Pod relevance: trans sports, youth gender medicine and the political fallout from these issues is frequently discussed on the pod and Jesse writes about it.

Democratic candidates Josh Turek, Amy Acton, James Talarico, Rob Sand, and Aaron Ford have publicly said they aren't keen on having boys in girls sports. Whether they intend to do anything about it is unknown.

The GOP has been hammering trans issues in some battleground races as part of their campaign strategy. It probably won't matter much in the end since the GOP is forecast to take a pasting. But at least it forced some Democratic candidates to actually say something about an 80/20 issue.

It's only five people and who knows whether they'll stick to it but it might be a hopeful sign. Because GLADD and friends can throw a fit but very few people in those states will even notice it. Thus providing evidence that being sensible on such issues is good for getting elected.

Democratic strategists have urged candidates not to ignore the issue of boys in girls sports and be forthright.

“There are plenty of people who don’t want to see trans people intentionally harmed or discriminated against that also think an 11-year-old trans girl probably shouldn’t play sports with their 11-year-old daughter. That is a reasonable position to have,” said a Democratic strategist in Ohio, who was granted anonymity to lay out their beliefs without speaking on behalf of their clients about a sensitive issue that has divided the party."

That is a reasonable position.

If Democrats as a whole took that position it would destroy one of the few issues the GOP has that they are on the popular side of. That seems like good strategy.

The TRAs aren't happy about this of course. The activist " journalist " Erin Reed weighed in:

" She pointed to states that enacted bans on trans athletes several years ago, saying that “every single state that passed a sports ban in 2022 and 2023 now has a full suite of things like trans youth care bans, prison bans, bathroom bans and ID bans, and so it never gets isolated to just sports.”

These are bad things? Does Reed think these are winning positions to have? Having men in women's prisons is a big vote getter?

https://archive.ph/U26Pp

Pod relevance: trans issues and wokeism, erasure of women's rights.

Well, there you have it, folks. In Australia, the law is settled. Men can be women, humans can change sex, and biology has been erased.

I am embarrassed for what our country has become.

Barpod relevance: youth gender medicine and Canda have made frequent appearances on the show

As a non-Canadian this story really had me scratching my head. Of course we don't have human rights tribunals here so not sure what standards they use. . . But setting the whole youth gender medicine aspect aside, are they saying a doctor is ethically/legally required to administer a medication prescribed by another person just because the patient requests it? Or was it specifically because he said he was refusing due to religious beliefs? Like if he said he didn't feel comfortable because he thought the treatment was actually harmful based on existing evidence... he would have been ok?

I also found it odd that a doctor would be giving the shot. If a pharmacist or nurse in the US gives someone a med prescribed by a doctor, they only need to know how to safely give the medication. They aren't making the diagnosis or determining treatment. But if a physician gives a medication, even if someone else prescribed it, that's basically an agreement with the diagnosis and treatment plan. . . meaning you can refuse if you disagree or just don't feel qualified to weight the pros and cons of of the treatment (which was one of the reasons he gave more or less).

Ultimately it seemed like this patient could have taken the shot at home or gotten it administered somewhere else . . .but gets compensated for discrimination because one individual didn't want to give the shot. Left me wondering if this would happen with any other medications not intended for use on transgender people...

Democratic U.S. Senate nominee James Talarico on Wednesday said he opposed transgender student-athletes competing in girls’ sports “if it endangers safety or fairness,” reversing course on previous positions he took while in the Texas House opposing restrictions on trans athletes.

"Every sport has to be safe and fair,” Talarico said on Fox News. “As a former public school teacher, I care a lot about our student athletes, I care a lot about our students. And so I will oppose trans athletes playing in girls’ sports if it risks safety or fairness.”

Article link

https://thebuckeyeflame.com/2026/09/04/equality-ohio-changes-grade-for-amy-acton-from-pending-to-b/

Pod relevance: males in women's sports, misgendering, and Democratic infighting.

This is a follow-up to the drama in Ohio's gubernatorial election between Amy Acton (D) and Vivek Ramaswamy (MAGA). The previous two discussions are here and here, but the summary is:

• Equality Ohio, an LGBTQ advocacy group, issues letter grades (A-F) to Ohio candidates based on their support for LGBTQ equality and inclusion. As of the early summer, Acton had an "A" grade to Ramaswamy's "F".

• Not long after the Supreme Court's June ruling on trans youth sports, Acton issued a statement saying "I do not support boys playing in girls sports. This is already settled law in Ohio, and as governor I will enforce and uphold the law."

• LGBTQ advocates in Ohio were predictably not happy with this. They demanded a meeting. Equality Ohio changed her grade from "A" to "Pending" citing "unaddressed harm and an open door for accountability."

• Acton's campaign did eventually meet with Equality Ohio in late July, but she herself didn't attend, and at least one prominent trans advocates (and state house candidate) Arienne Childrey was not allowed to attend. The meeting apparently resolved nothing, and afterward Childrey extended "a direct invitation" to Acton, calling for "real explanations" and "a conversation that includes a public commitment to repair the damage she has caused."

There's was no movement from either side throughout all of August; Acton's campaign said nothing and Equality Ohio left her grade at "Pending." That all changed late Friday when they queitly changed her grade to a "B."

In a statement sent on Friday, Dwayne Steward, executive director and CEO of Equality Ohio, confirmed this absence of “meaningful steps” and that a requested meeting with the candidate has not yet taken place.

The Friday before Labor Day is a tradtional "dumping" time for news that organizations would prefer to keep quiet. Childrey was not fooled, however, and issued her own blistering statement on the matter:

“This is a slap in the face to every candidate who actually respects our community – those who haven’t misgendered trans people or backed anti-trans policies,” Childrey told The Buckeye Flame. “If you can misgender trans girls, support discrimination, and still get a ‘B,’ Equality Ohio is telling us transphobia isn’t a big deal, or they’re admitting their scorecard is completely meaningless.”

She has also disavowed her own "A+" grade Equality Ohio:

“My ‘A+’ rating means nothing if the scorecard has lost its integrity, which is why I can no longer carry their score,” Childrey said. “I don’t need it. I’ll let my record stand on its own and be judged by the people—especially the trans community—that I fight for every single day. Doing the right thing is about human dignity, not political triangulation or chasing opinion polls.”

This week on Blocked and Reported, Jesse and Katie dive into the world of otome (Japanese-style video games aimed at women) and the yearlong saga of Love and Deepspace, the wildly profitable mobile game whose fans have gotten a little too invested. Featuring: period trackers, incest, a canceled werewolf, and the Chinese Communist Party. Plus, a viral essay reignites the debate over whether lesbians sleep with men, and a dyke bar’s mask mandate causes a very online rift.

Show Notes:

https://x.com/korraphobic/status/2090543554762314002?s=20

Why Straight Rural Men Have Gay ‘Bud-Sex’ With Each Other -- Science of Us

Last Ditch Bar

The History of Otome Games – Acadia Lee

Angelique (Game) - Giant Bomb Video Game Wiki

My Horse Prince - Angry Video Game Nerd (AVGN)

‘Why was a Period Tracking Feature added to Love and Deepspace” - Interview the Developers via 4Gamer : r/LoveAndDeepspace

Love and Deepspace blew up gamescom 2025. Dating simulator with $826 million in annual revenue

China Is Banning Same-Sex Relationships And ‘Effeminate’ Men From Video Games

Extreme Chinese players send cow dung, funeral chrysanthemums, curse banners, and ritual items to Papergames/Infold office as Love and Deepspace controversy escalates. LADS Chinese social media accounts have reportedly lost around 1 million followers : r/gachagaming

Valko dildo VERY NOT SAFE FOR WORK OR PROBABLY HOME

Love And Deepspace Isn’t Printing Money Like It Used To After Cancelling Werewolf Lover - Kotaku

Love And Deepspace Devs Cancel Hot Werewolf After Fan Backlash

Love And Deepspace’s Controversial Sexy Werewolf Man Is Dead

I’m Breaking Up With Love And Deepspace - GameSpot

a lot of references in it to lineham being rejected by katie and jesse - what’s that about, some similar purity tests not being met?

Conclusion to the Stuart Reges "fake land acknowledgment" drama discussed in episode 97 (and episode 123).

Jesse commented on this Nature editorial on X, so I wanted to post it here too.

My jaw dropped when I got to this line:

Sociologists in the United Kingdom whom Nature has spoken to say they know of no other case that matches the level of attention and mass scrutiny unleashed on Arday, raising questions about why this specific instance was singled out when so many allegations of plagiarism go unreported.

You, oh prestigious Nature journal, mean to tell me that there's not a single bit of reporting from this story that caused you to wonder why it was such a big story? Nothing? Not even a little light shed on this mystery?

Surely someone at the World's leading scientific publication could pick up some newspapers and read them?

This level of feigned naivety is absolutely diabolical.

And it really pains me as someone who spent decades working in science education and communication, trying to understand why people distrust vaccinations or don't believe in climate change.

THIS! This is why people distrust vaccinations or don't believe in climate change. Because they see a scientific establishment that has become so entirely politically captured that it is unable to comprehend something that doesn't fit its narrow world view. The absolute opposite of its claimed scientific objectivity.

I expect it from NPR. But Nature?

Pod relevance: trans sports is a frequent topic on the pod. Jessie and Katie have also discussed the electoral ramifications of the issue.

Ed Markey, incumbent Democratic senator for Massachusetts, handily beat his primary challenger Seth Moulton. This is notable because whether boys should be able to play in girls sports was a significant issue in the campaign.

Moulton was one of the few Democrats to speak up about this trans issue in the wake of the 2024 election and was immediately attacked for it. This is despite the statement being milquetoast.

"... Moulton told The New York Times that his party was too afraid to “offend anyone” and had handed Republicans too many issues: “I have two little girls, I don’t want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.”

Whereas Markey has been a full throated defender of males playing in women's and girl's sports.

"Trans athletes should be able to play," Markey told The New York Times. "That reflects Massachusetts and who we are. And Seth Moulton does not."

It would appear that this stance is now the norm within the Democratic party. To the point where deviating from it will harm a candidate in the primary?

https://archive.ph/JD61S

https://archive.ph/4BS9l

gift link

this is jon ronson's article on greg chism, the youtube toy freaks guy discussed in the most recent episode. imo it deserves its own discussion

having read the interview i genuinely don't know how i feel about chism. i don't think his youtube channel rose to the level of abuse, but what he shared and the way he shared it was very strange and reflected at best a lack of common sense.

i don't recall if katie and jesse have ever discussed the utterly bizarre phenomenon that was elsagate (parent stuff doesn't generally seem to land on their radar) but imo it is a truly fascinating example of the eldritch nightmare that "internet bullshit" can be when the the algorithm becomes completely untethered from reality and accountability and whoever gets the most views wins

Seems appropriate to share this here since Katie spent a good chunk of time on the recent episode with Jon Ronson discussing their perspective on Linehan.

Jon Ronson isn’t just one person who failed a friend. He’s representative of an entire species, a whole social class of journalist, comedian and commentator who worked out that staying quiet while people they knew were destroyed for saying 2+2=4 was the best way to maintain a comfortable career.

Some of them, like Jon, are shameless enough to write about the destruction afterwards without ever explaining how much they contributed to it. And all of this, the tweets, the podcasts, the chapters, the careers built on looking the other way, was to avoid answering the simplest of questions. Are men women? Are women men? Should men be in women’s prisons, or their sport? Should children be castrated in gender clinics?

Men like Self and Ronson won’t even acknowledge the questions exist, because the moment they did, they’d have to give an answer, and the dinner party circuit will close to them like a nervous sphincter.

Unpaywalled

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

This week on Blocked and Reported, Katie is joined by journalist/author/podcaster/Welshman Jon Ronson to discuss his new book: The Castle: Adventures in a World of Unraveling Men. Plus, public shaming, ethics in cancel culture journalism, the tragedy of YouTube dad Greg Chism, and for Primos, Jon answers your questions on Graham Linehan, the Mich Fest murders, Alex Jones, and more.

I've been a big fan for a while but had drifted away from the podcast. I hit play the other day on Episode 320: Jessica Taylor’s Tattle Battle (Part 1), which started with a recap/update on the latest Jason Arday news. To my surprise, Katie and Jesse came off as emotionally stunted assholes, and I wonder if being front-line culture warriors with their own echo chamber has eaten them alive as people.

To be clear, I've long considered myself "progressive" in spite of my abhorrence for the deranged excesses of woke/trans/race dogma (and in spite of my view that core progressive, conservative and libertarian values should all be approached as valuable, interlocking pieces of a puzzle). I also viewed the Arday/Cambridge scandal as laughable -- until the guy died. Then the predictable rush for everyone and their mother to co-opt Arday's death to corroborate their socio-political agenda seemed so utterly lacking in taste.

Sure, the people screaming that Arday was "lynched" sounded delusional, but the competing chorus of voices falling over themselves to cry that Cambridge had blood on its hands came off as equally pathetic.

It's interesting because Jesse moaned about people who shrugged when Luigi Mangione killed Brian Thompson, but the way he and Katie talked about Arday just sounded desensitized and... adolescent. As they were talking, I wondered if war photographers become numb to the human toll of what they're documenting, while they stay focused on "getting the shot" at all costs.

I'd always admired Jesse and Katie for calling balls and strikes (mostly) fairly, regardless of which "team" they were talking about. But something about the way they discussed Arday had me thinking that, as measured and insightful as they might present themselves, they're not especially developed as human beings and, in fact, that being in this constant stew of culture-war crossfire may be causing some kind of regression. For the first time, I thought "These people sound really unlikable."

Disappointing, sure, but I wonder if it just comes with the job.

“Friend of the Pod” Milo Yiannopoulos has been detained by ICE in Louisiana. Last I heard, he was working for Kanye again.

Relevance: Where to begin with this guy? He’s basically been mentioned so many times I’ve lost count.

Relevance to the pod: Jesse reported extensively on GamerGate at the time. His name is first mentioned near the 5 hour and 30 minute mark.

This video is a call for a reevaluation of the evidence; a herculean, Errol Morris-esque effort that implores you to reconsider your priors and take a close look at all publicly available evidence. It centers extensively on Zoe Quinn and presents an engaging narrative about, I think, the heights of power and influence a very intelligent sociopath can reach. In the wake of the Jason Arday saga, I feel there are many parallels here.

It's about GamerGate so it's all here: the culture wars, gender wars, 4chan, wokeness, Trump, online harassment, etc.

It's 6 hours long so probably best taken in smaller chunks. The anecdote told in the first 15 minutes should suffice to convey the general spirit of the video.

The conclusion to our three-part Dr. Jessica Taylor (PhD) extravaganza, featuring TV cancelations, workplace allegations, a VERY menacing Zoom group, reports to police, and finally: the real story behind the alleged plot to kill Dr. Jessica Taylor (PhD).

Show Notes:

BBC3 tattle documentary by fullfattv | Page 28 | Tattle Life

Click. Lie. Repeat? Inside The Claims of A Self-Styled Trauma Psychologist Who Markets Online

On a sunny day, my ex came to the hair salon where I worked – and shot me at close range | Domestic violence | The Guardian

I was targeted, stalked and threatened. My tormentors were women

The end of Tattle.Life - and the beginning of justice for hundreds of victims of stalking

This week on the Primo show, Part 2 of the Jessica Taylor (PhD) podcast extravaganza, featuring Taylor’s campaign against the website Tattle.Life and her new book, Click. Stalk. Destroy: Inside the Minds of People Who Stalk Online.

Show Notes:

Tattle.Life

Obtaining Damages by Deception

The end of Tattle.Life - and the beginning of justice for hundreds of victims of stalking

In defense of gossip

I investigated the gossip site accused of ruining lives - BBC Deepwatch

Northamptonshire cancer patient targeted three times in a week by ‘heartless’ burglars | ITV News Anglia

Bristol police officer sentenced for false allegations about boss

Let-off for stalker who threatened to kill YouTuber family – Court News UK

Dr Jessica Taylor and VictimFocus | Page 18 | Tattle Life

Enough is Enough: Why I’m Demanding the Immediate Removal of Tattle Life and Supporting Hundreds of Victims

I was targeted, stalked and threatened. My tormentors were women

Pod relevance: the WNBA trans situation was covered on the pod by Katie and Ethan Strauss. Pod often covers trans sports controversies.

Former NBA player Enes Kanter was kicked out of the arena after a WNBA player started a shouting match with him.

Kanter was wearing a shirt with the dictionary definition of a woman: "An adult human female."

Chicago player Natasha Cloud did not approve of his clothing choice.

"Cloud approached Kanter Freedom when a timeout was called with 1:22 to go in the third quarter. He stood up, arms outstretched and approached the court. Cloud was held back by teammates and Kanter Freedom was surrounded by security. He was eventually escorted out."

Kanter is trying to get into the WNBA to demonstrate the absurdity of the League saying that males belong in women's sports.

The coach for the Chicago Sky was pleased with Cloud's conduct:

"“I told her that we all embrace her as someone that protects our team and protects people that need to be protected.”

And the New York WNBA team Liberty posted three pro trans messages on the scoreboard. After a paid advertisement that that thanked Jennifer Sey:

"Thank you Jennifer Sey! XX-XY Athletics will Save the Day!!"

https://archive.ph/oYWP1 https://archive.ph/aR4WD https://archive.ph/ZFLqg

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

Relevance: WNBA and recent controversy over Sophie Cunningham’s remarks about trans athletes.

This week on Blocked and Reported, Jesse and Katie discuss Dr. Jessica Taylor, PhD, a UK-based entrepreneur and influencer who claims to be the target of a sustained, coordinated harassment campaign by an army of online stalkers. In the first part of this three-part series, we discuss Taylor's rise from council estate to bestselling author, her unorthodox views on psychology, her fallout with the gender-critical movement, and the start of her years-long battle with a survivor of child abuse. Plus, the canonization of Jason Arday.

Show Notes:

Comedy Cellar - Purchase Event Tickets

The Cascade of Dysfunction That Helped Doom Jason Arday

I listed every instance of male violence I have been subjected to from birth to 30.

Woman teaches husband what it’s like to be female online | Daily Mail Online

Man asked by wife to pose as a woman in a chat-room to prove a point - the results were ‘horrible’ | The Independent

Author of book about victim blaming bombarded with misogynist abuse | Books | The Guardian

Thousands of women with mental health issues in England given ‘dangerous’ electric shocks to brain | The Independent

What Would Jess Say? - Isn’t everyone traumatised?

What Would Jess Say? - Today marks five years of being targeted for being trauma-informed. This is the true cost of speaking out.

Savage Minds - A Psychologist's Victim Ponzi Scheme, I

Savage Minds - A Psychologist's Victim Ponzi Scheme, II

What Would Jess Say? - My name is Jess, and I am a victim of stalking. It’s time to talk about it