Informed Dissent

Maud Maron is running to be Manhattan’s next District Attorney “to restore safety and sanity to our streets and subways.” She’s also a mom of four children who are all NYC public school graduates or students.

Maud worked as a public defender for over two decades at the Legal Aid Society in the Manhattan and the Bronx criminal courts. She taught criminal law at Cardozo Law School and has a long track record as an education advocate who champions public school education in New York City. She is a fierce champion of free speech, and won a 1st Amendment case against the NYC Dept. of Education just last year. She writes for the New York Post and other publications.

* MaudforManhattan.com

* Maud’s writing for the NY Post

* “How I stood up for free speech — and won my case against NYC’s education censors”

* CEC D2 meeting on gender ideology in NYC public schools (YouTube)

* Ben’s Substack post about the CEC D2 meeting

* Alaina Daniels

* Mamdani’s “LGBTQIA+” platform

* Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

* Russian & Turkish Baths

* “How to Grow Leeks”

* Jurassic World: Rebirth

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Today we’re joined by very good friend of the pod, Leor Sapir!

Leor Sapir is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Boston College and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Program on Constitutional Government at Harvard University. Since joining MI, Sapir has become a widely recognized thought leader on topics related to pediatric gender medicine, education policy, and culture. Sapir is a regular contributor to City Journal, and he has co-authored amicus briefs for lawsuits on parental rights in education and is lead author of an important letter to the editor in the peer-reviewed academic journal, the Archives of Sexual Behavior, on “rapid onset gender dysphoria.”

* United States vs. Skrmetti

* Leor Sapir for City Journal

* The lost history of Christmas nobody cares about anymore - but should

* tomato cages

* The Catastrophe Hour

* Identity

* Special Interest

* Lost Christianities

* The Gnostic New Age

* Orthodoxy and Heresy in Early Christian Contexts

* Fashionable Nonsense

We’ve decided to open up our polycule to guests! Today it’s Dr. Anna Hutchinson, the London-based clinical psychologist specializing in adolescent mental and physical health.

From 2013 to 2017, Dr. Hutchinson worked at the Tavistock Clinic’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), where she observed first hand the significant shifts in patient demographics and referral rates. She raised concerns about the weak evidence base and clinical practices, contributing key insights to Time to Think by Hannah Barnes. Since leaving GIDS, Anna has continued to advocate for nuanced care for gender-distressed youth. She co-led the clinical induction training for Hilary Cass’s new Gender Hubs and is currently co-authoring a book with family therapist Anastassis Spiliadis on developmentally informed therapy for gender-related distress in children.

CORRECTION: NH Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed the parental rights bill, but as of June 13 she has not yet signed the bills banning puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and chest surgeries for minors. Apologies!

* NH GAC bills

* NH parental rights bill

* Gallup poll

* DOJ investigating Minnesota over trans softball athlete

* Riley and Simone

* Zoe Saldaña’s trans Oscar

* The Pissed Off Lawyer

* LA Children’s gender clinic shutting down

* The Protocol episode 5

* The Protocol episode 6

* “It feels like conversion therapy for gay children, say clinicians”

* The Wide Wide Sea

* Grillo’s Pickles

* Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius

* CIS WHITE GAY preorder links!

Thank you for listening!

If you appreciate our work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber!

On this special episode, we discuss part four of the New York Times’s six-part series about the history of pediatric gender medicine. Episode 4, “The Whistleblower,” is about Jamie Reed, who blew the whistle on the pediatric gender clinic at Washington University in St. Louis in 2023. Jamie tells us what the Times got right, what they left out, plus a whole lot more.

* “The Whistleblower”

* Jamie’s affidavit

* Jamie’s 2023 testimony in The Free Press

* Azeen’s 2023 NY Times piece about Jamie

* LGB Courage Coalition’s Substack post on bicalutamide

* “The Myth of Reliable Research”

* “The Dutch Protocol for Juvenile Transsexuals: Origins and Evidence”

* Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic

Thank you for listening!

If you appreciate our work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber!

On Thursday evening, The New York Times released “The Protocol,” its highly anticipated podcast on the history of pediatric gender medicine. We do a deep-dive into the first two episodes of the six-part series: “The Beginning” and “The Gender Kids.”

* Olson-Kennedy study

* Olympus spa ruling

* CA trans athlete wins

* Loudon County update

* The Protocol

* Dept Q

* The Golden Notebook

* A Mother’s Reckoning

* Bluejay omens

Today we answer some listeners’ questions and then discuss Jonathan Cowan’s op-ed for Politico. And Eliza comes out!

* CMS investigates GAC hospitals

* breast cancer study

* Kansas lawsuit

* CA sports rules changes

* Democratic Arizona senator’s comments about sports

* Politico op-ed

* Leor Sapir’s thread about the op-ed

* goblincore

* cottagecore

* Furry event at UC Irvine

* The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity

* Secret Lives of Mormon Wives

* Balatro

* The Extinction of Experience

* Being a parent

Today we discuss:

* The 2016 CMS Report on Gender Dysphoria and Gender Reassignment Surgery.

* NBC's reporting on the new bill prohibiting Medicaid from covering sex-trait modification procedures.

* Jamie getting thrown out of the APA meeting, from which one gender session was leaked.

* The FTC’s plan to investigate fraud in the gender-affirming care industry.

* The MIT "Born in the Right Body" event, at which Jamie and Lisa spoke, and which drew protestors. And fun signs!

* Planned Parenthood's puberty blocker video.

Our non-gender recommendations for the week:

* Gardening!

* Coffee with a spoonful of tiramisu inside!

Cori, Eliza, and Jamie revisit the HHS report, “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices.” They talk about the libertarian case for age limits on hormonal and surgical interventions and the homophobia underlying the entire enterprise of transition.

Health and Human Services Report

Sunday event in Cambridge: Born in the Right Body.

Montana judge finds trans care ban unconstitutional

Homophobia on my mind by Jamie Reed

The Ross Douthat column that changed Jamie's life

Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious by Ross Douthat

This week we discuss the MAGA look, the low-down dirty tactics of Maine legislators, the sophistry of psychotic professors, and the moral dilemma of patronizing businesses that use WPATH’s standards of care to inform their medical benefits policies.

* MAGA aesthetics

* The Psychology of Totalitarianism

* An Abundance of Caution

* Maine LD380

* All of Us Strangers

* Histories of the Transgender Child

* Jules Gill-Peterson in NY Times

* Transgender Studies Quarterly

* TERF Industrial Complex

* Starbucks trans insurance

* availability heuristic

* Chick-fil-A kale crunch salad

* Meghan Daum and Richard Rushfield

* Max Richter world tour

* Nespresso Vertuo

* Julia Mason in the Economist

Today we discuss the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ evidence review, “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria Review of Evidence and Best Practices.” What did the review say? Is it unbiased and dispassionate? Was it a good idea for the HHS to withhold the authors’ names? Will it convince anyone on the other side of this debate? How have news outlets been reporting on it? All that and more, plus headlines.

* HHS report

* Biden admin suppresses reviews

* Erin Reed coverage of report

* Jamie in NBC News reporting

* NY Times coverage of report

* APA statement

* WaPo coverage

* Lawless book

* Megyn Kelly NY Times interview

* Thelma

* Bitchin’ Sauce

* Mistakes Were Made

* Marcus Aurelius -Meditations audiobook

* Unveiled

* The Last Girl