Quillette Podcast

Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker talks to Quillette's Jonathan Kay talks to about his book Enlightenment Now and why the critics who took him to task for celebrating the Enlightenment are wrong. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jesse Singal, a New York-based writer, talks to Quillette's Jonathan Kay about the reaction to his controversial cover story for The Atlantic about transgender adolescents. Among other things, Singal interviewed a number of adults who have "detransitioned"—had a change of heart about switching genders after undergoing irreversible medical procedures. This provoked accusations of "transphobia" from trans activists, who argued that highlighting these cases would make parents and mental health professionals needlessly sceptical when reacting to children's self-diagnosis of gender dysphoria and make it more difficult for those children to get medical treatment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeff McMahan, professor of moral philosophy at Oxford and co-founder of the Journal of Controversial Ideas, a new academic periodical in which contributors will be given the option of publishing their papers pseudonymously, talks to Quillette's Toby Young. They discuss why the journal is needed, how 'controversial' ideas will be defined and Professor McMahan responds to some of the criticisms that have greeted the idea, both from the Social Justice Left and the liberal centre. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Corinna Cohn, a trans woman and Indianapolis-based software developer who disagrees with Twitter's policy of banning users who "deadname" trans people and, more generally, doesn't believe she is obliged to support the causes associated with the Social Justice movement just because Social Justice Warriors support trans rights, talks to Canadian editor Jonathan Kay. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jonathan Church, Quillette contributor and economist, talks to associate editor Toby Young about 'white privilege,' 'white fragility,' 'color-blind racism,' 'unconscious bias,' 'micro-aggressions' and why the Social Justice Left is more interested in punishing whites than understanding the complexity of racial inequality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Coleman Hughes, Quillette columnist and Columbia University student, talks to Canadian editor Jonathan Kay about being out of step with the prevailing orthodoxy at an Ivy League college, classical liberalism and playing in Rihanna's backup band in 2016. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Heather Mac Donald, a Fellow of the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal and the author of several books, most recently The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture, talks to Canadian editor Jonathan. Among other topics, they discuss her run-in with Black Lives Matter, her experience of being mobbed on campus and the free speech crisis afflicting America's universities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Meghan Murphy, the founder of Feminist Current, a radical feminist blog and podcast, talks to Canadian editor Jonathan Kay. Meghan was recently banned from Twitter for 'dead-naming' and 'misgendering' trans women, activities that are now prohibited in Twitter's terms of service. She wrote about this for Quillette. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eric Kaufmann, a politics professor at Birkbeck College and the author of Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities, and Ben Cobley, author of The Tribe: The Liberal-Left and the System of Diversity, talks to associate editor Toby Young. Kaufmann recently wrote a piece for Quillette about white privilege, arguing that non-whites discriminate in favour of whites as well as whites, so declining white populations won't necessarily end white privilege, and Ben Cobley's book was recently reviewed in Quillette by Helen Dale in which she praised him for explaining "how a frankly bonkers set of beliefs has stolen the Labour Party" and for showing "the danger of viewing people as members of fixed identity groups." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Theodore Hill, professor emeritus of mathematics at Georgia Institute of Technology, talks to Canadian editor Jonathan Kay. Hill recently wrote an article for Quillette about how a paper of his on the Greater Male Variability Hypothesis was accepted and retracted by The Mathematical Intelligencer and The New York Journal of Mathematics, following a lobbying effort by mathematicians who disapproved of his point of view. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices