Shows
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastEpisode 40, featuring Lauren Schwartz, MDDr. Lauren Schwartz is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist in private practice in Oklahoma. Her recent advocacy centers on ‘gender-affirming care,’ and in just the last three years she’s made significant contributions to both the clinical and public understanding of the tradeoffs involved in the treatments. If you watched or listened to the remarkable July 9th ‘workshop’ proceedings at the US Federal Trade Commission, you will have heard Lauren speak on a panel titled “What Does the Science Actually Say About ‘Gender-Affirming Care.’ I’m delighted that she and I will both be speaking at the Genspect conference Septemb...2025-08-0957 min
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastEpisode 39, featuring Pamela Garfield-JaegerI know I just posted a long letter to subscribers about how I need to step away from Substack this summer in order to work on my presentation for Genspect, but Pamela Garfield-Jaeger published this charming new children’s book “Froggy Girl,” and because I enjoyed our first conversation so much, I decided to make time for this one.Pamela is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who describes herself as ‘awake, but not woke.’ She earned a Masters in Social Work from New York University in 1999 before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area to work with teens in s...2025-07-231h 21
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastEpisode 38, featuring Glenna GoldisThis episode’s opening music is (presumably) the first and will be the last song ever written about Judith Butler, the grande dame of academic queer misanthropy, composed by who else but our William A Ferguson. Listen to the whole song without me talking over it at the end of the episode — it’s a masterpiece.Following that, I’m proud to say I got Glenna Goldis to take a break from rage-tweeting about the New York Times podcast ‘The Protocol’ long enough to give it a proper critical analysis here with me. We’re not the only o...2025-06-121h 46
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastEpisode 37, featuring Dr. Miriam GrossmanMiriam Grossman is a medical doctor board certified in child, adolescent and adult psychiatry. She is a senior fellow at Do No Harm and the author of five books. If you’ve read her most recent book, Lost in Trans Nation, you’ll know why I call it the definitive work on the subject that brings us here: readers who feel ‘lost’ as per the title before reading it will feel not just informed but empowered on the other side. Maybe more important: parents will feel, perhaps for the first time, that someone in the world of experts and professi...2025-05-3052 min
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastEpisode 36, featuring filmmaker Vaishnavi SundarI’ve been a fan of Vaishnavi Sundar for over five years, and it was amazing to interview her for this episode. Our mutual friend Sacha Jones of Terf Vibes introduced me to Vaishnavi after hearing me gush about her two gender-critical films, ‘Dysphoric' and 'Behind the Looking Glass.’ I binged all four episodes of ‘Dysphoric’ the minute I heard the film existed. By that time, 2019, I’d been living with an ROGD daughter for three years and felt quite alone and dismayed by the lack of objective information about the problem. ‘Dysphoric’ filled that void in a way that felt...2025-05-231h 05
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastEpisode 35, featuring Lisa DuvalLisa Duval, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist based in Charlottesville, Virginia. She works with patients of all ages, backgrounds, and presenting issues but specializes in adolescence and personality disorders. She did her undergrad studies in English and Psychology at Yale, then earned a masters and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from two Bay Area institutions. I will admit to feeling unequal and even intimidated by such an academic résumé, but there’s something profoundly relatable in the last sentence of her bio, which reads: “Lisa involuntarily began her education on the topic of gender ideolo...2025-04-251h 04
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastEpisode 34, featuring Elizabeth Kenney and Jane BernsOn April 5, I drove to Berkeley to join a peaceful protest outside the downtown YMCA in support of single-sex locker rooms. We stood alongside Elizabeth Kenney, a mother and grandmother who had recently confronted a large naked man in the women’s locker room of that same facility. I later recorded an interview with Elizabeth which you’ll hear in the second half of this episode. First, I’m excited to speak with the woman who organized that protest. She’s a teacher and art enthusiast who has also figured out how to organize and lead saf...2025-04-181h 28
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastEpisode 33, featuring a sex-realist MD with two adult 'trans' kidsToday’s guest is a woman I first met when we both attended the Genspect conference in Denver a year and a half ago. She introduced herself as a subscriber to this Substack, so I liked her immediately! I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know her fairly well since then.Her story is that of a stable, loving and high-functioning family in which two out of three kids — all smart and well-educated — announce ‘transgender’ identities during their college years. I wish I could say it’s an unusual story, but of course it isn’t. One thing I...2025-04-111h 01
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastEpisode 32, featuring New Zealand's Sacha Jones of 'Terf Vibes'Plus: another great new terfy tune by friend-of-the-pod William A Ferguson takes us out, so stick around!“Terf Vibes” is the Substack handle of an Australian writer and feminist academic who currently lives in Auckland, NZ, where she fights for the sex-based rights of women and girls —and!— performs stand-up comedy using her stage name, Sacha Jones.This is how she describes her Substack publication, ‘Til Sex Do Us Part:’My personal/political 'battle of the sexes' as the XX author of a PhD in feminist politics and two tragicomic memoirs, one on my dancing g...2025-04-051h 29
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastEpisode 31, featuring Jennifer LahlThis is the only photo I have of me with Jennifer Lahl. Riley Gaines’s presence in the middle doesn’t lessen its appeal, in my opinion! Taken at the Center for Bioethics and Culture benefit dinner, Diablo, CA, 2024.Jennifer Lahl began her career as a pediatric critical care nurse in the 1990s, then went on to earn a master’s degree in medical ethics before founding the nonprofit Center for Bioethics and Culture in 2000. While doing critical nursing care, conducting scientific research and raising four children, she somehow managed to also b...2025-03-2948 min
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastEpisode 30, featuring MayaMy guest, Maya, is the young author of an essay I read on the PITT [Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans] Substack last week titled “Breaking Free: My Journey Through and Out Of Trans Ideology.” I was delighted when she agreed to be interviewed here, and I think the conversation has a lot to offer parents with questions about online indoctrination. You’ll find Maya to be uncommonly honest and self aware, especially for someone who is only eighteen. In case you find the audio quality frustrating, I spent some time editing the transcript this week and have c...2025-03-221h 02
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastEpisode 29: MomTalk featuring Hippiesq!Our friend Karen, aka ‘Hippiesq’, returned for a casual kvetch-sesh which we recorded about three weeks ago since I knew I’d be in Washington this week for Detrans Awareness Day. Karen had shared a draft of an essay she’d written that I really liked, and I asked if she might like to record an audio version of it. This episode thus begins in lofty fashion with her reading that eloquent piece, then moves on to more of a sea-level discourse about the American morning TV show ‘The View,’ the Oscar-nominated not-a-’film’ Emilia Perez, Trump derangement, the...2025-03-151h 15
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastEpisode 28: Saving Girls Sports in Washington StateThis episode is the third in a series that seeks to ‘unmute’ voices from deep in the trenches of gender ideology, and it’s the first to include a call to action that could conceivably help change something for the better.You can help Washington become the first so-called blue state to recognize the rights, safety and dignity of girls and women in sports by sharing this episode with everyone you know in the state of Washington and reposting it on social media. Just one link from the show:https://www.savegi...2025-03-0827 min
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastEpisode 27 Featuring MLI’ve invited ML, a previous guest on the podcast and the author of two guest essays, to come back and talk about his experience with his adult son, who’s been identifying as trans for about 5 years now. Too many people, especially parents dealing with this uniquely totalizing pressure that’s often felt both inside and outside the home, also suffer from being either silenced or voluntarily silent for fear of some harsh consequence. So in this series I want to let my guests do almost all the talking. A day after ML and I fini...2025-02-2857 min
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastEpisode 26, Featuring Simon Amaya PriceSimon Amaya Price is a musically and academically gifted young man who was raised in Boston, America’s ground zero for pediatric sex-trait medical malpractice. In a courageously public manner, Simon has been candid and outspoken about his experience with a trans identification, a phase that began for him at age 14 and lasted for three years but thankfully steered clear of medical interventions. The person Simon credits most for his protection from medical harm is his ‘non-affirming,’ highly supportive father. I’ll leave it to Simon to tell his story, but I’ll just say that I’m delighted...2025-02-211h 12
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastEpisode 25, featuring Kara Dansky!It’s an honor I saved for my 25th episode to welcome Kara Dansky, the woman I wrote in as my candidate for President in both the general election and the primary! I’ll just quote the bio from Kara’s Substack since there’s no improving on her direct and straight-to-the-point prose:“Kara Dansky is a lawyer and a feminist. She is the author of The Reckoning: How the Democrats and the Left Betrayed Women and Girls and The Abolition of Sex: How the 'Transgender' Agenda Harms Women and Girls. She served on the boa...2025-02-0757 min
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastEpisode 24, featuring Pamela Garfield- Jaeger, LCSWMy guest today is Pamela Garfield-Jaeger, a Licensed Social Worker who describes herself as ‘awake, but not woke’ — a phrase I love and might appropriate myself. She earned a Masters in Social Work from New York University in 1999 before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area to work with teens in school and outpatient settings. Today she’s an author, speaker and consultant specializing in youth gender issues, and there’s a good chance you’re already familiar with her work. You may not know that in 2016 Pam’s life took a difficult turn that in retrospect...2025-01-311h 28
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastUnMuted episode 23, featuring Erin FridayErin and I recorded this conversation about a week before catastrophic fires spread across Los Angeles County and surrounding areas. We both live a safe distance from L.A., but we each have friends and loved ones who’ve suffered terrible losses and genuine trauma resulting from this historic disaster. It’s hard to frame a proper acknowledgement of that pain and loss in the immediate aftermath. However, we plan to return to this ‘California Report’ periodically, and will likely have observations about life and leadership in our state, born of this crisis, that are still fo...2025-01-171h 25
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastUnMuted Episode 22: a lively conversation with journalist Brandon ShowalterI first became aware of Brandon Showalter when I read his book review of The Reckoning by Kara Dansky. I asked him for permission to republish the review on my Substack because I was struck by the empathy it showed both for feminist activists like Kara and for parents who feel targeted by the totalizing societal pressure that comes with having a child who identifies as ‘trans.’ It was also clear Brandon had a very deep understanding of the issue, so when I learned that he’d also made a documentary podcast about it, I went a...2025-01-101h 07
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastUnMuted episode 21, featuring Eliza MondegreenI have the distinction of being the first person outside McGill University (or maybe the second, after Eliza’s mother) to read the masters thesis that’s about to launch its highly regarded author into what should rightfully be a promising position of influence in the ‘gender’ discourse. Eliza’s research breaks new ground in an aspect of ROGD that has woefully lacked attention but for her contributions; that aspect being the role of social media and online influence in the formation of ‘trans’ identity among young women.There’s a good chance you’ve been reading and listening to E...2025-01-031h 18
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastUnMuted Episode 20, featuring Bev JacksonI’d already scheduled my December 16 interview with Bev Jackson when Malcolm Richard Clark published a brilliant history of the LGB Alliance and its critical role in bringing about the puberty-blocker ban that was announced in the UK on December 11. That article, published on the 15th, confirmed my opinion that Bev Jackson and Kate Harris should be better known in America. It also supplied me with better questions for Bev! Here’s some background from Malcolm’s piece:“Whenever the whistleblowers spoke up they found themselves frozen out. Once upon a time Stonewall could have put a st...2024-12-211h 14
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastEp. 19: LIVE (on tape) FROM NEW YORK: a tri-pod featuring talk-of-the-town Maud Maron and friend-of-the-pod Hippiesq!This episode goes coast-to-coast as I catch up with Karen, author of the Hippiesq Substack and my first-ever guest on the podcast. We are joined by Karen’s neighbor and compatriot Maud Maron, who’s recently made headlines in the New York Times with her ‘right-wing’ stance on merely discussing whether to have public-school sports that are reserved for girls only, as the U.S. has done without incident for fifty years now — and for including those girls in the discussion. Maron, a Democrat until recently, will soon announce her candidacy to run as a Republican for District A...2024-12-1550 min
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastUnMuted Episode 18, featuring Glenna GoldisGlenna was kind enough to visit the old ‘hood just a day after making her Gender: A Wider Lens debut to go over the finer points of the Skrmetti arguments as well as some little known details about the players which are at least as interesting as the legal stuff (more, if you ask me), such as the beauty-pageant bona fides of the US Solicitor General and the Tennessee “Crotch Doctor” who taught us that bikini waxing might now be offered by our gynecologists. The more you know…If you want to listen to the live cou...2024-12-081h 22
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastUnMuted episode 17 , featuring Bernard LaneHe just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich. (I’m kidding; you know I kid!)Bernard Lane’s encyclopedic knowledge of the global footprint of ‘trans’ activism, ideology, medicine and law is truly something to behold. We discussed the US election, the state of journalistic freedom in Australia vs. America, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Jessica Yaniv (for the uninitiated, Bernard gamely explains this piece of work), the remarkable Trump ‘trans’ policy video making the rounds and Bernard’s intriguing guess as to who’s the well-spoken sex-realist insider advising the President Elect on all things ‘gender’...2024-11-161h 47
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastUnMuted episode 16, featuring Meghan DaumI was not quite three sentences into my Substack writing career when I made this admission: “I get stupidly star-struck, when the star in question is someone I believe to be famous for being very smart.” At the time, I was referring to Chris Hayes of MSNBC, who didn’t deserve the praise, but you know who does? Today’s guest, Meghan Daum!Meghan has written for magazines ranging from Vogue to The New Yorker. She’s been a columnist at the Los Angeles Times, and she’s the author of six books, including most recently the...2024-10-191h 49
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastMeghan Daum Is UnMuted! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com2024-10-1802 min
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastUnMuted episode 14, featuring author Jocelyn DavisI was introduced to my guest Jocelyn Davis when I happened upon an essay she wrote for DIAG (Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender), about how she came to question gender identity ideology even though doing so put her at odds with her political tribe. It’s something she and I have in common, and it’s the problem DIAG exists to solve.Jocelyn had a successful 25-year career in professional leadership development and consulting, which she left to become a successful author, now with five books to her credit and a sixth coming soon. Her new...2024-08-301h 32
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastUnMuted episode 13, featuring Kris Kaliebe, MDKristopher Kaliebe is a board-certified General, Forensic, and Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and a professor in the Psychiatry Department at the University of South Florida. He is a Distinguished Fellow at the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), where he challenged so-called ‘gender affirming care’ by publishing a courageous op-ed in its journal, which is read by clinical professionals nationwide. A doctor I happen to know at UC San Francisco forwarded the op-ed to me when it was first published late last year, and I would soon hear it discussed in lay circles, which strikes me as surp...2024-08-171h 27
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastUnMuted episode 12, featuring Arienne, a California public high school teacherArienne has a bird’s eye view from two different windows on ‘trans’. She’s a tenured teacher in what might be the most progressive region of the most progressive state in the US. And, she’s the mother of a teenaged boy who was seduced by ‘trans’ mythology during the Covid lockdown, when kids in our state were asked to please just spend all-day-every-day alone with the internet for two years, so as to keep learning.Well, they definitely learned some things.See, I can’t even write this intro without slipping into ‘dark cynic...2024-08-091h 32
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastUnMuted episode 11.2, featuring Matt OsborneThanks for your patience during the repair of this audio. The new version has cleared Quality Control and is suitable for your earbuds. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com2024-07-301h 21
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastListen to Episode 11 with Matt OsborneMatt is a military historian, US Army veteran, prolific writer and ‘recovering political scientist,’ just for starters. For me, because I was raised with no religious influences, Matt also serves as an interpreter of the spiritual drivers of human behavior, including the “God-shaped hole” idea that may help explain some of what confounds us when we talk about gender, ego and identity.We discuss that and lots more following Matt’s account of his creative Senate-campaign exploits in Alabama which yielded not just the unlikely political win but an on-location profile of Matt on This American L...2024-07-271h 21
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastUnMuted episode 10, featuring 'Unyielding Bicyclist'This episode features the esteemed writer and legal mind known on Substack as Unyielding Bicyclist — “UB” for short. She’s a practicing attorney in New York, and her advocacy in ‘gender war’ issues stems from her concern for children and adolescents who are ‘transed’ to prevent them from growing up gay or lesbian. Many linkable things are discussed here, such as:Katie Herzog’s 2017 article in The StrangerExplanation of the Chicago law professor anecdote, which I got about 60% right; and an opinion piece on that story by Bill Maher in the Chicago Tribun...2024-07-191h 36
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastUnMuted episode 9: The (Un)Sporting SceneSarah Barker writes one of my favorite Substacks. It’s called TheFemaleCategory, and it’s a great place to learn about the history of men competing as women in sports, which has been going on for much longer than I realized.Her bio reads: “I've been a journalist for forty years, a runner and a woman for longer than that, and am increasingly seeing the need to be actively feminist. Women's sports is where that happens for me, and why I established The Female Category.”Sarah’s been published in the New York Times, Dead Spin, Runn...2024-06-272h 15
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastUnMuted episode 8, featuring the founders of DIAGI recently had the honor of joining the board of directors of DIAG — Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender — and I’m excited to interview the organization’s co-directors, ‘Ellie’ and ‘Eliza,’ on this episode.All three of us were, in the words of my friend Mrs. Miller, ‘Assigned Democrat at Birth.’ For reasons we will discuss today, each of us feels more or less obligated to try and rescue the party from what I’ve described as a slow-motion train wreck of its own making. To complicate the analogy: each of us has a child riding on the ill-fate...2024-06-151h 09
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastThe One Where Gerald Posner, a Major-League Publishing MVP, Pitches an Inning in the Little League Game That Is UnMuted.Here’s the text of my intro:I’ve been thinking about queer theory, which is basically a repudiation of reality and a rejection of accepted social norms. Every time I’ve ever had to think about queer theory, it’s been in response to something ugly and downright crazy-making: like watching Democrats fight to eradicate competitive sports for women;or hearing anyone argue for rapists in women’s prisons;knowing doctors are performing “Frankenstein” experiments on healthy bodies because patients are asking for them, while teachers and counselors are spreading unbelievably d...2024-06-081h 01
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastUnMuted episode 6, featuring Kappa Kappa Gamma's Cheryl Tuck-SmithTo donate to the lawsuit in which Cheryl and some of her reality-based KKG friends are the plaintiffs, mail a tax-deductible check to:NDCME10841 Highway 73Watford City, ND 58854North Dakota Coalition for Member Education is a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation.Thanks to William A Ferguson for the theme music, and Anne Gibbons for the UnMuted logo This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com2024-06-0442 min
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastUnMuted episode 5, featuring Mrs. MillerI’m excited to bring you one of the most eloquent and candid commentators I’ve found on the impact of gender ideology on the family system. In the ‘Before’ times, she published two novels, so the eloquence comes naturally. Her candor is unusually revealing, sometimes self-critical, often darkly funny, and always honest. Because she uses a pseudonym [it’s less pseudonymous than I thought, as I learn in the recording], Mrs. Miller has the freedom to be as open and raw as she wants. That freedom is something I can’t indulge in since I use my rea...2024-04-281h 10
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastUnMuted episode 4, featuring friend-of-the-pod 'ML'ML is the author of the recent guest post here on the WPATH Files, and before that an essay titled ‘A View from the Ivory Tower,’ which we discuss in the episode. He is a scholar and STEM professor with a profound appreciation for the power of what he calls ‘wondrous’ research to elevate, inspire and transform humanity. He describes an acute crisis in scientific rigor and objectivity as a threat not just to gender-confused kids but to all human flourishing. This episode coincides with the publication of the final ‘Cass Review,’ England’s exhaustive NHS study of the scant e...2024-04-121h 18
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastUnMuted episode 3, featuring "Dr. Lewis"Dr. Lewis (not his real name) is both a practicing clinical physician and a professor of medicine. He works with an important advocacy group called Do No Harm, which we discuss here, and also with a group of volunteers who deliver screening care to poor communities where certain preventable diseases are epidemic. It’s worth noticing that an MD with a resume’ this impressive and praiseworthy requires a cloak of anonymity to discuss any topic related to healthcare. By contrast, I can speak openly because I don’t have a credentialed position of authority, nor any of the ac...2024-03-261h 07
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastUnMuted episode 2, featuring 'Helene'I’m happy to present this conversation on Detransition Awareness Day, as my guest has an unusual and thought-provoking story of cross-sex confusion in childhood, and its eventual resolution. She speaks eloquently about her experience, as you’ll hear. She also writes poignantly, as you may already have seen if you happened upon her moving six-part essay, ‘A Desistor’s Manifesto,’ which appeared recently on the PITT [Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans] Substack. Here’s one of my favorite passages from that series:“Real love says the truth. It doesn't pretend in the name of...2024-03-1245 min
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastListen to UnMuted's debut episode, featuring 'Hippiesq'!Find Hippiesq's Newsletter on Substack here This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jennypoyerackerman.substack.com2024-03-031h 39
UnMuted: the TransMuted PodcastROGD and its DiscontentsRapid Onset Gender Dysphoria and its Discontents, by Jenny Poyer Ackerman (Adapted from the book Women’s Rights: Gender Wrongs, published by WDI.)Imagine you’ve just hung a painting on your living-room wall. You step back to take a look, and realize it should be a few inches to the left. Just then a neighbor pops in and tells you how to solve the problem: hire a builder to move the chimney, the door and the windows a few inches to the right. Seeing your look of doubt, she calls other ne...2023-10-1418 min