The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Trans Rights and Twitter Wars with Jesse Singal and Ross Barkan

Episode Date: May 22, 2025

Noam Dworman invites Ross Barkan and Jesse Singal join to reconcile their Twitter feud . Ross Barkan is a columnist for New York Magazine and a contributing writer to the NY Times Magazine. He's the editor in chief of The Metropolitan Review, a new books and culture review magazine, and his new novel, Glass Century, is out now. Jesse Singal is a former writer-at-large at New York Magazine, cohost of Blocked and Reported, and author of The Quick Fix: Why Fad Psychology Can't Cure Our Social Ills.

Welcome to Live from the Table, the official podcast for the world-famous Comedy Cellar. I am here with Noam Dwarman, the owner of the Comedy Cellar. I am Perrielle Aschenbrand, the producer of the show. Dan Natterman is on a cruise and as such will not be joining us today. Good evening, everyone. We have two very special guests today. Good evening, everyone. We have two very special guests today. Ross Barkin is a columnist for New York Magazine and a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine. He's the editor-in-chief of the Metropolitan Review, a new books and culture

review magazine, and his new novel, Glass Century, is out now. Welcome back to the show, Ross Barkin. Very excited to be here. Thank you for having me. Thank you for joining us. And our other very special guest is Jesse Singhal, former writer- Singhal? Single. Single, yeah. Single? Yeah. It's okay. Go ahead.

And our other very special guest is Jesse Singhal, former writer-at-large at New York Magazine, co-host of Blocked and Reported, and author of The Quick Fix, Why Fad Psychology Can't Cure Our Social Ills. Welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm very happy to have you guys here. So let me say, so Perriell just screwed everything up.

You've been very anti-Perriell since you walked in, to be honest. So I saw you guys beefing on Twitter. And this is from the bottom of my heart. I said, these are two of the people that I know that I hold in the inner circle of the most reasonable people, the most good natured about disagreeing, and the people whose opinions I most feel that I have to really, really consider before I dismiss them.

And now they're fighting. And I said, and this was hurtful to me. I swear to God. I said, of all the people I know who shouldn't be fighting, it's these two guys. and this was hurtful to me. I swear to God. I said, this is of all the people I know who shouldn't be fighting. It's these two guys, these two guys should be hanging out. So I said, do you guys want to come on the show and talk about it? And you both agreed to it. So, but I thought, you know, things like that could go bad. I said, so we should start by doing, so let me get a bottle of wine and we'll pour some wine on, on the air and we'll have a toast

just to put things in the right spirit of a, you know, conciliatory conversation. And then of course, Peril just opens the bottle and pours it. Pause, pause, pause. And yet Noam, who had been sitting across the table from me for the past hour, did not mention a word of this to me, just said, here's a bottle of wine. I didn't even say that. I asked Johnny to take up the wine and you said I'll bring it.

But you had no idea what I wanted. But how come you didn't tell me, hey, Perrielle, if you're going to nicely offer to save one of my waiters a trip upstairs. You're right. Oh, what? Yes, but it's not flattering. The reason that you're right is not flattering to you, but yes, you're right. Oh, what? Yes, but it's not flattering. The reason that you're right is not flattering to you, but yes, you're right. I should have left nothing

to chance. You should have said, don't open it. Why would it occur to you that maybe he has something intended with this wine? It doesn't matter. Why would it occur to you that if you're not here, it's nice to say, hi guys, welcome. That it's also coming for me, it's nice to say, hi guys, welcome. That it's also coming for me.

It's nice to welcome them with a glass of wine. I'll tell you why we're going to move on. Because I've never done that before. Okay. So cheers everybody. Periel doesn't get any. Periel doesn't want, no, I don't want any. Sianna, you want some wine? No, and she needs to be sober.

So, I'm going to read what it was that I saw. Hell yeah. And then I'll let you guys take it from there. So, this was April 20th. That was 420, wow. 420. Of 4 and 20 years ago. Okay.

Ross Barkin. It's good to see the 2010s and the early 20s, quote, anti-woke writers and intellectuals who still defend the First Amendment during Trump 2.0. Shout out to Zaid Jalani, Michael Tracy, Glenn Greenwald, and Andrew Sullivan. I'm sure I'm forgetting some. And then the hapless Aaron Gittleman chimes in. I love Aaron. Aaron's a good guy. I don't even know who he is. Chimes in. I love Aaron. Aaron's a good guy. I don't even know who he is.

Chimes in, Jesse's single too. And then Ross, wasn't going to take that lying down. He adds, yeah, but I'm a hater because he reaped what he sowed on anti-trans.

I suppose to a degree Sullivan did as well, but I think Sullivan is a better and more interesting writer. Single is like replacement level Dem opinions coupled with trans obsession. Kind of weird, honestly. And then he continues. I guess he took another swig of his whiskey. Jesse could have written like two sub stack pieces.

One on the Leah Thomas thing, crossing the line. Another on how the UK is right about banning transition, transitioning for minors and called it a day. But he made anti-trans his shtick, his hustle, and he got the GOP and he got the GOP he wanted. All right, Ross.

Is there anything you want to walk back there? Yeah, I do. I honestly, yeah, Twitter X, I was being too much of a hater yeah i there there are parts i i will not but yeah i think generally okay so why do we do it this way why yeah i don't like i i was i was too much of a hater why don't we strike that from the record less of a hater in person why don't you strike that from the record i should say yeah quickly i there's been a lot of online fighting and bullshit.

I think Ross is the first person who agreed to an actual discussion, so whatever other disagreements, I want to give him credit for that. Which actually bore out my feeling about him. Yeah. No, I always like to talk things out. No, I...

So strike that from the record and make your point. Make your point. Some of it was far too personalized. I am a mediocre writer. I don't disagree with that was far too personalized. I am a mediocre writer. I don't disagree with that. I should not have called you a mediocre writer. That's the least important part of it.

It's the hustler, but go ahead. Or hustle. I apologize. I have a hustle too, but I apologize for that. There's too many barbs. That's nice. I think I was speaking for a place of frustration, which is not Jesse's fault. Honestly, which is not Jesse's fault.

Honestly, it's not Jesse's fault, where it feels on the Republican side now the hostility to trans people is deeply personalized and deeply nasty. And I have friends who are trans. I have family who are trans. And so for me, I've been

emotionally tied up with it. Because while as I said, as I said in my, my, my tweet, I think there's a lot of places we would agree, honestly, where there were many excesses in the trans movement of the 2010s and into the 20s with women's athletics, you know, Leah Thomas breaking all the records at Penn. I mean, that was not good, not something that should have happened. And, you know, like I said, the discussion— What's your argument for why that shouldn't have happened? My argument would be that when it comes to athletics,

you need real gender-specific guidelines. Except like biological sex specific. I think so. If I think for athletics, yes. I'm sort of with the Martina Navratilova position that women and men have to compete separately. That's just how it works. And someone who transitioned a few years ago

and heads into women's sports does have an unfair advantage. As a sports fan myself, very sympathetic to that argument, I would say. And also transitioning before 18, I think when you're 18, you should do whatever you want. You're an adult.

Except vote. Go ahead. Except vote. You can vote. Oh, except drink. I'm sorry. Except vote. You can vote. Oh, except drink. I'm sorry. Except drink. Oh, drink.

Yeah. I would probably lower that to 18. I would make it a straight 18. Under 18, I have questions about having a child and a teen take very serious hormones that are irreversible. Again, I'm not the expert here, but yeah, that's something I, you know, have concerns about. It's not something that excises me a lot.

I don't have kids, so it's not really an issue I care too much about. But I recognize, you know, the position in the UK has abandoned, right? So, you know, it's not that we're, it's not a fringe position. So it's something I'm very sympathetic to as well. And then the other, what was the third?

There's a third point. Obsession. Sorry? The obsession part. Oh, so I think there is too much focus on the trans issue from all sides, to be honest. It's a very small part of the population. And that doesn't mean you don't report on it. It doesn't mean you don't write about it. It doesn't mean you don't talk about it. I find on the right and the left,

and this is bipartisan, there is far too much energy and attention given. The left has, you know, in the past, i think it's changing in the democratic party but you know definitely sort of naive views on on gender um and i think the right is openly bigoted and hostile and i i see that with the evolution of maga where it is now um how you know the first trump campaign didn't talk about trans issues. Trump 2016, even Trump 2020, wasn't interested in it really. But by 2024, it is central to the campaign. It's an issue that proved to be a winning issue.

I'm more skeptical on how I think the ad was effective. She's for they, them. I think there are other deciding factors in that election. Yeah, I wouldn't put it on that ad. Anything involving wokeness, actually. No, I agree with that. I don't want to cut you off, but wrap it up so Jesse can answer. So in conclusion, my general non-barbed, calm, in-person take,

again, I take back the invective. I didn't mean it. It's Twitter. You're popping things off, as you know, in like six seconds. My general take is there are issues I agree with you on with it. I do think the Republican Party has become deeply bigoted and hostile. You will not be surprised. I'm just going to go out on a limb.

I know Jesse's on the left as well. He's going to agree with you about the repatriation of be surprised. I'm just going to go out on a limb. I know Jesse's on the left as well. He's going to agree with you about the repatriation of the right. I know. And so I don't blame you. I take that back. I don't blame you for it. It's not your fault. My concern is that there has been a lot of focus on this issue and it has something that has been weaponized and things get weaponized, right? I've done written things that probably have gotten weaponized. But that is a concern I have. So I'll stop talking and go ahead. Mr. Senoir?

You can call me Aya. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. This is sort of what I expected would happen. I find there's a lot of online discourse where I ask, someone will get mad at me, usually much madder than you were, to be fair. And I'll be like, what do you disagree with me about? And they sort of struggle to come up with an answer. So in this case, it sounds like you're talking about the hypothetical idea of my work being weaponized. And I think in much the the same way you seem to start to reject that

i just reject that i think okay so like libs of tiktok who spends every day tweeting out videos of like they them teachers with blue hair who are just frankly random nobodies and who represent point zero zero one percent of teachers and is trying to construct a moral panic the more highbrow version of that i think is chris rufo who's not wrong about everything but is who represent 0.001% of teachers and is trying to construct a moral panic. The more highbrow version of that, I think, is Chris Ruffo, who's not wrong about everything, but is very open about his idea.

He wants to fight basically a war against liberal institutions. I'm just not, in my situation, like I'm among online asshole, gnomes are trying to meet other roles. Like I am a science journalist. I've written a book about sort of shoddy scientific ideas and how they impact society and this is a beat i found myself in um in part because back when i started writing about it there wasn't anyone else on the

left covering it and i think there's major i've gotten i don't want to say radicalized because it hasn't changed my politics but if you come at this from a place of like the little bit of knowledge I have about how to read and evaluate studies and you see what medical experts are saying about these treatments and then you talk to the families and then you talk to the kids, I just think what's going on is really bad in terms of the exaggerations, the claim that you give kids these treatments, it will ameliorate their suicide. Um, and if you don't give them the treatments, they will kill themselves. I just think that's the gravest, most serious claim a medical professional can make, uh, to a parent who's genuinely trying to figure out what's, you know, what, how to help their kid. And, uh, you know, it, it pisses me off a little bit because I think everyone has a right to good information about treatments. They're considering first first and foremost trans adults and trans kids themselves so the way i interpreted your tweets is i don't know it's just like what should i do is like is it like trump was elected so i should take the next like push off my book on this and not write about it

because it'll weaponize it what do you mean by the weaponizing part i guess i i want to clarify to your position sort of mischaracterize them so when one is 18 do you think they should be free to pursue these treatments and medications i'm not an expert but do you think once you are an adult, you should have the right to access these kinds of treatments? Yeah, I think on balance, I also, that's through this protocol called informed consent where the doctor gives you hopefully a thick stack of paper laying out what the potential risks and benefits are, and you decide as a legal adult of sound mind you want to do that.

I'm in favor of that. I also think we're at the point where in terms of the gap between what doctors say and what the evidence is that like a few doctors basically need to get sued at this point for misleading their patients. But fundamentally I think I have like a, a pretty libertarian stance for adults. Um, I think that being said,

if I'm going to be honest, there's like a part of me that's a little bit of queasy cause like a little bit queasy cause you talk to parents who's, there's just like some really fucked up cases. And in terms of the parents who reach out to me, it's selecting for the fucked up cases. So maybe for every fucked up case I hear about, there's a hundred cases where kids flourish. I'm a little bit skeptical of that, but you're talking about a 17 year old on the autism spectrum, history of eating disorders, suicide attempts. There is part of me where I don't feel like I can back off of my belief about 18, but a kid who's 17 years old and 11 and a half months and has all these problems,

sometimes they've had problems with psychosis. The idea that the second they turn 18, I'm a little bit skeptical of that. Do you make it 21? Do you have an age? Like for me, it's like once you're an adult, you should be able to do what you want with your body. That's my feeling. At 18,

you should have that right. I think it probably has to be 18. I will say the more I... You'd push it back to like 21. No, I think I'd have to stick to 18. With reservations. Yeah. But if it was your child, you'd prefer them to wait to 21. No, I think I'd have to stick to 18. With reservations. Yeah. But if it was your child, you'd prefer them to wait to 21.

Yeah, but that would depend a huge amount on things like if they'd felt that way since they were three. The major point of conflation here, it used to be that the kids who got these treatments had felt that way for many years since they were little. That was a prerequisite for going through

what was called the Dutch Protocol. These days, those guidelines are out the window. Now I say that these treatments have been banned in about half of American states. So there's a huge difference between like, if you're in Alabama, I mean, it's all going through the courts. We're going to know in June, the Supreme court decision, but I'm really just talking about blue States. Uh, they don't tend to follow guidelines like that. I, a story for The Economist about a detransitioner who went into one of the most famous gender clinics of the country at UCLA. First visit, prescribed puberty blockers. That was age 12.

Age 13, testosterone. Age 14, double mastectomy. She got more rather than less suicidal along the way. Now she's 20, back to being a woman and she's suing and that was one of the most famous gender youth gender clinicians in the country so i just don't think that's outlying now the other question here and i'll let you talk again is like the right amount of time for journalists to spend on some issue in my case it's a mix of i felt like i found a niche i felt like I was qualified to write about this.

I hoped to drag it away from the genuine bigotry. It's not bigoted to say I don't think 15-year-olds have the cognitive capacity to transition. No, I don't think it's bigoted either. My concern is, and again, I admit online, you get very feisty, i i get feisty but not me i've never i've never i don't even picture you feisty but the the real so the concern i have now is you know we're having this conversation where we have you know i think a consensus on on being an adult and transitioning to what you do. This is not a question for you because you can't solve this problem.

But what do you do when you have a political party that is deeply hostile to the civil rights of a group of people? And what comes next? And the hatred, the real, and i see it online all the time um people like you know responding on on x and twitter and in comment sections i mean the real genuine frothing hatred in a way it almost feels like the the hatred the republicans had for for gay people has died down right i mean the republican party except they're like sublimating it because they lost that battle right they lost the battle and it's become trans now and that's where i have a real major problem and i find myself in you know deep disagreement with those people and i'm disturbed by it, quite frankly, because it seems deeply nasty and hate that the same invective a racist would bring to race.

They bring it to. Can I say something? Yes, go ahead. First of all, I agree with both you guys. I know Ariel does, of course, that when it was this Trump State of the Union address, I dinged him on this show. I say, like, why are you putting it that way? Why are you throwing red meat to the anti-trans people? Especially now when so many people have realized that they're one, two degrees separation

from some family that's going through this issue. I mean, that's been one of the revelations is everybody just, oh my God. In my own little life, one of my very, very best friends' daughter is trans. One of the best men at my wedding turned out is now trans. I have trans employees. Dan's not on a cruise, actually.

Dan's not on a cruise. So I thought Trump actually was a little tone deaf about that. And no, meaning like I don't even think, I think he might've turned off more people than he turned on. But anyway, but I agree that, we all agree that we sense, we can smell that this has turned the corner into big.

I guess my question for Jess. Oh, wait, but that was just, the other thing I wanted to say is that, and by the way, just to say, and the people I know who are close to me that are dealing with this trans issue within their families and love their children, many of them are not averse to Jesse Singel. Like, many of them actually see him as somebody who made them feel better about their situations. But what I wanted to say is that this issue about you should have written it once and

dropped it. What do you do as a journalist when you feel that you've hit upon something which is important and you want to win this argument because so many people's lives hang in the balance? It's not enough just to tick the box. Okay. I wrote about it. Now I can check out. Or even more important than the lives in the balance,

you have a book contract and you want to get the money. Well, well, I mean, you're, you're, you're being very, you know,

facetious or sarcastic, whatever I call it, but I'm saying like you, you're actually championing a cause that was important. You're doing it at a time, which is very unique in the sense that you're also fighting a battle against politics intruding upon science.

And we saw- In both directions. Yeah, and we saw that issue happening not just with the trans issue. It was an important battle to fight. We saw it with COVID. We saw it with BLM. We saw all kinds of things.

And just writing it once is not enough. You want to win this point because it's good for the country if you win this point. Go ahead. Yeah, okay. So I know Ross, let me respond to something Ross said

which ties into that. I mean, I don't view it as like, I guess like the only argument I want to win is I want people to understand the uncertainty about these treatments. That's winning the point. And the level of irresponsibility about the scientific establishment now what you're i agree completely about trump trump said in an executive order that you can't trans people don't have like what was the phrasing dignity or honor it's clearly

motivated by animosity and this is true when you write if you write an article that's critical of the nypd you'll get these weirdo barnacles hanging on your underside who want to like kill cops or want to abolish the police this is it's part of how it works or pose affirmative action you're going to get yeah there's um now there is a big group of people that i absolutely acknowledge that and i get i don't know what the ratio is but i get a lot of emails from people who are mad that i use preferred pronouns or mad that i won't emails from people who are mad that I use preferred pronouns or mad that I won't call trans activists who are trans women, men,

stuff like that. So, but in terms of the question of actual people who can be fairly called bigots, what gives them fuel? I guess. So New York magazine did a cover story by Andrea Longchou, who's considered a leading public intellectual, for better or worse,

making the argument that kids of any age in any mental state should have the right to any medical treatment they want. Yeah, which I don't agree with. Of course you don't, because it's idiotic. Do you think... I don't understand how saying we should be careful about these treatments, here are the problems with the research. If we're going to play the game, what gives fuel to like the radical right?

Right. To me, one, New York, first of all, I don't think any of it, like we give ourselves way too much credit. We're very solipsistic. I don't actually think what media douchebags do matters much. If it did, Trump wouldn't have been elected twice. But Andrew Longchew's one example, maybe a more highbrow or substantive one is as a result of the Alabama lawsuit, all these documents came out, fell out of discovery. I don't want to get too deep into this, but WPATH, which is the leading organization that sets these guidelines, had to release all these documents.

And they showed like a unbelievably unprofessional organization that is literally commissioning research on the subject and then suppressing it. This is in their own words. And something like that, conservatives should point that out. And conservatives should say that that's ridiculous, that the leading professional organization would do that. So it's like it puts journalists in a bind. I'm not going to not report on that because conservatives could use it because they should they should use it until w path does better so yeah maybe that's too in the weeds but i just that question of like who is giving fuel to the right i think is often more complicated than

people say yeah i think we have to give the benefit of the doubt in the end to the people who get things right just like the biden age thing i mean it's like yeah they were trying to hurt biden but they were right. And the people who were covering for him... Well, but it's not clear-cut here, because a lot of people think I'm getting things wrong, and it could be that 15 years from now it'll turn out my concerns were overblown. We're still in the

figuring-it-out process, for what it's worth. I'm sure you would even concede there's certain things you feel high confidence about, and certain things you think the evidence still has to emerge. But clearly, I don't think there's anybody who thinks that the old regime was, as you just said, they were heading towards anybody should be able to get anything they want at any age.

That couldn't be right. Yeah, I mean, Andrew, Chu's position was like the far out there, but there's a general genre of people. It was far out there, but there's a general genre. It was far out there, but that was the one we were all pressured to accept. I think so, yeah. And that gets to like the sport. I mean, stuff that I haven't written about much, including the sports stuff. It's basically the maximalist version of self-idea, which is someone's sex is what they say it is, which I think the vast majority of people believe is problematic.

But weirdly, like within liberal institutions, you couldn't, until recently, you couldn't really disagree with that. My early observation on this, and I want you guys to keep talking, was, and Peril got mad at me, I said, look, I don't even know about this stuff, but I know in any non-political context, if somebody had some sort of psychological state

where they wanted to mutilate themselves, cut off their genitals, whatever it is, we would take this very seriously. Don't say mutilate. I'm not trying to language police, but that's... Using language like mutilate does stack the deck a little. That's why Trump called it...

I use it intentionally, meaning in a non-political context, if I said I need my wrist gone, I need my... There are people, I need my limbs gone, I want to cut off part of my body, except in a political context, you wouldn't mince words about mutilate. That's what I'm saying. Like in any other context, we'd say, this sounds serious. We better go very slowly here and get this right and that political pressure is not the friend of good decision making or science it's just not so like i i don't i didn't have any vested stake i have no

bigotry about it my i'm going to my my past i like i only want what's best for these people i i same way i only want what's best for someone who feels the urge to cut off their limbs i only want what's best i want fulfilling lives life free of bigotry, all of it. But this is a profound mental state. And we can't just. What about people who want to transition? You're saying they're all mentally ill. There's plenty of people who want to transition who aren't mentally ill.

This is what you're doing. And this is what I resist. I'm not saying they're mentally ill, or maybe they are mentally ill. I don't want to get in trouble. It's like you're angling to get me in trouble. No, no, I'm saying it. Yes, you are. You're a sound of mind person.

Yeah, or angling to get someone in trouble. What I'm saying is, I have a daughter. She's cutting off her breasts. Can I- Right now? No, I'm saying hypothetically. Can I please react to this cautiously in her best interest, play devil's advocate without people accusing me of being a bigot?

Because they don't actually give a shit about my daughter. They care about this culture war they're fighting. I care about my daughter. And there's no going back on this. And you guys are putting me in this spot where, and then, and if I dare speak publicly about it, I'm going to get attacked and hated and people are going to spit on me in the

street. And that's what that's, that's the situation we're in. And I'm really saying this, it's without regard to, it may be right to let her cut off her breasts, you know, or take puberty blockers at five.

I don't have any stake in that, but I know an atmosphere that is not allowing for a proper debate, and I know that those kind of atmospheres lead to bad outcomes. Yeah, well, anything you need to open discussion. I think you have to discuss any issue, especially in regards to medicine and impact. I mean, look, my contrarian view is that there needed to be discussion about some of the COVID vaccines. And there were issues, mRNA vaccine.

I knew people who had heart issues from it. And I'm not saying the vaccine didn't save lives and it was great, but it was developed in less than a year. And some people had a hard time with it and the time new york times finally years later wrote a big piece i remember that which was brave vaccine injuries yeah brave i mean it was late enough where you're you're yeah they had a they brave would have been doing it like 2022 or one but yeah they did it and that kind of gave cover finally to have kind of open discussions

about that again in a nuanced way where i'm personally not anti-vax i'm very vaccinated um but i think with yeah any issue related to medical science i i agree with you and that we have to be um as transparent as possible you know you're taking a drug you're doing something to your body and what what are the pros and cons right what are the long-term effects is your view that are the short-term effect youth gender stuff it should be banned for under 18s or no i i i i don't have a for i would say i have concerns about under 18 um full a full ban i would have to think more about it, to be honest with you, and study it further.

But under 18, I have concerns. I think if you're an adult, you should have the right to decide what you want to do with your body. And if you're a minor, there should be protections in place. I do believe that. So yeah, I have concerns about a nine or 10-year-old wanting to get some medicine or some change

where their brains aren't yet fully developed, right? I mean, you're making, it's hard for a child to make decisions. I think that's where I come down. I think we all agree is that when you're 18 years old, you are much closer, you are technically legally adult and you are much closer you are technically legally adult and you are much closer just to being in the mature space to make life decisions when you're 12

i mean can a 12 year old decide to drink or you know do do something else i mean it would help me if you guys could fight about something oh i mean i'm not what what i'm not trying to press i mean but i sort of anticipated this well Well, no, I mean... What a bust. No, I think... Fuck you guys. Well, no, I guess my hater take is that I feel like there's just way too much energy

given to this stuff. I get it's your beat. I really... I mean, the other... I'm not trying to be overly defensive, but it's like... Yeah, it's... It's one of my beats.

Okay, maybe it's just what you've become known for, and then that's more just a branding problem. But Ross, on balance, the Jesse Singles impact on the culture is positive. I don't know. I mean, I think so. Well, let's do the, if it's negative, why is it negative? I do worry. Again, I don't think it's do the, if it's negative, why is it negative? I do worry.

Again, I don't think it's your fault, but I'm not saying you have the power to do this either, but my concern is you've done good faith reporting on an issue, right? That's fine. You can't control the currents around you, but there is a furious, hateful, anti-trans movement that is gaining strength in the United States of America. I'm not saying you created that at all.

You think you fueled it? I think they had enough without just... No one person can create something. I guess what I'm saying is, I mean, you're very anti-Trump, right? So do you feel any conflict where if MAGA and Trump are taking up, you know, a lot of this or some of this, do you feel any conflict there? Or not really? Like, well, at least someone's doing it. The Democrats should also.

MAGA's doing it, but MAGA's going too far. I guess i'm curious for the yeah ecology of it i mean perspective when trump trump has exhibited a lot of disdain toward trans people and as with everything he does it's hard to know like what's his own broken brain what he's saying to sort of send red meat to the base yeah um so for example because of trump he put out an executive order that had that same loaded language and he called for hhs to do a review of the available evidence now liberals for perfectly understandable reasons are now shitting on that review claiming it's bias i thought it was good

because at this point any review of the evidence that's honestly conducted is going to find the same thing sweden found finland found the uk found like the evidence isn't good that doesn't mean these treatments are bad it means i don't know right um i actually i think it's good trump did the review of the evidence i don't think it's good he talks about trans people that way i also i'm curious why the biden hhs couldn't have done that instead of just basically handing this issue over to activists which i think is a huge mistake so right do you know if trump says or trump if robert f kennedy did a press conference tomorrow and was like the evidence for these treatments is weak and he said it in that moderate way right he would be right right um now but the

problem is and i think there's a lot of people on the left, some of them in your orbit who do this, who do this bullshit sort of moral jumping the gun where because you said you're not sure, 14-year-olds should transition. That means you hate trans people or want them to die. And that's like... I don't think that. I know, but that's the only way you can get, in my view, that's the only way you can get

from my reporting to negative impact. Also, I gotta say, the idea of saying – I appreciate the question, but the impact of my work on the culture is null. It's just – Right. We're all – yeah. For both of us, there's only so much we can do. I don't follow it so closely, but I'm under the impression that the work you'd done is responsible for a sea change and people on the left being open to the idea that this kind of all-in policy was ill-advised. If I played a role in that, that's fine. But separate from my work, you had all this shit going on in the UK, Finland, Sweden, Norway.

Basically, Europe really started to turn against us, and I think that would have been easy. Yeah, but unless a credible person of the left or of the leftist center endorsed this stuff, it was all going to be dismissed as right-wing bigotry. Do you have – I mean, I'm sure you do, and you've written about it before, but certain accommodations. You see a lot of anti-trans activists hate like the all-gender bathroom i assume you don't care you're fine with the all-gender no i think yeah i think the bathroom thing is like uh non ironically not ironically but coincidentally one of the first things i wrote about trans issues was i uh got to interview like a rock star hero of mine laura jane grace of this band Against Me, and she was campaigning in North Carolina against the bathroom bills,

which this is a really good example because the bathroom bill thing really blew up in Republicans' faces versus kids of any age can get any treatment they want. Not that that was a mainstream position, but it was widely held. There are people who... It was mainstream.

I felt it was mainstream in the Democratic Party. Yeah, a cover of New York Magazine is mainstream enough. Yeah. Bathrooms, no. I think locker rooms are tricky. Mixed sex spaces are tricky. What do you say about the locker rooms? I think if you are identifying and you've transitioned,

you should be in the locker room you identify. A high school locker room. A person with a penis is changing in front of my daughter in a high school locker room. I think if they identify that way and they're transitioning and they have the documents and all those things, yeah, I mean, you're going to force them into some place they feel i mean yeah i i'm more let me just clarify i i am i've said i'm on the left i would say a trans woman can be in a woman's locker room i do think that now should the trans

woman be like leah thomas shattering female swimming records no i mean that that i do draw the line on athletic competition itself. It's okay she's in the locker room. My view is we should protect the civil rights of these people. They are citizens and they should have, or if they're not citizens they should have civil rights.

But they should be made to feel welcome. They should be able to go to the bathrooms they identify as. That extends to locker rooms. Yes, be able to go to the bathrooms they identify as that extends to locker rooms. Yes, I do think that the athletic field is different. The athletic field is one where there are records, there are scholarships on the line, there are professional opportunities. That is where I do believe the genders really have to be separated for competition purposes. But if someone's identifying a certain way and they've transitioned or transitioning, they want to go to the bathroom of their choice, they should be able to.

That bathroom is different than the locker room. And I would extend it to the locker room. I don't see a massive difference. So what's your view on that? Well, I've done some soul searching about this. I can't lie that it's a very jarring thing to imagine my daughter in a shower with somebody with a penis. But I've said-

But what if they've transitioned mostly? Is that fine then? If the penis has been- Yeah, if the transition, I guess, it would be less jarring. But I- i probably wouldn't apply to a high school situation but wait let me just say but i but i'm i've said on the show like two years ago i'm very aware that that can just be my own uh pavlovian response that that may not

be related in any way and and as a matter of fact if you held a gun to my head i would probably say it doesn't really matter nothing's gonna happen to her if she sees it. It's just jarring, you know? It's jarring. Maybe it's jarring from some inborn instinct, which can't ever be eradicated. Or maybe it's jarring because of the way we're raised. Do I actually think my daughter's psychology will be any way affected by seeing a penis in a locker room? No, I don't actually.

So, you know, I don't actually. So, you know, it would not be, it would not actually be the end of the world here. But then there's another layer, which is like, how far do I want to go in ramming down the throats of people of a different culture that my way is the right way? You know, that's, I'm always uncomfortable about that. Like at some point communities, I feel,

but that's something I'm right of center. I feel like communities should have more latitude to decide some of these things. Yeah, but also, it's also kind of a libertarian view to say someone as an individual should have their individual rights protected too. They should be able to go into the, I mean, again, bathroom, locker room.

Are there any other contested spaces yeah prisons yeah i think go you should go jk rowling's was weak on the prison you should go to the prison that you i think i think by gender identity i would send you so you're not worried about like the karen white case uh in the, which got a lot of press where a rapist raped women in prisons who identified? I think it's just such an outlier now. I would have to... It's an outlier until we authorize it, in which case people will start...

Yeah, I don't know. ...perse-engineering it. Yeah, I don't... There's always going to be outlier cases. I guess what... I would let someone who identifies how they want to go. The alternative is very bad too, which is if you imagine a trans woman in a male prison. But that shouldn't happen either.

But if you've got your, if you've got, let's see, fully transitioned, right? You've got your ID, you got your documents, you are a trans woman or trans man, you should go to the prison you identify as. I do think that. Can we all agree that prison rape in general is a national shame? The fact that they can't police the...

I've sometimes felt that prison itself is cruel and unusual punishment based on what we know goes on. Maybe you are on the left. I can be quite left-wing. Yeah, America is a carceral state. We imprison far more people than anyone in the world. I guess what annoys me about this conversation,

and to me it's just like a sea of compromises because I think a lot of it's not a clear cut, but there does seem to be a built-in assumption, which does run contrary to the law as it's written, that women as a sex class don't have a right to single sex basis and under title nine they do and and base i mean it's i don't know the legal ship but long story short democratic administrations uh obama and to a greater extent biden tried to argue like we don't need to pass a law title nine already protects people on the basis of gender identity and i

think we're about a decade behind in having an actual adult conversation about those two rights obviously conflict. Because if you're a trans woman and that's your identity and you want to change with the women, that's one arguable right. And if you're a biological woman and you want to not have males in your space,

that's an arguable right. And they obviously clash. And I think we just need to acknowledge it's like two competing rights do you draw a line on how far along in your transition let's say you transitioned 10 years ago you appear to be a woman you identify as a woman you still have to go into no no i don't i think that's that's what i'm that's what i'm wondering yeah i think trans women like regardless of their level of transition, probably face specific threats at the hands of non-trans males.

Excuse me. So does that mean you have a trans ward in a prison? I think just single bathrooms can resolve a lot of this. Single sex. Yeah. No, not single sex. There's a row of sinks and then individual stalls. Oh, just a single bathroom. Yeah. No, not single sex. There's a row of sinks and then individual stalls. Oh, just a single bathroom.

Yeah. I like single bathroom. They don't have that many of them. They're very expensive to install as a restaurant. I was going to say, I would imagine they're a terror. But my point is there is this weird, the assumption that cisgender women don't have some stake in this and that some of them that their discomfort shouldn't be taken into account what do you think we've been silencing the one woman here i know it's it's not lost on me um anyway good point back

first let me explain to you what's been said. I think that, first of all, as women's bathrooms only have single stalls, I know that you guys have urinals in all of your bathrooms. So that's one thing that I think is inherently different. I also think that trans women have been using the bathroom that they identify with this with the gender that they identify as for you know decades and decades and it is very unusual for there to be an issue when when has there been like well i mean nobody's i mean i'm sure listen i'm sure that like everything like at some point like something fucked up or weird has happened i have never seen a man in a dress in a bathroom no but you would i would. I assume, that's right. And you use a lot of women's rooms.

I assume they've been, when I say man in a dress, I mean a trans woman, sorry. I assume they've been using the ladies room forever. My entire life, I assume they've been using the ladies room. Well, they have been. Right, that's my point. It's just, it's different when you're not in a dress. And the other thing is, is that you know, I think one of the issues

here is that this is allowed to be complicated like i don't think that there is like you know a perfect answer to like the prison question or the locker room question i think that we do have to protect trans people's rights it is incredibly important to do that um you know, I also think that this idea of transition is really different for a lot of trans people. Like transition doesn't mean that like you've had bottom surgery for a lot of people. Some people don't want to have bottom surgery.

That's not part of their quote unquote transition. So, you know, this idea of like you need papers or you need this or you need that like i don't think that that's really fair um but i also want to say that i think that you jesse seem like you're coming to this like in a really like good faith way like Like I, I don't get like any impression that like you have some like sinister agenda. Um, it seems like you actually like really give a shit. And I don't know. I think that that's really important. Like, so, you know, as, as a parent, like, and I know people who have trans kids and I think it makes a difference. I don't remember one of you a parent, like, and I know people who have trans kids, and I think it makes a

difference. I don't remember one of you said it, that like, if you've been feeling like this since you're two or three years old, it's different than like, if you feel like this, like all of a sudden, and then six months later, like, you know, you're getting puberty blockers. Yeah. And people, I just, we don't have anyone on the actual other side of the debate here because we all agree on most of this and there is a lot of denial that stuff like that would ever happen but like i don't it does i don't know how often it happens certainly there are children who are god forbid like it's horrible suicidal and those children should a thousand percent immediately get the help that they deserve and need.

Let me just throw this into the mix. From techcrunch.com, Jesse Singel is now the most blocked user on Blue Sky. User outrage over his participation on the platform is growing. People are demanding that Blue Sky take a stand. It's either a place that promises it won't host bad actors, or it's a place that promises not to inflate the reach of bad actors thanks to its various moderation tools.

It cannot be both. I self-deported off of Blue Sky. I don't have a Blue Sky account anymore. I was getting shout-outs. I did a piece for the... Sorry, it's about Jesse, so I'm interjecting just because I heard Blue Sky and my hair stands up. I did a piece for the, sorry, it's about Jesse, so I'm interjecting just because I heard blue sky and just, you know, my hair stands up. I did a piece for the Times Magazine in January about how the anti-Trump resistance of 2025 was very different than the anti-Trump resistance of 2017, which was very self-evident, right?

You don't have the same mass protests. Even to this day, you're seeing a resistance, but it's not of the flavor and strength of what it was eight years ago. So for that article, I received an endless stream of invective on Blue Sky to the point where I just decided to leave because Blue Sky wasn't furthering my career in any way. It wasn't helping me i didn't like going on there it was like the worst of 2010's twitter um with it's like none of the playfulness of the old twitter which you had it's just all invective and all venom and it's like

left on left crime like they're just so oh yeah they are so mad like they are more mad at someone on the left who just isn't towing the line in every single issue than they even are at MAGA, honestly. This is why your reflex should be to take Jesse's side. No, I mean, it's horrible. I'm surprised you're on. Well, I'm not active anymore. Once they tried to kick me off,

just the dumb contrarian part of me was like fuck you i'm staying even though i bet like who like who tried like a monitor tries to kick you yeah they basically work i don't even well they reported me because um we don't need to get too into this i get very self-involved about it but there's like a fantasy yeah not fan fiction the opposite of fan fiction set of things about me. And one of them is that, I shouldn't laugh, but I stole a trans child's medical records and I posted them online. They accused you of that. Yeah.

So the claim was I should be, if you go to the change.org petition. You want me to? Yeah. And let me know what the current number is. But tens of thousands of people said said i should be kicked off blue sky and the the people who run blue sky are didn't have great experiences uh in my own way but to their credit they were like we're not going to just like kick off you can't just throw up a myth and that'd be not that'd be nuts just like but it is an example of what happens when like... Because there's certain people who I think

we both know their names. You can find it probably more easily than I can. No, this is it. It's just 28,000 people. That's a lot of people. More than Madison Square Garden. Who knows how many of them are real? Right, that's the other thing, right?

Is what? Who knows how many of them are real? Yeah, not that way. Whatever. Blue Sky is, there's folks on there we know who are sort of well-regarded liberal columnist types. Right. They have a very good type on Blue Sky

because there's no disagreement whatsoever. Like Jamal Bowie, someone like that. Yeah, hypothetically. We don't need to say specific names, but hypothetically, if you're a Jamal Bowie type and you're beloved and you don't really say tend to say things that are controversial democrats stay you sort of stay in the dnc talking points you're gonna have a very good time on blue sky because you'll get nothing but support but that also right corrodes a community and makes it crazy

and blue sky now twitter's obvious twitter i sign on twitter and i had to turn off the for you tab which luckily there's an extension for my uh not for you the recommendation what is it for you it's for you it's for you and then there's your followers my recommendations tab would be like it would be like this is what Europe is becoming and just like uh this actually happened once and it was like a nice square in Poland where black people were dancing with white women that was the whole this is what we're like and it's very racist but somehow despite the fact that there's actual nazis on there i sorry i find it less unpleasant than blue sky because there's also normal people you can just block the not yeah twitter twitter x still has i i don't love i think musk has made

made much worse much worse you can't share your work there really anymore links don't love, I think Musk has made it much worse. You can't share your work there really anymore. Links don't travel. But I think there's still, for all its own problems and its lack of functionality, there's still kind of a community there. And what I still like about it is I feel I can encounter people

with different perspectives and it feels like more of a serious place in its own way. And then Blue Sky, I didn't find that at all it was just for me it was just rage because mostly because i just wrote something critical when you say that that's from when you say that twitter was worse would you trade it all to reinstate the previous regime, knowing the excesses. Is this like we're talking about a dictatorship or one dictator found? Are you going for some middle ground, or are you saying

despite the fact that we know there were outrageous censorship for the old regime, or is this a salutary change? I have a few thoughts. I think unintentionally, Elon did the media a big favor because he cut the cord between media and twitter and i live jesse and i both lived through 2010s media

and one of the real downsides was how twitter obsessed the every publication was like everything ran through there and musk again it was not it was musk didn't intend to do the media favor he wanted to cut off their traffic or and all and to be fair all link space no all outbound traffic is throttled on x at this point and you really you can't really get my, I mean, Substack and X broke up, you know, because they started notes. So I, I don't know if I'd want 2010s Twitter back because that would bring the whole Twitter media apparatus into the four again. New Twitter is bad because I can't promote my writing there but at the same time i'm just on substack now yeah they have a great network my list is growing so i don't really

care so i you had the old right the old censorship like biden's laptop that whole thing now musk does kind of his own version of censorship does he i'm not sure that's true yeah i think there's a few instances right where musk was like like so which one are you gonna say no i was actually i know there's a few it was a early incident don boy he'll be like the term cisgender is a slur and i'm banning it but i think often then he like sees a butterfly and gets distracted and doesn't do it in terms of explicit examples of subjects getting censored i think the old regime was worse yeah but i think the behind the scenes shit um like who knows what musk has done to promote he promised to make the algorithm transparent by the way that's one of the things he never did on musk broke a promise

yeah but you know just remind things were so bad this is facebook but it's all kind of related yeah i had once simply cut and paste a Chuck Schumer old tweet into a Facebook post trying to demonstrate his hypocrisy on a previous Gaza war to a current Gaza war. Right, right. And it got censored

for violating community standards. That's how crazy it becomes. Yeah, Facebook's total. It needed to be, but the whole worldview needed to be rebuked. Yeah, yeah. No, I was very against tech censorship

and I'm a believer in free speech. So I agree with that. I don't think Elon is a true warrior for free speech. I think he's full of it. But I don't miss old Twitter. I think the old blue check system, you must have had an old blue check. Yeah, through New York Magazine.

I got one through the New York Observer. So I think the old blue check yeah through new york magazine i had i got one the new york observers so i think the old blue check system you know got messy where they're just handing them out left and right but now the new system where you pay for one i still think is a bit crazy and it messes with the algorithm you'd like people in your feed because they paid money to like be in your feed like i i dislike that a lot it hasn't been i'll say this hasn't been as much chaos as i feared it would be when you when the idea anyone could buy a blue check it's like well what what can you trust and what's fake and what's real i think that's kind of sorted itself out more i would say and i also think twitter x has been functional even though musk laid off a bunch

of people, which taught him a very bad lesson about the federal government. That's how he got Doge, I think, because he thought, well, I did it for Twitter. I can do it for the federal government. But very different things, obviously. I think it's good that Twitter is less important than it used to be. I also think it's good that Blue Sky,

people are trying to make that happen as the replacement, and it's just not. A, the user base is too angry. the culture not to bring myself back into it but the culture of blocking is such that like if you follow me or you follow like someone bigger like madaglacius there's all these auto block things where you will instantly be blocked by tens of thousands of people so a lot of people people's first steps onto blue sky are suddenly they're blocked. It's just not going to work as a business model, I think.

If you owned Twitter, would you ban Kanye West's Heil Hitler song? I wouldn't, no. I wouldn't ban anything. You wouldn't ban anything? Free speech, absolutist. I'm pretty close there. I struggle with that.

I'm pretty close to an absolutist. I think Nazi stuff I'd have trouble with A thousand percent would block it We know that Yeah I wouldn't block it

But I am very open to the idea that this whole idea of unfettered free speech it may not work Would you bring him in here if he wanted to come on your podcast?

Oh totally Over my dead cold body You know I've been like championing a lot of criticizing a lot of people My complaint is always not about if he wanted to come on your podcast? Oh, totally. Over my dead, cold body. I've been championing a lot of the, criticizing a lot of people. My complaint is always not about speaking to somebody. It's about speaking to someone without challenging them,

without actually promoting them, essentially. Well, that's, so there's this guy, who's the fucking, I had a whole glass of wine, so I'm basically blacked out the MIT guy he had an MIT affiliation became one of the most famous interview podcasters the sort of nerdy guy

Lex Friedman had a chance to interview Zelensky and like he just came in with like no knowledge of anything and sort of made a fool that's exactly right it's not that it's always good like debate me bro culture is stupid but situation like this where we could like sit down and have a conversation

we both come out in good faith if you have someone like if you brought yay in here and just were like wow man what was your inspiration for heil hitler that would obviously not be good and then like tucker carlson did leave the anti-semitic stuff on the cutting room floor he literally you know and and i mean these guys, you know, I'm,

I'm right wing on like some policies, but I'm with you guys on other stuff. You know, just, just as a little like nugget, we heard for two, three years that January 6th was an inside job. And now Kash Patel and Tucker, by extension, Tucker Carlson, they have access to the files. Not a word about January 6th being an inside job. Tucker Carlson's not asking for him to release the files. It's like they never said it.

They did give $5 million to Ashley Babbitt's family, which was kind of crazy. Anyway, anything else you guys want to fight about? No. They're not fighting at all. I know. Look at how nice they are. Even if it may not be as entertaining a show,

if they don't fight, I'm happy. Because as I started by saying, you guys are both... I have a lot of regard for both of you. You guys should not be fighting. You guys should be hanging out. I think a person I would fight with now is someone who doesn't...

The people that annoy me... The original tweet came from and you caught the fire of it, and I, again, I was, I did cross the line in, in, in, in how I framed it, but the thing that annoys me a lot are the, which Jesse's not a part of this, the, these sort of, you know, heterodox writers who are not speaking up about trump's violations of speech and the first amendment and academic freedom and there are i think a lot of i'll say a lot of the heterodox again i'm using this term very broadly have been pretty good on it but you know i i'm you know the barry weiss's of the world you brought her on, I would fight with her. I find that's the silence around the...

We're going to have to cut that one out. She's my friend too. She's not my friend. I did a sub-stack on this. This is an example of what we were talking about before. She had an interview with Marco Rubio. Barry is, as a person, very kind, even when i disagree with her

and charismatic um but like she let marco rubio basically say that well i'm in the state department i don't really have much to do with like the deportations which is just complete bullshit if you look at the legal theories they're claiming and that to me like that's when journalists can be at their best or at their not best like you're sitting across from marco rubio and there's obviously you know more about this than i do because you've done more actual reporting there's some trade-off where you want to retain access like maggie haberman often has to make like yeah you strike a you have to strike a balance for access but then when you have them in front of you the key the key is you can start soft but you have to get yes by the end of the

interview you have to ask marco rubio like there are people rotting in a fucking salvador in jail because i mean you should probably shouldn't say fucking, because of decisions you made. And that pissed me off. And you're pretending you can't get him back when actually you can get him back in two seconds. The United States government can get anyone back from Salvador. Yeah, just bring him back. I mean, immediately they want him back. They want him in six seconds.

And, yeah, I mean, that's the thing where I do think there are independent thinkers on the right and the left who will ask tough questions of politicians like i think there are a lot of them out there um i think some have really just folded in with maga to the point where they give up their free speech values you know free speech is something the first amendment is it to me it's not left right it's it might have never had those values though well that's i think that's what we realize. I think the clarifying element of Trump's return to power is, in a way, it's a real Rorschach test. You see who believes in free speech and who doesn't, right?

Because you had a lot of people on the left, as we know, we've talked about, who never cared about free speech before. Now they care because it's the Palestinian, pro-Palestine movement. Right after October 7th, some poor student signs a petition and they withdraw her offer for a job somewhere. And people are saying, good! She shouldn't. That's crazy.

Should that happen to... Ryan O'Workman was her name, yeah. But I forget her first name. Oz Turk, the woman who was picked up in Somerville, Mass. I mean, this is like... I guess it's not like the ultimate nightmare situation, because I hate to say it, but like citizens and non-citizens do have different rights. Of course they do. But it's pretty close to the nightmare situation.

Like literally, you wrote an op-ed. Right. We're going to try to, I. Well, citizens and illegal residents. She's illegal, right. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

But I think part of what happened is there, like, look, I understand why people want to forget about it now because we have bigger threats, but there was this moment of sort of the apex of progressive, I mean, I think a lot of it's not actually progressive, but whatever you want to call it, wokeness. Yeah, social justice. And it made a lot of left of center intellectual life and institutions miserable.

And at that point, if Christopher rufo gets up and says i don't think we should have a weird mandatory dei training to like work at a law firm that involves robin d'angelo i'm gonna be like yes he's right about that and it makes sense that now that the everything's different we're gonna go our separate ways yeah go ahead i was gonna say the rufo's and i did a piece that's a new york magazine on anti-woke intellectuals and who was standing up for speech and who wasn't i'll say something about rufo i disagree with him entirely on almost everything um but he's very open about it which i actually do appreciate like he's very there's no there's really no bullshit with him like he's even open about his embrace of expediency over principles no no he is no he has like he has i have an ideological project yeah i want to impose it on the country and win and i disagree with that project

but at least you know exactly where he's coming from and so i in a way i, I have a grudging respect for that, though I dislike what he's doing with academia and with, you know, politics in general. All right, closing statements. Yeah. Closing statement. closing statement I don't know I mean look I thank you for talking this out Ross I'm sorry I'm sorry both of you that we didn't disagree more I just think

no I'm happy you didn't disagree more bless you I give you both credit for showing up he's in the middle of his closing statement well she can have her closing statement no I don't have a closing statement, and then I'll finish mine. Go ahead. No, I don't have a closing statement. I guess all I'll say is there's

the two things that have bothered me, and I'm pretty eager. I'm excited to write this book. It'll be nice to move on and hopefully not. It's enough. I agree. At a certain point, you've covered a subject. You can move on to a new one. The two things that have really annoyed me, though, are the flippancy with which people talk about really serious medical interventions increasingly given to kids

who have a lot of other stuff going on like at a you need to understand these are serious decisions and then um just the blind trust of medical establishments that have often failed us in the past like i don't think these are good progressive values to just be like no i'm sure they know what they're doing i think that i think to me, intelligent progressivism or leftism involves a little bit more skepticism of authority. Especially when we've left the realm of double-blind experimentation and peer review into politics. As soon as you sense a political pressure, that's it. I don't even know how I would divide up the blame pie on who politicized it, but I do think the left, to the extent we can treat that as like a unitary thing, made a lot of decisions about its priorities with regard to trans issues that made the situation much worse. I mean, the best example is Harris, where the ACLU asked her this very wild hypothetical about an illegal alien who's detained but needs bottom surgery like a situation that

just probably doesn't come up much and she and again this isn't why she lost but like at that moment in time you had to be like yep of course they should pay for it yeah now i i would say that you know i'm deeply concerned about the anti-trans bigotry in the United States of America coming from MAGA right now. I think it's disturbing and vile. At the same time, I agree with Jesse where we have to have good faith discussions about medical science and what makes sense for minors to take. Again, I'm not an expert in that, but I recognize we need to talk about these things in the open, right?

I mean, because certain drugs have certain side effects, right? Certain pharmaceutical interventions can cause certain issues down the road in all facets. So on that front, I agree. And also, like I said on on athletics i'm very sympathetic to to the uh the leah thomas challenge and and sort of what female athletes like you know martina navratilova have said about female athletics again it's there's no i i think

there's a balance to be struck here right there's a's a discussion to be had. I hope we can move past this era of real vicious anti-trans bigotry. My hope is that, like how the Republican Party was very anti-gay for many decades, that did dissipate. Maybe in five to ten years, trans people will be left alone and can live in dignity and live in peace and have they have their their passport their gender and they go on a flight it's not a big deal they can go to a bathroom it's not a big deal we can all just move on and they can be part of the country like everyone else that that's my hope um and eventually i think we'll get there i do believe in america and in progress i think we're we're moving there. So I want to say, first of all,

that I used the word mutilate to make a point. It wasn't... I'm going on blue sky. I know... Okay, sorry. I purposely chose a provocative term because I was trying to make the point that

outside of political context, people wouldn't get upset about that. Number one. Number two, maybe this is a glass of wine point, but during the time when they were trying to get the Confederate flag off the state capitals, I remember many Southerners, I knew them, including Democratic Senator Jim Webb, they said, but you don't understand,

this is who we are. This is our culture Webb, they said, but you don't understand, this is who we are, this is our culture, it doesn't stand, we don't mean, we're not embracing it because we think slavery was right, we're embracing it. And I always felt that liberals did a dumb thing by always accusing these people

of being racists, rather than explaining to them, listen, yeah, I get it, I don't begrudge you your right bond with your your love of slavery no no your bond with your people but do you understand how this makes me feel right right and and i feel like with a lot of these trans issues it it does backfire when they accuse people who like get upset about their daughter in a locker room calling them bigots and racist rather than putting it like, listen,

but you know, you must have some friends. What all I want is for these people to be able to live fulfilling lives. You want them to live fulfilling lives. Don't you? Okay. Well, let's how,

how can, what can we do? And maybe even though something might hit you the wrong way, but if you stop and think about the other person, maybe you'd be able to even bend and give them the benefit of the doubt in the name of giving these people a fulfilling life, even if it rubs you a little bit the wrong way.

That's kind of what happened with gay marriage, by the way. I think that's part of it. I think so. So there's a kind of a messaging strategy. I know that's completely naive to expect that would ever be translated into real world things. But that is the way people are persuaded. That was Andrew Sullivan's genius.

And I believe he saw this when no one else did. I certainly didn't see it. That once gay marriage was legalized, everybody just saw it differently. All of a sudden, it was the guy next door. Somebody actually liked this guy. I can't hate this guy. Anyway, And some of that is happening with trans. We are all waking up to the fact that there's way more trans-related issues than any of us realize when it was kept underground. And that's a good thing in the long run. All right. Anything else, Perrielle?

No. Good job, guys. Thank you. All right, kids. Good night, everybody.