Jonny interviews Jordan Badgette about her upcoming performance, “Gender Knobs,” an exploration of transgender experience with sound technology. Jordan’s performance celebrates queer joy, and in the back half of the show Jonny and Heather lean into the queer joy of stories of resistance and pushback to the Trump Administration. Is the tide finally turning? Maybe. Maybe not. But we take joy in the myriad stories of challenges to the authoritarian turn.

Jonny and Heather pause to recognize the Trans Day of Remembrance with information about services in Carbondale while also taking a moment to hear the names of the trans folks who have died in the last year in the US. They lean into why times are so rough right now for queer and trans folks with a general discussion of resources avaialble to get through the coming rough(er) times. In the back half of the show they discuss the weaponization of mental illness aganst trans people and how LGBTQ folks are leaving Twitter/X in mass for social media platforms like Blue Sky.

Jonny talks with Craig Gingrich-Philbrook about his experiences with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) and its likely connection to childhood homophobic trauma. Connecting to a study out of Melbourne, they discuss how bullying, disconfirmation, and anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation is potentially giving queer and trans youth develpmental neurological disorders they will have to deal with the rest of their lives. In the back portion of the show, Jonny also reviews how the Christian Right is getting states and municipalities to abandon bans on conversion therapy, despite ample evidence that such therapies do not work and cause considerable harm.

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.

Jonny interviews Alex Waller of Golden Rainbows Illinois South (GRIS) about the new program, “Get Up, Get Out” – providing social interaction and physical activity for older members of the LGBTQ community in Southern Illinois. In the back half of the show, he reviews how most legislative bans on gender affirming care for trans youth have been failing in Federal appeals court until this past weekend. He reviews why judges were finding significant Constitutional challenges to the legislation and why the 6th District Court of Appeals found differently (at least temporarily) about Tennessee’s bans.