Imara Jones: Hi, fam. Happy New Year. It’s 2022, even though it feels like 2023. [chuckle] Welcome to the TransLash Podcast, a show where we tell trans stories to save trans lives. It’s so good to be back in your ears after a nice break to recharge. I sure needed it and I hope that you were able to find some rest and peace this past holiday season despite Omicron, travel disruptions, you name it. We’ve used the break on our end to put some ambitious and interesting shows in the works for you and I can’t wait to bring them on air, but let’s start this show by going back in time.
About a year ago, Biden was sworn into office. Yeah, right? It was just a year ago and at that time right after the insurrection inauguration, we talked about what our hopes and fears were for the new administration on that show. We had lots of questions about what his priorities would actually be and now we have at least some answers. So today, we’re going to take a moment to review the last year of the Democrat’s control of Washington. What’s different and where we are now?
I want to let you know that today’s episode is not an easy listen. Our guests have some blunt assessments because well, the last 12 months have not been as easy as looking at Elliot Page shirtless. But rather than be filled with despair, I hope that these conversations can help us face the reality of the current climate, and even though it may be hard to face, it’s also true that hope for our community exists beyond the political process. Joining me to talk about all the ups and downs of Biden’s first year is the incredible Farai Chideya. We’re so lucky to have this groundbreaking queer, political analyst, and host of The Amazing Podcast and national radio program, Our Body Politic.
Farai Chideya: I think it’s pretty clear at this point that you can’t bargain with patriarchal white supremacy. You can only come from a position of your own strength and your own ability to negotiate or sometimes in fight or flight, your option is flight and I’m just keeping it super real.
Imara: We’re also going to check back in with Mauree Turner. You might remember I interviewed them shortly after they were elected last year as the first out non-binary state lawmaker in the country. Today, I’m going to share a conversation I had with Mauree about what it’s like to be someone from our community who’s trying to make change in the state house that’s actually hostile to us. To put it mildly, it’s been rough.
Mauree Turner: The toxicity that I thought I was going into versus the toxicity that I experienced are two different things, right?
Imara: Before we get to the rest of the show, though. Let’s start with some Trans Joy.
Imara: One thing getting me hope these days is seeing trans people run for office to push for positive change. That’s why I want to highlight the work of the LGBTQ Victory Fund. They’re the only national organization solely dedicated to electing members of our community at every level of government. Historic trans-political leaders such as Andrea Jenkins and Danica Rome have both gone through their program. Here’s vice president of communications, Elliot Imse, talking about how they helped get LGBTQ candidates elected. Here’s LGBTQ Victory Fund, vice president of communications, Elliot Imse, talking about how they help get LGBTQ candidates elected.
Elliot Imse: Our endorsed candidates received all sorts of support, everything from four-day candidate campaign trainings, where they learn the fundamentals of running for office and really get a good idea how to build a plan that can win. We also help them fundraise, we help raise their visibility through the media, we help them come up with effective get-out-the-vote strategies and campaign strategies, and really work with them on a regular basis to give them as many tools as we can to help them pull off a victory on election day.
Imara: Elliot, you and the folks at the LGBTQ Victory Fund are Trans Joy. [background music] For today’s show, I’m delighted to be joined by the one and only Farai Chideya to talk about the first year anniversary of the Biden administration. She’s the perfect person to have this conversation with. Farai is a groundbreaking government and politics journalist with deep knowledge and insights. She’s been a political analyst for CNN, a host for NPR, and a reporter for ABC, and so many more. Farai is also a former fellow at Harvard and a distinguished writer in residence at NYU.
She brings all of this experience each week to her program, Our Body Politic, a podcast and national radio program that unapologetically centers women of color, including those who are queer and trans, looking at how we experience major political events of the day and in turn, how we use our power to push for a better world. Farai is a recipient of a National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association award for her coverage of HIV/AIDS and she was an early[?] and committed champion of TransLash including during her time at the Ford Foundation. Farai, thank you so much for joining me today.
Farai: Imara, I am so grateful to know you. I’m so grateful for the work you do in the world. I am definitely just so grateful for all of your contributions to journalism and society. It’s just great.
Imara: Thank you. That means so much coming from you also a scholar a journalism in our field. So, I appreciate that and it is not a stretch to say that we wouldn’t be on the air without your support. So, the thanks and admiration go both ways. So, right before the election, you mentioned on an NPR Podcasts that many people who were voting for Joe Biden were doing so strategically with the hope of moving him and his vice president in a direction. And I’m wondering one year on how successful do you think those voters have been?
Farai: Oh, my goodness. You know, look, I’m just going to call it like I see it. I think that the Biden-Harris administration is in deep deep trouble with so many different types of democratic voters and independent voters. I think that progressives have not gotten the traction that they sought from the Biden-Harris administration. I’m not shocked by that in any way because I think that fundamentally Joe Biden was chosen by the party apparatus in order to kind of stabilize a form of centrism with some progressive overtones.
I do think that some of the visceral response to the COVID pandemic in terms of some of the actions on eviction and some of the actions on payments for people who could not work were progressive. But the fact is we still don’t have voting rights and we also don’t have paid leave. America is the only developed country in the world and one of frankly, not that many countries that aren’t considered [inaudible] developed that does not have paid leave for caregiving and that is, to me, not even a progressive priority.
It’s just a basic good governance asset and so, we’re still really stuck out there and I want to go deeper into voting rights as we talk because we’re facing really an existential crisis over democracy and what it means that is far beyond progressive versus not progressive.
Imara: One of the ones I think they’ve actually done pretty well on progressive issues is actually on health care because they instituted a policy where they were able to expand the subsidies that people got. And that’s expanding the number of people that have health care and a lot of people who listen to our program that’s one thing that has been really important, but I think kind of this intersection of voting rights and the equality act are really really important. And so I’m wondering if you can talk about where we are on voting rights and what you think is the central issue there?
Farai: On Our Body Politic on one of our recent episodes, Georgetown Law, Professor Tiffany Jeffers really put it this way, which is that in the past when people of color were able to use their right to vote, they were still largely considered bit players within a system that would overwhelmingly elect white leaders. Whereas today, things are changing where if voters of color are truly empowered and able to access the rights of voting, then someone like Stacey Abrams quite possibly could become the first black female governor of Georgia and that’s a very different ball game.
And people may have a level of discomfort with what full voting rights mean for people of color today versus 20 years ago when America was demographically different and I don’t think that demographics are destiny. I think there’s a lot of complicated factors about who votes in what ways. The mix of changing demographics and pushback from people who have a desire to see white-only leadership is just the reality behind it.
And one thing that I would point to is we interviewed pollster Tresa Undem on the show and she and her firm PerryUndem did a study that came out in April of 2021 analyzing the 2020 vote. And they put together an index that measured perceived threat to white male cultural and political dominance and found that that was for white men that sort of index was as predictive of voting behavior as party affiliation. So, there are ways to discover how the mechanisms of belief and including a belief in white supremacy and the need to have continued dominance by one group are affecting voter behavior. We just have to face that.
Imara: You know, you’ve covered politics for a while since the 1990s since the Clinton Administration. During that time, we’ve seen this growth and white supremacy and I know that it’s been a part of your reporting. And there’s this really strong link between anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ and those issues in white supremacy and it’s one of the areas that the Southern Poverty Law Center says is one of the fastest-growing areas of extremism. This kind of merger between these two things and I’m wondering if you can just talk about your concerns about white supremacy and how they link to what’s going on politically right now? Like how worried are you and what do you think is the impact on our politics?
Farai: There has been a form of federal segregation of opportunity for queer people by saying you just simply cannot have the right not to be fired like aside from questions of marriage, etc. You just don’t have the right not to be fired for being gay, queer, trans, etc. in many different places in America and that is a form of segregation of opportunity. So for me, when I look at all of this, I look at it really as a syndrome and I was listening to some of Reverend King’s speeches around the, the King Holiday.
And he has a line where he goes into how the federal government subsidizes the descendants of plantation owners not to grow crops but does not subsidize the tenant farmers who are descended from enslaved people to not work and he said it’s socialism for the descendants of the plantation owners and capitalism for the tenant farmers. And to me, you know, when we look at the intersections of race and gender, and sexual orientation, it’s this form of subsidizing inequality and denying access to the fruits of the American dream.
It’s this scarcity mentality around the American dream, which is that the only way to have an American dream is to prevent gay, queer, and trans people from living that dream to prevent people of color from living that dream. And in some ways, it’s this very fearful scarcity mentality around what America’s promises and it’s all linked.
Imara: Do you think there’s a sense of alarm about where the administration is inside of the administration? That is to say, do they really get how precarious this all feels for the rest of us including those that are the most vulnerable or you think there’s kind of a detachment?
Farai: Well, first of all, I’m not the kind of political reporter who has a lot of friends in politics. You know, I’m the kind of political reporter who spent a lot of time in the field talking to voters. But what I would say is that I think that the Biden administration made a bet that there was a path to limited bipartisanship that has not been shown to be true. Mitch McConnell is a take-no-prisoners kind of guy and the idea that the Biden-Harris administration could somehow cultivate favor with him or at least enough favor to thread the needle, I think that was a terrible miscalculation.
Imara: So what do you think progressive voters should do? What do you think that people who care about all of the things that hang in the balance that our life or death? I think that’s one of the things that also gets lost a lot of times in Washington, is that for a lot of people and a lot of voters and the democratic party coalition. These issues are not marginal issues. They’re not esoteric, they are not dinner party… Well, you can’t have dinner parties, but dinner party debating topics that these are actually issues of life and death for people. So for people for whom it is that, what do you think is the way forward?
Farai: Returning to Professor Tiffany Jeffers of Georgetown Law. We did come back to this question of how do we build a beloved community because people during the civil rights era didn’t wait. Fannie Lou Hamer didn’t wait until she was well paid. Didn’t expect anyone to give her redress for being forcibly sterilized against her will. She suffered so much at the hands of the structures of this nation and yet did not give up.
Imara: So it sounds like you’re saying what we have to do is to try to build or reinforce or expand communities of resiliency, because of the stagnation at the national level, possibly leading to massive Democratic losses in the fall which then set up for possible win two years later and a completely different type of politics that we probably haven’t never seen before.
Farai: I think, that’s a distinct possibility. I also do think that a lot of things happen at the local and state level, you know, even when national politics are moving in the other direction. So you see, you know, any number of local efforts to do, for example, restorative economics and to really begin to look at reparations and investment and many other things on the local level that aren’t happening on the national level.
It’s the way that things have been for many people, you know, throughout the past 20 years, that they never were able to live safely in their communities. They never were able to access employment, equality, and housing equality. And that doesn’t mean, don’t keep striving for it, but also that we can find ways of moving and building even as we face threats. I do also think that if speaking very broadly about everything from reproduction to physical safety if bodily autonomy threats rise in certain parts of the country, you may see people moving around to places where they feel that they can build the beloved community.
It’s very hard because you want every place to be a place where people can be safe, be respected, find employment but there are may also be essentially ideological and socio-political migrations. You know, returning to party politics. I hear sometimes from people who are in politics and party operatives, it’s like basically, will black people, will whatever people, you know, queer people, etc., just stop talking about all these things that you need because you’re scaring off our white allies.
And it’s like, well actually if they were allies they wouldn’t be scared off by this conversation. So let’s start there. And secondly, I think it’s pretty clear at this point that you can’t bargain with patriarchal white supremacy. You can only come from a position of your own strength and your own ability to negotiate or sometimes in fight or flight. Your option is flight and I’m just keeping it super real.
Imara: It’s interesting because it sounds like what you’re describing in all your experience is actually the failure of politics right now.
Farai: Yep.
Imara: It’s lack of ability.
Farai: Yes.
Imara: To resolve fundamental issues.
Farai: Yeah, and I do think that the, to me, the Biden-Harris administration’s number one miscalculation was about bipartisanship. You know you look at the Obama era and, and that was relatively peaceful compared to today. But I don’t know why the Biden-Harris administration thought that it could cultivate bipartisanship when a scorched-earth policy was working well for the GOP. And I should also say that there are a lot of republicans who just don’t see themselves in the republican party.
They are, you know, what’s derisively called RINO, Republican In Name Only. But these are the Never-Trumpers who are fighting for a basic two-party system where you can have ideological differences, but you all agree on the basic structures of democracy. And we should realize that there are a lot of people who are social conservatives, who actually don’t want the party structure that we have now and may be part of the future is beginning to build ethical allegiances between people who may not agree on what they want from government, but who can’t agree on what they don’t want from government.
Imara: So, let’s end on a positive note, and let’s go back to your description of the ways in which marginalized communities, including trans communities, are forming these networks of support and resistance and I’m wondering what are the things that you see inside of those that you think are lessons for everyone?
Farai: Yeah, and and I know that I have been a bit of a Debbie Downer here and I actually…
Imara: It’s been a realist.
Farai: Yeah. But I actually think that in some ways for me, like I really held out more hope that politics would be different than they are now. And in some ways, there is a moment of joy in the struggle when you stop gaslighting yourself, when you stop saying, “Oh, it’s going to be different, it’s going to be better.” And you’re just like, “You know what? I’m going to build.” And when I look at the trans community, I look at a community of builders who were just like who have to build. People who have to build without always the support of the larger structures of society.
There is a long history of incredible resilience of so many different types of communities that were not given access to the American dream. Like I think of the, the male Chinese laborers who were forbidden to have women immigrate to America at the same time and the kind of beloved community they created among themselves in places where they were not wanted and I think that sometimes what we can do is really look at past examples of beloved community and create circles of mutual aid. And so, that’s what I see happening on so many different levels.
I see people of color, queer people, and multiracial groups, and some, in some cases, lower-income and working-class white Americans saying, “We’re on the Save Ourselves Plan.” And this is what the Save Ourselves Plan looks like for us and forming mutual aid societies to begin to house the unhoused, to feed those who need food, the formation of temporary families to hold us. So people taking in nieces and nephews, moving in with friends, forming physical community that maps with our desire for a broader beloved community. And I think in the end, those models will prove sustaining a nourishing two[?] politics as a whole because you can show up as your best self when you feel supported.
Even if it’s not equitably supported but if you feel supported by a beloved community, you can show up as your best self to say what are the structures in the broader society that will take us there. So maybe we’re out in the wilderness, basically prototyping the nation we want to live in. I think that that’s a distinct possibility. I think we’re in a rough patch and it may last a good long while but I also think there’s an incredible amount of love and social innovation happening.
Imara: Well, on that note, for the way in which we have built communities of resistance being a model for us all and possibly leading to a new way to politic in America. Farai, I want to thank you so much for joining us.
Farai: Imara, thank you for building a beloved community with intellectual rigor and so much passion and spirit.
Imara: Thank you so much. That was Farai Chideya, host of the podcast and national radio program, Our Body Politic.
Imara: One of the privileges of being a journalist is people opening up to you. In my experience, elected officials, though, are the most reluctant to do so. They like to stick to a script. But a little while ago, I had an incredibly moving and raw[?] conversation with Oklahoma State Representative Mauree Turner. Turner is the first openly non-binary state lawmaker in the country representing Oklahoma’s 88th District, which includes Oklahoma City. Turner also holds the distinction of being the first Muslim and openly queer legislator in that state.
I first interviewed them for this podcast, just after their 2020 win. But after their historic victory, the work had only just begun. I checked back in with them while we were reporting our narrative podcast, the Anti-Trans Hate Machine, A Plot Against Equality, in[?] that series we unpacked the introduction of 127 anti-trans bills in nearly 40 states last year and state houses, and every part of our country. Those state houses have become battlefields for our community.
Turner serves in one of them. And I was blown away to hear about their experiences like day-to-day as a person at the intersection of gender identity, race, and religion. In a place where Turner needs to be to make change, but which is trying to erase them at every turn. Turner’s experience gives us a ground-zero view of what it’s been like for us in the political process over the past year. I hung[?] on every word and I know you will, too.
When we spoke last time, you were about to be going into your session, it was last fall. You’ve now completed your first session as a state representative, the first one and I’m wondering if you can just talk about what it’s been like. What have you been surprised by both to the upside and the downside and how has the experience been for you?
Mauree Turner: I personally try to prepare myself for any and everything that I go into. Um… When I decided I was running for office, I sat down with folks who were currently in the legislature to see if I was going into like not only a toxic environment from like the other side of the aisle but also a toxic environment like within the party and what that looks like. And so, I tried to be open and honest about who I knew that I was going into a legislature with, right? And one of the things that I didn’t really expect was for folks to be, to be, I guess, completely honest like so unruly, so unwilling to listen and to learn.
Essentially, there were folks that I thought would be willing to come to the table and have those discussions. And when I walked into the building, right? Once session started, it was evident that that wasn’t going to be the case. Like there were committee chairs that wouldn’t even meet with me to talk about my bills before they told me they weren’t going to give my bills a hearing like things like that. And I expected us to butt heads, but in a civil manner, but that doesn’t happen here.
Imara: You said that you fully expected to go into a toxic environment. Can you talk a little bit about the toxicity and what it looks like? And what it’s like experientially?
Mauree: The toxicity that I thought I was going into versus the toxicity that I experienced are two different things, right? In my mind, I thought I was going to have to have those conversations over and over again about like what it means to be non-binary and like have to send to everybody else’s emotions when we have those conversations, but we don’t get to have those conversations.
The conversations that I have to have write and tell me having a talk with my colleagues about how another colleague continuously says that trans folks and non-binary folks are mentally unstable and that’s why they are trans and non-binary, right? It is quite honestly having two fields like direct attacks and bigotry and racist ideologies continuously, right? We’ve got colleagues at uh… That talk about colored babies on the house floor and really attack so many communities every single day, right?
I think the only difference is that I am a part of a lot of the communities that get attacked every day. Um… And that get left out of the conversation and [pause] sometimes it seems like it is a personal attack on Mauree Turner. And sometimes it is just a fact that people are now in power to legislate over a power that they think that they lost someplace in their life, right? To legislate from place of bigotry and ignorance and the Oklahoma legislature lets them do that, right?
The folks in charge let them do that. Um… So they’ve never had to adhere to checks and balances and so that type of toxicity met with the amount of power that they have over the lives of everyday Oklahomans is something I honestly, I’m not sure I can really like truly put into words like how bad it is and it’s really kind of an unruly place. I never thought I’d see like colleagues say like, “Look, we can debate in here like man or we can take it outside.” And that happens like, and I’m just like, “What?” And we give them space to do it. They tell me that I’m unprofessional because I’m wearing a crewneck sweatshirt to work, right? Okay.
Imara: Have your colleague said anything to you ever personally attacking you or even in a speech attacking you or is it all cloaked in this language about other people outside of the chamber?
Mauree: Um… Nobody has, has come to me and said anything personally. I do think that it is a personal attack when Jayjay talks about trans folks and non-binary folks being mentally unstable. I think that is directed towards me.
Imara: And he knows who you are?
Mauree: Yes, he does. So, we sit on a committee together. Um… He told me he wouldn’t hear my bill in the committee. So, I go back to his office after committee one day to take the corrections to see if there was anything I could work on or anything I could ease his mind on. So we go back to his office. His legislative assistant hands me the bill and it says kill across the top like [pause] We, you didn’t want to talk about it. Um, uh… you didn’t wanna talk to me about the bill. You just… In your mind, you were like, “Uh, I don’t want to see the bill anyway, so you write kill across the top.”
And so things like that will happen, right? And one time I had a one-on-one and a man asked me, “Say, there’s a wreck.” Like this was like when there was a big pileup in Texas, is so he used this as an excuse. He said, “So say there’s a wreck and your unrecognizable, we know what to check for on a man. And we know what to check for on a woman but like, what are we looking for on a non-binary person?” And I was like, “Is like is DNA gone? Uh, is the ID got?” Because the bill was about creating a non-binary gender marker for state-issued IDs in paperwork and things like that. And so I was like, “Well, that’s the point of this, right? Is that you create a gender marker. We, in with the ID, with car registration with DNA, all of these things are still possible, right? The, the human being, right? The person is not gone.”
Imara: I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit about [pause]. There’s so many ways in which so many things that you’re talking about would impact Mauree Turner personally, aside from representing the Oklahoma State Legislature. I’m wondering if you’ve ever thought about if you’ve had time this session to think about how it, how, how that feels?
Mauree: Uh… One of my favorite skills is compartmentalizing. [laughing] So, um… uh… I think it’s helped me get to where I am today, but that’s a real thing, right? And I realize that it is weighing on me in a larger way than I ever really thought. I think the other day I was driving someplace like driving back from the store and… I’m just like having a seemingly good time in my car [chuckle] doing nothing and then the next thing I know I’m just like bawling and I’m like, this happens like more often than not and I don’t cry, right? I like that’s just, that’s just me.
So, this happens and it’s starting to happen more often than not and so I… finally like I reach out to a friend and I was like, “Hey!” Because I was looking for a very particular therapist and haven’t been able to find that person in a few years. Finally, I had a friend who reached out to me and they were like, “This is somebody I think that would be good for you, like maybe just check them out.” And I kept putting it off and kept putting it off.
And so, I message my friend after all this happens and I’m like, “I think I need a number.” And so, I finally started seeing a therapist. Um… That is like really helps with processing because I, I feel like I’m really good at processing my emotion, like where it comes from and like why it’s important and why it means so much, like why it’s creating that reaction from me? But I’m bad at keeping up healthy coping skills because it feels like I have to keep going.
Because I’m simultaneously also trying to be the person I needed growing up, right? I’m trying to be the role model that I never fully had because nobody around me looked like me and nobody was experiencing the things that I was experiencing, right? When we talk about Kimberlé Crenshaw is like intersectionality. And so, like all of these things like really kind of way and so I was like, it, it, it, it’s, it’s a lot, it’s a lot to process, right?
And it takes a lot so, so much out of me to get up and ask questions and debate and in some of those committees, I’m the only Democrat on the committee and that’s not just me, right? That’s my colleagues, too, because there are so few of us and so, to be in that space is um… Exhausting as it is, right? And so, I guess in, in starting therapy like there was a lot that was I guess affecting me that I wasn’t even really thinking about.
Imara: It’s interesting because what you’re describing is that your body is actually beginning to view that workplace as, as a threat.
Mauree: Yes, it absolutely is.
Imara: So in the Senate, of course, they’re these two bills. A lot of just not fun bills. I’m just going to say it like that on a whole [inaudible] of issues you were talking about voting rights. I’m sure that there are some abortion bills, you name it. The two bills that we were focusing on SB676 by Warren Hamilton and SB583 by Nathan Dahm. Both of those, they’re actually copies of the same bill.
So Nathan Dahm introduced it first last year, then he introduced it again this year and says basically that trans youth under the age of 18 can not receive any type of medical services related to transitioning whatsoever, no matter who says that it’s necessary and needed. And then Warren Hamilton does the exact same thing but extends it to 21. But neither of those made out of committee. I’m wondering if you had heard anything about those bills if so, what that is? And secondly, are these names familiar to you?
Mauree: Dahm, uh, I feel like we hear about Senator Dahm probably at least once a week. Hamilton, I have not heard of. 676, I do remember that there was a big community push about it. Um… And I just remember that because it was, like, visually in my face and the other one there might have also been one, but I guess I probably just paid more attention to 676. So we also have an organization here called Freedom Oklahoma. And I sit on the board for that and they keep a good track on any anti-LGBTQ to us plus bill that runs through.
And so, I vividly remember having brief conversations about 676 because of the action alerts that we’re going out around them to make sure that folks were calling and emailing. 676 was the first one I saw because I hadn’t seen Dahm’s bill just yet, but it really kind of solidified to me that folks in the grand old party, right? The party of less government and, and more local control is also the party that is simultaneously talking about literally legislating under people’s clothes. And for you to say that you don’t want government to take your guns, you don’t want government to interfere in your life in any way, shape, or form, but you are continuously weaponizing government to do that for folks that you do not like.
And that’s the only thing [inaudible] you do not like them. So you feel like they shouldn’t have the same access to life and life liberty[?] and the pursuit of happiness that other people have. Like, that’s really kind of a warped way of thinking. We have so many opportunities to save people and yet you are actively trying to make it so young folks [pause] possibly die. Are you just [pause] this angry? Are you just like [pause] this hateful, this bigoted, that you’re willing to put other people’s lives in direct danger? And that’s how you, that’s how you receive joy, right?
And a lot of people will do it in Oklahoma legislature under the guise of God and I don’t know any God that would tell you to do something like that. There are so many folks that’s the wild[?] part about it is that there’s so many folks that work in that building that have trans children.
Imara: [inaudible]
Mauree: So, I think about that, right? And so, that’s another one thing I tell people. I’m like, you know, I love the emails, the voicemails, the phone calls that we get to have because I think about you when I’m out there, when I’m making those debates, when I’m asking those questions, right? And I, I can’t do anything but, right? And so I wonder if other people are like, “Oh, well, I don’t care about the emails and phone calls because I’m like to be able to do this, right?” And to also have to think about everybody who has emailed you and called you and told you that this doing direct harm to them or their children. That’s what I mean. When I say, like, “How can you live with yourself?” And then you think like [pause] you have to work with these people every that are actively stripping away, like your rights, the rights of your children.
Imara: That’s why all that, as you say, they’re a lot of people in the building. How many Democrats are in the state house?
Mauree: There are 19 of us. Uh… In the house, I believe. Yeah.
Imara: And how many republicans?
Mauree: Sshh… 80 some [inaudible].
Imara: What?
Mauree: Yeah.
Imara: Wow! It’s that lopsided?
Mauree: Yes.
Imara: As being a Muslim legislator, have you ever heard any Islamophobic or anti-muslim rhetoric or conversation from your colleagues or that’s just like, is that a taboo subject for them? Like I’m wondering, you know, what are the bounds of… What bounds if they have, if any around anything?
Mauree: I think it would be too on the nose. I think there are some things that they are calculated about and I think it would be too on the nose if they had any anti-muslim rhetoric. But people will read from the Bible, people would give their own sermons on the house floor like, I, I think there’s been more of a religious conversation this session than there has ever been. Uh… And I think it’s because they see changes in kind of little ways that they aren’t too keen on.
And so, our house chaplain instead of saying, “Please, bow your heads and pray with me.” He’ll say, “Please, pray in your tradition as I pray for you in mind.” Which is very little change but this is the first time it’s ever happened in the Oklahoma Legislature. I’m not sure if he ever talked about Ramadan because I also asked if we could go ahead and have an Imam come and give the prayer for the first day that Ramadan happened and he uh… Used three different emails to tell me no [chuckle] and, and so things like that will happen. So it’s not [pause] in-your-face Islamophobia, right? But it’s in overexertion, it feels like of, of their Christianity.
Imara: Well, I want to thank you for taking the time. I think you have provided so much texture as to what it’s like where you are and what’s happening and given really unique and powerful insights. I think being a non-binary person serving in the legislature at this particular time when all these bills are coming through. It’s really important to just hear what that experientially is like for you. I just continue to believe and feel as I did for, you know, the first time that we spoke that you really are where you’re supposed to be for a reason.
Mauree: Thank you. That means so much to me because some days it’s really hard to show up [laughs].
Imara: Of course. Of course, it is. It’s an important thing for us to hear. So, thank you.
Mauree: Thank you. Thank you for creating a space where I feel comfortable to do so.
Imara: That was Mauree Turner, an Oklahoma’s state representative. [background music] Thank you for joining me on the TransLash Podcast. Now, listen all the way through to the end of the show for something extra. [background music] If you like what you heard, please go to Apple Podcasts to rate and review us. You can also listen to TransLash wherever you get your podcast. Check us out on the web at translash.org. Who doesn’t know to do dot anymore with the internet?
To sign up for our weekly newsletter, follow us on Twitter and Instagram at TransLash Media, like us on Facebook, and tell your friends. The TransLash Podcast is produced by TransLash Media. The TransLash team includes Oliver-Ash Kleine, Callie Wright, Montana Thomas, and Yannick Eike Mirko. Our intern is Mirana Munson-Burke. Alexander Charles Adams does the sound editing for our show. Our digital strategy is handled by Daniela Capistrano. The music you heard was composed by Ben Draghi and also courtesy of ZZK Records. TransLash Podcast is made possible by the support of the Heising-Simons Foundation and many others.
All right, TransLash family, I’m looking forward to lots of things. Of course, next week is going to be black history month, and… that’s always a really important moment for us to reflect and think about the contributions of African-Americans to our society, specifically black trans people to our society and ways that we can better integrate and continue to write the historic wrongs that we’ve never fully closed or completed in America. So, I think that’s always something that I’m looking forward to… Um, it’s also the fact that I am looking for it to… Uh, our upcoming podcast was that we’re going to have on trans love which we never get to talk about enough. I’m super excited about that.
Um, I’m also super excited about the work that we’re continuing to do for um, a video series on the intersection between trans rights and abortion rights and body autonomy movement. So, that’s another thing that we’re going to be working really hard on in February and bringing you in March. And lastly, personally, I’m so excited because The Walking Dead returns. You guys don’t have any idea how much of a Walking Dead fiend[?] I am, like, how much I’m into that series. How I’ve watched every single one for the past 12 years. I mean, I’ve been, I hung in there. I’ve watched Talkback Live, the show that comes on afterward, and just so that you all know, this is technically the last season of The Walking Dead.
But they have three parts so the last season so, it’s kind of like a season and a half. So, we’re going into season 11 book 2 at the end of February. And then next fall we go into season 11 book 3, which is really the final end. So, I’m going to be so sad that the show is shaped so much of my life. It’s, it’s been through financial crises, Donald Trump and you name it, transition surgeries, a whole bunch of stuff. So, um… I’m looking forward to that and comes back at the end of February. And so, don’t be surprised if you hear about me talking about Walking Dead again.
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