887: Two Is One, One Is None!
This American Life
This American Life
4.5 • 91.3K Ratings
🗓️ 17 May 2026
⏱️ 59 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
One family faces the Trump administration’s ban on trans people serving in the military, and responds with a surprising secret weapon.
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- Prologue: Geirid and Chrissy are extreme planners. But about a year ago, they were confronted with a situation that even they had no idea how to plan for. (4 minutes)
- Act One: Geirid and Chrissy make an “in case of emergency, break glass” spreadsheet and get some big news. (14 minutes)
- Act Two: Geirid and Chrissy have less than a month to make a life-changing decision. The government gives them two options, and they try to find a third. (21 minutes)
- Act Three: A short story from Rachel Khong: Two people have a very consequential choice to make, given to them by God. (15 minutes)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show. |
| 0:05.3 | If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. |
| 0:11.4 | From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Laura Starchesky, sitting in for Ira Glass. |
| 0:18.9 | I'd been waiting for months for a certain moment to arrive. Garrett had |
| 0:23.6 | mentioned it. Chrissy had mentioned it. And here we all were. Sitting in their house in the |
| 0:29.0 | suburbs of D.C., we were in their living room. Their son was hopping around with an icy popsicle |
| 0:34.3 | in his hand. This was left in the freezer overnight. |
| 0:39.2 | I feel it. |
| 0:40.9 | And Garrett's laptop was right there. |
| 0:43.7 | Wasn't open yet. |
| 0:45.5 | But I was on the edge of my seat. |
| 0:48.0 | And finally, she asked me. |
| 0:50.0 | Are you ready for this? |
| 0:50.8 | I'm ready. |
| 0:51.3 | Okay. |
| 0:52.3 | Chrissy jumped in to hype it up. |
| 0:54.1 | It's beautiful. It's beautiful. |
| 0:55.1 | It's excellent. |
| 0:56.1 | Yeah. |
| 0:56.5 | It's a thing of beauty. |
| 0:58.1 | And Gerard opened the laptop and pulled up a file on her computer called Valkyrie after the Norse women warriors. |
| 1:06.9 | They were very into the Thor movies around this time. |
... |
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