In February of 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was reaching Canada, a large Montreal women’s agency fired Valérie Pelletier because of allegedly “transphobic” posts on her personal Facebook account.
In this episode, Sasha and M.K. discuss the story of Valerie Pelletier, who was fired from a Canadian women’s organization last year for expressing her gender critical views outside of work. Valerie went public with the details of her story on May 14th, in an interview with Plebity. They discuss the ins and outs of the story, what we think of it, and why this is so ominous for free speech and women only spaces.
Bad data generates bad research; bad research generates bad treatments; bad treatments generate bad outcomes.
Aaron Terrell is a transman who is critical of gender identity ideology and the trans movement, as well as other elements of woke/identitarian culture. He joins me for a chat about his new Substack, Trans Trending, the comparisons he makes between the religious elements of gender ideology and his own evangelical upbringing, as well as AGP men, the distinction between true transphobia and the oft-thrown accusation of it, and much more.
In 2015, I lost my mother to suicide only a few weeks after being fired from what I believed was my dream job. At a time when I already lacked stability, I suddenly had to step up and help provide for my family.
While everyone’s situation is unique, and I’ve certainly enjoyed some privileges that have aided my ability to bounce back each time, these are the skills that have helped me survive the immediate aftermath of being cancelled.
This week we follow up our discussion on the Arkansas bill, which banned transition procedures for minors, with a discussion about teenage social contagions. We talk about how the social contagion of our teen years was self-harm, and the tragic fact that today's contagion—rapid onset gender dysphoria—cannot be outgrown if taken too far.
One side — my side — starts with the foundational assumption that everyone, trans or not, is first and foremost to be treated as an individual, no more or less equally deserving of respect than any other individual, and then builds from there. Of course I understand how much sensitivity there is in the transgender community about, say, pronouns. I’m a gay man; I’m deeply embedded in the gay community. I even worked at a trans bar back in the day. But I don’t take it as religious doctrine that anyone who simply claims to be a transgender woman is one — I don’t believe in gender religion and I reserve the right to have my own beliefs about anyone — and I don’t take it as law that I have to abide anyone’s pronouns. I aim to be respectful, but it’s case-by-case, and I’m the judge.
Suicide is a national public health crisis. It's also preventable, and there are things we know from decades of public research that can either increase the risk of suicide or decrease it. In the wake of a series of new bills in Arkansas meant to address the gender identity crisis in sports, medicine, and schools, trans "advocates" are foreshadowing an impending epidemic of suicide among trans-identifying youth. In doing so, they are flying in the face of all known research on preventing suicide, and quite possibly creating the very problem they claim they've set out to solve.
In this episode we talk about two Arkansas bills—HB1570 and HB1749—both of which pertain to minors undergoing gender transition. The first bill we discuss, HB 1570, titled the "Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act" prohibits medical gender procedures for minors (these include puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and a variety of surgeries). We discuss what the bill actually says, and cover some of the misinformation that's been propagated about it by various sources.