This episode contains explicit language.

Welcome to Mom and Dad are Fighting, Slate's Parenting Podcast for Monday, May 9th, the Protecting Trans Kids Edition.

I'm Jamila Lemieux, a writer, contributor to Slate's Karen Feeding Parenting column, and Mom to Naima, who is nine, and we live in Los Angeles. I'm Elizabeth New Camp. I write the homeschool and family travel blog, Dutch Dutch Goose. I'm the mom to three littles, Henry who's 10, Oliver, who's seven, and Teddy who's five. And we live in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I'm Zach Rosen. I host The Best Advice Show podcast, and I live in Detroit with my family.

Noah is four and Ami is one.

Today on the show, we're talking about the wave of anti-trans legislation, the role of misinformation

in this moment, and how to protect trans kids. We'll be joined by Jules Gil Peterson.

She's a trans historian and author of Histories of the Transgender Child and co-hosts

Slate's very own outward podcasts. She's wonderful and insightful. You'll definitely want to stick

around. But before we get into that, we wanted to dive into our mailbag and share some of your

thoughts. We had a lot of passionate pleas on Facebook and in our email in response to

Elizabeth quandary about Oliver's track meet.

Here's one of them.

Elizabeth, I implore you to let Oliver skip the track meets.

I feel like America is uniquely obsessed with turning all fitness and sport into competition.

I grew up thinking I hated sports because of that feeling that Zach described. Of teammates

cheering you on and lifting you up, I hate that. It makes me feel anxious and self-conscious about

my athleticism and whether I'm doing enough for my team or letting them down, etc., etc.

It was only when I was in my 20s and had some distance from the tyranny of elementary school

teams that I realized I don't hate sports at all.

I just hate sports competitions.

There are plenty of other contexts in which kids can learn to give a second try to things

they struggle with for the first time.

...