WTW87: The New York Times Pride Hate Crime, Part 2

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:03 Clip: What's so scary about the woke mob? How often you just don't see them coming. Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism and you see woke principles being pushed. Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic hands down. The woke monster is here and it's coming for everything.

0:00:33 Clip: Instead of go-go boots, the seductress green M&M will now wear sneakers.

0:00:42 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke. This is episode 87. I'm Thomas Smith. That over there is Lydia Smith. How are you doing?

0:00:48 Lydia: Hi, Wokies. I missed my Wokis. So happy to be here. So happy to talk to all of you and so happy that we're getting these out. A couple of my favorite ones for sure. I know we talked about that last episode, but I gotta agree. I gotta agree

0:01:03 Thomas: Yeah, I'm really excited for people to hear part two. This is, again, this is something that we were and are still very fired up about and I can't get over, I can never get over it. Die mad, as they say. I will die mad. I'll die mad about how easy it is to get a New York Times column. Just super easy. That's the thing they think DEI is. I say it all the time.

0:01:21 Thomas: The thing they They think diversity, the thing they think affirmative action is, is actually just if you're conservative, then you get to just, yeah, if you whine enough, you're conservative enough and you maybe sometimes you have a marginalized identity. That helps, too, because then they get to take advantage of that and then they get fast tracked in The New York Times, even though it would be one thing if they're like talented, you know, but it's just garbage, just absolute garbage. So much so that we had to do two parts on it. And here's part two. So when we last left our hero, he was yelling, he's talking about some other reason why the gay rights movement has gone too far for him personally. You know, these damn kids and their music.

0:01:17 Lydia: And whiny enough. Yeah. Yeah, yep. Yep. Get off my lawn. Yeah.

0:01:59 Thomas: It's that. Yeah, it's more getting off my lawn, yelling at clouds. And this one centers around use of language. So we're going to pick right up after the break with his qualms about the use of English in the new iteration of gay rights, which should have folded after it won. So dumb so fucking dumb anyway please support the show patreon.com/wheretherewoke and get the bonus we are going to put out after this about sydney sweeney and the race wars and the what the woke mob is up to this

0:02:19 Lydia: You should have dissolved the movement.

0:02:32 Thomas: Time around Sydney Sweeney I can't wait to talk about that we're going to do it for patrons over patreon.com/wheretherewoke support the show like I said last time we're gonna get our butts in gear more on this show I miss it I want to do it more we've made changes we're making changes and we've made changes to workloads so that we can actually get get back to this content because I think it really is the forefront of where we are. This anti -woke crap is not going away. And I feel like single -handedly we need to take it on and point out that the anti -woke is actually the woke. It's this reversed full circle. They're the whining little babies whining about everything. Not that there ever was a woke mob in the sense that they mean it, but the thing, just like the affirmative action thing, the thing they're actually thinking of is them. Anyway, all that is to say, we're getting back into the swing of things and we're going to try and include some video content as well, because

0:02:32 Lydia: Yeah, you're not wrong. Yeah? Yeah.

0:03:16 Thomas: So much of this stuff would be very very good in video because we're talking about videos oftentimes, not in this one, but in like in the Sydney Sweeney one, for example. And so we're excited to get more stuff out to you. Thanks to those who stuck with us and looking forward to more in the month of August. So with that said, you can avoid the break you're about to hear at patreon.com/wheretherewoke and get the Sydney Sweeney bonus. Everyone else, here's an ad, and then we'll pick right back up with this pile of crap, New York times.

0:03:39 Lydia: No Sydney Sweeney for you.

0:03:41 Thomas: Damn, I need to pledge now.

0:03:49 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:03:49 Lydia: All right. Quote, queer was a way of summing up the new regime, a clear sign that this really was a different movement than the gay, lesbian and transgender civil rights movement of the past. It's a word that can easily trigger gay men over 40 who remember it as the last slur they once heard before being bashed in the head. But one of the striking aspects of the younger queer generation is their disdain for those who came before them. I don't know.

0:04:11 Thomas: What? What do you give me proof of of that because that's a big claim. Hey, the people who are fighting for queer rights right now, they hate me and are mad at me or something. They disdain. Give me proof of that. Give me an example. What is that? What's the example? Give me a fucking example. Do they actually have disdaint for people who, quote, came before them or do they have disдain for you who's trying to shut the fucking door on them because you got your rights and you don't want anyone else to have theirs?

0:04:36 Lydia: Mm -hmm. Mm -huh. Right.

0:04:36 Thomas: Is that what they actually hate? And I'm not going to take any part in this conversation by way of expressing an opinion on groups, reappropriating things that were once slurs against them. I have no opinion on that because I'm not part of that group. My opinion is pointless. Doesn't matter. But just to say what's happening here, there are groups and black people have done this to other groups where they have reappropriated for themselves words that were once offensive that are still often still slurs. Yeah.

0:05:05 Lydia: I've seen it too with like the F word for gay people too, like trying to take it back.

0:05:09 Thomas: I don't take any part in that because those aren't my groups. I'm not, those words don't belong to me. I don'T use them in that way. And I could go ahead, like if someone in those groups said, hey, I'm kind of uncomfortable with that because like I've heard that as a slur a lot. I'm like, hey, I have empathy for that.

0:05:23 Thomas: I'm NOT the decider of that in any way, of course, but I have sympathy for that, I could see that being weird. Like I actually have long thought like, yeah, I might be a little uncomfortable with that just because these words can really hurt. And I know that's a debate within communities often and fine. You know, Andrew Sullivan is a gay man. And he's welcome, obviously, to this opinion. His opinion on this is valid. If he doesn't want to hear that, I understand that. But there's other people who are in the queer movement who are like Andrew Sullivan, who are gay, who are trans, who were bi or whatever, and they have a different view on that.

0:05:23 Lydia: Mm -mm. Mm -hum. Yeah.

0:05:53 Thomas: And that's kind of how that goes. And I'm sure if you were in conversation with them and they ever referred to you, Andrew, in a way that you didn't like, if they called you queer and you said, hey, I don't, I just, I've been called that too. Yeah, I'm I am one million percent positive they would respect that. That's an interpersonal thing that you could express and that would be valid. I would I'd be like, OK, that's, you know, if it were me, I'd be like do my best to remember that, obviously. And I won't I'll respect that

0:06:04 Lydia: Mm -him. It feels derogatory to me. Yeah. Mm -hun. Yep.

0:06:19 Thomas: This is not a some way to take down a whole movement. This is you have a different opinion than what seems like kind of a majority. I think queer has been embraced. This is, again, not my not my value judgment. This is just my observation. I think it's kind of been widely embraced by the community. And I think it's great for what that's worth. It's just a nice, like, all -encompassing word that I think really does get at the important thing that this is a movement against rigid, fascistic, hegemonic, Christian, what's the ultimate word I'm looking for? Enforcement of gender rules, enforcement of sexuality, enforcement of marriage in the way they want to see.

0:06:34 Lydia: Mm -mun. Mm -human. Mm hmm.

0:06:58 Thomas: For that reason, again, I want to emphasize my opinion's not important, but just because I'm here, I like the word queer in that way because I think it really does effectively capture all of it together. It's very inclusive. Yeah.

0:07:11 Lydia: Well, it embraces difference for the sake of difference, right?

0:07:16 Thomas: Right.

0:07:16 Lydia: Like that's something that makes our world more beautiful is everyone being different.

0:07:19 Thomas: And it's so inclusive because guess what?

0:07:21 Lydia: It is.

0:07:21 Thomas: If there's a group who's protesting for queer rights, let's say, and let's see, you've got a gay man, you're a lesbian, you got a bisexual person, and you've got a trans person and if you say no what we actually need to say is gay well guess what the trans person is gonna be like I'm not gay like they might be completely straight the trans person might not be at all gay and not not really identify with that word and same goes for non -binary people like I don't know like they Might define themselves differently and so queer is a way of capturing all of that it strikes me as way more inclusive so that that's how it comes comes across to me. But I would grant that his opinion on this is valid and he should express that opinion. And I'm sure on an interpersonal level, anyone in this movement would recognize that. Like if he's in any situation where he expresses like, hey, I'm not comfortable with that word, I am positive they'd be fine with it. But you don't get to police the words for everybody else, regardless of if you're in this group, you know, like that's just not how anything works. Like you can have your opinion. That's your opinion, man.

0:08:22 Lydia: As I watched all this radical change, I wondered if I was just another old fart shaking my fist at the sky like every older generation known to man. Why not just accept that then? Yeah.

0:08:32 Thomas: And just Yeah, just end of article. Why not just end your article right there?

0:08:36 Lydia: Yeah, I wanted to.

0:08:37 Thomas: Sorry, I finished that sentence.

0:08:37 Lydia: I am back to reading everybody. This is not me opining on Andrew Sullivan. Why not? Just accept that the next gay and lesbian generation has new ideas, has moved on. And old timers like me should just move aside and

0:08:49 Thomas: That one paragraph could have been your article. And in fact, it's not an article. That could have Been what you wrote in your diary and then fucking didn't. Yeah. And I obviously I have disdain for Andrew Sullivan, but I have even more disdaint for the New York Times because Andrew Sullivan is going to Andrew Sullivan. I get it. If someone's going to give him a fucking platform to write his bullshit, you know, he's going to take it. I disagree with it and he sucks. But like, what is the New York Times doing? Just fucking what are you doing?

0:08:56 Lydia: No one else need to see it. Just do that in therapy. Yeah.

0:09:16 Lydia: And some of the changes are indeed welcome. The greater acceptance of trans people is a huge step forward for all of us. But then, as I told my friends, gay, trans, and everyone else, I'd always believed this and always supported trans civil rights. I was glad when five years ago the Supreme Court gave transgender people civil rights protection and employment.

0:09:23 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Oh, is it? And look, don't have time to go into it now. But Bostock has been quietly limited and it hasn't been reversed or anything yet, but it's been limited and kind of like carved away at chipped away out in the same way that, you know, Roberts likes to do with all of our fundamental rights over time. Although this is much quicker. I mean, it's weird to do that to something that's four years old. But yeah, Bostock is very simple minded and naive to look at Bostok as some like ironclad protection that like that should that save trans people all great now. Not true. It was a very nice, surprising, positive decision that ever since then the court has chipped away at.

0:09:42 Lydia: I've also long lived in a gay world that is skewed left, and along with my fellow gay non -lefties, I've made my peace with it, or tried to. But this new ideology, I believed, was different. Like many gays and lesbians, and a majority of everybody else, I simply didn't buy it. I didn't and don't believe that being a man or a woman has nothing to do with biology.

0:10:34 Thomas: Man. No one else does either.

0:10:35 Lydia: Yeah. My sexual orientation is based on a biological distinction between men and women. Men I'm attracted to the former and not to the latter and now and now I'm supposed to believe the difference doesn't exist well

0:10:43 Thomas: I can smell their alleles. I can. I just know. No, you're not supposed to believe that. There's definitely differences. There are differences, broadly speaking, between men and women biologically. Trans men have more in common with cis men, though. And that's just you can look at the science. You can have a curious mind and look at The Science Of. It's really interesting. But no, no one thinks that biology is irrelevant to all of this. No one thinks that's a straw man argument.

0:11:10 Lydia: Yeah because sex is different than gender is different than sexual orientation is different then like these are all separate ideas and entities

0:11:16 Thomas: Yeah. And again, in the same way that eliminating rigid enforcement of the gender binary does not mean getting rid of men and getting rid of women in that same way, saying, hey, biology is not determinative. Biology is not the only thing. Biology is not fate. That's what I understand the movement to be. And you can find people who take a, you know, kind of a more further out view that like, oh, no, no, there's no such thing as gender or sex or whatever. And you might be able to find those people. I don't really agree with that. I think I think it's pretty common in human parlance and dealings to say, well, vast majority of people fall within this range here. Like it tends to be people tend to be cis. Like that's just how it tends zu be. But importantly, that's a tendency. It's not 100 percent. And it doesn't fucking take anything away from me if other people aren't cis. Is. It just doesn't at all. It adds to our world. And this has been the same bullshit for decades, the same bullsh**. You just take the most extreme version you can think of, assign that as like, that's the monotheistic view or whatever of

0:12:23 Thomas: Everybody in this movement. I would be curious to ask my trans friends or anyone in the movement, like, do you think that being a man or a woman has nothing to do with biology? Like there's, I mean, I guess you could be pedantic and be like, Like because it isn't determinative, then therefore it has nothing to do with it. But I don't really, that's not how I would think of it. I would Think like, yeah, no, there's definitely a big overlap. It definitely overlaps, but it's not determinative.

0:12:45 Lydia: I just think like all of it is so vapid or it is disingenuous like Like, those are the only two options, because to think that the brain is not complex, to think that biology is not complete, to not be able to think about the world, to be able to think complex, that genetics is not complex, to think that culture is not complex, to think that society is not complex, like, you'd have to be an absolute idiot to genuinely believe that. And I don't think he is. I think he's disingenuous and weaponizing this language to stoke fear among the readers. Like, end of story.

0:13:21 Lydia: I'm more than happy to accept that there are some people, not all that many, who don't fit in that binary and want to be protected from discrimination and allowed full access to medical interventions.

0:13:28 Thomas: Once again, a thing you could have just written in your diary and not written this article. Yeah.

0:13:33 Lydia: Yeah, then why are we here? In order to live lives that are true to who they are. And I'm with them all the way.

0:13:40 Thomas: Really?

0:13:41 Lydia: Okay.

0:13:41 Thomas: Did someone else write this part?

0:13:43 Lydia: Yeah.

0:13:43 Thomas: Hey, just butting in here. I'm going to write a paragraph for him.

0:13:47 Lydia: After all, I too am a part of a minority. Most people live their lives governed by heterosexual desires.

0:13:53 Thomas: Privileged assholes who get to write in the New York Times. Oh, no. Sorry.

0:13:56 Lydia: Thanks to the gay and lesbian movement, I'm not being asked to.

0:14:00 Thomas: No, no, we got to stop on that paragraph. Sorry. I get that they often do the hand wavy, whatever you call it, where they're like, look, I'm the last person who's a racist or whatever the fuck it might be. But like, it's actually kind of funny how far he goes. Like he goes so far as to completely contradict the entire point of his article. Because I would have just assumed he's like, look, I'm cool with, you know, if people kind of want to quietly be trans, but I don't want to hear about it. Like I kind of assume that's what he's getting at with all this, but he's saying he accepts that their people don't fit in that binary and they want to be protected from discrimination and allowed full access to medical interventions. Are you kidding me? Then what, why is this? And I'm with them all the way. Why is this the fucking article you're writing? How about you write about how the New York Times Times and like so many people, along with the New York fucking Times itself, have fundamentally undermined trans people's right to the medical care they deserve. That's what you should be writing about then, I guess, because if this is the thing you're hand waving at, like, oh, look, I support that. Oh, really? Because that's completely under threat now. We're at risk of losing that fucking everywhere. And you're going to include that as part of your. Of course, you know, of course, like I'm in favor of like this stuff that's about we're about to lose. But that's not important right now. Now, what's important is the people whose rights are about to be taken away have at times been a little annoying. Like that's the article you're writing? Stupid.

0:15:22 Lydia: But abolishing the sex binary for the entire society? Nobody's doing that.

0:15:24 Thomas: I don't know. It's stupid. No one's doing that.

0:15:28 Lydia: That's a whole other thing entirely. And madness, I believe.

0:15:32 Thomas: I agree. I don'T think we're going to be able to do that. I will never. I agree like there's no we're not going to do. It's just stupid to even think about that. It's like fighting.

0:15:40 Lydia: I know. This is the dumbest paragraph I've ever seen in my life.

0:15:42 Thomas: Yeah, here we go. Ready, everybody?

0:15:43 Lydia: What if I redefined what it is to be heterosexual and imposed it on straight people, or changed what it means to be a man or a woman for that matter, then it ceases to be accommodation of a minority and becomes a society -wide revolution, an overreach that would soon lead to a potent and sane backlash against not just trans people, but gay men and lesbians as

0:16:02 Thomas: Potent insane backlash. Hey, I'm going to educate you, Andrew Sullivan, because apparently we weren't there for the the gay rights movement or something, but they did this exact fucking thing with your movement. Yes. The entire thing was, you can't call it marriage. You can't look, I guess I'm okay.

0:16:11 Lydia: Well with your identity separate but equal

0:16:24 Thomas: The Andrew Sullivan of 2004, which was me, you know, sadly before I grew some sense and learned was, Hey, it's just, you Can't call It marriage. Like I'm cool with them having a thing. You know, they can have a thing. Civil union. That was actually the majority position back then. And it's funny how parallel that is to now. You would be the Andrew Sullivan, who probably, you know, was Andrew Sullivan back then, I don't know how he thought about it then, but like, that was the Andrew Solomon of 2001, 2, 3, 4, around that time that I remember, was, hey, the majority positions, the Hillary Rodham Clinton position, like kind of at times in running for stuff, like the mainstream centrist Dem position was, you Civil unions. Give them civil unions. It's a compromise. But you can't change what it means to be married. You can't changed for everyone what it means to being married. It's the exact same fucking argument, Andrew. It's these same fucking arguments. You can change what means to me married for me. If you gay marry, then I am gay or something. That's what they said. It's fucking line for line identical, except you've now changed gender. Hey, you can change gender for me? No one is. They're not. No one's doing that.

0:17:38 Lydia: The gay rights movement especially in the marriage years had long asked for simple liberal equality and mutual respect live and let live reform not

0:17:50 Thomas: What do we want? Sensible, a little bit of kind of rights. When do we Want It? Whenever you guys are cool with it.

0:17:53 Lydia: Revolution whenever you get around to it yeah

0:17:57 Thomas: That's, now I remember all the marches and the stupid.

0:18:00 Lydia: No one's straight marriage would change if gay marriage arrived we pledged you can bring up your children however you like. We will leave you alone.

0:18:08 Thomas: It's just like when they handed some bricks to people at Stonewall.

0:18:13 Lydia: We will leave your children alone. This is such a like I think he's absorbed this idea that the LGBTQ community should be feared as pedophiles or something like like that language there you know the grooming and like trying to turn people into gay people.

0:18:29 Thomas: They did all of this with gay people. Yeah, they did all this exact stuff. You're just saying the same arguments they did against you, literally you, but you're not seeing that it's the same. I just love this. They were so sensible, those gay people. All they wanted was a little bit of politely some rights. That's why they gift wrapped those bricks and handed them to people at Stonewall. That's what they did. They said, here, here's a brick. That's What they did would anyone like a brick? If you want, it's just so fucking stupid counted.

0:19:02 Lydia: But in the wake of victory LGBTQ GBTQ plus groups reneged on that pledge. They demanded that the entire society change in a fundamental way so that the sex binary no longer counted.

0:19:15 Thomas: Sorry. What does that mean?

0:19:17 Lydia: I don't know.

0:19:17 Thomas: What does That mean? Andrew, Andrew Sullivan, when does your sex binary not get when does it count or not count?

0:19:24 Lydia: Yeah, yeah.

0:19:24 Thomas: Actually, is what I want to know. Do you get like credit at like Target for it or something? Like, what is that? Stupid.

0:19:29 Lydia: Discount. Elementary school children were taught that being a boy or a girl might not have anything to do with their bodies and that.

0:19:38 Thomas: Wait, wait, wait. I remember reading a New York Times article. God, when was it? Oh, 30 seconds ago, where somebody said, who was it, let me quote this New York Times opinion piece I've just read. Man, having a hard time. Oh, yeah. Okay. I think the quote was, I'm more than happy to accept that there are some people who don't fit in that binary and want to to be protected from discrimination. Who was that author?

0:19:59 Lydia: Hmm. Sounds familiar.

0:20:01 Thomas: Oh yeah, it was three paragraphs ago.

0:20:04 Lydia: It was you. You it's

0:20:04 Thomas: So a second ago, you were saying, I accept that X. And now you're saying, but now elementary school children are being taught that X well, but you said you agree with that. So you think this is a fact of our universe, butyou're not allowed to teach kids facts of the universe. Is that? No, it's not here and there. Like it might get incidentally mentioned in a kid's book, But I don't really think they do that much because it's such a they're so scared of the fucking Christian fascist that I wouldn't.

0:20:20 Lydia: Also not part of curriculum like that's just it's stupid yeah well especially not in the wake of my mood v whatever yeah

0:20:35 Thomas: Oh, God. Well, yeah, now it's gone. Now it's. Yeah, exactly. Another well -timed point, Andrew Sullivan.

0:20:38 Lydia: It's gone now elementary school children were taught that being a boy or a girl might not have anything to do with their bodies and that their parents had merely guessed whether they were a boy or girl when they were born okay in fact sex was no No longer to be recognized at birth, it was now merely assigned, penciled in.

0:21:00 Lydia: We got new terms like chest feeding for breastfeeding and birthing parent for mother.

0:21:07 Thomas: I just fuck you so much.

0:21:08 Lydia: He's so deep in like the ex -nonsense. This is stuff that's not normal.

0:21:12 Thomas: But he can't even muster a hyperlink in that paragraph. Nary forget a reference or what? I know they don't do that in opinion pieces because they're just trash at this point. But forget a reference or a citation to something real. He can't even give me a link to a tweet. It's just elementary school children were taught. Which ones? Where? When did that happen? Who won? How did it end? To quote Princess Bride. What are you talking? Where? When? How big of a deal was that? Also, that's correct. Also, they were taught a thing you just said in your article was correct five minutes ago. They're taught a fact. Cool. I like when kids are taught facts. That's good. Isn't that what school is for?

0:21:50 Lydia: Yeah.

0:21:50 Thomas: And nobody says they merely guessed whether you were a boy. Like, again, we're as trans rights friendly as they come. We're fully in support. But, you know, our kids, we just referred to them by the gender that it seems they are until they tell us otherwise and consistent pronouns with us until they tell us. Otherwise, in which case we'll change their pronouns.

0:22:04 Lydia: And consistent pronouns with that. And yeah, right. That's the key point. Until they tell us otherwise and then we listen to them.

0:22:12 Thomas: Yeah, because, you Know, I don't remember the percentages, but it might be like, I don' t know how many people are cis. Isn't it like 99 % of people? You know, it's like, yeah, sure. Plan the odds. But if that doesn't end up being right, guess what? We'll adjust. It's fine. No one cares.

0:22:21 Lydia: Yeah, 98 maybe. Yeah.

0:22:28 Thomas: This isn't a problem for anyone.

0:22:33 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:22:33 Lydia: All right. Time to call out somebody in here. Yes.

0:22:35 Thomas: Here we go. Oh, we're going to get a hyperlink. So I can actually, we can, we Can look at a thing. That's nice.

0:22:38 Lydia: All right. A key leader of this movement, Chase Strangio, informed us that, quote, a penis is not a male body part. It's just an unusual body part for a woman. I think we should stop there so we can look at that. It'S a New York Times article. And then I just searched penis to find it. Yeah, right.

0:22:53 Thomas: I'm going to search. Yeah. I just, I had that saved as a search. So what's funny is, I don't know if this is just a New York times thing, but if you search penis and you get to it, it is. It's actually just referencing a different thing from slate. So it was quoted in this New York Times article, which was probably transphobic shit. I don't know, because it usually is if it's about trans rights or trans people.

0:23:08 Lydia: Well, it was talking about the Scermetti ruling. Yes.

0:23:15 Thomas: Yeah, OK. Well, but no, but it's linking. He elaborated. So, yeah, was it oral arguments or something? What was it?

0:23:20 Lydia: No, this is when it when we lost. Lost. Yeah.

0:23:22 Thomas: Here, let's just read the paragraph. More than 20 LGBTQ rights groups signed on to the messaging plan. The ACLU did not. Strangio, working on an ACLU team suing North Carolina, objected to the framing. According to two people present for this, come on, two people present for the discussion, Strangio disputed that a trans woman could be, quote, born with a male body or born male. In his view, a trans woman was born a woman just like any other woman. There was no such thing as a, quote male body. Strangia told his colleagues, a penis is not a male body part. It's just an unusual body part for a woman. Before the advertisement aired, Strangi elaborated on his critique in an article in Slate. Many advocates defend the use of the born male or born with a male body narrative as being easier for non -transgender people to understand, Strangio wrote. Of course, it is easier to understand since it reinforces deeply entrenched views about what makes a man and what makesa woman. But it is precisely these views that we must change. Okay, so Chase elaborated on it from in 2016.

0:24:25 Lydia: And the position there is that a penis is a body part. And whether or not it is a man's penis or a woman's penis is due to gender identity. Is that what he's getting at there?

0:24:40 Thomas: Chase, as a trans man, has this view and you're free to read it and agree or disagree. Agree. But I also have to point out that the New York Times article was how the transgender rights movement bet on the Supreme Court and lost the inside story of a case that could set the movement back a generation. Boy, way to fucking victim blame you fucking assholes. God damn. I mean, maybe there's something to the legal argument. I feel like I read this at the time. It's a little bit, you know, what is this from? Oh, no, this is recent. Yeah.

0:25:06 Lydia: This is when we lost Scermetti. So just a couple weeks ago.

0:25:09 Thomas: So this is victim blaming bullshit because what happened was people defended trans people's rights in the way that they absolutely should. And the Supreme Court decided that because the New York Times, among other people, have created an alternate reality in which medicine isn't medicine and they've successfully poisoned the well on this issue for a nation, the Supreme court went the wrong way on it.

0:25:31 Thomas: This was not trans people setting themselves back a generation. It's just a victim blaming shit. And in order to make that point, that part where we were at is talking about what something Chase Strangio said in 2016. What is that? And that's actually funny because that's one year after what Sullivan is calling the heyday of the gay rights movement, right? Like that's back then. That's back in the time when it was should have been winding down or whatever. Like according to him, it's this march, this inevitable march toward penises being not male body parts or whatever. But like that was back then, dude. Now I'm looking at the Slate article and it's interesting. Read it. That'S certainly a compelling view. And for whatever it's worth, I'm not sure sure I agree with that framing. I think that I think it's a very worthy and worthwhile argument to consider. But I tend to be very practical. And I just think that like this would be a hard change to institute. You know, like I think I think going to be tough to take on.

0:26:27 Lydia: Also like a philosophy to this too, right? Like this feels more like, you know, what is a chair sort of thing, like understanding language and understanding like how we define things. I don't think it's like this is policy and legislation of the Slate article. Okay.

0:26:41 Thomas: Exactly. Let me read the last sentence. Let me the last paragraph of the Slate article, because if Andrew Sullivan is correct, what the last paragraph should say is. And therefore, as president of of Earth, I have now taken away everyone's penises to be handed back when they prove that they agree with me on gender, whatever. Like, that's what the last thing should say. Here's what it actually says from 2016 before Trump, by the way, before Trump was elected July 2016. It says I was assigned female at birth, but I have never had a female body. If it takes longer to convince and this is pretty much in reply to the point I was just making. If it takes longer to convince the world of that than it would to simply say that I was born with a female body but am now male, I am invested in that longer path because ultimately we will all be better off when we can challenge the idea that our body parts define us. Hey, well said, well written, well argued. I respect the hell out of that argument and out of Chase Strangio. And maybe I'll be convinced of that if I'm going to take some time later to read this full article and see. But that's just one trans person in the year 2016 expressing their view of this particular language debate you know and and I think it's a worthy view and it's worth considering and and and I love that chase it doesn't say and therefore I am enforcing this on all of you it says hey if this takes longer the point that thomas weirdly

0:27:16 Lydia: Mm hmm. Mm hm. Yep. Yeah.

0:28:01 Thomas: Just made before reading this like nine years in the future whatever chase is a time traveler if it takes longer to convince people of this, then so be it. I'm invested. Yeah. Chase is invested in trying to convince people of a thing.

0:28:09 Lydia: That's the fight I'm going to be in. Yeah yeah yeah. Well

0:28:15 Thomas: I mean, how fucking sensitive and triggered do you have to be to quote this as like, no, this is the new fascism they're making.

0:28:22 Lydia: Yeah he goes so far to say Chase Strangio informed us that a penis is not a male body part. Yeah yeah.

0:28:29 Thomas: Fuck off. What an asshole. Yeah, where did we get to here?

0:28:34 Lydia: We all were suddenly expected to announce our pronouns as if everyone didn't already know then neo pronouns z zem were added the movement came up with a mantra trans women are women trans men are men it was not an argument nor a proposition to be explored or debated it was a theological command in all caps yeah black lives matter yeah

0:28:50 Thomas: No, it's not. Sort of like how Black people are people. Yeah, I don't brook argument on that. You know, like, fine. Guilty.

0:29:03 Lydia: Yeah andrew sullivan you want to debate black lives matter I'm

0:29:04 Thomas: Tall women are women. Tall women aren't women. Short men are men. Not debating it. Yeah.

0:29:11 Lydia: Pretty sure mantras like like on their face are also not propositions to be explored? Like, there's supposed to be a rallying cry for the community?

0:29:16 Thomas: Yeah. What a great point. Yeah. Usually when people get together for a protest, the thing they're chanting is like an invitation, like, hey, should we go to lunch later to debate? You know? It's usually something like that. Yeah. What? Yeah. We all get together and make our signs. What do you guys think? What do your guys think?"

0:29:34 Lydia: I don't know. Give me your best argument. I don' t know.

0:29:44 Lydia: That's a way to make change. Oh, yeah.

0:29:49 Thomas: Yeah. So funny. Whose mantra... God, it's such a good point. Whose mantras is an invitation of debate? That's just not how any humans work at all. God.

0:29:56 Lydia: Was was there any debate among gays and lesbians about this profound change okay yes yes yes

0:30:05 Thomas: No, hold on. We got to stop before I say that. Here's where I want to grant that I think that... And I think there's a lot of trans people who thought that making Everyone announced their pronouns. Was that also not a great thing? Because sometimes it really put a focus on like there would be a thing. And I'm just expressing views I've seen. I don't know about this, but I've seen one trans person talk about how that kind of made it feel like all the cis people were announcing their pronouns for that trans person to announce their pronouns, which then felt like this sort of weird. They expressed that it felt weird. That might have been ContraPoints, I think. Contra Points was saying that that felt really, really weird in that moment.

0:30:42 Thomas: Yeah, and almost like kind of a faux allyship that kind of didn't really. So people disagree on that. I think a lot of people are in favor of pronouns everywhere. I personally haven't really been in favor And this is not a strongly held view. Like I could be talked either way into this, but I sort of feel like it's almost more normal if it's just like we just use pronouns. It's not like a trans person's choice of pronouns. It's just what their pronouns are their pronouns and you learn them and use them. I don't know. Maybe that's wrong. I'm not sure. I think there's reasons and formats where it's better, where it'S helpful. And I know that whenever, by the way, whenever I'm in a forum or a place or whatever, they ask me for my pronouns. I'm like, cool, here's my

0:30:41 Lydia: Yeah like exposing almost yeah yeah yeah mm yeah mm

0:31:23 Thomas: Pronouns because it's fine. I don't, it's not a big deal. I think largely speaking, there may be an argument that the good that this might do may have been outweighed by the backlash that this caused because it kind of did make it, it made it more salient for a bunch of people and it didn't really accomplish much. But I also don't look at this as some, and to the point of the next paragraph, that's the most idiotic point in the the world I don't really think movements and groups of people work in some way where we could have gone to the fucking knights of the round table who when they decided this and been like hey why don't y 'all vote the other way on the whole pronouns thing and then that was like a realistic action we could have taken it's just not like it kind of evolved and people wanted to be supportive of trans people and by the way a lot of trans People wanted it and that's what it was I don't Really see it as like this was a turn that the movement consciously took in order to fuck Fuck over Andrew Sullivan. Like it just, you know what I mean? Like I might be of the opinion that largely speaking, I'm not sure that was the right move strategically. I don't know. But also what could have been done? Is that more important or is what's more important fighting for people's rights in the courts and the whatever and continuing to change minds on this? We don't, movements don't make these central, they're not centralized.

0:32:31 Thomas: They don't take these decisions in a democratic vote that then is something like, it's just not how anything works.

0:32:31 Lydia: I do have a quick question though before we move on the opportunity to ask what someone's pronouns are I would imagine is really really important for folks that identify as non -binary because like otherwise you're just going to assume based on what they look like or potentially their name that it's you know she or he and that I feel like could be really really invalidating for a person who's non -inary that prefers to go by they and like I don't know I it's one of those things where I struggle to say that that was the wrong choice and wrong path to take it unfortunately is an easy thing for stupid people on the right to blow out of proportion and come up with silly things and say that that's That's what people want to be called.

0:33:16 Thomas: Good points. I think that another thing that I try to do and make a habit of is you also can just not refer to pronouns as much, you know? Yeah, especially in an unknown situation. And there's not really anything wrong with that.

0:33:22 Lydia: Use their names. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Nope.

0:33:29 Thomas: But these things that create these reactionary backlashes or any time it's any sort of the slightest, slightest possible ask of America to maybe think about something for one tenth more of one second, then it's just a fucking reactionary backlash. It's just so pathetic. And I hope, and maybe if I, I don't know if I said, if I said it, I didn't mean like this was a wrong or bad decision, but I just think if you were to take an analysis of like the trade -offs of what happened with that, I feel like it probably created more backlash than it really helped maybe.

0:34:04 Thomas: But also again, that's not a way I agree with you. It's not, it's not a way that you can make a decision. It'S not like a wrong decision someone made because it's just not how things work. Like it's Just naturally kind of have evolved out of a movement.

0:34:13 Lydia: And I think that analysis would be completely fair because it also helps us inform decisions later on, too, and like things that maybe could help protect against some of that reactionary backlash.

0:34:24 Thomas: Yeah. If you are in a place making policy and maybe that would be Andrew Sullivan's argument that some, you know, HR and companies made you do this. I hadn't seen a lot of that. I mean, it might've been here then. Yeah, here or there. Yeah exactly. I don't remember it being like enforced on anyone. Maybe if it was like, yeah, maybe that maybe that's not a great decision. Maybe shouldn't enforce people putting their pronouns if they don't want to. Like even again, even trans people might feel that way because

0:34:33 Lydia: It might have been like add it to your email signature. Like that would have been, you know, the biggest thing. Yeah.

0:34:50 Thomas: It might out them in a way that they're They're not wanting to sort of, or if not that, like draw attention to them in a way they don't want. So yeah, who knows? But again, it all has to be put in this grander conspiracy against Andrew Sullivan in particular. That's just so fucking pathetic. But here's how Andrew Sullivan thinks it works. You ready?

0:34:53 Lydia: Mm hmm right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Was there any debate among gays and lesbians about this profound change, a vote taken, or even a poll of gay men and lesbians? None that I can find or recall.

0:35:16 Thomas: Why would there be that? Or even. I like the or even. Like you're right. There should have at least been a poll of gay men and lesbians about how they feel about pronouns. What are you talking about? Like I don't I actually can't tell if that's entirely snark I mean it

0:35:23 Lydia: Yeah. Oh, let me pull up the listserv. I don't

0:35:33 Thomas: Probably is but like he says or even a poll like that the language there suggests that like there should have been I Don't know.

0:35:34 Lydia: Know. Yeah.

0:35:40 Thomas: Maybe it's a joke. But no, that's not how anything fucking works. You idiot.

0:35:44 Lydia: And as in other, quote, social justice spaces, dissent was equated with bigotry. Dissenters from gender ideology are routinely unfriended, shunned, and shamed. Almost all of the gay men, trans people, and lesbians who have confided in me that they don't agree with this or think that J .K. Rowling or Martina Navratilova have some good points have said so, sotto voce, lest anyone overhear.

0:35:56 Thomas: No, man, just you are oh No, they only get to write New York Times opinion columns about it. That's the only place It's safe. The only place it's safe to express this fucking opinion is in the very goddamn article. I'm reading right now

0:36:19 Lydia: That clause also is like one of the gaiest things like in this whole thing. Very operatic. That's the extremely intolerant and illiberal atmosphere that now exists in the gay, lesbian, and transgender space. This little community used to champion all manner of expression or argument or speech, eccentrics and visionaries.

0:36:37 Thomas: No, it didn't. I doubt it.

0:36:41 Lydia: Now it's fearful, self -censored, and extremely uptight. Debate has been all but snuffed out. Total uniformity of thought is demanded.

0:36:50 Thomas: No it's not.

0:36:52 Lydia: Yeah. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

0:36:52 Thomas: No it's, no it's. Shut the fuck up. Yeah. What are you talking about? Give me a single example. They don't, they don't like transphobes. Cool. I agree. Great.

0:36:54 Lydia: I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Mm -hmm. Mm hmm.

0:37:02 Thomas: That's just what it is to be a human. Like people in a group, they're not gonna like you if you're like, hey what if we should take away the rights of a portion of this group?

0:37:10 Lydia: Yeah.

0:37:10 Thomas: They're gonna be like, no fuck you. Done. End of thing.

0:37:13 Lydia: And then if you don't agree that that person who's obviously a transphobe is a trans phobe, then, yeah, there's going to be some issue there with the person you're interacting with. And we're like, what are you talking about?

0:37:23 Thomas: And I love the think that J .K. Rowling or whoever the other person is have some good point. I love that. Yeah, because look at the points they actually have and they're disgusting. Saying X hateful bigot has, quote, some good points is something that I think people perhaps in these movements are fucking sick of. It's not novel anymore. We get it. If you say, oh, you know, Trump had some goodpoints. That was always what it was in 2016. Well, he has some goodpoint. Joe Rogan's got some goodpoints. Points. You know, this guy's got some good points. That's, we're sick of it. We're fucking sick of that shit.

0:37:47 Lydia: Exactly. Yeah? Yeah, they're harmful people and it's nonsense.

0:37:59 Thomas: And it's a way to express your bigotry with still trying to maintain some plausible deniability for like the further bigotry that you also probably still feel, but you don't want to be associated with.

0:38:03 Lydia: And also like planting these seeds of legitimizing their positions on the things that aren't the quote good points. Yeah Yeah.

0:38:15 Thomas: Exactly. That's the game and we're SICK of it! What you might be describing, Andrew Sullivan, in your fucking New York Times opinion piece about how you've been SILENCED, is people are sick of this dumbass bullshit trick. It might have taken some people a long time, time but after trump in 2016 I certainly had no fucking patience for I have no fucking patience but well richard spencer I mean he's got some good point you can't say he doesn't have some good point no don't don't care there's no reason to say that don't give a shit fuck you yeah but that was the big well my but he's Got some good points fucking

0:38:42 Lydia: Milo Yiannopoulos. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this illiberalism made a fateful strategic mistake. In the gay rights movement, there had always been an unspoken golden rule. Leave children out of it. This is gross. This ist just so gross. We knew very well that any overreach there could provoke the most... I don't know. Andrew.

0:38:54 Thomas: Assholes fuck you fuck

0:39:07 Lydia: Any overreach there could provoke the most ancient blood libel against us, that we groom and abuse kids. You can bring up your children however you like, we promised. We will leave you alone. We will leave your children alone. So what did the gender revolutionaries go and do? They focused almost entirely on children and minors, partly because the adult issues had been resolved or close to it, and partly because true cultural revolutions start with the young. It meant overhauling the education not only of children with gender dysphoria, but of every other kid as well.

0:39:01 Thomas: You who's we yeah because I'm so mad and I know this is gonna take forever I'll let you keep going so So that we can just like do all of this in once at once.

0:39:45 Lydia: Talk about this point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I'm really mad too. Kids all over the country were affected. Your children were taught in elementary school that being a boy or a... Yeah,

0:39:54 Thomas: They weren't that you're you. Do you have kids, Andrew Sullivan? I don't know. We have kids.

0:39:58 Lydia: I don't know, actually. Yep,

0:39:59 Thomas: Our kids in liberal fucking woke California. We're not taught this fat check. Fucking false.

0:40:02 Lydia: Yep, yep. Your kids were taught that being a boy was something they could choose and change at will. Your daughter found herself running against a trans girl, I i.e.

0:40:11 Thomas: No, she sure didn't. No,

0:40:14 Lydia: A biological male, in athletics. Children in elementary

0:40:16 Thomas: Shit. I sure didn't. She didn't run against one of the what? Like three fucking trans girls in sports. Fuck you.

0:40:24 Lydia: School got to pick pronouns. No, that's not happening. And some children socially transitioned at school without their parents' knowledge or permission. I see you, January Little John.

0:40:26 Thomas: Sure didn'T that might have happened somewhere. Yeah, that might happen somewhere. And if it did, great, cool.

0:40:36 Lydia: He's been interacting with her. I know it. I suppose there are other ways you can resurrect the ghost of Anita Bryant and all the homophobic paranoia that followed her, but this will probably do the trick.

0:40:39 Thomas: Wait, what? He's literally saying that we in the gay rights movement didn't make this mistake. And then he references someone in 1977 who said, save our children because the gays are coming for them. Why did, why did she say that? Why did she Say that?

0:41:00 Lydia: Probably because it never actually happens and bigots are going to bigot.

0:41:04 Thomas: Yeah, probably because she found a few cherry picked examples, exactly how you're doing Andrew Sullivan and said, this is a threat to our children. It's the exact same fucking thing. You idiot.

0:41:08 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. You're being Anita Bryant right now.

0:41:17 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You're literally the Anita Bryant. Unbelievable. Off

0:41:21 Lydia: And then most radical of all, gender affirming care for minors, which can lead to irreversible sex changes for children. The, quote, care included off label, quote blockers to arrest puberty almost always followed with cross sex hormones.

0:41:35 Thomas: -label? Off-label? Are those actually off-label?

0:41:40 Lydia: And I don't think so. Yeah, I think they're right in cis children or trans children, depending on what their needs are. Yeah.

0:41:41 Thomas: I think they're just puberty blockers. You, you're using them to arrest puberty in, right? Yeah. They're not off-label if they're, okay. Maybe, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think that's right. I think that's incorrect. Yeah.

0:41:52 Lydia: Almost always followed with cross-sex hormones.

0:41:56 Thomas: No, that's the point of them. What, what would be the point?

0:41:59 Lydia: Just arrest puurity and then nothing.

0:42:00 Thomas: What would be, yeah, what trans people want is just delayed puberty. They want to delay lay puberty by a couple of years and then they're fine. They just have it then. What would be the point? Why would, okay.

0:42:08 Lydia: To begin with, gays and lesbians, including me, empathized with kids with gender dysphoria and trusted the medical profession with the rest.

0:42:13 Thomas: No. Yes. No, yes, you should do that. No you didn't do that!

0:42:17 Lydia: Yeah. If this helped kids or even saved their lives, as was often emphasized, what business was it of mine?

0:42:20 Thomas: Hey, another one for the diary that could have been not writing this article. You're right!

0:42:26 Lydia: If transitioning this young in life helps some pass better as adults, good for them. That's not what the transition is for.

0:42:33 Thomas: Wait, past better, yeah.

0:42:34 Lydia: Pass better as adult? A lot of that is not what's happening. It's to resolve the gender or dysphoria in that point in time for them.

0:42:43 Thomas: Yeah, I'm trying to think. Like it is, it is true that the point, well, yeah, the point is, well there's a lot of points. One is puberty is an incredibly dangerous time for trans kids because because it's when they have the most suicidal thoughts when their gender presentation starts to go from something that's like pre

0:42:44 Lydia: That is also a benefit. Yeah. A little more androgynous maybe.

0:43:04 Thomas: -puberty it's kind of yeah exactly and then puberty it starts becoming like a reality for trans kids where they're like oh my god I'm in the wrong body and it's more salient it's you know that's a dangerous time so I mean it is true that like yes you want them to be able to transition the earlier the better because then that's just better for them yeah there's something about that sentence that feels a little dismissive though I agree with you.

0:43:22 Lydia: I don't like it. It is. It is. But the idea that trans kids are pursuing puberty blockers and cross -sex hormones in order to pass better as adults, that is so gross and simplistic.

0:43:33 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Yeah Yeah,

0:43:37 Lydia: And yeah, and it really bothers me.

0:43:39 Thomas: I think you're I think there's something about it that bothered me if I couldn't I couldn yeah

0:43:41 Lydia: Like it's for the rest of society, like that they look more. Yeah? Yeah.

0:43:43 Thomas: I couldn't quite put it into words. I think it's minimizing the very real pain of gender dysphoria.

0:43:48 Lydia: And decision too like from a you want society to see you as a woman or you want society to be seen as a man rather than the internal feeling of being in the right body

0:43:59 Thomas: Right now I think he nailed I think yeah, I couldn't quite put my finger on it But I think that it just minimizes it in a way that's a little bit gross But in a that's like also kind of plausible deniability like it's kind of technically true Yeah Yeah.

0:44:15 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:44:15 Thomas: All right. So it was hard to let you keep going and going because there's so much wrong. But we'll broadly take this section as.

0:44:22 Lydia: I believe the cast report that's Andrew Sullivan statement yeah

0:44:25 Thomas: Pretty much. And also this fucking idiotic idea that like, well, the gays never made this mistake. So stupid. Literally, it's a point I have to make in this fucking moment. Literally this moment, the Supreme Court decided a case whereby because people were afraid of not trans kids or trans medicine or whatever, But because parents did not want their kids to even learn about queerness in any way.

0:44:51 Thomas: Now the Supreme Court says, yes, schools, you have to do a hundred different school. Anyone's religious parents, you gotta just teach them their individual bigotries. You can't teach. It's just, it's absolutely a disgrace. The Supreme Court case, I forget what it's called. Is it Tennessee? I can't remember. Yep.

0:45:05 Lydia: No this is the my mood versus mm

0:45:08 Thomas: You're right. Mahmoud v. Taylor. Yeah, that's right. It's Maryland. Yeah. So absolutely fucking disgrace of a kid. Just absolutely garbage fucking bullshit.

0:45:16 Lydia: Yeah how do you feel about that Andrew Sullivan that like there are kids in schools now that if their parents don't want them to know that gay people exist that's an option they can do they can opt out of gay people's identities in the world

0:45:30 Thomas: It was just LGBTQ themed storybooks is how it's described. It wasn't the, hey, they didn't want their kids learning about the 2L plus QTI. No, it's just the one that he said he liked. Yeah.

0:45:35 Lydia: Yeah all of them the whole community yeah mm

0:45:44 Thomas: Now bigot parents can require their kids, can require teachers to have different like classes for their kids. You know, like we're going to have to have a different iteration of school for each person's bigotry because of the stupid fucking Supreme Court and because of The Movement Andrew Sullivan and is a part of and the rights that he is part of rolling back. And it wasn't just about trans kids. He would probably try to make the victim -blaming argument that, well, they never would have cared if it weren't for these trans rights people blowing this whole thing up. That's just not true. They have long, long not wanted to have their kids have to learn that gay people exist.

0:46:19 Lydia: Oh yeah I mean the beginning of the episode we talked about project 2025 and what they think is a real family and it's not gay people

0:46:26 Thomas: Yep. They do not want their kids to have to know about gay people. Gay people, not trans people, Andrew, gay people, that's always been how it's been. And they are more powerful than, I won't say ever, because obviously, you know, you go back far enough, but they are More Powerful Now than 20 years ago, probably, or maybe 15.

0:46:42 Lydia: Yep yeah especially when places like the new york times are complicit in it and it is not just fox news and the Federalist and, you know, Washington Examiner spewing this stuff. We have like legacy media participating, platforming, highlighting this. And I'll be waiting for your op -ed going the other way, Andrew, when you start reflecting on this.

0:47:02 Thomas: We won't see it.

0:47:03 Lydia: No, we won't. A girl can hope.

0:47:05 Thomas: What did the gender revolutionaries go and do, he says? They focused almost entirely on children and minors. What, what, what are you fucking talking about? What are you talking about ? What happened was medicine for trans kids existed and bigots got mad about it. And so when they got mad about it and tried to actively harm children by not allowing access to it and all that, people who cared were like, please don't do that. What do you mean? What do You mean they focused on children and minors?

0:47:13 Lydia: I know.

0:47:34 Thomas: What are you talking about? God, it's so funny how much he quotes the very same people who are making the very same argument against gay rights and then doesn't see that he's doing the same thing. It's just it's unbelievable. Fucking asshole. So literally all of the rest of the article. Now he's finally gotten to his point. And we're about, I would say we're about halfway through, maybe.

0:47:57 Thomas: And he's finally gotten to his point, the entire rest of the thing is about trans medicine and trans youth and this false, yeah, this false just fucking misinformation campaign that the New York Times is a part of. And he'll do that same hand wavy stuff where he's like, now look, I have my heart breaks for the trans kids that blah bitty blah bitti blah but I'm going to help roll back rights for them too and make it more dangerous for them to live. That's just the rest of it. I think we got to call it, but I very much would do another four hours on how stupid this is. But yeah, that's what the New York Times saw fit to print in

0:47:56 Lydia: Trans kids in sports. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:48:29 Thomas: Their opinions in the front fucking entire page of their opinion section.

0:48:34 Lydia: And one his big thing, too, that trans kids might just be gay and you have to wait until they go through puberty and then that's really what's going on yeah

0:48:43 Thomas: I don't know. Maybe gay kids might be trans, though. Like, why? Why would one be like what? What fucking basis does he have to say that? What is he going to point to God or something

0:48:54 Lydia: So so he's saying that their protocol in the netherlands for gender affirming care in the 90s they had 70 it says 70 out adolescents referred to an amsterdam clinic from 2000 to 2008 62 were same -sex attracted and it's easy to see that one way to cure yourself of attraction to the same sex is to become the opposite one. So he's saying that kids are turning trans as an effort to cure people of homosexuality. At Britain's now -shuttered Tavistock Clinic, according to the investigative journalist Hannah Barnes, staff members had a dark joke that at the rate they were going, there would be, quote, no gay people left.

0:49:06 Thomas: Like what

0:49:31 Lydia: This is why sex change surgeries are permitted and even subsidized in Iran. It's a way to rid the country of gay people. He goes off the rails in this yeah

0:49:30 Thomas: Yeah, I mean, that'S an amount of misinformation that'S hard to contend with. But I'm sorry, I'm not I don't know what fucking information he's using, but just running some numbers in my head, if let's say 90 percent of people are straight ish, we'll say roughly speaking, it's a high percentage. It's probably in reality less than that, but like roughly speaking historically, it'S been looked at as like 85, 90 percent. And you take a subgroup of trans people who are seeking medical care, well, then wouldn't it stand to reason that the vast majority of them, if they were assigned, like, let's say male at birth, would probably be into men, right? Because like, they're actually trans women. That's who they are. They're women and they might be straight. So they're into men. Right. Wouldn't you just expect that that would be it?

0:50:21 Lydia: And that's the thing that he did from the very beginning is conflating all of these things together and they're all distinct topics issues conversations elements of somebody's identity like they're All Different and saying that one takes over the other is just yeah yeah

0:50:37 Thomas: Well, yeah. And that's the point I was trying to make. I mean, to be honest, Andrew Sullivan, he's a Catholic, like you say, on what grounds, I just, how does your worldview allow for gayness, but not transness?

0:50:42 Lydia: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

0:50:48 Thomas: Like, couldn't you just as easily, unless you're going to take a Christo -fascist fucking view of the world that it's all should be cis and straight. Couldn't you Just as easily say like, well, Andrew, you're only pretending to be gay to avoid the fact that you're actually trans. Andrew, You're actually a woman. And I know that because you're into men and there is no such thing as being gay. There's only heterosexuality. So therefore you're just avoiding being trans.

0:51:11 Thomas: I wouldn't ever say that, but like, that's the same amount of like plausible as the other way, right? Like why, why in his mind, it's just shows how selfish and self -centered he is. He knows he's gay. So he has that experience. And so he's like, well, that'S a real thing. But this other experience that these people are whining about, that can't be real.

0:51:29 Thomas: That's all you're saying there, but there's no, there's a reason, especially as a fucking Catholic, there'S a reason that the universe should work that way. There'S no reason that transness is less plausible than gayness. That doesn't make any sense.

0:51:36 Lydia: I think we should read the last couple paragraphs of this to close it out. This does not mean the LGBTQ plus project should be shut down entirely We need to defend our wins we need to protect the interests of gays lesbians and trans people Yeah, we need To greatly expand help and care for children with gender dysphoria prevent bullying and increase mental health resources Oh, well, that's what

0:51:50 Thomas: Oh, good news, everyone. You mean the wins that we've now lost? We need to defend those? That's what was happening. Yeah.

0:52:18 Lydia: It was. Yeah, yeah. But in America, on this anniversary of the Obergefell decision, we also need to remember a critical thing. We won. We won because we defended free speech, reached out to right and left and center, left others and children alone and trusted liberal democracy

0:52:28 Thomas: No, that has nothing the fuck to do with why you won. No, no, no. Literally wrong on every count.

0:52:39 Lydia: That trust was rewarded with one of the swiftest successes in civil rights history let's not throw it away yeah there we go

0:52:45 Thomas: Fuck you, idiot. What are you talking about? Just shut up, man.

0:52:52 Lydia: We'll link this in the show notes but honestly guys like we read through a lot of it it's just it's gonna make you mad it's gotta make you mad but yeah

0:52:58 Thomas: Yeah, I kind of wish we had time to debunk the rest of this stuff. Maybe we can... I mean, we'll leave it to the audience. If you want us to return to this and debunk a lot of those medical claims, we probably can. We can maybe maybe we get some maybe Jenessa may get some science involved there.

0:53:07 Lydia: Yeah let us know oh

0:53:11 Thomas: But this is I knew it was going to be outrageous, but it was even more so just the insult of them printing this full page rainbow that then you uncover to be fucking a hate crime like this. What? How disgusting is that? Like just fucking gross.

0:53:24 Lydia: -hm and I'm sure they thought it was clever I'm sure they like yeah yeah

0:53:30 Thomas: Unreal. I know you wanted to try to maybe go out on a positive and talk about pride in

0:53:34 Lydia: I did I did so I went to my first ever pride everybody in San Francisco

0:53:39 Thomas: San Francisco, go the place where pride is

0:53:41 Lydia: And yeah exactly where pride originated but I one of like the most one of the love the whole thing was lovely the whole experience was lovely I'll talk a little bit about that but I wanted to just start with as I drove into the city there is an annual tradition tradition of folks gathering on Twin Peaks kind of you know this mountain area in San Francisco and they put a pink triangle on the mountain itself and so I see that as I'm driving in and it was just like so beautiful and so the pink triangle you know history buffs will know you know that's how Nazis designated gay people right and and so talking about taking things back and stuff this has been an annual tradition and it was juste like you know just really really cool like driving into the city and like the fog parted its ways it was a gorgeous day and then this this just beautiful symbol of acceptance and inclusivity and

0:54:14 Thomas: Anyone would know that and it was all going great until they transed our kids suck lydia had to hand in a few of our kids to be transed in order to get in at the

0:54:34 Lydia: Pride yeah yeah well and so the way that pride works in san francisco too and maybe this is the case in like most big cities I didn't even go to the parade and it's just like every park everywhere you are is like just huge parties it's just block parties all across the city I went to this pretty you know big park that I've been to two before in San Francisco and it was packed. It was just people on top of people and everyone was happy and lovely and kind and respectful and like living their best lives.

0:54:47 Thomas: Gate everywhere is part pride yeah that's great yeah lydia

0:55:08 Lydia: People were using sunscreen and like, I was like, yes, for the sun health. I did have sunscreen in my backpack.

0:55:11 Thomas: Was the mom there apparently yeah the pride mom they have snacks for

0:55:15 Lydia: I think I forgot to put it on me. Um,

0:55:17 Thomas: People typical yeah that sounds like a

0:55:17 Lydia: I had it and everything. Yeah. Yeah, no. And then like there were people walking around, you know, there was someone like selling mushrooms. There was someone one selling Jell -O shots. Like everyone was just sharing like different things and stuff. Like people, tons of people had snacks and drinks and everyone was juste being so kind. And there were different DJs set up all across the park. And so there were dance parties happening and people wearing like really fun outfits, but then also people wearing like real normal looking things too. And it was just such a beautiful spectrum of everybody. And I had the best time. And I ran into someone I know from Sacramento, which was very random and crazy. And And I haven't seen her in years. So that was nice.

0:55:50 Thomas: Mom so just such an unambiguously positive thing you know and it's just like there isn't an equivalent on the other side of this like there's you know there's cross burnings but like they're gatherings

0:55:58 Lydia: Yeah. Oh, yeah. CPAC.

0:56:06 Thomas: Yeah it's like they're just fucking hate they're just bitter hate fests and it'S lovely that there's a positive and it occurred to me as you were saying I was like more things should have this you know not to co -opt pride or anything but like more positive expressions of identity and of of people's passions and lives. It's really fun. It is really cool to have. That is why living in or around cities is so great and so expanding of your horizons, you know, and it is like getting to see, you know, like that one time we went to New York and got stuck in the, like, Puerto Rico. Yeah, we literally got stuck on a Seinfeld episode that I think they do not show anymore because for some reason, I do not remember, but like, it was cool. It was like, oh, this is awesome. This is a group of people celebrating their identity in a cool way. It like, I know, No, it was, it Was pretty rough, but we got literally like stuck as the parade, like rounded the corner, like no more crossing of the streets.

0:56:35 Lydia: The Puerto Rican pride. Yeah. But we had all of our luggage and needed to get to our hotels. Yeah.

0:56:55 Lydia: And I didn't want to look irritated either because I didn't want them to think I was irritated with, like, their identity.

0:57:01 Thomas: Oh no. And we wouldn't have been except that we had to get to like a thing we had tickets to, I think, right. There's something we had To get to right away.

0:57:07 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. And we were stranded on the literally on the wrong side of the street. Yeah.

0:57:09 Thomas: Broadway show that we wanted to see. Oh, so funny. One street away from our hotel, but it still was like, this is awesome. I don't know. It was so cool. I still remember some of the things we saw and it's like, ah, man, just, isn't it nice to be a part of the side that's like, hey, in general, love and acceptance of people.

0:57:26 Lydia: Well, I think it makes our lives more fulfilling, too. I think when I am on my deathbed or whatever, I'm going to look back and be like, wow, that's a life full of love, full of positivity, full of wonderful people. You know, it's just like so much better.

0:57:40 Thomas: And I'm going to think I should have yelled at Andrew Sullivan more. That's what I'll be thinking. You know, to each their own. What do we want? Sensible, a little bit of kind of rights. When do we Want It?

0:58:12 Lydia: Whenever you get around to it. Yeah.

0:58:12 Thomas: Whenever you guys are cool with it. That's now I remember all the marches and the yeah.

0:58:16 Lydia: I don't know. Give me your best argument. I don't know.

0:58:21 Thomas: Yeah, we all get together and make our sense. What do you guys think? What do you guys think?

0:58:26 Lydia: That's a way to make change. Oh, yeah.