Episode 303: Interrogating Viral Wokeness: A Case Study In Discursive Misrecognition (In Canada)

Summary

Blocked and Reported – Episode 303: Interrogating Viral Wokeness: A Case Study In Discursive Misrecognition (In Canada)
April 13, 2026
Hosts: Katie Herzog and Jesse Singal

---

Overview

In this episode, hosts Katie and Jesse return to their signature analysis of internet-fueled cultural battles, focusing on viral claims about "woke excess" in Canada. They probe a recent viral video of a Canadian politician using a sprawling 2SLGBTQIA+ acronym, viral complaints about wokeness, and Canadian university hiring practices, all while situating these examples within their real sociopolitical context. The hosts also reflect on the rise, “death,” and evolution of so-called "wokeness" in cultural and elite institutions, with their mix of irreverence, self-deprecation, and often sardonic cultural critique.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Opening Banter and Basketball Feuds

• [00:09–07:02]
  • Jesse and Katie riff about a Substack post questioning Jesse's basketball prowess by Ethan Strauss, with Jesse admitting Strauss is actually "surprisingly good" at basketball.
  • Jesse recounts integrating into a church basketball group in a new city by leaving a note with his details; Katie marvels at his audacity and the West Coast’s (relative) openness compared to East Coast frosty vibes.
  • Notable Quote:
    • Jesse: “One of the nice things about pickup basketball is you can just show up—like, it’s a genuine meritocracy.” [03:34]
    • Katie: “It’s surprising that anybody who does well on Substack is good at basketball. Except for Sherman Alexie. He played college basketball.” [01:58]

---

2. Follow-up: AI Energy & Environmental Discourse

• [07:06–15:19]
  • The hosts revisit a recent episode on AI plagiarism, now fielding expert feedback on AI’s actual energy use vs. Google.
  • Katie relays: While individual queries are 3–10x more energy-intensive than Google searches, the real energy drain is training large models.
  • Jesse notes selective outrage about tech energy use often misses broader, more impactful contributors.
  • Dams and the environmental impact of hydroelectric power spark debate, with both acknowledging trade-offs surrounding environmental harms (e.g., salmon, orcas) vs. fossil fuels.
  • Memorable Moment:
    • Katie: “There are some tragic stories about orcas whose babies are dying and they, like, wear them like hats... It’s very sad.” [14:55]
    • Jesse: “I’m pro-dam, whatever you want.” [14:00], but later: “That’s actually sad. I retract what I said about dams having no downsides.” [14:52]
  • Timestamps:
    • AI energy use: [08:20–12:54]
    • Hydroelectric/dam debate: [13:42–15:15]

---

3. On Using AI in Writing: Ethics, Perceptions, and Scandal

• [15:19–17:38]
  • Response to a comment accusing Katie and Jesse of quietly using AI for their writing. Katie jokes about running her book manuscript through ChatGPT for fake sales projections.
  • They clarify: using AI for advice isn’t the same as passing off AI-generated text as one’s own, and express personal and professional aversion to the latter.
  • Notable Quote:
    • Jesse: “I can’t imagine passing off AI writing as my own. It would feel so weird. So much of my identity is bound up with being a writer.” [16:54]

---

4. The 'Death' of Wokeness? Examining Cultural Shifts

• [17:41–41:16]
  • Jesse discusses his recent Dispatch article critiquing the narrative that backlash against trans issues is a “manufactured” panic fueled by center-left punditry or billionaires, arguing that maximalist policies (e.g., blanket self-ID for trans prisoners) created a real backlash.
  • Katie recounts the NYT’s “Is Wokeness Dead?” roundtable with three Brooklyn culture critics, who play a game rating terms like 'problematic,' 'microaggression,' 'safe space' as "dying" or "dead” (see [29:28–30:36]).
  • They discuss the cultural vibe shift: mainline institutions are disassociating from overtly woke idioms, but they note the impulse is not entirely gone—it's “transmogrifying.”
  • The Loudoun County, VA, school board controversy and similar U.S. cases illustrate how policy overreach coupled with denial or dismissal by activists has prompted backlashes.
  • Notable Quotes:
    • Jesse: "You can't spend 10 years pushing a very specific set of policies and then complain when people don't like them... It's cowardly." [26:47]
    • Katie: “The vibe has shifted. I wish she’d asked about the term non-binary. When people can admit that non-binary is, like, and has always been a very silly concept, then it’ll be truly dead.” [31:55]
    • Jesse (on gender): “At its peak, it was extremely essentialist. It was literally: ‘that male is wearing a dress—they must not identify as male,’ which is the exact opposite of where we wanted to get.” [37:31]
  • Timestamps:
    • Dispatch article/Self-ID debate: [17:57–25:05]
    • NYT "Is Wokeness Dead?" segment: [29:28–38:20]

---

5. Wokeness North of the Border: Canada Case Study

a. Parliamentary Viral Video: Dissecting the Acronyms

• [42:54–49:04]
  • Review of a viral video: New Democratic Party MP Leah Gazan uses the term “MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+” in Parliament, prompting Elon Musk to tweet “Canada is cooked.”
  • Katie and Jesse investigate: The NDP is a fringe party (2% of seats, lost official status) torn between ultra-identitarian and more “economic” left factions.
  • The hosts play other NDP convention clips showing equity-card melodramas mirroring American DSA-parody moments.
  • The viral acronym is explained:
    • MMIWG = “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls”
    • 2SLGBTQIA+ = “Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Intersex, Asexual, +”
    • Actual government impact is minimal; Gazan is not representative of broader Canadian governance or public opinion.
  • Notable Quote:
    • Katie: “It does make me a bit nostalgic for the heyday of woke nonsense, which we were just disparaging. Robin DiAngelo, I miss you—come back to me.” [43:05]
    • Jesse (on acronym): “I didn’t even recognize most of those letters. What does it stand for?” [49:04]

b. "Genocide" Claim Reality Check

• [49:04–51:03]
  • The hosts cite Canadian journalist John Kay: The term “genocide” as used in reports is misleading, as 86% of murders of Indigenous women are perpetrated by Indigenous men, mirroring intra-group victimization patterns found across demography globally.

---

c. University of British Columbia Disability-Only Job Listing

• [52:00–56:08]
  • Highlighted by right-wing Twitter but sourced directly: UBC is hiring a forestry professor, legal only for “people with disabilities”.
  • Katie and Jesse walk through the exhaustive equity application, spoofing their self-identification for illustrative purposes.
  • They observe the legal, practical, and cultural limitations such policies can create, noting that it is unique to Canadian affirmative action law.
  • Notable Quote:
    • Jesse: “It’s obviously a form of identitarianism we find really weird... it’s like going back in time to 2020 or whatever, but I guess it's Canada. Canada is always about six to 50 years behind us in terms of technology and culture.” [55:49]

---

d. Context and Final Thoughts on Canadian Moderation

• [56:08–58:28]
  • Katie underlines that Mark Carney, Canada’s new prime minister, is a moderate banker technocrat, not at all ideologically radical.
  • “Woke” viral moments, absurd as they appear, are not representative of mainstream Canadian culture or governance.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (With Timestamps)

• Jesse: “One of the nice things about pickup basketball is you can just show up—like, it’s a genuine meritocracy.” [03:34]
• Jesse: “You can't spend 10 years pushing a very specific set of policies and then complain when people don't like them... It's cowardly.” [26:47]
• Katie: “It does make me a bit nostalgic for the heyday of woke nonsense, which we were just disparaging. Robin DiAngelo, I miss you—come back to me.” [43:05]
• Jesse: “It’s obviously a form of identitarianism we find really weird... it’s like going back in time to 2020 or whatever, but I guess it's Canada.” [55:49]
• Katie: “All of this makes Canada look like a ridiculous place. But… Even if this job listing comes out of a public university… at this moment, the ruling party, the ruling class, is pretty moderate.” [56:08]

---

Structure & Segment Timestamps (Select)

• Basketball cold open / pickup stories: [00:09–07:02]
• AI, energy, and environmental impact: [07:06–15:19]
• AI in writing & listener commentary: [15:19–17:38]
• Dispatch article/trans policy backlash: [17:41–25:05]
• The “is wokeness dead?” roundtable & analysis: [29:28–38:20]
• Cultural vibe shifts, anti-woke backlash: [38:58–41:16]
• Canadian viral "woke" events & their context: [42:54–58:28]

---

Closing Vibe

The hosts reflect that, while internet-fueled panic about “woke Canada” erupts over marginal or local phenomena, actual Canadian governance remains moderate and pragmatic. Through familiar banter, bemused skepticism, and righteous annoyance, Katie and Jesse reinforce their mission: to cut through viral culture war fog, parsing fact from hyperbole—with jokes and sighs along the way.

---

Transcript

[A]

Jesse, how you doing?

[B]

Good. I've got a little bit of a new feud to report.

[A]

Ooh, who's this with? Is this with me? Well, I feel like we're doing pretty well lately, but if there's something else, if there's something to fight about, let me know. I'm ready.

[B]

If you and I ever have something to fight about, I'm going to take that straight to Twitter without letting you know. Let me send you a post from a friend of the pod. This is the source of the. Okay, so read that post for me.

[A]

All right. This is Ethan Strauss, House of Strauss. Wow. It is. He posted this on Substack. Is it an insult to say Jesse single is surprisingly good at basketball? I don't know if that's an insult, but I don't believe him.

[B]

He put. And he also italicized surprisingly so you didn't read it right? Is it an insult to say that Jesse single is surprisingly good at basketball? Hey, fuck you, Ethan. I was.

[A]

Are you good at basketball? Because when I imagine you playing basketball.

[B]

Yeah, go on.

[A]

I imagine you're mostly. You're on the ground like Moose when he wants his belly rope.

[B]

Crying.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Rolling around because I twisted an ankle. Cargo shorts around your ankles last night. I. It's a long story, but there was sort of like a weekly church gym game and I got invited to fill in because I made.

[A]

You went to church?

[B]

I went to church. You have to go to. You have to go to church. You get baptized and they let you in the game. And basically everyone was like on vacation or injured or whatever. So Eth. I invited Ethan to join. It was me and him and just like two other guys. And I was annoyed at Ethan actually. Surprisingly good at basketball. No, he is. I was. I was. I did not. And Ethan, I'd like to apologize. I'd like to say I will try to do better. I did not think you'll be good at basketball. And Ethan had a very consistent three point shot and was. This is. This is also another thing I can't say without sounding insulting. Surprisingly strong in terms of finishing at the rim.

[A]

It's surprising that anybody who does well on Substack is good at basketball. Except for Sherman Alexi. He's on Substack. And also I think he paid. Played college basketball. Did you play? Have you. Did you ever play on a sports like an actual team?

[B]

It's no. I mean like rec league and like club in. In grad school, which is nothing. I. It's like a source of regret that I never.

[A]

You could be in the NBA now, or you could be an owner of an NBA team. More likely.

[B]

I probably would have been in the NBA if I tried harder in high school. But no, I didn't even make my, like, high school team.

[A]

I. Oh, you tried it. You tried out and you didn't make it? Oh, well, I.

[B]

It's a long story, but like, I. High school, Jesse.

[A]

This is before the Grisbert.

[B]

No, I was not good at effort. I was not good at applying myself at all. So I would just like around. I played a lot of pickup basketball, actually, at this one playground in Brighton, Massachusetts. I still play it sometimes, and I never, like, tried.

[A]

Jesse. At a playground. Seems like it should be illegal.

[B]

Yeah, A child. A children's playground, like a preschool. I would just play with the kids. And yeah, I never put any effort into it. And I. I sometimes still think that if I'd really applied myself, I could have been a benchwarmer because it was a high school with like 2000 kids and we were pretty good and there were some actual athletes there. But.

[A]

So I'm actually. I'm sort of impressed that you have the social skills isn't the word maybe like naivete is the word to just like go to a city and start playing basketball. I couldn't do that.

[B]

I mean, do you want to know how it actually happened?

[A]

Yeah, I do.

[B]

Okay, hold on, I'll send you. This is actually kind of funny.

[A]

This is going to be a meetup.com Jewish basketball.

[B]

Okay. So, yeah, the way it usually works is you go to a new city and you find the park or the open gym where people play. And one of the nice things about pickup basketball is you can just show up like it's a genuine meritocracy. And this sounds lame, but, like, I did grow up in a pretty not diverse place. And some of the only diverse places I went were like, pickup basketball courts, where it really is like every type of person, you know, not if you're in. Except rural Illinois, except women who are not allowed. Although as I've gotten older, more and more women do show up for pickup runs. And some of them can play, although there's. Even at a very low level. There's such a size problem there. But we can.

[A]

I've watched the WNBA before. Yes.

[B]

No, WNBA is fine. I'm not gonna. Anyway, so first day where I. Near where I'm living and where I'm sad to be departing soon, I hear squeaks. These characteristic squeaks of rubber on wood coming from a church gym. I'm Walking by, and there are these guys playing, and I'm like, oh, my God, they're playing. I don't know a way in. I. I won't be able to play. I don't know anyone. Because you got to know a guy to know a guy to get in. Every time I walk past this gym, every night, there's basketball, sometimes pick up soccer. So what I do is I write up a note and I put it in a plastic thing, and this is what it says. Please read it.

[A]

Like you put this, like, in a plastic bag with, like, a rock in it and, like, threw it at the gym.

[B]

No, I put it in one of those. What's it called? Like, a paper, a protector. Like you put in a bind. A plastic binder. Yep.

[A]

Hi. I recently moved here from the east coast, where I played pickup basketball two to three times per week. I'm hoping to find a regular run or two out here. I'm 64240, power forward type, who doesn't need. Who doesn't need the ball much. My game has been described as not terrible. If you're open. If your run has an open slot sheet, please shoot me a text. Thank you. Huh. So you. You basically left a misconnection for a

[B]

basketball team on the wall of the gym inside it. And you're 2. 40 in New York or closer to 250 in New York.

[A]

Like, you're two of me. Literally.

[B]

You weigh. I always pictured you as weighing 40 pounds.

[A]

I'm slightly.

[B]

You weigh under 20.

[A]

I'm. No, I'm like. I'm, like, slightly more.

[B]

But listeners chime in. Chime in with your weights in the comment. And I feel like in New York or Boston, if you put this up, it would have been torn, pulled off the wall and torn to shreds immediately.

[A]

Yeah, there would have been a. Somebody would have added a picture of your face with turf over it.

[B]

Well, no, I just mean, like, I don't know. I don't mean that. I mean, just, like, people are not as welcoming, but people in California are nicer. So it stayed up for weeks, and eventually someone messaged me. Eventually, someone from another group messaged me. And I've been able to play a little. And that's how I unfortunately was not able to dominate Ethan Strauss, which would have been cathartic because I don't like him as a person.

[A]

Have you made friends doing this? Are these people you're gonna like? Does this translate to actual friendships?

[B]

Men don't really make friends. So usually if there's a Regular group of guys you play with. I mean, unless you know them from real life. No, but I've also only done this a couple times, but to me it was an interesting example of genuine west coast openness because I don't think this would have worked on the east coast.

[A]

It wouldn't have worked in Seattle. It's famously Frosty city.

[B]

Well, because no one plays sports there.

[A]

That's true. This is. I'm actually, I'm quite impressed that you did this and that it worked. I'm going to try this myself with skateboarding, but my note will probably be like, I just moved here, I'm 42 years old.

[B]

Are you a kid under 12 who wants to hang out with you?

[A]

My style has been described as on the ground around

[B]

Katie.

[A]

Good work, Jesse.

[B]

Thank you. I'm really proud of myself. What else are we going to talk about today, Katie?

[A]

Today we are going to Canada. There is a lot going on up there in the U.S. i think it's fair to say that wokeness we are. We have already experienced, I think, what might be the last gasp of wokeness, but it persists in Canada. So we're going to go up there, but first are we going to have

[B]

to become podcast refugees where we put too many of our chips into anti wokeness. So we did travel the world looking for remaining pockets. We need to go to like fucking New Zealand or something.

[A]

Yeah, New Zealand probably would. Or at least Australia would probably be the place to do it. Yeah. In the chat, leave us let us know where the wokest places on earth so we can go there. Okay, Jesse, before we get to that, I want to do a little bit of follow up from our last episode. So this was about AI, specifically AI plagiarism, which is becoming a problem in the publishing industry. And while we were discussing that, you wondered how we were talking about Taylor Lorenz was being dragged online for using AI. And one of the complaints was that it's such a power suck, like she's poisoning black communities by using it for dumb queries. And you wondered how one Google search compares to one AI query. Is that. Was that what your question was?

[B]

Well, yes, because my argument, and I wasn't sure this was right, was that if you do a good prompt that generates useful information, that's often worth 10 minutes of Googling around and gathering information yourself that the computer does almost instantaneously.

[A]

Okay, got it. Okay. So we got an email from a listener who said, I work for an AI startup and I've learned a lot about how these LLMs work. The reason these AI models use so much energy is because every single word is its own complex calculation. The model uses a massive vector database that scores words in relationship to others and then decides based on proximity to other words what comes next. So, so it's not just more than a Google search. It's literally every single word requires basically its own Google search worth of energy. I found that to be a compelling explanation, but I ran it by someone else I know who works in AI

[B]

and he said, I, I just can't just say every. The idea that every token that every like new. It's like predicting the next token, that every one of those is equivalent to a Google search. I'm just skeptical of that. Maybe I shouldn't be. But tell me what the expert said.

[A]

Okay, so he said it's, it's sort of right in spirit, but with a couple of qualifications. So for one, massive vector database isn't quite accurate. Fram. He said, quote, it's not really a database. It's a neural network worth billions of parameters.

[B]

I don't know, different, different letters. And like, it'll be like I started to learn the basics of this and then I got distracted. But it's like 15, 20,000 dimensional vector space and just layer after layer. It's crazy how big it is. And it's very hard for us to wrap our minds around. That's why it's so powerful.

[A]

He also said that so, so our listener did mention that it uses these complex calculations and he said, he said that's accurate. It's not totally accurate to say that every word is its own Google search. It's like, that's a good metaphor. But he's more of a shape rotator, so I think he was taking that sort of literally. He also explained that the bulk of energy usage is actually in training the models, not the individual queries themselves. Yes, and training really is a huge energy suck. So that could be on par with a small city's annual usage, power usage, but for the user. So for you and I, if you do a direct comparison to a, to a Google search, it really depends on the model. But today's AI models are somewhere in the range of three to ten times more energy intensive per search. But again, it really depends on the LLM and the search. So asking a simple yes or no question uses much less energy than asking ChatGPT to mock up to create an image of your pergola with wisteria versus honeysuckle. Like that's, that's the stuff that uses much More energy than like an average Google search.

[B]

I'm trying to figure out if what I'm feeling is a big appliance running below me or a small tremor, like earthquake wise.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

Well, I guess we'll find out soon. Nothing shaking at moment. But it was like noticeable. Yeah, I just think. I mean even. Just what? I'm not trying to be a nerd, but like even what you just said, the amount of energy it takes to train one model. Small city, a small city using energy over how much time? You mean to TR a year? Oh, so.

[A]

So like one large training run could be the equivalent of what?

[B]

What do you mean? What's a training run?

[A]

Okay, so I asked about this too. Each new version of GPT or Claude or GROK would be its own run. So it's the whole process of creating a new model and it takes months, that's the biggest energy suck. Not the individual user using the end product, but when millions of individuals are using an LLM or any kind of AI that's also a fuckton of energy in itself.

[B]

I think what bothers me is like there's this zombie statistic, for example, about how much water it uses that I think has been repeatedly debunked. And I just. Of all. I just maintain that of all the things in this world of ours that use so much energy every day and just the, the constant putter. Putter of scooters and cars delivering food. I just think a lot of the people who are being selectively angry about using this because they don't like the technology because it's a particularly useful thing to focus on to save the planet.

[A]

Yeah. So that water statistic, this was repeated in a book by her name is, I believe, Karen Howe.

[B]

You know about this empire of AI, right?

[A]

Yeah. And the statistic was she was off by a magnitude of something like 80 trillion. Yeah, something like that. But it still gets. And this was corrected in later editions of the book or later printed. But I think the water thing is, yes, a little bit more complex and less evil than our sort of the popular understanding of it.

[B]

I also think I'm just biased against. I wrote about this once in the context of this online psycho who if I'm remembering correctly, he was railing against like individuals for choosing to travel by air. I just continue to think that like, I mean, first of all, all this stuff has gotten way more complicated because renewable energy has caught on more than we thought it would. And like Texas is a leader in wind power and it's. I think a lot of the Trajectories are maybe less dire than they used to be, but I just don't think it's ever going to come down to, like, browbeating individual people to use less energy because people are going to do what's most convenient for them and they have legitimate reasons for that. And there's much more powerful actors who use a lot more energy and who have the power to do act differently, basically.

[A]

Right. Well, I mean, you know, if you're an American and your power is like, my power mostly comes from Bonneville power. It comes from hydroelectric trick. And, you know, not to say that there aren't serious environmental concerns with dams. There obviously are, like the salmon or duck.

[B]

Okay, I'm sorry, can we just.

[A]

Yeah, sorry.

[B]

Can we just, like, it's 20, 26. Let's be adults here. I think I've decided that dams are fine, given all the alternatives. Given all the alternatives. I know dams, floodlands, and, like, screw up some fishes. I know you're a little grist. Former grist staffer. I'm sorry, I'm pro. Damn, whatever you want.

[A]

I've decided, like, I think dams. I think dams are much more complex than that. And so.

[B]

No.

[A]

So like, in the Northwest, the biggest issue with dams, the bigger. One of the main issues is the salmon run. So salmon is a massive industry.

[B]

Oh, no, the salmon.

[A]

It's not just like, I don't eat. I don't like salmon. Like, I don't. I don't eat fish.

[B]

Salmon is overrated, by the way. Is like, lox is not that good.

[A]

But you know who does eat salmon?

[B]

Bears?

[A]

Orcas. And so the orca population is being decimated because of, in part because these dams. So there are.

[B]

That's actually sad. I retract what I said about dams having no dad signs.

[A]

There's some, some like, very tragic stories about orcas whose babies are dying and they like, they like, wear them like hats. They like, swim around with dead babies like hats. It's very sad. So there are consequences to hydroelectric power, obviously. And so. And there's a movement to take down some dams. But if you move from hydroelectric to fossil fuels on net, I think the environmental impact would be worse. Where are we going with this?

[B]

Let's just build nuclear power everywhere.

[A]

Every person should have their own nuclear reactor. I'm very much in favor of that. Okay, so one other thing from that episode. So robust conversation in the comments there. And one person said this. I shouldn't do this, but this comment annoyed me. So I'm. I'm calling you Out.

[B]

Just say it's eth. Just say it's Ethan Strauss if it's a bad comment.

[A]

This person also said that she thinks that you and I are using AI in our writing, and that is closing it.

[B]

I did see that. No, that annoyed me too. Oh, go ahead. We'll get to that.

[A]

If Jesse was using AI in his writing, it would be a lot shorter.

[B]

That's true.

[A]

So she also said, am I crazy or did Katie in a previous episode straight up, admit to running drink your way sober through CHAT GPT? If I'm not mistaken, that's similar to what Mia Ballard claimed happened with Shy Girl.

[B]

Oh, my God, Jesse.

[A]

Do you think I did? I did put my manuscript through Chachi pt and I asked it how many cop based on the manuscript, how many copies it was going to sell. It was completely accurate. 100,000 in the first year. Completely accurate. Do you think that's the same as using ChatGPT to write your. Write your work?

[B]

No, because the Ballard case was one where the ChatGPT words found their way into her book. Was this the one where she was like, it was my friend who done it?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yes. No, you. I.

[A]

This is not the same thing. This is not the same thing.

[B]

I don't. I saw one of the comments. I mean, we don't need to antagonize the commenters. They're literally. We're choosing to antagonize the people we know who pay for the podcast. But yeah, one of them was like,

[A]

but this works really well for, like, Hassan Piker and Nick Fuentes. They are very, very shitty to their commentators and they're much more popular than we are.

[B]

The two people we are hoping to model ourselves after. Yeah. I'll just say what I said before, which is I. I can't imagine passing off AI writing as my own. It would feel so weird just because so much my identity is bound up with being a writer. Also, I don't think AI even. Even if I didn't have that massive moral and just sort of personal hang up about it, I don't think AI could do a better job producing my style of writing than I could. Anyway, it's much 5000 words when 1500 would suffice. So. But we'll see. Maybe you and I, this time next year will have both will be embroiled in scandal because it'll turn out this whole podcast was AI.

[A]

Or maybe we will be AI.

[B]

Or maybe we'll be deaf. Maybe we'll be deaf.

[A]

That's one can only hope.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay, so before we get to the main event.

[B]

That felt jinxy to say that. Yeah, I hope people don't end up clipping that because we both die before

[A]

we get to the main event. Jesse, I saw you had a new piece out in the Dispatch that was creating some discourse.

[B]

No. Yeah. It's not. Okay, so I'm. Yes. I just wrote the sex and gender identity as a subject. I obviously have a love hate relationship with it and I'm obviously written about. I think that youth gender medicine thing is its own controversy. But there's been this conspiracy theory driving me crazy in part because I'm one of the accused conspirators, which is that. That the trans backlash, which. Which is real and has extended now to things like Kansas, basically trying to change back trans people's driver's licenses. Stuff that I think is well beyond sort of the mass of public opinion.

[A]

There's also a really simple solution to the problem of gender markers on driver's licenses. Get rid of them. They apparently. They were not. They didn't have. There was no gender markers on driver's licenses or passports until the 70s. You don't really like. I can think of rare cases where like someone goes to the hospital and they're checking the gender marker to find

[B]

out they'll call it a gender. I mean, it's not. I hate those.

[A]

Sorry, sex marker. Yeah, sex marker. It was like very rare cases where you actually need to have you're sex identified on a document like that. But it's a pretty. It's a pretty recent indention. Is that the word? So you could just take them off. But I don't think that's the point in Kansas anyway.

[B]

My, my piece was there's this conspiracy theory that like the reason people are. Some people are mad about the transports thing or the youth gender medicine thing is some sort of conspiracy. So Graham Platner, when he was asked.

[A]

He's the. He's running for office in Maine.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The Grand Platter with the, with the Nazi tattoo.

[B]

The mega Nazi. He's not a mega. Whatever. We don't need to get into grand plan or anything. But he basically said like, just look,

[A]

having a Nazi tattoo does not mean that you're a Nazi clap emojis.

[B]

There's this idea that he, you know, out of state billionaires. That's why the transport thing comes up in Maine. Or the other version of this conspiracy theory is like center left pundits like me, we. We stoked this false controversy and this idea that it is that like voters wouldn't really care about this issue. They've been bamboozled somehow. And I just, I find that really disingenuous because trans activism for about a decade now has been trying to institute this maximalist version of self id. People are who they say they are. If someone says they're a woman, they're a woman. And trans activism, mainstream trans activism, hasn't brooked any exceptions to that. Where I am in California, this applies to changing rooms to prisons. I talk about a case where, as a direct result of a law, the ACLU pushed for. The ACLU in defending this law that allows prisoners to move to the women's facility if they say they're women. In effect, they highlighted this one trans inmate who has now been accused of raping a violent male offender who's now been accused of raping two women.

[A]

So, wait, so the ACLU use this as a case where somebody should have been transferred to a women's prison.

[B]

This person, Tremaine Carroll, who they highlighted as, like, this is one of the people who will be at risk if we don't let them go to a women's prison. They were later accused of raping two women. So the aclu, like, pretty directly, sorry, caused if. If these rapes happened and there's some physical evidence. I think they did. The aclu, like, this policy caused women to be raped. And I just.

[A]

And this was. And this was a person specifically who had. Who had not expressed a desire to change sex until this law passed that would have allowed him to be moved to a women's prison.

[B]

Yeah. And not only that, but the law had written into it, regardless of anatomy. It doesn't matter if they physically transitioned at all. It's wherever they feel more comfortable. So this sort of puts me in like a little bit of an angry mood because you. And by you, I mean, like a lot of mainstream trans activists, I mean the ACLU of California.

[A]

You're pointing at me when you say that.

[B]

Pointing. Oh, yeah, I'm actually pointing. Is it ACLU of SoCal? I think it's ACLU of SoCal at highlighted this. You guys chose to push these policies and these priorities. That was what you did when you had cultural and political power. You thought it was very important that inmates, male inmates, biologically male, assigned male birth, whatever you want, that they would be housed with prisons with, that they would be housed in women's prisons, effectively, no questions asked. That was your decision. And then people found out that that was the law you passed, and they got mad about it to then be like, well, they're just mad because they're confused or they're not educated or the Atlantic stoking anti trans panic. I don't think it's anti trans panic to think that a dangerous male should not be housed with women behind lock. Just the horrific. Just how horrific that is. Katie.

[A]

Right?

[B]

You're putting a violent large male with women, locking them up behind, and they have no place to escape. And.

[A]

But, Jesse, didn't you see Orange is the New Black? The Laverne Cox character did everyone's hair.

[B]

And I'm not. I'm not even saying those before this. Apparently, the way California, like, they did it on a case by case thing. And especially for people who have physically transitioned. I don't want anyone to get raped. I don't want trans women to get raped. But. But the idea that the only options are trans women get raped or anything goes for any male offender who says they're female. They just get. I mean, and so the point of my article is like, no, you've made these issues more salient. People decided your takes were crazy and in some cases dangerous, and they didn't like them. And I think it's really irresponsible and a lack of any sort of accountability to be like, no, it's a conspiracy. It's also just really condescending to voters. And don't get me wrong, I think. I think voters are dumb. I like being condescending to voters, but I think voters also have eyes and can like, oh. So anyway, so Chris Geidner, who's a LGBT writer type, formerly of buzzfeed, he got mad at me and I just sort of. He got mad at me on Blue sky where he blocks me. He doesn't block me on Twitter. I was just like, I'd like him to say, just. I want him to get up on his little soapbox. And I think this person, Tremaine Carroll, should have been housed with women even though they got raped. This was the right policy move. After he allegedly raped them, they did move him back to a male prison. I think Chris Geidner's view is probably that that's a civil rights violation. So why, even if it's an alleged rape, Katie, what's the argument? Tremaine Carroll should not continue to be housed with women. If you believe that Tremaine Carroll is a woman, there's none. He should still be in the women's prison, maybe separated from other women.

[A]

So women probably rape other women in prisons too.

[B]

You know, for all my understanding, is women are probably rape way More people than men. I've been doing a lot of reading on this. So the. What really drives me crazy about people like Chris Geidner is they constantly cast moral aspersions at others, but they won't, they won't really answer follow up questions or defend their own positions. They just block people and they're on their little sub stacks. I am too, but I'll. If people disagree with me, I'll address it. I just, I. That move of what Chris Geidner is doing, of his position is wildly unpopular and he won't defend it. He's just. Anyone's a bigot who disagrees. The 85 of America or whatever it is, who doesn't think Tremaine Carroll should be housed with women he can then predict. I mean it's just. I find it baffling. I also like this issue is just sometimes I feel like it's sort of enough. But the dead enders on this are really crazy.

[A]

Did you listen to the Ben Koala series that we played the first episode of?

[B]

I've started it. I really like it so far. Yeah.

[A]

So it's called Strange Bedfellows. It's a three part series and so we played the first one on our feed. I think the first one is good. I think the second and third one are even better. And I'm. It's interesting because. So it's like a, basically a story like the recent history of this fight. And they have like, in the third episode they pay. They play all these clips from school board meetings. And I had kind of forgotten this had happened where parents are reading from books that they want taken out of school libraries and at these school board meetings, you know, the parents are reading these, these books that their kids have access to. And at the school board meetings, the school board members are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's obscene. That's obscene. And just to have that all in one place I think is really helpful and will be in the future when people are trying to memory hole everything that has happened.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's like strange like this has all happened so recently and yet I have forgotten so many of the nuances and the like small scandals of this larger debate.

[B]

Well, and in Loudoun, I mean we talked about Loudoun county, but this was a prime example where like, like the school's own self ID policies were a little bit out there. And you know, there was an alleged sexual assault. And then parents who had any qualms about this were portrayed as bigots, not only locally but like 5th column ran some clips of, like, MSNBC pretending that this backlash in Loudon, which a lot of it was from, like, sort of immigrant families, that it was some, like, white, like, reactionary or almost white supremacist uprising. And it's just.

[A]

It was probably mostly Atlantic writers in Loudoun county who were complaining.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. I just. I've found this whole. And again, I. I have a little bit of fatigue about it, to be honest, but you. You can't spend 10 years pushing a very specific set of policies and then complain when people don't like them. It's just. It's just there's a cowardice and a lack of accountability to it that I don't like.

[A]

Yeah, there was one. One moment that actually made me quite happy listening to strange bedfellows. Do you remember what happened after Jenny Flynn Boylan signed the Harper. Harper's letter?

[B]

Yes. She got dogp, basically apologized. And then I highlighted that she'd apologized and I got dogpiled for highlighting her dogpiling. Blah, blah, blah.

[A]

Yeah. So she's. She's a New York Times writer. And when it turned out that J.K. rowling had also signed the Harper's letter and Jesse Single, maybe, although yours wasn't the name that came up, I think

[B]

she was more responding to Rowling.

[A]

In that case, she, like, disavowed it. And Ben interviews her for the series, and she says she regrets that. And so it does seem like there's been some progress, but not. Not much.

[B]

Well, I mean, look, and I mentioned there's, like, a Nick. Jeremy Peters article. Nick Confessor and Jeremy Peters both did good investigative pieces about different aspects of this. But the Jeremy Peters article was about how people in the movement are, like, maybe shouting people down and calling everyone a bigot. Hasn't worked. I think that's a lesson learned too late. But there's still people who haven't learned it. And there's people in progressive politics who I respect who earnestly think they'll be able to get away with just not addressing this issue or changing the subject when it comes in upcoming elections. They might be right. It could be Trump is so bad and obvious. And believe me, I think Trump dwarfs all this other stuff. But I just. I think there's a level of cowardice and political malfeasance in 2021. This is the issue you want everyone to talk about. Trans issues are huge. 2026. Wait, what? Who said anything about trans issues? It's just. It's cowardly.

[A]

I saw another example of that in the New York Times. This was a video. This is a New York Times editor named Nadja Spiegelman, and she's interviewing these two cultural critics. Their names are Brock Collier and Amanita.

[B]

So Brock I had known as a party reporter. Or like, I don't want to. Excellent. I thought excellent writer. But his thing at New York Magazine is, like, he'd do these really good dispatches from, like, party events. Parties and cultural events. Or I think he went by they them now, but appears to have transitioned to female.

[A]

Yeah, so. So yeah, now a trans woman. So people might recognize Brock's work from a piece in New York magazine in 2025 called the Cruel Kids Table. And this was about young conservatives at, like, partying at the Trump inauguration. So let's watch the video. I wanted to play a game where I'm going to say a word and you guys are gonna tell me if it is alive, dying, or dead. Sounds great. Okay. Problematic.

[B]

Dead. Hmm.

[A]

Should die. Should die. But it's around.

[B]

You know what I'm saying?

[A]

It's like, it's around, but it should die. Triggered. That one's gonna come back. It's gonna come back, but it's dead.

[C]

I still see quite a bit of that, especially on the Internet, which is really disturbing. Cause it's like, trigger warning. And then here's a video of, like, some horrifically violent thing.

[A]

Does not work. It's why I love it. I'm just like, thank you for triggering me with the trigger. It's like the reaction came 10 second. Oh, I love it. Microaggression. Dead. Dead.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Save space. Dead. Dead folks with an X.

[C]

Dead.

[A]

Never alive. Which, I mean, that one was ridiculous. I mean, talk about it.

[C]

Ridiculous. Like, that really makes me so mad.

[B]

Like, it makes me.

[C]

Cause I know people who have, like, dutifully and earnestly used that, and it's like, oh, my gosh.

[A]

So this is a small part of the entire conversation. I'll post a link in the show notes. But the opinion section, they have a podcast called. I think it's called New York Times Opinion and. Or opinions. And so the entire episode was the three of them discussing the question. Is wokeness dead? But just. I did listen to the podcast, but Jesse, just based on this clip, what do you think?

[B]

I mean, yeah, I think it's reflective of the fact that. That that era is mostly behind us. And, you know, I think there's always going to be a little bit of pulling punches when sort of cool kid cultural critics talk about this stuff. I think they won't be able to talk about just how crazy and bad things got in progressive spaces. But this is clearly where we're at now. Blue sky, you can look at it in two ways, one of which is like, it doesn't. Doesn't really matter because it's so sequestered from reality and not a lot of people are on there. I do think the people who are on Blue sky are getting increasingly radicalized and, like, the conspiratorial thinking on there is really bad. But yeah, I think this time segment reflects the genuine cultural center of gravity even in liberal elite spaces right now.

[A]

Right. The vibe has shifted. I wish that she had asked about the term non binary. Like, when. When that.

[B]

Because Brock. To get Brock's thoughts on it.

[A]

Well, just look, when people can admit that non binary is, has, like, is and has always been a very silly concept, then. Then it will be truly dead. I'm not sure that that moment will come because this still seems.

[B]

Brock had written. I think it was this essay. I'll drop it in the show notes. Brock had, like, been sort of presented as, like, I think is somewhat. You tell me if this is right. I'd say, like, presented as sort of a Twinkie male who liked to dress up in women's clothing, like, genuinely, genuinely gender bending and had written pretty honestly about some of this stuff. And it jumped out at me because, like, there was a piousness to so much of the writing about gender identity. Like, how dare you question it? And from what I recall of Brock writing about their own gender identity, I guess now her. Brock managed to actually, like, have a little bit of insight and a sense of humor about it and be like, you know, I. I haven't read the piece in a while, but people should read. I'll be curious what they think. I don't. I don't want to, like, try to remember exactly what was in it.

[A]

Right. And I don't want to hold Brock up as, like, an exemplary of Wokeism, who has since the vibe shift and changed. I don't think that's true.

[B]

No, no. Just to be clear, that's not what I. But that's not what I was saying. Yeah, sorry.

[A]

Right. No, no, I don't think that's true. And I know that's not what you're saying. If you look at who. So Brock is partly a profile writer. If you look at who Brock has profiled, like Caroline Calloway, Dasha Nekrasova. These are people, Honor lobby. These are people who, during the heyday of Wokeism, even profiling these platforming people like that would have been considered a grave sin. So I don't think, I don't. I don't think like this video is indicative of like a full 180 on the part of two incredibly woke writers, but I do think it shows you that this. I don't think the New York Times would have done this piece just a few years ago, but very clearly the vibe has shifted. And yes, elite institutions like the New York Times have realized that. The thing that annoys me about it is like I've been saying this shit for 10 years. You know what I mean is I was like on the one hand, like, I'm glad that this shit is dying. Although I do, part of me does miss it because it also because it like gave me so much of something to bristle against that I like being annoyed. Now I have to go to Canada to be annoyed. But I also like or I know

[B]

the genuine the gen like now this stuff we're in to be annoyed or angry at is much more serious and scary because it affects the world, not it's almost safer. Look, the stuff from 2020 was very real. Like friends of ours got fired and had their reputations ruined over bullshit. And I think it probably set literally set back scientific progress. Just the politicization of so many areas of science probably set back progress for years. It was bad. It's not, it's. But it was also like bad in a different way than what's going on now and easier to podcast about.

[A]

Right? But I don't think you can untangle one for the other. Obviously cause and effect is extremely hard to proven this case, but I remain convinced, maybe just based on vibes, that the excesses of wokeness are in part what led us to the excesses of anti wokeness. Maybe it's just this pendulum swinging back and forth.

[B]

Anyway, just. Just to give Brock credit where it's due in 2022, then identifying I believe still as non binary. By 2018, I was eager to join in on the hype and decided to wait.

[A]

What are you reading?

[B]

This is the New York magazine article I referenced that there's a link to in the show notes. By 2018, I was eager to join in on the hype and decided to start identifying as non binary. At that moment it felt sexy and radical, like I discovered a shiny new paperclip in the lip. What's a paperclip in the lip?

[A]

Is that a lip ring? I don't know.

[B]

God, we're so old. I also smoked cigarettes, painted my nails black and Listened to a lot of Bowie. Rebel. Rebel. This too was kind of a punk provocation. So I think all those of us who have a little bit more of a sense of humor about identity or who view it as actually fluid and constructed, which a lot of people or a lot of the mainstream voices in the trans movement say it's fluid and constructed, but don't actually think that they actually think it's this deep essentialist thing. I think a lot of us all, A lot, all of us were asking was like more of this kind of thing from Brock Collier of like acknowledging this shit is complicated and there is

[A]

a political element to it and acknowledging that it's funny.

[B]

It's funny. It's funny. There's nothing wrong.

[A]

It is funny.

[B]

Can I just say like dude. And the sort of. The photo they used of Brock in this Cut article. I think I would have hoped in 2000 that in 2026, like male presenting people wearing women's clothing should be the norm.

[A]

I want to see you in like a little skirt.

[B]

I would, I would really be able to pull that off.

[A]

No, but like that's like show some leg. You probably have really long legs. Or are you like all torso? I could see that.

[B]

My legs are actually 5 foot 8 and people haven't seen me in person. Don't know this. The rest of my body is just the remaining like 8 inches. Like I, I just think it all got so essentialist and so sort of mystical and religious. Whereas traditionally gender bending people. And I'm. I'm not brave enough to be gender bending. I'm very gender non conforming. They had a. They had a sense of humor about it.

[A]

But would you want to be like, do you have any desire to be.

[B]

No.

[A]

Gender bending.

[B]

But I also like, I don't, I don't feel. But I don't. I don't like. I just wear what I'm supposed to wear and I'm supposed to wear jeans. That's the most I've thought it through. I could. You have a little bit of.

[A]

You're supposed to wear cargo jeans.

[B]

You have a little bit of an aversion to weari like dresses and stuff like that.

[A]

I don't wouldn't say it's a little bit of a. It's a. It's a giant aversion and it's one that I've had since childhood.

[B]

Yes. Cuz you, cuz you're a trans guy.

[A]

Right. But no, you're right. I mean there, there was a. Like Bowie was playful. The people yelling at you about getting prince playful. Right?

[B]

Yeah. And that.

[A]

And.

[B]

And I genuine. Like, if you'd asked me, I wanted that to be where we were headed, but we actually ended up in. I mean, we're. It's hard not to repeat yourself when I'm talking about this issue, but at its peak, it was extremely essentialist. It was literally that male is wearing a dress. They must not identify as male, which is the exact opposite of where we wanted to get.

[A]

All right, before we move on, I just want to go back to the podcast real quick. So the episode is called Did Wokeness Leave Us Worse Off? I recommend people listen to this. Although you like me, you might be a little annoyed that, you know, people are speaking up now. Like, where were you when I was getting dogpiled for saying Latinx is dumb? But I kind of thought that the panelists would say, yes, woke is dead, but they actually didn't. They said it's transmogrifying. It's evolving.

[B]

Do they use that word, transmogrify?

[A]

They don't, but they should have.

[B]

They should have do better.

[A]

Yes, they're transition. It's transitioning. And, you know, these are people who live in Brooklyn. They're already in these very elite, rarefied.

[B]

Do you mean in the, like, spiritual sense, or do they all are actually live in Brooklyn?

[A]

Brock Collier does live in Brooklyn. I don't know about the other two. So let's say metaphorically and maybe literally live in Brooklyn. But regardless, they're in these very elite leftist circles. So maybe it just depends on. On where you live. I mean, what's your observation, Jesse? Do you think, like, in. I guess you mostly hang out with normies, but do you think they're like, when I say woke is dead, I mean, am I. Am I just too online? Am I not spending enough time at Brooklyn brunches at the co op?

[B]

I mean, obviously we hang out in somewhat similar circles.

[A]

No, my circle is like.

[B]

Like, you don't have a circle. Yours is a point.

[A]

No, I do have a circle. They're just extremely old.

[B]

Yeah, it's sad.

[A]

We mostly talk about health problems in arthritis.

[B]

It's obviously mostly dead. I will say the. To my mind, very understandable reaction to Trump has brought back or re. Energized certain aspects of it. Like just certain forms of oversimplified or like essentialist thinking. But yeah, I think obviously, with the exception of Blue sky, it seems like it's mostly gone. It. It could come back. It. Like people have illiberal impulses and they like to divide the world into us and them, etc. Etc. It's all part of human nature, the

[A]

rich tapestry that will probably never change. I have, what I have seen is a shift in what people care about and the sort of PC causes like, you know, in the last few years it's been heavily on race and gender and now we're seeing Middle Eastern politics. People are all of a sudden experts on that. And economic issues are I think more like people like Mondami not running as much as on identitarianism as on sort of more bread and butter socialist issues. So that seems to be a change. What I'm not seeing as much is successful cancellation campaigns. And by successful I mean like people getting fired from their jobs. With one exception. If you have ever emailed Jeffrey Epstein, watch out.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, well, first of all everyone's. Everyone's been canceled because media is dead.

[A]

Yeah. And Twitter is dead. While Twitter is also transmogrified into a

[B]

place it all to a place where.

[A]

Well, just to a place where there just aren't that like the counselors are mostly gone. They're on Blue sky and they're on echo Chamber and so they're not doing the work of canceling of trying to get people fired from their jobs.

[B]

I mean there's like constant attempts at stirring up outrage against individuals on both X and Blue Sky. I think think it's probably harder than before to get people fired. And the whole thing feels a little bit perfunctory and exhausted like just many years past peak. Yeah.

[A]

Let's bring it back. Who should we cancel?

[B]

Ethan for saying I'm good at basketball. It's fucked up.

[A]

Surprisingly.

[B]

Surprise. Yeah, she praising me.

[A]

Okay. Should we move to the last bastion of wokeness? Head north?

[B]

Yeah, we should probably do housekeeping first.

[A]

Yeah. Will you do it?

[B]

Yes. This is a. A gender conforming. Well, half gender conforming podcast blocks are reported. You can find us on Apple podcasts. You can rate and review us on Apple podcasts. The best way to support us is put on a dress. If you're a guy, just put it on dress. See how it feels. You can do it in private hoes.

[A]

I want to see how you can

[B]

send us a photo. Ethan, I hope you're listening. I want to see how you look. What else? Oh yeah. Best way to support us is to become a Premium subscriber. Blocked andreported.org that gives you access to what?

[A]

Sorry.

[B]

No, say it. You're going to say something about me in a dress. You're going to be transphobic.

[A]

No. I was not. I was not. No, I was not going to say anything about it.

[B]

Go ahead.

[A]

He's wearing a skirt right now. People can't tell, but he actually is. It's got fucking cargo pockets on it.

[B]

I know. I decided to compromise and I dressed.

[A]

It's a skort.

[B]

As a woman in Saudi Arabia. So I'm dressed as a woman, but it's the opposite of revealing.

[A]

That is my ideal look.

[B]

Oh, my God. Can you imagine how liberating that must be to just not have to worry about. About, like how your face looks and stuff?

[A]

I think that is what. When. When I think of women in Saudi Arabia, that is the word that comes to mind is liberated.

[B]

Liberated. Free. They don't have to worry about the male gaze. Okay, I think that's enough for housekeeping.

[A]

The male gaze. I've never. I. I've never really been concerned about the male gays. Like, this is something that doesn't. I think I'm invisible to men.

[B]

A. Katie.

[A]

Yeah. The gays I. The gays that I do think a lot about is the. The mother in law gays. That one is.

[B]

Is it harsh?

[A]

Much, much more dangerous? Much harsher. All right, Jesse, so let's start with a tweet. Will you read this one?

[B]

Samantha Smith says mmi wg2slgbtqqia plus, the Canadian government just dropped this absolute monstrosity. And no, it isn't satire.

[A]

And then Elon Musk reposted that and said, canada is cooked. And this has. Wow. When I look like an hour ago it had 67 million views. Now it has 70.3 million views. So this continues.

[B]

Not every. Not every country has the benefit of Elon Musk steamrolling into its government and fixing everything the way we did.

[A]

So there's a video embedded here. Let's watch it deal with the ongoing genocide of MMIWG2SLGBTQIA plus, this is abhorrent. All right, so you can see why this went. Went viral. It's funny because it's funny. It's Canada. And you know, personally, it does make me a bit nostalgic for the heyday of woke nonsense, which we were just disparaging. Robin d', Angelo, I miss you. Come back to me. But John K, Our Canadian friend, who himself is no fan of gender Wang, as he called it, he posted a reality check. So he explained that the speaker here is a woman named Leah Gazan. She's a member of the parliament for the ndp. That's the New Democratic Party. Now this is a very marginal party in Canada in the last election, they won just 2% of parliamentary seats. It was their worst performance in history. They actually lost. They did so poorly. They actually lost official party status. So you have to have 12 seats for official status. They only hold seven. And there's been this battle going on within the NDP for the heart and soul of the party. And the question is basically, is the NDP going to be this kind of ultra woke, ultra woke identitarian fetish party that everyone makes fun of, or are they going to be a genuine worker's party where you aren't, you know, publicly shamed for using the wrong pronouns? And people might have seen these, these other videos that recently went viral from the NDP convention where party delegates are complaining that their equity cards were ignored. So basically they had some rules in place that allowed cool identities to speak before uncool identities. And so there were videos of like a brown woman with a keffiyeh and a black woman with a face mask complaining that their equity cards were ignored and other people were permitted to speak before them. It's very 2020. And there was one clip of a non passing trans woman complaining that a CIS woman was allowed to speak first. That one was particularly funny. Have you seen this one, Jesse?

[B]

No.

[A]

Okay, let's watch this.

[C]

I'm sorry, just real quick, point of personal privilege. I understand there's very little time and for, for delegates to speak, but early on the mic, I. It's hard as a racialized and transgender delegate to sometimes use this card and speak up, speak to somebody in front of me in line and ask, hey, this pertains to multiple intersecting parts of my lived experience. I'd like to speak. I was rejected when I talked and it's frustrating when these are my rights being directly under attack right now in Alberta and that a cisgender woman had spoken over me. And I understand her rights are important too. This pertains to her too, but I, I don't know. I, I hope that in the future the, the, the federal NDP will also have a broader interpretation of the, the equity cards for speakers.

[B]

That's all.

[C]

Thank you.

[A]

I will invite delegates to assist me in better using the card by forming a straight, straight line behind the microphone with a prominently displayed equity card. If I see speakers ahead of you who are not holding a card prominently, it would be wrong of me to guess about their gender identity.

[B]

This is all just like that DSA clip that went around. Yes, it's like the same thing.

[A]

Do you want to explain that?

[B]

Well, yeah, there's just there's something like DSA convention and the years are really blending together. I would say 2019, 2020. That just involved a lot of like snapping and there were, there were warnings about people wearing perfume that could cause health problems. And there was more pronoun style.

[A]

Yeah, like a delegate. A male, like trans, A male trans woman complaint. Like you could see the bulge in this person's outfit. That video.

[B]

I don't remember the bulge. But you do you Katie.

[A]

I can't forget the bulge, Katie. You're genitally always thinking about bulges. So that's the ndp. And Leah Gauzen is very much on the side of keeping the NDP stuck in this woke mire. But that side does appear to be on the lane. So like the new leader of the party, his name is Avi Lewis. He's much more of an economic leftist than an identitarian. For one, he follows cursed cancellations on Instagram, which tells you something.

[B]

Cursed? Did you say cursed?

[A]

It's cursed.

[B]

Oh, is it? Is that another pronoun?

[A]

No, it's cursed. And we've, we've discussed this before. I was corrected. And more to the point, today the indie Peace platform is more about progressive taxation, a national rent cap, free public transit, a Green New Deal, government owned grocery stores. It's more about like that material things than it is about, about micro racism and transgenicide. I'll post a link in the show notes to a piece by our friend Jay Soleil about this. He's a communist pig, but he's also an astute critic of identitarianism in Canada and elsewhere. And he thinks that the current NDP is riding the ship. But yes, Lee Gosin is a dead ender and yes, she is in government, that's true. But she doesn't represent the government of Canada any more than say Bernie Sanders represents the government of the United States. She's very friendly, fringe. So, so this annoyed me because it's like, you know, Elon Musk, Canada is cooked. Well, this doesn't actually represent Canada, you know, this isn't actually the Canadian government. This is a French hashtag.

[B]

Not all Canadians.

[A]

Exactly. And I am a Canada Stan. I love Canada. And John K. He, he also said this. He said, quote, CBC types treat her as a serious person because she's indigenous and because she always talks in the tear drenched idiom of white settler colonial evilness. But she's not. So that's the first thing. It's like just reality check here. Like it's, it's not true that the Canadian Government dropped this monstrosity as the original poster that went viral said one minor MP dropped this monstrosity and 70 million people are making fun of it.

[B]

So I didn't even recognize most of those letters. What does the acronym stand for?

[A]

Yeah, so the acronym MMIWGS2LGBTQIA. Yes. It sounds like the name the of. Of a Polish death metal band. Or like the. What is it that. The QAnon. The QAnon acronym where we go one, we go all. It's like that. It's actually a mashup of two different things. So everyone knows 2 SLG. So everyone knows 2 SL GB. It's so hard to say 2 SL GBTQIA. Plus that's two spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual and plus size. Guys, are you going to laugh at that?

[B]

It's pretty good. It was okay.

[A]

Thank you. But. Mm. I g W that refers to missing and murdered indigenous women and girls and she smushed them together as one very long acronym. So it's. So this is not a new sexual identity or gender orientation. This is two separate long ass acronyms smushed together. And now, I mean, to her point, is it fair to say that there's an ongoing genocide of the MMIWGS2LS? Well, no, obviously. Although technically sort of, yes. Because in 2019 the government sponsored a national. It was called the National Inquiry into Michigan Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. This was a report commissioned by the government. And that report did officially conclude that the violence against first nations women constitutes a genocide. But John K. He explained it like this. Jesse, will you read this this tweet?

[B]

The problem of violence against indigenous women is a real and tragic issue. Unfortunately, a couple of years ago a bunch of activists produced a ridiculous report on on that subject that called it a continuing genocide and demanded that we call it that. The whole movement collapsed when it was pointed out that something like 80% of the indigenous women who are killed are killed by indigenous men. Which is very much off message from the whole white colonial G word thing. But the acronym still gets name dropped when people are indicting Canada for all its infinitely genocide genociding of everyone.

[A]

I looked this up by the way, and it is true that first nations women are victimized at much higher rates than women of other races cases. But John actually underestimated the rate at which the killer is indigenous. So according to Statistics Canada, this is a government bureau. Between 2014 and 2021, 86% of people accused of killing an indigenous woman or girl were themselves indigenous. And this is entire like this should be expected because that's generally how it works with every race. White women are most likely to be killed by white men. Black women are most likely to be killed by black men, men, Hispanic women by Hispanic men. Etc. And this is simple. The leading perpetrators of murder are intimate partners and most women date within their race. The murder industry is highly segregated. So just some, some nuance on that. It's not the government of Canada speaking in that video. It's one loony Canadian. But for another Canadian story that does appear to be more legit and more institutionalized. Jesse, please read this tweet.

[B]

The University of British Columbia just posted a job for a tenured professor, forestry. There were 6,125 wildfires across Canada during 2025 with almost 22 million acres burned. Salary 120k to 150k for this quote. For this position, applicants must identify as having a disability.

[A]

Okay, so this is Chris Burnett tweeting this and he's like an anti woke right wing culture warrior type. I don't find him a particularly trustworthy source, but here he does have the receipts. So this is a job listing from the University of British Columbia. This is the Department of Forestry and Environmental store Chip and they're hiring an assistant or associate professor. This is the job listing. He also posted a link to it so we can go right to it. So Jesse, I want you to read this from the job listing itself.

[B]

In accordance with UBC CRC Debt Equity Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan, and pursuant to section 42 of the B.C. human Rights Code, this search is restricted to people with disabilities. We welcome applications from disabled scholars who are also members of the following federally designated groups, Indigenous peoples, racialized people and women, and gender equity seeking groups. Applicants to CRC positions are required to complete this equity survey.

[A]

Okay, so there's a link to the equity survey. So again, this is something that you have to fill out before applying for the job. Let's just take a look at that.

[B]

Oh, we can fill it out.

[A]

Yeah, we can fill it out. So the survey starts with gender. So. So Jesse, select the option that you identify with. Let's read the options here.

[B]

Woman, man, gender fluid, prefer not to answer. Non binary, Trans man, trans woman. And two, Spirit. I don't identify with any option provided.

[A]

Very broad. All right, next. One, select the sexual orientation that best describes how you currently think of yourself. Read those.

[B]

Asexual, bisexual, gay, heterosexual, lesbian, pansexual, queer. Two, spirit, don't identify with any option Provided prefer not to answer.

[A]

Okay. And then they ask if we identify as indigenous. Next page is asking if we're visible minorities. Do you remember, do you identify as a member of a visible minority in Canada? No. Visible minority refers to whether a person belongs to a visible minority group as defined by the Employment Equity Act. The Employment Equity act defines visible minorities as persons, persons other than aboriginal peoples who are non white in color. Jesse, you. Yes or no?

[B]

No.

[A]

Okay, so other than aboriginal who are non white in color. And then it's asking what population group we're in. So this is ethnic group. Arab, black, Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Korean, Latin American, South Asian, Southeast Asian, West Asian, white population group, not list. And then it asks us if we identify as a person with a disability. And disabilities include, in this case, include any impairment, including a physical, mental, intellectual, cognitive, learning, communication, or sensory impairment, or a functional limitation, whether permanent, temporary or episodic, or evident or not, that in interaction with a barrier hinders a person's full and equal participation in society. That's a lot. What, do you. Do you have a disability, Jesse? I mean, according to this metric, if

[B]

I was under oath, I'd say according to that I do. But for these purposes, I would say no.

[A]

What's yours? Do you have long adhd?

[B]

I do have adhd. That's an impairment.

[A]

I. No question there. So this is not a position, a job, that has anything to do with disability. Not that I think that you should have to be disabled to teach in any department, like, including, like, disability studies, but this job is in forestry. And you obviously shouldn't have to be able to use a chainsaw to teach in a forestry department. But requiring someone to have a disability seems pretty freaking limiting of the candidate pool. So my guess is that they'll get some CIS white man with a beard and an axe who absolutely swears that he has invisible disabilities. Maybe fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue.

[B]

That seems like the most likely outcome. Yeah.

[A]

And this is perfectly legal in Canada, by the way. It's basically affirmative action for people with disabilities. In the United States, this would not be legal.

[B]

No.

[A]

What do you think about this sort of thing?

[B]

Yeah, it's. It's obviously like a form of identitarianism we find really weird. I just. I don't know, like, filling this out, it's like going back in time to 2020 or whatever, but I guess it's Canada. And Canada is always about six to 50 years behind us in terms of technology and culture.

[A]

That's true. They're just getting Covid there now.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah. So I think to Americans who don't pay much attention to Canada, I don't think any Americans pay much attention to Canada. Certainly not as much attention as Canadians pay to the U.S. these examples, you know, MMI, WS2, 3, Spirit, whatever, these NDP delegates complaining about their equity cards, this job listing requiring that somebody have a club foot to get a job as a forester, all of this makes Canada look like a ridiculous place. But I think just so that we do our jobs correctly, we should also be really clear. I talked about this a little bit with John K. When he was on the show. But Canada's government, current government, the new prime minister, his name is Mark Carney is pretty centrist. Mark Carney is. He's a centrist liberal. He was a banker. He is not ideologically radical. He's a technocrat. He governs from the center. He's much more moderate than Justin Trudeau was. And he was elected in no small part because. Because of Donald Trump. Because Donald Trump has antagonized candidates so much that what might have been a. There was so much backlash to the Trudeau government. The Conservatives had a much better chance in the last election of taking the majority. But the backlash to Donald Trump meant that the Liberal Party candidate got elected. But again, he is a centrist. So I am glad that some places in Canada are holding it down. They are staying woke because it gives us something to make fun of. But I don't want to pretend that any of this is representative of Canada as a whole. Even if this job listing comes out of a public university, which to be clear, it does. Like a lot of these things have been institutionalized. But still at this moment, the ruling party, the ruling class, is pretty moderate.

[B]

I mean, it's probably cooked for other reasons, but that's like the classic thing of just taking one crazy. It's like the Libs of TikTok approach where a crazy teacher says this is different because they're actually in government.

[A]

But yeah, if the places where Canada are cooked, like my aunt was telling me about a friend of hers who has a place in Tofino, which is this beautiful seaside town and on Vancouver island. And they just got their property taxes and their property taxes are $65,000. So if Canada's cooked, it's. It's because of that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Not because of. Of. Of the ndp.

[B]

Thank you for that, Katie. Anything else?

[A]

No, but we just got an email headline, Minneapolis debating whether to allow gay bath houses. Again, we might have to look into that.

[B]

I think we are the other. The other breaking news as we wrap up is that President Eric, former New York Mayor Eric Adams, was just granted Albanian citizenship.

[A]

Really?

[B]

So, yeah, we're definitely.

[A]

Why is this honorary citizenship or is he moving there? Well, you know what? This makes sense, because when I look at him, I say, that is a man with Albanian ancestry.

[B]

We must have a pretty robust extradition agreement with Albania. Because that would be one explanation that there's, like, more shit coming down the pipeline. But maybe he just likes Albanians. I mean, who doesn't?

[A]

Who doesn't?

[B]

Thank you, Katie. This has been blocked. Important as always. We are produced with help from Jessica the 80s. Baby. Thank you for listening. Bye.

[A]

Bye. Sat.