By Yannick Eike Mirko
Here at Translash Media, we work towards building a more inclusive media space that involves people of all backgrounds, working together to demystify how the world is and isn’t taking care of us, and what needs to change to make that happen.
Part of our journey in doing that has been through our first successful year of the TransLash Podcast with Imara Jones. In our podcast, topics like losing trans people to violence, raising a trans child as a former conservative, and an even wider array have been decompressed by the combination of outstanding journalism work from our award-winning founder Imara Jones and the wonderful guests she welcomes onto the show. Trans joy is also essential with this podcast. It’s how we start each other. And we end the show with gratitude with Imara giving us her final thoughts grounded in gratitude. This podcast is positive and celebrates our community.
But our new limited-series podcast, The Anti-Trans Machine: A Plot Against Equality, departs from our upbeat approach. By necessity, this four-part program launching on June 24th takes us behind the curtains of the people and institutions driving the anti-trans backlash across the country to expose a highly-organized political apparatus, which makes the future potentially darker for everyone. To do so, we center the voices and stories of trans people, as well as their families, who are victimized by this hostile movement. Through their voices we hear both the danger and the hope of this moment.
“It’s actually putting these kids in danger. So, shame on any politician introducing these hateful, mean spirited and discriminatory bills that are Anti-American.” – Carmarion D. Anderson-Harvey, Human Rights Campaign
As most of us know, politics has taken the topics of trans-identity, safety and expression into dangerous territory. Over the past year significant moves in legislation have been made against our communities including (though unfortunately not limited to): the criminalization of doctors treating trans youth, the prevention of athletes safely belonging in sports, gender markers, and even over whether we can use the bathroom.
The Anti-Trans Machine: A Plot Against Equality aims to answer the big questions that no other news or media outlets seem to be giving the time and effort to even think about or discuss on the air:
- Why has there been such a strong, uniform assault on trans rights at the same time in different places across the country?
- What are the experiences of those they are attacking?
- Who are the people and institutions fueling these attacks?
- What is the end game of those people and institutions?
- How is this attack on trans rights part of a larger cultural and political agenda that these groups have for people that aren’t trans?
At TransLash we believe that this project is vitally important. The misinformation spewed out by politicians of all parties, not only limits our rights the more they are spoken, but they continue to advance the narrative that the only people allowed to have a microphone are those who wish to do us harm.
The vast majority of us have no idea what we’re up against. Much of the public fear and controversy around trans people is manufactured by a network of powerful groups, billionaires and fringe religious ideologies decades in the making. Trans people are just their latest and, right now, among their biggest targets. Sadly there is no sign the pressure on us will end anytime soon. But by understanding who these people are, and what they are trying to do, trans communities can ultimately win. This series is your opportunity to better understand how these groups shape our culture, political life and laws. You will hear from those who are working to push back against this assault, including the brave trans people fighting the Anti-Trans Hate Machine with everything they’ve got.
Each episode of The Anti-Trans Machine: A Plot Against Equality begins with stories from the people directly impacted by those pending laws, allowing us the opportunity to fully understand their gravity, and what needs to be done to take apart the pieces of the well-oiled machine that destroys our opportunities to live full, happy and healthy lives.
But the truth is that attacks on trans rights are an attack on everyone’s rights. So, even if you don’t identify as trans, this series is for you.
That’s because the problem is even larger than you might be hearing in the news. Currently, there are nearly 130 anti-trans bills pending in state legislatures across the country. Just two years ago, there were just a handful. This just shows the power of the right to quickly tip the balance away from a host of progressive goals, regardless of who they impact.
The bottom line is that by shining the light into dark places, as we do through this series, we are confronting an operation which wants to remain out of sight. And the light of our truth is why we will prevail and thrive.
Follow The Anti-Trans Hate Machine on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and wherever you listen to podcasts.
ABOUT TRANSLASH ZINE
TransLash Zine is an independent publication by TransLash Media that supports our mission of telling trans stories to save trans lives. We feature uncensored art, writing, and photography by trans/non-binary/intersex/two-spirit/gender non-conforming people, and we pay contributors. Our first two issues were developed and produced by POC Zine Project, and POC Zine Project continues to support our content and partnerships strategy.
Our third issue, a Pride Month Edition partnership with Transgender Law Center, dropped June 6, 2021. Print editions of 1-3 coming soon. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive alerts. Want your writing and art featured in the next issue of our zine? Submit here.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Special thanks to Xoai Pham and Meredith Hutchison. Digital strategy and partnerships for TransLash Zine by DCAP MEDIA’s Daniela Capistrano, founder of POC Zine Project.
TransLash Media, publisher of TransLash Zine, is supported by the Ford Foundation,
Heising-Simons Foundation, anonymous donors, and members of our community, like you: translash.org/donate
Yannick Eike Mirko (they/he) is an actor, editor, musician, and writer. Yannick supports production of TransLash Podcast with Imara Jones and The Anti-Trans Hate Machine: A Plot Against Equality.
