Jonny and Heather have to discuss yet another school shooting with yet again alleged queer overtones. First, it is the war of words between the Vice Presidential candidates over what really is a “fact of life.” Second, it is the immediate and false charge that the shooter (and all recent school shooters) is trans. In the back half of the show, Jonny and Heather acknowledges former President Trump’s increased lying, especially about trans youth, and trace the influence of these lies to Cold War politics, whether direct Russian interference or Trump’s mentor, Cold War red hunter Roy Cohn. They end with some good news that, as SCOTUS takes up Tennesee’s trans ban legislation, evidence shows conservatives starting to reel from the repercussions of anti-trans legislation.

Jonny interviews Juniper Oxford, the new coordinator of the SIU LGBTQ Resource Center. She recaps SIU LGBTQ History Month events, discusses the upcoming Trans Week of Awareness including TDOR, and shares future plans of the Resource Center. In the back half of the show, Jonny puts two stories in dialogue that are about hard right politics eating their own over transphobic agendas.

In the front half of the show, Jonny reviews three studies that debunk many of the prevalent asertions of those in support of banning gender-affirming care, including: details about the increase use of gender-affirming surgincal therapies from 2016-2020, studies confirming exceptionally low levels of regret for those receiving gender-affirming therapies, and a thorough clinical debunking of the problematically made-up diagnosis “rapid onset gender dysphoria” (ROGD). In the back half of the show, he recounts the recent fatal shooting in California over a business displaying the rainbow flag and connects this to the consequences of documented increased anxiety and feeling unsafe in the LGBTQ+ community.