From the ECLU, this is at Liberty.

I'm Kendall Seesmeyer, your host.

This Friday, we celebrate international transgender day of visibility,

an opportunity to celebrate the many contributions trans people have made to society, as well as raise

awareness for the work that needs to be done to achieve gender equality for us all.

Our guests today have been fighting to make New Orleans a safer place for transgender and gender

non-conforming people in the face of a pernicious law that is targeted and criminalized

to them. In addition to building safe spaces for black trans women to rest, learn, live, and thrive,

Wendy Cooper and Milan Sherry have dedicated their lives to repealing this law, a law that once

threatened their own lives. We are currently witnessing a wave of anti-trans legislation across the country, but the criminalization of trans people is nothing new.

For over 20 years, Louisiana's Crime Against Nature by solicitation law, or cans, for short, made offering oral or anal sex for money, a felony,

with penalties including up to five years in prison with hard labor and mandatory registration

on the sex offender database. These harsh penalties never applied to the state's other

anti-sex work laws and were specifically

designed to target queer people, especially black trans women. Louisiana strengthened Cairns in

1992, and in 2011, 40% of people on the New Orleans Sex Offender Registry were convicted under Cairns.

Of those, 75% were women and 79% were black.

A recent documentary, Cans Can't Stand, highlights Wendy, Milan, and others in their fight against Cans

and efforts to build community for trans women

in New Orleans and beyond. We are so excited to speak with them about their tenacious activism

and the experience of releasing Cairns can stand at a time of such backlash against LGBTQ

rights and representation.

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