The Unspeakable Podcast

Frank Bruni spent more than 25 years at The New York Times, the last ten of them as a columnist on the opinion page. In June, he left the column to become a professor of public policy and journalism at Duke University. Frank spoke with Meghan about the difficulties — maybe the impossibility— of writing a weekly opinion column while also maintaining intellectual humility and engaging with your own uncertainty. The author of many books, including a book about higher education, Frank explained how “campus craziness” tropes have been distorted by the media even though students continue to disagree about free speech and administrators continue to pander to a small minority of loud extremists. He also talked about an ongoing medical issue that threatens his eyesight and about which he writes in a forthcoming book. Guest Bio: Frank Bruni was a New York Times opinion columnist from 2011 to 2021. He has also served as a White House correspondent, Rome bureau chief and chief restaurant critic for the Times. He is the author of three New York Times bestsellers and his newest book, The Beauty of Dusk, about affliction, aging and his brush with blindness, will be published early next year. He ended his op-ed column in June 2021 and moved from New York to North Carolina to become a professor of public policy and journalism at Duke University, but continues to write a popular weekly newsletter (www.nytimes.com/BruniLetter) for the Times.

This week, Meghan talks with legendary sex and relationship columnist Dan Savage. Recounting thirty years of correspondence from people seeking advice, Dan reflects on how anxieties and concerns have changed over the decades. Whereas he once got mostly practical questions about sex, he now hears from people who describe a relationship dynamic and ask some version of “am I the asshole?” Dan also talks about how he’s become gentler over the years in doling out advice, the legacy of his famous “It Gets Better” campaign, and his discomfort with Meghan’s “favorite” issue, the surge in transgender identity declarations among young people. (That’s not really her favorite issue.) Meghan also announced some new developments with the podcast, including the first ever Unspeakable Zoom hangout for listeners on August 19. To learn more and to register, click HERE [link] Guest Bio: Dan Savage is an author, media pundit, journalist, and LGBT activist. He writes Savage Love, an internationally syndicated relationship and sex advice column, and hosts the popular Savage Lovecast. He is the author of several books including The Kid, It Gets Better, The Commitment, Skipping Toward Gomorrah, American Savage, and Savage Love. In 2010, Savage and his husband, Terry Miller, began the It Gets Better Project to help prevent suicide among LGBT youth.

In this very special, guest-free episode of The Unspeakable Podcast, Meghan talks to her listeners about the now ubiquitous concept of the “mid-career pivot.” Drawing from her experience as a longtime freelance writer who has had to shift her entire work philosophy to accommodate a changing media landscape, Meghan shares several ideas and at least one pet theory. That theory has to do with the ways that Generation X is in an especially precarious position when it comes to this pivot, mostly because they’re too young to retire but too old to be digital natives. She also talks about launching the podcast exactly a year ago, the challenges of promoting it, and the show’s recent move to the Podcast One network.

Science writer Tom Chivers is the author of How To Read Numbers: A Guide To Statistics In The News (And Knowing When to Trust Them) which he co-wrote with his cousin, the economist David Chivers. He came to Meghan’s attention recently because of an article he wrote for the British publication, UnHerd, where he serves as science editor. That article, entitled Twitter Trolls Mentally Ill?, was a response to a widely circulated statement by the author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who wrote about defamation she’d experienced from a former student and about how the language of empathy and self-care is now often repurposed as a cudgel. Tom's piece expanded on some of these ideas, suggesting that mental health struggles and personality disorders have become engines of social media and that the kind of behavior that’s rewarded on places like Twitter is sometimes the same behavior that’s associated with diagnoses like Borderline Personality Disorder. Tom spoke with Meghan about this article and about related ideas in his book, including the ways misperceptions of harm can turn people into catastrophists. Relevant links: Are Twitter Trolls Mentally Ill? https://unherd.com/2021/06/are-twitter-trolls-mentally-ill/ It Is Obscene by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie https://www.chimamanda.com/news_items/it-is-obscene-a-true-reflection-in-three-parts/ Guest Bio: Tom Chivers is science editor at UnHerd and the co-author with David Chivers of How To Read Numbers: A Guide To Statistics In The News (And Knowing When to Trust Them). He is a two Tim winner of the Royal Statistical Society’s “statistical excellence in journalism” award.

Approximately 554,000 Americans experienced homelessness last year, and over half of were in California. In Los Angeles County alone, 66,000 people were unhoused in 2020, a 16 percent increase from the previous year. Shawn Pleasants is an advocate for the homeless in Los Angeles who often speaks about policy issues and ideas for addressing the crisis. He was also homeless himself for ten years, living for most of that time in an encampment in Koreatown, where he and his longtime husband dealt with medical problems, addiction issues, street violence and tried several times to find jobs and housing. Shawn also happens to be a Yale graduate who once worked on Wall Street and later owned his own business. The stories of how he entered and finally escaped homelessness are remarkable. But even more remarkable is his perspective on the bigger crisis. Shawn spoke with Meghan about not just the day to day life of someone living on the street but also what city and state officials are getting wrong about when they talk about how to fix the problem. Guest Bio: Shawn Pleasants is an advocate for unhoused people in Los Angeles. A former banker and business owner, he lived on the street for ten years. He has been housed since late 2019. 

Critical Race Theory, or CRT, is everywhere all of a sudden. Having made its way from academia to K-12 education, it came to the attention of the Trump Administration last year and quickly became a bogeyman of the political right. From there, state legislatures began crafting bills that would ban the "divisive concepts" allegedly embedded in CRT-based curriculum. But the bills have only added to public confusion over what CRT really means and partisan media coverage has whipped up the whole debate into something resembling a moral panic. _   Dr. Erec Smith is a professor of Rhetoric and Composition at York College of Pennsylvania and has written extensively about race and its role in pedagogy and public debate. He talked with Meghan about the origins of CRT, when it can be useful, how it's often misapplied and, above all, how most of what's got people so upset these days has little to do with CRT in the first place.     Guest Bio: Erec Smith is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric at York College of Pennsylvania and focuses primarily on the rhetorics of anti-racist activism, theory, and pedagogy. He is a co-founder of Free Black Thought, a website dedicated to highlighting viewpoint diversity within the black intelligentsia. His latest book is A Critique of Anti-racism in Rhetoric and Composition: The Semblance of Empowerment.

This week's episode is a little different. Meghan's two guests appear anonymously and speak about their sons' struggles with gender dysphoria and subsequent desires to transition into females. Calling themselves Jolene and Marie, they explain why they're wary of the "affirmative" model of care, which operates from an assumption that even very young children can know for sure if they are in the wrong gender and often demonizes parents who question the approach. Jolene and Marie talk about how this issue has affected their whole families, the ways gender dysphoria can intersect with autism and other neurodivergent conditions, and the way online communities can blur the boundaries between gender identity issues and other emotional or psychological challenges. Relevant links: Genspect: A voice for parents with gender questioning kids https://genspect.org Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) One Size Does Not Fit All: In Support of Psychotherapy for Gender DysphoriaGuest Unspeakable Podcast interview with gender therapist Sasha Ayad    Bios: Jolene and Marie are pseudonyms for two moms of gender questioning kids. They live in the United States.

Playwright, novelist, and screenwriter Paul Rudnick is one of the most celebrated humorists of his generation. From his 1993 breakout off-Broadway hit play, Jeffrey to Broadway hits like I Hate Hamlet and screenplays for films like In and Out, Addams Family Values and Sister Act, Paul is a master of not just the quippy one-liner but also deeply realized characters and relatable, if often absurd situations. He's also been a regular contributor to The New Yorker for decades and is the author of several books, mostly recently the novel Playing the Palace, which is about a gay relationship between a young New York party planner and an imagined version of the Prince of Wales. Paul spoke with Meghan about gay subject matter in his work over time, his fascination with the British royal family, his latest project for HBO and his feelings about the ever shifting battle lines of the new wars. They also talked about growing up in New Jersey, which is its own kind of culture war.        Guest Bio: Paul Rudnick is a novelist, playwright, essayist and screenwriter. His Obie award winning plays have been produced both on and off Broadway and around the world, and include I Hate Hamlet, Jeffery, and The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told.  His screenplays include Addams Family Values, In and Out and Sister and his many book include Social Disease, I'll Take It and, most recently, Playing the Palace.

Novelist Lionel Shriver is known for placing social topics (sometimes radioactive ones) inside the frame of fiction. Her 2003 novel, We Need To Talk About Kevin, which won the Orange Prize for Fiction and was made into a 2011 film starring Tilda Swinton, was told from the perspective of a mother whose son commits a school shooting akin to the Columbine massacre. Lionel's thirteen other novels take on such subjects as obesity, the US healthcare system, the national debt, global overpopulation, and homegrown terrorism. Her new novel, Should We Stay Or Should We Go, is about suicide, specifically the pros and cons of ending your life on your own terms before nature-or modern medicine-prolongs it in ghastly fashion. Lionel spoke with Meghan about her new book and also her feelings about illness, medicine and her own death.  As an American who's lived in the UK for several decades and still lives in New York part time, Lionel also offers her thoughts about single payer health care and what the venerated National Health Service does right as well as often gets wrong.    Guest Bio: Lionel Shriver's fiction includes The Mandibles, Property,  So Much for That, the New York Times bestseller The Post-Birthday World, and the international bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin.  Her journalism has appeared in The Guardian, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harper's, and the London Times, and she currently writes a regular  column for The Spectator in the UK.  She lives in London and Brooklyn, NY.

One sure way to lose a popularity contest is to fight for the rights of convicted sex offenders. But The National Sex Offender Registry, which was established during an era of panic over crime and child danger, has come with a host of unintended consequences. Sociologist Emily Horowitz is one of a handful of academics and researchers who speaking out against the registry, showing how it's yet another blunt instrument of "tough on crime" 1990s legislation and ultimately does more to ruins lives than to protect kids. Emily spoke with Meghan about what led her to this work and why our assumptions about sexual predators are often wrong. She also  explained some of the reasons why sexual abuse against children, and sexual violence in general, has declined over the last 30 years-for reasons having nothing to do with the registry.   Relevant links:   New York Times: At 18, He Had Consensual Gay Sex. Montana Wants Him to Stay a Registered Sex Offender   New York Times: Did The Supreme Court Base a Ruling on a Myth?   The New Yorker: The List     Guest bio:   Emily Horowitz is a professor of Sociology & Criminal Justice at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of a number of articles about the harms of sex offense registries, including the book Protecting Our Kids? How Sex Offender Laws Are Failing Us. At St. Francis College she co-directs a program that helps those with criminal justice involvement earn college degrees and she is currently conducting research on the experiences of veterans with sex offense convictions.