This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

Pretty presciently back in 2012, Joe Biden said that trans rights would be the civil rights battle of our time.

And on his first day in office as president, Biden rolled back some of the Trump administration's orders on trans rights.

But civil rights don't just happen by executive order.

They're argued in the court of public opinion, in popular culture on television series and

talk shows, and they take sometimes a very long time to play out. Producer Gophane and Putubuele

has a story about that part of the struggle. The story starts in March of 2017 with an interview that the Nigerian writer Chimamanda

Ngozi Adichia was giving.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is probably the most famous African voice in the U.S.

alongside Trevor Noah and Lupida Njongo.

She's a hugely acclaimed novelist, but also at the time my generations kind of go-to

public feminist. I mean, now I get sent every book that has anything to the with gender,

but I don't feel that I'm the authority on feminism. She had given this viral TED talk that was

featured on the song by Beyonce.

We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller.

We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much.

You should aim to be successful, but not too successful.

Otherwise, you will threaten the man.

Feminist, a person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.

So it's 2017 Chima Mandangozzi Adichie, and British journalist Newman from Channel 4 News are seated on these red armchairs.

There's a wood table with a purple orchid plant growing up between them.

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