I'm "officially frustrated." I find this verbal presentation too meandering to follow.
"Lesbian Redeemers" would be my suggestion for a name for smart dykes trying to extricate us from the disastrous effects of transgenderism. It's positive and expresses both the problem and the goal of recovery.
Can you publish a transcript or get your conversations on youtube quickly so I can get to the pertinent sections more easily? Glenna, your writing is always concise and right to the point. It would be great to be able to get access to all of your thoughts more quickly than listening to an hour and a half convo. I could read the text in about 5-10 minutes if you gave access to it. I think the recording has it's place for some listeners, maybe those with more time and a different type of focus. But if you transcript this, you'll see the problem people like me face trying to listen.
I have been reading Andrew Sullivan for over two decades now. I have emailed him at least 100 times, and he has published a half dozen or so of those as "a reader writes". He has sent a short personal response (eg "heh") maybe twice.
In recent years, my emails have been exclusively about "trans" issues. He published an early one in which I said that pediatric "gender affirming care" was "an ongoing crime against humanity". Then I continued to bombard him with facts and figures. So I am going to take a tiny bit of credit for moving him from his position of a few years ago (which was basically "nothing to see here") to his current position of opposition to pediatric "gender affirming care" in almost all cases. He understands (and has written) that it is primarily harming LGB kids.
My overall take on him: he is honest and tries to do his best to understand all sides of an issue. He is generally not hostile to guests on his podcast because (1) he genuinely wants to understand the guest's point of view, (2) he does not want to drive away future potential guests by overly berating the current one, and (3) many of his readers complain when he does get a bit hostile (per emails from them that he publishes).
I think one or more of you should volunteer to go on his podcast. Jamie would be my pick, as her personal story is the most cinematic. (Yes, this matters.)
Re true trans: Andrew believes in it, and you will not change his mind. This is because of the personal testimony of people like B.Angel and B.Wu, whom he has interviewed at length. Andrew is broadly sympathetic to the human condition and all its many possible manifestations, and he views "true trans" as one such manifestation. We could define it as a gender dysphoria that is so persistent and severe that only chemical and surgical cosplay can relieve it, along with full acceptance by society as a member of the false sex.
I do however think he can be pushed on the issue of women's right to single-sex spaces, including toilet facilities. He is already on board with banning "trans women" from the female category in sports, and from spaces with nudity. The issue of conflict of rights is one he would take seriously.
tl,dr: Jamie, ask to be a guest on his podcast. Then read the above as prep.
Love this podcast, whatever its name. It feels like a level of authenticity and just being honest that cuts through the omnipresent BS in this, the year of our lord 2025.
You guys, I have to tell you my story of the 1990s. I graduated high school in 1995 in super liberal Madison, WI, but high school was still homophobic the whole time I was there, right? Like just openly faggot this, dyke that, that’s so gay and not in a friendly way. Nobody was out and in retrospect every gay person was super happy to graduate and move on with their lives.
Then I was back home in 1997, had come out to my parents by then. And my mom was like, “you should call my friend’s daughter, she’s a lesbian and started a gay-straight alliance at [redacted] high school.” And I was just like, mother f$&!er! 2 years after I graduate from this homophobic cesspool, now it’s cool to be gay and there’s a gay-straight alliance? I was both happy for the gay youth and also irrationally pissed off about it. But there was a big vibe shift in the mid-1990s, that was my point. Again, love the podcast.
Thanks! At my high school people wouldn't use slurs (at least my friends) but I recall when someone implied another girl didn't like boys, it was considered a nuclear insult. So gay wasn't exactly considered cool.
When I listen to the three of you talking together, it feels like a homecoming. What I am reminded of particularly is Sand Road in Iowa City in the late 70s, where I first encountered my lesbian tribe. I was in awe, particularly of a lesbian named Dale, who was a carpenter. She even wrote a book about it, “Against the Grain, a Carpentry Manual for Women,” which was published by the Iowa City Women’s Press. The Sand Road lesbians all seemed to me to be utterly comfortable in their own skins. It was a wonderful place and time, and you bring that feeling of warm, effortless camaraderie back in full. Thank you.
Oh, I love that! I don’t know that we talked about Iowa City specifically, and to think you met your wife there, AND at an Iowa Women’s Music Festival in those years, wow! Yesterday, I took a little further trip down memory lane and found this description, in an interview of Dale herself, of what the lesbian community was like in the mid- late ‘70s, when I was there, which you might enjoy:
“So I referenced that Iowa City lesbian feminist community was incredibly vibrant, and we had, we had a whole little thriving sub-town inside the town. We had Iowa City Women’s Press, we had Ain’t I a Woman?, underground lesbian feminist newspaper that I was on the collective. We had two women’s collectives, living collectives. We had Grace & Ruby’s Restaurant. We had a bookstore. There was a food co-op, of course—friendly, but not ours. There was, we started the rape crisis line, we started the free medical clinic, we demonstrated. I remember demonstrating in—I think we sat in somewhere. We took over a building for the Women’s Center. The WRAC, the Women’s Resource and Action Center at the University of Iowa, which is still going strong today. So we, you know… Oh! We had a softball team, of course. We had a flag football team. We had, I mean, you know. We had, oh, at the Unitarian Church we had dances, we had plays. Someone wrote a lesbian feminist interpretation of The Taming of the Shrew, which is hard to do. And I played Petrucchio. I have pictures of this, which we put on in the basement of the Unitarian-Universalist Church in Iowa City. Without them, we would have had no, nothing. Everything happened at this church. And Meg Christian came there, and all the Olivia people, so, you know, lots… So there was this whole supportive environment.”
I have to say, while I frequented and participated in much of this (Grace & Ruby’s was a favorite place), I didn’t realize, until seeing this whole list, how very, very lucky we were back then.
I am not sure if you want your official title to be angry. While I think it is completely right to be infuriated and shocked at gender ideology -- to be angry -- I think this organization is more than just being angry. It has done real lobbying and work to address the issue, and I think has made the conversation more nuanced (between either super-traditional gender roles or going full "gender woo") and constructive. I would rethink the tittle, but, ultimately, up to you!
Women are angry. We have been angry all our lives. Our world is horrifically unfair to us, and we are stuck here from cradle to grave with no alternative. No one in their right mind could look at the situation honestly and NOT be angry.
Lesbians are women without even the access to male privilege that straight women get. OF COURSE they're angry!
If people had to face women's anger as seriously and often as men's, we wouldn't be in this stupid patriarchal mess in the first place.
Just starting to listen now, wanted to mention that the whole "it resolves at puberty except for true trans, who then stay with GD forever" idea was just something people started believing.
Thank you so much for this amazing podcast. It brought me to tears esp Lauren speaking of her experience. I’m a lesbian (fem) who thinks butch women are beautiful and have been fighting to keep our community alive since the 90s. Thanks for the history! I’m currently unemployed but when things change (hopefully they do soon) I will subscribe to the LGB courage coalition. Much gratitude. Save the tomboys/butches ❤️🙏
Puberty is difficult. Gay or straight. Leave the kids alone. When you are an adult and you want to live your life as the opposite sex, then that’s your choice. It’s also the choice of others not to accept that you have actually become the opposite sex. Since that’s not what happens. Just because we have drugs and surgeries to take transvestitism to a new level, it’s still dress up. And why is it always women who have to eat crap and get screwed over by men who want to live “as women” while women who want to live as men never can infringe on men’s rights? As usual, it only hurts women in our society whether it’s men in sports, in rape centers, in prisons, in bathrooms/women’s only rooms, men taking drugs so they can make some breast milk to feed/poison babies?!? and men in lesbians’ spaces. Andrew Sullivan wants to sit in the fence and not take an actual position.
My understanding is that ChatGPT actually repeats your own ideas back to you (and that this is causing problems for people who are beating themselves up or in the throes of some unhealthy thoughts about themselves)...so it is just paraphrasing what you think?
The generation gap couldn't have been more apparent than in this delightful show/episode. Sullivan, Minter and I are the same age. Our attitudes about all this is as much a result of where and when we came out as is yours. The concept of 'true trans' didn't exist let alone the controversy surrounding that concept. The T represented two groups, transexuals and transvestites. And neither had substantive involvement in our movement. It was gays and lesbians who established the organizations, staffed them and created the remarkably effective strategies that would succeed in record time. And as Glenna points out, it wasn't until we turned a corner and started winning and become accepted that you saw the T pushing for a seat at the table. Up to that point they had been too busy making sure society saw them as conforming heterosexuals. The demographic of transsexual people we had to deal with was very different than what you are dealing with today. Passing was the point, assimilation the goal. Both of those goals are now sneered at by the current trans/queer rights activists. Like Andrew I've known transexuals since the 80s. None claimed to have changed sex. We just didn't have to deal with the crap you have to today.
So judging or dismissing Sullivan and my generation based on whether he/we accept that there are a small number of adults with gender dysphoria who benefit from the cosmetic surgeries and synthetic hormones isn't really fair. We've seen it in action albeit with an entirely different demographic in play as previously indicated. Sullivan's exploration of this issue began before Jamie became a whistleblower. If you go back into his archive and listen to his shows with gender critical guests his approach is very different. And I suspect that he was being deferential to Minter because he has a difficult time getting guest like her on his show. In the UK a substantial percentage of the leadership pushing against gender insanity comes from my generation. The founders of LGB Alliance UK are activists from the 70s and 80s. I don't know why that isn't happening here but I think it important to figure it out. We have extensive organizing and strategizing experience that will be critical in the coming legal battles. Perhaps if you can't get luminaries like Sullivan to appear on your podcast you might consider reaching out to some of us foot soldiers who could contribute. I do believe that an intergenerational leadership structure is what was so successful in Europe and we should pursue that here. I hope you do.
Three Angry Dykes on Mics? or just Dykes on Mics? Or add whatever adjective works for each 'cast. I'm old, so I'm not even sure if anyone says dyke anymore but I've always found it powerful and earthy (not in a crunchy way, but in a dive bar kind of way) and not at all a slur. But opinions vary.
"Unofficially annoyed" works (though I am officially annoyed). I think "Three Angry Lesbians" is just fine too.
I'm "officially frustrated." I find this verbal presentation too meandering to follow.
"Lesbian Redeemers" would be my suggestion for a name for smart dykes trying to extricate us from the disastrous effects of transgenderism. It's positive and expresses both the problem and the goal of recovery.
Can you publish a transcript or get your conversations on youtube quickly so I can get to the pertinent sections more easily? Glenna, your writing is always concise and right to the point. It would be great to be able to get access to all of your thoughts more quickly than listening to an hour and a half convo. I could read the text in about 5-10 minutes if you gave access to it. I think the recording has it's place for some listeners, maybe those with more time and a different type of focus. But if you transcript this, you'll see the problem people like me face trying to listen.
I definitely vote for Three Angry Lesbians.
I have been reading Andrew Sullivan for over two decades now. I have emailed him at least 100 times, and he has published a half dozen or so of those as "a reader writes". He has sent a short personal response (eg "heh") maybe twice.
In recent years, my emails have been exclusively about "trans" issues. He published an early one in which I said that pediatric "gender affirming care" was "an ongoing crime against humanity". Then I continued to bombard him with facts and figures. So I am going to take a tiny bit of credit for moving him from his position of a few years ago (which was basically "nothing to see here") to his current position of opposition to pediatric "gender affirming care" in almost all cases. He understands (and has written) that it is primarily harming LGB kids.
My overall take on him: he is honest and tries to do his best to understand all sides of an issue. He is generally not hostile to guests on his podcast because (1) he genuinely wants to understand the guest's point of view, (2) he does not want to drive away future potential guests by overly berating the current one, and (3) many of his readers complain when he does get a bit hostile (per emails from them that he publishes).
I think one or more of you should volunteer to go on his podcast. Jamie would be my pick, as her personal story is the most cinematic. (Yes, this matters.)
Re true trans: Andrew believes in it, and you will not change his mind. This is because of the personal testimony of people like B.Angel and B.Wu, whom he has interviewed at length. Andrew is broadly sympathetic to the human condition and all its many possible manifestations, and he views "true trans" as one such manifestation. We could define it as a gender dysphoria that is so persistent and severe that only chemical and surgical cosplay can relieve it, along with full acceptance by society as a member of the false sex.
I do however think he can be pushed on the issue of women's right to single-sex spaces, including toilet facilities. He is already on board with banning "trans women" from the female category in sports, and from spaces with nudity. The issue of conflict of rights is one he would take seriously.
tl,dr: Jamie, ask to be a guest on his podcast. Then read the above as prep.
Love this podcast, whatever its name. It feels like a level of authenticity and just being honest that cuts through the omnipresent BS in this, the year of our lord 2025.
You guys, I have to tell you my story of the 1990s. I graduated high school in 1995 in super liberal Madison, WI, but high school was still homophobic the whole time I was there, right? Like just openly faggot this, dyke that, that’s so gay and not in a friendly way. Nobody was out and in retrospect every gay person was super happy to graduate and move on with their lives.
Then I was back home in 1997, had come out to my parents by then. And my mom was like, “you should call my friend’s daughter, she’s a lesbian and started a gay-straight alliance at [redacted] high school.” And I was just like, mother f$&!er! 2 years after I graduate from this homophobic cesspool, now it’s cool to be gay and there’s a gay-straight alliance? I was both happy for the gay youth and also irrationally pissed off about it. But there was a big vibe shift in the mid-1990s, that was my point. Again, love the podcast.
Thanks! At my high school people wouldn't use slurs (at least my friends) but I recall when someone implied another girl didn't like boys, it was considered a nuclear insult. So gay wasn't exactly considered cool.
I love Three (Angry) Lesbians for a title. Or Lesbian Furies. As long as it says Lesbian(s)!
Or Lesbian Rage Unleashed or Lesbian Triple-Threat or (for those who get the referent) Lesbian Correction or ....
When I listen to the three of you talking together, it feels like a homecoming. What I am reminded of particularly is Sand Road in Iowa City in the late 70s, where I first encountered my lesbian tribe. I was in awe, particularly of a lesbian named Dale, who was a carpenter. She even wrote a book about it, “Against the Grain, a Carpentry Manual for Women,” which was published by the Iowa City Women’s Press. The Sand Road lesbians all seemed to me to be utterly comfortable in their own skins. It was a wonderful place and time, and you bring that feeling of warm, effortless camaraderie back in full. Thank you.
Have we talked about Iowa City? I lived there 2011-2015 and met my wife at the Iowa Women’s Music Festival.
Oh, I love that! I don’t know that we talked about Iowa City specifically, and to think you met your wife there, AND at an Iowa Women’s Music Festival in those years, wow! Yesterday, I took a little further trip down memory lane and found this description, in an interview of Dale herself, of what the lesbian community was like in the mid- late ‘70s, when I was there, which you might enjoy:
“So I referenced that Iowa City lesbian feminist community was incredibly vibrant, and we had, we had a whole little thriving sub-town inside the town. We had Iowa City Women’s Press, we had Ain’t I a Woman?, underground lesbian feminist newspaper that I was on the collective. We had two women’s collectives, living collectives. We had Grace & Ruby’s Restaurant. We had a bookstore. There was a food co-op, of course—friendly, but not ours. There was, we started the rape crisis line, we started the free medical clinic, we demonstrated. I remember demonstrating in—I think we sat in somewhere. We took over a building for the Women’s Center. The WRAC, the Women’s Resource and Action Center at the University of Iowa, which is still going strong today. So we, you know… Oh! We had a softball team, of course. We had a flag football team. We had, I mean, you know. We had, oh, at the Unitarian Church we had dances, we had plays. Someone wrote a lesbian feminist interpretation of The Taming of the Shrew, which is hard to do. And I played Petrucchio. I have pictures of this, which we put on in the basement of the Unitarian-Universalist Church in Iowa City. Without them, we would have had no, nothing. Everything happened at this church. And Meg Christian came there, and all the Olivia people, so, you know, lots… So there was this whole supportive environment.”
I have to say, while I frequented and participated in much of this (Grace & Ruby’s was a favorite place), I didn’t realize, until seeing this whole list, how very, very lucky we were back then.
I am not sure if you want your official title to be angry. While I think it is completely right to be infuriated and shocked at gender ideology -- to be angry -- I think this organization is more than just being angry. It has done real lobbying and work to address the issue, and I think has made the conversation more nuanced (between either super-traditional gender roles or going full "gender woo") and constructive. I would rethink the tittle, but, ultimately, up to you!
I don't have a problem with anger in the title.
Women are angry. We have been angry all our lives. Our world is horrifically unfair to us, and we are stuck here from cradle to grave with no alternative. No one in their right mind could look at the situation honestly and NOT be angry.
Lesbians are women without even the access to male privilege that straight women get. OF COURSE they're angry!
If people had to face women's anger as seriously and often as men's, we wouldn't be in this stupid patriarchal mess in the first place.
Lesbian Furies would be my suggestion
Thank you so much!!
Just starting to listen now, wanted to mention that the whole "it resolves at puberty except for true trans, who then stay with GD forever" idea was just something people started believing.
Alex Byrne tracked it down and found people didn't actually do a formal study or studies to establish this, in a paper called: "another myth of persistence?" https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-024-03005-1
And yes, in what way are these interventions restoring or protecting healthy function, i.e. medicine?
Thank you so much for this amazing podcast. It brought me to tears esp Lauren speaking of her experience. I’m a lesbian (fem) who thinks butch women are beautiful and have been fighting to keep our community alive since the 90s. Thanks for the history! I’m currently unemployed but when things change (hopefully they do soon) I will subscribe to the LGB courage coalition. Much gratitude. Save the tomboys/butches ❤️🙏
Puberty is difficult. Gay or straight. Leave the kids alone. When you are an adult and you want to live your life as the opposite sex, then that’s your choice. It’s also the choice of others not to accept that you have actually become the opposite sex. Since that’s not what happens. Just because we have drugs and surgeries to take transvestitism to a new level, it’s still dress up. And why is it always women who have to eat crap and get screwed over by men who want to live “as women” while women who want to live as men never can infringe on men’s rights? As usual, it only hurts women in our society whether it’s men in sports, in rape centers, in prisons, in bathrooms/women’s only rooms, men taking drugs so they can make some breast milk to feed/poison babies?!? and men in lesbians’ spaces. Andrew Sullivan wants to sit in the fence and not take an actual position.
Please make this a regular(ish) podcast. I love all the history and context included in the commentary.
This old straight guy (so feel free to ignore!) likes "Three Angry Lesbians". Reminds me of "Twelve Angry Men" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Angry_Men_(1957_film)
My understanding is that ChatGPT actually repeats your own ideas back to you (and that this is causing problems for people who are beating themselves up or in the throes of some unhealthy thoughts about themselves)...so it is just paraphrasing what you think?
The generation gap couldn't have been more apparent than in this delightful show/episode. Sullivan, Minter and I are the same age. Our attitudes about all this is as much a result of where and when we came out as is yours. The concept of 'true trans' didn't exist let alone the controversy surrounding that concept. The T represented two groups, transexuals and transvestites. And neither had substantive involvement in our movement. It was gays and lesbians who established the organizations, staffed them and created the remarkably effective strategies that would succeed in record time. And as Glenna points out, it wasn't until we turned a corner and started winning and become accepted that you saw the T pushing for a seat at the table. Up to that point they had been too busy making sure society saw them as conforming heterosexuals. The demographic of transsexual people we had to deal with was very different than what you are dealing with today. Passing was the point, assimilation the goal. Both of those goals are now sneered at by the current trans/queer rights activists. Like Andrew I've known transexuals since the 80s. None claimed to have changed sex. We just didn't have to deal with the crap you have to today.
So judging or dismissing Sullivan and my generation based on whether he/we accept that there are a small number of adults with gender dysphoria who benefit from the cosmetic surgeries and synthetic hormones isn't really fair. We've seen it in action albeit with an entirely different demographic in play as previously indicated. Sullivan's exploration of this issue began before Jamie became a whistleblower. If you go back into his archive and listen to his shows with gender critical guests his approach is very different. And I suspect that he was being deferential to Minter because he has a difficult time getting guest like her on his show. In the UK a substantial percentage of the leadership pushing against gender insanity comes from my generation. The founders of LGB Alliance UK are activists from the 70s and 80s. I don't know why that isn't happening here but I think it important to figure it out. We have extensive organizing and strategizing experience that will be critical in the coming legal battles. Perhaps if you can't get luminaries like Sullivan to appear on your podcast you might consider reaching out to some of us foot soldiers who could contribute. I do believe that an intergenerational leadership structure is what was so successful in Europe and we should pursue that here. I hope you do.
Three Angry Dykes on Mics? or just Dykes on Mics? Or add whatever adjective works for each 'cast. I'm old, so I'm not even sure if anyone says dyke anymore but I've always found it powerful and earthy (not in a crunchy way, but in a dive bar kind of way) and not at all a slur. But opinions vary.
Loved this combo - more please