The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

Therapist Sasha Ayad was one of the earliest guests on The Unspeakable. Her interview with Meghan in August of 2020 was revelatory for many listeners and she has become a leading figure in the effort to discuss gender through a non-ideological lens. In this wide-ranging conversation, Sasha shares what she's learned since then, what kind of data has emerged about youth gender medicine, and why medical protocols in Europe have changed even as the U.S. and Canada hold on to the "affirmative care" model.

Sasha gives some background on how highly theoretical concepts like the "gendered soul" got absorbed into medicine, why kids with gender dysphoria are likely to struggle with multiple mental health issues, and how parents can set limits while also supporting their kids.

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Sasha is a Licensed Professional Counselor who works in private practice with teens, young adults, and families impacted by gender issues. Sasha is a well-known advocate for individualized, least-invasive-first approaches to treating gender dysphoria. She has developed a gentle but effective way of working psychologically with rigid beliefs, identity, and social influence.

In her private coaching work, she helps parents to feel better informed and more confident so they can navigate their child's identity distress with more compassion, discernment and wisdom. Sasha is also the co-host of Gender: A Wider Lens Podcast and played a role in founding several organizations including the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine, and The Gender Exploratory Therapy Association.

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Is Civility Better Than Kindness?

This week, author Alexandra Hudson visits the podcast to talk about her new book, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles To Heal Society and Ourselves. Civility is one of those concepts onto which people project their own biases and even fears. On the surface, you'd think civility could only be a good thing. But it can also come with a lot of baggage. Those who call for greater civility are sometimes accused of diminishing the suffering of others, glossing over reasons for real anger, or practicing respectability politics. On the other hand, what's so bad about respectability politics – or plain old respectability?

In this conversation, Alexandra talks about her mother's career as an etiquette expert, the meaning of classical liberalism, the difference between civility and politeness,why she loves Erasmus of Rotterdam, and why she thinks Larry David is the foremost defender of civilization today.

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Alexandra Hudson is an award-winning journalist, author, and speaker, as well as the founder of Civic Renaissance, a newsletter and intellectual community dedicated to moral and cultural renewal. Her book, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves, was recently published by St Martin's Press.

You can read her Substack here: https://bit.ly/48huPXH

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This week, Wall Street Journal Erich Schwartzel joins Meghan for a conversation about his December 2 article about social media super-influencers Rachel and Dave Hollis.

After building a multi-million by branding their own happiness and authenticity, tragedy struck when their marriage ended in bitter divorce and Dave died suddenly of a substance overdose. Erich talks about his months of research into the story and reflects on why so many people want to be influencers — and why even more people want to be influenced.

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RELEVANT LINKS

"Behind the Tragic, Instagram-Perfect Life of an Ex-Disney Executive" by Schwartzel for The Wall Street Journal (🔒): https://on.wsj.com/484qarW

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Erich Schwartzel, a film industry reporter at The Wall Street Journal's Los Angeles bureau, wrote "Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy." Published in February 2022, the book explores China's growing influence on the American entertainment industry. It received accolades from New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and Esquire. Prior to joining the Journal, Schwartzel reported on energy for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His journalism career began at a local paper in his hometown, Latrobe, Penn.

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New York Times opinion columnist Pamela Paul joins The Unspeakable for a conversation about problematic opinions, obvious truths, the state of book reviewing, the problem with publishing, "feeling French" despite being an American, and much more.

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Pamela Paul became an Opinion columnist for The New York Times in 2022. She was previously the editor of The New York Times Book Review for nine years, where she oversaw book coverage and hosted the Book Review podcast. She is the author of eight books, most recently, 100 Things We've Lost to the Internet.

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This week, Andrew Sullivan joins The Unspeakable to discuss the evolution of LGBTQ rights and debates. He and Meghan explore how the trans rights movement intersects (and sometimes conflicts) with the goals Sullivan advocated for gay men like himself in the 80s/90s, such as marriage equality. They also discuss his views on the physical realities of transitioning and how the language surrounding "trans kids" and "conversion therapy" are being co-opted in potentially dangerous ways

Andrew and Meghan also revisit messages from the AIDS crisis that inaccurately claimed everyone was at equal risk. Despite criticism, Andrew believes that moderation and reason will ultimately triumph over the impassioned, ideological discourse surrounding gender identity and sexual orientation.

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Andrew Sullivan is a political commentator, a former editor of The New Republic, and the author or editor of six books. You can find his Weekly Dish newsletter here.

📰 Meghan's 2012 Believer article about her 1996 New York Time Magazine article about HIV/AIDS public health messaging.

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This week, I had a discussion with Eli Lake regarding the recent tragic attack in Israel and its repercussions. I haven't closely followed this topic over the years, so Eli's insights were invaluable and he politely tolerated some of my more goyishly clueless questions. He has worked as a national security correspondent and possesses extensive knowledge on the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict.

We talked about the present surge of activism and the near-illiterate responses to Israel's attack on Gaza. We also touched on the irony of campus activists demanding safe spaces while condoning violence against Jews. In addition, we dissected the "decolonization framework" that is currently dominating the narrative and discussed how the social justice left is losing credibility due to anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Eli Lake is the former senior national security correspondent for The Daily Beast and Newsweek. Currently, he is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion and a columnist for The Free Press columnist and host of The Re-Education podcast.

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In this episode of Unspeakable, Meghan Daum talks with veteran television writer Rob Long about the state of the entertainment industry. They discuss the Hollywood writers' strike, which according to Rob, mainly resulted in pay raises but didn't address systemic issues for writers. Rob and Meghan also discuss how streaming services like Netflix made a mistake trying to compete with studios by producing expensive original content, when they could have thrived by simply buying content.

Rob also shares some perspectives on how "Sound of Freedom" became such a box office hit despite scoffing from Hollywood elites. He also shares his view on what the future looks like for the entertainment industry and how TV writers' rooms have lost the plot when it comes to hiring quality talent.

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Rob Long is a writer and producer in Hollywood. He began his career on Cheers, serving as co-executive producer. He was the creator and executive producer of The Texanist and showrunner of Kevin Can Wait. He co-founded the podcast network Ricochet and hosts the podcast Martini Shot with The Ankler. He is a contributing editor for National Review, as well as a contributor to TIME, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times, and his books include Conversations with My Agent and Bigly: Donald Trump in Verse. He continues working in film and TV in LA and New York.

Find Rob at The Ankler, Commentary, and on Twitter at @rcbl.

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This week, Meghan interrupts her regularly scheduled episode lineup for a visit from Ben Appel, a New York-based writer who's working on a book about ideological capture on college campuses. In 2016, Ben enrolled at Columbia University as a non-traditional student. Already in his 30s, he'd grown up in a cult-like Christian fundamentalist community that pelted him with homophobia; he considered himself firmly on the political left. But the politics he encountered on campus shocked him, especially many aspects of the Palestinian liberation movement. In this conversation, Ben describes what he encountered there, particularly in classes taught by famed Islamic scholars.

In the bonus portion for paying subscribers, Ben stays overtime and talks about the ideas he explored in his 2022 viral Newsweek article, The New Homophobia. He and Meghan discuss the ways in which the new gender movement takes gay people and tries to fit them into a transgender box, all in the service of the same stereotypes that progressives spent so many years fighting.

Ben Appel is a writer living in New York. His memoir, Cis White Gay: The Making of a Gender Heretic, with Bombardier Books, is forthcoming. His work has appeared in Newsweek, Spiked, Daily Mail, Washington Examiner, Queer Majority, and UnHerd.

Follow him on Substack here.

And follow him on Twitter (or X) here.

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Today's guest, Dr. Andrew Hartz, is a psychologist who has noticed how politicized the world of therapy has become. Over the last few years, he has noticed a climate of patients not being able to talk about what's on their mind without getting a lecture from their therapist about racial injustice, as well as an environment that teaches clinicians to look at patients through a politicized lens.

Dr. Andrew Hartz's is a clinical psychologist who holds the position of a professor of clinical psychology at Long Island University in Brooklyn. Hartz received training at Columbia Medical Center, Mount Sinai Hospital, and the William Alanson White Institute, and has completed coursework at Columbia University, Columbia Medical Center, Haverford College, and Long Island University. He uses evidence-based tools from CBT, DBT, and psychodynamic psychotherapies to address the unique needs of each patient.

He is also the founder of The Open Therapy Institute which offers mental health resources for overlooked patient populations in a heated political atmosphere.

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Ethan Strauss went from working seven days a week and falling asleep on the train to Coney Island to one of the most popular sports newsletters on Substack.

He visited The Unspeakable and we talked about sports media and how it has been captured by elite media and lost touch with its core audience as a result. We also talk about the difference between men's and women's sports when it comes to business and marketing and who is driving the voice of sports institutions.

In the bonus, we talk about Ethan's age (obviously), and his article "All Hail The Model," which reveals his secrets to success but gave me anxiety.

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Ethan Strauss is a sports writer and podcaster and the eponymous host of House of Strauss.

His career has followed the NBA where he blogged his way about the Golden State Warriors to jobs at Bleacher Report and ESPN. He has bylines in Salon and The Athletic.

Even if you don't follow sports, listen to his podcast and follow his Substack. It's incredible.

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