Anti-Trans Playbook is Designed to Hurt Women, with Paisley Currah

Factually! with Adam Conover

Headgum

Comedy

4.6 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2026

⏱️ 79 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Why is it that the anti-trans movement is so ferociously set on upending the livelihood of people who are simply trying to live their lives? As it turns out, it’s because it’s part of a larger playbook to dismantle civil rights as we know them. Paisley Currah is a Professor of Political Science and Women’s and Gender Studies at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, the author of Sex Is as Sex Does: Governing Transgender Identity, and the writer of an essential new essay in the New York Review Books titled The Anti-Trans Playbook. Today Paisley joins Adam to discuss how we must approach the ongoing attacks on trans rights in America.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a headgum podcast.
0:05.0	I don't know the truth.
0:08.3	I don't know the way.
0:10.9	I don't know what to think.
0:13.6	I don't know what to say.
0:16.6	Yeah, but that's all right.
0:19.4	That's okay.
0:21.6	I don't know anything.
0:26.6	Hey there, I'm Adam Conover.
0:27.6	Thank you so much for joining me on the show.
0:29.6	Welcome to Factually.
0:31.6	You know, if you're someone who knows and loves trans people
0:34.6	or who cares about other people at all, you've probably been horrified
0:39.7	by the immense backslide on trans and queer rights that this country has gone through
0:45.0	in just the last few years. Bad faith political attacks have flourished fake panics about
0:50.9	trans people playing sports or using the bathroom or even just trans kids having
0:55.3	access to health care with their doctors?
0:58.1	Well, all of that has helped fascists rise to power.
1:02.0	They literally ran on demonizing this vulnerable minority population in order to create their
1:09.0	fascist takeover of the country.
1:11.4	And now that they're in power, they are using that power to make life worse for trans people.
1:17.1	We are seeing an unprecedented wave of anti-trans legislation around the country,
	...

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