Let's Talk About Trump's Trans Ban

Nancy

WNYC Studios

Gay, Documentary, Society & Culture, Sexuality, Lgtbq, Lesbian, Relationships, Asian, Politics, Conversations, Storytelling, Health & Fitness, Homosexuality

4.8 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 27 July 2017

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

An estimated 15,000 trans people currently serve in the U.S. military. We spoke with Jordan Blisk, a former senior airman in the U.S. Air Force Reserves, about why he wanted to serve to begin with, and how it transformed his life for the better.

— Here's BuzzFeed's comic about Jordan's experience being trans in the military.

Nancy theme by Alexander Overington.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	So, Ben.
0:01.0	Kathy.
0:02.0	So, we started yesterday like we do so many days and that is with a flurry of push notifications
0:08.5	and news alerts.
0:09.5	Right.
0:10.5	So, President Donald Trump announced on Twitter that the military would ban transgender
0:14.0	people from serving in any capacity.
0:16.9	Which in our circles was pretty devastating.
0:19.5	Yeah.
0:20.5	So, we thought we'd jump in with a quick bonus episode of Nancy.
0:23.4	Right.
0:24.4	So, just to give you an idea, there may be as many as 15,000 transgender people currently
0:29.7	serving in the armed forces.
0:31.8	And starting last summer, they were allowed to serve openly in the military.
0:36.3	And then Wednesday happened.
0:38.7	There's still a lot of confusion about what the tweets actually mean.
0:41.5	The Pentagon seemed caught off guard and the story continues to develop.
0:45.5	So as we're trying to get our head around all of this, we wanted to take a step back and
0:50.0	talk to someone who not only served but also navigated what it's like to be trans while
0:55.3	in the service.
0:56.9	My name is Jordan Blisk.
0:57.9	I'm 23.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WNYC Studios, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of WNYC Studios and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.