Do you think, what are your thoughts on if there is such a thing as a trajectory or progress or whatever in terms of acceptance and equality and affirmation of trans people?

Yeah, I'm, you know, I strongly believe that, you know, progress is not linear, right? Things do not get better simply because time is moving forward.

You know, when I transitioned, I started transition about 10 years ago and it was great.

I mean, life, it was very hard.

Personally, it was a difficult, very, very difficult transition.

Things were getting better.

It was a good time to be a trans person in the United States.

What do you think is the reason for it getting worse?

Yeah.

Um, because we will never get out of that.

That is a trap, and it is a trap they have played to beyond their wildest dreams successful.

Uh, and what we need to do as Democrats is articulate a vision of a country where trans people belong and get out of the stupid spiral of talking about sports, which is not an issue.

There are dozens of trans people in this country who play sports that are youths, um, and we are obsessing over them.

Obsessing over them.

You know, the, the president of the NCAA said there are 510,000 student athletes and 10 of them in the NCAA are trans.

Uh, uh, can you talk a little bit about like what it would look like to describe trans people as, and transness as not just to be tolerated, uh, but about what it contributes?

What do you think of the state of political discourse that, that, uh, that this, it's come to this, that people are, are, uh, attacking lawmakers?

Yeah, I think it's, um, obviously, um, we have crossed into some kind of deep end of politics here.

Um, you know, M- Melissa was a, was a wonderful and bipartisan leader in the state of Minnesota.

She was a beloved figure, um, even by some of our Republican colleagues.

And, and that, that she was the target of this and that, that she has now been killed by political violence, I mean, it is a signal that whatever is happening in this country, it is going in the wrong direction.

Uh, it feels like the start of something unfortunately, not the end of something.

And, and I think we all need to reflect upon how we got here and how to avoid getting even further down this road.

Do you think you're, are you rethinking how you do things?