Episode 25 - Maia Poet - Autism and Gender Dysphoria Part 1

Episode 25 - Maia Poet - Autism and Gender Dysphoria Part 1

Maia Poet spent 12 years of her adolescence and early adulthood believing she had a male brain in a female body, and eventually went on to live in the male social role amongst Orthodox Jews, Palestinian Muslims and secular Israelis for five years. It took living through two wars in the Middle East for Maia to begin the journey of questioning the conclusion she came to as a 12 year old, and eventually to divest from it entirely. Almost three years later, she is now a public speaker and writer who reflects extensively on Substack about her experiences of transition, desistance and detransition with a focus on exploring the overlap of conditions like ADHD, autism and gender dysphoria at the intersection of research and lived experience. She hopes to bring awareness to the ways in which the systematic overlooking of autistic traits and experiences in girls early in life, leaves them uniquely unequipped to navigate the psycho-social and sensory challenges of puberty, and therefore more vulnerable to developing conditions like sex or gender dysphoria and eating disorders around adolescence. Maia sits down with Laura and Yvette about the impact of autism and neurodiversity on the experience of living with gender dysphoria. Her perspective is imformed by her own experience of growing up autistic before it was commonly recognized in natal females, her relationship to her body and how she developed gender dysphoria, and how she came to live in a male role as an adolescent and young adult in Israel

Episode 24 - Karleigh Chardonnay Webb - Trans Women in Adult Recreational Sport

Karleigh Webb is a woman who wears a lot of hats on the field and off. She is a sports journalist with 33 years experience as a television sports reporter/anchor, producer and now as a contributing sportswriter to Outsports.com [http://Outsports.com]. She is also the a training coordinator and peer support operator for Trans Lifeline. Karleigh is also an avid cycling, runner, triathlete/duathlete and is in her fourth season of women's football playing for the Connecticut Ambush of the American Women's Football League. Karleigh joins us to make her case about why trans women belong in women's sports at all levels. We discuss the implications of trans women's participation in contact vs. noncontact sports, competitive vs. recreational, and on the role sports can play in creating a sense of belonging for trans women Needless to say, this becomes a source of vigorous debate for Laura and especially Yvette who is firmly protective of women's sports being for biological women. This discussion gets lively and contentious, but remains civil throughout, as we continue to model how to have impactful conversations about controversies in the world of gender

Episode 23 - Sasha Ayad - Avoiding Estrangement From Your Trans Child

Sasha Ayad is a license therapist who provides counselling to families where a child is transitioning or is experiencing gender distress. Her focus is on how parents can continue to be part of their child's life and avoid estrangement and promote reconcilement, even when they are not supportive of medical transition She joins Yvette and Laura on Agree to Disagree About Gender to have a heartfelt discussion on these issues Sasha became interested in the sharp rise in teenagers who declare they are trans for the first time during adolescence. She questions the practice of medical transition for minors, and her clinical work focuses on developmentally appropriate, least-invasive-first talk therapy. Seeing a great need to help parents, Sasha began running parent groups in 2019 both online and through in-person retreats. She is the co-author of the book When Kids Say They’re Trans, and writes regularly on Substack. She recently launched a new project called The Metaphor of Gender: on this YouTube Channel, identity goes beyond the literal. She uses radical curiosity and surprising insights to help adolescents and young adults better understand themselves and skillfully navigate the real world.

Episode 22 - Jonni Skinner - Controversy and Compassion About Detransition Part 2

In Part 2 of our conversation with Jonni Skinner, we focus on life after detransition: the challenges of re-integrating back into the male gender role after living for 8 years as a woman, staying positive despite facing hardships, his motivations to become an advocate for restricting access to medical interventions for minors, and on what his future might hold. Please take a moment to watch Part 1 if you haven't already

Episode 21 - Jonni Skinner - Controversy and Compassion About Detransition Part 1

Jonni Skinner is a young man who spent 8 years of his adolescence and young adulthood living as a girl and young woman, before deciding to reclaim his identity as an effeminate gay man. He details how he came to believe that transition would be a better fit for his personality, his struggles with medicalization as a young person, and how he intends to face his future in his birth sex. Yvette and Laura touch upon why he tried to "trans away the gay", if he is now trying to "gay away the trans", and his advocacy for banning access to the type of care he beleives has left him permanently damaged.. We also discuss the intersection between identity and embodiment, what he envisions his life will be like going forward, and why he still has affection for the trans community. This is the first of 2 episodes, -please stay tuned for Part 2 next week