Klapecki draws from her extensive experience — as a trans Catholic who faced discrimination firsthand —to deliver a searing examination of the church's hostile theology on trans people, its long record of attacks on us and how buying into its "progressive" facade does real damage to our lives.
![I know a lot of the work that groups like Mariposas Negras have done revolves around mutual aid. I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about just some of that sort of work that you've been doing.
If we're gonna talk about it, we're gonna talk about class. When you are a sex worker in Mexico City, the girls ask you first of all, when they see you, if you've eaten, if you’ve paid for a hotel, if you are doing great. That doesn’t happen in middle class spheres of society. That's why that's a subject about class, about race, about not being a citizen. When we are not citizens, we are talking about the community. Instead of [saying] that, we are, we can be a citizen, we can think about [how] there's a future for us when actually we are all people dying in some sense. That's why we’re such a peculiar group.
There are sex workers that have taken up a conflict with Narco – organized crime. A sex worker that fought that [fight] for 50 years, like Vicky La Gardenia Mayor, was a pioneer pioneer. She survived the nasty war – Guerra Sucia – in the ‘80s. That was an awful period of our history in Mexico and besides, there's a lot of people – we are like 30 people in the Occupy group. I think that's why it has worked in the Cineteca Occupy because we are an affinity group most of all. Because we're taught by class. We are all poor, racialized people, we are sex worker people, we are persecuted people.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:gm2gj4v7isgrlsww3ya7hpy2/bafkreiemwo3b3vftis632a46q26bwpog7nyxifljoyiiy35mwoanb3e3xq)
![A recent academic article covering the movement also makes scarce mention of Kiam, and still uses his dead last name. An account from a Canadian nonprofit neglects to mention them at all, as does Inside Radio. The podcast There Are No Girls On The Internet, hosted by Bridget Todd, also failed to mention him.
"A very bizarre experience where, for example, Joan Donovan [who is also in the above podcast], who was this big name in misinfo and disinfo, right?,” Kiam said. “[She wrote] this big article in 2016, I think, about people pretending to be Black online to sway public opinion. Then there was just no mention of any of our work.”
While Kiam claims that Donovan later sent him an apology email, “I never read it in full, at least until more recently, because I was like, ‘I just don't believe you.’”
“She gets this whole six figure institute [the Critical Internet Studies Institute], you know.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:gm2gj4v7isgrlsww3ya7hpy2/bafkreignjsparb2dd33e3kgmqqs5q2jax3xwquck7nphhmuit724fgcsqa)
![“As a trans student, I’m worried about how the administration is going to interpret and implement these demands,” Shirazi told TNN. “I don’t know if the amount that the administration has ceded on trans people is going to enable transphobic people at Brown.” She worries whether this agreement is “giving the green light for students to increase the amount of anti-trans harassment.”
It’s not just trans students who will suffer under this agreement.
As is consistent with many actions across the second Trump administration’s first year, the Brown administration has agreed to end all diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
“Brown will cease any provision of benefits or advantages to individuals on the basis of protected characteristics [across] the entire Brown University system,” the agreement declared. They are expecting “deep exploration of a new vision for realizing the goals of diversity and inclusion,” in 2026—whatever that means.
Brown has also agreed to hand over names and other personal information of students named in complaints alleging discrimination and harassment to the federal government. Shirazi says this poses a direct threat to students who protest in support of Palestine and against the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. It also requires Brown to “support … research and education about Israel … through … renewed partnerships with Israeli academics.”
“This deal,” Shirazi said, “does horrible things to so many communities at Brown.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:gm2gj4v7isgrlsww3ya7hpy2/bafkreid5o23ktsjtdxiemibpwvjgrzoivj7zozryrliracdnf3ertrwuve)
![You've talked about the paper's treatment of the pretty infamous Cass report, especially from your spot at the international desk. What happened in that case?
It wasn't on my radar as much as it ought to have been. I was starting to wind down my time. I left the Times at the end of May of that year. There was an awareness that [Hilary] Cass was coming out with a report. The day before it officially came out, there was a lot of coverage in the BBC and UK media. Cass was already talking about it before its official release.
The day editor's counterparts are in Seoul and London. My counterpart in London — who was actually filling in that day, but did so on a regular basis — assigned a UK reporter to do a story.
That was standard practice, to be clear.
[Chuckling] There’s so many examples of how standard it was. She assigned it to a UK correspondent, who wrote it in the context of UK politics, talked about it being very contentious, talked about the criticisms of its findings. Cass was talking about them herself, this isn't jumping to any conclusions at that point. It really put it in the context of being this very contentious, very political sort of document.
When I saw it, because we're a few hours behind, there were 600, 700 words written. I had a pretty good sense of how the story was going to turn out. But within a few hours the story was to the top New York editors, and I don't know who exactly it was who did that. I assume it was Carolyn or her intermediary. They said ‘oh no, we want the science desk to do that,’ specifically that was Azeen [Ghorayshi], who had been a key reporter in a lot of the other anti-trans coverage.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:gm2gj4v7isgrlsww3ya7hpy2/bafkreiauimpnoaneahu2xoujps44cnvpgrbuuweyq764hwvswkize3jr7a)
![The economy was the No. 1 issue,” said former Virginia Rep. Tom Davis, a Republican. “And having people talking about trans rights and the like isn’t what was moving the needle. [The message] needed to address the economy at this point, and I think the administration and Republican Congress need to give that focus to get this midterm under control.”
In the final weeks of the campaign, Earle-Sears blanketed the airwaves with ads characterizing Spanberger as being for “they/them”, echoing messaging from Trump’s 2024 campaign.
A spokesperson for Earle-Sears did not respond to a request for comment for this story.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:gm2gj4v7isgrlsww3ya7hpy2/bafkreiejujokwovl4krlvqrpstaqdfyytpylsbnwyjrbckampzo42csqly)
