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Welcome, welcome, welcome to Civic Media, mid mornings.
Here on the Civic Media Network, my name is Greg Bach.
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Period.
I can keep a secret for you.
You are joining us today.
I'm very happy to have you here.
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Have a great show ahead for you today.
After the 930 News, we're going to be speaking to a writer, an independent journalist named Cam TB about an article she wrote for Tone Madison regarding a decision from US rowing on transgender athletes in their sport and how the policy is affecting the sport, the participants and the overarching message for trans folks here in the country.
But we'll be speaking to her.
at 9.35 this morning.
And then at 10 to kick off the hour, we're back introducing to you an interview that we did yesterday with Senator Tammy Baldwin talking about her efforts regarding the funding measures on DHS, the partial shutdown, as well as her thoughts on a bill that we're going to talk about in a moment that has to do with limiting voting, disenfranchising voting, intimidation of voting,
versus what it proposes to do that it will actually help voting.
So we'll talk more about that actually in a moment.
That comes up after 10 o'clock, 1035 audio Sorbet.
We're going to keep I'm going to keep the tone going.
Bruce Springsteen has a new song out.
It's a reworking of an old song.
It's regarding Minneapolis.
And I just want to know from you.
What are your favorite protest songs?
Is it the common one?
Is it the one that we all know?
Is there a protest song out there that we don't know about?
Is there a song that we see as just a fun tune that you hear a message in there talking about an issue that's deeper than we understand?
We want to know about that at 1035.
What's your favorite protest song?
And do you think they're still around?
I feel like they're still there.
It's just got to, we dig a little deeper to find those great tunes out there, but that's at 1035.
And then we close it all out with a handy tip from Greg.
Don't go anywhere.
It's gonna be fun.
We're gonna have a great time But let's kick it over to the conversation about elections and voting here in Wisconsin and abroad if you were not aware over the past couple days President Donald Trump has said that the federal government needs to take over our election processes in the face of what he believes is rigging vote rigging
Bad processes, bad everything.
He doesn't think that the states are doing it correctly.
He believes that the federal government needs to step in and take over control of the election process.
This is coming out of the Wisconsin Examiner.
Jacob Fischler has the byline.
Trump doubles down on calling for the feds to take over state elections.
He called for it on Tuesday and the day before...
to take over all of the elections going out throughout the country.
For the second time in as many days, he's indicated he wants the federal government to get more involved.
He has renewed concerns over the expansion.
This issue renews concerns over Trump's expansion of presidential powers, which critics of his second presidency have labeled authoritarian.
I want to know right off the bat here, you know.
And I actually like to know from people who don't, you know, who think this is a good idea.
I have, I know, I know there are folks out there who's saying this is terrible.
It's a bad idea for all the reasons that I could say out loud.
I still want to hear from you.
Please speak your heart, live stream comment, leave a comment there, text it in, call it in, want to hear from you.
But this just brings up the topic again about the election process.
First of all,
There are reasons why states run elections because it's a it's a very very complicated process and every state does it differently, but as we've seen Through numerous counts through numerous reports through numerous investigations that these processes go correctly if there are problems they fix it and we do not have any sort of evidence showing that this needs to be happening period not whatsoever
Our elections are safe here in Wisconsin.
If you ask Robin Boss, he'll tell you that.
He said it out loud.
You ask people from say the League of Women Voters, talked to Deb Crommiller dozens of times at this point.
There are reasons why the states handle the elections one by one instead of the federal government doing not to mention like just from an economic standpoint.
Okay.
How are we going to afford this?
Where does the money come to implement an entire election process?
set up from start to finish, from ballot issuing to the counting of the last ballot going through the machine on election day, election night, and let's face it, if this was to happen, we wouldn't be getting results for a while because a federally run program, this would be its first test.
In 2026, the midterm, some say, well, this is good.
It's not a presidential election.
Therefore, we can kick the tires and work out all the problems.
No, that's not how that works because it's a daunting enough process for one state to do it who has to work with municipalities all within.
Now you have one government entity running every single state with every single municipality within that adds so much more complication to it that
I don't know about you, but I would say that if the federal government were to run the elections, it would probably be a solid 20 years before a system would be in place that would be considered, quote, smooth.
How much is this going to cost?
Why are we doing this?
Again, this is a solution in search of a problem.
This problem does not exist.
This is a problem that is not worth talking about, but we are because the president is talking about it.
And while his press secretary is telling reporters to their faces that he was joking, he keeps talking about it.
He keeps talking about nationalizing our elections because he thinks to this day he still lost, he still won in 2020 and any state he lost period, he has won because of rigged elections because of.
bad bad actors and but That is not the case Doesn't you can you can raid Fulton County all you want you're gonna find you're gonna find that these ballots were counted correctly the Republican Secretary of State the Republican AG the Republican governor they all said that the process went smoothly, but here we are again talking about it because These are the distractions we need and I know that I'm giving
I'm giving air to these distractions.
I get that.
But it's important to keep this in mind because these aren't like, you know, this isn't shiny red ball.
Look over there.
This is using things like our federal, using our election processes to take our attention away to things like
The fact that 3 million pages of the Epstein files were just released and the president's name appears a lot.
The fact that the big bill for billionaire went through and we are going to be gutting our federal safety nets for rich people to have even more money in their pockets.
They are very big distractions, but that's what they are at the end of the day.
We got to keep our attention on all these things.
We got to keep our attentions
on this problem too.
And I'm not the only one who doesn't think it's a good idea.
And I bring, I really bring it up because the, in the Wisconsin public radio, Rich Kremers writing here, Wisconsin, US Senator Ron Johnson opposes Trump's call for Republicans to take over elections.
Cause that's the thing.
See, that's, that's the other problem is at first it was the federal government.
Now it's this mixture of, well, Republicans should do it.
At first it was 15 states should have it run by the government.
I'm going to
let you guess which 15 states it was.
Now it's the federal government.
So it's all this thing of like him speaking at a desk, you know, the Republican should take over.
Okay, well, why should they take over only 15 states?
Again, this is a conversation that is set up to distract.
And it is a conversation that is set up to threaten our very safe election processes.
And Republican Ron Johnson from here in Wisconsin said yesterday that he doesn't agree with President Trump's call for Republicans to nationalize elections, but he voiced his support
for limits on voting, including requiring proof of citizenship and scaling back on absentee ballots.
That's where the conversation gets even wider, because we are now introducing all of these levels of intimidation, suppression, and just limitations on what is guaranteed in our Constitution.
And by the way, it is said in the Constitution that the federal government doesn't run elections.
He doesn't have that power, but somehow this conversation persists.
And I say all this because we are in an election year.
We will be going to the polls.
Some of you might be going to the polls later this month on the 17th for your primaries.
Then we'll have April elections.
Then we'll be right back here in fall for primaries again.
And then we'll be right back here in late fall, early winter time.
for the midterm elections, where we will be voting for Congress members, voting for Assembly and State Senate members.
And the more they can muddy up the conversation on what is and isn't acceptable in the election process, the bigger problems we can have on election night when they're trying to count ballots.
And folks who may be facing serious challenges like Derek Van Orton, who has been outraised by Rebecca Cook.
Calling for, you know, recounts.
This is rigged.
Going to the courts to say, you know, we need to look at all of the evidence here.
And we did this all in 2020.
63 cases, I believe.
Over 60 cases went to court.
All but one, I believe, said nothing happened or wasn't even worthy on merit to be presented for any sort of case to be seen.
When Ron Johnson is opposed, I guess to me is like, when Ron Johnson opposes Donald Trump, that's worthy of a discussion.
When Ron Johnson stands up and says, this is not correct.
This is wrong.
We shouldn't be doing this.
I think that's worthy of discussion.
Now, will he be thinking that and say a month's time?
I don't know.
But he said it now.
And I believe it's worthy of, of, of that further conversation while always keeping our other eye on the ball that is the Epstein files, which is the big bill for billionaires, which is your SNAP benefits.
We talk about snap benefits.
We can't not talk about Derek Van Orton lying to us three times with his votes, but the We cannot allow these folks who have no proof whatsoever to walk into our Our our polling places into our states into this state here and say well We're gonna be doing it now.
Okay.
How?
With what money?
What's your process?
There is no process by the way, there's no plan.
There never is a plan It's always we should do that
You figure it out later And I want to know what you think about this I think I know what you think about this, but I'd love to hear from people whether it's on the text line or the phone line or the live stream What you think of this if you agree if you think yes, we need tighter control.
We need limited Balloting options.
We need limited absentee options.
We need paper ballots only citizenship proof voter ID nationwide
Why do we think we need these?
Where is the proof that says that these are necessary?
Where is the proof at all that says these were ever needed in the first place to be brought up?
In the case of voter ID, if you know me, you know my thoughts on voter ID.
I think it's absolutely a sham.
I think it's a problem.
It's a solution in search of a problem.
And I feel like it was sold as a bill of goods to people on the state constitution as a way of saying, we're just making sure it's all good.
when no one understood, well, a lot of people didn't understand the implications of what voter ID actually is and why we do not eat it at all.
But that's me ranting off.
We're going to talk more about this on the other side of the break.
We're talking about President Trump calling for the nationalization of our voting, of our elections, and Ron Johnson doesn't agree with it, but he does also think that there should be certain limitations because, hey, the Constitution,
It's just a piece of paper, right?
It's fun.
It's 250 years old.
We can do without it.
Can't we?
We can just re take all the amendments off.
We want except for two.
That's it.
It'll just be the second amendment.
That's it.
All right.
More to come on civic mid civic media mid mornings.
My name is Greg Bach.
Don't go anywhere.
Stay tuned and stay close.
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started.
Yeah, I'll help you move if you need to.
I'll be there.
It's fine.
Just give me pizza.
But we're here on the show today.
You are here with us today.
We appreciate your time.
You are giving us your precious time.
And we are talking about all the things happening here in Wisconsin.
Well, not all of them.
There's just too many things to discuss.
Do not forget, after the 930 News, we'll be speaking to Cam TB, who is an independent journalist discussing an article she wrote for Tom Madison on a policy change from US rowing that is basically seeks to exclude
trans and non-binary folks from the sport talking more about that decision, that issuing, how it relates to other sports as well as how it just relates to America here and the safety people who identify as trans feel when walking around on our streets.
And then at 10 o'clock, after the 10 o'clock news, we'll be speaking with Tammy Baldwin playing for you an interview we recorded yesterday, but this is about her efforts to seek
common sense guy guard whales on ice through DHS funding.
We'll also be talking about a development here that just came up this morning from CBS news.
It's a reported that 700 federal immigrants, immigration officers are being withdrawn from the twin cities immediately.
We'll talk more about that as we know it, but that'll be coming up to the 10 o'clock news and 10 35 protest songs.
What's what are the ones you love?
What are the ones that are out there that we don't know about?
And are there good ones that are out?
You know, being put up by modern artists is the protest song still alive here in America.
Talk about that.
And then a handy tip from Greg running out the show.
But right now we're talking about the comments from the president regarding nationalization of our elections.
Why?
And one person who disagrees with it is Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, who believes that this is not something that needs to happen.
He voices his support for limiting
limits on voting, but he does not think that the Republicans or the federal government need to nationalize our election processes.
And I wanted to hear from you.
Tony on the live stream says, no, we need more people voting.
We all know why Republicans are pushing for those reforms.
And that's something we've always said is that look at the group of individuals who are consistently pushing to limit
our voting process, our voting ability, whether it's voter ID, early voting, paper ballots, online registration.
Look at the people who are proposing these measures and ask yourselves, why are they doing this consistently?
Why is it always happening from one group of individuals?
Why are they so afraid of people voting?
Why are they so afraid of the voice, the voice of the people, which we cast or the ballot, which is guaranteed
through the Constitution.
And if you have serious concerns on that, I would like for you to provide to me the proof that shows that our state run elections are so irrevocably broken that we must have nationalization or at the very least processes that seek to intimidate and disenfranchise and otherwise limit our constitutionally guaranteed right to vote.
That's what I would love to know.
Period.
That's it.
Tell me I'd love to hear from you if you disagree with me.
That's fine.
Absolutely fine.
Just bring the proof show the work That's what I require and I would really like from you.
Give me that good work Gene on the the phone has been very very patient.
Good morning, Gene.
How is it up there?
No Claire you staying warm friend?
Yes, I am I'm staying warm because I'm listening to you.
Thank you very much.
You guys are doing a great job.
Thank you
Now we're lucky to have you
I'm just gonna say something that my grandfather probably would say it stinks to high heaven Yeah, and you know, it's the only way it is the only means that we have to fire the agent of chaos and death and Illness and all the things that are happening in our country right now.
It's not a pretty picture every day There's more and more things happening and the mask
People going after our neighbors just sick.
The way that he's spending money left and right and threatening all the different countries that might not be safe some day for our Americans to travel anywhere.
He's totally wrecking our credibility.
The only means we have is our elections and he needs to keep his hands off.
And I think even Republicans know
Right now, he's flattening some of, he doesn't vote the way that they want him to, you know, and things like that.
And a lot of those Republicans won their seats when he lost.
And so there was nothing wrong with those elections.
So there's
no
opinion.
I'm sticking to it.
You have a great day.
Okay.
You as well, Gene.
Thank you so much for calling.
And that's a great point that Gene brings up is that we're always only talking about one candidate.
We don't call into question whether or not, so if you're, if your person won and they're a Republican, then
Do we call into question the fact that they won because if this is a rigged election, it's rigged for everybody.
And then we just do it over.
I mean, that, I mean, it goes back to like, we can make these statements.
We can say it's rigged.
We can say it's broken.
We can say it's bad, but really when you show no proof, you show no proof.
plan, then it really just again becomes a distraction that we have to address because we're talking about threatening the process of voting guaranteed to us by the constitution, whether we're talking about the save act or we're talking about the make elections.
Great.
Again, Bill, that one being brought by Brian style from the first congressional district.
He is our congressman here in Wisconsin.
These all seek to limit your ability to vote.
And another point that I'm never going to stop harping on is the fact that this affects everybody.
These limitations affect everyone no matter who you vote for Whether you don't have an ID or a password how you how you provide proof of citizenship if you are a woman who got married you have to change all your identification so you can vote I mean like this is These are all Solutions in that have no problem in you know, it's it's these don't work
And they only provide bigger problems.
And then when you say these are bigger problems, they say, well, you don't love America.
You don't care about, I do care about voting.
I think everyone should be able to vote who is legally allowed to do it.
It should be able to walk in, register on the day.
I say provide no ID because you have, there are mechanisms in place to work with that.
But the more we introduce to limit it, the worse it becomes and never take your eye off the people who are actually
introducing, introducing these measures.
When we come back, we have cam TV, a writer from Madison talking about her article on trans exclusionary policies from the U S rowing group.
Very interesting conversation.
Don't go anywhere.
Come on back, grab some snacks, grab some waters, civic media, mid mornings here.
I'm Greg box.
Stay tuned and stay close.
Welcome, welcome back to civic media mid mornings here on the civic media radio network.
My name is Greg Bach.
I'm your host, your buddy, your pal, your co-conspirator and all things amazing.
Cause guess what?
You're amazing.
You're spending your time with us today.
I really appreciate you.
Got a great show still ahead of the 10 o'clock news.
US Senator Tammy Baldwin will be here.
We did an interview with her yesterday.
Yesterday we'll be playing that conversation for you regarding her efforts to.
I like to say this correctly, I want to say this correctly, to impose common sense guardrails on ICE through DHS funding measures, as well as the partial shutdown of the US government that's going on right now, as well as information on a story that's developing out of Minneapolis and the drawdown of 700.
ICE agents in Minneapolis.
So we'll talk more about that.
She'll also be discussing her opinion on the make elections.
Great.
Again, Bill from Wisconsin Congressman Brian style.
If you can't hear that, I'm siding siding the world about that.
But yeah, we got more great.
Great show ahead if you ever want to be part of the conversation 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 8 5 5 7 5 civic leave a comment on that live stream We're on Facebook YouTube the platform.
We still call Twitter and do not forget audio Sorbet We're talking about your favorite protest songs Where are the good protest songs out there and and is the protest song alive and well here in America all that coming up so don't go anywhere, but now I want to turn our attention to a
What I believe is a huge problem in this country, but it's presented through the lens of a very specific sport If you haven't seen this already, we're gonna be talking about an article in tone Madison Discussing a matter of the US rowings new policy that was enacted last month in December
But I'm going to bring on now the author of that, the writer of that article.
Cam TB is our guest this morning.
Cam, good morning.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
For anyone who doesn't know, Cam is an independent journalist from Madison and also a recreational rower.
And I had so many words to talk about how I feel about this article that I sort of just jumbled my way into your introduction.
So I apologize first off.
But thank you so much for being here today, Cam.
How are you doing?
I'm doing good.
Thank you for having me.
Wonderful.
Yeah.
So let's start off from the very beginning.
Why don't you talk to us?
For those who haven't read the article, it's in Tone Madison.
That article will be in our show notes today.
So if you want to access that information, I will get that for you all.
Talk about the policy that came from the US rowing group last December.
And yeah, just give us an overall idea of what's happening in the world of US rowing.
Pertains to America early.
Yeah, so last December US rowing kind of quietly made a change to their rowing policy It is they now decided that transgender women and non-binary people kind of a so-called assigned male at birth are no longer able to compete in the women's category And that's regardless of their transition status or their hormone levels or legal documentation just straight up.
It's a categorical ban
And they kind of pitched it in a way where they're saying now that affected athletes are now allowed to either compete in the men's category, which they've now opened to like everybody or the like a mixed category, which they said is supposed to kind of have a 5050 like air quotes, lots of sarcasm, middle men and women split.
Yeah, where they would be counted as men.
So this is not like a new thing.
Actually, this is.
this is kind of it hasn't it's not even just in the last year I think especially globally there's been a lot of different kind of sports consortiums and organizations that have kind of adopted these rules this is like an on part of an ongoing like discourse and kind of led just I mean in America like a
both an executive and legislative push to get trans people out of sports.
Well, and that's the thing too, is that was, you know, it goes on in the article that you wrote that this is, it says to align with the executive order 14201, which I'll also have in the show notes for people to read, which I recommend you reading.
It's amazing language, how they try to frame this topic.
It really, the question, you know, the question I have for you is, is this something that, you know,
your knowledge of rowing and this organization.
Is this something that they wanted to do or is this something that they're doing in fear of?
Because you see a lot of groups, organizations, businesses capitulating to this administration because they're afraid of the consequences.
But is that the case or has this been in the works?
Is this something you felt in the culture that, you know, trans and non-binary folk just not welcome?
Um, I think it's, it's interesting.
I can only speculate, but, um, I think you can see that actually recently, I think I read last week, an article, I think in like them.us about the, uh, women's hockey league just recently also kind of instituted a similar ban.
Um, and that'll affect their, uh,
like basically after the season it's going to start its effect in like April
very
similarly it wasn't publicized I think their headline also used the word quietly I think part of it seems like kind of like I mean these are big legal organizations and they kind of want to toe the line and like especially when it comes to like PR and like legality they don't want to stick their neck out too much yeah is what it seems like to me but
Obviously there is a, there has been a transphobic sentiment in sports.
I mean, especially sports like hockey, you know, famously, uh, kind of can be a homophobic sport and homophobia and transphobia is just part of our culture.
Um, so I think there's definitely, it's definitely of like two, of two pieces.
Yeah.
And, and, you know, when we talk about this topic of
trans folks and non-binary binary folks in sport.
I feel like the conversation, you know, the conversation about how this country feels about trans folks, that's the big conversation.
But when we talk about trans folks in sports, we tend to get into these very, very deep discussions.
And then someone always says, but there are, there are not many trans people in, in this country period, even less play sports, even less have like, you know,
Membership in these organizations.
So really what we're doing and I spoke about it earlier as we are creating quote solutions that have no problem that need these solutions and The the matter for me is that like
when U.S.
rowing comes out and does it, this is, I mean, I can't, this is U.S.
rowing and rowing in general, as you put in the article, is not a hugely popular sport in this country.
And therefore, like doesn't, I mean, I personally feel like them coming out and saying this, it's like, how many people does this actually affect in the rowing culture where they felt like it was such a big problem?
Well, we got to do something about this.
Trans folks and non-binary binary folks and rowing is rampant.
We got to handle this.
I mean, it felt like, again, a solution in search of a problem.
Yes, I mean it's definitely become part of this like culture war issue that doesn't have a lot of reflection in reality Personally like I agree with you like it is a really small group of people But I also think that sometimes when we do that it's it's not I think it's like understandable that I'm a very convincing argument because it doesn't say that like
It doesn't really argue with the logic bands.
It's mostly just treating strands people like an edge case that deserves special treatment rather than like, you know actually being like well these bands One like are new This is before this year us rowing policy was just for like this is not this is not just elite level This is like this goes from youth all the way.
Yes, like you like this is like like
High school collegiate all the way to like Olympic level like it has that those implications, right?
But this band is for all of those
yes,
even before the US rowing had like doping mechanisms in place and stuff like that and before the policy was that you can row on the team that matches like your gender like straight up and it's
It's like one of those things where the people who are against trans rowers and trans athletes in general are just grasping at straws and looking for like some, some like perfect piece of evidence that will show that actually there's been a secret cabal of transgender athletes dominating the sport for ages to justify why this is doing it.
When in reality, like the policy already existed, it was fine.
They're just trying to create it into a problem.
I mean,
go on, Cam, go on.
Oh, and just because of a lack of, I think, bravery and commitment from one, our like media, and two, our politicians, I think that narrative has been able to slide because it's convenient.
And I want to get to that.
in a few minutes of that, what you've just said, because that is addressed in the, in the article as well.
If you're just joining us on civic media, mid mornings, we are speaking to independent journalists and recreational rower, Cam TB.
I just want to read this really quick.
Cause I just find it absolutely wonderful at the bottom of the article is Cam is a writer in Madison, ex barista, current birdwatcher in her spare time.
She enjoys rowing, hiking and playing darts.
I just love that.
That's very Wisconsin, but Cam.
I think that, you know, when you bring up the thing about kids too, I think that this is all being used to reframe the misinformation on what young people go through when they start their transitioning process.
We've spoken to doctors on this show, we've spoken to experts, people from human rights coalition, and it's that misinformation of
I mean, the president said it in an election year.
He said, kids are going to school as a boy on Tuesday and coming back as a girl the next day.
And this both misinformation and misunderstanding of what young people go through when they are going through their transition process, being framed by things like this that.
purport itself to say we're protecting the children when really they're not they're really opening up opening them up to bigger problems am I not am I correct
yeah and I mean I'm 30 years old
yeah
I grew up like in the like early 2000s and and like I was in high school and like 2008 2009
and there's
definitely like there was
It was not a great time to be out as queer in school, but I feel really for this current generation of children because even though I think in some ways there's more knowledge of what's happening and who trans people are and these issues, I think there is a huge push by adults, not other children, by adults.
to bully these children into going back in the closet.
And I think that's really hard.
And I think the social ostracism this has, it just has profound implications for transgender youth.
And like, I do think it's a worse environment in some ways.
We're kind of telling children that
you're not old enough to make a decision to transition
or
even just explore your gender.
Like the stuff they're angry about is kids like dressing not like air quotes like, you know, traditionally masculine
or
feminine.
But like it's also just like you can't play on a team with your friends.
You can't dress the way you want.
You can't like use a different name or have a certain haircut.
But then we tell them that
when you're older, you can make this decision, even if your parents support you, even if you have like a doctor and, you know, all of the oversight that that implies.
But then when you're 19, they tell you, you're too marred by puberty to ever hope of being accepted as who you are.
So you might as well just be who you are because this is who you are.
Yes.
Yeah.
And I think it has a lot to do with kind of...
the kind of return of like conversion therapy and those kinds of issues that like have never gone, have never been gone away, but I think they're trying to make them socially acceptable again.
We're going to keep the conversation going with Cam TB that she is a independent journalist and author of the article in tone medicine entitled us rowing trans exclusionary policies only divide us all.
We're talking more about this.
We're going to talk about our politicians are quote leaders.
Air quotes there.
Boom, air quotes.
More with Cam and me on Civic Media mid-morning.
Don't go anywhere.
Stay
tuned and stay close.
Welcome, welcome back to civic media mid mornings here on the civic media radio network.
My name is Greg Bach.
I am your host, your buddy, your pal, your co-conspirator and all things, letting you know that that shirt makes your eyes pop.
Thank you so much for being here this morning.
Appreciate your time.
Don't forget after the 10 o'clock news, we have got a interview we did with US Senator Tammy Baldwin on her fight to provide common sense guardrails.
for ICE through DHS funding.
And what that has to do with the partial shutdown of the government, what the household yesterday will influence upon that, as well as her opinions on the make elections.
Great.
Again, Bill proposed by Mr. Brian style first, uh, Congress, Congress member of the first district here in Wisconsin, all of that after the 10 o'clock news, we've packed that all into like a 12 minute interview.
She's very, very busy, but we got things going.
It's going to be great.
Then we've got more information on the news out of Minneapolis at the draw drawdown of troops seven.
I'm not troops.
I should call them troops.
They're ICE agents.
They're just dudes and masks, 700 troops again out of Minneapolis, 700 ICE agents.
What that means and where we're going as that, that announcement from Tom Holman was done this morning before we went on the air.
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We still call Twitter, still with our guest, CamTV, independent journalist and author of the article in Tone, Massette, Madison, entitled, US rowings, trans exclusionary policies only divide us all.
And one of the things you brought up, Cam, in the previous segment, and I want to touch on is looking towards our,
politicians to actually be leaders.
And Republicans have made it very, very clear where they stand on this issue.
I don't know of a single Republican, whether it's in Wisconsin or, you know, a, you know, someone in Washington who looks at these policies, these trans exclusionary policies and says, well, yeah, this is, no, we can do some work here.
There's room for wiggle here.
No, they're very, they're very, this is what it is.
Get on board or get out of town.
But when it comes to the Democrats and liberals, you say something very interesting.
You say, uh, we are not wanted a hated scapegoat for the Republicans and a political inconvenience for Democrats.
What do you mean by that sentence when you say that specifically to the Democrats?
Because I, because I have my opinions, but I'd rather hear yours first.
I think often like, um,
Trans rights is kind of used is like a point of negotiation to moderates or conservatives to try to get them Try to kind of get them to kind of find the middle ground Because it seemed to be as kind of a popular position But I actually don't think that's really true and there's there's surveys obviously surveys not always 100% accurate, but I think it's showing that the public is actually has more
Variants of opinions on this issue than they think like it's seen as like just like I think it's trying to be portrayed as like a common sense thing like there's like this backlash to like extreme air quotes like wokeness.
Yeah, that's like that that I think that there are some more conservative Democrats that are seeing and trying to see that as a way of appealing across the aisle, but I think I think that's really overstated
Um, I think a lot of, I think especially after the election, though, like people were obsessed with the, uh, Kamala is for they them ad.
Yeah.
It's really like, um, cited as a key factor in the 2024 loss.
But I think they're one, it was a very, it was a very unusual campaign for a lot of reasons.
Yes.
And, uh, there was, there was problems with the campaign, of course.
And.
But they were completely silent about trans issues.
And I don't think that's why they lost.
Like, they didn't say anything.
Like, no.
And when you don't say anything, I think that actually leaves you more open to attack on that part.
Um,
yeah.
I mean, and I don't disagree with you at all.
I mean, I think, I think saying that the Harris.
Campaign loss because of this, acceptance of they, thems and trans people is as legitimate reason as saying, well, we have to protect girls and women in sports because they're infesting our athletes with, you know, no, it's not, it's a false equivalent.
It's a terrible use of points.
She lost for the reason she lost.
It's many.
It's varied.
It's layered.
But trans people and they, thems are not why she lost.
And that is ridiculous to say out loud.
And you're absolutely right.
The silence was deafening on that end as well.
And it tends to be.
It tends to be a thing of, well, Cam, we would have loved to have done something, but you're just going to have to figure out how to live a little bit longer in fear.
And we'll get to you eventually when the support's too overwhelming and we feel safe saying something.
then we'll say something and we'll be heroes.
Thumbs up, all right.
That is something that very deeply angers me.
I guess, you know, we only got a couple of minutes left.
I just want to say like, as far as where we are now, as far as this policy, sports in general, everything, what are your thoughts on it?
Like, I mean, what should we expect?
How should we act as far as talking to our leaders?
I'm looking to you for advice as the article's
author.
I think, you know, and just to be like topical about it, I think people want politicians to actually believe in things
and
support things that improve their lives.
I only like, you know, obviously, Wisconsin is a very different place.
But like, in New York, you have Zaron Mamdani, who, you know, he is very popular because he's like talking to who's very
Talking to his constituents and like asking them like what will improve the city and stuff like that.
Yeah, I don't think these Trans sports bands include improve anybody's lives
like
I said in the article like for the people against the trans sports bands, it's really.
Whether they happen or not, they just go about their day.
It doesn't really affect them, but obviously it has a major impact for trans people.
and like what you can do on the day to day and i think their families and their friends and the people care about them they see the silence and they see the complicity and it makes you lose faith and i think that's just generally like a problem i think you see candidates who are like
already vying for the nomination like Rahm Emanuel and Gavin Newsom it kind of like saying provocative things about this to kind of
close, like edge closer to the right.
But
yeah, I'm sorry.
Again, we got to hit the break here real quick.
But I want to appreciate I would appreciate you being here.
I thank you for your time.
Cam TV is an independent journalist, author of the article US Rowings.
Trans exclusionary policy is only divide us all.
That'll be on the show notes.
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