Making the decision to leave the United States can be a daunting decision for anyone who has never lived abroad before. You might wish to spend some time in another country for an extended period of time– more than your usual one to two week vacation. There are several countries, many of which who are friendly to LGBTQ+ rights, who allow for various types of visas that can extend your stay, before you decide to make a permanent move.
GetGoldenVisa.com just published a nice guide for choosing the right country to move to and how to move out of the US. The website focuses mostly on the Golden Visa, which allows investors to enter countries. There are other visa options such as student visas, and the digital nomad visa.
The Republican-controlled Kansas Legislature on Tuesday overrode the Democratic governor’s veto of a bill that bans gender-transition treatments for minors, fulfilling a longtime goal of conservative lawmakers and joining about half of the country’s states in enacting bans or sharp limits on those procedures.
The Kansas bill had broad Republican support, but its status had been uncertain because of the opposition of Gov. Laura Kelly, who said it was “disappointing that the Legislature continues to push for government interference in Kansans’ private medical decisions.” Ms. Kelly vetoed similar bills in each of the last two years, and lawmakers had previously failed to override her.
This time, Republicans in both chambers mustered the two-thirds margin necessary to override her and celebrated the decision as following President Trump’s lead on the issue. Kansas had been among the only states where Republicans hold significant legislative power without such a law.
“Today, a supermajority of the Kansas Senate declared that Kansas is no longer a sanctuary state” for those procedures, Senator Ty Masterson, the chamber’s president, said in a statement.
Republican supporters of the measure, which bans hormone treatments, puberty blockers and transition surgeries for transgender patients younger than 18, described it as guarding young people from life-altering choices that they could later regret. Under the new law, doctors who provide those treatments to minors could lose their licenses and be sued by patients or their parents.
The shift in Kansas comes as President Trump and his administration crack down on gender transitions for minors nationally, seeking to end funding for hospitals that provide those treatments. The Trump administration has also moved to ban trans women and girls from competing in women’s sports, to bar trans people from serving openly in the military, to house trans women who are federal prisoners with men, and to no longer reflect the gender identities of trans people on passports.
Democrats and L.G.B.T.Q. advocates called the Kansas legislation an invasion of privacy that would have devastating health consequences. In her veto message, Ms. Kelly said “infringing on parental rights is not appropriate, nor is it a Kansas value,” and warned that enacting the measure could have economic consequences.
“This legislation will also drive families, businesses, and health care workers out of our state, stifling our economy and exacerbating our workforce shortage issue,” the governor wrote.
The new law comes as part of a broader push by Republicans in Kansas, a state that Mr. Trump carried last year by 16 percentage points, to place limits on transgender people. Kansas stopped changing birth certificates to reflect gender identity in 2023 after lawmakers overrode another veto by Ms. Kelly and passed a law defining male and female as a person’s sex at birth.
But as Republicans across the country have moved in recent years to restrict transition treatments for minors, Kansas had remained an outlier on the Great Plains. Bans or severe limits are already in place in three of its four bordering states — Colorado is the exception — and across much of the rest of the Midwest.
Bans elsewhere have been challenged in state and federal courts with a range of preliminary outcomes. Many expect the U.S. Supreme Court to ultimately decide whether there is a national right to access such treatments.
Investigators probing what they described as the torturous killing of a 24-year-old transgender man in upstate New York, allegedly at the hands of five people, say they have found no evidence that the homicide was a hate crime.
The remains of the victim, identified as 24-year-old Sam Nordquist of Minnesota, were discovered on Wednesday in a field in Benton, New York, in Yates County, according to Capt. Kelly Swift, a New York State Police investigator.
Swift said investigators suspect that Nordquist was tortured and killed in neighboring Ontario County and moved “in an attempt to conceal a crime.”
“Based on evidence and witness statements, we have determined that Sam endured prolonged physical and psychological abuse at the hands of multiple individuals,” Swift said Friday during a news conference.
A criminal complaint obtained by Rochester, New York, ABC affiliate WHAM alleged that the suspects sexually assaulted Nordquist with a “table leg and broomstick.” The complaint further alleges that the suspects subjected Nordquist to “prolonged beatings by punching, kicking and striking [Nordquist] with numerous objects, including but not limited to sticks, dog toys, rope, bottles, belts, canes and wooden boards.”
According to the complaint, the torture allegedly took place in room 22 at Patty’s Lodge in Hopewell, New York, in Ontario County between Jan. 1 and Feb. 2.
Swift said investigators executed a search warrant at the hotel on Thursday, specifically searching room 22 for evidence.
“In my 20-year law enforcement career, this is one of the most horrific crimes I have ever investigated,” Swift added. “My thoughts are with Sam’s family during this time.”
Suspects charged with murder
The suspects arrested in the case were identified by Swift as Precious Arzuaga, 38, of Canandaigua, New York; Jennifer Quijano, 30, of Geneva, New York; Kyle Sage, 33, of Rochester, New York; Patrick Goodwin, 30, also of Canandaigua; and Emily Motyka, 19, of Lima, New York.
Ontario County District Attorney James Ritts said all five suspects have all been charged with second-degree murder under the state’s depraved indifference statute. He said the suspects have been arraigned and are being held without bail at the Ontario County Jail.
It was unclear if the suspects had hired or were appointed attorneys to represent them.
No indication of a hate crime
In a joint statement released on Sunday, the state police and Ritts addressed whether investigators are pursuing hate crime charges against the suspects.
“At this time we have no indication that Sam’s murder was a hate crime,” the joint statement reads. “To help alleviate the understandable concern his murder could be a hate crime, we are disclosing that Sam and his assailants were known to each other, identified as LGBTQ+, and at least one of the defendants lived with Sam in the time period leading up to the instant offense.”
Authorities said they released the information after getting “multiple inquiries from across our community, New York State and the entire nation.”
In the statement, officials noted that under the New York State penal code, a hate crime is defined as an offense committed “in whole or in substantial part because of a belief or perception regarding the race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, gender identity or expression, religion, religious practice, age, disability or sexual orientation of a person regardless of whether the belief or perception is correct.”
“We are still in the early stages of this investigation,” the joint statement reads. “While significant evidence has been obtained, we are continuing to follow up on leads brought to State Police. We urge the community not to speculate into the motive behind the murder as we work to find justice for Sam.”
Governor described the killing as ‘sickening’
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement released Sunday that she had directed the State Police to provide any support and resources to Ritts’ office “as they continue their investigation, including into whether this was a hate crime.” The statement further said that Hochul had directed the New York State Division of Human Rights Hate and Bias Prevention Unit to offer assistance and support “to all community members affected by this terrible act of violence,” adding, “There must be justice for Sam Nordquist.”
Hochul also said that she had instructed the New York State Office of Victim Services to offer support to Nordquist’s family.
“The charges against these individuals are sickening and all New Yorkers should join together to condemn this horrific act,” Hochul said in the statement. “We are praying for Sam Nordquist’s family, community and loved ones who are experiencing unimaginable grief.”
‘Beyond depraved’
“The facts and the circumstances of this crime are beyond depraved,” Ritts said Friday during the press conference. “This is by far the worst homicide investigation that our office has ever been part of. No human being should have to endure what Sam endured.”
Nordquist’s family filed a missing person report with the Canandaigua Police Department on Feb. 9, after last hearing from Nordquist on Jan. 1, according to a missing-person flyer issued by the Missing People in America organization.
According to the flyer, Nordquist’s family said he left Minnesota on Sept. 28, 2024, with a round-trip plane ticket to New York. The family, according to the flyer, alleged that he met a woman online who convinced him to visit her.
The family, according to the flyer, claimed Nordquist was planning to fly back to Minnesota within two weeks, but never boarded his return flight.
“I don’t understand why someone would do that to another person,” Kayla Nordquist, Sam’s sister, told Saint Paul, Minnesota, ABC affiliate KSTP. “Sam was amazing and would give the shirt off his back to anyone.”
When asked Friday about the missing-person flyer, Swift declined to comment.
Swift would not disclose details of the abuse, saying the investigation is in its early stages. However, she said, Nordquist was “subjected to repeated acts of violence and torture in a manner that ultimately led to his death.”
Swift said more arrests were possible and asked anyone with information about the crime to contact state police investigators.
Ritts said he anticipates a grand jury will take action in the case “very quickly.”
Multiple vigils for Nordquist are being scheduled this week in several states, including one Monday evening at the Wood Library in Canandaigua, New York, according to Family Counseling Service of the Finger Lakes, which is hosting the event. Two other vigils are planned for Monday night in Nordquist’s home state of Minnesota, including one outside the Minnesota State Capitol building in Saint Paul.
On Tuesday evening, vigils are scheduled to take place at the Phelps Arts Center in Phelps, New York, and at The Presbyterian Church in Geneva, New York. On Thursday, a vigil is scheduled to take place on the Main Plaza in downtown New Braunfels, Texas, about 30 miles northeast of San Antonio.
On February 7, HUD Secretary Scott Turner announced HUD will stop enforcing the 2016 Equal Access Rule, which requires housing, facilities, and services funded through HUD’s Office of Community Planning and Development (CPD) to ensure equal access to programs for individuals based on their gender identity without intrusive questioning or being asked to provide documentation. Secretary Turner stated that the action “will ensure housing programs, shelters and other HUD-funded providers offer services to Americans based on their sex at birth.” NLIHC will continue to advocate for equal access and fair housing for LGBTQ+ people.
In a press conference following Secretary Turner’s first address to HUD, Turner stated, “I am directing HUD staff to halt any pending or future enforcement actions related to HUD’s 2016 Equal Access Rule, which, in essence, tied housing programs, shelters and other facilities funded by HUD to far-left gender ideology.” Turner continued: “We, at this agency, are carrying out the mission laid out by President Trump on January 20th when he signed an executive order to restore biological truth to the federal government.”
Weakening the Equal Access Rule and its enforcement mechanisms is unacceptable. Access to shelter is a basic, fundamental necessity. LGBTQ youth are more than twice as likely to experience homelessness than their non-LGBTQ peers, and black LGBTQ youth have the highest rates of youth homelessness. One in three transgender people will experience homelessness in their lifetime, and 70% of trans people who have used a shelter have experienced harassment. NLIHC will continue to work with LGBTQ advocates to ensure that everyone has access to safe, decent, affordable housing.
The page used to say “LGBTQ+,” according to an archived version of the National Park Service’s website. It now only says “LGB.”
Stacy Lentz, co-owner of the Stonewall Inn and the chief executive of the nonprofit Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative, said the Trump administration was trying to “erase trans people from history and from existing.” A protest is scheduled for noon on Friday.
“There is no Pride without Trans folks leading that fight! Trying to erase them from the Birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement will not happen! We need to show up and speak out for our trans and nonbinary siblings who are under attack,” Lentz wrote in an Instagram post announcing the protest.
In a joint statement, the Stonewall Inn and the Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative said it was “outraged.”
“This blatant act of erasure not only distorts the truth of our history, but it also dishonors the immense contributions of transgender individuals – especially transgender women of color – who were at the forefront of the Stonewall Riots and the broader fight for LGBTQ+ rights,” the statement read.
“Let us be clear: Stonewall is transgender history. Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and countless other trans and gender-nonconforming individuals fought bravely, and often at great personal risk to push against oppressive systems,” it continued. “Their courage, sacrifice, and leadership were central to the resistance we now celebrate as the foundation of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement.”
The statement said removing the word transgender is an attempt to marginalize the people who fought for change in the community. They called it a “direct attack on transgender people” and demanded the word be added back to the website.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly has vetoed Senate Bill 63, which would have restricted gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
“Right now, the legislature should be focused on ways to help Kansans cope with rising prices,” Kelly said in a statement emailed late Tuesday. “That is the most important issue for Kansans. That is where my focus is.”
The bill would bar health care providers from administering gender-affirming medical care – including puberty suppressants and hormone therapies – for someone under the age of 18, only for the purposes of gender transitioning. The ban would also apply to gender-affirming surgeries.
“Infringing on parental rights is not appropriate, nor is it a Kansas value,” said Kelly in her veto message. “As I’ve said before, it is not the job of politicians to stand between a parent and a child who needs medical care of any kind. This legislation will also drive families, businesses, and health care workers out of our state, stifling our economy and exacerbating our workforce shortage issue.”
This is the third time Kelly has vetoed similar transgender youth care bills, but the bill may now have the support to pass.
The bill passed the state legislature with flying colors – passing the House 83-35 and the Senate 32-8.
In 2023, the attempt to override a past trans care ban veto lost in the House 82-43.
State Republicans quickly denounced Kelly’s veto.
“The governor’s devotion to extreme left-wing ideology knows no bounds, vetoing a bipartisan bill that prevents the mutilation of minors,” said State Sen. Ty Masterson in an online statement. “The Senate stands firmly on the side of protecting Kansas children and will swiftly override her veto before the ink from her pen is dry.”
Top national medical associations such as the American Medical Association, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and American Academy of Pediatrics and more than 20 others argue that gender-affirming care is safe, effective, beneficial, and medically necessary for transgender populations.
Kelly joins governors past and present in Ohio and Arkansas in vetoing bills that targeted gender-affirming youth care. However, both of their vetoes were overridden.
Across the country, trans youth care restrictions have faced legal hurdles in their enforcement.
The battle and debate has most recently made its way to the national stage, with the Supreme Court considering U.S. v. Skrmetti, which will decide if Tennessee’s law banning some gender-affirming care for transgender minors violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
This meeting lasted about five hours and there were about 200 people who showed up to voice their support.
It was standing room only inside council chambers – as dozens of residents spoke before the city council in favor of making Worcester a sanctuary city for those who identify as transgender or of other diverse genders.
This campaign comes on the heels of the first openly nonbinary member elected to the council — Worcester City Councilor-at-Large Thu Nguyen — taking a hiatus from the council, after they say the environment was transphobic.
Local organization Queer Residents of Worcester and Our Allies filed the petition asking councilors to make Worcester a sanctuary city for transgender and gender diverse people.
The petition specifically asks the city to not cooperate with federal and state policies aimed at harming transgender and gender diverse people, and to ensure that the LGBTQ+ community here has access to healthcare, housing, education, and employment without fear of discrimination.
“You have an incredible opportunity as a community to support our children, you have an opportunity to decrease the rates of depression and suicide by showing our children that their safety and dignity are a priority,” one meeting attendee said.
“It is your responsibility to stand up and fight for our people, for your people, for the people,” another added.
The State Department is no longer issuing U.S. passports with “X” gender markers and has suspended processing all applications from Americans seeking to update their passports with a new gender marker. This suspension, made in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order signaling his administration’s opposition to gender diversity, affects all transgender and nonbinary Americans, including those currently traveling or overseas.
The agency says that it will issue guidance on previously issued passports with an “X” marker and that more information will be available on its travel website. However, no formal policy has been released, which is fueling confusion among trans and nonbinary people trying to update their documents.
That includes Ash Lazarus Orr, a trans activist living in West Virginia. Orr applied to update their name and gender marker on their passport on January 16 — days before Trump was sworn into office.He paid $300 for expedited service, but his paperwork wasn’t processed until January 22. When Orr called the agency’s hotline for Americans waiting on passports who have upcoming international travel, they were told that the agency had no guidance to offer and that their documents had been “set aside.”
Now Orr is without his passport, without his birth certificate and without his marriage license. Over the phone, he was told that his documents are being held in San Francisco, where they were originally being processed.
“They have my documentation that is very personal to me, and they cannot tell me if I’m going to be getting that back,” they said.
The American Civil Liberties Union has warned trans and nonbinary Americans that if they submit a new application to change the gender marker on their passport, they risk losing access to their passport and supporting documents while their application is being processed. An ACLU spokesperson attributed this information to reports of discrimination received through the organization’s online intake form, as well as direct conversations with people who have described this happening to them.
Trump’s executive order directed federal agencies to require that government-issued identification documents, including passports and visas, reflect sex assigned at birth. Since this order states that it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female, and that these sexes are not changeable, “the department’s issuance of U.S. passports will reflect the individual’s biological sex,” an agency spokesperson said in an emailed statement on Friday evening. Under Trump’s executive order, “sex” explicitly excludes gender identity.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly instructed agency staff on Thursday to implement that executive order as it pertains to passports immediately, as first reported by The Guardian and The Intercept.Now, Orr is without his personal identity documents six weeks before pre-planned international travel and in the middle of planning a move out of West Virginia.
The Biden administration made it easier for trans and nonbinary people to update their federal identity documents. Accurate and consistent gender markers on identity documents dramatically reduces the risk that trans people will face violence, harassment and discrimination, according to the Movement Advancement Project, which tracks LGBTQ+ policy.
The dismantling of this policy has radical consequences, said a former State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of lingering retaliation from the agency under the Trump administration. Not only does it force transgender people to carry identity documents that don’t accurately reflect their identity, this move also signals globally that U.S. policy on trans rights is moving backward, they said.
“The confusion that this decision creates is intentional. It is designed to make things harder for trans and nonbinary people,” they said.
When The 19th called the National Passport Information Center on January 23 to ask for more information, an employee on the technical support desk said that the State Department is aware of Trump’s executive order and that guidance will be posted online once information is available.
Erin Ryan Heyneman, a nonbinary person living in Massachusetts, called that same hotline. They don’t need to renew their passport; they said they just wanted to find out what was going on. Although they feel safe in their state, which has nondiscrimination protections in place for LGBTQ+ people, they still felt the need to act because of the way confusion can endanger their wider community.
“People just really don’t know who to believe or what to believe,” they said. More LGBTQ+ people need to seek information from trusted sources, they said. But when trying to seek that information from an official source, Heyneman was met with more uncertainty. The employee on the phone was sympathetic, but they had no information about passports being confiscated.
As Orr waits to learn whether they will get their passport back due to federal anti-trans policies, they are facing down the prospect of leaving their home because of transphobia within the state.
West Virginia has become increasingly hostile to trans and nonbinary people like himself amid a surge in anti-trans rhetoric across the country, and Orr expects a surge in state anti-trans bills introduced in West Virginia’s next legislative session. After receiving death threats and recently being attacked inside a men’s bathroom, he doesn’t leave the house without his spouse.
“I can’t stay in the state. And it’s heartbreaking, because I love it here. I love the people, but it is truly, at this point in time, it’s either I leave or I die,” they said.
*This commentary by Matt Keeley was originally published by LGBTNation.
Some cisgender people think the recent Republican fad of banning of transgender people from sports and bathrooms won’t affect them, and that if people just conform closely to gender stereotypes, they won’t have trouble. But these don’t realize that random nuts have confronted cis women in the ladies’ room just for wearing pants and having short hair.
Gender policing goes from controlling how we look to controlling how we behave. And cis people who have never been misgendered may not realize just how much it can hurt… but as a cis man who has been misgendered, I do.
As a kid, I had gynecomastia, a condition where prominent breasts develop on a boy or man. And my breasts were indeed prominent — probably a C- or D-cup in bra size. It started around when I was 10 or so. While we never figured out the reason, it doesn’t really matter when you’re in middle school and kids confront you in the bathroom, calling you “titty boy.”
Even friends would make the occasional crack to my chagrin. I remember once talking about how my uncle’s internal organs were backwards; one of my friends immediately joked, “And you’ve got two hearts: here and here,” gesturing at each breast. It didn’t feel great!
I hated my breasts. I often fantasized about chopping them off. It was never gory or gross in my mind — it usually was more like picking off a scab — a little bit of pain at first, but then perfectly fine with a normal chest just like every other boy.
The teasing changed my relationship with my body. My nipples usually inverted into my areolas by nature. But whenever they weren’t, I’d push them back in because, in my weird kid mind, women’s breasts had outward-facing nipples for babies to feed. If mine pointed inward, then that meant they weren’t breasts like what women had, and were…. something different.
I didn’t know the word “dysmorphia” at the time, but looking back, it seems like a manifestation of that. Most of all, I wanted to ignore that my breasts even existed. I hated even using the word “breast” in any context. While taking swimming lessons, I’d refer to the breaststroke as the “whip-kick stroke” based on the leg movements. When I wore collared shirts, they had chest pockets — men had chests, women had breasts.
While the teasing and bullying was bad, unintentional cruelty was somehow even worse. One expects bullies to be mean and to focus on one’s flaws. But if someone unintentionally misgendered me, it felt like they couldn’t help but hurt me, based solely on my appearance, infringing on my misguided attempts to ignore and feel indifferent to my own body.
One moment that’s seared in my brain (and will be for the rest of my life) happened around age 11 one afternoon at an office supply store. I needed a new graphing calculator for math class. I approached a worker kneeling on the floor, re-stocking the bottom shelf.
“Pardon me, do you know where the graphing calculators are?” I asked.
“Oh, sure, sir,” he said, turning and seeing my shoes.
His eyes raised to my chest and said, “…ma’am…”
His eyes then hit my face and he quickly went back to “sir,” before telling me where they were located.
I could tell he wasn’t being mean, he was just processing the visual stimuli in the order presented. I could tell he was embarrassed and neither of us wanted to call attention to his error, so I thanked him, and went to pick up the TI-85 calculator I needed.
I have no idea if he remembers that day at all. Probably not. But it’s a moment I relive over and over. I was wearing my standard uniform of jeans and a loose-fitting green/yellow Hypercolor T-shirt — it was the early ‘90s after all.
It’s hard to explain why it hurt so much to be mistaken for a woman. It wasn’t merely that it proved I was “different” from other boys. It wasn’t shame at being seen as a woman or less than “manly” — in fact, I don’t think real-or-perceived misogyny played a part in what happened or how I felt. I’ve always had various “feminine”-coded interests even as a kid: In first grade, I loved The Baby-Sitter’s Club book series (which features mostly girl characters) and I’d often pretend to be the magical Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle from the classic children’s novels.
The misgendering bothered me more so because it just wasn’t me — I wasn’t being perceived correctly. I couldn’t put it into words; I wasn’t necessarily “manly” and had no real desire to be seen as such, but I was a man (or at least, I would be one day when I grew up).
I was lucky; I was able to get a breast reduction — top surgery in trans masc parlance — the summer I turned 13. My surgeon, Dr. Kropp — whose name somewhat matched his surgical specialty — was excellent, and confirmed that I had excess breast tissue, not just fat.
That fall, I came into a new school as a high school freshman, and no one ever commented on my chest again; I was thankfully average. Friends even seemingly forgot about it, and no one asked about the change.
It took me a very long time to get over it — my chest was the one thing I was sensitive about. I’m pushing 45 now; it’s been 30 years, and the wounds have finally scabbed over. (The figurative ones, I mean. As for the actual surgical scars, those healed very nicely and relatively quickly after the procedure.)
But it took decades for me to get over the misgendering. And I immediately “passed as male” otherwise, if you wanted to call it that. It was just: one day boobs, one day none. So I can only imagine the pain that accumulates over when a trans person gets misidentified for so long, sometimes even after transitioning.
Misgendering can lead to depression and psychological distress. (It certainly did for me.) It can also create a sense of emotional exhaustion. I know that when I came home from a particularly bad day at school, I just wanted to shove everything out of my mind, and just veg in front of the TV. But the teasing made me think about self-obliteration. I never attempted suicide — but the idea of just not existing for a while definitely appealed to me.
Truthfully, these days, when I start feeling very anxious, stressed, or depressed, the idea of not existing for a while still appeals to me. And I can’t help but think that this desire to disappear first began when people mocked and mistook me for having “female” body parts.
I have just a glimpse of how cruel Trump and his transphobic followers have been in their constant crusade to demonize and misgender trans people. I can’t imagine feeling the full force from a lifetime of this meanness — the years I endured it was enough for me.
In this lighthearted yet poignant show, the Emmy winner portrays Desiree, a trans woman who returns to her hometown of Mobile, Alabama, to reconnect with her estranged father, Harry, after 23 years of no contact. In addition to her starring role, Cox is credited as the series creator alongside George Wallace and Dan Ewen.
The series, executive produced by the late legendary television producer Norman Lear, faced numerous challenges before making it to the airwaves. Reflecting on her journey, Cox expressed her gratitude for the opportunity.
“I’m so humbled because we got no’s from every place. We pitched this everywhere. We sent the script out everywhere, and it was a ‘no’ from everywhere. And it was really Brent Miller and Norman Lear, and their tenacity and pushing, that got us asked to Amazon Prime.”
The development process for Clean Slate spanned seven years, during which Cox and her team encountered considerable resistance from Hollywood.
“I think getting a show on the air period is insanely difficult. There was a time when I was pitching this alongside two other projects with really established, Oscar-winning people, wonderful stories with trans characters, and none of them went through. They weren’t buying trans stories.”
Cox believes that the significance of this show is heightened in today’s political climate.
“And I think this show happening at this particular political moment feels, not like an accident. It feels divine because we are in a space culturally where trans people have been dehumanized to such an extent that taking away our rights and denying our legitimacy is something that people take for granted. And it’s happening on a federal level.”
She hopes that the series will encourage viewers to empathize with trans individuals.
“And so that is my hope that people will have empathy for the trans character that I play and hopefully be inspired to have empathy for trans people in real life and hopefully get to know us,” Cox says.
“We’re not a theory. We’re not an ideology. We’re human beings walking around, living with these experiences. We’re human, and the rehumanization process is what needs to happen. If we’re interested in love and justice for trans people, as well as for immigrants and for those who think differently from us, we need to counter a culture that dehumanizes. We need to engage in a process of humanizing each other across the board.”
The first season of Clean Slate will feature eight episodes and is now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.
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