BROADVIEW Podcast

A conversation with Dr Kris Kaliebe, Dr. Nikki Johnson of FAIR in Medicine, and Natalya Murakhver about their new endeavor, the Gender Toolkit.

“We believe that all children are deserving of safe learning environments and that gender nonconformity, which is completely natural and found across cultures, must be respected. However, the manner in which topics such as gender and gender identity are practiced in schools can come into conflict with parental rights.

The information in this toolkit is intended to rise above the culture war noise and give you the information to feel confident in making evidence-based decisions in parenting and public policy.”

Thanks for watching and listening!

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My deepest gratitude for all your support this year. The 25% for 2024 deal is good until the end of this year.

What a long, strange year it’s been (bonus points if you get the reference). I asked Ben Appel, Eliza Mondegreen, and Jamie Reed to join me to process the highs and lows, and forecast the future of the country’s most contentious culture war. Fingers crossed that in 2024, more people are better informed and able to see the full picture—and figure out what to do. Happy all the things to you readers, and see you in the new year.

—Lisa

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Hello listeners, welcome to the audio version of Broadview. I’m Lisa Selin Davis.

And here’s a story I forgot to tell Phil Illy, my guest today:

I was having reading time with my 11-year-old daughter, and I didn’t realize that instead of reading her own book, she was peering over my shoulder as I read Phil’s book Autoheterosexual: Attracted to Being the Other Sex. And all of the sudden she said, “Mama, what’s an adult diaper baby lover?”

And I said, “I’m really sorry that you saw that, because you deserve to have gone your whole life, or at least your entire childhood, without knowing about that.”

And that exchange, I think, encapsulates some of the following discussion with Phil about who should know what, and when. He was an adult when he figured out that his troubles with gender could be explained by a sexual orientation he’d never heard of: autogynephilia. Thinking he’d found the key to his struggles, he reached out to others to commune over their shared experience and found: censorship, denial, gaslighting.

And he decided that he didn’t want others to go through what he went through, and wrote a book to bring knowledge to those who wouldn’t otherwise access it in this time when so much information is politicized.

We didn’t get to a lot in this conversation, mostly because we were hashing out the meanings of words like gender, and Phil has taken it upon himself to coin some new terms and redefine some old ones in ways that may help some people accept themselves, but may really rile some others. What we didn’t talk about was all the other stuff in the book. Not just adult diaper baby lovers, but auto-furries—people who are attracted to the idea of themselves as animals—and trans-racial sexualities (I can only enrage so many people at once) and, well, I’ll let you peruse the pages yourselves.

There’s a lot we disagree on but ultimately Phil and I share one message: we’ve got to stop lying about autogynephilia.

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The new book Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans: Tales from the Home Front in the Fight to Save Our Kids is out today. You can find more about how to order on PITT’s Substack here.

I spoke with two of the editors about PITT’s origin story, and what they’ve learned by letting parents, and others, have a forum to speak up.

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Remember when I complained about “gender fatigue?” And a bunch of you wrote to me and said, tired or not, gender identity has been enshrined into law while a lot of liberals weren’t paying close attention—replacing sex, or added as a facet of sex, a protected class. We can’t fall asleep now!

The mainstream media dedicates a lot of real estate to covering “anti-trans” laws, but very little on blue state laws written under the guise of “protecting trans kids.” What they actually do: indemnify doctors; distort research; and allow kids, especially runaways, with all kinds of mental health issues to access gender medical or psychological interventions, sometimes without parental knowledge or support. It sounds like right-wing conspiracy theory. It’s not.

I first learned about these laws from Erin Friday: Democrat of 37 years, Californian, lawyer, and mom to a desisted ROGD daughter. She has dedicated her time and attention to tracking, and testifying against, laws there—laws that are copied and pasted in other blue states.

This is not a left-right issue. The dissent, the concern, is about science. About truth. About doing what’s best for children. In order to do that, we have to understand the blue state laws being passed.

Thanks for listening.

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Greetings, listeners! Julia Malott is a trans woman and parent who lives in Ontario, and has some of the most nuanced and philosophical thoughts on gender issues I’ve encountered. She’s been willing to stand up to the Canadian orthodoxy which, believe it or not, is in some ways even less flexible than the US’s. If only more people could have her attitude, and her approach to her own transition, I think we’d be in a much better place.

Thank you for listening!

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Penny Adrian has a happy trans son, who transitioned in adulthood after a lot of reflection and evaluation. Penny supports him, but she has watched as a faction of activists has taken over the conversation, imposing gender identity ideology where science, debate, education, medicine and journalism should be. Her son declined to participate but supported her in doing so. I wanted to know: How can you support your transgender child while rejecting the ideology? Take a listen.

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The Aarons—Kimberly and Terrell—are part of the Gender Dysphoria Alliance, which penned an open letter after those by GLAAD and New York Times’ contributors, which demanded censorship and control over the coverage of gender-affirming care.

The GDA wants the opposite: transparency, research, open debate. You know, they want real evidence-based healthcare, and they want to be able to talk about the condition that led them to transition, and what the research shows, or doesn’t, about transitioning children. They don’t want a political philosophy in place of healthcare.

Bios:

Aaron Terrell transitioned in 2012 at the age of 28. Around 2017 he became concerned by the shifting understanding of gender dysphoria and medicalization amongst younger female to male transitioners. He is primarily interested in the sociopolitical trends that have enabled the exponential explosion in numbers of young people seeking gender transition. In 2021, he joined with Aaron Kimberly to make Gender Dysphoria Alliance an international organization and together they launched their podcast, Transparency, where they discuss all things trans related without the ideological lens the topic is usually presented through.

Aaron Kimberly is a female to male transsexual who started to medically transition in 2006, having experienced life-long Gender Dysphoria. He’s a Registered Nurse with a specialization in psychiatric nursing and has worked in a psychiatric stabilization unit at St Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, BC, was a nurse educator for the British Columbia Specialized Adult Tertiary Eating Disorders Program, and more recently was as a counsellor and case manager within a network of community-based clinics for youth ages 12-25. He’s now a clinical instructor at Brandon University, Department of Psychiatric Nursing and has a private counselling practice.

He founded the Gender Dysphoria Alliance Canada in January 2021, after discovering the alarming degree of ideological capture within the trans health establishment, and subsequent blacklisting among that clinical community because of his interest in Gender Dysphoria from an evidence-based perspective. GDAC was rebranded and launched as an international network, the Gender Dysphoria Alliance, with co-founders Aaron Terrell, Kellie Pirie, Buck Angel, Mars Fernandez and Janet Scott (all transsexuals with Gender Dysphoria).

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Happy New Year to you all!

For my last post of the year, I’m sharing a conversation with one of my favorite friends that I’ve met by way of looking at gender issues from a heterodox viewpoint, Corinna Cohn. Corinna is co-host of the wonderful podcast Heterodorx, in which she speaks with people from all over the gender and ideological—and gender ideology—spectrum with co-host Nina Paley. She’s also the co-founder of GCCAN, a consumer-advocacy group for those partaking of gender care. And she’s a “disenchanted” transsexual, immune to pronouns (use whatever you like—I’m just used to she). She’s deeply concerned about what kids are learning about gender, and about medical transition. Here we talk about, among other things, the role of censorship in the gender culture wars, the good versus evil narrative and polarization that contributes to it, and our hopes for a ceasefire in 2023. We didn’t get to talk about her advocacy work as much as I’d hoped—mostly because of my yapping—but hopefully we’ll get to that in the new year.

I hope those of you in pain because of gender issues, whichever ideology you partake of, have some peace and respite in 2023.

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In the next installment in my ongoing series of interviews of trans people with diverse viewpoints comes a therapist and trans man who goes by the pen name Stillman Cray. We’re not using his real name because he fears personal and professional repercussions. Stillman has penned a book called Being Transgender Is Not Normal: A Manifesto by a Transman, and also crafted an interesting checklist for people considering transition which I think could be really useful. See that below. Transcript coming soon, when I’m a little further along in Covid recovery.

Confronting the Self

I can’t stress how imperative it is to transition for the right reasons as opposed to an idea or to make a social statement (even to yourself).

It is one thing to dress in gender opposite clothing, adopt another name, and present yourself a certain way. When you come to the bridge of hormones and surgery, however, it is wise to know as much information as you can -- the good and the bad. I hope this helps.

Concrete questions you MUST ask yourself:

* "Why" do I dislike my body? Be specific, not general.

* What is my concept of the expectations for a woman and a

man?

* Is my physical body the issue or is my psychological concept

of gender the problem?

* Am I uncertain? Am I doing this because I have friends that

are questioning?

* Do I know what my sexuality is and am I confusing gender

with sexual attraction?

* Have I experienced what I want to, sexually, before I try

hormones/surgery? (You may want to have a 'before and after' comparison). Even if sex is not something you care about ‘now’, chances are you will change and that natural inclination will matter a lot to you. Confront your expectations.

* Do I realize that sex may be compromised by transitioning (physically) and potentially more dangerous (being discovered) because my anatomy does not match my preferred gender? (This applies if you don’t do bottom surgery).

* Do I understand that transitioning is a lifelong decision that will alter the course of my life in ALL realms?

* Am I prepared to take accountability for my choices throughout the process?

* How will I pay for the necessary hormones and/or surgery (surgeries)?

* What is my goal?

* Do I believe hormones and surgery will make me forever

happy and at peace in my skin? (This is a critical question). Although hormones and surgical intervention can alleviate distress, they do not equate to a magic wand making everything perfect.

13. ***Do I fully understand that no matter what hormones and surgery I have, I will never be the opposite sex? I am a third gender even if I am passing.

* Do I think I will ever want children? I may not now, but I am young and time changes things.

* What steps do I need to take to preserve eggs/sperm? (It’s expensive).

* What is my support system like?

* What questions have I not asked other trans individuals and

myself?

* What questions am I afraid to ask myself because I may not

like the answer(s)?

* Lifelong, existential questions:

Who am I at the core?What role do I see myself playing in society? Does my gender impact that role? If so, do I believe changing genders will make it easier or do I wish to change genders because this is how I “truly” identify?

Bio: I legally changed my name at 18; underwent surgery in Canada the day after I turned 20; started hormones two months later. I have been on T (testosterone injections) for 17 years. I hold an MFA in Creative Writing. I am studying clinical mental health counseling in a second master’s program.

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