Trans rights and access to health care have been under attack on the state level for years, but the second Trump administration and the Supreme Court have accelerated a chilling effect at clinics across the country.

Guest: Grace Byron, author of “The Grim State of Trans Health Care” and “The Bureaucratic Nightmares of Being Trans Under Trump” for the New Yorker. 

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Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

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Their son was immunocompromised and couldn’t get the measles vaccines. So his dad asked if everyone going to his school would get vaccinated. 

And the thing is—people listened.

Guest:  Carl and Rhett Krawitt

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Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

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In this episode we’re opening our mailbag to answer three fascinating questions from our listeners. How did “ass,” a word for donkeys and butts, become what linguists call an “intensifier” for just about everything? How do pharmaceuticals get their wacky names? And why do we all seem to think that aliens from outer space would travel to Earth just to kidnap our cows?

In this episode, you’ll hear from linguistics professor Nicole Holliday, historians Greg Eghigian and Mike Goleman, and professional “namer” Laurel Sutton.

This episode of Decoder Ring was produced by Willa Paskin, Max Freedman, and Katie Shepherd. Our supervising producer is Evan Chung. Merritt Jacob is Slate’s Technical Director. 

If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email us at [email protected], or leave a message on our hotline at 347-460-7281.

Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen.

Sources for This Episode

Bengston, Jonas. “Post-Intensifying: The Case of the Ass-Intensifier and Its Similar but Dissimilar Danish Counterpart,” Leviathan, 2021.

Collier, Roger. “The art and science of naming drugs,” Canadian Medical Association Journal, Oct. 2014.

Eghigian, Greg. After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon, Oxford University Press, 2024.

Goleman, Michael J. “Wave of Mutilation: The Cattle Mutilation Phenomenon of the 1970s,” Agricultural History, 2011.

Karet, Gail B. “How Do Drugs Get Named?” AMA Journal of Ethics, Aug. 2019.

Miller, Wilson J. “Grammaticalizaton in English: A Diachronic and Synchronic Analysis of the "ass" Intensifier,” Master’s Thesis, San Francisco State University, 2017.

Monroe, Rachel. “The Enduring Panic About Cow Mutilations,” The New Yorker, May 8, 2023.

A Strange Harvest, dir. Linda Moulton Howe, KMGH-TV, 1980.

“United States Adopted Names naming guidelines,” AMA.

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It’s a record-breaking year for America: we’ve now had the most reported cases of measles since the disease was declared “eradicated” in 2000. 

How did public health backslide so hard that it undid decades of progress—and is there any hope we can get back on track? 

Guest: Dylan Scott, senior health correspondent at Vox.

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Candice Lim is joined by Dazed senior writer Laura Pitcher to discuss her piece, “Meet the people using ChatGPT as their therapist.” Since ChatGPT’s public release in late 2022, there has been a growing reliance on the artificially intelligent chatbot in people’s everyday lives. TikTok users are talking about the way they use ChatGPT as their therapist, their best friend, their life organizer, and more. But is reliant, daily use of an AI service worth possible consequences such as climate change, loneliness, and data privacy concerns? On today’s episode, ICYMI dives into the unexpected ways people have been using ChatGPT and whether we can predict its role in the near future.

This podcast episode was produced by Se’era Spragley Ricks, Daisy Rosario and Candice Lim, with production assistance from Alexandra Botti and Kat Hong.

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Candice Lim and Kate Lindsay discuss an American woman in her 50s who is going viral for her plastic surgery journey. Michelle Wood is a mom who traveled to Guadalajara to undergo several procedures, including a facelift and a chin implant. She documented her journey before and after the procedure, creating intrigue, curiosity, and surprisingly positive responses online. TikTok reacted similarly when Kylie Jenner revealed the details of her boob job and broke the internet within the same week. So what do Wood and Jenner’s transparency say about the way women are talking about their bodies, and their surgeries, in 2025?

This podcast is produced by Vic Whitley-Berry, Daisy Rosario, Candice Lim, and Kate Lindsay.

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Mary is juggling a busy career and family life and, like many of us, she feels guilty about the time she spends on her phone. On this episode of How To!, Courtney Martin talks with author and teacher Molly Caro May about how she’s helping others rethink—and rewire—their dependency on devices with an approach that’s focused on the mind-body connection.

If you liked this episode, check out How To Manage Your Kids’ Screen Time. 

Do you have a problem that needs solving? Send us a note at [email protected] or leave us a voicemail at 646-495-4001 and we might have you on the show. Subscribe for free on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

The show is produced by Rosemary Belson, with Kevin Bendis. Our technical director is Merritt Jacob and our supervising producer is Joel Meyer.

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Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, accusing members of serving industry interests and never recommending against a vaccine. Their role, however, was advising on usage for vaccines that the FDA already approved. 

As RFK Jr. restaffs the committee with his own “nonpartisan” members, where does that leave vaccines and the state of American health?

Guest: Noel Brewer, Gillings Distinguished Professor in Public Health at the University of North Carolina.

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Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

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On this episode: Zak and Elizabeth introduce a series-within-a-series called Care and Feeding 101 — where we’re walking you through all things baby, with the help of some truly amazing experts. Think of it like the baby book that we know you don’t have time to read. 

In Volume One: Zak meets some seasoned sex and relationship coaches who just had a baby. And Elizabeth invites Dr. Sheilagh Maguiness to bust the top myths about baby skin.

Join us on Facebook and email us at [email protected] to ask us new questions, tell us what you thought of today’s show, and give us ideas about what we should talk about in future episodes. You can also call our phone line: (646) 357-9318.

If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get to hang out with us on the Plus Playground every week for a whole additional grab-bag of content — and you’ll get an ad-free experience across the network. And you’ll also be supporting the work we do here on Care and Feeding. Sign up now at slate.com/careplus – or try it out on Apple Podcasts.

Podcast produced by Maura Currie.

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In Gaza, two million people are at risk of starvation, as Israeli-controlled aid has been repeatedly interrupted and marked by violence towards aid workers and chaos at distribution sites. 

Guests:  

Mohammed Mhawish, journalist and writer from Gaza City.

Alex de Waal, Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts, author of the 2017 book, Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine. 

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Podcast production by Ethan Oberman, Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, Isabel Angell, and Rob Gunther. 

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