Episode 1: Did Someone Turn The Hate Up In Here?

 Sophie: Okay, it's recording now.

Natalie: Perfect.

Sophie: Hello, Natalie.

Natalie: Hey Sophie, how you feeling

Sophie: I'm feeling great. How are you feeling?

Natalie: I'm feeling good. I'm feeling good. I'm like, I am literally just coming out of a, a doctor health thing situation. Um, but I'm okay. I'm alive. And yeah, I feel like very thankful. And we're about to jump into legislative season, so thankful,

Sophie: my goodness. Yes. Yes. Natalie. Welcome to our very first episode in which we are documenting and sharing this documentation of anti-trans legislation , and everybody who pushed back against it.

Natalie: We hate it. We hate it. We love them.

Sophie: Here's our opening segment.

[Opening Segment]

Sophie: Okay, so again, this is the first episode of our short podcast series on the resistance to anti-trans bills in Louisiana, and it seems like a good idea to start with some context, you know?

Natalie: Yeah.

Sophie: You know, so people will know the things

Natalie: Yeah.Oh, wait, are, were you even looking to me to give context?

Sophie: no, no.

Natlie: Oh, okay.

Sophie: Well, I suppose I just paused, but you know, we're thinking about context, right? Because the, the larger projects we're looking at mostly the 2021 and 2022 legislative sessions.

Natalie: Mm-hmm.

Sophie: And, and the changes that have happened in Louisiana during this time and the changes that have happened nationally during the last several years,

Natalie: Mm-hmm.

Sophie: but also, Natalie, Louisiana has never been a utopia for trans people.

Natalie: Exactly. We know that to be true. We know that to be true.

Sophie: In fact, there's just been all sorts of nasty things on the books for a very, very long time. One of the big things that we'll talk about here, because we had an opportunity to talk to people who know a lot about it, is the Crimes Against Nature by Solicitation Act.

That law which is regularly referred to as CANS, provides some context to resistance in the state also, I think. So now it's a really interesting time for you and I to be talking about this because that law has been on the books for a while. There's been significant resistance to it, luckily, and we can talk more about that in a second.

And there's also a beautiful documentary about that

Natalie: Shout out to Wendi Cooper. We love you

Sophie: the New Yorker recently, published an account of this CANS Can't Stand documentary. So let's do, let's just hear a little bit more about, the Crimes Against Nature Law. This is Wendi Cooper telling us a little bit about the, the context of that.

Wendi: The crime against Nature law, this was something that it was a experience that affected me about 20 something years ago.

And so, just to give people a little history about the crime against nature. So crime Against Nature is a law that it dates back into the 18 hundreds, the early 18 hundreds.

This law was used to punish folks for engaging in, you know, sexual activities that is not procreative, right? If you was caught, you know engaging in them type of sex acts during that time, you was, you would be punished

And so in 1982 Louisiana decided to resurrect the crime against nature law and, and added solicitation to it. And they, they was very strategic on how they was, they was going to write that law without saying that they are, they are discriminating against this particular community, right? And so what they did was they began to add solicitations to crime against nature, and then they began to add compensation to the law

Prosecutors and a lot of Police officers used their law to weaponize, right, a community that was marginalized, which is the LGBTQ community.

And so you didn't even have to be engaging in sex work. Just being L G B T Q identified individual. You was able to get stopped and be, and be charged with Crime Against Nature by Solicitation.

Sophie: And so the law did a lot of harm, right, to the LGBTQ plus population, particularly to black and poor communities, so hundreds of individuals, largely in New Orleans, we're forced to register sex offenders due to this law, which is, which is, this is my important, um, analysis that's, that's fucked up.

Natalie: Yeah,

Sophie: I, I don't know that we need to dwell a whole lot on it, but, uh, being able to do basically anything when you're a registered sex offender is particularly difficult.

Natalie: Hmm. And I mean, even like having a list of registered sex offenders in a particular way doesn't, isn't surely, isn't meant to like rehabilitate or like keep anyone safer. More so than it is to like isolate people from society in a particular way maybe.

Sophie: Would you like to say a little bit more about Wendi? I know that most of what we have from Yes. Right. Most of what we have from Wendy is actually coming from a, a wonderful interview that you did with her.

Natalie: Yeah. I was.

Sophie: yeah. Let's talk about this.

Natalie: So, so, so thankful, um, to be able to do this interview with Wendi. And so, yeah, Wendi and I talked about a bunch of different things, but some of the most important things that came from that interview is that Wendi a has been doing organizing work for basically, 20 plus years. And basically Wendi is someone who is, who started out like, you know, working with the girls.

I remember her, she had a program called Girl With a Pearl at Women with the vision that I went to one time. Um, and she's done a lot of, specifically, like a lot of organizing specifically for like, women in general, and Black trans women specifically. And a lot of her work goes into the systems of incarceration and systems of criminal justice, quote unquote.

And then building the folks power to navigate those systems. So like giving them the resources that they need, providing them access to education. Um, and just in general, Wendi is a standup person who you wanna be on like next to who you wanna be like in the movement with, who you will be laughing with, who can cook down.

Um, I think some of the biggest one of the most important things that came out of our interview is that she has such deep love and affirmation for her community, but mostly for her family. She's a mother of three. Um, really bright and like high achieving kids. And so she's just a possibility model for so many trans folks on what their lives can be.

And yeah. We love you Wendi. She's the founder and executive director of Transcending Women. Like Sophie said earlier, you can find her in a New Yorker cuz she's a boss bitch. And overall like a powerful, oh, she also has a master's degree too. I'm like, she's an educated woman. I'm like, . It's uh, yeah, Wendi's one of those people who you look to, um, and you're like, oh, that's what my life could be like, possibly.

And so just a little bit more on Wendi

Wendi: and so up until 2011, you know me and eight other plaintiffs who challenge it challenged the state of Louisiana, but we challenge it as a John and Jane Doe, we won.

Right. And so I was happy. I was happy the fact that I didn't have to deal with that anymore, but, I wasn't completely happy because I still was a person who had a felony conviction. Right. On their record. Right. And so you un when you have that type of status, you know, you unable to get a job, you unable to get into a, a nice apartments mm-hmm.

you know, you unable to get into places that, that requires you not to have, you know, that type of status.

I wanted people to see that like, this is the system that we have to deal with, but this is the system that we have to vote for.

This is the system that we have to vote to make sure that, because they give us fake promises and we have to vote. And then once we vote for them, then they renege and they turn their backs on us. Exactly. That part. Right. And so I wanted people to see that this system that you see, it operates under antiquation. It's very old.

Mm-hmm. , it's afraid of progression. Because of the, the, the, the wrong that they have sold into this world for so many years. Mm-hmm. and they're afraid to, to rewrite their wrongs. Not wanted people to see this is the system that as black trans women, this is what we have to face.

Natalie: The CANS Can't Stand campaign alongside community of trans organizers and in Operation Restoration, which is an organization that is around directly addresses the criminal justice system as it relates to women in reentry. They do a lot of different programs around that.

And the goal of CANS Can't Stand is to remove the felony conviction imposed on those convicted by the crimes against nature laws. As we know, the legal system is meant to put barriers in the way of particular communities. And this is a perfect example, y'all. This work that they did at CANS Can't Stand and Operational Restoration led to their founding of Transing Women, um, which I said earlier, Wendi's executive director.

And in the Future episode in for Last Call website on our places of black trans joy. You hear a lot more about transcending women. You should be sure to checkout Wendy's documentary.

Sophie: It's interesting because this bill didn't actually mention transgender people, right? And that I think, is gonna be one of the big changes that we see coming up as we talk about changes happening nationally.

But this bill was definitely used to target that population, right? The lgbtq plus population, primarily the, the black LGBTQ plus population. Also, this is an example in which we can see a lot of the resistance being built around it. A lot of the pushback happening, a lot of the organizing coming out and really making significant changes, right?

The fight for this isn't over, but, um, the law doesn't look the same as it did. It's not as punitive as it was. And I, I think that's one good example. Another good example is what was happening at a breakout. Um, and I know that you were, you were part of this to varying degrees, I think, at different times, so I wonder if you would be willing to just explain this to us a little bit.

Natalie: Yeah, definitely. I sure can. So just shows you to relate to like while like we are here to talk about like legislative organizing in a particular way, we also know that all of it is intertwined and so that like the legislative system empowers police officers through their laws, the laws that they create to then go out and be like preservers of capital or to protect like white supremacist ideals are to protect people who have like lots of capital or money. And so one of the ways that this would manifest is that police in New Orleans and kind of across the country would be a harassing and attacking like L G B LGBTQ folks, particularly black trans women. Um, because they would be walking around with like condoms in their pockets.

Or they would be walking around like their shorts would be a certain length and they would be in certain areas known as "prostitution areas" of course, these could be people who would just be walking to go get something to then drink, or they can just be walking home from school.

And so people were being harassed by the police being assumed to be doing all types of things when they could have just been going to get a drink. And then not only were they being harassed, they were then being solicited for sex. They were then being misgendered. They were then being moved within violent ways.

And so an organization called Breakout, which um, I wasn't there at the founding of this organization, but an organization in 2011 called Breakout came and they were like, actually, yo, slow your roll hold on there's a whole lot happened in here. And so, um, I came around in, around 2012 after they had started to form policy will become policy 4 0 2 and to help them to advocate to like, add some language to it, but then to also I want to say like Rally for approval and passage and so yeah, I feel the things that we're hearing, like the same types of laws that we're hearing about the crimes against nature laws and the way that police were interacting with people are very much so in alignment with each other. And so while in Baton Rouge they were writing these laws and passing them, in the streets of New Orleans this is how it manifested harassment to trans and queer individuals.

So, the policy includes protocols for stopping and searching transgender individuals and mandates that officers be trained on issues pertaining to the LGBTQ community.

Most importantly, the policy specifically mandates that officers shall not use an individual's actual or p perceived gender identity are sexual orientation as reasonable suspicion or probable cause that an individual is or has engaged in any crime.

And so basically what that is saying is that you can't use my gender identity or my sexual orientation just to assume that I'm doing anything if I'm in any particular part of the city, because there was a lot of assumption of what people were doing based upon who they were or if they could afford to be in that area or what would they be doing there At this time of night, like I'm doing, like people were doing the same thing y'all were doing.

People were going dancing, having drinks, enjoying themselves. This is the French Quarter, like why would we not be here?

Of course, now we can look back on it and be like, Yeah, this is actually one of the most comprehensive bills that have been passed in the country around policing and it's relationship to trans folks.

Um, and we know a lot more now than we did then. We know that policies aren't gonna be the thing that get us to freedom. Um, they were never gonna be that, but they are an instrumental tool, just like legislative organizing is an instrumental tool and moving the needle forward. And so, It was really cool to be in those rooms with people who were like power mapping and who were like identifying who the candidates were.

We were training ourselves on how to be PR people. I remember I did my first interview here. And so yeah, through this work, CANS Can't Stand and Breakout will be planting seeds for people coming together and pushing up against systems bigger than us basically.

Sophie: I like what you said about how no policy's really gonna save us. No legislative work is really gonna save us, but they are instrumental. Right, and And they're both connected, as you said, right? So like you see the police acting out the laws that are passed in the Capitol, and speaking of the laws that are passed in the capitol.

Natalie, Jesus Christ, the laws that are passed and this capital.

So let's Let's do a little bit, a little bit more context, right? We're gonna think a little bit. So that's Louisiana. That shit's been going on eighties, nineties, into the two thousands and the battles are being fought here around these things, but for the most part, we're not seeing a lot of legislation coming through the Louisiana State House that are trans-specific.

Natalie: Mm-hmm. . Mm.

Sophie: This is true even when it starts to kick up across the country. So just, we're thinking again about North Carolina. We're thinking about those bathroom bills. We're thinking about all the other states that sort of followed suit with that and in Louisiana, we didn't really see that happen. And I think there's a lot of really wonderful reasons for that, which we'll talk about in future episodes. A lot of really beautiful insights that people have offered to us.

But what I do wanna say in the national trend to target trans folks, right? So Louisiana was able to slide under the radar for some time. And in fact, it wasn't until 2020 that the first specifically anti-trans bill was introduced in Louisiana. And we're gonna start by listening to some thoughts from our interviewees, during the course of this project about the national trends.

And then we'll turn and we'll listen a little bit about what's happening specifically in Louisiana.

to help us think about the national trends, let's hear briefly from some of the folks that we've interviewed over the last few years. First up, we'll hear from A'Niya Robinson, who is the advocacy strategist at A C L U of Louisiana.

After that, you'll hear from Corrin Green policy and legislative strategist at Equity Federation. And then after that you'll hear Dylan Wageuspack, who has long been active in Louisiana legislative work and who is now Chief Executive Director of True Colors United. Let's take a listen

A'Nyia: In response to your question about, do I think there's a shift happening? Absolutely. Like when you think about when these anti trans bills started popping up all over the country, 2020 people really started to finally pay attention okay this is weird. What is this? And then 2021, that was actually the highest number of anti-trans bills that was filed across the country. 2021 was the year that we saw the most and they covered so many different things. They covered bathroom access, they covered updating your ID documents. It covered sports, healthcare access, all of these things. And unfortunately in 2022, we broke that record. So this year, even more transphobic bills were filed than what was previously the record in 2021.

There's definitely a multi-state effort to remove trans people from public life that is clear and there's really no denying that.

Corrine: I think that our opponents are exploiting two facts right now. They've identified that people are broadly unfamiliar with trans people and they're exploiting that. And then they know that people have an innate desire to defend children from things they don't understand. And so they've combined those two critical points that they've identified into this attacks on trans kids that they're able to use to drum up froth in their base. I think for the most part it's pretty cynical. There are certainly some true believers, but I think a lot of the folks at the top don't really care and they just use it as a motivating issue.

Dylan: 2016, when we started seeing bathroom bills pop up, I thought, this is the worst it's gonna be, right? This is our really bad moment. It's here, it's arrived. We have to face it. We have to figure it out. And it was, don't get me wrong, it was incredibly distressing. It was very bad. And now I look back on that and I'm like, Wow, things are so much worse politically in this moment. And that is the opposite of what I think a lot of people expected because we saw with gay rights, you know, this like incredibly rapid advancement over a period of a decade, basically, where we went from literal criminalization of same sex relationships to marriage equality, right? In the course of you and i's lifetime, basically from our birth to young adulthood like that happened, and so I think that there was this like expectation that trans rights would follow the same pattern, but they never have.

That's just like not, that's just not what this looks like. That's not what this work is. It's not what this community is. And I think a lot of people were trying to sound that warning. At the time that marriage became such an incredible, you know, like, rallying cry in the like L G B Q, not even Q, the L G B sort of centered equality.

But we weren't really listened to and so anyways, that goes back to like right now, things really are worse than they have been in a long time, politically . But we have more visibility than we've ever had in US history. And that's happening alongside this incredible vocal white supremacy movement and, and fascist movement that we're seeing across not just the south, but the entire fucking country.

Sophie: so, that's the national stage. And that's what gets funneled down to the state level to us here in Louisiana. We saw it in 2020, the first, the first, anti trans sports bill is introduced, but it because it was 2020, everybody's focused on the pandemic, so nothing really happens. And then in 2021, we get more than ever.

So we have two sports related bills, two healthcare related bills,All of them are defeated. And then 2022 was even worse. And all of them were, all of them again, were defeated except for that very original sports bill. So after three tries, they got it through.

Natalie: Ah, yeah, so three tries and, and with the 2022 edition, an additional friend came along to, don't say Gay Bill too.

Sophie: That's right

Natalie: Yeah, so at first it was just healthcare and sports bans, and then in 2022, their good friend the "don't say gay" bill came along the play

Sophie: Yes, they thought, you know, for good measure. Let's go ahead and throw this one in. Um, they were like, if it's good enough of Florida,

Natalie: Right? I'm like, who are we not to copy and paste it?

Sophie: if we're if Texas loves it, we could love it too. Uh, and that, and that's really interesting, right? Because, you know, our southern neighbors, Louisiana is a little bit different. Even when the national scene was getting more and more grim.

Natalie: Mm-hmm.

Sophie: Thinking about what's happening at the national stage, interviewees are pointing out the effect of trump being elected in 2016 to shenanigans related to the pandemic, where it was a political stance to act like you didn't care about it, and to use it as fodder to find new people to pick on and finding an enemy like trans people, especially like trans, trans children, is of course, you know, a distraction, a way to distract people from all sorts of things that you want to get away with. And that's what we're seeing all over the nation.

Natalie: And you know what else we're seeing all over the nation too is like each year there being an increase of the numbers of deaths of trans women of color, and the fact that none of those things come up in any, like we try and bring them up. But even as we're seeing right alongside the increase of like anti-trans legislation is the increase of like trans people being killed and murdered every year, both by interpersonal and state sanctioned violence.

And sorry, not to like get too grim on us, but , alongside these national trends, the same worldwide trend of trans people dying at disproportionate rates to their percentage of the population is increasing as well.

Sophie: One of the major things that sets Louisiana apart from our Southern neighbors and from a lot of states across the country, is that over the last decade or so there have been trans people in the Capitol working there, getting to know the lawmakers. Making their presence known, doing education.

And that made it harder for any specifically anti-trans legislation to hang on and grow roots here.

Let's hear from Peyton Rose Michelle, about that. Peyton is the Executive Director of the Louisiana Trans Advocates, which is our statewide trans and non-conforming organization.

Peyton: as trans people, we've been really grateful here in Louisiana that we've been in the building for a decade. So legislators really know trans people. The same tactics that work in other states don't work here as easily, I'll say, because we've been in the building, educating people about trans issues and trans people.

So most of these people have already been introduced to trans people. We were really grateful to have that kind of history and presence in in the building.

We'll also hear from Corrine, who we heard from above

Corrine: We have been even still relatively insulated here in Louisiana. Our, neighboring states have seen several anti-trans bills introduced. The south is a hotbed for this stuff. But here in Louisiana, we have a really great track record, and I think that's due to the efforts of trans people over the last 10 years or so to be present and visible at the capital and in the political process.

But I'm, I am, I'm obviously worried that we will pick up all the bills that are landing in other places. But I also think that we're better prepared than a lot of other places that have seen those. And we've demonstrated our power several times over the past few years in terms of ginning up a massive response when an anti-trans bill is filed. We're able to drive media coverage to drive organizing impact to drive calls because of the work that's been put in the past in a way that our opponents have to account for and reckon with, and build into their equations when they're calculating how far they can push their bad bills.

And so after a couple of years of being able to avoid trans-specific shenanigans, all that's been going on across the country, Louisiana finally gets noticed, right? And I think there's a, there's kind of a lot of reasons why this might be we're are very thankful to everyone we spoke to who's willing to think about what was different here and why that difference eventually faded to the extent that it has.

Natalie: We'll hear from SarahJane Guidry. SarahJane is the Executive Director of Forum for Equality, Louisiana's, LGBTQ+ plus human rights organization.

SarahJane: We're now seeing the effects of the 2016 election of Donald Trump and the movement of those types of elected officials, these very staunchly, hardcore- right people that we've never really seen in Louisiana before. And I mean that in a, in a very weird way, like I know that we have very homophobic, racist, older white men.

But it was almost like unsouthern of them. Right? They were like, "I won't vote that way though." You know what I mean? Like they're like, " Yeah, maybe I'm uncomfortable with a gay person, but do I think they should be discriminated against like, "no," and here they're like, "Yes. Get them out." And it's just like so crazy to me.

Cuz it's, it really has been such an aggressive turn and with the aggressive turn this animosity, this hatred that we're seeing is in direct correlation to the increase of power and impact that we're having.

It is literally saying, "Stay in the closet, get back in your place. This is not okay. You're being too strong. You're being too powerful and we're gonna knock you down and we're gonna do it in the most harmful way possible at the knees." And we're just saying "No, Absolutely not."

Natalie: We'll hear from Dietz. Dietz is a beloved medical educator and organizer and works with TIDAL amongst many other projects.

Dietz: I sense that there are more political puppets who are willing to be like, "okay, bigger, right wing conservative mission. What do you want me to put on the ballot this year?" I think individually, they might not even hate trans people that much. They're just following whatever the larger political strategy is. Which makes it really frustrating because I think if you catch any of these legislators, like one on one and really grill them, they all kind of like back scramble and aren't really even sure how to engage in talking about it. Louisiana is just like ripe for a lot of follow through from right wing conservative legislators who don't even really care what they're bringing to the table as long as it's advancing the larger, the larger picture.

Sophie: I really like Sarah Jane's observation that for a long time people may have hated us in the capitol, but it was un southern, honestly, to pick on us just downright like impolite, you know what I mean? Like, oh, I'm not gonna tell you you can't be here. Whereas a new wave of people comes in and says, I will tell you, you can't be.

And we're like, oh, great. Thank you.

Natalie: No couth, couth. yeah, yeah, yeah. And I do think, again, noting, um, like shout to Peyton and Dylan who are like the, the newest round of leadership for the Louisiana Trans Advocates who have been around for a few decades at least.. Showing up to the capitol and taking up space and like planting the seeds for then now allows there to be like 50 trans people in the space, which we'll talk a little bit about in our, in our future episodes. But yeah, even that, like them showing up to the capitol and having have built a rapport with some of the legislators. Um, which, you know, like Sophie just said, is like kind of out the window because some people would just come through and just act the fool.

I'm like, yeah,

Sophie: And even though the national trend has definitely caught up with us here in Louisiana. I don't know that it would be fair to say that all the differences have faded. Here's Sarah Jane one more time talking about the capacity we now have as activists and organizers in Louisiana. And how our past moves us forward into the current climate.

SarahJane: I think that Louisiana has always been ready for that type of work. And a lot of that I will also say, goes to the fact that the people in our community now have capacity, now have time. There's an expansion of resources within community that allow people to have the time to volunteer, right? Like there's been so much of our community that has to work and work and work and survive. We're now seeing joy and love. I think that that's really what pushes this community work forward. And that's what, and that's, what's killing these bad bills. And what's protecting our community from the bad  bills.

Sophie: So again, the arc is this, Louisiana not a great place for trans people specifically, but not really caught up in the national craze of anti-trans legislation until very recently.

Natalie: And when that happened, there has been a beautiful coalition of people coming together to push back. Like, fuck that. We're not doing that. And that's what we're gonna talk about next time. I'm looking forward to it.

I'm looking forward to it as well. Yeah. I hope folks feel like they had got a good context. We're, we're. , did we talk about the context of our connection? Like how we came?

Sophie: Oh, we didn't, let's do it.

Natalie: Yeah. I'm like, just so y'all know,

Sophie O h yeah. I don't think we introduce ourselves at all.

Natalie: Right. Like, just like, oh no, like we're Louisiana Trans Louisiana Trans Oral History project. And last call oral history projects are two beloved Louisianan oral history projects, obviously, as you can tell by their names. And since 2021, I wanna say they've been coming together to kind of create oral history that it can also be used as cultural organizing, as a cultural organizing strategy. And to tell the stories that are neglected: trans and queer histories.

And so I'm Natalie Nia Faulk. I'm one of the co-directors of Last Call.

Sophie: Hey y'all. I'm Sophie. I am the founder of the Louisiana Trans Oral History Project, we got the two, we got the two big projects together.

[Closing Music]