Science In Transition Episode 1: Birth of The Clinic | from Cursed Media
Jul 10, 2025
Explore the historical roots of the backlash against transgender rights as the hosts investigate the early gender clinic era. Discover the impact of pioneers like Christine Jorgensen on public perception and medical practices in the late 1940s. Uncover the struggles for autonomy faced by trans individuals against a backdrop of cultural narratives and backlash politics. The podcast delves into significant setbacks in transgender healthcare during the 1970s, alongside the resilience and advocacy efforts that shaped the queer community in the 1980s.
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Nature of Backlash Politics
Backlash politics uses opposing groups' fears and confusions to unite diverse coalitions.
It adapts its arguments to appear progressive within liberal democracies' current social norms.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Christine Jorgensen's Public Transition
Christine Jorgensen's 1950s transition brought transgender medical possibilities to public consciousness.
Her story became widely covered and made sex changes imaginable for many.
insights INSIGHT
Doctors' Power and Limits of Care
Medicine carries power over patients and can sometimes worsen conditions through neglect or improper treatment.
Not all medical interventions are acts of care; doctors can refuse or harm patients despite needs.
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In 'Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women', Susan Faludi presents a detailed examination of the backlash against feminist gains of the 1970s. The book argues that this backlash, fueled by media, politics, and popular culture, blames the women's liberation movement for various problems faced by American women in the late 1980s. Faludi identifies and debunks myths such as the 'infertility epidemic' and the 'man shortage', showing how these myths were constructed and disseminated to undermine feminist progress. The book also explores historical trends of backlash following significant feminist advancements and its ongoing impact on women's rights and equality.
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!)
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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
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