Informed Dissent

This week on Informed Dissent , Jamie, Lauren, and Cori reflect on a week of unexpected moments — travel, testimony, and the decision to speak up when staying quiet would have been easier. Our deep dive includes a behind-the-scenes conversation about recent legislative hearings and welcoming new voices into the movement. We’re joined by Dr. Karla Solheim , a board-certified OB/GYN living and pract...

Informed Dissent — January 17, 2026 News of the Week & Deep Dive This week’s episode moves from state-level political turmoil to Supreme Court oral arguments, with a few unexpected cultural and intellectual detours along the way. Segment One — New Jersey at a Crossroads We open with the unfolding conflict inside New Jersey’s political and advocacy landscape, where a proposed “gender health care sh...

This week on Informed Dissent we tackle the New York Times , men in women’s sports, Trans News Network, and the 37th Annual GLAAD Media Award nominees. We also discuss shoe sizes (is a women’s 11½ an outlier?), the independent media nominees all being either trans, queer, or aligned with that side of the movement, and why Jamie can’t pronoun Brad Polumbo’s name. In our second segment we were joine...

Informed Dissent — This Week for January 3, 2026 This week’s episode marks our return after the holiday break and focuses on Washington State, where sports policy, media framing, parental rights, and direct democracy are converging in real time. Jamie, Cori, and Lauren are together for the full episode, opening with a wide-ranging first segment before turning to an interview from Washington State....

Informed Dissent — This Week for December 20, 2025 This week’s episode moved fast and covered a lot of ground. Cori and Jamie opened with a wide-angle look at where things actually stand right now—before turning to a guest conversation that tested the limits of dialogue across disagreement. Policy, politics, and what’s winning Cori and Jamie begin the episode by breaking down several developments...

Informed Dissent — This Week’s Episode This week on Informed Dissent , we’re joined by Alasdair Gunn and Harrison Tinsley for a wide-ranging and deeply human conversation about health, survival, fatherhood, civic responsibility, and what it means to protect children in a culture that often resists restraint. We discuss how lived experience—serious illness, custody battles, and advocacy—reshapes mo...

Informed Dissent News for the Week December 6, 2025 Segment One — Conversation with Glenna Goldis We open the episode with Glenna Goldis and a breakdown of the week’s biggest stories: * The New York Times piece on the secretly recorded surgery consultation * Chase Strangio , taking one for the team with a public-facing optimism that change is possible within current advocacy structures — and why t...

Informed Dissent — News of the Week • Nex Dagny Benedict We cover the ongoing developments in the Nex Dagny Benedict case and the layers of narrative, reporting, and political framing that continue to emerge. • New Research Study — Covered by Ben Ryan We discuss the newly released study on youth suicidality and cross-sex hormones, along with journalist Ben Ryan’s detailed analysis of its methods a...

Informed Dissent — Week of Nov 22, 2025 News of the Week: Passport Ruling We walk through the recent U.S. Supreme Court order that allows the Trump administration to enforce a passport policy requiring sex markers to match sex as recorded at birth — eliminating the option of an “X” marker and ending self-identification on new passports, renewals, and corrections. We cover: * What the Orr v. Trump...

🎙️ Informed Dissent — Nov 15, 2025 This week, Jamie Reed and Cori Cohn hold down the fort while Lauren Leggieri recovers from being sick — we miss her and hope she’s back next week. Jamie and Cori are joined by Vincent Deboni for a wide-ranging discussion about how powerful ideologies tend to follow the same playbooks across countries and institutions. Together they tackle one of the biggest quest...

Week of November 8, 2025 Hosts: Jamie Reed, Lauren Leggieri, and Cori Cohn Sponsored by the LGB Courage Coalition ■ Lauren’s Headlines Key stories of the week in gender policy, medicine, and media. ■ Deep Dive Topic: “Who My Child Was and Would Be” — by James Marcus, The New Yorker Discussion: Jamie, Lauren, and Cori unpack the essay’s portrayal of parental loss, identity, and ideology — and how e...

Jamie Reed, Lauren Leggieri, and Cori Cohn break down the U.K.’s big news: the National Health Service launching a dedicated detransitioner service. What does this mean for accountability—and how does an institution open a clinic to address harm while continuing to cause it? Then, attorney Glenna Goldis joins to discuss the Texas doctor who fled to Oregon and the Kansas lawsuit challenging gender...

In this episode, we speak with Joe Figliolia , author of the Manhattan Institute’s new report on institutional capture inside the Texas Medical Association, and Dr. Lisa Ehrlich , who has seen that reality up close. We revisit the AAP’s 2018 Rafferty policy , walk through Texas SB 14 , and note the latest news of a Texas doctor losing her license under the new law. From Ignaz Semmelweis to the mec...

In this week’s Informed Dissent —our first real fall episode—Jamie Reed, Lauren Leggieri, and Cori Cohn take a darker turn, exploring how speech—whether protected, restricted, or weaponized—shapes the moral landscape of medicine, therapy, and the digital world. Our two deep dives reveal that speech isn’t an abstract legal theory—it can be tied to real harm. First, we examine the Chiles v. Salazar...

What should count as a mental disorder—and who gets to decide? In this week’s deep dive, Jamie Reed, Lauren Leggieri, and Cori Cohn examine how the DSM ( Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ) became one of the most politicized documents in modern medicine. From the pathologizing of homosexuality to today’s debates over “gender dysphoria,” the hosts explore how psychiatric labels...

Relaunch: Introducing Lauren Leggieri Welcome to the relaunch of Informed Dissent ! Each week, your hosts — Jamie Reed, Lauren Leggieri, and Cori Cohn — cut through the noise of the gender culture wars, tackling the stories behind lawsuits, medical controversies, school policies, and the very meaning of “gender.” In this episode, Jamie introduces new co-host Lauren Leggieri . Lauren reflects on th...

In this episode, Cori and Ben take the mic without their cohosts to reflect on two pressing stories shaping the gender debate. We begin with former Mermaids CEO Susie Green’s latest effort to advance the cause of medical transition for children. From there, we turn to the recent tragedy in Minneapolis, examining how quickly it has become a political football for competing ideological tribes. What...

In this episode, we discuss the activist-led campaign to discredit systematic reviews conducted by researchers at McMaster University because they were funded by SEGM (the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine). We examine the researchers’ response, whether the campaign gained traction, and what it reveals about the politicization of evidence. From there, we step back to look at the broader l...

Today, Corinna and Ben speak with the psychiatrist Dr. Lauren Schwartz. Dr. Schwartz is a senior fellow with Do No Harm, the lead author of a 2025 paper on the health risks of estrogen use in males, and the coauthor of a chapter in Lawrence Krauss’s new anthology, The War on Science (“Gender-Affirming Care: The Abandonment of Medical and Academic Standards”). * Arkansas ban stands * Air Force rene...

Today we talk about the latest gender clinic closures and “pauses” on pediatric transition services and speculate about what the future holds for the young people who’ve been harmed by these practices. Who’s going to help them? How will they help them? Will anyone be held accountable for harming them? We discuss the case of Avery Jackson, the trans-identified boy who at age nine appeared on the co...

Today the gang discusses the Trump Administration’s severing of its partnership with the Trevor Project, as well as California Governor Gavin Newsom’s recent appearance on the Shawn Ryan Show. Plus news headlines, announcements, and more! * Trump defunds the Trevor Project * TP’s 2023 fiscal report * Trump Admin cutting off federal funding to hospitals providing GAC for minors * Newsom on the Shaw...

Cori, Jamie, and Sarah catch up on their gender-related travels, which took Jamie to Washington DC for the Federal Trade Commission workshop on consumer fraud in gender medicine and Cori and Sarah to France for the European Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry conference. We also discuss new research on sexual satisfaction and whether or not it's possible to improve on the French man-on-the...

Alex Byrne is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Philosophy at MIT and the author of the book Trouble with Gender: Sex Facts, Gender Fictions . Last week, Alex revealed in a Washington Post op-ed that he was one of the nine co-authors of the anonymous HHS report on pediatric gender medicine. He is married to the evolutionary biologist Carole Hooven . CORRECTIONS: UPenn is restoring titles an...

Maud Maron is running to be Manhattan’s next District Attorney “to restore safety and sanity to our streets and subways.” She’s also a mom of four children who are all NYC public school graduates or students. Maud worked as a public defender for over two decades at the Legal Aid Society in the Manhattan and the Bronx criminal courts. She taught criminal law at Cardozo Law School and has a long tra...

Today we’re joined by very good friend of the pod, Leor Sapir! Leor Sapir is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He holds a Ph. D. in Political Science from Boston College and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Program on Constitutional Government at Harvard University. Since joining MI, Sapir has become a widely recognized thought leader on topics related to pediatric gender medicine, ed...