Masha Gessen on the Battle Over Trans Rights

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 March 2023

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Many culture-war politicians are attacking the rights of trans people, and making a regressive view of gender as biology the key to their platforms. In this episode, David Remnick talks to two people who’ve found themselves at the center of the battle over transgender rights. In Nebraska, a state senator has committed to filibustering every piece of legislation to ward off a vote on a Republican-sponsored bill that would ban gender-affirming care for trans people under age nineteen. Then Masha Gessen—who fled Russia years ago as an L.G.B.T. person targeted by government repression—explains why anti-trans messaging has been effective for the right, and why discussions of trans issues can be fraught even for those who support them.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:09.9	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.
0:13.7	When you think about the issues facing our country today, what comes first to mind?
0:19.3	Well, there's a major land war in Europe and the possibility of direct conflict with Russia.
0:24.4	Relations with China are getting steadily worse.
0:27.8	And there's always the global climate emergency.
0:31.0	Or look at things at home, radical disparities in income, economic turmoil, the frequency of gun violence.
0:38.6	And yet for many politicians, particularly on the right,
0:42.2	these issues are not as enticing as the culture wars,
0:45.5	especially the subject of gender and trans identity.
0:49.5	Whether it's Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis at home
0:52.2	or Vladimir Putin in Russia, They're trumpeting trans people
0:57.0	as a mortal threat to culture, to society, and to the minds of impressionable children.
1:02.9	That's the subject of our program today. A little later, we'll hear from the New Yorkers
1:07.3	Masha Gessen, who writes with great depth and perception on LGBTQ issues.
1:13.1	But first I want to talk with a politician who's in the midst of this fight, on its front lines, really.
1:19.6	Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the George W. Norris Legislative Chamber for the 39th day of the 108th legislature.
1:29.6	According to the ACLU, nearly 400 state-level bills are targeting gay and trans people.
1:37.2	Lawmakers are introducing those bills from Maine to Oregon and almost everywhere in between.
1:42.7	In the Nebraska State House, Republicans put forward what they called the Let Them Grow Act.
1:48.4	And since their party holds about two-thirds of the seats, they expected that bill to pass quite easily.
1:54.6	Until a state senator named Michaela Kavanaugh stepped into the breach.
	...

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