June Bonus: Breaking Down the Latest Anti-Trans Victory Lap

K

Hello

I'm super late to the party and may have only joined your patreon just to send you a note. Thank you thank you thank you for what you were doing on this podcast. The topics you have dived into have helped me to be a better mom to my trans teen and to understand her journey better. You've helped me to understand that I've been lied to and manipulated and that all I really need to do is take good care of my little girl and since we live in a very transcritical state, it means I have to jump through some very fiery Hoops to support her in the ways she needs. I'm willing to do it and I appreciate your perspective on this topic. You're helping me to parent my girl the way she needs me to. Thank you so much and please keep on with your critiques. You're helping to keep us sane

This has been such a good series. I'll admit, I was pretty clueless when it came to all of the anti trans stuff going on.

That first air horn sounded like the first note of Taps, which put a totally different spin on Mike’s conclusion to me, but I liked it. Wonderful, important episode. Thanks for being methodology queens!

Finally scraped together enough mental health points to listen to this and the two main-feed ROGD episodes. Can't tell you how exhausting, miserable and soul-destroying it is living in the UK as a trans/nb person. Anyway, thanks for covering all of this with compassion and humour. Made me smile despite living on this wretched bloody island. <3

Maybe I’m just being impatient, but I got an email about a new episode today, but it’s not here or on MP after Dark—although it is available for paid Apple subscribers?!?

homeopathy ep pls! ♥️

On the off chance Michael reads this—my dude! People with adhd tend to experience more physical aches and pains than the general population. There’s research on this. This is relevant to you because you seem to have a lot of the traits of adhd, including the rapid speech, hyperfocus, and even the jittery energy you’re always joking about. As a person with adhd, can confirm that the meds help with my physical pain a LOT. Maybe you don’t need ibuprofen, maybe you need stimulants! It’s worth at least checking out, imo, with a doctor who can actually diagnose you. Hope this helps. I try to lend a hand to my fellow actual/perceived neurodivergents whenever I can.

Since you guys are less specifically focused on the diet industry and more focused on public health stuff recently, I’m requesting an episode about cyclist/ pedestrian deaths. One of my friends was just killed riding her bike home in Philly, and it’s baffling to me how we seem to just accept this as the cost of doing business. I know Mike is a bike guy, so please take this comment as a request to finally rant about bike lanes

Great episode as always, so glad yall are out there bringing sense and compassion to these topics. My only nit pick in 100 episodes is how Mike pronounced the Uvalde town name 😅

we NEED a twin study episode

Just here to add that the new UK health secretary has confirmed that he intends to pursue with banning puberty blockers for trans kids (if he’s able to, pending an ongoing court process). It’s frustrating and devastating; kids will die as a result of this (and sadly have already). If we ever thought that a Labour government would be more progressive on trans rights it looks like that absolutely isn’t the case. I hope it’s ok to mention the Good Law Project here; they have an ongoing fundraiser to fight this potential ban and are doing some excellent work in this regard.

Not me seeing an op-ed in the New York Times this morning titled “Why is the US Still Pretending We Know Gender-Affirming Care Works?” that cites the Cass report favorably 3 paragraphs in and wondering why on earth this garbage is allowed to print…I hope Pamela Paul is ashamed of herself for this.

Reminds me of the PACE Trial, a flawed trial that “treated”ME/CFS with exercise and CBT. Also British.

Please do an episode on why twin studies suck!! Would love to learn about that.

I've be re-listening to the RFK-episodes and holy sh*t, the "vaccines-cause-autism" part is IDENTICAL to the rapid onset gender dysphoria stuff! 🤯

Given the recent push for Ozempic that's been discussed on this podcast, I think it's really interesting how 2/3 of patients discontinuing therapy within one year is still evidence that it's a drug that EVERYONE NEEDS TO TAKE but 3/4 studies showing that medical interventions for trans people are generally positive is ✨️i n c o n c l u s i v e✨️ 🤦‍♂️

"I only got like 40 minutes of throat left, I'm trying to get as much out of it as I can" -Michael Hobbe's Grindr profile, probably

Omg PLEASE I need a Maintenance Phase x If Books Could Kill crossover episode for A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century. There was some light transphobia pretty early on, and now we’ve graduated to fluoride, sunscreen, and vitamin D trutherism!! I’m not even a third of the way in.

Having seen my own child through transition, I was chatting with a nurse at my doctor’s office, and she confided that she is holding back on allowing her child to do the same. I felt so sad and also too fatigued to be the source of her education, so I’m going to send her this episode as one of the resources to help her shift. 🩷

Thank you for this episode, I can't believe Hilary Cass has been nominated for a peerage!

That part about the ‘risks’ of social transition was chilling. Cass suggests that a child ‘who might have desisted in puberty’ is more likely to proceed to medical interventions if they socially transition first. Cass is quietly taking for granted that the preferred outcome is for a kid to desist. Yikes. Don’t non-affirmed kids sometimes desist just because they’re being relentlessly gaslit and bullied? Does that matter here, or does Cass just want kids to stop being trans?

I am considering downloading grinder just to see Michael's beard.

PLEASE DO THE TWINS STUDY EPISODE!! 🙏

I love how this episode has real "...and ANOTHER thing!" energy

Thanks for another amazing episode! I'm not sure if you've seen the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls' report on "prostitution" that came out last month? Might not be totally relevant to your themes but I'd love an episode in general about these types of positions and the reports they present. The current SR VAW is incredibly anti-sex work as work and also very transphobic and yet she is given this position that gives her so much power. The report may not have much impact now but will be trotted out many times in the future to justify why sex workers shouldn't have fundamental human rights. The roport is also awful in the citation department so think you'd enjoy from that perspective 😅

Please do a whole episode on why Mike hates smoothies

“idk how detailed this is gonna be” with 1:01 left. iconic

I really appreciate how you researched and broke the parts of this subject down. Studies can be so biased and it’s important to recognize when they are. I’ve always thought it’s so simple that validating who someone is will improve their mental health. I wish society more readily accepted everyone.

The sad/neutral air horn got me 💀

My favorite part of this episode is that my two year old is actually fairly certain that people get their hair cut at the doctor

As an identical twin who’s been recruited for twin studies myself (never took part bc my twin didn’t want to) I would love an episode on them!

This podcast: "We really gotta cut down on tagents" Also this podcast: "Do you know what they call Tic-Tac-Toe in the UK?"

The author of the cass report needs a lesson on statistical vs. clinical significance

Yo, but the hearing aid struggle is real. I have dialed mine down many times in various situations.

Yall are a national treasure. Thanks for this.

I had to stop what I was doing as I listened to the puberty blocker mental health bit. Hearing the results around reducing suicidality moved me, I run a harm reduction suicide peer group and the loneliness of being left with suicidal feelings and thoughts is something I think about a lot. I can't believe the NHS and those involved in creating the Cass report have been allowed to behave those way to block access to gender affirmative care and I support the young people occupying the NHSe building right now. What a mess the bigots have made.

lol I thought the air horn was the beginning of “Taps” for the end of debate.

Absolutely appreciate your breakdown of this. Though I will say as a trans person it's kind of funny for hormones to be described as an irreversible change considering, you know, people transition in both directions. (Obviously some effects need more steps than just different hormones to reverse but it's clearly possible). But also medicalizing social transition is astonishingly absurd, wow. It's like my boss asking me if wearing black nail polish around Halloween meant I was detransitioning.

I appreciate so much you talking about study quality in this episode. We recently did a systematic review on the use of aspirin to prevent colorectal cancer and there’s some evidence that it might do so. But we also found that the study quality is really low and that aspirin causes GI bleeding. Despite all that, there are still medical recommendations to take a daily aspirin to prevent CRC. So tell me why studies on medical care for trans kids are disqualified if they are low quality or if there are any side effects at all. The game is up.

Every time Mike talks about his wack skeleton, it reminds me of how I thought about my body before getting diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos

Jack Cass Report. Over and out.

Given today's SCOTUS decision, I don't have a lot of hope for things improving before they get much worse. Protect those meat and dear to you because our leaders just got permission to do as they please.

Great episode (as always)♥️ @Mike: If you need to process all the bigotry, then I can recommend the transatlantic call-in show on YouTube. Here well research trans people take calls from US and UK. It is always satisfying to see some trans people punching back and exposing bad arguments from bigots😋

/screams in queer therapist

“Can you smell what The Gordon is Googling?”

Here for the twin studies episode! I love those ones that are like, both twins married women called Christine and hate tomatoes!

The podcast that fully maps the transphobe and smoothie devotee Venn diagram crossover! This is such a moral panic issue here in the UK. Very few people are trans and it's nearly impossible for them to get any treatment. It's really hard for cis people to get treatment right now because the NHS has been critically underfunded for decades. It seems like nothing but cruelty to make things deliberately harder for people who are not having it easy in the first place.

Y'all know where I'm at at this topic so thanks for putting my incandescent rage into words so I don't have to. Getting real tired of my non-binary gender being cited as to why people don't "need" medical transition as happened with that pull quote. Glad I chose to support this patreon. <3

Thank you so much for making this and releasing it on the main feed too. I have been waiting for the cis people I respect who debunk misinformation to talk about the Cass report, and so far you're the only ones who have.

As an American who recently moved to the UK, I am rapidly developing a physical cringe response to all these small treatment numbers. (I have been here three months and I have yet to get continuations of literally any prescription including basic birth control. The concept of getting 14 appointments sounds even more bonkers now than it did when I was in America)

I learned from a friend in Northern Ireland that they call tic-tac-toe "Exies Ohsies"

I would LOVE to see that Peer Pressure Girl comic!

No tangents? Good thing this isn't the "Fuck Saw" episode!

I’d also be curious if ‘social Transitioning’ being policed would then fall into gendered clothing wearing/ purchasing? If female presenting are shopping in men’s section, or male presenting are shopping in women’s section, what happens then?

as someone currently dealing with a mom's for liberty transphobe terrorizing my community, I appreciate you putting so much focus on debunking these BS myths about the trans experience.

What ever happened to the podcast dedicated to fat-phobia? Ozempic isn’t the final word on this subject.

The foghorn airhorm 😂😂😂😂

I feel like we need a picture of Mike’s Covid beard.

Aubrey accidentally playing a fog horn sound was so goddamn funny

It's really refreshing to hear informed cis people discuss this topic. I feel like no matter how much evidence I bring to a conversation around this stuff I get dismissed for "pro trans bias". Talking abt the Cass reports need to call conversion therapy something more palatable I went to "exploratory therapy" as a teen at the behest of my at the time TERFy mother and spent most of the time being told that since my symptoms of dysphoria weren't perfectly aligned in the DSM I couldn't possibly be trans and probably just had BPD by a psych for a year.

When are we getting the Maintenance Phase / If Books Pod crossover? There's got to be so many books that belong on both shows.

Uh...just wanna say I've been nonbinary my whole life and not a porn fan so 🤷 Thank you, Mike and Aubrey, for these episodes on trans issues. My social circle is very small and it feels warm and reassuring to be included in your conversations.

Somewhat off-topic, but please, for the sake of my AuDHD brain, could you ease down on the sound effects? I feel like a bunch of podcasters I was following got the novelty of sound effects out of their systems years ago, and you're only just discovering them. :P Not sure my brain can cope with this discovery phase though 😵😵😵

Would love an episode on the 75 Hard diet and Andy Frisella. Has such great tie-in with If Books Could Kill, since you have to read a self-help book every day as part of the diet.

Thank you so much for breaking all this down. I hope Mike feels better soon! Covid sucks.

Also about the social transition nonsense, what pisses me off the most about people saying that social transition leads to medical intervention..... Like yes??? Ask any trans person who has received medical intervention, the doctors will always say to transition socially before receiving any medical care, as social transition is more easily reversible?? I've never heard of a doctor giving someone medication before they've ever socially transitioned !?

i'd adore a bonus episode about the 2000s British sitcom 'Fat Friends.' it's a show about a group of, you guessed it, fat friends who meet each other via a 'slimming club' -- i came across it on netflix about a month ago, expecting nothing but the worst, but have been incredibly pleasantly surprised at how funny and human it is (fat people having relationships, dealing with anti-fatness, speaking up for themselves and each other?!?!) despite the early noughties diet-speak. i've been watching for weeks and am guiltily addicted and would LOVE to hear your thoughts!

We call Parcheesi 'Ludo'. Thanks for sharing! This episode makes me feel less alone in a nation that thinks this shit is a mic drop.

I’d love to get a bonus episode about something silly, similar to the one about the Bachelor. I’m noticing I’m kind of burning out on these deep dives into complicated situations

I would like a bonus episode on ‘ultra processed food.’ It seems like another one of those things that seems like a simple ‘fix’ for obesity but I think it just perpetuates existing inequalities 🙃 but I would welcome your well-researched and considered thoughts!

Thank you for hammering the awful changes in policy over here in the UK. I've watched a very young person come into a world that was accepting of his trans identity (he's five years old) and in four years become a place where when he's taken to A&E for urgent treatment on an unrelated issue, the admitting team say that if he comes back there, his mum will have to be reported to the police because he's 'claiming to be a boy and they need to check he's not being abused'. WTAF - he had earache! I had no idea we were moving so fast in a bad direction and you've inspired me to vote in our General Election for the party that offers trans people some decent policies.

I am sure y’all are as over this topic and person as possible but… the follow-up, streaming-only Oprah episode to her ABC-special Ozempic episode? Needs a DEBRIEF. More so, thank you always for everything and the space you give every one of these topics. Sure, I could use more “Girl Wash Your Face”-esque takedowns as the politics of the era overtake my soul but everything you do is gold. So appreciate your time, care, and attention. Take care of yourselves!

I'm mum to a trans daughter. She's age 23, I do worry for her sometimes. It makes me so sad and angry that there's so much hatred out there. It's taken her a long time to get where she is today.

Aubrey we all 100% know who Ron DeSantis is.

It doesn’t feel like it would be enough for an episode but I really want to know where the idea came from that drinking lemon juice in water every morning was the best way to start your day.

Michael, I thought I had my player on 1.5x speed! Make sure you rest and get well soon!

I know Mike listens to media at 2x speed, but I could swear he's recording at 2x in this episode! Really appreciate this one, and glad it's going up on the main feed.

I've heard you mention Noom, but never heard an episode about it

How about taking on Skinny Bitch? The book that launched a thousand eating disorders. It came up in the subreddit this week and I had almost forgotten how much orthorexic hell it wrought on my own mental health at a tender formative time.

Thank you so much for these last couple episodes! It is heartbreaking the hatred that is being spread against Trans people, and I appreciate you always speaking up to support marginalized communities! I wish we could all just let people be people and have autonomy over their own bodies! I also have a bonus episode request: Could you do an episode on GERD? All I ever hear for advice on GERD from doctors is "Take omeprozole. Also, don't be on it forever because it will kill you. Also stay on it because if you don't you'll get throat cancer from reflux. Also, if you want to get off the pills, the only way is to lose weight." Which makes me very frustrated. I found this article about some dude who started swallowing some of his food while he was in an upside-down position and he said it cured his GERD (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9106553/). I was curious if there is any validity to this, or if there are any other actual practical things people can do to help GERD. And also, so many people I know have acid reflux... is it like an aging thing, is it like something about our food supply? Can we prevent it from happening? I am just so curious and think it would make for an interesting episode! Also, the article is kinda fun.

Would love to see a recommended reading list with these episodes!

Let's finally get that bonus episode on the cabbage soup diet. Or down to learn about the nonsense behind the anti-seed oil folks