TransLash Podcast with Imara Jones

The holiday season is upon us and we wanted to take a moment to highlight trans owned small businesses that you can check out for your last minute holiday shopping. First, Auston Bjorkman, founder and creative director behind Transguy Supply shares that there's no single path to starting a business and having community can help get dreams started off the ground. Then, Imara speaks with the founder of Ms. Tea, Laurel Birch, an herbalist who crafts elixirs, tisanes, and a variety of other botanical products.

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Trans people are more likely to experience homelessness than others. Which means trans folks are impacted at a higher rate by new federal policies that target people living in precarious housing situations. In this episode, Imara speaks with Dr. Dilara Yarbrough, an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Studies at San Francisco State University, who helps unpack Trump’s recent crackdown on homeless encampments in D.C. and the larger systems at play. Then, Atlanta organizer Jamie Roberts shares how her group works to address the needs of trans people in the South and what has to happen to end homelessness overall. 

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Happy Thanksgiving from TransLash. We’re grateful for all the trailblazers who continue to break ground in every field all across the country. In today's episode, Imara speaks to one of those stars, Breanna Sinclairé, a professional opera singer and soprano, about her journey into the opera world. She has performed around the world and she was even the first trans woman to sing the US national anthem for a national sporting event. Imara and Breanna discuss the highs and lows of being trans within the world of classical music and opera.

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On Trans Day of Remembrance, we honor the trans people who have had their lives cut short by violence. Imara speaks with notable changemaker in the trans rights movement Kylar Broadus. Kylar was the first out transgender American to testify before the United States Senate and has been honored for his legal work by the City of New York and the LGBT Bar Association of Los Angeles, among others. Together, they process what it means to commemorate this day during an era of heightened anti-trans rhetoric, attacks on healthcare and all out political assault. Kylar shares how he came to practice law while advocating for civil rights and reflects on the importance of multigenerational community.

For Trans Awareness week, TransLash Media is celebrating trans brilliance across generations with a new zine: Transcestors & Trailblazers: 30 Lives, 30 Legacies. You can find it at translash.org/zines 

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This month’s elections were a resounding victory for Democrats and a rare sign of hope for many during a dark time where authoritarianism is on the rise. In this episode, Imara dives into the big stories from the recent 2025 election and what they mean for the trans community. First, Charlotte Rene Woods, a politics, health, & housing reporter for The Virginia Mercury helps us understand how anti-trans rhetoric became a losing strategy in the recent gubernatorial elections in Virginia. Then, journalist Cyril Mychalejko from the Bucks County Beacon unpacks what happened in two politically significant school boards we reported on in this year’s investigation on The Anti-Trans Hate Machine podcast.

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