Sam the Knight, Donald Trump was elected. What were you seeing and hearing from the transgender diverse community.
America's future will be bigger, better, bolder, richer, safer and stronger than it has ever been before. God bless you and God bless them. Eric, Thank you very much.
There was just absolute, widespread panic. People were really worried about things like upcoming surgery appointments that they had been canceled. People were worried that they weren't going to be able to get access to their hormones like testosterone or estrogen. People were talking about moving to Canada, like quite seriously. People were swapping information about where a safe country is for trans people to live. Yeah, it was really scary and I've never seen anything like it.
As trans people in the United States had to escape plans. Sam Malcolm is preparing for what the Trump era will mean the trans people here in Australia. Just this week, Queensland has announced children will be denied puberty blockers while the state government launches an investigation and agenda affirming hormones, and some federal politicians have begun voicing their support for Trump's tactics. From Schwartz Media, I'm Daniel James. This is
seven am today. He contributed to the Saturday paper Sam Alkin on what's behind Trump's obsession with trans people and whether his anti trans tactics will work. Here. It's Friday, January thirty one. Sam, thanks for speaking with me. We know Trump's been signing a hell of a lot of executive orders. Can you tell me about the ones that affect trans people?
Yeah, well, within hours of taking offers, he started signing these executive orders to a tail transigenderverse people's rights. So there was the first executive order that was called Defending Women from gender ideology extremism and Restoring Biological Truths to the Federal Government, which is a very cumbersome title, mouthful it sure is.
As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.
Basically, that says that all US federal agencies have to focus on a very narrow, biologically contestable version of sex as an immutable biological classification as either male or female, which is determined at conception. Also, anybody who works for a federal department, they can only have their birth sex recognized in their identity documents and things like passports, visas and government records like that can only use a person's
birth sex of male or female. So this executive order will of course require new legislation, but it's already having an impact on housing, health, education, every aspect of a person's life. This is going to impact.
Can you tell me how that will work in practice?
One thing that has happened is the Attorney General has been directed to ensure that trans women can no longer be housed in women's prisons and to reverse policies that allow trans people to access the bathroom of their choice.
There are policies designed to protect LGBTIQA plus workers in the US at the moment from discrimination, they're going to be rescinded entirely, and teachers who make efforts to support their trans or non binary students by discussing things like gender identity could be terminated from their employment just for talking to their students about these issues. Gender affirming medical care to people under the age of nineteen has been restricted.
In order states that the US will not fund, sponsor promote, assist or support the so called transition of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life altering procedures.
And really concerningly, people detained in prisons and immigration detention centers will no longer have access to gender affirming treatment. And so for somebody who's in prison, there's nowhere else to go, right, you can't sort of rely on the
community or use other services. And in a really concerning sign for trans people's ability to travel in the US or around the world, last week, the newly minted Secretary of State Marco Rubio has directed his agency to freeze passport applications that contain a request for an ex gender marker or for a change gender. White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt said US citizens will have to use their
god given sex, which was decided at Perth. And there's been an executive order barring trans people from military service.
President trump'sign an executive order calling transgender people unfit to serve.
One part says being transgender is quote not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.
So many people are members of the US military, and you know, for many people, it provides a kind of lifeline to accessing education and healthcare and things like that. So this issue actually impacts a lot more people than you might expect, but none of these has occurred in a vacuum. We're seeing anti trans legislation and anti LGBTIQA
plus legislation going on all across the world. Ghana, Bulgaria, Georgia all introduced legislation in twenty twenty four, and of course in the UK the use of puberty blockers for those under eighteen has been banned until at least twenty twenty seven. So social conservatives here in Australia will have no doubt been paying close attention to what's going on in the US.
Coming up after the break, Will Trump's anti trans tactics work here? Sam Or We've seen some Trump style moves in Australian politics. How luckily are we to see a tax on trans people's rights here in Australia.
Yeah, we've already seen that. This week, the Queensland government has announced that it's pausing gender affirming treatment for people in the public system under eighteen years of age, so young people, which is really really concerning.
As parents, as communities, as a state, we owe it to children to ensure that care is grounded on solid evidence and that we act in this contested area and this developing area with caution.
I read the other day that there's four hundred and ninety one people who were already on that wait list, and so instead of them getting to the front of the line, they're just no longer going to be able to have access to that. And gender affirming treatment for young people is so important because people not having access
to that is going to cause immediate harm. And data from the Transjustice Project and the Victorian Pride Lobby has shown that antitrans hate has increased over the last few years, and this I think is a direct result of the fact that the media spotlight is so often upon us. I think it's really likely that we're going to see a lot of victriolic coverage about transigender verse people in the lead up to the upcoming election.
And if there is an uptick in victriolic coverage, as you say, what do we know about the positions of the major parties and whether they'll buy into this.
Yeah.
Well, last week prominent Nationals MP's Barnaby Joyce and Matt Canavan voiced their support for Donald Trump's moves to recognize only two sexes, and in a sky News interview, Nationals leader David little Proud said he wants to stop trans women from participating in women's sports. So I think the Nationals have made their position clear on this for the moment. It seems that Federal Opposition leader Peter Dutton doesn't appear to see explicit attacks on the trans community as being
an election winner. In response to Little Proud's comments, Dutton said that the Coalition had no plans to change our position in relation to that issue. Prime Minister Anthony Albanzi, I'm sure is also keen to avoid discussing transgender issues.
The Prime Minister has confirmed a back down on the controversy surrounding the census.
The Albanezy government quietly pulled the lgbt QI census questions an attempt to avoid what it said could be a divisive debate.
He was then forced to reverse his decision to remove gender and sexuality questions from the census. So he's made it pretty clear that he doesn't really want to touch lgbt IQA plus issues at all, and I'm sure he doesn't want to talk about them or be embroiled in a debate in the lead up to this election.
In Australia, what are the rights that transigender diverse community is still trying to achieve.
Yeah, well, we're obviously in a much better situation here in Australia than we are in the US at the moment. We've got, you know, some really important protections under the Sex Discrimination Act, and it's various state based equivalents, and you know, for that, I'm really really grateful. You know, in most states and territories now you can change your birth certificate without first undergoing sterilizing surgery, and you can update your gender mand on your passport without having had
a surgical intervention, which is really important. There's also stuff like conversion therapy to change or suppress a person's sexuality or gender identity that's been prohibited in some states and territories. But yeah, there's still so much that we need changed. Access to healthcare can be incredibly difficult for transgender diverse people of any age, but particularly young people to access gender affirming healthcare in rural areas, regional areas, and very
much remote areas. So that's still something that we really really need to change. And street harassment continues. Trans women and trans women of color in particular much more likely to be harassed, victims of assaults, and so on. And this continues and is probably only going to continue when
there's a vitriolic media debate about us. You know, being somebody who is in the trans community, obviously I know a lot of trans people, but I am aware that we form a very very small minority, less than a percent of the Australian population, and the fact that there's just so many articles constantly about trans issues is disturbing.
So Sam, like he said, trans people are a very small proportion of the overall population. What do you think there is such a focus and obsession even on your community from people like Donald Trump.
Yeah, well, we're very much in the middle of a moral panic around this issue. And I don't think that Donald Trump necessarily cares about transigender diverse people either way. He's using us to divide and distract the broader US population. This is part of Trump's broader attack on what he
calls the quote unquote woke agenda. But all of this is just a smoke screen to help Donald Trump to prosecute his agenda, which is to further cut living standards to ordinary people engage in mass deportations, cut back the public service and give massive tax breaks to the rich. At the moment, we're up as the people being focused upon to curtail our rights. But I'm sure we won't
be the last. You know, whenever a tiny subsection of the population is being targeted, everybody's rights are up for grabs.
Sam, thank you so much for your time.
Thank you.
You can read Sam Malcolm's reporting and tomorrow's edition of the Saturday Paper. Sam was a co editor of Nothing to Hide, Voices of trans and gender Diverse Australia. Also in the news. There's been widespread shock in our cry as Donald Trump signed an executive order to reopen on Tonamo Bay as a migrant detention center. The Navy base, which became infamous during the so called War on Terror for torturing inmates held in indefinite attention, will be repurposed
to hold up to thirty thousand immigrants. The President of Cuba is among the critics of the order, calling the move quote an act of brutality on a legal occupied Cuban territory. ANASA Caesar will not lift the terror threat following the discovery of a caravan filled with explosives on Sydney's outskirts, alongside a list of Jewish targets. It follows as both Prime Minister to Anthony Alberisi and New South Wales Premier Chris Mins have condemned the discovery as an
anti Semitic terror plot. ASIO Director General Mike Burgess says the threat level last raised in August last year, has unfortunately involved almost exactly as expected. Seven Am as the daily show from Schwartz Media and The Saturday Paper. It's made by Adigus Bastow, Shane Anderson, Chris Dangate, Eric Jensen, Ruby Jones, Sarah mcveee, Travis Evans, Zoltefecio and me Daniel James. Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan
of Envelope Boudier. Thanks for listening and have a great weekend.