Andrew Sullivan on Where Trans Activism and Gay Rights Collide

The Unspeakable Podcast

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.8 • 784 Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2023

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, Andrew Sullivan joins The Unspeakable to discuss the evolution of LGBTQ rights and debates. He and Meghan explore how the trans rights movement intersects (and sometimes conflicts) with the goals Sullivan advocated for gay men like himself in the 80s/90s, such as marriage equality. They also discuss his views on the physical realities of transitioning and how the language surrounding “trans kids” and “conversion therapy” are being co-opted in potentially dangerous ways

Andrew and Meghan also revisit messages from the AIDS crisis that inaccurately claimed everyone was at equal risk. Despite criticism, Andrew believes that moderation and reason will ultimately triumph over the impassioned, ideological discourse surrounding gender identity and sexual orientation.

GUEST BIO

Andrew Sullivan is a political commentator, a former editor of The New Republic, and the author or editor of six books. You can find his Weekly Dish newsletter here.

📰 Meghan’s 2012 Believer article about her 1996 New York Time Magazine article about HIV/AIDS public health messaging.

Want to hear the whole conversation? Upgrade your subscription here.

HOUSEKEEPING

✏️ Apply for Meghan’s co-ed Personal Essay and Memoir class.

✈️ Unspeakeasy Retreats: See where we’re going to be in 2024!

🥂 Join The Unspeakeasy, my community for freethinking women.

🔥 Follow my other podcast, A Special Place in Hell.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I think I was a bit naive.
0:05.0	You know, I have like most gay people, support trans people, new trans people,
0:11.0	defended trans people, thought that they deserved and absolutely required protection
0:17.0	from discrimination in every field of activity, essentially. And so we were very
0:24.8	excited when the Bostock decision came down in the Trump administration, granting them
0:31.5	full civil equality, which to my mind is the end of it.
0:37.4	Welcome to the unspeakable podcast. I'm your host, Megan Dom. Before which to my mind is the end of it.
0:40.8	Welcome to the unspeakable podcast. I'm your host, Megan Dom.
0:45.8	Before I introduce this week's guest, Andrew Sullivan, I have a couple of announcements.
0:51.6	The first is that we have officially announced the first three unspeak-easy retreats of 24. So ladies, are you writing this down? Here we go. March 2nd and
0:57.2	3rd, we will have a weekend retreat in Austin, Texas. April 8th through 11th, we'll have a three-night,
1:03.6	four-day retreat in Louisville, Kentucky, and April 20th and 21st weekend retreat in Los Angeles.
1:10.5	Guest speakers in Austin and L.A. will be announced at some point soon, but our Louisville
1:15.5	speakers, I can tell you now, will be Nina Paley and Corinna Cohn from the Heterodorks podcast.
1:21.7	They will be joining us for one night. They have our guests on this podcast about a year ago.
1:26.7	If you are interested in any of these, especially the Louisville retreat, get in touch with us soon by going to the unspeakeasy.com.
1:34.5	These retreats have been incredibly successful.
1:37.4	They sell out quickly.
1:38.6	We had one in Denver back in September, and we recently got back from three nights in the Poconos.
1:46.3	They sell out quickly. So get in on it now. We're going to do six retreats next year,
1:51.7	but those are the first three that I'm announcing now. Okay, my guest is someone I have wanted
1:57.8	to have on the podcast since pretty much the week I started it.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Meghan Daum, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Meghan Daum and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.