Outward: Slate's LGBTQ podcast - How The Gay Rights Movement Became Trans- Exclusionary
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3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 16 April 2025
⏱️ 34 minutes
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Summary
In this episode, Christina Cauterucci speaks with Zein Murib, Fordham professor and author of Terms of Exclusion: Rightful Citizenship Claims and the Construction of LGBT Political Identity, about the historical roots of the marginalization of trans and bi people in the gay rights movement. Zein, who recently wrote the Slate piece "Why Are Trans People Such an Easy Political Target? " breaks down how the movement’s focus on a narrow definition of identity left trans and bi people vulnerable to political attacks.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Outward Slate's podcast about queer life. |
| 0:19.6 | I'm Christina Cauterucci, a senior writer at Slate. |
| 0:22.5 | And it's not news to any of you that since the very first day of Trump 2.0, this presidential |
| 0:29.0 | administration has been trying to delegitimize trans identity. Executive orders have decreed that |
| 0:35.0 | trans people are delusional and frauds. Officials have literally |
| 0:39.2 | erased the T from LGBT on websites and documents and signage. And this is a part of a broader |
| 0:45.9 | strategy among conservatives who have landed on trans people as a tiny minority that can be |
| 0:51.5 | easily demonized, even in a country that's made quite a bit of progress on gay rights. |
| 0:56.8 | The way they're doing that, of course, is by trying to separate trans people from lesbians, gays, and bisexuals, |
| 1:03.4 | as if our issues aren't, you know, totally unrelated, and our communities are totally segregated, and our futures aren't linked. |
| 1:10.1 | This isn't the end game, I should say. |
| 1:12.4 | They're obviously after gay rights, too, and they're not keeping that a secret. But it's much easier for |
| 1:17.4 | them to take their first big swings against trans people, separate from cisgender queer people, |
| 1:22.5 | and then use that opening to slowly raise questions about the LGBBs, too. So how did we get here? There's a political |
| 1:30.3 | science professor at Fordham University, Zane Mirab, who's been trying to answer that question. |
| 1:35.4 | Zane actually just wrote a piece for Slate about it. It's called Why Are Trans People Such an Easy |
| 1:40.0 | Political Target? Zane is the author of the book, Terms of Exclusion, Rightful Citizenship Claims |
| 1:45.9 | in the Construction of LGBT Political Identity. And I'm delighted to have Zane on the show with me this |
| 1:51.1 | week. That conversation is after the break. We're back with Zane Mirab to talk about Zane's peace in Slate. Why are trans people such an easy political target? Zane, welcome to Outward. |
| 2:19.3 | Thanks for having me. So I should say that's a pretty provocative question posed by the headline, |
| 2:25.1 | and there's a lot to unpack in your answer. But just briefly, you know, what's your thesis here, |
| 2:30.9 | and why did this feel like a productive moment to raise it? Yeah, so the piece builds on |
... |
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