TransNormal Podcast

Doctor & Parent: What It’s Really Like Navigating Gender Care on Both Sides in Rural America - EP14

In this heartfelt and eye-opening episode of Trans Normal, Jo Ellis and co-host Dr. Laura Targownik talk with a rural family doctor who’s spent nearly a decade providing full-spectrum medical care — including gender-affirming treatment — to patients in small-town America.What makes this conversation especially powerful is her dual perspective: she’s not only a physician who’s helped trans patients navigate the system — she’s also the parent of a trans child. That personal journey challenged how she sees medicine, parenting, and what it really means to affirm someone’s identity.Together, the three explore:What gender-affirming care actually looks like inside real clinics — not political talking pointsThe shifting legal landscape that’s restricting care in many statesThe emotional and ethical challenges of balancing caution with compassionThe difference between prescribing hormones for a patient and supporting your own child through transitionWhy “shared decision-making” and informed consent matter more than everHow empathy, science, and parenting instincts can coexist — even when politics say otherwiseThis episode goes far beyond headlines — it’s about humanity, trust, and what it means to do the right thing when both your patient and your child are counting on you.Due to the increasing risk to doctors who provide GAC and parents of trans children, we took extra steps to protect our guest's identity.🎧 Hosted by: Jo Ellis & Dr. Laura Targownik 👤 Guest: Family physician and parent of a trans child in rural U.S. 📍 Topics: Trans healthcare, parenting, puberty blockers, informed consent, medical ethics, rural medicine, compassion in practice

Dr. Kinnon Ross McKinnon and the many faces of detransition

Dr. Kinnon Ross McKinnon, Assistant Professor of Social Work at York University, is one of the world's foremost academic voices on the science of detransition. This year, his research team published the results of the largest study of self-declared detransitioners, with nearly 1000 people who had embarked on a gender transition, and then thought otherwise.In this conversation, Dr. McKinnon sits down with Transnormal host Dr. Laura Targownik talk about how his research shifts the narrative about detransition; despite how it is portrayed in the popular media, every detransition story in unique; while regret is not universal, it is common, and is not always a result of people feeling they made an incorrect decision at the time. We cover the groundbreaking DARE study and the following:Why detransition happens (regret, stigma, discrimination, fluid identity) The four types of detransition experiences revealed in the study How media and politics often distort these stories What the future of gender-affirming care should look like This is a rare, nuanced look at detransition—beyond the headlines, beyond the culture wars. #detrans #trans #regret #gender

Panel Discussion on The Discourse on Pediatric Gender Affirming Care

In this special episode, Dr. Laura Targownik (co-host of the TransNormal Podcast) sits down with adolescent psychiatrist Dr. Tyler Black, chronic disease epidemiologist Dr. Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, and newspaper columnist Mr. Adam Zivo to discuss the science and politics of pediatric gender affirming care, with specific attention to the controversy surrounding the recently published McMaster University systematic reviews and the subsequent political fallout

An Interview with Dr. Gord Guyatt

Dr. Gordon Guyatt is one of the original architects of Evidence Based Medicine, the framework that clinicians use to determine how we know whether a medical treatment actually works for a disease. But in the last month, he has become more widely known as the researcher who decided to go all-in on supporting gender affirming care for adolescents and young adults, despite being a lead author on a study showing that there was no clear benefit of this therapy over the potential harmsIn this interview, we discuss how he came to this position, his distancing of his research from the Society of Evidence Based Gender Medicine who sponsored it, and on the challenges of being a dispassionate scientist while also being an advocate.

Trans Women In Sports: Can it be inclusive and fair?

In this episode, hosts Jo & Laura sit down with sports journalist and athlete Karleigh Webb to tackle one of the most heated debates of our time: trans inclusion in women’s sports.From hormone rules and puberty advantages to team culture and fairness, the discussion goes deep into what it really means to compete, belong, and create space for everyone. Karleigh shares her firsthand experience as a women’s tackle football player and journalist covering LGBTQ sports, while Jo and Laura raise tough questions about fairness, safety, and storytelling.This is a candid, respectful conversation about inclusion, competition, and the future of women’s athletics. Whether you’re for, against, or just trying to understand, this episode gives you a rare chance to hear all sides of the debate in one place. About our guest: Karleigh Chardonnay Webb. Karleigh is a sports journalist/producer with 30 years in the game. She is currently a writer-contributor to the LGBTQ sports site Outsports.com and the sports producer for the Transpositions, a weekly trans-centered news magazine on YouTube. When she not being a journalist she a training coordinator for Trans Lifeline and she's a competitive athlete in running, cycling, triathlon and for last three season tackle football.In football she is a member of the Connecticut Ambush of the Women's Football Alliance as was a league All-American selection in 2024.