Ashley: transgender people make up just 0.6% of the population, yet they've become the target of hundreds of millions in political spending and hundreds of legislative attacks.

And as of right now, the attacks are working.

After years of increasing support for the trans community, a Pew Research poll from February 2025 found that over the last few years, people across the political spectrum have become less supportive of laws that protect the rights of trans people.

How can this be?

How did we experience such dramatic progress in the public's view of gay marriage in the last decade, yet face such whiplash in their views of trans people?

US Representative Sarah McBride has said it's a lack of understanding.

Straight people can approximate what it's like to be gay because most know what it's like to love, but cisgender people have no reference point for what it's like to be trans.

At least they think they don't.

Their political support was a mile wide and an inch deep, she says, and when these attacks came, that support crumbled like sand.

So let's fix that.

This season of Taboo Science, we are out to help the general public understand what life is like for trans people in all their diversity.

No sensationalism.

Just a quest for understanding.

In 10 biweekly episodes, we'll explore what it's like to be trans and find healthcare

stef shuster: Like, most of us don't just wake up one day and they're like, oh, I'm a trans person.

I should go to the clinic and get my hormones.

Ashley: to date

Hibby Thach: Dating as a trans person, um, is hell

Ashley: to come out to your family

Charlie James: Like my mom used to be like, it just seems like a lot of work and I don't know why you would go through that.

And then she watched Glee and then she was like, oh, nevermind.

I get it.

Ashley: and maybe leave home as a result

Amy Stone: Some estimates are that like 40% of all unhoused youth are LGBTQ.

Ashley: We will hear from the experts who study this stuff

Davey Shlasko: Humans are much more similar than different.

But we've been trained to think of sex and gender as so extremely binary.

Ashley: and the trans people who live it every day.

Benny: It wasn't so much, I hate my body, but every time I move in this direction, I'm happier, healthier, more comfortable.

Ashley: We'll also try to answer the questions that are impolite to ask.

I mean, why are people trans in the first place?

what happens when you take hormones?

How many actually get the surgery and what does that even mean?

Riley Black: Wait for them to bring it up if they want to talk about it.

Um, this can be a very sensitive thing.

Ashley: I'm Ashley Hamer Pritchard, who am I to be doing this?

Why is a cisgender, heterosexual white married mom who has never questioned her gender, making herself the expert on the transgender experience?

Well, first I'm not the expert.

I'm learning alongside you but I am a science writer who spent a decade breaking down complex research for Discovery, SciShow, Veritasium, live science and others.

But more importantly, trans people are tired of explaining themselves.

If us cis people wanna be allies, we need to do the work of understanding this community better.

That's what I'm trying to help us do.

Even if my only coming out story was admitting I prefer light mode.

taboo science, trans 1 0 1 debuts on October 2nd.

subscribe and follow to get the first episode.

When it drops catch you, then I won't tell anyone.