are, they're a hate bill. They're really geared around the politics of fear.

And I think what's most insidious about these bills, which we're saying pop up all over the country, is that what they're using is they're using this rhetoric around needing to protect women in order to repeal and attack anti-discrimination measures, which that's a mental leap that takes a couple of leaps to go.

And you know, what the people who are back in these bills are saying is that if you allow transgender people to use the bathroom that is in that is in affirmation with their gender, they are going to rape women in the bathrooms.

It's just like what?

Essie Smith, who's a contributor to bitch and also a great person, wrote a great piece in Rolling Stone summing up the reasons behind these bathroom bills.

And Essie wrote in Rolling Stone, there's a reason bathroom bills are exploding right now. It's not just about trans visibility and a growing sense of transphobia and conservative communities as they're forced to come to grip with the existence of the trans community.

It's also closely associated with the 2016 presidential election, which Republicans want to maintain their stranglehold on Congress.

For them, opposing trans rights dovetails neatly with the interests of the right allowing candidates to come out swinging against civil rights to appeal to conservative voters.

So what Essie is really saying is that trans people are basically being used as a political chip here, whose rights can be bargained away because Republicans are trying to score some political victories and scare people into coming out to the polls by saying,

men are going to come into women's restrooms and rape you. And that's a really horrible line.

Right. And so I learned a new word while I was helping you edit some of these pieces. We also have pieces on bichmedia.org about this.

Down ticket to these measures.

Down ticket. Yeah, these measures get voters and so that they would vote down ticket.

So it may be like somebody who's very transphobic would go to vote against this measure.

And then while they're in the polling place, they'll end up voting for a bunch of Republicans to sit in their state legislator or in other like local seats.

Because you know, that's another thing we talk about when we talk about politics is that local seats actually have a lot more power than we give them credit for.

And you need to get, but they're not sexy or fun to vote for.

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