Untangling Gender Ideology: A Resource Toolbox
My previous essay detailing my journey through and then away from the world of gender ideology brought up a lot of conversations and questions (you can read that here if you missed it).
It turns out, lots of people (no matter their political affiliations) have many gut reactions to what is going on in our world right now, but they’re not quite sure how to walk through it with clarity and comprehension.
And it is very confusing - I get it.
So, to go with that essay, I’ve compiled this extensive collection of resources where you can dive in and learn as much as you’d like to learn.
As I am a person coming from many years of progressive and academic thinking, conservative resources just don’t interest me that much (though I will consider them if they’re research-based, as I tend to think from a more nonpartisan place these days). That’s not to knock my conservative friends and community members. Everyone is entitled to their own perception, and to accessing information that fits within their worldview and in a language they understand.
That said, I’ve really only been listening to other progressives who also walked away from the left (or people who are at least somewhere in the middle), because their line of thought and reasoning matched my own experience and understanding. The questions I held are also the questions that they held, therefore their words are the ones that helped me to untangle and unwind this whole mess from my worldview.
There are plenty of conservatives talking about this stuff. But hardly any progressives. While I’m at a point in my life where these kinds of labels make me roll my eyes, they are still useful for naming where we’ve been and how we’re oriented perspective-wise. (I’ll be writing another essay in the future about how destructive our love affair with identities is, and how it becomes a pitfall for dividing us, causing us to dehumanize other people.)
So fair warning, these resources are mainly directed at the progressive and politically homeless/questioning group of individuals. They also often come from a feminist perspective (feminists have been critiquing gender ideology for over 40 years - our elders have seen this coming for a long time). But they are also relatively nonpartisan in many instances, and useful for everyone no matter your political affiliation.
Dig freely, but beware…the deeper you go down this rabbit hole, the more unsettling it gets. These are not conspiracy theories, friends. They are hidden histories and powerful agendas hiding behind flags, story hours, and deep empathy traps.
Note: With each resource, I have tried to include the words to describe organizations, articles, podcasts, etc. that came from the people themselves, but occasionally there was no description or it wasn’t enough/in a paragraph format. I offer a bit of commentary on certain resources, as well. I’ve put all quoted descriptions in quotation marks, and my own words and descriptions in italics for clarity.
Articles
I Thought My 4-Year-Old Was Transgender. I Was Wrong.
“We raised both our sons as gender neutral as possible, with gender neutral clothes, toys, and language. It was a mistake.”
“When I look back at this, it is almost too much to write about. The grief and the shock of what we did is so deep, so wide, so sharp and penetrating. How could a mother do this to her child? To her children? I truly believed that what I was doing was pure, right and good, only to later realize with horror what it could have led to for my child. This horror still shakes me to my core.”
The Amazing Disappearing ‘Women’
A feminist critique of gender neutral language and the powerful ramifications of erasing “women” from our words.
“Why is it so difficult to say ‘women’? The objections I’ve focused on so far are political ones, to do with the exclusionary and essentialising nature of ‘women’ as a category label. But I can’t help wondering if those objections are the whole story, or if the avoidance of ‘women’ might also be connected to something much older, and less ‘politically correct’.”
The year the West erased women: Progressives care more about semantics than emancipation by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
“If 2022 has been the year of the “woman”, it is a tale with two different final chapters: one hopeful, one less so. The first is set in a distant country, where an archaic, theocratic regime threatens to be toppled by women throwing down their hijabs and demanding their emancipation. The second plays out in a more familiar setting but in an unfamiliar language; a Western nation where the word “woman” itself no longer has any meaning, its definition rewritten to include “an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth”.”
The shameful silence on the Taliban’s war on women: Why Western progressives are so unwilling to criticise Islamic tyranny.
“We need to talk about why the Taliban’s revenge on womankind has not made waves in the West. In December, Afghan women were banned from universities and from working for NGOs. Yes, there has been media coverage of these misogynistic atrocities. Yes, there has been condemnation. But these tyrannical acts do not agitate the consciences of Western progressives anywhere near as much as issues like trans rights or climate change.”
Why Evolution is True: A defense of the binary in human sex
“There’s a reason why sex is a binary: evolution produces two distinct sexes who mate with each other to produce offspring. Exactly why there is sex rather than all of us budding off clones or reproducing in other asexual ways is an unsolved problem, but once there is sexual reproduction, you can construct a reasonable theory about why there should be two of them, and that they should be distinct.”
Largest study to date confirms overlap between autism and gender diversity
“People who do not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth are three to six times as likely to be autistic as cisgender people are, according to the largest study yet to examine the connection. Gender-diverse people are also more likely to report autism traits and to suspect they have undiagnosed autism.”
Eight Year Olds Are Being Given Cross-Gender Hormones
“Below is the description of an NIH grant proposal that has been funded.” Understanding the facts around gender “treatment” for children, and that, yes, gender clinics are indeed medicalizing children and asking government agencies to fund such research and treatments.
Texas Supreme Court Rules Against Father of James Younger in Transgender Child Custody Case: The yearslong court battle that cast the issue of transitioning children into the national spotlight continues to escalate.
Note: Yes, parents are losing custody of their children over disagreements around whether or not their child should be medicalized. Yes, states are passing legislation and enacting legal precedents that allow governments to have more rights over children than the parents do. This is not fear-mongering. It is really happening. (And not just in disputes between parents, but also when both parents disagree with the idea of their minor child taking wrong-sex hormones and participating in surgery, and the government removes the child from the home, asserting that the parents are “unsafe”. Even though gender “medicine” has next to zero long term research and evidence for its use as a “treatment” for children.)
Why detransitioners are crucial to the science of gender care - Reuters
“Understanding the reasons some transgender people quit treatment is key to improving it, especially for the rising number of minors seeking to medically transition, experts say. But for many researchers, detransitioning and regret have long been untouchable subjects.”
Note: I do not agree with the basic assumption in this article that “gender dysphoria” is a condition that needs medical treatment - I would argue it requires more of a trauma-informed, somatic and mental health-based approach. However, I include this here as an example of how entrenched the moral panic around “image management” in gender “care” is. That even within their own group, they are not allowed to question basic premises without being canceled and attacked. This is not behavior that is in alignment with the tenets of science or academic integrity.
Transgender-Identifying Inmate Who Killed, Dismembered Ex-Girlfriend Wins Transfer to Women’s Prison
Note from me: I don’t like sharing these kinds of articles because they feel desperate and sensationalist. However, I’ve volunteered in domestic violence shelters in the past and so protecting women from violence is a very passionate topic for me. Unfortunately, these kinds of stories are becoming more and more common.
More dangerous men are self-IDing as women in prison, which means they get moved to the women’s prisons (no questions asked)...which then gives them direct access to the people they target: biological women. This has led to rapes and even murders of women in prison. It is NOT okay. I’m only sharing this one article because I don’t want to leave you with images of horror. But you can find more of these stories on many of the websites I’ve shared, if you need/want more convincing (fair warning, they’re sickening).
Goodbye, La Leche League, I prefer to remember you as you once were
“Valerie M. Hudson is a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of International Affairs at The Bush School of Government and Public Service of Texas A&M University where she directs the Program on Women, Peace, and Security. Her views are her own, and not those of her employer. She was accredited as a La Leche League Leader in the spring of 1987 and left the organization on principle in late 2022.”
What Happens in Classrooms Shouldn’t Stay in Classrooms: Conflating teaching with social gender transitioning jeopardizes the well-being of children while relegating parents to bystanders
“The medical care of children and adolescents with gender dysphoria is evolving. While there is absolutely no doubt that certain children with gender dysphoria do best with social, medical and surgical transition, the best way and time to assess children and, when indicated, assist in their transition is a subject of debate. Unfortunately, like so many issues today, these decisions are becoming politicized, thus leaving the realm dictated by actual medical evidence. Today’s article focuses on one area where political activism might be getting ahead of (or going in an entirely different direction than) the science. —Adam Cifu, MD”
Note: I do not agree that any child should ever be medicalized - see my comment in a resource above. However, this article raises some really good points about what is happening in classrooms and why parents should be hyper-alert and very concerned.
My Therapist Dumped Me for Talking about Cancel Culture: The unfortunately true story of how I lost my therapist for refusing to agree with her Social Justice ideology
“This is a story that I have been thinking about and wanting to share publicly for a while now. This is the entirely true and disappointingly strange story of how, in a single session, my therapist of two years abruptly ended our therapeutic relationship because she was triggered by my language and opinions not matching hers.”
“As I got more mentally healthy, I realized that my female body was not at all the problem, and never had been. I realized that I was powerful and capable of protecting myself and setting strong boundaries. I realized that I did not want to change my body and was not nonbinary. Coming back to the identity of woman felt grounding and healing, and it helped me connect to my body in an empowered and loving way.”
This is what 'no debate' looks like by Eliza Mondegreen
“But just as I was stuffing the flyers into my backpack, feeling a little pity for the poor turnout, a surge of protesters arrived and the energy turned menacing all at once. The mob blocked access to the lecture hall. A friend and I tried to get to the doors and were pushed around as though lives depended on turning us back. We just wanted to hear a human-rights lawyer talk about a conflict in human-rights law.”
Where I've changed my mind over the last six years by Eliza Mondegreen
“I realized there was no acceptable banner under which the people formerly known as women could organize that would be acceptable to trans activists. So no, no compromises on language. In 2016, I still used ‘transwoman’ outside of scare quotes. That’s long over. I used to think it was OK to share bathrooms. Now I don’t. Here’s why: Chipping away at women’s rights and spaces will never be enough to appease trans activists. I don’t have the right to give away single-sex spaces other women need. And I’ve realized any man who trespasses in a single-sex space has already shown he can’t be trusted to be there.”
So I went to WPATH by Eliza Mondegreen
“There’s a lot to say about it and I’m still processing. But one of the things that fascinated me about the World Professional Association for Transgender Health conference was how persuasive the feeling that you're making progress is. The language is always changing and so you're Always Learning. The frontiers of identity are always expanding. Everything can always be made more 'inclusive.' Techniques can always be refined.
It's easy to lose sight of what you're progressing toward: sterilizing more kids, earlier, on thinner and thinner pretexts, regardless of comorbidities, despite mounting evidence of both social contagion as a driver and medical harm as the outcome.”
Note: I highly, highly, highly recommend subscribing to Eliza’s Substack. She’s a thoughtful and intelligent woman and graduate student digging very deep into gender ideology and her work is frighteningly eye-opening. She goes where most people will not go: deep into forums, uncovering the pedophilia and deranged sexual appetites that are so often at the core of much of this, and deep into the politics and issues facing progressives who want to have a critical conversation.
Final Note on Articles: These are just a selection. There are literally…So.Many.Articles. I chose these because I read them and felt they were important for others to read. There are undoubtedly many other important articles to read, as well.
Online Magazines + People to Follow
Feminist Current
“We provide a unique perspective on gender, women’s rights, violence against women, pop culture, politics, current events, sexuality, and many other issues that are often underrepresented or misrepresented by mainstream, progressive, and feminist media sources.”
Women Are Human
“Women are Human, which was created in March 2018 and fully launched by June 2018, is dedicated to exploring the totalitarian impact of the gender identity movement on society as a whole, and particularly on women and girls, in every aspect of life, from identity, legal rights, health care, privacy, safety, sexuality, participation in sports, careers and politics, and more. We are a non-partisan group, formed by a political moderate who is assisted at this time by several political leftists and one political moderate.”
Reduxx
“Pro-Woman. Pro-Child Safeguarding. Anti-Bullsh*t. Reduxx was launched in January 2022 with the intention of creating a truly pro-woman, pro-child safeguarding platform that could provide high-quality, accurate reporting and opinion on the issues impacting women.”
Teva Johnstone, LCSW
IG: @rebel.parents
Teva is a social worker and former therapist who specializes in children with autism and who are neurodiverse. She recently started critiquing the connection between gender ideology and children, as there is a significant connection between children with autism/neurodiversity and children who experience “gender dysphoria”. She is now an online coach and educator for parents on the topics of raising a neurodiverse child, unschooling/homeschooling, and navigating gender ideology. As most therapists will be punished for speaking out about their critiques of gender ideology, Teva is a unique resource for parents and adults who care about children.
Cherry Smiley, PhD
An indigenous radical feminist, artist, and all around badass, with a new book about decolonizing feminism coming out soon.
Stop Female Erasure and The Deprogrammer are both run by K. Yang
“K. Yang is the creator of StopFemaleErasure.com and the writer, film maker, artist, and activist behind “The Deprogrammer". Yang exposes the intersections of corporate-government-non-profit collusion driving the “transgender rights movement”; a smoke screen for a massive social engineering and propaganda war being used to facilitate female erasure in language and in law on a world-wide scale.”
Research Publications
Effective Communication About Pregnancy, Birth, Lactation, Breastfeeding and Newborn Care: The Importance of Sexed Language
“On 24 September 2021, The Lancet medical journal highlighted an article on its cover with a single sentence in large text; “Historically, the anatomy and physiology of bodies with vaginas have been neglected.” This statement, in which the word “women” was replaced with the phrase “bodies with vaginas,” is part of a trend to remove sexed terms such as “women” and “mothers” from discussions of female reproduction. The good and important intention behind these changes is sensitivity to, and acknowledgment of, the needs of people who are biologically female and yet do not consider themselves to be women because of their gender identity. However, these changes are often not deliberated regarding their impact on accuracy or potential for other unintended consequences. In this paper we present some background to this issue, describe various observed impacts, consider a number of potentially deleterious consequences, and suggest a way forward.”
Rapid-onset gender dysphoria in adolescents and young adults: A study of parental reports by Lisa Littman
“In on-line forums, parents have been reporting that their children are experiencing what is described here as “rapid-onset gender dysphoria,” appearing for the first time during puberty or even after its completion. The onset of gender dysphoria seemed to occur in the context of belonging to a peer group where one, multiple, or even all of the friends have become gender dysphoric and transgender-identified during the same timeframe. Parents also report that their children exhibited an increase in social media/internet use prior to disclosure of a transgender identity. The purpose of this study was to document and explore these observations and describe the resulting presentation of gender dysphoria, which is inconsistent with existing research literature.”
The Myth of “Reliable Research” in Pediatric Gender Medicine: A critical evaluation of the Dutch Studies—and research that has followed
“Two Dutch studies formed the foundation and the best available evidence for the practice of youth medical gender transition. We demonstrate that this work is methodologically flawed and should have never been used in medical settings as justification to scale this “innovative clinical practice.””
Organizations
Declaration on Women's Sex-Based Rights
“The Declaration reaffirms women and girls' sex-based rights, and challenges the discrimination we experience from the replacement of the category of sex with that of ‘gender identity.’”
Women’s Liberation Front
“Our Mission: To restore, protect, and advance the rights of women and girls using legal argument, policy advocacy, and public education.”
Fair Play for Women
“Fair Play For Women is a campaigning and consultancy group which raises awareness, provides evidence and analysis, and works to protect the rights of women and girls in the UK.”
Rethink Identity Medicine Ethics
“ReIME is a non-profit education and research organization dedicated to improving ethical long term care and treatment for gender non-conforming children and youth.”
Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine
“We are an international group of over 100 clinicians and researchers concerned about the lack of quality evidence for the use of hormonal and surgical interventions as first-line treatment for young people with gender dysphoria. We represent expertise from a range of clinical disciplines.”
Partners for Ethical Care
“Our mission is to raise awareness and support efforts to stop the unethical treatment of children by schools, hospitals, and mental and medical healthcare providers under the duplicitous banner of gender identity affirmation. We believe that no child is born in the wrong body.”
Transgender Trend: No Child is Born in the Wrong Body
“We are a group of parents, academics and childcare professionals with no political or religious affiliation, from a range of backgrounds. We are united in our concern about the medical transition of children and young people and the erasure of girls’ sex-based protections in schools and society.”
4th Wave Now
“4thWaveNow was founded in 2015 by Denise, the mother of a teenage girl who suddenly announced she was a trans man after a few weeks of total immersion in YouTube transition vlogs and other trans-oriented social media. Denise’s daughter Chiara has since desisted from identifying as transgender and in 2019 cofounded an organization for desisted/detransitioned women, the Pique Resilience Project.”
Films
Trans Mission: What's the Rush to Reassign Gender? The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network
“Trans Mission: What's the Rush to Reassign Gender? is a documentary film featuring experts, activists, parents, and educators discussing the medical and surgical transitioning of children. Run Time approx. 52 minutes.”
I highly recommend watching the other films put out by The Center for Bioethics and Culture Network, as well. They dive deep into the ethics of surrogacy and IVF, offering perspectives that many feminists and progressives haven’t yet considered.
Affirmation Generation Panacol Productions
“Detransitioners Michelle, Laura, Cat, David, Joel and Abel tell the stories of their gender distress, transgender medicalization, and subsequent detransition. Without diagnostic clarity or mental health evaluations, their doctors quickly affirmed them as “transgender,” and mindlessly ushered them along the path of medical transition. (The “gender-affirming care” is the only treatment recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.) These young people were harmed irrevocably by the doctors they trusted. AFFIRMATION GENERATION demonstrates how the “one-size-fits-all” medicalization – the “gender-affirming care” – has failed these patients.
The stories of the detransitioners are examined by twelve leading experts with decades of clinical practice treating gender-distressed patients: psychotherapists Lisa Marchiano, Sasha Ayad, Stella O’Malley, physician-scientist Lisa Littman, endocrinologist Dr. William Malone, MD; Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist Stephanie Winn, sociologist Dr. Michael Biggs, pediatrician Dr. Julia Mason, NYT best-selling writer Lisa Selin Davis, and LGB activist & lifelong Liberal Democrat Joey Brite, among others. The 90-minute documentary cites 45 peer-reviewed medical and journalist articles.”
Note: There are not many full-length films about gender ideology…yet. You might know of some conservative films that I have clearly not included (see my intro for why + I have issues with those filmmakers’ other perspectives and agendas). There will be more films in the future about this topic produced from the leftist side of politics, because there will be a lot to talk about and unpack one day.
Books
Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters by Abigail Shrier
Abigail is an investigative journalist who innocently started digging into the gender ideology world at the request of a few people. She then cataloged everything that she found. She didn’t start off with an opinion and this wasn’t her original knowledge wheelhouse. But like I said above, once you start digging…it’s hard to stop.
The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male by Janice Raymond
This book was written by an academic feminist, published in 1979 and then updated in 1994. It is through a feminist lens and at the time was lauded as a worthy perspective to consider how men-who-want-to-become-women could potentially destroy women’s sex-based rights. It is out of print, but the author has generously made the PDF available to read for free on her website.
“The idea of transgender is provocative. On a personal level, it allows for a continuum of gendered expression. On a political level, it never moves off this continuum to an existence in which gender is truly transcended. Its supposedly iconoclastic rebellion against traditional gender confinement is more style than substance. What good is a gender outlaw who is still abiding by the law of gender?”
NOTE: There are a large number of books on this topic, but I haven’t yet read many of them and so I hesitate to recommend them…yet. That said, I’ll share a list here of a few recommended by others, and perhaps we can all read them together.
Female Erasure: What You Need To Know About Gender Politics War On Women, the Female Sex and Human Rights edited by Ruth Barrett
Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism by Sheila Jeffreys
Desist, Detrans & Detox: Getting Your Child Out of the Gender Cult by Maria Keffler
The Abolition of Sex: How the “Transgender” Agenda Harms Women and Girls by Kara Dansky
Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality by Helen Joyce
Doublethink: A Feminist Challenge to Transgenderism by Janice G. Raymond
The End of Gender: Debunking the Myths About Sex and Identity by Dr. Debra Soh
Material Girls: Why Reality Matters for Feminism by Kathleen Stock
Podcast Interviews
Watching Lia Thomas Win - Honestly with Bari Weiss
“Lia Thomas is a transgender woman who has, in one year, become the star athlete of the women’s swim team at The University of Pennsylvania. When she competed on the men’s team, she was seeded no. 462 in the NCAA. Now, she’s seeded No. 1 and expected to beat Olympic gold medalist Katy Ledecky, widely considered one of the greatest female swimmers of all time, later this month at the NCAA championship.”
Abigail Shrier: On Freedom in an Age of Fear - Honestly with Bari Weiss
“Abigail Shrier, the author of the bestselling book “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters,” was recently invited to speak at Princeton. But this being a college campus in 2021, you can imagine what happened next. The event was moved off campus. It was limited to 35 people. And the police had to be called in because of threats.”
Courage in the Face of Book Burners - Honestly with Bari Weiss
“Abigail Shrier is a lawyer, a reporter and author of Irreversible Damage. One way to describe her book would be: controversial. She has been accused of spreading misinformation by GLAAD. A prominent ACLU lawyer called for her book to be banned. A favorable review of the book in Science-Based Medicine ignited an online mob, which led to the journal disappearing that first review and replacing it with a negative one. Amazon and Target have also been pressured to stop carrying Shrier's book.”
Women Like Hunting Witches, Too - Honestly with Bari Weiss
“If you’ve just heard of the word “TERF” (it stands for Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist) it was probably because of Dave Chapelle’s new Netflix special, “The Closer.” The comedian declared himself “Team TERF.” But what does that really mean?
Julie Bindel would know. She has been physically attacked; her work has been banned; and she’s been disinvited from lectures all because of the accusation that she is a TERF.”
How “Luxury Beliefs” Hurt the Rest of Us - Honestly with Bari Weiss
"Defund the police" or "healthy at every size" or "marriage is just an oppressive institution of the patriarchy" - these are just a few of the ideas that are becoming common doctrine among American elites. And Rob Henderson has described these new orthodoxies as “Luxury Beliefs.”
Why "Woman" Needs To Mean, Well, Woman with Dr. Karleen Gribble - Calmversations
YouTube video version
Podcast version (or search on your favorite podcast player)
“Dr. Gribble is a medical professional focusing on women and infants. She has recently, with some colleagues, written a paper on the need to preserve sex-based language in the medical context. We speak about that, breastfeeding, and how the COVID response lacked understanding of the infant-mother relationship.”
Adolescence Via Internet: a Detrans Story, with Michelle - Calmversations
YouTube video version
Podcast version (or search on your favorite podcast player)
“Michelle speaks to me about growing up on the internet, dealing with self esteem and bullying and undiagnosed autism, becoming an activist and transitioning, and then using critical thinking to work her way toward acceptance of herself and reality.”
Depression, Addiction, Gender: a Detrans Story, with Brian W - Calmversations
YouTube video version
Podcast version (or search on your favorite podcast player)
No description for this one, but I’ll add my comments. This young man has been through hell and back again, and his story is absolutely worth listening to. He was pushed into wrong-sex hormones by his therapist, and was groomed into gender ideology by her as well. Luckily, he woke up and realized he needed a different kind of help, but not until after being medicalized for a significant amount of time.
Dysphoria & Self-Acceptance with Cynthia Breheny - Calmversations
YouTube video version
Podcast version (or search on your favorite podcast player)
“Cynthia has experienced intense gender dysphoria since childhood - despite being a very feminine female. That, combined with abuse at the hands of her father, has caused her to deeply look into the source of her traumas and take control of her body, her life, and her sense of agency. Her message to troubled young people about realistic self-acceptance is not to be overlooked.”
Note: this is a VERY hard interview to listen to. But it’s essential to understanding why so many girls are latching onto gender ideology as an escape from the horrors of being biologically female. You will cry. She is incredibly strong and her story is very worth listening to.
Gender Medicine Has Gone INSANE: Inside WPATH with Eliza Mondegreen - Calmversations
YouTube video version
Podcast version (or search on your favorite podcast player)
“Eliza Mondegreen has been fascinated by totalitarian language games and gender for years - so much so that she’s pursuing a masters degree to study the totalitarian gender phenomenon that’s impacting girls, boys, women and men. Last month, she went under cover and attended the leading transgender medicine association, WPATH, and in the calmversation shares just how otherworldly transgender medicine has become.”
Medical Fads and Fanatics with Eliza Mondegreen and Mia Ashton - Calmversations
YouTube video version
Podcast version (or search on your favorite podcast player)
“Mia Ashton is a full time writer covering the gender beat for the Post Millennial. Eliza Mondegreen is a master’s student studying the sociological impacts of gender ideology. In this chat we share our notes on the gender topic, and puzzle over the medical ethics of child transition.”
Emelie's De-transition & Path to Self-Acceptance - Whose Body Is It
“In this episode I’m joined by Emelie, a Swedish de-transitioned woman, public speaker and activist. We discuss her experience in searching for an answer to feeling different from other girls growing up and how she came to believe she was a man stuck in a woman's body. She shares how her mental health declined steadily after coming out as "trans" despite having a decently affirming circle, and the path that led her to ultimately suppress her initial instincts against medicalization by paying for a double mastectomy out-of-pocket. She describes enduring total dissociation from her body, how talking with trans-identified women peaked her post-op, and the grief and anger she experiences from losing so much in the face of the trans-affirming healthcare system. We cover nuanced pronoun usage, self-contradictory online influencers, and the insane lottery of choosing life-long medicalization in place of self-acceptance.”
Losing Custody: A Frontline Story with Mother Jeannette Cooper - Whose Body Is It
“In this episode I speak with mother, educator and co-founder of Partners for Ethical Care, Jeannette Cooper. Jeannette details the story of her trans-identified daughter and only child, being removed from her custody at age 12 due to Jeannette allegedly being "psychologically and physically unsafe." Jeannette describes the lessons her daughter learned by attending the Michigan Women's Festival, how the philosophies of un-schooling fostered a high emotional and academic intelligence, and how conventional schooling starting in 6th grade broke her, as she was relentlessly bullied into conformity and later indoctrinated into trans ideology.”
Transgender Ideology in Schools, Loss of Parental Rights and Taking Action with Michelle Evans - Whose Body Is It
“In this episode I’m joined by Michelle Evans to discuss the landscape girls face in light of increasing forms of sex-based oppression and the role parents are playing in protecting children in and out of schools. Michelle shares how she became active in combating gender ideology, the damaging messages sent when children are ‘socially transitioned,’ and the sacrifices girls are forced to make as female-only spaces diminish in schools.”
The Dangers of They/Them-ing Children with Belle Cardinal - Whose Body Is It
“Mother, doula, musician and hair and makeup artist, Belle lets us in on the path that led her both toward and away from gender-neutral parenting. We explore the strict sexual code of conduct within her Mormon upbringing and talk through her intimate introduction to the trans community. Belle shares how her own family’s history of cosmetic surgeries played into her acceptance of and compassion for trans-identified clients who had medicalized - alongside her honest conversations with a trans-identified male friend whose quest for womanhood jeopardized his organ functions.
We cover her well-meaning intentions as a mother who they/themed her baby for 20 months, the reception of other adults to her parenting approach, the confusion she herself experienced while teaching her daughter about her body, and how something as overlooked as diet influenced her perspectives and ability to think critically about gender ideology. Belle also names the potential dangers children face if they are not taught that men and women are different, and emphasizes the role sex plays in how we determine our reality.”
The Racist Origins of 'Gender Neutral' Language & Women's Bodies as Currency with Dr. Suzanne Forbes-Vierling - Whose Body Is It
“In this truly enlightening episode, Dr. Suzanne Forbes-Vierling discusses the intersecting capitalist systems such as the child welfare system, the industrial prison complex, the surrogacy industry, and the business of human trafficking that shape the lives of women and girls. She details the mechanics of the enslavement of black women in the United States, the racist origin of terms like "birthing body", and explains how controlling language and re-naming Black slaves for the sake of domination and control, parallels tactics used to force transgender ideology onto women. Dr. Suzanne exposes the profit in the medical sales of women's bodies, specifically the placenta and reminds us what happens to dissenters throughout history.”
The Dark History of "Transgender Medicine", WPATH & Child Castration w/ Genevieve Gluck - Whose Body Is It
“In this episode feminist writer and researcher Genevieve Gluck returns to the podcast to expose the origins and drivers behind the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), the world authority on medical protocols for treating youth with so-called "gender dysphoria." Many parents of trans-identified youth consider WPATH the place to get answers as WPATH sets the guidelines for gender clinics across the world.
Genevieve unpacks the trans-eunuch connection, how pornography lays the groundwork for pedophilia and the striking parallels between the Russian Skoptsy cult and modern-day techno-infused transgenderism. Genevieve encourages listeners to shift energy to developing an understanding of history and how it repeats itself, instead of acting from a place of defense.”
Other Podcasts You Might Want to Explore:
Feminist Current with Meghan Murphy