Hi, everybody and welcome to Outward, Slate's LGBT podcast.

I'm Brian Lauder and editor at Slate. And this week, we're going to

take a bit of a step back from the endless flurry of Trump administration news and consider

a broader view of how we got here. Specifically, we're going to look at how an anti-trans movement

that just a year or two ago build itself as being merely about, quote,

protecting children, transformed so quickly into a far more ambitious and vicious one,

attacking the lives of trans adults and trans youth alike. As we know, that Save the Kids

branding strategy unfortunately worked on a lot of people, especially parents, across the political

spectrum,

and Trump's campaign invested in it to the tune of many millions of dollars in anti-trans political

ads. Yet, on Trump's first day of office, it was passports and official gender markers that

his State Department went after, and the project of limiting the scope of trans public life

has only escalated from there.

To help us understand this shift, or you might accurately call it a con job, I'll be joined today by

journalist and friend of the show Nico Lang, who's recently published a piece in slate under the

headline. It was never about protecting kids. We're going to take a short break, but before we do listeners, I just wanted to

remind you that if there are any news stories, social media situations, or questions about this

really scary moment that you would like to hear us cover, please contact us at outward

podcasteslate.com. We want to know what's concerning you and what you need to know more about

as we all navigate the coming months and years ahead.

So again, you can always reach us at our podcast to slate.com. And remember to see all of Slate's

coverage of this unfolding crisis, go to slate.com slash tag slash transgender. All right. We'll be back

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