Gender Outlaws

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign hey there. Welcome to the show where we dissect the headlines and challenge the status quo. I'm Bobby Socks. And today we're cutting through the noise surrounding Transgender Day of Visibility. Yeah, that's right, March 31st. A day to celebrate trans lives, but also a day that's become a lightning rod for, shall we say, robust debate. Look, in a society where media manipulation is practically an Olympic sport, it's crucial to understand what's really going on. This isn't just about abstract policy or culture war talking points. It's about real people, real lives, and the constant barrage of misinformation they face. We're going to dive into the legislative battles, the media's often skewed portrayal, and the impact of these narratives on the trans community. We'll be looking at how visibility can be both a source of strength and a point of vulnerability. We will also touch on the history of the day itself and how it came to be. Think of this episode as your critical thinking toolkit for navigating the complex landscape of trans rights in America. We're not here to preach, we're here to help equip you with the facts and the context to make sense of it all. Because let's be honest, in a world where owning the libs is a political strategy, understanding the human cost is more important than ever. As always, you can follow us, sign up for our newsletter and find out more about the show [email protected] Don't forget to subscribe to us in your favorite podcast app as well. Hit the like button wherever possible and so on. If you'd like to donate and help kickstart our efforts, you can head over to buymeac coffee.com critical defiance. [00:02:02] Speaker B: All right guys, so this week we're going to attempt to run through the news a little quicker than usual. And that's because we've got a lot of content this episode. It's a special day for my co host and for a lot of people throughout the world. We want to focus on that. So let's kind of blow through the news real quick, cover the pertinence of last week and then roll on through. One of the stories we wanted to update you on was the story of Sam Nordquist. Sam we reported on a few times, starting back in February actually, and In February of 2025, a 24 year old transgender man from Minnesota named Sam Nordquist was killed after being tortured for over a month. New York State Police and local law enforcement in Hopewell arrested five people ages 19 to 38 who were charged with second degree murder with depraved indifference. Two more suspects, a 29 year old woman and a 21 year old man, were also charged with the same offense on February 20th. Some of those charges have since been upgraded to first degree murder because along the way we found out that they did things like force children to participate in torturing this man. When we demonize people, we get what we pay for. This is what happens. And if we let them do it, this will just be the beginning. You know, that's my two cents. What do you think, Bobby? I know this one's hard for you. [00:03:26] Speaker A: Yeah, this one is hard. It's like the more details that get brought to light, the more like I feel nauseous or get like legitimate like chills hearing about it. [00:03:41] Speaker B: The level of depravity of this crime is insane. They kept this person prisoner for a month and tortured them. For what? Wanting to be another guy? [00:03:56] Speaker A: For being different, for daring to be themselves, be himself. This one hits hard. It's scary. And as a trans person living in the US right now, Sam's story sometimes feels like a warning to the rest of the trans community as like, you know, you guys are next. Yeah, that, that's how trans people see murders like this. Obviously murder is always a problem, but when you have over a month of torture involving children, all the details that get added, it really just, yeah, we. [00:04:42] Speaker B: We made a decision a ways back not to go too deep into the details here because they really are that horrific. And I, I'm not going to recommend you go out and seek them. I'm going to caution you against it actually. This, this was among the worst things I've ever seen fellow members of my species do. And you know, we talk about how we demonize people, we talk about how we vilify people. And one of the ways we do that, unfortunately, is through things like the legal system too. And Bobby and I were having a conversation the other day. You learned a statistic from the ACLU that was just staggering, you know. [00:05:22] Speaker A: So the ACLU has been a great source recently for, for me specifically being trans with everything they have right now on what's happening to us in the country. The ACLU site right now currently has an interactive map which lists all of the proposed bills in the United States that are anti queer in 2025 across all 50 states. We currently have 527 anti queer bills. Remember, being a bill doesn't mean it's passed and that anything is happening yet. But the fact that we have this number alone is staggering. And these bills want to enforce things like sports bans and school bathroom bans. It's a very large list and large map. So I'd be more terrifying. Be honest. I have not looked into every bill because they get progressively terrifying. But we are even looking at some bills that want to make it so that school faculty members, if they notice or suspect a student is trans, have to immediately call that student's parents or caregivers and help them. [00:06:49] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a little crazy. [00:06:52] Speaker A: I mean, there are a lot of horrible bills on this map right now. When it comes to transportation, the forced outing really gets me. Like that's another thing that. And as someone who had it happen to them, it gut wrenching. [00:07:12] Speaker B: It's got to be humiliating. Yeah, humiliating. You got somebody standing there going, oh, and you're a fraud. Meanwhile, you're just trying to be yourself. [00:07:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's bills being proposed like that that are also aiding the stigma and the myths and the fear mongering of, oh, Stephen goes to school in the morning and comes home Samantha. [00:07:37] Speaker B: Yeah. And that is not the way this stuff works, not even remotely. But somehow, you know, the news organizations out there on the other side of things have made it sort of a Republican meme that kids get trans at school all the time. Somehow trans has become a verb. Like you can do it in 30 seconds. Give me a break. [00:07:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:57] Speaker B: You know, they don't know what they're talking about, but they're passing judgment over it. And it boggles my mind because we're talking about 1.1% of the population. So we're hyper targeting here. Why? To keep us from looking at our elected officials. To keep us from looking at the President. To keep us from looking at Elon Musk and Elon plays into all of this. Oh, yeah, because tell me about that. The way I heard it was as soon as Elon's daughter, the estranged trans daughter, criticized him. And I think it was in a Teen Vogue interview. [00:08:32] Speaker A: Yeah. So another way to demonize us trans people over here. According to Elon, trans people are one of the biggest problems with the Tesla protesting, and I think he almost called them Tesla attacks and vandalism. I'm looking it up because we're on hormones and we're on hormone therapy. Not every trans person is taking hormones, Elon. Not every trans person wants to be on hormones. Not to mention those who want to be but have no access. [00:09:10] Speaker B: Found it. Musk said. What are the statistics on trans violence? The probability of a trans person being Violent appears to be vastly higher than non. Trans Hormone injections cause extreme emotional volatility. That is simply a fact. Okay, Elon 1, where doth thine expertise come from, my friend? Is somebody on hormones? We want to know. Also, wait a second, are you a doctor now, too? What the fuck? [00:09:39] Speaker A: Also, I'm gonna add a three here, since you obviously know nothing about trans people, including your transgender daughter. Estrogen is in the pill. So if you're talking about hormone injections, talking about testosterone specifically, which a lot of CIS men also use testosterone injections for various different reasons. So if this was to get back at your daughter, you don't even know what medication she's on. [00:10:16] Speaker B: I think what he's doing is conflating steroids with hormones. [00:10:20] Speaker A: Yes. [00:10:20] Speaker B: And that's. That's basically it. So. All right, let's veer away from the musk shenanigans. Did you hear about President Trump's latest executive order on election? [00:10:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I believe it. It pulled some things from the Safe act that were pretty terrifying. [00:10:39] Speaker B: Yeah. The main one being having to prove your citizenship. And that's going to create a situation where, as you know, we had talked previously, very large number of women are not going to be able to vote initially when they re register or go to register because they're not going to have the proper id. They're going to be looking for multiple forms of ID that match and they need to match your birth certificate or your passport, which means that if your name was changed due to marriage, even if it was hyphenated, chances are you will not be eligible to vote. So this needs to be addressed. There's no direct resolution of this in any of these bills. It almost makes you think that it was intentional. And we have the same problem with the executive order. So, yeah, we're going to keep a tight eye on that because we know it's going to get challenged. Right. Then we had signal gate, signal gate occupied most news cycles through the week, right? [00:11:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:35] Speaker B: So top Trump officials, including President Trump's vice president, defense secretary, national security advisor, and the CIA director were all on a chat on Signal. Not the private encrypted system that the government has. Signal, the app that we use with a journalist who was accidentally added to the group. You can't. You know, I say it way too often on this show, but you can't make it up. [00:12:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:02] Speaker B: And they insisted that there was no classified information that was shared in the chat. And then the Atlantic, the magazine that this journalist worked for, published the whole chat. And lo. And Behold. There's details of an imminent attack on the Houthi movement in Yemen. So we had a week of that. And the quick and dirty is. Signal is great. We love Signal. Signal is a great product. But Signal is not the end all, be all. When you're, I don't know, in a national security position. There's stuff for that, designed for that by people who do that. You should listen to them. But I'm not sure it was about stupidity. I think it was about records, actually. I think the intention in using Signal, in all seriousness, was that there's no data collection, there's no records kept of those conversations, so there's no oversight later. There's nothing for anyone to go through in an investigation. And if our government officials at the highest level are doing that on purpose, we have a problem, people. [00:13:07] Speaker A: Yeah. So I'm wondering if maybe that journalist posting everything that was in that chat is exactly what they did not want to happen and what they thought would never happen. [00:13:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:21] Speaker A: How do you accidentally add someone to a chat? [00:13:24] Speaker B: This app, you know? [00:13:25] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, it, It. I understand that people in the White House are on the edge of, like, you know, Alzheimer's, but, like, come on. [00:13:33] Speaker B: Oh, look, look, I just looked at my outline. We can't get away from Elon, but. But this is good news. So activists staged about 200 Tesla takedown protests on Saturday. [00:13:47] Speaker A: Globally. [00:13:48] Speaker B: Globally. They were near simultaneous in their own regions. And, yeah, that's a big impact. That's a lot of motion, that's a lot of organization. And if you haven't joined a Tesla takedown, maybe now is the time to check out their website. We'll list it in the show Notes. Yeah, this is the time to make your voice heard. You don't want to come to the table late after they've ripped apart our democracy. And what they're trying to do right now is just that thing. As if we thought, you know, we had enough of the crazy. Sunday, President Trump started threatening Iran with bombing, and I quote, if they don't make a deal, there will be bombing. Trump said in a telephone interview. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before. These were his first remarks since Iran rejected direct negotiations with Washington last week. Basically, he wants a nuclear deal with Iran that puts them in a position where they can't develop weapons. And in principle, I think most of us are going to be behind that idea, but they want a lot of control over their development of nuclear power technology, and we're not hearing much in the way of Specifics, So we can't really speak to the details yet. It's still formative. There's no deal on the table, per se. We do know that he's dancing with the Ayatollah Khomeini on this one, and that never goes well for people like Trump. So we're gonna see how this goes. We're gonna monitor this one closely and see how it goes. Because in this world, with this regime and these people in play on both sides, anything could really happen and it could be really bad. So freedom fumbles this week. We didn't have a lot, but, oh, what we had was fun. First we got all these murmurings that they're going to rename the District of Columbia the District of America. Yeah, that actually doesn't make sense. [00:15:42] Speaker A: Well, I mean, yeah, and when we say district, like, we're talking like Washington, D.C. we want to now call Washington. [00:15:49] Speaker B: To be Washington D. A? Yes. [00:15:53] Speaker A: Wow. So all of Washington is the DA's office. [00:15:58] Speaker B: But what? And they're throwing it around like it's a threat. Like when people make fun of them for the Gulf of America, they're like, oh, yeah, well, you wait until the District of America. And I'm like, oh, my God, are they really serious? [00:16:10] Speaker A: Unfortunately. [00:16:10] Speaker B: Are they really, really serious? And, you know, the truth of the matter is, they are. Give me just a second. I gotta look up where this guy is from because I forgot to put it in my notes. [00:16:22] Speaker A: I know what you're gonna be talking about. [00:16:24] Speaker B: He's currently in a halfway house. But Justin Eichhorn, the Minnesota State Senator that introduced the bill to codify Trump Derangement Syndrome as a mental illness, was picked up for soliciting sex from a 13 year old prostitute. [00:16:45] Speaker A: First of all, as someone with a psych background, I want to say it is hysterical the way this man went about this, thinking that he'd be able to get Trump Derangement Syndrome in the next dsm. My dude, do you understand how long it takes for a new version of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual? Those take years to come out. We've been trying for over a decade to have autism and ADHD be on its spectrum, but you think that you could have what DSM version Trump out? Like, that's not how these books work. [00:17:26] Speaker B: You know, you got to think about the fact of what he's trying to do. He's trying to say, we're going to decree that this is a mental illness and force you to make it a diagnosis. That's pretty scary. That is Nazi level scary. [00:17:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:38] Speaker B: Coming From a guy that is like Jared Fogel level creepy. He's texting with this person he thinks is a 13 year old prostitute and it turns out it's a cop. So he gets picked up and disgraced and here we are talking about him on Critical Defiance because you can't make this shit up, guys. [00:17:57] Speaker A: What's really ironic too talk about trans day visibility. The other side would like trans people to be very visible as pedophiles when. [00:18:07] Speaker B: Right. There's so few of you that the impact that they say you're having is just impossible. [00:18:15] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. I've heard it called the trans epidemic, other things like that. [00:18:20] Speaker B: I've heard Big Trans and I've heard the trans agenda. We've all heard the trans agenda. [00:18:25] Speaker A: Trans agenda. [00:18:26] Speaker B: Let's go back to Big Trans for a second. Is Big Trans real? And do they cut checks? Because I want to be one of these paid protesters. I keep hearing about them, but I've never actually met one. [00:18:38] Speaker A: Real. Oh yeah, it's not real. Honestly, if Big Trans were real, maybe I'd have enough money to have dinner every night. Like, you know, none of the trans agenda. What agenda? I wake up in the morning and have to figure out what happened the day before. You think I have time to keep an agenda? Like we're just. Oh man, they really want us to be this huge villain when all we're trying to do is organize to survive. [00:19:10] Speaker B: That's what these types of regimes do. We don't have a war going on right now. We don't have a major social conflict going on right now. So we're going to create something to try and get as many people behind as we can. Oh, let's pick on trans people. They're easy. They're controversial as shit. They're easy targets. That's really what it is. [00:19:29] Speaker A: And I feel like I'm never going to stop saying it because the more I look through trans history and we'll get into that, because us trans people have been here forever. And whenever there's a time in history where trans people are being explicitly demonized and villainized, it's because some type of fascist or fascist adjacent regime is trying to take over. And trans people represent a level of freedom that terrifies them. [00:20:03] Speaker B: And that makes you guys the canary in the coal mine. [00:20:07] Speaker A: Yes, it does. Because we're free enough to say, actually, gender, no, thank you, or actually, you gave me this gender, I'm gonna make it what I want. And if we can have that freedom, how are they gonna hold us down if we Won't even let societal norms hold us down. [00:20:25] Speaker B: And there's a thing there. There's something we can talk about there, because there's this idea that you've got these beginning social constructs like gender that confine and restrain your existence to make you more manageable to the body politic. And people have the freedom to say, no, that's. That's a social construct. Break the social constructs that allow us to be treated like cattle or sheep, break the norm and break the system by their very existence. So of course they're scary to fascists. They would have to be. [00:21:00] Speaker A: Yep. And that's why they keep coming for us in whatever fascist regime is going on or is trying to be built up. They're trying to take away freedoms from somebody, from something. Right. If a herd is all similar or the same, they're easier to manage. [00:21:19] Speaker B: You only have two types. You have males and females. When you introduce a spectrum, when you introduce freedom in that, suddenly your ability to manage the situation goes out the window. [00:21:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:29] Speaker B: Trans people have to be first. They have to be the first target, and people need to get that. What's happening to the trans community in America is not isolated to the trans community in America. It's the writing on the wall for America. It's how these things begin. And now we've seen our vilification and villainization of trans people go parallel with what we're doing with immigrants, and we're disappearing immigrants off the street. So now they're testing that. They want to see if they can get away with that. How soon till they put them together, Bobby? How soon till they start disappearing trans people off the street? That's what I'm worried about. [00:22:07] Speaker A: I think that'll, unfortunately, is something that's probably already on their radar. And I was also going to add not only just immigrants, but mentally ill. And let me tell you, the comorbidity between being trans or queer and being mentally ill. Sure. [00:22:28] Speaker B: Why they treat you like hell. [00:22:30] Speaker A: If we look back at, you know, the beginnings of the Holocaust, one of the first places that they were going is like, you know, they were going to psych wards. They were saying, oh, your kids up to five years old, if you know they're mentally ill, hand them over. And now trans people are both trans and occasionally mentally ill because of how society treats them. We're known to have depression more often because society just casts us out. I think that the next plan feels like they will also start disappearing some of the mentally ill, or we'll go back to speaking of the DSM and, you know, Trump derangement syndrome. It really has not been all that long since being gay has been taken out of the dsm. [00:23:17] Speaker B: Yes. And, you know, there are a lot of people that want it back in on the other side of the fence. [00:23:22] Speaker A: And the DSM also, in the past five to seven years, has been actively reworking how they define gender dysphoria, because gender dysphoria is a symptom that trans people can have. It is not mandatory. You don't need it to be trans. But gender dysphoria basically boils down to you look at your body and the parts that are gendered of it, and your brain goes, no, that's wrong. That doesn't match. Something's wrong. And that's been in the dsm, which is why, you know, for the past few years, I think it's recently changing. It's been required that you have to be in therapy before you can start hormone therapy to actually. [00:24:07] Speaker B: So there's a lot of mythology that was never a blanket rule. It was a guideline. And then it became a state by state and doctor by doctor thing. So for a lot of people, their information on that comes down to what they were told by a doctor who in very many cases doesn't want to get sued six years down the road when you change your mind. And that's what these people are thinking, is that you might crazy, because a. [00:24:31] Speaker A: Real statistic that I've seen everywhere. So regret rate with surgeries, Right? Even like a knee replacement, there can be an up to 8% regret rate when it comes to gender reassignment surgery for transgender people, the regret rate is 1%, sometimes less. Yep, the regret rate for gender reassignment surgery is 1% or less. But the suicide rate for those who cannot get those surgeries or those treatments rises. [00:25:15] Speaker B: Are you tired of the spin? The endless political theater? Then you've found your tribe. Critical Defiance isn't just another podcast. It's a call to arms for the critically minded. We're dissecting policy, dismantling media manipulation, and celebrating the voices that refuse to be silenced. From trans history to the latest in the culture wars, we're here to arm you with the truth served with a side of wit. Check us out over on criticaldefiance.com for more info, show notes and more. Now let's get into this week's big thoughts. All right, Bobby. So trans day of visibility. [00:25:52] Speaker A: Hello, I'm here. I. I'm visible. You thought LED headlights were bad. Welcome to me. Visible af Transgender is an umbrella term in the same way that. Let me see, Music genres can be umbrella terms. We have metal, but then we also have doom metal, speed metal, heavy metal, stoner metal, fludg metal. You can have punk rock. [00:26:22] Speaker B: Gotcha. [00:26:23] Speaker A: And then you can have pop. Punk and punk core and pop rock. So transgender is an umbrella term in that sense. Transgender holds a list of gender identities. You have transgender male, someone who identifies as male but was not born male. Transgender female, someone born male who identifies as female. Then you have non binary. Non binary can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. Personally, for me, non binary means a little of both and neither at the same time. You can have gender fluid, gender queer. There are a lot, honestly. [00:27:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:08] Speaker A: Just how long do you think trans people have been around? [00:27:12] Speaker B: Lindsey Graham says 20 years. [00:27:14] Speaker A: I didn't ask you what Lindsey Graham said. [00:27:16] Speaker B: Donald Trump says three months. [00:27:18] Speaker A: Okay. [00:27:18] Speaker B: I think what I'm getting at is I know trans identities have been around for a while. I don't really, you know, have a grasp of how long, but I know that politically, every time you guys become victims, the general public is taught that you're brand new. [00:27:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:34] Speaker B: And how many times can you be brand new through history? Right? [00:27:37] Speaker A: Yeah. So definitely not brand brand new. I don't know. Maybe we should take it as a compliment that every time people find out about us, they think we're shiny and new again. I don't know what that thing is, but we're not. [00:27:55] Speaker B: You never lose your luster. [00:27:57] Speaker A: We've literally been around forever. One of the oldest examples I can think of is Akhenaten Pharaoh. Akhenaten believe great grandfather to king tutor non binary af Neat. [00:28:14] Speaker B: Like, not just non binary. Non binary af Pharaoh way. [00:28:18] Speaker A: Yes. Actually in a very faro way, because they had the first sculpture made of the pharaoh to include both male and female anatomy. [00:28:27] Speaker B: They like gender bits. [00:28:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, had boobs, but was also a male statue. So when I say non binary, as I'm like, yeah, that was. [00:28:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:37] Speaker A: Very first pharaoh to have that done. So that was very long time ago, back in the wild west era of the United States. It was a trans man. Harry Allen. [00:28:50] Speaker B: I remember this. You had mentioned Harry Allen to me. Yeah. So let me see if I remember Harry Allen. Harry Allen was a drunkard and a bar fighter who swindled women, five, six of them at a time, generally leading to them dying under mysterious suicidal circumstances. [00:29:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:10] Speaker B: He a robber. He was a bandit. He was everything except he didn't have a penis. He was everything except the Cisgender man. [00:29:23] Speaker A: Yeah, actually. And something that he was known to do is get out of his rest by making the people arresting him very uncomfortable with the fact that he was trans. [00:29:35] Speaker B: That's even better. [00:29:36] Speaker A: Yeah. So that was the American Wild west era. And to not, I would be remiss to exclude all of the native cultures. [00:29:45] Speaker B: There's this modern term you hear now. Two spirit. [00:29:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:48] Speaker B: That refers to a lot of it, but it's not. You know, the term may be new, but the idea is definitely not. [00:29:54] Speaker A: And two spirit, just so everyone's aware, is not a blanket term that can be used with all native tribes. [00:30:01] Speaker B: All right, so it's important to understand that gender variance has been a big part of human history for a very long time. Tell me about Trans Visibility Day. So, like, not to put too fine a point on it or sound rude, but, like, what's the point? Because we have days for everything nowadays. So what makes this one different? [00:30:16] Speaker A: Trans Visibility Day came around in 2009. It's a day basically to celebrate trans people and keep them visible and known in the world. I believe in November, we do have Transgender Day of Remembrance, which is to remember those in the trans community we have lost and to remember their struggles and their battles. Then, of course, in June, we have pride, which is just the queer. Everybody's queer. It's a good time month. [00:30:49] Speaker B: It's Queer Palooza. [00:30:50] Speaker A: Queer Palooza. [00:30:51] Speaker B: It's Queer Palooza Month. [00:30:53] Speaker A: The trans community really, for a while, did not have a day just to celebrate us. And that's what Trans Visibility Day is. It's a day to celebrate who we are as. As people that we've been here, that we're not going anywhere. [00:31:09] Speaker B: Deal with us. [00:31:09] Speaker A: Deal with us. [00:31:10] Speaker B: That's not a bad thing. You know, I'm a huge fan of Americans learning about other Americans. And that's what we all forget, is when we talk about our friends, when we talk about our neighbors, when we talk about our enemies, we're still talking about Americans. We're still talking about our own. [00:31:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:24] Speaker B: And, you know, people have to remember that you guys are our own, so why not protect and defend what's ours, is where I said. But, yeah, you know, it's a cool idea. I get the sense it's not a party, you know? Yeah, I think it can be, but it's not entirely about that. [00:31:41] Speaker A: Trans Visibility Day can be a celebration. I think Trans Visibility Day is also a day to represent trans people. Whether you're out in your community or whether you haven't come out yet. Be Reminded that you're important and that you exist and that you have rights. [00:32:08] Speaker B: You're valid. There are things to celebrate about you and your tribe. You don't have to be out to enjoy. I think the celebration of who you are, that this can be. Who do you want to talk about in terms of, like, trans superheroes? [00:32:21] Speaker A: A trans hero that should be more globally known than they are is Marsha P. Johnson. She was the first to throw a bir. A trans woman of color at Stonewall riots. Now, what the heck does that mean? Stonewallen a historic place for queers. The place where the Pride Parade was born was a queer bar. And back in the 60s, cops used to raid bars known to queers more often than not. [00:32:59] Speaker B: There was always an excuse to raid the Blue oyster in the 60s and the 70s. That's the thing, you know, it was part of the systemic harassment that people experienced. Whether you were gay, whether you were bi, whether you were trans or non binary. There was this systemic harassment that we all felt nowadays. It's been isolated to you guys, which is really disheartening to see. Johnson was pretty damn cool. You know, Stonewall was a case of basically the cops harassing queer people again. [00:33:29] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:33:30] Speaker B: And what they didn't expect was for the queer people to fight back. And this. This turned into a literal riot. [00:33:36] Speaker A: Yes. [00:33:36] Speaker B: And that first brick was. Was thrown by Marcia. [00:33:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:39] Speaker B: This is someone who wasn't just a figurehead. She was kind of a force of nature. You know, she was a champion for the marginalized. She was an activist. She was an advocate for trans rights. Finally, they all said, no, we've had enough. [00:33:51] Speaker A: If you've heard this name in the last couple months or so, it's because this is one of the people they took off the Stonewall page. [00:34:02] Speaker B: The short version is Stonewall National Monument, because it's recognized as a national monument, was originally an LGBTQ monument. That's the way they framed it. And after Trump, it became an LGB monument. And they scrubbed all references to the trans people involved, which is kind of sick and disheartening because it's the modern equivalent of a fucking book burning. And people don't realize it's going on because it's the Web. [00:34:29] Speaker A: And not only that, I think the biggest thing we just explained to you who Marsha P. Johnson was, a trans woman who started the fight at Stonewall Inn. And now in 2025, a Stonewall monument has no mention of transgender people. And this is why we are fighting to stay visible. [00:34:56] Speaker B: This is why you need Things like transgender day of visibility. You need reasons. You need, like any community to drive, to move forward and be seen, be heard, be counted. And really, I think all I've ever seen trans people ask for is the most basic human right. [00:35:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:35:16] Speaker B: They want to be allowed their validity. They want the dignity of being treated like human beings. And I think we all do, and I think we can all relate to that. So, yeah, it gives you a lot to think about. You know, there's a lot of mythology around trans people. There's a lot of fear mongering. Let's talk about that. [00:35:36] Speaker A: Or I'm that big, scary trans person they tell you about on tv. Oh, man. Do they try to villainize us in any way they can? [00:35:45] Speaker B: I mean, because that's really what it's called. To the fear mongering is what my head up. Right. It's like the bathroom thing. I don't think in my life I have ever run across a trans person in a men's room. And if I did, I didn't know. [00:35:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:00] Speaker B: In a ladies room. I have not been able to find any incidences of trans people assaulting women. So that's just all bullshit. It's just straight up wholesale bullshit. [00:36:12] Speaker A: Well, when we're talking about things that attack trans people in this fear mongering, something that everyone should remember with these anti trans laws and things like that, that the underlying theme of like, 90 of anti trans laws and trans control is also anti women laws. [00:36:39] Speaker B: Yes. [00:36:39] Speaker A: If you really dig down, you know, they label it as trans, and then they put a few things out there, and all of a sudden women start realizing, hey, this affects me too. [00:36:52] Speaker B: There's a lot of overlap between trans healthcare and women's healthcare. [00:36:56] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a huge one. But with the bathroom. Oh, no, man. I don't know. I really don't understand what they think we're doing in the bathroom. [00:37:07] Speaker B: It's the assumption that you must be up to something nefarious when you go to the bathroom. [00:37:11] Speaker A: Well, the assumption is always like a sexual assault or pedophilia. And I mean, maybe I'm crazy, but. [00:37:23] Speaker B: It'S not actually happening. [00:37:24] Speaker A: Living in a different reality. But usually people that want to essay people or are pedophiles, they're not going through all the extra steps of, you know, how fucking hard it is to start hormone therapy. [00:37:39] Speaker B: A lot of these people, thanks to Fox News, they believe that you can just be trans in a day. Like, they use it like a verb sometimes. [00:37:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:48] Speaker B: And it's really scary because there's this thought out there. The kids go to school one gender and they come back another. Doesn't happen. [00:37:55] Speaker A: No. [00:37:55] Speaker B: There's this thought out there that guys wake up some mornings and decide their girls so that they can go look at your daughter in the public bathroom. [00:38:02] Speaker A: You know, but there's a lot of. [00:38:03] Speaker B: Fear mongering about it. [00:38:04] Speaker A: Makes me want to go to just the general. So it. People know, like, they think, oh, if it. My kids watch gay things on. On the tv, they're going to be gay. And now they're treating trans. [00:38:17] Speaker B: I don't want my kids watching straight things on the tv. [00:38:20] Speaker A: Right. But now they're treating transness like that. I will just say, you know, being trans is difficult from the beginning. [00:38:30] Speaker B: You know, shit. [00:38:32] Speaker A: To start your transition. And some people don't always have an end to that, their transition. But till you get to where you want to be, it's difficult. It's a difficult journey. [00:38:43] Speaker B: You don't wake up one morning and go, oh, I'm gonna be a girl today, so I can touch boobies. That's not how it works. [00:38:49] Speaker A: Yeah. It's not something you do for fun. It's difficult in your own mind coming to terms with it. I know personally, for me, it took years for me to figure out what was going on because no one ever told me the word transgender. And I just thought it was insane. [00:39:10] Speaker B: I have a thought here and it's that these myths are obviously not based in reality. They're based on fear and they're based on ignorance. Right. But one of those places where that ignorance lies, and I'm going to admit it, it's for me too. And I need someone to explain this to me. So I am asking my trans friend, what is the difference between trans people and drag? What is the difference between being trans and cross dressing? [00:39:33] Speaker A: Wow. [00:39:33] Speaker B: Understand that. [00:39:34] Speaker A: That's actually a good one. I'm trying to think of the best way to put this. All right, so I'm going to go back to some queer basics for this one. Right. [00:39:46] Speaker B: Okay. [00:39:49] Speaker A: Gender identity and sexuality are two different things. Correct? [00:39:56] Speaker B: It depends on the person. [00:39:58] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. So now let's throw drag into the mix and let's remember this first rule. You do not have to be any type of queer to do drag. While drag is always closely associated with the queer universe, drag in itself is an art form. In its purest form, drag is art. So anyone can do dragons, queer or not. And then now let's bring in transness and gender identity and drag. You can be trans and do drag. You could Be cisgender and do drag. You could be non binary and do drag. It's art. While it can be a part of who a person is, it is not that person. It is how they express that are art form. I've always thought of art as a performance of gender, taking. Well, that's exact gender norms to the extreme as a satire and turning it. [00:41:15] Speaker B: Into a performance and turning it as a performance. Okay, I get it. [00:41:19] Speaker A: Yeah. So there are drag kings, and people don't talk about drag kings a lot who are trans women and identify as female. But then we'll. [00:41:30] Speaker B: Fabio's name is actually Karen. [00:41:33] Speaker A: But then we'll go on stage in full male drag. [00:41:38] Speaker B: I think what you've just hit on, or at least got me to understand, is that the general public, myself included, we look at drag as an expression of sexuality. And it's an art form, gender independent from that. [00:41:50] Speaker A: Mm. [00:41:51] Speaker B: And it's performance art. And that has fuck all to do with trans people, other than some of them do it, some of them don't. [00:42:00] Speaker A: And you know what? Drag, while it is an art form, can help people understand their gender or deconstruct the gender that society has made for them. I know personally my gender journey, as I call it, drag race and learning about drag culture helped take away the strict gender binary that the world had given me. [00:42:28] Speaker B: Because you learned to see it as performance. Yeah, and that's. They don't want you to see it that way. [00:42:32] Speaker A: That's why they're afraid of drag so much too, because drag is so freeing. But I know a lot of people who, through their drag journey or learning about drag, were like, oh, you know what? I am non binary. Because sometimes when you watch what looks to be a fully cisgender fucking rips with abs male, hour later, be fucking busting it down in a miniskirt and platforms higher than your self esteem, you go, Karen. All of a sudden you're like, what the fuck is gender and why? And I think that's the point of drag. It's supposed to make you think about gender. [00:43:15] Speaker B: Yeah. It all destabilizes the system. All right, so let's lighten the mood. [00:43:19] Speaker A: All right, so we all know penguins can be gay. We've heard about this. We've known this for a while now. [00:43:25] Speaker B: Yes. [00:43:26] Speaker A: Recently, a non binary cat was born over in Britain. And when I say non binary, I mean this beautiful little feline was born with no external or internal reproductive genitalia. [00:43:47] Speaker B: Now, so no dingle and no cooch. [00:43:49] Speaker A: They have none of the bits to make More babies in any way, in or out. [00:43:55] Speaker B: That's the perfect cat. [00:43:56] Speaker A: Yeah. I wish I owned this cat. But don't let people tell you that transis is unnatural when literally a couple months ago, nature is saying, hey, you think transness is unnatural? Non binary cat. [00:44:13] Speaker B: You want to talk about nature, man? Go deeper into the animal. [00:44:16] Speaker A: Telling me about the lions are like. [00:44:18] Speaker B: Yeah, you're telling me about the lions the other day and this is hysterical. [00:44:22] Speaker A: Yeah. So transness and lions is a real thing, which when I first heard about it, I thought someone was with me because I love cats and the Lion King. But no, it's a real thing. In prides, sometimes it'll happen where there is no male, that a female lioness will start taking on the role of the male. And what's been happening is scientists are seeing that these lionesses are growing manes. [00:44:52] Speaker B: Yeah. As if in response to their new social roles. [00:44:55] Speaker A: And it's not always only the social role. Even in prods of lions we're seeing now that have males that have lead, there are sometimes lionesses who will start developing manes and treating the other lionesses as male lions treat them and fighting. [00:45:15] Speaker B: With the males and the males for dominance. [00:45:17] Speaker A: And honestly, I know myself and other people in the trans community, when we started learning about this, we were just fucking jealous. These bitches don't have to go anywhere to get hormone therapy. They just like, believe it hard enough. And nature says, oh, yeah, we up. [00:45:42] Speaker B: But making the frogs gay? Yeah, man, they're making the lions trans. [00:45:46] Speaker A: Putting chemicals in the sand to make the lizards trans. But yeah, the transness in the feline world is crazy. And it almost feels like. So we all know that just cats in general, all of them are like alien creatures that came here to take over the world slowly. Right. Because like, cats domesticated themselves. Side note, none of this is factual information. Don't sue us. But anyway, since cats are aliens who came to take over the world, I think it's almost as if the feline world is seeing what humans are doing to trans people and trying to be like, hey, no, you, it's natural. Look, we're. We're trancing on our own. [00:46:26] Speaker B: Oh. Oh, well, this was, this was absolutely great. Bobby, thanks. Thanks for the talk. Thanks for some enlightenment. Thanks for explaining some things to me that they just, you know, as a CIS guy, they just didn't make sense to me. And thanks for putting your perspective out there. I don't want to be all hokey about it and say thanks for being visible, because a lot of people are afraid to be, especially nowadays. [00:46:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:48] Speaker B: So being out there and being an example and talking, I think is a brave thing and a great thing. [00:46:53] Speaker A: You're welcome. And I'll be honest, I'm a little scared to be visible in the world I'm in right now, but I'm more scared to have to be invisible again. [00:47:03] Speaker B: All right, folks, that's a wrap for this week's Critical Defiance. Hope we managed to inject a little sanity into your information diet. Don't be a stranger. Hit that subscribe button on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast fix. And while you're at it, head over to criticaldefiance.com for show notes, bonus content, and to sign up for our newsletter because your inbox deserves some quality content, too. Give us a like on Facebook or find us on bluesky if you're into that sort of thing. Until next time, this is Neil Zolson and my co host Bobby Socks signing off. Stay informed, stay engaged, and keep the spirit of democracy alive. [00:47:51] Speaker A: Sam.