Science In Transition Episode 1: Birth of The Clinic | from Cursed Media

QAA Podcast

Julian Feeld, Travis View & Jake Rockatansky

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4.5 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 10 July 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This is the very first episode of the six-part podcast series network Science In Transition by Liv Agar and Spencer Barrows, from our new podcast series network Cursed Media. Science in Transition is an investigation into the intellectual origins of the contemporary right wing backlash against transgender acceptance. Through six deeply-researched episodes, hosts Liv Agar and Spencer Barrows unearth a bizarre coalition of well-meaning clinicians, aristocratic sexologists, militant feminists, right-wing culture warriors, headline-chasing journalists, and conservative politicians. Listen to the first two episodes of Science In Transition and the rest of the six episodes as they are released weekly by subscribing through this link. www.cursedmedia.net/ Subscribers to Cursed Media get access to three new podcast series per year, plus every episode of QAA’s existing mini-series (properly organized!) //// Science In Transition Episode 1: Birth of the Clinic As various fields in the medical sciences advance during the interwar period, doctors confront a problem: the treatment of adults who desire to change their sex. While many clinicians propose psychotherapy, a few dotted across the Western world have a different idea: use newly synthesized hormones and surgical procedures to treat them. Liv and Spencer dig into the early decades of the Western gender clinic, its treatment of gender-variant and intersex children, and the crusaders who sought to morally mandate the transsexual out of existence. A full list of sources for the entire series will be available soon; for further reading, please consult: Florence Ashley, ““Richard Green wasn’t an ally to trans communities: a controversial legacy” ⁠https://medium.com/@florence.ashley/richard-green-wasnt-an-ally-to-trans-communities-a-controversial-legacy-e6d9a485f66e⁠ Jules Gill-Peterson, Histories of the Transgender Child Julia Serano, Whipping Girl Joanne Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed: A History Of Transsexuality In The United States Karl Bryant, “Making Gender Identity Disorder of Childhood: Historical Lessons for Contemporary Debates” Lisa Downing, Iain Morland, and Nikki Sullivan, Fuckology: Critical Essays on John Money's Diagnostic Concepts Melanie Fritz and Nat Mulkey, “The rise and fall of gender identity clinics in the 1960s and 1970s” ⁠https://archive.is/7cNQr⁠ Samantha Riedel, “Gen(d)erations: How Sandy Stone “Struck Back” Against Transmisogyny” ⁠https://www.them.us/story/genderations-sandy-stone⁠ Stacey D. Jackson-Roberts, “Pushed to the edge: the treatment of transsexuals through time: a behavioral discourse analysis of the diagnostic and treatment protocols for transsexuals and the implications for contemporary social work practice” ⁠https://scholarworks.smith.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2037&context=theses⁠

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello QAA listeners. We have launched a new podcasting network called Curse Media. It's a new
0:09.7	platform where we serve up exclusive podcasts on topics that you can't hear anywhere else. For example,
0:15.4	have you been listening to podcasts that don't have Live Agar in them? Well, we're here to help you fix that.
0:21.9	Our first series is Science in Transition, hosted and researched by Live Agar and Spencer Barrows.
0:27.5	It's a six-episode investigation into the intellectual origins of the contemporary right-wing
0:32.2	backlash against transgender acceptance.
0:34.7	You are about to hear the very first episode, Birth of the Clinic. I,
0:39.3	Liv Egar, and my co-host Spencer Barrows, dig into the early decades of the Western Gender
0:44.0	Clinic. To hear the second episode right now, plus get access to each new episode as they're released
0:48.6	once a week, visit cursedmedia.net and subscribe. Curst media subscribers also get access to every episode of every
0:55.7	QAA miniseries, plus two more exclusive series we're going to release over the next year.
1:00.9	This is something we've been working on for a long time, and we're very excited to finally
1:04.8	be able to share it with you. And now, here is the first episode of the first Curse Media
1:09.8	miniseries, Science and Transition,
1:12.4	Birth of the Clinic.
1:15.0	Before we begin, this podcast, all six episodes will contain difficult and triggering content.
1:21.6	There will be discussions of conversion therapy, sexual abuse, torture, pedophilia, racism, and transphobia.
1:29.8	While we believe it is important to account for this backlash and its history and exacting detail,
1:34.4	we understand this series will no doubt be a difficult sit for many listeners.
1:38.1	Discretion is advised.
1:39.7	This podcast will also use a variety of language regarding trans people that is now considered
1:43.7	anachronistic or offensive. For clarity's sake, we will generally use the typologies and
	...

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