You're going to be. Hello and welcome to Outward the Queerest Podcast in All of the Land.

I'm Brian Lauter and editor at Slate and today we are continuing our conversation with Chase Strangio,

Trans Right Advocate and Lawyer with the ACLU.

If you haven't listened to last week's episode with the Chase, please do do Jules and I really really loved

having that conversation and Chase just did an incredible job honestly breaking down

the current rash of anti-trans laws and

taking us inside what he's thinking about them as a lawyer and as a trans human being of course

and letting us know what to watch for legally this year.

But we also talked to Chase about the pitfalls of visibility

and how to go about building coalitions

and true solidarity outside the courtroom.

And that's the part of the discussion you're going to hear today.

In mid-February, Chase published an op-ed in the New York Times titled Trans Visibility is nice, safety is even better.

It's such a great title and such an important piece. This idea of whether visibility is good or bad, helpful or harmful,

is something that all oppressed minority groups have to wrestle with.

But it can feel especially pressing or even maybe really confusing for trans people right now.

In fact, let me just read you a little excerpt from this

op-ed that gets it to these issues. This is Chase. In the past several years

popular culture in Hollywood and publishing has begun to elevate and even

celebrate trans characters.

That's a welcome change.

And yet, while we can finally at least on occasion see or read accurate stories of our lives,

...