The NEW Thoughts Podcast

Three horror films. One question: What happens when the world hands you a choice—change or die? Dr. Hoshaw examines Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, I Saw the TV Glow, and Slanted through the psychoanalytic lens of Adam Phillips's On Wanting to Change and R.D. Laing's The Divided Self. Along the way: a personal story about earning a pilot's license, Susan Stryker's landmark Frankenstein essa...

What do artificial intelligence, Trans* rights, and monogamy have in common? In the first episode of Season 2, Tony argues that they are all conversations about the relationships we want—to technology, to our bodies, and to a socially privileged way of being together. And right now, all three are clashing with powerful fantasies about the “real world.” Using the musical Ragtime as a through-line,...

Host Tony Hoshaw opens with a viral Donald Trump claim about immigrants eating pets and uses it to explore how we dehumanize people by turning them into "animals." He traces his own journey from a hunting childhood to a Christian conversion and tentative vegetarianism, shares stories of his companion pets, and criticizes careless hunting and factory farming. The episode brings in thinkers—Derrida,...

In this episode, Tony explores how puberty and social media intersect, comparing Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation and Matt Richtel's How We Grow Up, and closing with Adam Aleksic’s Algospeak. He examines how smartphones, algorithms, and shifting social habits are reshaping adolescence, attention, gender norms, and mental health. This episode outlines practical responses — more unsupervised...

In this episode, Tony examines recent Supreme Court decisions, North Carolina legislation, and Andrew Sullivan's op-ed for the New York Times to explain how legal and cultural forces are shaping public views of Trans* loves and lives. Tony argues that Trans* people are figures of change. And it is change that the forces opposed to Trans* loves and lives want to end. Tony introduces basic ideas fro...

The summer has been full for Tony and his family, including weeks of theater camps and travel to Seattle, Alaska, and New York to enjoy musicals like Six and Death Becomes Her!  Tony is working on two new episodes:  Sex Changes: We will talk about Trans* loves, lives, and the struggles Trans* people are facing as a result of Supreme Court decisions and anti-Trans* activism, like that of Andrew Sul...

What is our relationship to sexual pleasure? How do we communicate it in subtle and explicit ways to our kids? What needs to change about our relationship to sexual pleasure? Kids are being exposed, intentionally or unintentionally, to porn between the ages of 10-13. Porn is filling in a sexual pleasure education gap. So, it's time for us to have the talk.  Three questions structure our sexual ple...

Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) of *Legally Blonde* teaches us that small changes can have a big impact. When her boyfriend, Warner, dumps Elle because he thinks she's not serious, Elle makes a small change to her story: she takes herself seriously. Do you remember her LSAT score? Elle's parents don't take her seriously. To them, she's not ugly, boring, or serious. One thing growing up means is rew...

Change happens.  Change--good or bad--happens to us. We are all vulnerable to the forces of change.  When change happens to us, it changes how we think about our lives. Change can scare us, trapping us in stories--lives--that no longer make sense to us or others. But change can also inspire us to change the stories we tell about ourselves. We can change when change happens to us. With Lizzo's help...

Welcome to the New Thoughts Podcast!  It's about the ew in the new. It's about how change shocks and thrills us.  Join your host, Rev. Dr. Tony Hoshaw, Ph. D., as he risks conversations about how we do (not) want change.  Check out www.newthoughtspodcast.com for more New Thoughts.   Share your new thoughts with Tony: info@newthoughtspodcast.com .  Tony writes at www.gay-thoughts.com.