Skip to content

Freedom Talks

Freedom Talks is a series of conversations with experts exploring issues in trans history, politics, healthcare, law, and culture. These interviews offer research-informed tools for understanding anti-trans movements and challenging misinformation in today’s changing political landscape.

Policing Gender Difference: A Brief History of Anti Cross-Dressing Laws

(17:20) “Once a law is passed–[regardless of] whatever the original intent was–it becomes a living thing that can be interpreted in a lot of different ways and can adapt to changing conditions… crossdressing law was written in this vague way that made it super adaptable”

What is “Trans Health Care?”

(21:09) “What does it mean when we are denying, when we are ignoring the knowledge that comes from experience, that comes from living it, that comes from the everyday knowledge of being a trans person, or living with HIV… we have a tendency to listen to people who a lot of times have no experience with any of those things.” – Tankut Atuk

What is “Trans Health Care?”

In “What is trans healthcare?,” scholars Tankut Atuk and Ruth Pearce discuss the myriad of ways that people conceptualize trans health and healthcare, from trans activists on the front lines to public health officials at the highest level of national governments. How are trans people’s health needs the same or different from non-trans people? Why has healthcare played such a central role in trans movements? What’s at stake in funding research and services for trans people? Atuk and Pearce help us understand the history of a field now under attack by several national governments.

What is Fair Play?: Disciplining Gender in Sports

“These attacks about trans people in sports are really just attacks about gender in general–particularly in the U.S.–and how to be a good citizen that is governable [and] that participates in society, so it all comes back to something much larger.”

What is Fair Play?: Disciplining Gender in Sports

In “What is Fair Play?,” Anima Adjepong, CJ Jones, and M. Aziz discuss the political fixation on trans people in sports. What constitutes fairness? Are hormones the best measure of capacity? Should trans people compete in their own sports leagues? Building on their research in gender and sport (as well as their past experience as athletes), these experts help us understand the complications of trying to establish a “level playing field” and the importance of sports participation for all people.

Policing Gender Difference: A Brief History of Anti Cross-Dressing Laws

(17:20) “Once a law is passed–[regardless of] whatever the original intent was–it becomes a living thing that can be interpreted in a lot of different ways and can adapt to changing conditions… crossdressing law was written in this vague way that made it super adaptable”

Policing Gender Difference: A Brief History of Anti Cross-Dressing Laws

In “Policing Gender,” historian Clare Sears explains the history of “drag bans” and their origin in cross-dressing laws from the 19th century to the present. Sears demonstrates that regulations like drag bans have long aimed to police a flexible category of “indecency,” which has been interpreted to mean any variety of differences in appearance, ability, and dress. These regulations of the past help us understand what’s at stake in fighting a government’s ability to regulate what we wear.