Hey fam, it's me, Amara Jones. Welcome to the Translash podcast, a show where we tell trans

stories to save trans lives. Well, as we've been saying on Translash, both this podcast and across all of our platforms

throughout the fall, trans bodies were on the ballot in 2022.

It was the election of bodily autonomy.

And now, since we have the results, or at least most of them, we can see what happened

and what it means for us right now

and what it means for our community moving forward.

In so many ways, it was a relief and historic breaking year for our community.

There were 678 LGBTQ candidates nationwide, a record-breaking year for queer candidates, and a record-breaking

year for trans candidates as well, like the first ever trans man elected to a state house

in U.S. history, James Rezner, in New Hampshire happening, and also the election of Zoe Zephyr in Montana,

showing that trans people can run and win everywhere. It is also the case that we also have

two lesbians who are governors of our country, which is also an important first. However, there's also an other hand where,

virulently, anti-trans governors, namely Governor Abbott of Texas and Governor DeSantis of Florida,

both of whom have made targeting trans people a key part of their elections swept to victory, sending them up as possible candidates

for the GOP in 2024.

At the time of this podcast, Donald Trump is poised to also run again possibly in 2024, the most

directly anti-trans president we've had who has increasingly made targeting trans people

an issue for his campaigns and the growing use of anti-trans rhetoric in federal races for the first time.

So there's a ton to unpack. And so that's why I'm excited to talk with Caitlin Burns about all of this, given her

deep experience as a trans reporter in Washington, looking at all of the aspects of politics

and how it impacts all of us. But before we get deeper into this podcast, I want to let you know

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