Hey fam, it's me, Amara Jones.

Welcome to the Translash podcast, a show where we tell trans stories to save trans lives.

Well, it's been just over a year since the war in Ukraine began, there have been hundreds of

thousands of casualties on both sides.

Against all odds, the Ukrainians have held on despite tremendous advantages held by the

Russian Federation and their military, one of the largest on earth.

But one of the ways that we got here is through the growing and creeping authoritarianism of Vladimir Putin.

In fact, the war would not have been possible unless Putin had managed to concentrate power

into his hands across two decades in Russia.

And one of the underreported stories is the way that his assault on trans people,

LGBT people overall, and an intense focus on gender was a key indicator for both

how Putin would grasp power and his ability to hold onto it. And of course, Putin's authoritarian playbook

is also being mimicked by candidates here in the United States wishing to do the same, of course

departing on their way to authoritarianism by using an assault on trans rights. So today, we'll be digging

into the issue of Putin's anti-LGBQ agenda

and its impacts on the Ukraine war and how we got here

with a true expert on the issue, award-winning journalist and author,

Masha Gessen.

I think that for autocrats such as Putin and Orban and the current ruling party in Poland,

the topic of LGBT rights and just the existence of LGBT people is super handy because it holds

everything at once.

And just a warning, Masha lives on a very busy street in New York City, which you may

...