Hey, fam, it's me, Amara.

Welcome to the TransLash podcast, a show where we tell trans stories to save trans lives.

Well, the election last week was a resounding victory for Democrats and a rare sign of hope for many that during a time

when authoritarianism is on the rise, that a different future might be possible. There's been a lot of

analysis about what these electoral wins might be saying about the Trump administration,

if it's losing support, or what's going on with the Democratic

Party, could they actually be staging a comeback? But one angle that's critical to note is that the

wins across the country in many ways were a victory for trans people and a defeat for anti-trans politics.

So what does this all mean? Well, actually

quite a lot, especially when you hone in on the victory of Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger

in Virginia, where she won by double digits over the lieutenant governor there who pressed the gas

on a string of anti-trans attacks at the end of the campaign,

as well as school board races across the country where Mom's for Liberty faced a string of interesting defeats,

especially in places like Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

So in this episode, we're going to dig into some of these big

stories around the election and what they mean for our community. We'll be talking with reporters

who are detailing all of this from the ground up. First, I talk with Charlotte Renee Woods,

who is the politics, health and housing reporter for the Virginia Mercury,

who helps us understand what happened in Virginia.

I think here in Virginia, there was, you know, a little bit of a pushback on,

let's put some checks and balances on the GOP majorities in Washington.

Then I speak with journalist Cyril Mikaleiko about what happened into politically significant school board races that we reported on in this year's anti-trans hate machine in Pennsylvania.

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