Agree to Disagree About Gender

About Agree to Disagree About Gender

Laura is an integrated trans woman. Yvette is gender critical. They disagree on a lot when it comes to sex and gender, but agree it's better to talk about their differences and try to understand each other's perspective, rather than to assume the worst about each other. Every week, they will have an open and civil discussion about current events pertaining to sex, gender and trans issues, and will have a civil and respectful discussion about contentious areas of disagreement

Publisher

Laura T and Yvette N

Category

health & fitness · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

Yes

First episode

22 Dec 2025

Latest episode

11 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

39 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   11 Oct 2026

   Episode 39 - A British Physician Shares Her Concerns About Trans Issues - Dr. Alice Hodkinson

   Dr. Hodkinson is a UK-based general practitioner who has become a leading physician-advocate for gender critical causes, particularly on the intersection of trans identities and medicine. She and several other like minded UK-based physicians founded Biology in Medicine, where they posted anonymously out of concern that they would face social sanction from their colleagues and community for embracing gender critical views in a field that has a long history of being trans supportive, and where the efficacy and safety of transition-focused care and the health of trans and gender diverse populations were unexplored Dr. Hodkinson revealed her identity and her connection to Biology in Medicine recently, and has become the public face of this organization, appearing in print and social media. However, she has not before opened herself up for a discussion on a show where her views would receive serious scrutiny. In this wide-ranging conversation, we discuss the past and current climate for gender critical health care workers, and debate the efficacy of pediatric medical transition, the ethics of the ongoing puberty blocker trial, the controversies around inducing lactation in natal males (and natal female nongestational mothers), as well as the impact and dementia on identity in the aging transsexual.

2. 

   3 Oct 2026

   Episode 38 - Villain Or Vindicated on Pediatric Gender Care - Dr. Ken Zucker

   In 2015, one of the world’s best-known researchers of childhood gender dysphoria lost the clinic he had led for more than three decades. Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health closed its child and youth gender identity service and dismissed its clinical lead, psychologist Ken Zucker. The clinic had come under intense criticism. Some accused it of practising conversion therapy by trying to steer children away from a future transgender identity. An external review found that its approach was out of step with emerging practice, although the reviewers said they could not determine whether it was practising conversion therapy. For many people, Zucker’s dismissal marked the end of an era in which clinicians saw childhood gender dysphoria as something they might try to resolve. Then the story took another turn. In 2018, CAMH acknowledged serious errors in the review’s account of Zucker’s conduct, apologized to him, and reached a financial settlement. Zucker saw that as a vindication. CAMH, however, stood by its decision to close the clinic. The apology corrected allegations about the man. It did not settle the argument about the care. That argument has become more urgent. Zucker was not a marginal figure. He chaired the group responsible for sexual and gender identity diagnoses in DSM-5, edited Archives of Sexual Behavior, and helped produce some of the most influential follow-up research on children referred for gender identity concerns. In one study of 139 boys assessed in childhood, only 17 were classified as having persistent gender dysphoria at follow-up. That finding has been cited to argue for patience before assuming a child will need medical transition. But what, exactly, did those studies establish? The children were assessed decades ago, more than a third did not meet the diagnostic threshold at their initial assessment, and the research cannot tell us whether Zucker’s treatment changed their outcomes. Nor can its percentages simply be applied to adolescents presenting for the first time today. Now the clinical pendulum appears to be moving again, at least in some countries. Following the Cass Review, England has moved toward broader assessment of young people’s mental health and development before specialist treatment. Sweden has urged greater caution with medical interventions for minors. Those changes revive questions Zucker spent his career asking: How does dysphoria develop? Which young people will continue to experience it? What else might explain their distress, and how can clinicians help them make sound decisions? Renewed interest in careful assessment does not, by itself, vindicate every aspect of Zucker’s old approach. In particular, it does not show that therapy can prevent a transgender outcome, or that prevention should be its goal. Zucker is still working on those questions. He has recently written with Michael Bailey about psychotherapy for gender dysphoria and is collaborating with Bailey and Lisa Littman on a study following adolescents and young adults over time. So was Ken Zucker a clinician punished for asking questions that medicine needed to ask? Or did his clinic cross a line between exploring a child’s distress and trying to determine who that child should become?

3. 

   26 Sept 2026

   Are Trans Women Discriminated Against When Job Seeking - Taryn Eames

   Laura often quips: "Looks don't matter, except when they do, which is nearly always". We all have a sense that people who are conventionally attractive catch more breaks then people who are plain, and this is likely more true for women than for men. But how much does this matter for trans women, who are more likely than natal women (and non-trans men) to be unemployed and in poverty. Taryn Eames, a PhD candidate in economics at the University of Toronto, sought to find out why. Are trans women less employable, or are they being discriminated against by employers? And how is this effected by their passability -- their ability to be interpreted as though they were natally female. To analyze if this was due to hiring discrimination, she sent out 10000 fake resumes to potential employers across Germany, The only details that they changes was that in some, the employee revealed a trans history, and in some, the employee was presumed to be a natal female. In addition, in half the resumes she included a picture that appeared classily female, and in the other half, the picture was masculinized to look trans. She discovered that employers gave a positive response 9% less often if the employee revealed a trans history but "passed" as female, but 32% less often if she did not pass, showing that trans women who do not pass are significantly penalized when job hunting. With Yvette away sick, Laura and Taryn discuss this research, try to tease out differences between attractiveness and passability and discuss if this is a problem that can (or should be) remedied.

Reach and audience

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Apple Podcasts (US)

4.7 / 5

3 ratings

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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