Hi, and welcome back to Transcripts. We’ve taken a brief hiatus-- ok, a LONG hiatus-- and now we’re back with a new model. We’re excited to be changing up the format and hopefully making this space an accessible and creative feed for trans creators in audio!

But first, we’re bringing you a special piece from our friends at KCRW’s Bodies podcast. It’s a piece that’s both powerful and informative, and it does this thing that I really love: it’s reporting about a trans person, but it doesn’t do all sorts of unnecessary explaining about pronouns or identity. Instead, it focuses on what the person does, and their impact on the wider community. 

"Do Less Harm" is about a person named Lill, who lives in Appalachian West Virginia — it’s coal country, and it’s also the overdose capital of the United States. An increasingly dangerous drug supply and a lack of safe supplies like clean syringes leave people who use drugs vulnerable to disease and death. Lill is trying to fill that gap, providing safe supplies and care all over West Virginia — even as the government tries to stop them.

And as for the next Transcripts episode, well-- it might be made by YOU! We’re soliciting audio from both new and experienced audio-makers, stuff made in ProTools and stuff made with an iPhone, whatever, as long as it’s unique and trans. We have a little budget to pay for some new pieces, too, which is cool! Full details will be up on our twitter account @transcriptspod and you can vote for the first season’s “theme” starting on October 25th. So go over and follow us if you don’t already, and get thinking about what story YOU could tell.

Learn more about Lill, and the science behind harm reduction:

• Episode Transcript
• Resources for Safer Drug Use
• CDC Recommendations to fight HIV in West Virginia
• Undoing Drugs: The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction
• Drug Use for Grown-Ups by Carl Hart

We dropped a shortened version of this audio a few weeks ago. We're thrilled to announce that we can now present an extended version of this episode, which features all the original voices plus a new interview with Kayla Gore, Co-Founder of the Memphis-based organization My Sistah's House. 

We hope you take this opportunity to listen to the whole show again! But if you just want the new content-- which is amazing-- feel free to start at 29:14. 

More from us soon! Thanks for listening, and we're especially grateful for all who have shared their voices with us. 

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Donate to My Sistah's House here.

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This episode was supported by a grant from Virginia Humanities. We're part of the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project, a program of the University of Minnesota Libraries. 

All over the South, trans people are fighting to make their homes welcome for all. Even when finding home, or even finding a place to stay, hasn’t always been easy.

With Aurora Higgs (Richmond, VA), Jay Corprew (Virginia Beach, VA), Toni-Michelle Williams (Atlanta, GA), Kya Concepcion (Marietta, GA), and Mariah Moore (New Orleans, LA).

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Cassius Adair is the lead producer. Myrl Beam is the senior project scholar and producer. Rachel Mattson is the managing producer. Myra Billund-Phibbs is the production assistant. Lars Mackenzie is our digital designer. Eliza Edwards did additional transcription for the show.

Sound design is by Sam Leeds with Ariana Martinez. Musical direction is by Homoground. You heard music by Brand New Key, Delish Da Goddess, Special Interest, khx05, Mama Duke, and data data data. You also heard protest tape from Richmond-based radio reporter Mallory Noe-Payne of RADIO IQ.

And go check out the artist féi hernandez, who designed our podcast logo; they have a great new book of poetry out called hood criatura.

Special thanks to LaVelle Ridley, Kai Minosh Pyle, one anonymous reviewer, and Tuck Woodstock. Thanks also to Mara Lazer and Cookie Woolner for additional scene tape. And finally, thank you to everyone who supported us over the last few months; we really appreciate your feedback and generosity.

The Transcripts podcast is a project of the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project, which is based at the University of Minnesota Libraries. Major funding for this episode came from Virginia Humanities.

Hi listeners, a quick update from us. We'll be back in your feeds tomorrow. 

Hi everyone, this episode I’m turning the mic over to Leo Valdes, a PhD student from Rutgers University. They’ve been working with the Voces Oral History Project at UT Austin and the Latino New Jersey Oral History Project, and recently have been conducting interviews w trans Latinx people about their experiences with Covid-19.

This interview is in Spanish, with short interludes narrated in English. Even if you are a monolingual English speaker, I encourage you to listen the best you can, and hear the emotion and clarity in Viviana's voice. Also, Leo's a great writer and their interludes are beautiful. 

Additional music in this episode is from Blue Dot Sessions, and from Thalía's song "A Quien Le Importa."

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Transcripts is a project of Tretter Transgender Oral History Project, a project of the University of Minnesota Libraries. And we have a BRAND NEW TWITTER ACCOUNT at @transcriptspod, please go give us a follow and spread the word. Thanks again for being on this journey with us, and talk to you soon.

Hi! I got some logistical wires crossed on my end and I'm gonna release this week's planned episode next week instead. Stay tuned-- it'll be worth the wait. 

Also, shh, later this week we're soft-launching our new social media stuff, so expect to hear more about that soon. Maybe I'll even drop a little note in the feed about that. 

xo

Today, an episode of Queer The Table, a show that describes itself as about "the joyful, messy, radical magic that happens in spaces where queerness and food intersect." I met host Nico Wisler when they were working on an episode of the podcast Bodies, but they reached out recently to share this amazing interview they did with Black trans activist Ianne Fields Stewart of The Okra Project. You'll hear how the project got started, what they're doing to keep supporting Black trans people during COVID, and how they're trying to leverage their suddenly much-larger platform while being mindful of their own capacity, which is NOT EASY. Take a listen.

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Quick programming note-- in TWO weeks, we'll be putting out our first non-English-language episode, a collab with a new Latinx oral history project, and then in FOUR weeks we'll have a brand new in-house produced episode from the Tretter Trans Oral History project! This new episode focuses on trans Southerners and their struggles to achieve housing justice, even though "home" is a fraught and sometimes even traumatizing idea. We have such a powerful set of voices, plus some genuinely incredible radical trans southern music, and we're so stoked to share. So be on the lookout for that soon!

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We're Transcripts, a project of Tretter Transgender Oral History Project, a project of the University of Minnesota Libraries. Keep listening for more from us-- we're about to launch some big things, including virtual community events, new social media, and more! So as always, please rate and review, share with a friend, and help us grow. Talk soon.

Welcome to a new administration, for those of us in the United States. 

With that in mind, it feels like today is the right day bring you a piece that focuses on thinking transness across borders. This episode is called "They / Them," and it's from Fil Corbitt's new show The Wind. I love love love these deeply felt conversations about language beyond the gender binary in English, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Portuguese and Hebrew. I learned a lot, and I think you will too. 

We're Transcripts, a project of Tretter Transgender Oral History Project, a project of the University of Minnesota Libraries. Keep listening for more from us-- we're about to launch some big things, including virtual community events, new social media (!!!), and more! 

So as always, please rate and review, share with a friend, and help us grow. See you next time. 

What a time to be gay and alive.

I decided not to post yesterday on our regular every-other-Wednesday schedule because honestly, I didn't know what to say. But I definitely don't want to go another two weeks without bringing you this trailer for Transition of Style, a podcast that takes fashion seriously as a trans way of forming our identities. I really love how host Phil aka Corrine thinks about style as a way to unpack gender-- it reminds me of what the scholar Jules Gill-Peterson says about gender as an aesthetic form, which is a whole conversation that maybe I'll ask Jules to come talk about one day. But! Here's the trailer for Transition of Style, from Phil aka Corrine.

Thanks so much for listening-- this is Transcripts, a project of the University of Minnesota Libraries, bringing you both original content and unique voices from across the trans audio landscape. Happy new year and stay safe out there.

Today's episode is called "Parable and Preppers," from the new podcast Queers at the End of the World. This is show is by Nina McQuown and Nat Mesnard, and it's a show about "nerdy queer and trans folks prepping for the apocalypse [...] by talking about books, games, shows, movies and comics." 

This conversation really takes you on a journey: from a bunker is Southwest Virginia waiting out Y2K, to an exploration of cross-dressing as survival in Octavia Butler, to how to have your Go-bag ready.

This is going to be our last episode in 2020, and thanks to each of you for being part of what gave me joy this year. And thanks, too, to the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project, a project of the University of Minnesota Libraries. Have a great new year, and we'll talk to you in 2021.

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You can find out more about Queers at the End of the World @queerworldspodcast on Instagram, by going to queerworlds.com, or by emailing queerworldspodcast@gmail.com. The incredible show art is by Ellie Yanigasawa, @elliethecosmicjelly on Instagram.