Why subscribe?
If you’re trans in America right now, you’re navigating a system that changes under your feet—new executive orders, shifting policies, institutions that promised support quietly deleting your records. The news covers the outrage. I cover what it actually means and what to do next.
I spent years as the LGBTQ Program Director at Media Matters, tracking how right-wing media builds narratives and how those narratives become policy. My research has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, and Rolling Stone. I appear in the documentary *Heightened Scrutiny* alongside Chase Strangio, Elliot Page, and Laverne Cox.
Now I write here—without institutional constraints, without editorial approval, and without pretending things are fine when they aren’t.
What you’ll get:
Analysis you can use. Not just “this is bad” but “here’s what it means for your passport, your prescriptions, your safety.”
The story behind the story. I know how the right-wing media machine works. I’ll show you what’s coming before it arrives.
Original reporting. The investigations, the timelines, and the receipts that other outlets aren’t assembling.
A clear-eyed voice. I’m not interested in despair. I’m interested in clarity—and in the stubborn, practical work of surviving and thriving anyway.
Paid subscriptions are the best way to support independent trans journalism at a moment when it matters.
About the author
Ari Drennen is an investigative journalist and writer covering trans rights, right-wing media strategy, and the gap between policy and evidence. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, and Rolling Stone. She appears in the documentary Heightened Scrutiny and is the author of the poetry collection Thoughts on Weightlessness. She is a credited songwriter on Ekko Astral’s Pink Balloons, which Pitchfork named the #1 Rock Album of 2024.
The opinions expressed here are her own.
