UnMuted: the TransMuted Podcast

Photo: Amy and me following her talk at WDI-USA’s 2024 conference in AtlantaIt’s a real thrill to have Amy Sousa on the show. The night before we recorded this I stayed up until 1am re-watching her TwiX and YouTube videos until I had to force myself to quit for the night. I’ll interject audio from two of my favorites into this episode. Here’s some bio taken from Amy’s website:As a modern-day gender abolitionist and women’s rights activist, it’s my mission to educate, protect, & inspire others to question the norm, create healthy boundaries, and to trust their instincts.As an educator, writer, and creator, I am dedicated to helping women and others build emotional and psychological skills to support a confident, grounded life.​I hold a Master’s degree in Depth Psychology* and I’ve spent years studying the internal landscapes that shape how we think, feel and navigate the world. My work focuses on instincts, embodiment, safeguarding, and emotional skill-building. I cleanly translate complex topics into clear, practical tools anyone can use.To quote LGBCC’s Bev Talbott, Boy howdy! Does she ever.Readers, I respect that some of you strongly prefer reading to listening, but I urge you to make an exception this time and skip the transcript in favor of this lively, fully-embodied conversation. We recorded it four days ago on February 11th, and I hurried to get it ready to post while the awful-yet-unsurprising news events we discussed are still front of mind and not yet exhaustively biopsied. Amy has a way of pointing out facets of human behavior and motivations that hadn’t yet occurred to us.Links:Follow Amy Sousa at her website The Known HereticVideo: Canadian Trans School Shooting The Known Heretic Substack 2/11/26Video: High School Girl [Wrestler] Sexually Assaulted The Known Heretic Substack 2/10/26Video: Parent Consent in Schools! The Known Heretic Substack 2/3/26Related written post: The Glamorization of Violence Against Women The Known Heretic Substack 3/17/23Written post: My Journey with Breast Cancer: Breast Cancer as a Lens for Embodiment vs Dissociation OR Sex-Based Medicine vs "Gender Affirming Care." The Known Heretic Substack 7/1/24Gender Nihilism and the Revolutionary Impulse, the eerily well-timed guest article in Reality’s Last Stand (2/10/26) by Brooke Laufer that’s getting a lot of well-deserved attentionBe Amy’s 64,267th follower on X!Be my 119th follower on X!Credits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

I’m honored to have Wesley Yang here today. Wesley became a publishing sensation when his first book of essays, The Souls of Yellow Folk, came out in hardback in 2018 to much well-deserved acclaim. Not long after that, he learned just enough about the gathering storm that was gender ideology to become well and thoroughly peaked. Instead of keeping his head down to preserve his status as a media darling favored by the gatekeepers of the New York publishing world, he chose the precise opposite path and began speaking and writing furiously about the issue that brings us all here, using language that was eloquent, clear, urgent, and refreshingly un-sugar-coated. For an early ‘trans’ skeptic like me, Wesley’s position carried extra weight. Here was a respected cultural observer sounding the alarm absent any direct personal stake in the story. If anything, he had a stake in pretending there was nothing to see here, in the manner of almost all his peers in publishing and media. So few people in any profession were speaking up that Wesley’s fearlessness made him a hero among parents like me.I connected with him on Twitter in 2021 and went on to write two pieces for his Substack, Year Zero. The first one concerned my mostly one-sided correspondence with Chris Hayes of MSNBC. That piece became the catalyst for my own Substack, TransMuted, which can’t have done much to turn the tide but has done a world of good for my own personal sanity. I’ll always credit Wesley for that early encouragement and more broadly for the sacrifice he made to speak up for our daughters and sons before almost anyone one else would.We cover a lot of ground, including the pending Supreme Court cases, Lia Thomas vs. what’s-before-your-very-eyes, DIAG vs. Illinois, Fox Varian’s big win, Moulton, Newsom, and my current obsession: Brian Lehrer and WNYC vs. Michael Shermer and “Mabel from Trenton.” Enjoy!Links:Read The Souls of Yellow Folk, by Wesley Yang, in paperback —or listen to it on AudibleWhat is Chris Thinking?, written by me for Year Zero with an intro by WesleyLisa Selin Davis’s Broadview post with the link to the Brian Lehrer show audio. Listen all the way to the end, then come back and comment here, because this is a safe space.Be Wesley’s 175, 815th follower on X!Be my 115th follower on X!Credits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons“This is not a heroic second coming of Jackie Robinson.” —Wesley Yang This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

Lisa Selin Davis is a woman who will need no introduction to most of you, but did you know she’s published two novels in addition to her two non-fiction books, Tomboy and Housewife? Now you do! She’s also a critically-acclaimed essayist and journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Time, The Free Press, and many others. Lisa’s research and reporting on gender ideology have demonstrated what objective journalism looks like — or at least that’s my opinion; hers is that she’s “never been objective!” We discuss the weirdness of watching the simplest, most obvious facts be tortured into a bizarre and incoherent litmus test for belonging. Also, the surprising clarity and doggedness that might be the upside of social isolation. Lisa is a talented and driven chronicler of this fraught human drama we’re all struggling to bring to a close; and I’m delighted to have her here.Links: Lisa’s Substack, BROADview, and the post we discuss:A few of the many LSD essays that I wish were mine:What the Gender Issue Needs in 2026 (BROADview, 12/31/25)A Chance to Depoliticize Gender-Affirming Care (Washington Post OpEd 12/8/25)Gender-Affirming Care Is to Democrats as Gun Control Is to Republicans (BROADview, 12/17/25)Women Ruined Everything. Now It’s Men’s Turn to Ruin Everything. (BROADview, 10/29/25Be Lisa’s 11, 091st follower on X!Be my 108th follower on X!Credits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

Andrew Hartz is the Founder, President, and Executive Director of the Open Therapy Institute, or OTI, whose mission, quoting from its website, is “to address socio-political bias in mental health care.”Andrew is also a practicing clinical psychologist and was formerly a professor in the clinical psychology doctoral program at Long Island University, where he completed his own Ph.D. He did a clinical internship at Columbia University Medical Center, and he’s written about the problem of politics in mental health for the Wall Street Journal, City Journal, the Federalist, The Free Press, Heterodox Academy, the New York Post, the New York Times, and Quillette. If you’re still not impressed, he’s even been a guest on Dr. Phil, who described him as “a beacon of hope!” All that, and now UnMuted.We discuss the “masculinity crisis” that was the topic of Andrew’s talk, along with Ben Appel and Rob Henderson, at an event I enjoyed last month. Others are talking about it too, including Bill Maher with Scott Galloway last Friday on Real Time. Also: artificial barriers to trust between men and women; the discomfiting subversion of social signifiers or “idioms”; the downsides of Sharia law (lol), the upsides of being ‘damaged,’ and where to look for a therapist who gets you, so you can stop self-censoring and get it all out in the open.Links:Open Therapy Institute’s website has tons of articles, a podcast series, links to Andrew’s Dr. Phil appearances (yes, more than one) and help finding a therapist who’s not preoccupied with woke performativity. And if you’re that therapist, go there to join their network.Subscribe to OTI on SubstackBe OTI’s 737th follower on XBe my 101st follower on X! (Yep, you’re reading a triple-digit TwiX sensation right now— crazy, right? I haven’t changed though.)Credits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

My guest today, Stephanie Winn, is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who will probably be familiar to most of the parents out there. Her podcast, You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist, is, in her words, “openly and unapologetically critical of gender ideology and the intrusion of wokeness into the counseling profession” — yet in my words, the tone of the podcast is the opposite of combative. It’s consistently calm, reassuring and above all, informative. The word “consistently” does a lot of work here, as there are 185 episodes to its credit to date. According to its web page, You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist ranks in the top 1% of podcasts globally, so I’m humbled and honored to host her here in my little boutique. If that intro made it sound like we’re going to spend an hour talking about podcasting, clear your mind of that expectation, as this guest has much more to offer. Links:Stephanie’s podcast, You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist, on YouTube (scroll down to view Episode 184 featuring Repair Bot)ROGD Repair Course for parents: use discount code UNMUTEDBe Stephanie’s 33,043rd follower on X!Be my 97th follower on X! (That’s me, closing in on triple digits!)Credits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

My guest is the author of a post I read on Substack last May that was so interesting and provocative I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Sarah Hartman-Caverly is a reference and instruction librarian with Penn State University Libraries. Her academic interests are privacy, intellectual freedom, and human autonomy. She co-moderates the Heterodox Libraries community of Heterodox Academy and contributes to its newsletter, Heterodoxy in the Stacks, which is where I discovered her writing. As soon as she started talking, I was so taken with her talent as a communicator that I abandoned my list of questions so I could focus on keeping up! The result is not super linear, but it felt to me like two shots in the arm —one for energy and one for courage— which happened to be exactly what I needed right now. Let me know what you think!Links:Purple-Haired People Eaters, an essay published 5/29/25 by Sarah Hartman-CaverlyHeterodoxy in the Stacks, a Substack about intellectual freedom, library neutrality, and libraries in democracySarah’s analysis of Q-Anon, Truth Always Wins: Dispatches from the Culture WarCredits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

My guest today is recently retired from an illustrious career with NPR, where she hosted high-profile shows including Weekend All Things Considered, Weekend Edition Sunday, and the independent documentary series Soundprint. She also brought us musical events such as the 2008 Inaugural Concert in Washington, D.C., concerts from the Aspen Music Festival, and Toast of the Nation, where she rang in the New Year live from Paris — as one does. A Google search returns photos of her in what look like couture gowns posing with the likes of Martin Scorcese, Placido Domingo and Rufus Wainwright. All of which reveals there is at least one truly glamorous job at NPR, and for decades it was held by the woman who might be my most famous guest thus far: Lisa Simeone. We discuss the barriers to honest reporting at NPR, the New York Times and traditional media as a whole. We vent our frustrations about all manner of frustrating people and things, and pay homage to the (mostly lesbian) women whose courage and confidence inspire us to keep talking. Links:Follow Lisa to get her insights and hot takes in your Substack feedThe made-for-TV movie Lisa brought up: Normal, 2003 starring Jessica LangeWe couldn’t find the viral video clip Lisa praised near the end of the conversation, but if anyone knows where to find it, please link in the comments — I want to see it!UPDATE: a listener named Jackie found the video clip on X and it’s definitely worth your 2 minutes. Thanks, Jackie! Credits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

Carol Dansereau is an attorney, author, and advocate who spent 25 years working in the non-profit sector. That sector, which she now calls the Nonprofit Industrial Complex, gets its share of criticism on her eponymous Substack. So does the Unitarian Universalist Church where she and her partner, Bruce Lesnick, were active members until their views on sex and ‘gender’ were deemed problematic.I’ve been following Carol’s Substack for a couple of years, and I finally had to reach out after listening to her audio post from Feb. 7th, 2024 titled “Speaking to My Family and Friends,” in which she explains the facts of gender ideology to her own inner circle in a measured way that communicates good faith as well as I’ve ever heard it done to an audience that may be hearing the truth for the first time. It made a powerful impression on me and I wanted to know how it was received, since I’ve been thinking hard about why and how we need to talk about ‘trans,’ even in polite company.Carol’s partner Bruce Lesnick is a talented songwriter and performer whose recordings on Spotify are my newest downloads. With his permission, I chose a track called “Bad Guys” as the outro for this episode. It’s from Bruce’s 2004 album, “Firestorm.” I’m now a fan of the whole couple and think you might be, too!Links:Subscribe to Carol’s Substack, where you’ll find the posts we discuss, including:Speaking to My Family and FriendsBehold the Progressive Trans AllySchool Boards: Grooming Kids for an Orwellian WorldHitchhiker’s Guide to the Transgender Galaxy, Part 1 of 6There’s a lot more good, provocative writing there to check out.Find more music by Bruce Lesnick on Spotify or on Apple MusicCredits:‘Moonlit Sky’ (intro music) by William A. Ferguson‘Bad Guys’ by Bruce LesnickUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

Dr. Lauren Schwartz is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist in private practice in Oklahoma. Her recent advocacy centers on ‘gender-affirming care,’ and in just the last three years she’s made significant contributions to both the clinical and public understanding of the tradeoffs involved in the treatments. If you watched or listened to the remarkable July 9th ‘workshop’ proceedings at the US Federal Trade Commission, you will have heard Lauren speak on a panel titled “What Does the Science Actually Say About ‘Gender-Affirming Care.’ I’m delighted that she and I will both be speaking at the Genspect conference September 27-28 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. (Tickets selling fast - secure your seat now!)Note: the ‘outro’ music at the end is a full-length recording of “A Woman’s Work,” one of the great new tracks by William A. Ferguson, who also composed my intro, “Moonlit Sky.” The lyrics of “Women’s Work” are not a strict thematic match with today’s episode; I just like the song, and it’s been awhile since I’ve featured a whole William AF track. Enjoy!Links:2024 Open Letter to the APA regarding its "Gender-Affirming Psychiatric Care" textbook, garnering over 7,200 signaturesThe June 2025 open-access review of more than 50 studies, highlighting risks associated with feminizing hormones in natal males.Dr. Schwartz’s presentation to the Federal Trade Commission on “Dangers of Gender Affirming Care for Minors” July 9, 2025. The just-published book in which Dr. Schwartz authored a chapter: The War on Science, Thirty-Nine Renowned Scientists and Scholars Speak Out About Current Threats to Free Speech, Open Inquiry, and the Scientific Process.Credits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

I know I just posted a long letter to subscribers about how I need to step away from Substack this summer in order to work on my presentation for Genspect, but Pamela Garfield-Jaeger published this charming new children’s book “Froggy Girl,” and because I enjoyed our first conversation so much, I decided to make time for this one.Pamela is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who describes herself as ‘awake, but not woke.’ She earned a Masters in Social Work from New York University in 1999 before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area to work with teens in school and outpatient settings. Today she’s an author, speaker and consultant specializing in youth gender issues. If aren’t familiar with Pamela’s story, you can hear how she came by her unique “Rip Van Therapist” perspective on gender ideology in the episode we recorded last January.Other links:Order your copy of Froggy Girl Order A Practical Guide to Gender Distress: Tips and Tools for FamiliesWatch Pamela read Froggy Girl on YouTubeSubscribe to The Truthful Therapist on SubstackBe Pamela’s 10,376th follower on X!Be my 89th follower on X! Pamela’s websites:www.froggygirlbook.com and www.thetruthfultherapist.orgCredits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

Miriam Grossman is a medical doctor board certified in child, adolescent and adult psychiatry. She is a senior fellow at Do No Harm and the author of five books. If you’ve read her most recent book, Lost in Trans Nation, you’ll know why I call it the definitive work on the subject that brings us here: readers who feel ‘lost’ as per the title before reading it will feel not just informed but empowered on the other side. Maybe more important: parents will feel, perhaps for the first time, that someone in the world of experts and professionals on “gender” understands what we are going through and how it’s impacting us. Dr Grossman’s books have been translated into eleven languages. She has testified in Congress and lectured at the British House of Lords and the United Nations. I’m truly honored to welcome her here. Note to grandparents and siblings of trans-identifying young people: Dr. Grossman would like to you hear from you. You can contact her via her website linked below. Links:​Miriam Grossman’s websiteBuy or listen to Lost in Trans Nation, A Child Psychiatrist’s Guide Out of the MadnessOrder You’re Teaching My Child WHAT?Dr. Grossman’s April 30 PITT article and book excerpt: My Colleagues Have Failed YouThe 2023 Congressional testimony we discussedBe Dr. Grossman’s 50,390th follower on X!Be my 76th follower on X!Credits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

I’ve been a fan of Vaishnavi Sundar for over five years, and it was amazing to interview her for this episode. Our mutual friend Sacha Jones of Terf Vibes introduced me to Vaishnavi after hearing me gush about her two gender-critical films, ‘Dysphoric' and 'Behind the Looking Glass.’ I binged all four episodes of ‘Dysphoric’ the minute I heard the film existed. By that time, 2019, I’d been living with an ROGD daughter for three years and felt quite alone and dismayed by the lack of objective information about the problem. ‘Dysphoric’ filled that void in a way that felt incredibly reassuring, plus it was a highly engaging a piece of art.Vaishnavi’s most recent film, 'Behind the Looking Glass,’ is the first-ever documentary about the wives and children of trans-identified men. It’s been widely celebrated for its artistry and also for the dignity and respect it shows its trans-widow subjects.We discuss le fléau sans frontières (the plague without borders) and the way it finds the peculiar vulnerabilities of disparate cultures in order to barge in and make itself at home, sporting the entitlement of the most opportunistic virus. Maybe the best antidote will prove to be the intelligent, creative expressions of truth in works of art like Vaishnavi’s.Links:More about Vaishnavi SundarWatch the 4-part series, DysphoricWatch the documentary, Behind the Looking GlassCredits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

On April 5, I drove to Berkeley to join a peaceful protest outside the downtown YMCA in support of single-sex locker rooms. We stood alongside Elizabeth Kenney, a mother and grandmother who had recently confronted a large naked man in the women’s locker room of that same facility. I later recorded an interview with Elizabeth which you’ll hear in the second half of this episode. First, I’m excited to speak with the woman who organized that protest. She’s a teacher and art enthusiast who has also figured out how to organize and lead safe, effective protest events, and I’m hoping this conversation will provide something like an instruction manual that can be replicated everywhere.Elizabeth was the woman of the hour at the YMCA action. The courage she showed in the women’s locker room on March 26th is something that could also stand to be replicated everywhere. It wasn’t even her first rodeo, as you’ll hear!Stay tuned for an encore William A. Ferguson joint at the end!Links:Contact Jane Berns for advice on organizing and socializing: [email protected] WomenAreReal’s 30,229th follower on X Be my 70th follower on X!Subscribe to William A. Ferguson’s Substack for great original songs and writingCredits:Original music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

Today’s guest is a woman I first met when we both attended the Genspect conference in Denver a year and a half ago. She introduced herself as a subscriber to this Substack, so I liked her immediately! I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know her fairly well since then.Her story is that of a stable, loving and high-functioning family in which two out of three kids — all smart and well-educated — announce ‘transgender’ identities during their college years. I wish I could say it’s an unusual story, but of course it isn’t. One thing I’ll note is that she and I have both noticed a strong ‘trans’ incubator quality in both inpatient and outpatient adolescent mental health programs. If you’ve noticed it too, please leave a comment, as this a problem that I think needs a lot more attention.Credits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

Plus: another great new terfy tune by friend-of-the-pod William A Ferguson takes us out, so stick around!“Terf Vibes” is the Substack handle of an Australian writer and feminist academic who currently lives in Auckland, NZ, where she fights for the sex-based rights of women and girls —and!— performs stand-up comedy using her stage name, Sacha Jones.This is how she describes her Substack publication, ‘Til Sex Do Us Part:’My personal/political 'battle of the sexes' as the XX author of a PhD in feminist politics and two tragicomic memoirs, one on my dancing girlhood, the other a feminist critique of the 'body positivity' movement. Also, men aren't women.Our conversation covers all the important topics of the day: politics, gender ideology, and comedy. Enjoy!Links:Sacha’s Substack, Till Sex Do Us PartHer two books published in 2024:The Fatter Sex: A Battle Plan for Women's Weight Health and HumourDon't Laugh: Keeping the Joneses Up (childhood memoir)Her (hilarious!) standup performance discussed in the conversationWilliam A Ferguson’s Substack, with his complete music catalog including “A Woman’s Work,” heard here.Credits:All music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

This is the only photo I have of me with Jennifer Lahl. Riley Gaines’s presence in the middle doesn’t lessen its appeal, in my opinion! Taken at the Center for Bioethics and Culture benefit dinner, Diablo, CA, 2024.Jennifer Lahl began her career as a pediatric critical care nurse in the 1990s, then went on to earn a master’s degree in medical ethics before founding the nonprofit Center for Bioethics and Culture in 2000. While doing critical nursing care, conducting scientific research and raising four children, she somehow managed to also become an award-winning filmmaker —as one does, right? Jennifer has 11 documentaries to her credit, including three that are specific to gender ideology (find links below).Quoting Genspect: “Jennifer is uniquely positioned to navigate the complex interplay of science, technology, and medicine at the heart of the contemporary issues of sex and gender.” View Jennifer Lahl’s gender-related documentary films: Trans Mission: What’s the Rush to Reassign Gender? The Detransition Diaries: Saving Our Sisters The Lost Boys: Searching for Manhood, which focuses on male detransitioners.Visit Genspect.orgBecome Jennifer’s 12,576th follower on XBecome my 58th follower on X!Credits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

My guest, Maya, is the young author of an essay I read on the PITT [Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans] Substack last week titled “Breaking Free: My Journey Through and Out Of Trans Ideology.” I was delighted when she agreed to be interviewed here, and I think the conversation has a lot to offer parents with questions about online indoctrination. You’ll find Maya to be uncommonly honest and self aware, especially for someone who is only eighteen. In case you find the audio quality frustrating, I spent some time editing the transcript this week and have copied the resulting version here on my Substack home page, so there’s a way everyone can absorb the information contained in this episode. Links:Maya’s PITT essay, ‘Breaking Free: My Journey Through and Out Of Trans Ideology,’ published March 11, 2025Maya’s first PITT essay, ‘The Cult of Gender Ideology: Psychological Manipulation and Social Control,’ published March 6, 2025Credits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons[TRANSCRIPT BEGINS]:(00:00:00):Maya: Growing up Gen Z, I knew about trans people and what it was for some time so I had friends even in elementary school that identified as trans, but I always knew about it. I saw YouTube videos about it, I had a friend so I always kind of knew what it was. I didn't really think of myself to be transgender until… well I didn’t consider it until I was around 12 because like in middle school late elementary school or middle school I had mental health issues and when I was probably in middle school, I realized I was gay, or came to the conclusion that I was gay.So I joined, I contacted a mental health line for gay teenagers called Trevor Project. It was like a crisis hotline. And they recommended this website to me called ‘Trevor Space’ for 13 to 25 year old LGBTQ people, kids, whatever. So I joined that.Actually, I was 12. I was technically too young, but I said I was a year older than I was to join the site. So I joined the site essentially talking about my story, who I was, and, you know, people were very nice to me initially.And so, yeah, I became kind of attached to the site, kind of chasing that validation from people. So a lot of people on the site obviously were transgender or non binary. And they were telling their stories about gender dysphoria or why they thought they were transgender, and I related to a lot of it, actually.And they proposed, like, oh, if you think you're transgender, there's all these questions and more things like that on the site and off the site, like articles and stuff or quizzes. So after a while of questioning, I came to initially first come to the conclusion that I was non-binary, but then later identifying as transgender.(00:01:50):Jenny: Do you remember how you found out about Trevor Spaces?Maya: The Trevor Project?Jenny: Yeah.(00:02:00):Maya: Uh, I guess I had contacted, like, hotlines before, like, crisis hotlines, but I was just, that was one of the ones that was, like, recommended, specifying themselves as an LGBTQ hotline. Since I already knew I was gay at the time, I identified myself as LGBTQ, even before identifying as trans.Jenny: Okay.Maya: That's how I found about that. Just quickly search, like, the LGBT hotline, whatever, it'll pop up. So the site, after coming out, the site, after I told the site,yeah, I might be trans, of course, the validation continues. They really like this. They're saying, this is your true self. They were very affirming, which feels good at the time, because at the time, I didn't like my body. I didn't like being a girl. So it was, made me happy and comfortable for people to say, to validate that transgender identity.And so they thought, they're saying, oh yeah, this is the norm. You should be affirmed. essentially, and you should come out in person, too. Because if people… And I would say that people in person, if they're not affirming, that's abusive. So…because I've experienced that first initial affirmation, it made me agree, like, yeah, this is how I should be treated.So when I came out to my mom and she didn't react positively to that, I thought of that as her abusing me, and saw that as only possibly coming from a place of hatred for trans people and due to that, hatred for me.(00:03:38):Jenny: Can I just ask, what was your relationship with your mom just prior to all this?Maya: It really wasn't that bad. I mean, we weren't the closest at the time, but we weren't, like, fighting or anything. It was just, I think, a normal preteen teenager relationship.Jenny: Did you trust her?Maya: For the most part I mean I wasn't telling her everything about my personal life but I wasn't I didn't distrust her.Jenny: Yeah, it's a rare adolescent who tells her mother everything about her personal life but did you think of her as somebody who would be likely to be, you know, bigoted or prejudiced against a group of people like ‘trans’ people?Maya: I did for a while because she would say things about trans people she is pretty open that she's not — at the time, she was pretty open about it. So I kind of knew, but I still came out to her anyway, expecting her to be different if it's her child.Because again, at the time, people on the site would say that the only reason you would hate trans people is just out of hatred. There's no real reason for questioning them. Because this is the truth. They say it's medically proven. They say it's biological. So for them, there's no rational reason as to why someone would hate them other than just pure bigotry and hatred.Jenny: Yeah.(00:05:01):Maya: So after she didn't ‘affirm’ me, I was seeing some of the stories that they had on the site, and some of their parents, based on their stories, were actually abusive to them. So I was actually worried that she would, in turn, become abusive to me if I kept going, so I decided to kind of back out of it— to her.So I essentially told her, like, I'm not identifying that way anymore, but I actually was. And so I was kind of doing it like stealth. Like I would socially transition and do whatever I can to physically transition without it being too noticeable. But I didn't, I was trying to pretend like I wasn't identifying that way when I was.So at school, I told my friends and my teachers I was going by a different name. And to use he/him pronouns, I, um, would dress in male clothing. It was a mix, but largely male clothing. And I would, um, quote-unquote ‘bind’ with two sports bras — it wasn't really binding but it was what I had um so I kept ruminating about that and my dysphoria (quote-unquote ‘dysphoria’) worsened because you're thinking about it so much it's never gonna go away. It's essentially like insecurity: you gotta keep thinking about it and it's reinforcing the idea that your body is wrong because typically when you're insecure as a teenager you'll be like oh I'm fat, but everyone else will be like ‘no you're not’ so that you don't feel bad about that but when you're trans and you're like, ‘oh, I hate my breasts’ or whatever, they'll be like, ‘yeah, that's because your body's wrong. You should get rid of them because you're actually a boy.’So that is very affirming of the insecurity. And so I would be very uncomfortable looking at myself. For being a girl, anything female-related made me so uncomfortable.And then on the site, there were, I guess I'm trying to figure out how to word this properly… On the site, they were a little bit controlling in a way. There were, like, standards of thoughts you had to live up to or act or say that were limited on what you could and could not say or think on the site because they didn't want to associate with people who they thought to be ‘bigoted,’ quote-unquote. And so, but the most random thing would make you bigoted, like, honestly.I'll give a few examples.Like, they would have, the trigger warnings where you had to, like, say beforehand, ‘oh, I'm going to talk about suicide,’ or whatever. And then there was a feature where you could hide the text that you were about to say.And so if you did that incorrectly or didn't do that at all and made a post about something that they'd give you a strict warning for, they would get really upset.And also the belief that you didn't need gender dysphoria to be trans, they believed for some reason. And if you said otherwise, you were labeled, I think the term is TruScum, or whatever the heck. And they didn't want to associate with you. If you didn't believe in it, so.And when you're a teenager, first of all, you're seeking that validation from peers especially at that age it's also just a human thing to seek validation from other people we don't want to be alone as social creatures and when you and first and second of all the sight of kind of love bombed me or affirmed me at first so I saw them as true friends and people in person as not because my mom didn't quote unquote ‘affirm’ or support me with this and I struggled with making friends in person. So to them, they were my only friends. So if I do not conform to them, I will have no friends, which no teenager or person at all wants.So I gotta keep my mouth shut and conform to their standards.(00:08:49):Jenny: Were these like video chat rooms or was it all just, it was like a forum.Maya: So it was just like text, make a topic. Kind of like Reddit, or any forum okay so nobody's in that way no one was videoing or seeing their face it was never like in person live. And it wasn't also like Instagram or something where people's faces public it was always like a profile a stage name or a profile picture has nothing to do with your face just an identity but not a person on the site.Jenny: yeah so um were these like scheduled forums where you'd log on you know every night at seven or at some specified time or did you just sort of post a comment whenever and then get, you know, feedback whenever?Maya: yeah it was post whenever get feedback whenever. It was live all the time. So I basically because of the affirmation thinking they're my only friends I was pretty much on the site all the time and I wasn't really making friends in person because I was concerned about any kind of like even questioning of my new trans identity. Because on the site, I can be whoever. I can put a picture. Put a name. You say your chosen name. They'll respect that because they know no other name. They will not look at you and say, oh, you're a girl. I'll assume that because it's an identity on the site. Nobody knows what you look like. And I was, because of that quote-unquote ‘dysphoria,’ I don't know if it was real dysphoria or if it was more induced from insecurity, but I didn't want to interact with people who didn't immediately affirm me. So after some time I was quote-unquote ‘dating’ someone on the site, but we had broken up and we were on good terms. It wasn't like a messy breakup, but after not having them anymore, I kind of realized on the site, even though I thought this person was my friend, I didn't really have any true friends anymore, because she was the one who reacted to my posts or liked or talked about what I talked about. I would make a post or whatever. Nobody cared. Nobody really wanted to talk to me. I mean, I wasn't, like, special enough. I wasn't, like, doing anything wrong, but I wasn't, like, entertaining enough for them, I guess. So, um, so the site… being on it kind of felt more like a chore. So I left the site, and I joined some other websites where I would kind of be stealth, like, saying I was a boy, but saying I was actually just a boy, not saying I was trans. So everyone thinks I'm just a male boy. I'll say ‘cis,’ but I don't know how people feel about that word.(00:11:29):Jenny: Were these other sites specifically, like, LGBTQ kind of related? Or were they, like, game sites or other things?Maya: They were just, like, regular social media sites.Jenny: Okay.Maya: Like, never LGBTQ related.Jenny: Okay.Maya: Because I was trying to be a little bit more stealth, I guess.So... I made friends with them, but they didn't last. And so, because I was being inauthentic, like I wasn't, like I had to hide the fact that I was actually a girl or trans or whatever. You can have people be like, ‘oh dude, show me your face, I'll show you my face.’ I'm like, ‘I can't show you my face because I'm pretending to be a boy.’ Or I believe myself to be a boy, but I didn't want people to think I was transgender. Because I thought that was, I was kind of embarrassed by it actually, but I wanted to be a boy more than I wanted to be, I'll say ‘cisgender.’So I left a lot of those sites and I rejoined Trevor Space. But having been away from them, I wasn't keeping up with the new rules. And so when I come on there, I didn't act the way they want me to initially. They didn't want to talk to me.(00:12:38):Jenny: Can you give an example of the new rules?Maya: Okay, I said before the ‘you don’t need dysphoria to be trans’ thing, I think I should have said that was a new rule because that wasn't really a thing before. Also with the neogenders, not identifying as a boy or girl, even non-binary, but like as an object, like I'm flower gender or something crazy. Because before it was just like, oh,give your trigger warnings, use respect, they/them, whatever, but now it was like ridiculous things that even I at the time acknowledged that I think was not the same thing as trans to me. Because I had this just flower. I'm like this is really real to me. You're identifying as a flower. That's not real. But I couldn't say that. Or else I was not going to make friends on that site. But I said it anyway. And I didn't make any friends on that site. For the entire time I was there. So I left it again. And so at this point, I was pretty much alone. I didn't have any friends online or in person. And so I was kind of left to think for myself. I wasn't worried about keeping anybody. I had nothing to lose. So I didn’t feel afraid to think certain ways, and I started watching, I guess, right-wing content online just for a refreshing perspective, and I didn't even agree with a lot of it. But I watched it because it was something that I wasn't allowed to be said on the sides I had been on before. Just for a refresher, I would watch it just to see what they were saying and almost a bit within my head.(00:14:10):Jenny: Can you give me an example of right-wing content?Maya: I used to watch, like, The Daily Wire, Blair White too. Blair White’s like, a right-wing transgender person, so I didn't see what he was saying as hate. I just saw it as, oh, this is just a right-wing perspective. And I didn't agree with everything, but I watched it, to watch it. Jenny: And so... So now you're starting to think for yourself, and I just have to say, I think your reaction to all of this kind of, like, the you were looking for something online. This is what I'm hearing. Tell me if this is actually what you were saying. But I'm hearing you say you were looking for something online in terms of community and support and friendship and maybe some information that could help you better understand yourself and the things that you were struggling with. And then when what you got back was like, didn't, didn't sit right with you… to me, you had a super healthy and very highly adaptive reaction to that, which is to actually back away from it and start thinking for yourself and exposing yourself to new ideas. And it gives me a lot of optimism, you know, that this could be somebody's reaction.Maya: Healthy reaction to not getting what I needed off social media. I do want to clarify that. I didn't initially react that way because this, remember this from the beginning of Trevor Space to me getting off it, this is over the course of years. So when I was younger, I really didn't react in a healthy way. I didn't get what I wanted, and so I performed more. I acted like them more. I did more of what they want so that I could get friends, I can get a social community, and I can get support.And this went on for years. I'm trying to think of how long I spent on Trevor Space. It was probably two years. I probably left for a couple months, came back for a couple months, but by that point, it had been three years, and I was like, okay, whatever, because I was older then.Jenny: Just real quick, how much time each day would you say you were spending on Trevor Space during that period of like 12 to 14?Maya: I think it was probably like several hours a day like yeah I'm trying to think I just remember I used to use it in a private browser because I didn't want it to be attached to my email address so that my mom could see my email and find out. So I used it in a private browser and that private browser used to be my most used app ever on my phone, more than YouTube — you spend hours on YouTube but I would spend hours on this — I spent hours on YouTube too but I would spend a lot of time like probably several hours a day. I'm trying to think of how long, because I'm not sure. I would check it constantly, like a social media app.Jenny: Yeah.Maya: I'm not sure exactly how many hours; it’s hard to determine.(00:17:21):Jenny: But, were you able to, like, get your schoolwork done? And was the rest of your life, you know…Maya: I was able to get my school work done. But. It was during COVID at the time, so there wasn't really much schoolwork. They could say online school was equal. It's really not. You could cheat on everything. So it was kind of easy to get the schoolwork done at the time. But I didn't really have a social life, not only because of COVID, because even when I came back in person, I was still identifying as trans and didn't want to interact with anybody who didn't affirm that. So my social life was very limited. And I struggled socially for a while, too.Jenny: So did the whole thing begin during COVID when you were at home?Maya: I think I joined the site before COVID, but I didn't start identifying as trans. I happened to identify as trans like starting like near the beginning of COVID. To me, that's more of a coincidence because I'd joined this site before.(00:18:15):Jenny: So you were heading in that direction, you think, anyway?Maya: Yeah. I don't know if it was like COVID causing it. I don't think so.I just think it's happening in a coincidence.Mm-hmm.Because I was questioning it before COVID too. I'm just like, you know am I, am I non-binary or whatever, but then I, COVID happened and I happened to identify as trans. So to me, that's just a coincidence.So I came off that site and I started, yeah, this is after, um, after I started watching more right-wing content and thinking for myself. And I don't want to say that I didn't... I mean, you could accuse me of just following the right-wing opinion. I didn't agree with everything they were saying either, and I still don't. I mean, it depends on the person. I agree with a lot of people sometimes, but I also don't. So I'm not just saying what the right-wing was saying, because I... I disagree with them a lot.Jenny: I believe you. And by the way, same!Maya: So I started to kind of let go of those ‘taught’ opinions, like, oh, I didn't think, I thought for a while that we need gender dysphoria to be trans. I was immediately after we got off the site, I'm like, okay, this is ridiculous. I'm not doing this.I stopped thinking that the neopronouns, I even let go of people being non-binary. I'm like, ‘okay, I have dysphoria, so I am trans. You do not because you don't want to be a boy or a girl. So to me, you're not.’ And then I started thinking, even though I was a kid, I started thinking kids shouldn't transition just because some people do desist. And I knew of that at the time. And I thought that for a while. I thought of myself more like a right-leaning, trans person like Blair White. I know there's a few other names. And then there was this one incident where I was watching a YouTube video and the guy in the video said, ‘girl’, referring to something else, not referring to the audience. Obviously not referring to me, but referring to something else said, ‘girl’. And I got I'll say dysphoric from just hearing him say the word girl. Talking about something overly. I'm like, why the heck am I uncomfortable of him referring to someone else as a girl? Is that even related to me? Or have I been taught to fear the word ‘girl’? Or fear feminine things, or something? I'm like, I don't know how long it took me from that point until actually desisting. Probably a couple months. But I've come to the conclusion that this is... ridiculous, this is taught behavior, not, I'm still uncomfortable with myself and my body, and even with being feminine, but I'm like, okay, this whole transgender thing is, to me: no, I don't think it's the truth.And so, I stopped identifying that way, and I didn't initially come out as not trans anymore, just because I thought it was awkward to say, because I was insisting, like, ‘oh yeah, I'm trans’, and I, and I had, like, it really hurt me at the time when people, you quote unquote ‘misgendered’ me but now it's like oh yeah I'm not doing it anymore that makes me seem just like not genuine, like a liar or an attention seeker, and maybe I was but it did really feel uncomfortable to me so it was just a change of mind and not just me being, ‘oh yeah, I'm moving on to the next day and I lied about being uncomfortable for attention.’ I didn't lie, but I don't…Jenny: You were drawn in, yeah. It just seems very totalizing, you know, and it's like a lot of people tell this, you know have this same kind of description of, like you — you know, do you know the song Hotel California? It's an old song but there's this line: ‘You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. ‘ And I think of that when I think of trans. Kind of like that; it’s a one-way sort of vacuum. And once you're in, you just keep getting sucked in. But if you somehow manage to get out, it's almost like there's nowhere for you to go.Maya: Yeah. Some people who resist or do transition and they are sometimes accepted if they do not tell you anything bad about trans ideology afterward. They're just like, ‘hey, I didn't happen to be trans.’ Sometimes they get away with not really any backlash but if you say anything you're seen as almost like a traitor to the LGBTQ community, like honestly people say like, ‘oh you're gay so how could you dare say anything about trans?’ I could just say the same thing about gay people. I could say it's it's a lie, I could say they're manipulative, I could say whatever about gay people so how dare you say anything about trans people when you're also LGBTQ?They said that people who have desisted or detransitioned were never really trans.Which is kind of dumb because they say the only thing you need to beat is the only qualification.(00:23:19):How do I say that's the only criterion? Yeah, criteria. If being trans is saying you are, but then when you detransition or desist, people are like, ‘oh yeah,well you were never trans.’ So which is it? Because it can't be both.Jenny: Right. Yeah, true. Did kids in this group talk about their fears or excitement or, like, feelings about doing medical transitions?Maya: They did. It was mostly kids, so I don't think, I mean, very few of them were medically transitioning at the time because they were kids and, you know, so a lot of them didn't have affirming parents, but they would talk about wanting surgery or testosterone, estrogen, whatever. They would idealize it. They would, and there were a few, I'm pretty sure on the site who said they had it or were getting home onto it, at least they were very excited. It was like a happy day for them.It's always kind of pushed. And when you're a kid and you're uncomfortable with, say, your breasts, and you're like, oh yeah, you can just remove them. And it's not seen as like a plastic surgery where like, oh yeah, I think I'm fat, I want to get liposuction. It's not encouraged to do so. I mean, you can always care, and teenagers probably know about that procedure, but it's not encouraged.Because no one's like, oh yeah, you're fat, go get liposurgery. No one's saying that.But if you're a transgender-defined teen and you're saying, ‘I hate my breasts, I want them gone, people are like, yeah, this surgery exists, you should go get that. It'll help you a lot.’ Which is reinforcing that there's something wrong with it.Jenny: Right. It's weird enough when your own peers are doing that, people your own age, But to me, like what makes this one different is that there's so many adults, you know, like teachers and counselors and even doctors. Yeah.Maya: Yeah. I'm not sure if there's anything else I want to say about the desistance story. I think that pretty much ends where I stopped believing it and started speaking out of about it online, but it actually took a little bit for me to start speaking out, because I started desisting, or saying, I don't know, if I should say started desisting, I stopped identifying as trans, probably by the start of 11th grade, so like 16, and I didn't start speaking out really about it until like a year later, I was probably 17, or maybe, maybe a little older, when I started actually going online and saying, you know, what the heck, and I didn't really… And even then, it was just, like, online in certain forums, certain topics. I didn't start doing, like, interviews or anything like this until I was 18. But then again, you shouldn't really be doing interviews as a child.Jenny: Right.Maya: That's just a type of coincidence. But, you know, so I guess the story kind of ends with me going online and talking about it and seeing the backlash, which really made me think, like, ‘why do you hate people who do so much?’ And I don't even say a lot of backlash personally. A lot of it is what I've seen other people saying because I've seen more public de-transition. So this is just getting like really attacked over really ridiculous things.Jenny: And what kinds of social media environments are you seeing this?Maya: Mostly on X because I'm mostly on X right now.Jenny: Okay.Maya: I see I use Reddit sometimes, but Reddit is a lot more politically open.It's more like you say one thing and anything else gets like taken down. So... I use Reddit to talk about fandoms or whatever, or stuff unrelated, like jokes, memes. But I would never use Reddit for political discussions because they take down anything that they don't want to see. And that's not a place for political discussion. That's just here to say people who agree with you and to feel like, oh, I agree. And that's all. That's no discussion.Jenny: Yeah.So do you put all issues around trans in the category of political conversations?Maya: I think trans ideology is political, but this... I don't want to say political all the time because there is some health, medical, mental health aspects of it. Because you saying I have judges for it, that's not political. But the affirmation model and people not allowing any criticism of it, to me, that's political. To me, even the idea that a boy...can become a girl or vice versa, is a political ideology. I don't know if it even originated that way. I don't know who came up with this, where it started. But the affirmation is political to me. And I just call it a political topic just because it's real-life and controversial.Jenny: Yeah, I'm not disagreeing at all. And it definitely has spilled into overtly political... areas like when you think about Title IX or when you think about who's allowed in female spaces and or even, you know, like with the executive orders that try to regulate or limit the access of minors to drugs and surgeries. So it is political.It's just like you're the youngest person that I've spoken to about this. And so I'm just interested in, you know, just how you conceive of the whole thing.Maya: Yeah, I do want to bring up something not really related to me specifically but well a little bit but not really in a way i was protected from medicalizing because as achild my parent my mom said you can't do that when they'll allow me to do that but and a lot of people do but there were some states and some cases where kids were actually taken away from non-affirming parents and pushed down that path from the state intervention or from their own parents affirming but that's a little bit different.So in those states and in those cases I do believe that kids are more in danger now of going down that path especially since from what I've I mean people are torn onif this is true or not it seems to depend on the case by case basis but people have said they've gotten prescribed hormones or surgery within like one appointment and it's also not allowed to question really any kid's identity because it's seen as conversiontherapy in some places you're not allowed to question them at all so there's no there's you getting this fun one opinion when you're young it's like oh yeah be nice to trans people, some people change genders and when you're a teenager it's like and if you experience this they're saying be this is the only medical option for you is to take testosterone or estrogen and get surgery which is crazy did you always sort of know that it was crazy or did you know as a kid because i grew up knowing about transgender people i had a friend in elementary school who was transgender so i always actually believed i was like okay yeah i'm so man or trapped in women's bodies and become men through transition. And I never questioned it until I was older, probably until I was like, yeah, I didn't question that anyone was trans. Also, I was like 16, 17 years old.Jenny: Okay. So your friend from elementary school, did she have affirming parents?Maya: Yeah, she did. I mean, she was like nine to 10 when I knew her. So I feel like at that age, you didn't come into it yourself. Your parents, you're probably in full sight. I mean, you can, but I feel like that's more learned somewhere than coming to the conclusion yourself at that age. And so I knew her socially as a boy by a boy's name. She presented to a masculine. She was young, so she hasn't gone to puberty yet.So, or she was on blockers. I don't know. But either way, I knew this person as a boy who just happened to have been born and grown, whatever. Jenny: Are you still in high school?Maya: Yeah.Jenny: So you'll graduate this spring?Maya: Mm-hmm.Jenny: And how has life been since you decided – you said when you started your junior year in high school, you decided to kind of back off. It seems like you were backing off sort of gently. You weren't making a big announcement, right?Maya: Yeah.Jenny: Do you want to talk about how that was going back to school?Maya: Yeah, so essentially I stopped introducing myself by the male name or male pronouns or even saying I was trans. You can call, this is my name, which is my birth name. And you can call me however I still feel that way. If you want to call me, you can go for it. I don't buy into this pig, choose your pronouns. Because that's choosing how people talk about you. Because I'm still a female just because of my chromosomes and my birth gender. That's just who I am. You can call me whatever. But there were people who knew me before as transgender and still called me that male name, male pronouns. And so they, I didn't correct them because I didn't want to have an argument with them I didn't want to I thought it'd be awkward .But also at the time there was an interesting law it happened to be right before I desisted that you're not allowed to call at school I don't know if this is statewide orcountywide I'm assuming statewide because my county's pretty blue and my state's pretty red but there was a rule where you couldn't call people by a chosen name without parent permission and obviously I wasn't going to get parent permission. So teachers were not allowed to call me by the male name. This happened to be the rule when I desisted. But students are, of course, still allowed to because they can say what they want.Jenny: So that law was introduced when you desisted, but like when you were identifying as trans, your teachers were supposed to call you by your chosen name?Maya: I don't think that was a rule that they had to.Jenny: Okay.Maya: They chose to.Jenny: Okay.What state are you in?Maya: Florida.Jenny: Oh, interesting. Is it okay to have that in the podcast?Maya: Yeah, why not?Jenny: Okay. All right. I don't know why I was just assuming you were in the Northeast. But yeah, I mean, Florida is a very interesting case study because they've been the most overt about moving in and saying what's what with kids.So like, um, do you, were you old enough when governor DeSantis, uh, signed the, what was called the don't say gay bill into law. And I, that's not what he would call it, but were, were you like, what was that part of your like information environment?Maya: I think I was kind of old enough to where I was kind of questioning the narrative. So I don't remember what year it was connected. I'm going to find out.I don't, I think I was at the point where I was either desisting or questioning certain narratives.Oh, let me find out when I was announced it.Jenny: Yeah, yeah.Maya: Sorry.Jenny: No, no, that's... I'm glad you're doing it.Maya: So that was in, like, 2022, so that was... I was probably questioning certain narratives. I think I was, like, depending on what month. I was either 15 or 16.So this was probably before I desisted, but to the point where I was off Travis Basin. So I kind of knew it wasn't really don't say gay. It was discussions related to it.And at the time I didn't really care.Jenny: Okay.(00:35:30):Jenny: I'm really interested in the idea of Trevor because I think of the Trevor project as a suicide prevention hotline. And the way you describe that Trevor spaces, it's almost like, they're sort of generating potential new customers, which sounds crass, but it's like the feelings you describe about having to really curtail your speech and the way you think and be conscious of all these trigger warnings. It can really be, it sounds very stress inducing. And it just seems like if a kid had never thought about self-harm or suicide going into that kind of online environment. He or she could very well be having those thoughts after spending a lot of time there.Maya: So I do want to say that it's run by the same people, but it's two different. They do the Trevor Project, which is a suicidal hotline or crisis hotline, and the Trevor Space, which is an affiliate with them, which is just a forum website social media page. So, most of the kids finding out about this probably found out about it from the Trevor Project.I think almost everyone on the site either was suicidal or had mental health issues or previously were. Like, I don't think there were very few, if any, people who just came into it with no mental health. It's just me like, yeah, I'm LGBTQ. I mean, maybe there were. Now that I think about it, but it was most of the kids had mental health issues or were suicidal. And at the time, since dysphoria obviously was pretty uncomfortable and painful, if you had any, like, suicidal thoughts, you're always kind of told it wasn't the sight causing it, it was more like your gender dysphoria causing it or caused by anything else, because you wouldn't think that way, especially at the beginning, when everyone's so nice to you. You associate these people as being your friend. And you're, in my case, or some other cases, your only friend.So... you would never consider that to be the source of your mental health or increasing mental health issues. It's a coincidence or it's another cause because you would not associate your only friends or your friends to be causing issues in your life. Jenny: And were there moderators or adults kind of monitoring the space?Maya: No, there were, but they did not really do their job. It was like a known thing on the site, like moderators are not going to step in. There was actually one incidentAfter I came back, there was someone who, like, kind of trolled the site, like would mass report people to try and get their accounts banned. And so, and if the site, how the site worked, apparently, was if it got enough reports, they wouldn't even look into it, it would just get banned. And the moderators didn't work on weekends, so they would come in on Saturday, start the mass banning, and they didn't know, even no one had any, nobody did anything about it until Monday. where that person got banned off the site.Jenny: What kind of things would be grounds for banning?Maya: Um, you could just, uh, I guess, like, typical social media stuff, like hate speech, but they had anything, like, they had a specific rule where they're not allowed to question anyone's identity that was considered hate. I'd have to look up exactly what it is, but it was really typical stuff, except for, well, how'd you be taking something?I could find out.Hold on. Okay.Yeah, so don't demean people, says don't use transphobic, biphobic, homophobic, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, fat-shaming language. Don't invalidate people's identities or experiences.Don't accuse others of faking anything or doing something for attention.Don't say identities aren't valid or real.Don't harass people, no name calling, whatever, that's very typical.Don't threaten someone, typical.If someone asks you to leave them alone, leave them alone.Don't try to interfere with someone's account access.Or impersonate someone. It's pretty typical.Don't ask for sexual pictures, especially since there were kids on the site. That's, again, typical.Don't use it for sexual encounters.If you're 18, you cannot engage in sexual relationships with someone under 18.Don't use it to make money.Don't make new accounts to get around a band.Don't abuse the reporting system to mess with someone, which is what that person was doing.Because, apparently... Yeah, you got a certain number of reports.Yeah, that's pretty much it.Jenny: So also, the space was formally available to people from age 13 to 24, did you say?Maya: Yeah.Jenny: But you were able to...be a part of it at age 12 because all you have to do is say you're 13.(00:40:15):Maya: There's no real age verification system, but I think most sites are like that. You just say, oh yeah, I'm totally 13, don't get on. Jenny: But even if they were able to really verify and restrict it to people who are actually between 13 and 24, does that strike you as appropriate, that range?Maya: It doesn't strike me as appropriate age range. I have no idea why they would think I mean I guess since they're saying young people in general have mental health issues they started a suicide hotline and people who are 18-24 do struggle with mental health issues at a disproportionate rate too so I guess the reason but I can't believe no one thought how inappropriate it is to have them share a site Jenny: yeah did you ever encounter comments or conversations with from people who seemed older or who just didn't seem to be... I don't know. Did anything inappropriate cross your...(00:41:26):Surprisingly and honestly, nothing immediately comes to mind of an inappropriate interaction I've seen with an adult and a minor.Because in general, there weren't a lot of people, adults on the site. I mean, there were some. But typically, people saying they were adults...acted appropriately i don't know why they'd want to be on the site with a bunch of children but they acted generally appropriately like everybody else I'll say appropriately as inappropriate for the site I mean a lot of kids in the site acted like and with that getting patrolling people's opinions being crazy but they weren't acting atypical for the site although i imagine if you're an adult and she wants to use the site to act to interact with kids i don't know why you wouldn't just lie about your age even though they allow adults Because there was actually a forum for romance, not sex, but interest in relations with people.And the age you put on the site would restrict if you got the child or the adult page for that. And you couldn't access the other page based on the age you put in your account. So if you wanted to be romantic with children on that site, you would probably put your age as younger.Jenny: Wow.Maya: Just to get into there. So maybe people were lying, but I don't have any explicit examples. I don't know if it was going on or not.Jenny: Yeah. Wow. So, okay, so how's your life going now?Maya: It's going better now that I'm not really identifying that way anymore. I mean, now that I'm not ruminating about it and not reinforcing that my body is wrong, I'm not going to say I'm perfectly confident in my body. A lot of people are, but I don't really have that such strong gender dysphoria anymore.(00:43:00):You know, I don't feel the need to have people call me a boy because I'm not. I don't feel the need to lie. And so it's maybe a lot easier for me to interact with people because I'm not expecting them to change their way of thinking and the way of speaking just to interact with me. But my life is going pretty typical now, honestly.Jenny: Good. So the way you wrote the essay that you published in Pitt and also the way you just have described your journey, you know, to me, it's… It seems like you are very much the agent of the whole experience. You know, you don't like you don't blame whatever happened on friends or the influence of a crazy teacher or anything.And that's impressive to me. But I'm also wondering whether your relationship with your mom had any impact on the way you traveled through this experience? You know, like, were you able to talk to her about it at any point? Or did you really, you know, kind of resist that?Maya: So I didn't actually, when I was identifying that way after that initial not...a firm reaction i'll say i didn't really talk to her about it i haven't really talked to her about desisting honestly just because it's a little bit awkward today and I'd have to tell i wasn't actually allowed to use social media as a child so I had the whole point I'd have to be like ‘hey guess what, I was breaking your rules for five years but here's my story so that's a little awkward right? I haven't talked to her about that i also do want to mention um …The reason I don't really put blame on anybody is because I don't think one person is responsible for this. I blame the ideology, not a person. And a lot of the kids who I do want to say manipulate beings of thinking this way just because of the reaction of, to me, expressing a different opinion and not wanting to hear anything new from the site, they are victims themselves too. A lot of them. They had probably similar issues to many different issues. and they were led down this path to live a lie essentially to chase something that's not true and to they are encouraged to harm or alter their body because of it and so they are victims too even though they isolated us manipulatively i don't know or wrongly they are victims too yeah and Even teachers who teach this, I haven't had a teacher who explicitly taught this to me, but even teachers, they're trying to do the right thing. They genuinely believe that these people are marginalized, that they are going to kill themselves, that this is true, that this is right, and this is what's being taught. So they're almost victims of an ideology, too.The ideology, to me, is the problem. There's no one person, there's no one villain, there's no one abuser. It's the ideology. And it's beyond me. It's beyond my story. It's way beyond my story. It's just about everything right now.Jenny: Yeah.I think that's a very insightful, you know, way of describing it. And I couldn't agree more. It's like, it's a problem that's being inflicted on kids by adults. And, you know, like as an adult watching this, it's incredibly dystopian and, just very difficult to watch.So what would you advise parents? Let's say I'm a mom of a 12-year-old girl, and I think she's struggling at school with making friends, or she seems to be having a hard time accepting, going through puberty, and maybe she has hinted that she's exploring what, you know, her gender identity. What would you advise a parent to do in that situation?Maya: So the first thing I would do, unrelated to accepting and affirming any action, but is to teach your child that there's nothing wrong with their body, that there's nothing wrong with who they are, what they like. And so if they're not reaffirming that there's something wrong with them, they will feel less of a need to identify that with in the first place. if you happen to affirm gender ideology or gender identity in your child, that's reinforcing that there's a problem with their body. And even just enforcing gender rules, because that teaches them that there's a wrong way to be a girl or a boy, and that they can't do this or like this if they're not the opposite gender, which is another.To me, that was also kind of a factor for me. I mean, considerably not one was for a long time as a kid. I hated being a girl because I thought it limited me, and what I could like. So, that's one thing. I would say, in most cases, don't allow your child to medicalize, obviously, because that's a permanent decision as a child, but they, many, because the desistance rate is pretty high, actually.But in some places, yeah, you will go, your kids, they can go do it for themselves. If it's you're in that place, um, get out. Also, just tryIf you have to hide it, like, your discomfort with it, if you have to be like, oh, I support you, but I want to wait on the medicalization, try that, I'd almost say, if you're in that situation. I hope to get out of that situation if that's you, but just try really not to let them get to that point of medicalization. And teach them biological reality that they can't, don't affirm the trandgender ideology to teach them, if you're able to, that you cannot change your sex, even if you want to.Even if people transition medically, that's not really becoming a boy or a girl. It can make you look more like a boy or a girl on the outside, but nobody has ever actually changed their gender, even through, like, bottom surgery, whatever. It's not even the opposite sex genital. It just looks like it a little bit.Jenny: Right.(00:49:41):Maya: And what else do I want to say?Teach yourself to question what they're seeing. Don't just blindly affirm to anyone ideology to fit in with a group. Teach your kids to think critically about what they're seeing. I gave some advice to some parent on PITT to say that to let your child view the media that they disagree with and have them critically think about it and why they disagree with it. Even debates help because when you're debating or defending your opinion, you have to really think about why you have this opinion and really think about why you should have this opinion. So they should come to it on their own if they have something that really doesn't align with their morals or that really is questionable. They'll come to it on their own through debate, I think.And also, if you have an advocate that identifies as trans, I'd say you can still do this without them seeing it as hate. I mean, it's harder because you're taught to believe that in questioning this hate. But even watching people like Blair White or any other names that are trans and question it, because they might not view that as hate if it's coming from another trans person, and make, again, teach them to really critically think. Do you or I do disagree with this? Another one I'd say is to educate them about cults, actually. I wrote an article on PITT. I don't know. Which one did you read? I wrote two. I believe you read the one about my desistance story.Jenny: Yes, it was just published last week. Maya: I wrote another one about cult dynamics and trans ideology.(00:51:25):Jenny: Oh, interesting. Yeah, I'd love to hear you talk about that.Maya: Yeah, I'd just say educate them about cults and how they can use manipulation to get people to believe insane, insane things. Because nobody's better than immune to manipulation.Even adults. Because adults form cults plenty. Not even vulnerable — it's like regular people. So yeah, teach them that manipulation of power form can get you to believe the same things and to teach them to really question what they see at all times because again, you can believe something crazy told to you in a feeling of light.(00:52:17):Jenny: So you decided to research cults and cult dynamics on your own in reaction to you know, to your experience of identifying as trans and then desisting. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Like, when did you get the idea to look into cults?(00:52:22):Maya: So I didn't actually come to that conclusion until I was like later 17, early 18, but I was really reading more about or being expressive about my opinion on trans ideology. And I happen to know, I actually like came across it accidentally, like coming across cults and manipulation tactics. And it really struck me. Like, this is very familiar, actually. This is something I have experienced. I don't know.I almost don't want to call it a cult because it's not a perfect definition. But I'm going to say cult just to describe the global manipulation and control, group control, that was in these dynamics. I read about him. There was, like, certain posts of people talking about cults and I… when they described the manipulation aspect of it, it seemed extremely familiar. And I'll be on my own to research it. I'm not deep, deep researching it, but I read certain articles about it. I've watched videos, episodes of shows about it.I link two specifically in my article I wrote, which is one I came across on social media, which is The Bite Model of Mind Control by Stephen Hassan. He just, essentially, there's categories of manipulative aspects like ways people or cults control your thoughts and actions, and um, another one was i kind of came across this accidentally there was a series on Netflix called ‘explain it,’ they pick different topics explain it in a half hour video segment one of the topics was cults and during that episode they laid out like i think it's called the seven elements of cult indoctrination — essentially how people go from, I guess, being in a vulnerable place in their life to being captured and manipulated by a cult. I don't know if I should get into it right now or just link the article. We'll talk about this either now or whatever.(00:54:24):Jenny: With your permission, I'll link both of your pit articles to the show notes.Maya: Okay, yeah. It's like seven elements of starting from being a vulnerable place in your life to being introduced to an idea a life-changing idea that causes you to create a whole new essentially reality where this idea is the truth that you've been enlightened and then just portray anyone who questions that or some group as the enemy to be feared control you based off of fear and group expectations because now that you're in like you've been enlightened and you don't want to be an outsider because then you see them as evil. And another big one was peer pressure from the group itself, which is very powerful to essentially conform more to the group standards. And this is how cults use that peer pressure and that indoctrination to control people and not just trans ideology, but any cult really use that influence to make people believe and do insane things.Jenny: Yeah. And you talked about the love bombing that you got at the beginning.(00:55:34):Mm-hmm.Jenny: How did you stumble on PITT?(00:55:41):Maya: I was actually just looking for places to tell my story. I actually heard of Our Duty, the group first, from YouTube. I just saw a YouTube interview from them, and I reached out to them, like, yo, can I help you out in any way? Can I share my story here? They connected me with other resources. They connected me with PITT and Genspect, but I haven't really done anything for them yet. They connected me with you. They connected me with someone else on YouTube who I did an interview for, but that's not published yet.Jenny: It's interesting because I know some people at Our Duty and I know some people at Genspect. And so have you been able to connect with other desisters that are more your age?Maya: I've interacted with some desisters and detransitioners on X. Some of them are close to my age. Some of them are older.Although I haven't been super close to them, I've been interacting with their content essentially.Jenny: Yeah. Do you kind of now think of yourself as a desister or would you rather just kind of move on and leave this whole experience behind?(00:56:47):Maya: I do identify as a desister. I mean, it's not, it's just not that I don't feel like I'm a desister in my soul. That's really important to me. But it kind of is because I feel obligated to speak out on this because other people are still getting harmed.Other people weren't —I'll say lucky — and in an environment where they weren't affirmed constantly and weren't medicalized, more people that happened to, people are still getting indoctrinated, and this is still harming people. And there has not been justice for so many people. So I want to speak out against this as much as I can, because even though I'm not de-trans, I haven't medically transitioned, I know there's bad aspects. I still feel like I have some valuable insight just because of experiencing that social transition and so i want people aware of how manipulative this can be and how wrong and also I’ll say delusional it is that this is even a belief system and howwidespread it is is crazy. Jenny: Well, I think you can be very proud of how you confronted it with your mind and your you know respect for your own critical thinking and how you were able to separate yourself from the ideology. And also that, that alone is something to be proud of, but also it's really great that you are speaking out and I really appreciate your speaking to me.So I've taken more than an hour of your time and I should probably let you go, but I just want to thank you again. And I wish you all the best as you graduate from high school and, you know, whatever you decide comes next. You're starting adulthood, it seems to me, in a really good, healthy place.Maya: Thank you.Jenny: Okay. All right. Take care, Maya.Maya: Bye-bye. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

This episode is the third in a series that seeks to ‘unmute’ voices from deep in the trenches of gender ideology, and it’s the first to include a call to action that could conceivably help change something for the better.You can help Washington become the first so-called blue state to recognize the rights, safety and dignity of girls and women in sports by sharing this episode with everyone you know in the state of Washington and reposting it on social media. Just one link from the show:https://www.savegirlsportswa.com/Credits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

I’ve invited ML, a previous guest on the podcast and the author of two guest essays, to come back and talk about his experience with his adult son, who’s been identifying as trans for about 5 years now. Too many people, especially parents dealing with this uniquely totalizing pressure that’s often felt both inside and outside the home, also suffer from being either silenced or voluntarily silent for fear of some harsh consequence. So in this series I want to let my guests do almost all the talking. A day after ML and I finished this recording I noticed the following passage in an email from the coaching professional known on Substack as Stoic Mom. It makes for a fitting epilogue to this episode, if you remember to come back to it:“What changes for you if you allow yourself to just be human? To recognize that you’ll do your best, of course you will! And so often our best doesn’t change the external circumstances.”ML wrote these guest posts for TransMuted: This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

Simon Amaya Price is a musically and academically gifted young man who was raised in Boston, America’s ground zero for pediatric sex-trait medical malpractice. In a courageously public manner, Simon has been candid and outspoken about his experience with a trans identification, a phase that began for him at age 14 and lasted for three years but thankfully steered clear of medical interventions. The person Simon credits most for his protection from medical harm is his ‘non-affirming,’ highly supportive father. I’ll leave it to Simon to tell his story, but I’ll just say that I’m delighted to have him on the podcast because he’s an extremely engaging narrator, as you’re about to hear. This episode is the first of a series that will seek to describe the first-person experiences of some of the eye witnesses to an epic scandal. Thanks to Lisa Black of @ma4women for introducing me to Simon’s work on this issue. Wherever you live, but especially if it’s New England, you should subscribe to ma4women’s Substack.One technical note: the front end of this recording has a few sound bugs for which I apologize. At about the 29 minute mark, these are vanquished and the sound quality improves noticeably. Stick around and you’ll be rewarded!Links:View Simon giving his speech, “Born in the Right Body,” which was cancelled by Berklee College of Music and later delivered at MIT.Read Simon’s recent essay on ma4Women Substack (originally published by Parental Rights Natick.): School Influenced My Trans Delusion. My Father Saved Me From It.Be Simon’s 811th follower on X!Be my 42nd follower on X!Credits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

It’s an honor I saved for my 25th episode to welcome Kara Dansky, the woman I wrote in as my candidate for President in both the general election and the primary! I’ll just quote the bio from Kara’s Substack since there’s no improving on her direct and straight-to-the-point prose:“Kara Dansky is a lawyer and a feminist. She is the author of The Reckoning: How the Democrats and the Left Betrayed Women and Girls and The Abolition of Sex: How the 'Transgender' Agenda Harms Women and Girls. She served on the board of the Women's Liberation Front from 2016 to 2020 and as president of Women's Declaration International USA from 2021 to 2024. Before she TERF’d herself out of a career, she was widely considered an expert in U.S. criminal law and justice, and served as the ACLU's senior counsel on criminal justice policy from 2012 to 2014. She has a BA from Johns Hopkins University and a JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.”We talk about the watershed Executive Orders; the loneliness of being a reality-based Democrat these days; ‘Orange is the New Black;’ adventures in co-ed sorority life; and of course, the Vietnam War. Enjoy, then comment glowingly about how much you enjoyed!Links:Kara’s Jan 29 article in The Liberal PatriotKara’s Jan 31 podcast with Glenna Goldis, The Woman’s Hour PodcastEliza Mondegreen’s Feb 2 article Radicalization Problems, Gender:HackedBernard Lane’s Feb 2 article ‘Take Cover,’ Gender Clinic NewsUnMuted’s episode 6, with KKG’s Cheryl Tuck SmithBuy Kara’s books: The Reckoning: How Democrats and the Left Betrayed Women and Girls, 2023 (JK Rowling and I loved it; you will too)The Abolition of Sex: How the “Transgender” Agenda Harms Women and Girls, 2021Be Kara’s 69,034th follower on X!Be my 39th follower on X!Credits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

My guest today is Pamela Garfield-Jaeger, a Licensed Social Worker who describes herself as ‘awake, but not woke’ — a phrase I love and might appropriate myself. She earned a Masters in Social Work from New York University in 1999 before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area to work with teens in school and outpatient settings. Today she’s an author, speaker and consultant specializing in youth gender issues, and there’s a good chance you’re already familiar with her work. You may not know that in 2016 Pam’s life took a difficult turn that in retrospect may have given her a uniquely accurate perspective on the gender-ideology landscape. That’s roughy where we begin the conversation.Links:Buy Pamela’s book, A Practical Response to Gender Distress: Tips and Tools for FamiliesSubscribe to Pamela’s Substack Be the 10,100 and somethingth person to follow Pamela on X Be the 36th person to follow me on X Follow Pamela on InstagramRead my articles about the ACLU and Gavin Grimm here and here. Then (if you don’t have to be anywhere) google Gavin Grimm to see where that partnership left her.Read my essay on Dr. Stephen Levine and the ‘chain of trust’ here.Credits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

Erin and I recorded this conversation about a week before catastrophic fires spread across Los Angeles County and surrounding areas. We both live a safe distance from L.A., but we each have friends and loved ones who’ve suffered terrible losses and genuine trauma resulting from this historic disaster. It’s hard to frame a proper acknowledgement of that pain and loss in the immediate aftermath. However, we plan to return to this ‘California Report’ periodically, and will likely have observations about life and leadership in our state, born of this crisis, that are still forming. The observations we do make in this episode — regarding the other, ongoing disaster — are as relevant and as current as they were on the day we spoke, January 3rd. In the big picture, Erin makes a refreshing case for optimism that I think you’ll really enjoy.Credits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

I first became aware of Brandon Showalter when I read his book review of The Reckoning by Kara Dansky. I asked him for permission to republish the review on my Substack because I was struck by the empathy it showed both for feminist activists like Kara and for parents who feel targeted by the totalizing societal pressure that comes with having a child who identifies as ‘trans.’ It was also clear Brandon had a very deep understanding of the issue, so when I learned that he’d also made a documentary podcast about it, I went and binged what was then three whole seasons in an afternoon. Now he’s released a complete fourth season that is just as binge-worthy.Brandon’s docuseries is called Generation Indoctrination, and it’s produced by the Christian Post, which is also where he published his review of The Reckoning. It’s a publication I would not be aware of if not for my descent into gender ideology. If I’ve learned anything about this unique subject, it’s that we find friends in places we didn’t know to look, and when that happens, it’s what Brandon’s peeps would call “a blessing.”Links:Brandon’s review of The Reckoning, republished with an intro by meGeneration Indoctrination episode featuring State Sen. Ed Diehl of Oregon Generation Indoctrination episode, ‘Voices From the Shadows’The Generation Indoctrination episode featuring the brilliant depth psychologist Amy SousaDead Name, the documentary film discussed at the endAlabama’s amicus brief in US v SkrmettiBrandon’s extended bio, from the Christian Post websiteCredits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

I have the distinction of being the first person outside McGill University (or maybe the second, after Eliza’s mother) to read the masters thesis that’s about to launch its highly regarded author into what should rightfully be a promising position of influence in the ‘gender’ discourse. Eliza’s research breaks new ground in an aspect of ROGD that has woefully lacked attention but for her contributions; that aspect being the role of social media and online influence in the formation of ‘trans’ identity among young women.There’s a good chance you’ve been reading and listening to Eliza Mondegreen longer than you’ve been aware of me, so I won’t belabor this introduction except to list some highlights: we discuss the cruel impact of ‘trans’ ideology on parents and families, the protective potential of religious rituals like the bar/bat mitzvah, and thought-provoking essays by Christina Buttons and Shannon Thrace, all while interrogating the fascinating range of findings revealed in Eliza’s research. Like many of these conversations, this one keeps getting better as you go.Links:Christina Buttons’s 12/10/24 article “Crazy is You or Me, Amplified”Shannon Thrace’s 11/25/23 article “Affluence, Debauchery and Decline: Why Everyone is Suddenly Queer”Credits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo art by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

I’d already scheduled my December 16 interview with Bev Jackson when Malcolm Richard Clark published a brilliant history of the LGB Alliance and its critical role in bringing about the puberty-blocker ban that was announced in the UK on December 11. That article, published on the 15th, confirmed my opinion that Bev Jackson and Kate Harris should be better known in America. It also supplied me with better questions for Bev! Here’s some background from Malcolm’s piece:“Whenever the whistleblowers spoke up they found themselves frozen out. Once upon a time Stonewall could have put a stop to a scandal like this simply by issuing a press release. Tragically, as Jackson and Harris knew all too well, Stonewall was actively enabling it.“For a growing group of non-gay parents, therapists and academics who had been sounding the alarm about puberty blockers for some time LGB Alliance was now to prove a game-changer. “On December 24th 2019 LGB Alliance entered the fray publicly with its first ad against blockers. [What had been] this tiny GIF on Twitter would soon be turned into full page ads in the Scottish press:“Some people believe girls who like football need puberty blockers and a double mastectomy. We believe they need football boots" This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

This episode goes coast-to-coast as I catch up with Karen, author of the Hippiesq Substack and my first-ever guest on the podcast. We are joined by Karen’s neighbor and compatriot Maud Maron, who’s recently made headlines in the New York Times with her ‘right-wing’ stance on merely discussing whether to have public-school sports that are reserved for girls only, as the U.S. has done without incident for fifty years now — and for including those girls in the discussion. Maron, a Democrat until recently, will soon announce her candidacy to run as a Republican for District Attorney of New York City, in hopes of replacing current DA Alvin Bragg. She told The New York Post that she would work to restore public safety and justice, remove violent mentally ill people from city streets, prosecute criminals regardless of immigration status and repeal Bragg’s infamous “Day One memo.” All of this is taken up in this lively conversation that you won’t want to miss!Links:Here’s the live video of Karen addressing the School Board last month (courtesy of Liz Fedak of ROAR Women NYC — see Liz’s call to New Yorkers below)Here’s the YouTube link to the whole (nearly 4-hour) meeting!The Dec. 2 New York Times article about Maud’s ‘right wing’ advocacy for DISCUSSING girls-only sports. This is paywalled, but I have a personal copy that I’ll forward via email if you ask me. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

Glenna was kind enough to visit the old ‘hood just a day after making her Gender: A Wider Lens debut to go over the finer points of the Skrmetti arguments as well as some little known details about the players which are at least as interesting as the legal stuff (more, if you ask me), such as the beauty-pageant bona fides of the US Solicitor General and the Tennessee “Crotch Doctor” who taught us that bikini waxing might now be offered by our gynecologists. The more you know…If you want to listen to the live court recording published by Ben Ryan of Hazard Ratio, find it here.If you’re a gender critical lawyer interested in defending women, children and LGB interests, take Glenna’s survey here.Subscribe to Bad Facts if you don’t alreadyFollow us on X @unyieldbicyc (Glenna) and @trans_muted (me)Credits:Theme music by William A. FergusonUnMuted logo by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich. (I’m kidding; you know I kid!)Bernard Lane’s encyclopedic knowledge of the global footprint of ‘trans’ activism, ideology, medicine and law is truly something to behold. We discussed the US election, the state of journalistic freedom in Australia vs. America, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Jessica Yaniv (for the uninitiated, Bernard gamely explains this piece of work), the remarkable Trump ‘trans’ policy video making the rounds and Bernard’s intriguing guess as to who’s the well-spoken sex-realist insider advising the President Elect on all things ‘gender’. Also, the big story that prompted me to ask him for the interview: a study released last week whose lead author hails from Sydney (as does Bernard) and whose co-authors include Ken Zucker, Stella O’Malley and several of Europe’s leading researchers. It examines differences in outcomes between nations where ‘trans’ is linked to evidence-based medicine versus those where ‘gender’ choice is considered a human right. There’s a lot of information packed into this episode. Listen to the end to understand the full weight of this newest contribution to the case for sanity.Links:Read “Mapping the Harm”Subscribe to Bernard Lane’s Substack, Gender Clinic NewsBernard’s reporting of the RNC resolution on ‘gender affirming healthcare’UK review of spurious suicide spike claim https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-suicides-and-gender-dysphoria-at-the-tavistock-and-portman-nhs-foundation-trust/review-of-suicides-and-gender-dysphoria-at-the-tavistock-and-portman-nhs-foundation-trust-independent-reportCredits:Music by William A Ferguson Logo by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

I was not quite three sentences into my Substack writing career when I made this admission: “I get stupidly star-struck, when the star in question is someone I believe to be famous for being very smart.” At the time, I was referring to Chris Hayes of MSNBC, who didn’t deserve the praise, but you know who does? Today’s guest, Meghan Daum!Meghan has written for magazines ranging from Vogue to The New Yorker. She’s been a columnist at the Los Angeles Times, and she’s the author of six books, including most recently the New York Times Notable Book “The Problem with Everything”, which one reviewer called “a lifeline thrown to those of us who feel we’re drowning in nonsense.”Her solo podcast ‘The Unspeakable’, is a show about ideas, and not just those pointing straight at gender madness. Still, Meghan has managed to engage all the leading lights in our little corner of the heterodoxy: Sasha Ayad, Lisa Selin Davis, Abigail Shrier, Jamie Reed, Pamela Paul, Corinna Cohn, Colin Wright, Buck Angel, Kathleen Stock, Jesse Singal, Katie Herzog, and more. For someone who isn’t narrowly focused on ‘gender,’ I don’t think there’s another podcaster whose command of the subject is as complete and granular as Meghan’s. I’d be surprised if I know anything she doesn’t, and I’m about as narrowly focused as you can get. Listeners who have followed the Tickle v Giggle story out of Australia will be interested to hear about Meghan’s own women-only online community, which she dubbed The Unspeakeasy and launched in 2022. I’m a member, and if you’re a woman whose daily life could use more meaningful interactions of the kind you’re about to enjoy in this episode, you might want to check it out too.Links:The Unspeakeasy online community for womenMeghan’s X/Twitter accountMY brand new X/Twitter account, which Meghan persuaded me to get. PLEASE FOLLOW ME, as it would be nice to have a follower!Meghan’s first interview with Sasha Ayad on The Unspeakable PodcastMeghan’s interview with Andrew Sullivan, which graphically enhanced my ‘trans’ sex educationMeghan’s interview with ‘exotic conservative therapist’ Dea Bridge: “Do only liberals go to therapy?” This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

I was introduced to my guest Jocelyn Davis when I happened upon an essay she wrote for DIAG (Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender), about how she came to question gender identity ideology even though doing so put her at odds with her political tribe. It’s something she and I have in common, and it’s the problem DIAG exists to solve.Jocelyn had a successful 25-year career in professional leadership development and consulting, which she left to become a successful author, now with five books to her credit and a sixth coming soon. Her new book is a memoir of a temporary but harrowing detour into acute mental illness that led to a voluntary stint in a psych ward. Links to some things we discussed: DIAG Democrats on Substack, for which Jocelyn is the lead writer/editorJocelyn’s author website: jocelynrdavis.comMy conversation with DIAG founders “Ellie” and “Eliza”UnMuted credits:Music by William A Ferguson Logo by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

Kristopher Kaliebe is a board-certified General, Forensic, and Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and a professor in the Psychiatry Department at the University of South Florida. He is a Distinguished Fellow at the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), where he challenged so-called ‘gender affirming care’ by publishing a courageous op-ed in its journal, which is read by clinical professionals nationwide. A doctor I happen to know at UC San Francisco forwarded the op-ed to me when it was first published late last year, and I would soon hear it discussed in lay circles, which strikes me as surprisingly wide reach for an op-ed in a niche medical journal. That’s how unusual and significant it was.Dr. Kaliebe has been speaking out on podcasts and in print interviews, and has testified as a forensic expert in several important ongoing legal actions in states where pediatric gender medicine is currently in the hands of a few, largely-ill-informed, lawyers and judges.He’s also been working with an organization called Restore Childhood to produce the now-available Gender Toolkit, a free resource parents can download and use to help inform teachers and administrators whose grasp of this issue was likely shaped by trans-activists. We talk about the Gender Toolkit during the last twenty minutes of the conversation. I encourage you to share the episode widely, and to download and read the Toolkit linked in the show notes.Links:The Gender Toolkit Published by Restore ChildhoodA Plea for Scholarly Dialog, Dr. Kaliebe’s AACAP opinion piece, republished on Restore Childhood’s Substack in January 2024Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family and Social Class, by Rob HendersonBad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up, by Abigail ShrierCredits:Music by William A Ferguson Logo by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

Arienne has a bird’s eye view from two different windows on ‘trans’. She’s a tenured teacher in what might be the most progressive region of the most progressive state in the US. And, she’s the mother of a teenaged boy who was seduced by ‘trans’ mythology during the Covid lockdown, when kids in our state were asked to please just spend all-day-every-day alone with the internet for two years, so as to keep learning.Well, they definitely learned some things.See, I can’t even write this intro without slipping into ‘dark cynical voice,’ but that’s where Arienne can teach me something. As you will hear, she’s mastered both a constructive tone and a generous deference to the possibility of ignorance on the part of political actors who are trusted and well paid to be not ignorant, and also not evil degenerates!! But there I go again. Arienne’s instincts are expertly tuned for the long game, which she appears to be winning, so let’s all try to take a page from her playbook!Links to some things we discussed:Video of Arienne’s interview on Carol’s SubstackVideo of Arienne testifying during the California legislative committee hearing:Kara Dansky’s book, The Reckoning, also available as a recording on AudibleMy essay describing the Yaeli Martinez tragedy (with source)Credits:Music by William A Ferguson Logo by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

Thanks for your patience during the repair of this audio. The new version has cleared Quality Control and is suitable for your earbuds. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

Matt is a military historian, US Army veteran, prolific writer and ‘recovering political scientist,’ just for starters. For me, because I was raised with no religious influences, Matt also serves as an interpreter of the spiritual drivers of human behavior, including the “God-shaped hole” idea that may help explain some of what confounds us when we talk about gender, ego and identity.We discuss that and lots more following Matt’s account of his creative Senate-campaign exploits in Alabama which yielded not just the unlikely political win but an on-location profile of Matt on This American Life, which certifies his unique contribution to American political history. Here’s the link to that segment.One more thing: at around the hour mark, I get around to asking Matt a question related to the Vietnam War that’s been tugging at me for years. I hope you’ll hear that part and weigh in with whatever thoughts you may want to add to the comments, about that question or anything else. Enjoy!Credits:Music by William A Ferguson Logo by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

This episode features the esteemed writer and legal mind known on Substack as Unyielding Bicyclist — “UB” for short. She’s a practicing attorney in New York, and her advocacy in ‘gender war’ issues stems from her concern for children and adolescents who are ‘transed’ to prevent them from growing up gay or lesbian. Many linkable things are discussed here, such as:Katie Herzog’s 2017 article in The StrangerExplanation of the Chicago law professor anecdote, which I got about 60% right; and an opinion piece on that story by Bill Maher in the Chicago TribuneMeghan Daum’s Unspeakable podcast interviews with Laura Edwards-Leeper and two ROGD moms: Part 1 and Part 2Jesse Singal’s recent article about WPATH and Johns Hopkins University, which I mis-attributed to Atlantic — it appeared here in The Economist, but it’s paywalledUB’s magnificent Substack, Bad FactsCredits:Music by William A Ferguson Logo by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

Sarah Barker writes one of my favorite Substacks. It’s called TheFemaleCategory, and it’s a great place to learn about the history of men competing as women in sports, which has been going on for much longer than I realized.Her bio reads: “I've been a journalist for forty years, a runner and a woman for longer than that, and am increasingly seeing the need to be actively feminist. Women's sports is where that happens for me, and why I established The Female Category.”Sarah’s been published in the New York Times, Dead Spin, Runner’s World, Outside, Women’s Running, and more. I’m delighted to have her on the podcast today. Links to articles from TheFemaleCategory discussed in the interview:If Men Keep Taking Women's Opportunities and No Media Cover It, Did It Happen?California Department of Education halted fitness testing, in part, because it was not inclusive of gender diverse kidsN=8: The miscarriage of science that allows trans-identified males to compete in women's sportsCredits:Music by William A Ferguson Logo by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

I recently had the honor of joining the board of directors of DIAG — Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender — and I’m excited to interview the organization’s co-directors, ‘Ellie’ and ‘Eliza,’ on this episode.All three of us were, in the words of my friend Mrs. Miller, ‘Assigned Democrat at Birth.’ For reasons we will discuss today, each of us feels more or less obligated to try and rescue the party from what I’ve described as a slow-motion train wreck of its own making. To complicate the analogy: each of us has a child riding on the ill-fated train. Editor’s note: I’m down to just two awkward noises that I was unable to edit out, so yay! Progress! They are brief and both occur in the first 16 minutes: after that no more bloopers, so don’t give up. :)Links:DIAG’s websiteEllie has written several articles for PITT, including this two-part essay: part 1 and part 2, about life for liberal Democrats living in ‘the Upside-Down.’Eliza has also published two essays for PITT: read them here and here.Wisdom from the DIAG website:We all share a common concern: our Democratic representatives, and many of our liberal family members, friends, neighbors, relatives, icons, and organizations are supporting and promoting a harmful ideology and shutting down necessary discourse on the topic of gender. Remaining incurious about the sudden rise in adolescent girls and boys seeking to escape from their bodies, the dangerous and disturbing realities of “gender-affirming care,” and the irrational elevation of gender identity over the biological reality of sex, is neither ethical nor sustainable. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

Here’s the text of my intro:I’ve been thinking about queer theory, which is basically a repudiation of reality and a rejection of accepted social norms. Every time I’ve ever had to think about queer theory, it’s been in response to something ugly and downright crazy-making: like watching Democrats fight to eradicate competitive sports for women;or hearing anyone argue for rapists in women’s prisons;knowing doctors are performing “Frankenstein” experiments on healthy bodies because patients are asking for them, while teachers and counselors are spreading unbelievably dark fictions to young children. All through the magic of queer theory.(Last week I interviewed the daughter of a cattle rancher about sorority girls fighting each other in court over an odd boy pretending to be their sister. Thanks, queer theory!) But it’s also true that in a healthy, predictable universe, a celebrated best-selling author doesn’t talk to a mom with an Etsy shop, nor do 700 smart readers care what she thinks about much of anything. If I’m being objective, I think I have to acknowledge this turn of events, which I quite like, as a downstream result of queer theory too. I’m not saying it balances the scale, just that it’s interesting to notice. Gerald Posner is an investigative journalist with thirteen book credits including New York Times bestsellers like ‘Case Closed,’ which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for history. His latest book is the award-winning ‘Pharma: Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America,’ which became a six-part Showtime documentary last year.His books cover topics that range from American foreign policy to corporate and organized crime, the JFK assassination, Hitler’s Third Reich and of course, Motown! Gerald and his wife Trisha Posner, who is also a best-selling author, together publish the Substack “Just the Facts,” which is read by more than 5,000 subscribers.And if all that isn’t impressive enough, today he scores an interview here on UnMuted!Links to articles discussed in the pod:The Truth about Puberty BlockersA Transgender Roe V Wade?Male Sex Predators are ‘Female’ InmatesDenying October 7When Did ‘Woman’ Become a Dirty Word?, by Trisha Posner This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

To donate to the lawsuit in which Cheryl and some of her reality-based KKG friends are the plaintiffs, mail a tax-deductible check to:NDCME10841 Highway 73Watford City, ND 58854North Dakota Coalition for Member Education is a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation.Thanks to William A Ferguson for the theme music, and Anne Gibbons for the UnMuted logo This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

I’m excited to bring you one of the most eloquent and candid commentators I’ve found on the impact of gender ideology on the family system. In the ‘Before’ times, she published two novels, so the eloquence comes naturally. Her candor is unusually revealing, sometimes self-critical, often darkly funny, and always honest. Because she uses a pseudonym [it’s less pseudonymous than I thought, as I learn in the recording], Mrs. Miller has the freedom to be as open and raw as she wants. That freedom is something I can’t indulge in since I use my real name, but that also gives me an excuse to write and speak in a manner that’s more guarded and detached, which is my comfort zone anyway. Speaking with Mrs. Miller, I felt less guarded and detached than usual, though, and I liked it! I hope you enjoy the conversation too.Read Mrs. Miller’s Substack for more.Credits:Music by William A Ferguson Logo by Anne Gibbons This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

ML is the author of the recent guest post here on the WPATH Files, and before that an essay titled ‘A View from the Ivory Tower,’ which we discuss in the episode. He is a scholar and STEM professor with a profound appreciation for the power of what he calls ‘wondrous’ research to elevate, inspire and transform humanity. He describes an acute crisis in scientific rigor and objectivity as a threat not just to gender-confused kids but to all human flourishing. This episode coincides with the publication of the final ‘Cass Review,’ England’s exhaustive NHS study of the scant evidence base for ‘gender affirming care.’ The systematic review highlights an astonishing lack of rigor in study after study — which happens to be the main theme of our conversation, though we recorded it just before the NHS released this now-official verdict. Links to articles mentioned in the episode:The Reddit piece he recommendsThe website that publishes Sholto David’s work ML’s Substack has a rich archive of his writing, including the articles we discussed. ‘My Conversation with Hank’ is hereHis two guest posts for TransMuted are these:A View From the Ivory TowerWPATH’s Existential CrisisIf you enjoy this episode, please consider a paid subscription to TransMuted This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

Dr. Lewis (not his real name) is both a practicing clinical physician and a professor of medicine. He works with an important advocacy group called Do No Harm, which we discuss here, and also with a group of volunteers who deliver screening care to poor communities where certain preventable diseases are epidemic. It’s worth noticing that an MD with a resume’ this impressive and praiseworthy requires a cloak of anonymity to discuss any topic related to healthcare. By contrast, I can speak openly because I don’t have a credentialed position of authority, nor any of the accompanying vulnerabilities that force so many of the most knowledgeable people to stay silent on this singular topic. This deranging upside-down mode of discourse was cynically engineered by the activists, of course, to enforce a culture of silence and prevent the best-qualified minds from sitting down together and applying their collective wisdom to a problem that is well within their ability to understand and solve.The culture of silence does feature in our conversation, but it wasn’t until I sat down to write this note that I stopped to contemplate its reach. When this is all over, one thing I’ll marvel at is the strange reordering of everything-we-thought-we-knew, such that a prominent physician and professor gets interviewed by a mom with an Etsy shop about a medical scandal threatening both their families; but only under condition of his anonymity. I ask at least one dumb question and probably fail to ask several smart ones in this conversation. Happily, next week I’ll be speaking with another brilliant (anonymous) academic scientist — because, of course! — so I’ll have another chance. With that in mind, you can school me in the comments on what to ask next time.Huge thanks to William A. Ferguson, the Substack writer, composer and musician extraordinaire for the killer theme music; and to another Substack talent, artist/cartoonist Anne Gibbons for designing the UnMuted logo. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

I’m happy to present this conversation on Detransition Awareness Day, as my guest has an unusual and thought-provoking story of cross-sex confusion in childhood, and its eventual resolution. She speaks eloquently about her experience, as you’ll hear. She also writes poignantly, as you may already have seen if you happened upon her moving six-part essay, ‘A Desistor’s Manifesto,’ which appeared recently on the PITT [Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans] Substack. Here’s one of my favorite passages from that series:“Real love says the truth. It doesn't pretend in the name of ‘love’. It doesn't hurt under the guise of ‘love’. Real love is not afraid of rejection. It's not hungry of social affirmation and cultural acceptance. Real love doesn't stand idle while someone's body, future and overall life are being decimated. Those behaviors are the very opposite of authentic love.”I hope you’ll find Helene’s clarity, strength and resilience as hopeful as I do. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

Find Hippiesq's Newsletter on Substack here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com

Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria and its Discontents, by Jenny Poyer Ackerman (Adapted from the book Women’s Rights: Gender Wrongs, published by WDI.)Imagine you’ve just hung a painting on your living-room wall. You step back to take a look, and  realize it should be a few inches to the left. Just then a neighbor pops in and tells you how to solve the problem: hire a builder to move the chimney, the door and the windows a few inches to the right.  Seeing your look of doubt, she calls other neighbors to weigh in. Enter the doctor, teacher and therapist from down the street, each more emphatic than the last: yes, rebuilding your house is the only way to center the painting. True, there will be a lengthy, costly period of mess and discomfort; the doorbell will never work again, and you might have to come and go through a window. These are but small concessions to the feeling of Spatial Congruence that awaits you.  Should this happen to you, it will be perfectly clear that the neighbors, not you, have lost their minds. But this clarity will not resolve the isolation or the bewilderment you will experience in the aftermath.If my parable strikes a chord, you might be (like me) the parent of a teen daughter who suddenly became convinced she was actually a boy and has dedicated herself to persuading you, the world and herself that it's true. Her case typifies a subset of 'trans’-identifying young people (predominantly girls) who abruptly declare themselves to be the opposite sex.Researcher Dr Lisa Littman named this phenomenon Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD), and described its evident spread via social contagion. Her studies sought to explain why so many girls were attracted to the prospect of changing sex. Littman observed that a crucial accelerant of ROGD is social media, whose popularity coincided with the mushrooming of cases. Littman also identified online porn as an aggravating influence. Nearly every teen in the developed world owns a mobile phone, which provides access to a cesspool of unfiltered, unregulated pornography - virtually all of it skewed for a male audience that is unsentimental about women's dignity or pleasure. These videos are, for many if not most kids, an introduction to the ostensible experience of adult sex. This deserves far more study than it gets, as the impact seems pretty consequential. So, what’s a girl to do if she feels alienated by violent, misogynist porn? One new option is to trade in her female-sexed body for a perceived safer vessel. For many girls, ROGD reflects a wish not to be female, while the notion of ‘becoming male' is merely the default consequence. A recent New York Times podcast reported that mental health disorders have surpassed physical conditions as the primary threat to adolescent health and ability to function. Additionally, adolescents are experiencing puberty earlier than ever before, but their brains and cognitive abilities are not developing any faster. While processing the emotions that come with puberty, pre-teens are simultaneously bombarded with images and stimuli for which they are not developmentally prepared. Moreover, ‘early-maturing females appear to be at increased risk for victimization, especially sexual assault’. All of this imbues womanhood with an ominous lack of agency. When becoming a woman is framed as just one of two options, it's not surprising that some girls will choose the other one. The idea of transitioning to a new identity has irresistible appeal for many adolescents struggling with anxiety, depression and eating disorders. Sexual trauma is prevalent among ROGD teens, as is autism. Other ROGD teens are same-sex attracted and find scant social support for lesbians, while young 'transmen' become famous media influencers by describing the highlights of their 'gender journeys' from their bedrooms. Even for high-functioning adolescents, the pressure to keep up can be overwhelming. In the absence of real-world support, many teens trying to cope with social pressures look online for solutions. Common search terms can lead to an interactive quiz that will point to an intriguing diagnosis: she's actually a boy. She finds endless sources of positive reinforcement for 'coming out as trans’: the algorithm feeds her newfound interest in one direction only. A new identity promises attention and approval from her peers, and some are likely to follow suit.What happens when your daughter declares her newly-discovered 'trans' identity? The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) is the body from which treatment guidelines emanate. Trans-identifying men are prominent among the ‘experts’ who hand down the guidance of care for all gender-questioning patients. This departs from the principle of clinical neutrality that governs good science. So, a new set of treatment protocols for children and adolescents is written by a recently-invented professional society, run by stakeholders, for the treatment of a novel condition that cannot be understood medically. What could go wrong?WPATH's Standards of Care are premised on the infallibility of a child’s self-knowledge. When a child declares herself to be trans, her declaration must be affirmed by everyone around her, starting with the parents, in order for her (now him) to live as his true self.Affirmation begins with believing, or pretending to believe, that your daughter is literally now a boy. It is signaled by changing the pronouns you use to refer to her -- even when she isn't present -- and using her new name. The name you gave her will be known as her 'dead name'. You are expected to provide a male-presenting haircut and clothing. You may be asked to provide her with a binder - a compression garment designed to flatten her breasts -- and/or a packer -- a rubber phallus worn in the pouch of specially-designed packer underwear (available on Amazon). These actions support her 'social transition'. If social transition delivers a feeling of ‘congruence’ with the new gender, puberty-interfering drugs may be introduced. They are prescribed off-label because clinical trials have never been conducted to gauge their safety and efficacy. They are falsely promoted as safe and reversible. Children given puberty blockers followed by cross-sex hormones will reach adulthood without having experienced puberty at all. The human development trade-offs here are not confined to sex and reproduction: the whole brain matures with puberty. Teenage girls may embark on a lifelong relationship with synthetic testosterone administered weekly or bi-weekly. Known side effects include: elevated risk of heart attack, type 2 diabetes, thyroid disease, autoimmune disease, bone loss, premature menopause, impaired sexual function, cognitive impairments, and mood disorders including suicidality. This treatment is not shown to resolve dysphoria.In the US, 'gender-confirming' bilateral mastectomies have been performed on girls as young as 13 to remove healthy breast tissue. Hospitals are not required to report cases to any government overseer, so there’s no official data. An article in the Journal of Clinical Medicine using data supplied by Boston Children’s Hospital  disclosed that between 2017 to 2020, 65 breast amputations were performed on minor girls at Boston's Center for Gender Surgery. An analysis of insurance claims by the health technology firm Komodo published by Reuters found that at least 776 gender-affirming double mastectomies were done on girls between the ages 13-17 between 2019-2021. Genital surgeries, perhaps the most extreme step, carry alarmingly high risks of complication. The aim is to resolve 'bottom dysphoria' - distress relating to the existence of sex organs -- by removing or disfiguring them. Even when genital surgeries go as planned, female patients don't get a functioning penis, nor do male patients gain anything resembling a woman's internal genitalia, but rather an empty cavity. Common complications are severe and include anal or rectovaginal fistulas, severe bowel injuries, infections, inflammation and, of course, sterility.Human anatomy is more purpose-driven than aesthetic. Even if she 'passes' as male, a woman will neither get an erection nor produce sperm. She will never father a child. Testosterone will cause her female genitalia to atrophy. As her estrogen secretion is suppressed, early menopause ensues, and a hysterectomy may be indicated. Should she undertake these 'therapies', she will likely never experience an orgasm, much less bear a child. Image is, literally, everything.What could possibly persuade a parent to consent to such macabre treatments for her minor child? In a word: suicide. Parents who confess their rational skepticism are routinely confronted with this ultimatum: ‘Would you rather have a living son, or a dead daughter?’ The message is unambiguous: 'trans' children, if not affirmed by their parents, will prefer to die rather than to live in their own bodies.I have been posed this question, verbatim, by four different licensed professionals - a child and family therapist, a clinical child psychologist, a psychiatric hospital physician, and a public-school administrator. None of them had any academic training in youth gender distress. Each was a generalist who had received informal training from a 'trans rights' organization. When pressed for supporting data, none could provide it. In fact, a closer inspection of the available research shows a much greater likelihood of suicide among post-op transgender patients than among youth whose desire for medical transition is postponed or denied.Teen suicide is a grim reality that is thankfully quite rare, but it’s known to be susceptible to peer contagion. When a putative expert warns a parent, in front of a gender-questioning child, that the parent’s questions place the child at risk of suicide, the expert is doing overt harm.  How did we get here?By the time many people noticed, ‘T’ had been quietly teamed with LGB, cloaking ‘transactivism’ in the righteousness earned by decades of struggle for legal recognition by lesbians and gay men. This cunning synthesizing of disparate interests served to inoculate ‘T’ from scrutiny, since a question about one letter could and would be framed as a bigoted attack on all. Using borrowed credibility, a legal framework codifying gender identity ideology was erected, deliberately outside public view, often by simply inserting the words ‘and/or gender identity’ into local and federal statutes, including those governing public schools in most US states. Astonishingly, activists have even persuaded medical societies including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association and the Endocrine Society, as well as public education officials and the American Civil Liberties Union, that gender identity ideology is a civil rights issue, that sex-based medical experiments on children are a human right, and that dissenting or even questioning views constitute hate speech. Media style guides written by activists and adopted by most news outlets have 'transed' the English language to cleanse it of women and girls. Journalists now write about ‘pregnant people’ and ‘sex assigned at birth’, and present heroic stories about the 'gender-affirming', 'gender-confirming' or even 'life-saving' treatments that 'trans kids' receive, without addressing any of the risks or consequences. Meanwhile, existing terms are extravagantly repurposed: those who advocate psychotherapy and medical restraint are now accused of conversion therapy and framed as ‘transphobic’. How? Follow closely: in 'trans' ideology, conversion therapy means examining dysphoric feelings while keeping bodies intact. Affirmation supports the literal, physical conversion of a healthy body into a simulation of an opposite-sexed body. The logical derangement here is so complete as to seem intentional.Widespread capitulation to these linguistic changes gives them the veneer of settled truth. The cumulative effect is the passive social transitioning of the culture writ large. One of the most serious casualties of this cultural re-education is the 'detransitioner.' With ROGD, detransitioners tend to be young women who believed they could transcend their adolescent agonies by ‘transitioning’, only to discover new, even less-familiar agonies attached to bodies they scarcely recognize. Because they represent inconvenient truths about 'transition', their complaints go unacknowledged by both the gender industry and the largely-compliant media. In the absence of support, detransitioners struggle to be seen and heard. More than 50,000* have joined an online detransitioner forum on Reddit, though some are allies who were never trans-identifying themselves. Because no data exist on the number of US 'trans' patients, it's difficult to extrapolate the rate of regret. However, if the rate at which the ‘r/detrans’ subreddit has grown is indicative, detransitioners may soon present an existential challenge to gender medicine. The industry's defense will be complicated by compelling evidence amassing in Europe. Pediatric gender medicine has been halted or sharply curtailed wherever qualitative research was conducted alongside experimental treatments. Their outcomes have led the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and England to change or reverse course. American providers, along with the medical societies and WPATH, may soon be asked, in court depositions, why all that contra-indicative evidence was not considered relevant to American youth.LGB does not equal T 'Transgender' is categorically different from lesbian, gay and bisexual. L, G and B do not require amputation, nor lifelong drug therapy, nor the mandated complicity of others. No one asks a child to confirm whether she will grow up straight, lesbian or bisexual. No one is expected to declare their sexuality at work, or on Linked In profiles. We don't have to suspend disbelief when addressing a lesbian, gay or bisexual person. Sexual preference is not tied to biology: sex is. Gender, for all its strutting and fretting, signifies nothing real.In our living-room scenario, you will eventually shoo away the misguided neighbors, move your picture hook to the left and enjoy your new painting. Less clear is how we're meant to protect our rights, and our children's bodies, against the harms being enabled – actually celebrated – by the self-styled Good Neighbors all around us. They breathe in the particulate matter of malign falsehood, confident they are exhaling kindness, and seem not to notice anything is amiss. *note: this number has been changed from the original posting. I apologize for my error.Thanks for reading TransMuted! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. 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