Hi, everybody and welcome to Outward Slate's LGBT podcast. I'm Brian Louder, an editor at Slate. I am sick today, so please

forgive the stuffy nose and scratchy

voice. But what's getting me through is

being here together with both of my lovely co-hosts

Christina and Jules.

Friends, hi, how are you both

holding up? Hello?

Holden, holding. Oh, I hope

that's not too on topic for today's episode. I'm not,

as listeners, we'll find out. I'm not holding that way. I am holding it together. It was so good to

see you both. Hear your voices. Yeah, you too. It's been so long. I'm actually getting a little

sick, too, which I really, you know, so much gratitude for

our producer, Pallas, who's going to have to go through all this audio of us, let's sniffling into our

microphones, just the grossest noises that we're going to be producing for the next hour. So I'm sorry

in advance to Pallas. And the focal cords are beautiful creation of evolution. They are very sensitive.

Yes.

They get a little bog down in the mucous.

Lovely visual.

Well, on that note, maybe I should get into what the topic is this week.

We're going to take up something that I think is on a lot of

queer people's minds right now in one way or another, you know, living as we are under increasing

state violence towards trans and queer people, in boldened hatred, in American society broadly,

...