PREMIUM: Did The Trans Debate Get Trump Elected? Ben Ryan on TERF wars, the fallout of the Cass Review, and gender's role in the election

The Unspeakable Podcast

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.8 • 784 Ratings

🗓️ 25 November 2024

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Journalist Ben Ryan returns to the podcast to reflect on the role of the trans debate in the recent election as well as discuss the impact of the Cass Review on pediatric gender medicine and on journalists covering the issue. He also talks about various aspects of gender transition treatments, explains what is known about rates of surgeries among minors and to what extent medical care for trans adults could be affected by Trump administration policies. Finally, he and Meghan discuss the TERF Wars, aka infighting within the “gender critical community.” Is using preferred pronouns a harmless courtesy? Or does it imply acquiescence to the slippery slope of reality denial?

Ben’s May 2024 interview can be found here.

GUEST BIO

Benjamin Ryan is an independent journalist who focuses on health care and science. He contributes to several major publications, including The New York Times, The Guardian, and NBC News. He has a particular interest in public health, medicine, and psychology, and has spent years reporting on HIV.

His work has received multiple awards from NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ Journalists, including the Excellence in HIV/AIDS Coverage Award. Benjamin is a cancer survivor and enjoys reading, theatre, movies, biking, cooking, and photography in his spare time.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the very definition of being radical that you're totally inflexible and not interested in compromising in any way, shape, or form.
0:10.5	So that's the people who refuse to use transgender people's pronouns, preferred pronouns, that's often how they think.
0:17.7	And I think that you get a radical push from trans activists, you know,
0:23.4	saying like, you cannot question this for the kids at all. And I think the backlash has been so
0:27.8	extreme that that has in turn radicalized people on the other side who now won't give an inch
0:32.9	on their end of things. And that has created an incredibly combustible scenario that we're in now
0:37.8	with what, in theory, at least, Donald Trump might wreak upon transgender people of all ages
0:43.3	upon being president again.
0:48.7	Welcome to the unspeakable podcast. I'm your host, Megan Down. I am here with returning guest Ben Ryan. Ben is an independent
0:57.8	journalist specializing in science and health care coverage. He's contributed to numerous
1:03.5	publications, including The New York Times, The Guardian, NBC News, and the Washington Post.
1:09.0	He's especially interested in public health, medicine, and psychology, and how these intersect
1:16.3	with public policy.
1:18.2	You can find him on Substack, where his publication is called Hazard Ratio, and we're going to
1:23.5	be talking about a number of his recent posts.
1:26.8	Ben, welcome back to the podcast.
1:28.9	Great to be back. I hope these unprecedented times find you well, Megan.
1:32.9	Yes, it gets more unprecedented every day. So you were here last spring to talk about the
1:39.4	impact of the cast review. Part of what I want to do in this conversation is talk with you about what has
1:44.9	changed, if anything, in the gender debate since the release of the cast review and what's
1:50.1	going on with the various voices in this debate. But first, can you just briefly remind the audience
1:56.2	what was the cast review and why was it significant? So the cast review was commissioned by the National Health Service or NHS, which is the centralized health authority in the United Kingdom.
	...

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