Transcript:
Daniella Gibbs Léger: Hey everyone. Welcome back to “The Tent,” your place for politics, policy, and progress. I’m Daniella Gibbs Léger.
Colin Seeberger: And I’m Colin Seeberger. Daniella, it is April. I can’t believe it.
Gibbs Léger: Yay! I know. Thankfully, yes.
Seeberger: Yeah. Did you get pranked on for April Fools’?
Gibbs Léger: Well, the joke’s on me, because somebody—me—told myself that I could do a concert on a school night.
Seeberger: Oh …
Gibbs Léger: Yeah. I’m not 22 anymore.
Seeberger: That’s a choice.
Gibbs Léger: It was a choice, and I got home well after midnight. I know. Don’t look at me like that.
Seeberger: Well, I do remember that you’re going to see Beyoncé later this year.
Gibbs Léger: I am.
Seeberger: On a Monday.
Gibbs Léger: That is true. That is very true. I think I’m going to take off that Tuesday, though.
Seeberger: I think that’s wise. I think that’s wise.
Gibbs Léger: Exactly. Well, more importantly than me making bad decisions, it was also Transgender Day of Visibility this week, and I heard you had a great conversation about that.
Seeberger: I did. I spoke with trans journalist Imara Jones about the administration’s attacks on trans people, why everyone should be concerned about the implications of these attacks for our democracy, and what we can do to fight back as well as celebrate the trans community.
Gibbs Léger: Really timely and exciting. But first, we do have to get to some news.
Seeberger: We certainly do, Daniella. Because while [President] Donald Trump announced sweeping new tariffs on Wednesday, calling it quote-unquote, “liberation day,” for most of us it’s going to feel a lot more like “inflation day.”
Gibbs Léger: Don’t like it.
Seeberger: No. So, as of this recording on Wednesday afternoon, we’re still awaiting the details about the full scope of these tariffs. But we should be clear, Trump’s trade wars and tariffs are going to increase prices and almost certainly drive our economy into a Trump slump.
Our friends at the Center for American Progress crunched the numbers based on the White House’s projected revenue targets, and determined that these tariffs could cost the typical family $5,200 a year in more taxes—the largest middle-class tax increase in history. They’re also going to kill jobs and create chaos, making it hard for industries to invest in important capital decisions like, are they going to hire workers? It’s also going to make it harder to produce things and get those goods to market.
We should be clear that, again, Trump’s tariffs? They’re not going to make it easier to make things in America. They’re going to do the exact opposite. Just look at Michigan and Minnesota, where steel-making company Cleveland-Cliffs is already laying off more than 1,200 workers due to tariffs on steel and automobiles.
These tariffs are not only robbing Americans of their jobs, they’re stealing money out of American’s pocketbooks, all so that Trump can give tax breaks to Elon Musk and his other billionaire donors. It’s clear that Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are hell-bent on doing the bidding of Trump’s wealthy donors, no matter the cost, even if it means driving our economy into the ground and hurting the middle class.
Gibbs Léger: It’s very true, Colin. And with Trump and Musk already taking an ax to the benefits that Americans rely on like Social Security, the last thing that families in this country can afford is an inflation bomb. We’ve already seen grocery prices rising. Now price hikes on cars, clothes, appliances, and other goods could be on the horizon.
And unsurprisingly, consumer sentiment has tanked, and now some economists are worried that we could be headed for a recession. If Trump moves forward with a 20 percent universal tariff as he has threatened, Moody’s has predicted it could spark a serious U.S. recession that would wipe out 5.5 million jobs.
Seeberger: That’s a lot.
Gibbs Léger: That’s a lot. And spike the unemployment rate to 7 percent. So the bottom line here: Ordinary Americans are paying the price for Trump’s trade wars and tariffs. Donald Trump pledged on the campaign trail to lower prices and make it easier for families to save a little more, but instead, his policies are threatening to raise prices on everything from food to cars to health care.
Promises made, promises broken isn’t what the American people want. I have to say, Colin, when Trump announces this latest round of tariffs in the White House Rose Garden, he will supposedly be flanked by his entire Cabinet. So, the image of all these billionaires up there yukking it up while the billionaire president announces a massive tax increase on the middle class is quite something.
Seeberger: It sure is, Daniella. And the American people are really demonstrating just how upset they are about these broken promises, which of course brings us to what we also have to talk about this week, and that’s the election results that we got on Tuesday. Trump began his second term as the most unpopular president since World War II, other than himself.
This week, though, we got new polling from the Associated Press, which showed his political standing is actually getting even worse, with 56 percent of Americans disapproving of his performance as president. Several polls found Trump’s weak political position is actually being driven by opposition to his policies, especially his handling of trade negotiations, Social Security, and the economy as a whole, which is 18 points underwater compared to his overall approval rating of -14.
And this is becoming a massive political problem for Republican-backed candidates nationwide who are being associated with the president’s approval rating. We saw this play out in a number of races this week. In Wisconsin, Judge Susan Crawford, who had the backing of the state’s Democratic Party, won election to the Wisconsin State Supreme Court by nearly 10 percentage points in a state that Trump won in 2024 by less than a percentage point. She even picked off Brown County, home to Green Bay, where Elon Musk held a rally over the weekend. Donald Trump, of course, won that county by seven points just a few months ago.
Speaking of Elon, the man pumped $25 million into right-wing candidate Brad Schimel’s campaign, a fact that Judge Crawford called out repeatedly on the campaign trail. So this outcome is, of course, a damning indictment of Musk’s and Trump’s agenda, as well as his blatant attempts to buy political outcomes.
And Wisconsin isn’t the only place that we’re seeing this. In Florida, Democrat Josh Weil, a single dad and public school teacher, made up significant ground in his underdog race against state Sen. Randy Fine (R) in a special election to fill a vacant U.S. House seat left by national security adviser Mike Waltz.
Waltz, of course, handily won his race by 33 points a few months ago. Trump actually won that district by 37 points back in November. So it seems like Fine is actually going to win by about half of those margins.
Gibbs Léger: That’s a really big drop.
Seeberger: Yeah.
Gibbs Léger: Also in Florida, Democratic candidate Gay Valimont overperformed in her race to succeed former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R) in a district that Trump won by 37 points in 2024 and Gaetz won by 30 points. She lost to Florida’s chief financial officer, Jimmy Patronis, by less than 15 percentage points, and that is more than a 22-point gain on Trump’s margin. And of course we mentioned this last week, but Democrats flipped the state senate district in Pennsylvania that Trump won by 15 points in 2024.
The Trump administration even had to pull its nomination of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) for U.N. ambassador, because Trump himself admitted he was worried about maintaining a voting majority in the house. Stefanik’s seat, by the way, is in a district that Trump won 60 to 40 percent. I feel a little bad for Rep. Stefanik, but not really.
Seeberger: Yeah.
Gibbs Léger: Let’s make no mistake: Trump and Musk’s dangerous agenda is the clear reason for this political shift that we’re seeing. Republicans appear to be staring down a brutal midterm cycle that could be made significantly worse if Trump, Musk, and MAGA keep pursuing their corrupt and harmful policies.
They’ve already tanked consumer confidence, and that was before Trump unveiled the latest reckless round of tariffs. And Republicans in Congress pushed forward in passing trillions of dollars in tax cuts for their wealthiest donors, paid for by ripping away Medicaid and basic needs and services Americans depend on.
This week’s races put Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s agenda on trial, and the American people are delivering a resounding verdict. For a guy who claims to have an overwhelming mandate, Trump sure seems to be worried about all this pushback and what it could do to his congressional majorities.
Seeberger: Yeah, that mandate seems to look a little bit weaker in light of these results, to be sure. I also need to point out, Politico actually reported, after we got these election results, news that apparently Elon Musk may be departing from a permanent role that he has been enjoying as a special government employee overseeing DOGE. It seems like he may be retreating into the wings in light of some of these election results.
So, I think it’s also a really important reminder for Democrats that they need to be talking about the work that Elon Musk has been doing, raking Americans over the coals over the last few months. This isn’t Elon Musk’s policy agenda. This is Donald Trump’s.
Gibbs Léger: That’s right.
Seeberger: He has rubber-stamped everything Elon Musk has done, and he needs to own it. Look, there’s obviously a lot of outrage around Trump’s economic approach and his handling of sensitive military strike plans in Yemen on Signal, or as we found out this week, also on Gmail.
Gibbs Léger: Yikes.
Seeberger: Those things certainly aren’t helping his political position. They’re also really huge stories, and it’s incumbent on the press in this country to continue to demand answers about them and cover them in the weeks ahead. I know we at “The Tent” here will certainly be doing so.
Gibbs Léger: We certainly will. Well, that’s all the time that we have for today. If there’s anything else you’d like us to cover on the pod, hit is up on Twitter, Bluesky, Instagram, and Threads @TheTentPod. That’s @TheTentPod.
Seeberger: And stick around for my interview with Imara Jones in just a beat.
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Seeberger: Imara Jones is the creator of TransLash Media and host of the “TransLash” and “Anti-Trans Hate Machine” podcasts. Her work has won awards from GLAAD, the National Black Journalists Association, and the National LGBTQ± Journalists Association. She was appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio to serve on the New York City Commission on Gender Equity and chaired the United Nation’s first meeting on gender diversity in 2019.
Prior to that, she served in the Clinton administration and worked on economic policy. Imara Jones, thanks so much for joining us on “The Tent.”
Imara Jones: Thank you so much for having me.
Seeberger: So, we’re recording this interview on March 31. It is Transgender Day of Visibility. So, happy Transgender Day of Visibility to you.
I’m curious to get some first-person perspective. What does this day mean to you, especially during such a challenging moment in which we find ourselves for the transgender community? And can you talk about what you’re acknowledging and celebrating this year in the face of so many of these political attacks?
Jones: Well, I think that it’s extremely important in a moment like this for people not to back down. When you’re facing authoritarian regimes, the thing that they count on is for people to cave and cower. And we are seeing, I would imagine by some accounts, a little bit of that from unexpected quarters.
And I think that what’s important in this moment is that people don’t do that, because that is the essence of preserving freedom. So, I think that what’s essential in this moment is that trans people and people who care about trans people continue to stand up and declare themselves and to be visible.
And so I honestly think that perhaps Trans Day of Visibility is as important now as it’s ever been—especially in light of the attacks from the Trump administration and their authoritarian motivation.
Seeberger: Yeah. I mean, we’re obviously seeing these attacks play out from the administration on the heels of a really raucous political campaign season in which one of the areas that the Trump campaign spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to fearmonger voters was over transgender Americans and their ability to participate in our society, live their lives fully.
I am curious—we’ve already seen the administration take some actions, like military service bans to restrictions on gender-affirming care. I think this scapegoating of the transgender community is really meant to divide and distract people from other elements of their really unpopular agenda. Do you agree with that? And can you talk a little bit about that and how folks should address fighting back?
Jones: Well, I think that one of the most unrecognized facts in modern American political life is the way in which the attack on trans people has been orchestrated in order to bring about authoritarianism in the United States. I think it is a massive failure of the established political class to recognize that. That’s a key part of how we got here.
The fact is that there has been very intelligent brain work on the part of Republicans and Christian nationalists who understood that one of the ways that they could begin to eke out majorities in the United States was through the demonization, the isolation, and the marginalization of trans people. Because their research showed them that attacks on trans people and othering trans people would allow them to have conversations with people that they would never normally be in conversation with: educated suburban moms; members of the LGBTQ community who call themselves feminists, specifically lesbians and some gay men; Black church leaders; and Latino evangelicals, and therefore spent about a decade crafting a very focused and intentional campaign to do just that.
And it has been, I think, more successful than they ever thought. I mean, one of the ways that I know all of this is because we have an investigative podcast called “The Anti-Trans Hate Machine” that comes out once a year. Last year, we won a Webby for the reporting that we’ve done on it. So, all of this is stuff that I personally know and have reported on.
And what that means is that this attack on trans people they see as essential to undermining democracy. And the fact that there hasn’t been a response to it because of the transphobia that they understood exists throughout society, but also including in the Democratic Party—I have to sadly say—is one of the things they’ve been able to exploit.
And we saw it done to stunning success in the election where the single-largest ad buy of the entire Trump campaign were the anti-trans ads that it launched in October, which means that in many ways the Trump campaign as an entity was an anti-trans campaign. And the reason why they did that is that they understood that they could motivate young men who normally stay at home to go to the polls. And when you look at who showed up for them in the last two weeks, that gave them the margin of victory, it was exactly those who they had been targeting with those ads.
And you know, I think one of the things that is terribly sad is the fact that the Democratic Party violated one of its cardinal rules that was developed by James Carville in 1992, which is that you don’t allow attacks to go unanswered for more than 24 hours. And the party allowed an attack on trans people, and Kamala Harris threw that foil to go unanswered to the tune of a $250,000,000 for a month. And it allowed Tony Fabrizio, who was the Republican pollster, to call that election almost to the exact 10th of a point.
And so I think that we have to acknowledge that one of the ways that we got here was through the attacks on trans people that have been intelligent, and well thought out, and resourced, and motivated for a decade.
Seeberger: Well, speaking of intelligent and resourced and methodical, I think one of the things that I’m curious to get your perspective on is we’ve seen as the administration has tried to bolster its anti-trans policy agenda, they have relied very intentionally on circulating misinformation and disinformation about the transgender community.
And unfortunately, I think many of our friends in the media are giving way too much airtime to some of these misleading and fabricated narratives and altogether unscientific claims in effort to appear quote-unquote fair and balanced or unbiased.
What do you wish that mainstream media would change about how it covers trans issues? And what narratives from your own experiences as a trans journalist are best at breaking through the noise and humanizing trans people?
Jones: I think that one of the most interesting things about the disinformation is that it works because it’s designed to work. Right? I think that very much what the Christian nationalist movement did was that they developed an alternative media pipeline to put anti-trans disinformation at the heart of established media.
And so again, it is the result of a lot of intelligent brain work to figure out how you were going to move society on an issue that society didn’t care about five years ago. I mean, this is not something that was on the tip of everyone’s tongue.
And a part of that is figuring out how to plant disinformation on the darkest corners of the webs, then move it to what you think are organic websites. Then from those organic websites, you move to places like The Daily Wire. From there you go to “Joe Rogan.” From there you go to places like “Bill Maher,” and you eventually end up in The New York Times. There’s an established pipeline of disinformation that they established through turning up the volume.
And in part, not only does the disinformation work because they developed a disinformation pipeline to infiltrate society, the audience that they’ve been able to build through this alternative pipeline reaches three times the number of people as so-called liberal media. Liberal media reaches 30 million people a day. This alternative media, landscape, and pipeline reaches 100 billion people a day. It’s David and Goliath.
But it’s also the fact that, again, there was a lot of work around what makes people uncomfortable with trans people. And the American Principles Project, a right-wing think tank, in 2018 came up with a report that said it’s essentially trans kids. That’s the way that we’re going to do it. We’re going to make people really uncomfortable with the idea of trans kids. Because that’s where, in our focus groups, in our research, that’s where the softness is. And so they begin to develop messages from that.
Well, they did that because, again, they knew that it had broader appeal than their base. And a part of that appeal are editors in newsrooms, people who make decisions. Because trans people are already seen as being strange, already seen to being fake. And the idea that there are trans kids to many people seems just completely alien, right? So it’s an easy thing to develop tropes around and to get equal airtime, because it’s a point of skepticism that’s pretty broad in society.
So I think that like we have to understand that the infiltration not only is because of a pipeline, but also because the messaging itself is designed to work on people. And I think that some of the most harmful ones are this fundamental idea that trans is a made-up thing. And it comes out in all these different ways.
So for example, trans athletes who are kids are just essentially—I’m going to give this scenario—are essentially, for example, boys competing as girls. When we know through a variety of things that, one, the adolescent difference between boys and girls, and especially younger boys and girls, is not that terribly great. I mean, you’ll think about the way in which there are mixed teams when you were 6, 7, and 8. Was there a really big difference between the capabilities of boys and girls at that age? Not really, right? There’s a misconception about what’s actually happening.
And then when people get older and are able to go on hormones, for example, it has a dramatic impact. If you’ve ever spoken to a trans athlete who, as they began to be on hormone therapy—which can only occur after the age of 16, by the way, where it even becomes possible. So this idea that it’s happening earlier is just solutions in search of a problem. Because it doesn’t happen. It’s outside of the AMA guidelines. You can’t really get anyone to sign onto that. So this idea that they’re younger kids is just ridiculous.
But even those athletes, when you talk to them, talk about how there’s a dramatic impact on their ability to compete when they go on hormones, which means that biologically when they start to compete, they are girls or they are young women. So there’s a lot of things that are just distorted here.
Seeberger: We could go on that conversation for quite some time. I mean, I’ve heard so much around parents’ influence in this process. It’s also states like New York, states like California—there are laws also on the books that are helping support families in actually being able to support their children throughout this process as well.
It’s like they’ve created a completely fabricated, imaginative landscape in which trans youth are navigating this process. And it’s completely devoid of any actual grounding in reality or in our laws on the books.
Jones: Right. Because it’s supposed to be, right?
Seeberger: Yeah.
Jones: You can’t ground it in reality and—for instance, in the state of Texas—then take away kids from loving parents who are supportive of them. You can’t. You have to create this alternative landscape. Whereas Trump says Johnny leaves in the morning and comes back as Jane, because there is a trans machine that does wonders at school that day.
For me, it’s the Voltaire quote: “If I can get you to believe absurdities, I can get you to commit atrocities.” And I think that that’s what we’re seeing here.
Seeberger: Totally, totally. So obviously, transgender activists and leaders bring incredible intersectional perspectives to so many of our country’s most pressing policy debates, whether it’s housing, health care, climate.
Beyond more trans-specific issues like access to gender-affirming care, what policy attacks from the Trump administration and the majorities in Congress are you most concerned about could impact Americans’ ability to live healthy, productive lives, including transgender Americans?
Jones: I mean, the sad thing is almost all of them. I think there are a couple that stick out to me. I think one is—one of the very first ones—which was saying that the state had an interest in defining people biologically.
And not only does the state have an interest in defining people biologically, that the state had an interest in declaring what happens in the womb. Because the very first transgender executive order said that there are only two genders, there’s male and female, and that the government has an interest in that definition, and then said that we are interested in whether or not you are male and female from the time of conception.
So it is the government declaring that it has a far-reaching interest in people’s fundamental bodies and definitions of people biologically. That should disturb everyone in America. Because fundamentally, what we’ve said makes people American, what the state fundamentally is interested in, is whether or not you’re born here or not. It is not who you are biologically. And it is certainly not what happens inside of your body that the state says it has an interest in knowing about and then making laws and regulations defining on that. So that should freak everyone out, I should say.
The second one, I think, is the passport designation rule by saying that your passport has to be not how you may have lived your lives for 25 or 30 years, but how your biology, again, was defined when you were born. And the thing about that is that that is an excuse that they are using that could render people stateless.
And what I mean by that is that if the government says we won’t issue you papers unless you prove to us who you are biologically, and then that’s the basis for deciding who gets to have papers or not, then the state has the ability to render people stateless. Once you render people stateless, what you can then do is that they are essentially denaturalized. And the state can do whatever they want.
And so I think that what’s happening on the passport rules—we’ve heard of people having their papers confiscated when they send them in, not getting back their birth certificate immediately until there was a public outcry, and then they got them back. All of those things should concern people.
And what I tell everyone is that trans people are a perfect population to road test authoritarianism in the United States because it’s such a small group of people that you have convinced other people that they shouldn’t care about. So you can experiment on the cocktail of regulations and laws that you’ll then expand to wider populations because they fundamentally understand that their policies are unpopular, and the only way that they will sustain them over time is to remove people from public life that can have an influence in voting and protesting and making their voice heard over time. So they have to shrink who’s actually defined as an American. And all they’re doing with trans people is experimenting on how to do that.
Seeberger: Well, that passport issue is, I think, particularly concerning and timely as the House of Representatives this week is supposed to take up the SAVE Act, which is basically a voter registration takeover of state rules for how people go about signing up to register to vote. Right? And it includes very specific prescriptions as to what kind of documents people can utilize in order to be able to get registered.
Well, if you’re making the process to obtain a passport that much harder, yet requiring that passport to be a necessity to participate in our democratic process, it’s like all these things are compounding on one another as more and more harm and more and more picking and choosing from this authoritarian leader and his followers as to who gets to participate in our society.
Jones: One hundred percent. And I mean, we already saw this in the last election where there were estimates that hundreds of thousands of trans people could be disenfranchised. Because in a lot of states now there are rules that demand that not only your name match, but that your face matches the picture that’s on the ID, and that your signature matches. And we know that, for example, if you’re trans, you may not look the same. I mean, there are a lot of people that don’t look the same after five or 10 years on, you know?
Seeberger: Sure, sure.
Jones: And they have left the discretion of whether or not to exercise that within the individual poll workers that are signing you in. Well, that means that you have the possibility for discrimination, because there’s no standard.
Seeberger: Sure.
Jones: Right? And so I think that like these are things that they’ve already been experimenting with that they are now seeking to enshrine into law and to impact everyone. And the SAVE Act is just the beginning.
Seeberger: Yeah. Well, we have unpacked the darkness of which there is so much.
Jones: No shortage.
Seeberger: There is no shortage, to be clear. But there have also been some glimmers of progress lately.
Jones: A lot.
Seeberger: The election of Rep. Sarah McBride from Delaware as the first out transgender woman in Congress.
Jones: One hundred percent.
Seeberger: How important is it for Americans to see transgender people in positions of leadership? What’s your reaction to Rep. McBride’s first few months in office? We have seen some of her colleagues try to make a spectacle of her position of leadership. And I’m also curious to get your reaction to Rep. McBride’s message that Democrats should be more open to difficult conversations on trans issues and that the party needs to make more space in its tent.
Jones: I think that it is not only historic, but vital that Sarah both was elected and is in Congress and is a part of leadership as a first year in the Congress for a variety of reasons. I think that, one, just her presence there shifts what people believe or is possible for trans people. Just that is massive and huge. And I think that the fact that she represents an entire state, the fact that a trans person can represent an entire state, is also crucial and really important and not only symbolic, but helps to make the road for other people and shifts policy conversations and discussions for sure.
And of course, she joins so many trans people who’ve been elected to state houses in Virginia and in New Hampshire and in Colorado, and then at the local level in Minneapolis where there were two trans people—Black trans people, actually—serving on the Minneapolis City Council at the same time. So I think that it is important.
I also think that that is why there were attacks on trans lawmakers like Mauree Turner in Oklahoma, who is trans, nonbinary, Muslim, and Black, because of the fact that their example and their holding office gives legitimacy to the trans community in a way that people who are trying to undermine the legitimacy find really threatening.
And so there were a lot of things that happened to try to undermine Mauree Turner at the same time that the same thing was happening to the two Justins in Tennessee, right? Let’s try to remove the people who are giving legitimacy to people and populations that we think shouldn’t have them, right?
So, the attack on Sarah is very consistent with what we’ve seen in attacks on the state house of similar leaders, right? It’s just elevating from the state level to the federal government to try to delegitimize her and to delegitimize everything that she stands for.
When it comes to having difficult conversations, I don’t think that there’s a trans person alive who doesn’t understand the importance of having difficult conversations. I think we’ve all had difficult conversations with people in our family and with faith leaders and with people in various types of authority in schools, not to mention employers. So, trans people saying, oh, we should be open to difficult conversations—of course we should be. I mean, that’s life.
Seeberger: Innate.
Jones: It’s innate. It’s innate. It’s innate. How many times have I had to have difficult conversations, and sometimes the same conversation with the same person several times over.
But alongside of that, I don’t think that this is only about conversation. I think that what we’re talking about here is that there is an attempt to attack the fundamental human rights and dignity of an entire group of people, and that we shouldn’t stand for if we have a country that lives up to the ideals that are on paper. And so tough conversations, yes. But I think the preying upon trans people as a part of a larger political project—that, no one should be open to.
Seeberger: So, we like to end these conversations on a positive note when we can. So, in the interest of centering trans voices, I wanted to ask you to shout out some of your favorite trans leaders you’re working with or who are inspiring you in this really difficult moment. Who should our listeners be plugged into on social media or looking to for more information or inspiration?
Jones: Well, the best way for you to do that is actually just go listen to the “TransLash” podcast and catch up over the last several years, because there’s too many people for me to actually name. I think that that’s one of the fascinating things about the trans community is how deep and broad and diverse it is.
So I want to make sure that I say that, because I’m not going to capture everybody. I think some of the ones that spring your mind, in addition to Sarah, I think also Tourmaline, who is not only an incredible artist who’s had their work shown at the Whitney [Museum of American Art], but also has written a book on Marsha P. Johnson based upon scholarly research that she started when she was a student at Columbia. And that book is coming out in May. So that is one of the things that stands out to me.
There are so many local leaders of trans people across the country. In Alabama, there’s Daroneshia Duncan-Boyd. There are people in Iowa and in South Dakota and so many places around the country that I think are also really, really, really important.
I think that there are really important trans leaders in philanthropy and elsewhere. There’s not a shortage of daily inspiration that I have in terms of people that I find uplifting and inspiring. There’s an actor, Chyna McQueen, who’s in an amazing program called “Get Millie Black” that’s on Max, which is incredible. It was nominated for a GLAAD award.
The list goes on and on and on, like Nava Mau. I mean, we could do an entire show going sector by sector in the arts. Who are you inspired by in writing? Who are you inspired by in journalism? Who are you inspired by? And we could go list by list. I remember when we started the “TransLash” podcast, which is our other podcast, someone said to me, they were like, “Well, do you think that there’s enough people for you to do a podcast on, to talk to?” Five years later—
Seeberger: Still going.
Jones: —still going. And there’s so many people to talk to that last year we moved from a biweekly podcast for every two weeks to now weekly. Because there’s so many people that are in our community that we can talk to and be interested in. And also I think trans kids in the tragic leadership—not tragic as in like Greek tragedy, but tragic I think in terms of what it says for our society— so many of the trans kids who have had to step up and go testify to various state legislators for their basic human rights, when as a 12- or 13- or 16-year-old you shouldn’t have to be doing that.
Seeberger: Yeah. I mean, every 12-, 13-, 16-year-old is already going through something. So to force them into that kind of position—could not agree more. Certainly worth calling out their bravery. Calling out their service to their fellow Americans is just so inspiring. So Imara Jones, thank you so much for joining us on “The Tent.” It was great to chat with you.
Jones: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate it.
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Gibbs Léger: Well, that’s going to do it for us this week. Be sure to go back and check out previous episodes. So, I wasn’t here last week, Colin. You know we’ve got to talk about “The Bachelor.”
Seeberger: Of course we do. It’s the big season finale.
Gibbs Léger: Big season finale. I wasn’t surprised that he ended up picking Juliana because as we’ve discussed, I feel like Litia, there were some things that they needed to perhaps get over.
Seeberger: They had to unpack a bit, yeah.
Gibbs Léger: But man, Litia’s reaction at being rejected was—woo.
Seeberger: Yeah, that was something else. I was not expecting that. I mean, she was pretty, I feel like, docile and restrained and whatnot throughout most of the season. But boy, she popped off, didn’t she?
Gibbs Léger: She did. And listen, she kind of brought some receipts there and at ”After the Final Rose.” Because she was like, you were telling me that I’m the one—
Seeberger: From the beginning.
Gibbs Léger: From the beginning! And then talking about how I envisioned my life with you and—I was like, ooh, she has a point. Like, I get it. You go on this show, you understand that the person you are dating is also dating 30 other women.
Seeberger: Sure.
Gibbs Léger: And that I can even give that you may fall in love with two people and tell two people that you love them. That can all be true and fine. But you don’t tell both of them about your envisioning getting engaged, about what your life is going to be like, about how you’re the one, and then the next day she walks up and then like, you’re going to kiss her and let her say all this stuff and then be like, oh, by the way, not you.
Seeberger: Yeah. It was not a great look, Grant. Not a great look.
Gibbs Léger: It really wasn’t.
Seeberger: But I will say, I was happy for Juliana. I feel like she had a good energy, and her energy vibed really well with Grant.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah.
Seeberger: So, I also feel like they’ll make a good pairing. And we’ll have to see if they buck the “Bachelor” trend and can hang on and remain a couple for more than a year or two.
Gibbs Léger: I know. We’ll see. Geez, I forgot about Jen. Man, she didn’t even make it until “After the Final Rose.” That was brutal.
Seeberger: That was wild.
Gibbs Léger: But yeah, I have hope for them, and we will see. I am very excited for “Bachelor in Paradise.”
Seeberger: I am, too. Although I will miss “The Bachelorette” this summer.
Gibbs Léger: I will. But you know that they’re doing something different in “Paradise” this year?
Seeberger: What are they doing?
Gibbs Léger: It’s also going to be “Golden Bachelor in Paradise.”
Seeberger: Oh boy.
Gibbs Léger: So they’re going to, I think, like, the olds and the youngs are all going to be on the beach together.
Seeberger: You know, everybody deserves a beach vacation every now and then—.
Gibbs Léger: I agree. But I have questions.
Seeberger: —and love.
Gibbs Léger: I have questions. Do they have to date only within their age pool? Or can some young thing go and hit on, what is the guy’s name? Who everybody loved from Joan’s season? I can’t remember.
Seeberger: Not Chock.
Gibbs Léger: Not Chock. That’s who she ended up with.
Seeberger: The other guy. From Reno.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah.
Seeberger: I forget his name.
Gibbs Léger: But like, him.
Seeberger: Yeah, yeah.
Gibbs Léger: Right? That would make for fascinating television.
Seeberger: That would be something.
Gibbs Léger: It would be. It would be. Listen, as we said over and over again, the world is a dumpster fire. Give me my trashy TV.
Seeberger: Give Daniella what she wants, please.
Gibbs Léger: Please.
Seeberger: Yes. Well, I also have hopes for, speaking on a different topic, my Houston Cougars bringing it home in the Final Four.
Gibbs Léger: Yes, yes. I believe I have them winning in a bracket. I’m not sure.
Seeberger: OK.
Gibbs Léger: Anyone but Duke. Understand, that’s always going to be. Now and forever.
Seeberger: Yes.
Gibbs Léger: OK.
Seeberger: Always and forever.
Gibbs Léger: Oh, and to be discussed, Colin, I have caught up on “White Lotus.” I started season one, and I’m done. I’m caught up.
Seeberger: Speaking of Duke.
Gibbs Léger: Yeah. OK, we’re going to have to recap the finale next week for sure.
Seeberger: A hundred percent.
Gibbs Léger: Yes.
Seeberger: Yes.
Gibbs Léger: All right, that’s going to do it for us folks. It’s allergy season, so please take your antihistamines.
Seeberger: Indeed.
Gibbs Léger: And we will talk to you next week.
[Musical transition]
Gibbs Léger: “The Tent” is a podcast from the Center for American Progress Action Fund. It’s hosted by me, Daniella Gibbs Léger, and co-hosted by Colin Seeberger. Erin Phillips is our lead producer, Kelly McCoy is our supervising producer, Mishka Espey is our booking producer, and Muggs Leone is our digital producer. Hai Phan, Olivia Mowry, and Toni Pandolfo are our video team.
Views expressed by guests of “The Tent” are their own, and interviews are not endorsements of a guest’s perspectives. You can find us on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcast.