[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - We're now joined by Christian Fuscarino, who is Executive Director of Garden State Equality.

The website is up Christian, good to see you again.

- Steve, thank you so much for having me on.

It's good to see you.

- You got it.

Let's go through this, all right.

President Trump, Executive order January 20th.

We're taping this at the end of March, will be seen later.

Executive order states that the federal government only recognizes two genders, male and female.

The State Department removed X, gender option on passports.

Why is that an issue?

- Well, why it's an issue for the president that he felt the need to address it on day one, I'm not sure, but it's certainly caused a lot of chaos in the community and for federal and local government workers that need to look at identification and know who they're speaking with.

Because now we have documentation in some situations where it doesn't match the gender of the person that they're speaking with.

And so what this really is at its base is an erasure of the transgender identity.

It's an erasure of an entire group of people, and we haven't seen this type of behavior since Nazi Germany.

- Lemme ask you this.

And if I can get a yes or no, it'd be helpful.

The vast majority of Americans in every poll I've seen, believe that trans men should not be competing, and I'm not saying this is the most pressing issue, but it's out there.

But trans men should not be competing in women's sports.

You say?

- Well, trans women are women and they are competitive NCAA players that have been competing all across the country.

- Right, these are men who transition women.

I apologize, my mistake, Christian.

- Yeah.

- They've been competing for a long time, but, The president, and he is not alone in this, argued they should not be.

That it is unfair to women, born women, to compete against men who have transitioned to be, to become a woman.

You say?

- I'm not really sure why something that is a non-issue has become such a priority for the president, other than for him to try to deny a small group of Americans their basic human rights.

Here in New Jersey, we've had a law on the books since 2009 that have allowed trans girls to participate in girls sports.

And we know that at that young age, sports is an important lesson for experience, to learn, to participate in the world.

We've had no issues in New Jersey, and so I would really encourage the president and the rest of the nation to look to our state where we've had inclusive laws and policies that have protected young trans people to see that this is something that doesn't need be changed.

- Christian, if the women, girls and women who are in those sports believe it's unfair, how is it not an issue because you don't think it's an issue?

If it's an issue to them, is it then not defacto an issue?

If they think it's unfair.

- I'm not sure who thinks it's unfair, but what we know from a sports competitive advantage, that there is no advantage for trans women participating in sports.

In fact, the small group of trans women that even participate in women's sports are not, you know, taking home every gold medal across the country, every national championship.

So we know that there is no significant advantage, and we know that through studies.

That's why the NCAA's policy was inclusive of trans women participating in their sports, because they had the scientific data and they saw that there was no competitive advantage.

- The president signed an Executive order banning transgender citizens from enlisting in the US Armed Forces.

Pentagon memo revealed that service members quote, that have a current diagnosis or history of gender dysphoria will be processed for separation from military service.

You say?

- Oh, Steve, I can't imagine a worse group of individuals to attack than those who sign up to defend our basic freedoms in our country.

These are individuals that are not required to serve, but go out of their way to ensure that they're able to keep the protections that we have in this country and to defend democracy around the globe.

And so why we would deny that group of people the right to serve in our military is beyond me.

It's un-American.

And my heart goes out to every trans service member who's currently serving, who doesn't know how many days left in their service there are.

- You know, you and your colleagues have engaged in this trans healthcare campaign.

What exactly is it?

And was that part of the lobbying effort?

We're actually taping on the 18th of March.

I believe yesterday you had a lobbying day in the State House.

Tell us what they, are they connected, Christian?

- We've got some great protections in New Jersey, we have New Jersey Law against Discrimination.

We have a legislature that has backed numerous bills that have brought protections to the transgender community.

And we have a number of executive orders that protected, transgender New Jerseyans.

We wanna really codify those executive orders in the law, especially now with what we're facing at the federal government.

- What does that mean?

Explain to folks what codifying means.

- Yeah, so executive orders that are issued by the governor of New Jersey have an immediate effect on the individuals that that executive order is, in this case, helping transgender New Jerseyans access healthcare.

And so we wanna codify that by turning it into a law.

We have the legislature's support, and we hope that we can get that bill signed before the end of the Murphy administration.

- Let me ask you this, in an effort to try to avoid being self-serving, but in the mid eighties, I think you know, well before your time in the state legislature, as a member of the legislature, I sponsored legislation that was called the Gay Rights Bill.

And all it did was say that you couldn't discriminate against people in housing and employment based on sexual orientation.

It took seven years for that legislation to become a law.

Are we going backwards?

- I think that we just need some political courage in the legislature.

And part of Lobby Day in Trenton was going around and showing legislators that there are many New Jerseyans that support this type of legislation and bringing in individuals who will be directly impacted by these laws.

So we had a lot of young people share their experiences with legislators, and we are hopeful that that will give them the courage to get behind these bills and make sure that they're on the governor's desk before his term with the uncertainty of what could potentially happen in this gubernatorial election.

- You hopeful?

- You know, at the end of the day, what I know about New Jerseyans is that we may disagree on many issues, but the majority of New Jerseyans believe in equality.

We've seen that over the last 20 years of this organization existing.

And so, you know, whether you're Republican or you're Democrat, what we've seen is New Jerseyans just respecting and loving their neighbors no matter who they are or how they identify.

- Christian Fuscarino, Executive Director of Garden State Equality.

Thank you, Christian.

- All right, thank you Steve for having me on, be well.

- You got it.

We'll see when we'll have you again, I'm Steve Adubato, that's Christian Fuscarino.

We'll see you next time.

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