You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist

Today I welcome back conflict historian Matt Osborne for his third appearance on the show — and our first since meeting in person at the Genspect conference in Albuquerque. Matt writes at The Distance Magazine, reviews books for Genspect, and brings a perspective to the gender critical movement that almost no one else in our space has: the long view of someone trained to study why human beings fight, kill, and build civilizations — and why they sometimes destroy them.
What is a military historian doing in this fight? Matt's answer takes us from a pivotal conversation with a tenured professor about sex difference and primitive warfare, to his realization that gender ideology and the ideologies that drive war are operating from the same playbook — what he calls "activist mysticism," the belief that saying the right magical words can bend reality to your will.
From there we cover an enormous amount of ground: how transgender ideology hollows out a nation's ability to defend itself, why pacifism makes you less safe rather than more, Ibn Khaldun's cycle of hard times and soft men, the role of ideology in giving people permission to commit violence, and why Hollywood's "girl boss" era has gutted franchise after franchise by erasing sex difference. We talk about Audrey Hale, Pol Pot, World War II rifleman training, Brazilian jujitsu, Project Hail Mary, Outlander vs. Bridgerton, and Thucydides' three causes of war — fear, honor, and interest.
We close on what gives Matt hope: kids who are voluntarily turning back toward analog things, tabletop games, paper books, and the old idea that you go outside until dinner. The questions this conversation aims to explore: What happens to a civilization that can no longer defend itself? Why does ideology — any ideology — eventually end in violence? And is it possible to win this fight without losing what makes us human in the process?
Matt Osborne is a US Army veteran and a former Democrat. He was featured in a 2020 documentary by Andrew Rossi called “After Truth”. The documentary is about his outsider campaign in the 2017 Alabama special senate election that sent Doug Jones to Washington. Matt left the party over gender identity politics in 2018. Since then, he has earned a master’s degree in military history and become an outspoken critic of gender identity politics. He is a book reviewer for Genspect and he has three websites. He covers transgender issues at The Distance Magazine.

-The Distance Magazine — gender critical writing
-Polemology — the study of war 
-Osborne Ink — politics, culture, and everything outside gender and war
Follow Matt on X @OsborneInk, @PolemologyFix, and @DistMag.
[00:00:00] Start
[00:08:28] Marx As Mystic And The Roots Of Ideology
[00:10:25] How Gender Ideology Hollows Out The Military
[00:17:24] Is Vs. Ought And The Inevitability Of War
[00:21:48] Ibn Khaldun's Cycle Of Hard Times
[00:28:23] Why Learning To Fight Makes You Peaceful
[00:36:15] Gender Ideology As Psychological Warfare
[00:40:39] Sex Differences In Conflict And Hierarchy
[00:50:35] The Girl Boss And Hollywood's Decline
[00:59:09] Why Historical Fiction Tells The Truth
[01:06:30] Documenting An Ideological War
[01:09:05] Permission, Riflemen, And Violence
[01:21:17] Thucydides: Fear, Honor, And Interest
[01:25:37] Restoring Sports And A Positive Future
[01:32:06] The Kids Are Going Analog
ROGD REPAIR Course + Community gives concerned parents instant access to over 120 lessons providing the psychological insights and communication tools you need to get through to your kid. Now featuring 24/7 personalized AI support implementing the tools with RepairBot! Use code SOMETHERAPIST2026 to take 50% off your first month.

PODCOURSES: use code SOMETHERAPIST at LisaMustard.com/PodCourses

PRODUCTION: Looking for your own podcast producer? Visit PodsByNick.com and mention my podcast for 20% off your initial services.

MUSIC: Thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude & permission.

 ALL OTHER LINKS HERE.

To support this show, please leave a rating & review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe, like, comment & share via my YouTube channel. Or recommend this to a friend!
Learn more about Do No Harm.

Take $200 off your EightSleep Pod Pro Cover with code SOMETHERAPIST at EightSleep.com.
Take 20% off all superfood beverages with code SOMETHERAPIST at Organifi.
Check out my shop for book recommendations + wellness products.
Show notes & transcript provided with the help of SwellAI.
Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our theme song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude and permission.

Watch NO WAY BACK: The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care (our medical ethics documentary, formerly known as Affirmation Generation). Stream the film or purchase a DVD. Use code SOMETHERAPIST to take 20% off your order. Follow us on X @2022affirmation or Instagram at @affirmationgeneration.
Have a question for me? Looking to go deeper and discuss these ideas with other listeners? Join my Locals community! Members get to ask questions I will respond to in exclusive, members-only livestreams, post questions for upcoming guests to answer, plus other perks TBD.

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Instead of a long-form interview, this week I'm reading you an essay I wrote called The Most Dangerous Moment in the Conversation: What To Do and What Not To Do When Your Child Finally Opens Up. It originally appeared inside ROGD Repair, my comprehensive program for parents of trans-identified youth, and I wanted it to reach more people.
If your child is living inside a trans identity, most of the time she shows you nothing — composed, contained, deliberately blank. And then one day, out of nowhere, a seam shows. A flash of urgency. A disproportionate demand. A flicker of alarm about who will be at a party. These are what I call fractal windows: ordinary-looking moments where the entire architecture of the anxiety organizing her life becomes briefly visible. In this episode I unpack what those moments actually are, why they matter, and how to handle them without slamming the door shut.
The core tool I want to put in your hands is the empathic guess — a tentative, careful statement that names what your child might be feeling, without diagnosing, arguing, or correcting. I walk through what to say, what not to say, and why the 30 seconds after she finally says something real just might be the most dangerous point in the entire process. That's where almost every parent's instincts pull them in exactly the wrong direction — toward defending themselves, correcting the factual or ideological distortions, or winning the point. I'll explain why staying in the emotional register (instead of the logical one) is the whole game, why "permission to buy time" is one of the most underused parenting tools, and what you are actually building over many such conversations: a pattern in your child's nervous system that says: I opened up to my parent, something okay happened, I could do that again.
[00:00:00] Start
[00:00:25] When Your Child Finally Opens Up
[00:01:33] Fractal Windows And The Cost Of A Trans Identity
[00:03:24] The Outermost Knot: Why You Can't Say It All At Once
[00:04:13] Introducing The Empathic Guess
[00:05:05] Stay In The Emotional Register, Not The Logical One
[00:06:33] When The Empathic Guess Lands: The Walls Come Down
[00:07:50] The Pull To Correct Ideological Distortions
[00:08:47] Why You Are Not Endorsing By Not Arguing
[00:09:36] Listen, Reflect, Don't Defend
[00:10:24] Permission To Buy Time
[00:11:10] What You're Really Building: A Nervous System Pattern
[00:11:40] About ROGD Repair And Today's Experiment
[00:14:44] Closing Thoughts
ROGD REPAIR Course + Community gives concerned parents instant access to over 120 lessons providing the psychological insights and communication tools you need to get through to your kid. Now featuring 24/7 personalized AI support implementing the tools with RepairBot! Use code SOMETHERAPIST2026 to take 50% off your first month.

PODCOURSES: use code SOMETHERAPIST at LisaMustard.com/PodCourses

PRODUCTION: Looking for your own podcast producer? Visit PodsByNick.com and mention my podcast for 20% off your initial services.

MUSIC: Thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude & permission.

 ALL OTHER LINKS HERE.

To support this show, please leave a rating & review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe, like, comment & share via my YouTube channel. Or recommend this to a friend!
Learn more about Do No Harm.

Take $200 off your EightSleep Pod Pro Cover with code SOMETHERAPIST at EightSleep.com.
Take 20% off all superfood beverages with code SOMETHERAPIST at Organifi.
Check out my shop for book recommendations + wellness products.
Show notes & transcript provided with the help of SwellAI.
Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our theme song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude and permission.

Watch NO WAY BACK: The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care (our medical ethics documentary, formerly known as Affirmation Generation). Stream the film or purchase a DVD. Use code SOMETHERAPIST to take 20% off your order. Follow us on X @2022affirmation or Instagram at @affirmationgeneration.
Have a question for me? Looking to go deeper and discuss these ideas with other listeners? Join my Locals community! Members get to ask questions I will respond to in exclusive, members-only livestreams, post questions for upcoming guests to answer, plus other perks TBD.

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

In this episode, I welcome back Mia Hughes — director of Genspect Canada, senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and one of the sharpest writers on the gender scandal — to dig into the framework she calls "trans as an extreme overvalued belief." Mia walks us through the history of the overvalued idea, from Carl Wernicke in 1892 to Paul McHugh's post-9/11 application of the concept to ideologically driven violence, and explains why this psychiatric category — sitting between delusion and obsession — finally makes sense of the trans phenomenon in a way no other diagnosis ever has.
We trace the Dutch origins of medical transition in the 1970s, the moment psychiatry "gave up" on these patients, and how WPATH's 2010 de-psychopathologization statement re-engineered a mental illness into a celebrated identity — triggering, in Mia's view, the social contagion that followed. I bring my clinical lens to the conversation, exploring transference and countertransference, neuroplasticity, the hijacking of dopamine through "gender euphoria," and why so many therapists get this wrong in both directions. We close on Mia's anorexia parallel and what it teaches us about loosening the grip of a pathological belief — gently, indirectly, and without the parent in the line of fire.
Mia Hughes specializes in researching pediatric gender medicine, psychiatric epidemics, social contagion and the intersection of trans rights and women’s rights. She is the author of The WPATH Files, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and director of Genspect Canada. She co-hosts the Beyond Gender podcast with Stella O'Malley and Bret Alderman, available on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. Follow her on X @_CryMiaRiver. Follow her Substack @CryMiaRiver.
Mia first appeared on this podcast in episode 107. Exposing Gender Malpractice: Mia Hughes on the WPATH Files, Medical Ethics, & Informed Consent.
Books mentioned in this episode:
• The Extreme Overvalued Belief by Tahir Rahman
• Good Girls: A Study and Story of Anorexia by Hadley Freeman
[00:00:00] Start
[00:02:13] Trans as an Extreme Overvalued Belief
[00:07:13] From 9/11 to Anders Breivik
[00:11:13] Neuroplasticity and Adolescent Meaning-Making
[00:18:52] Defining the Trans Overvalued Belief
[00:22:52] The Dutch 1970s: When Psychiatry Gave Up
[00:31:00] Countertransference and the Therapist's Role
[00:38:35] WPATH's Fortress and the True Believer
[00:43:20] Re-Psychopathologization Campaign
[00:45:45] How HBIGDA Became WPATH
[00:50:13] DSM-5, ICD-11 and the Sleight of Hand
[01:02:08] Hacking Dopamine and Gender Euphoria
[01:06:27] The Anorexia Parallel
[01:13:13] What Therapists Get Wrong
[01:28:45] Putting Cracks in the Belief
[01:35:26] Helping the Part That Wants Out
ROGD REPAIR Course + Community gives concerned parents instant access to over 120 lessons providing the psychological insights and communication tools you need to get through to your kid. Now featuring 24/7 personalized AI support implementing the tools with RepairBot! Use code SOMETHERAPIST2026 to take 50% off your first month.

PODCOURSES: use code SOMETHERAPIST at LisaMustard.com/PodCourses

PRODUCTION: Looking for your own podcast producer? Visit PodsByNick.com and mention my podcast for 20% off your initial services.

MUSIC: Thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude & permission.

 ALL OTHER LINKS HERE.

To support this show, please leave a rating & review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe, like, comment & share via my YouTube channel. Or recommend this to a friend!
Learn more about Do No Harm.

Take $200 off your EightSleep Pod Pro Cover with code SOMETHERAPIST at EightSleep.com.
Take 20% off all superfood beverages with code SOMETHERAPIST at Organifi.
Check out my shop for book recommendations + wellness products.
Show notes & transcript provided with the help of SwellAI.
Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our theme song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude and permission.

Watch NO WAY BACK: The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care (our medical ethics documentary, formerly known as Affirmation Generation). Stream the film or purchase a DVD. Use code SOMETHERAPIST to take 20% off your order. Follow us on X @2022affirmation or Instagram at @affirmationgeneration.
Have a question for me? Looking to go deeper and discuss these ideas with other listeners? Join my Locals community! Members get to ask questions I will respond to in exclusive, members-only livestreams, post questions for upcoming guests to answer, plus other perks TBD.

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

In this solo episode, I'm bringing you something a little different. I've been wanting to talk about the recent Finnish register study on gender-referred youth since it came out, and rather than wait until my written article was polished, I decided to open the draft I'd been working on, read it to you, and interrupt myself along the way with the commentary and speculation from a psychological lens.
The study followed 2,083 adolescents and young adults who sought gender identity assessments at Finland's two centralized gender clinics between 1996 and 2019, compared against 16,643 age-matched controls. What the data show is sobering: nearly half of gender-referred youth had already required specialist psychiatric care before they ever walked through the clinic doors, and that number climbed to 61.7% two or more years after referral — whether or not they underwent medical transition. I walk through what "medical gender reassignment" actually captures (and doesn't), why Finland's gatekeeping model fundamentally changes how these numbers should be read, and what this means for the American informed-consent pipeline.
The heart of this episode is a concept I've been trying to articulate for months: the untested hypothesis. It's the psychological trap in which a distressed young person becomes convinced that medicalization is the only path to wellbeing — and in doing so, builds an external locus of control so total that no outcome, approved or denied, actually improves their inner life. I close with a metaphor about a hotel room, an apartment, and why gender ideology actively disincentivizes the one thing these kids need most: getting comfortable in the body they already have.
Visit my Substack for the full essay, which is read aloud with additional commentary in this video.
[00:00:00] Start
[00:03:15] Summary Of Key Findings
[00:17:15] High Preexisting Psychiatric Burden
[00:20:30] Finland's Gatekeeping Vs. Informed Consent
[00:25:30] The Untested Hypothesis
[00:32:45] What This Means For American Practice
[00:38:15] Recap And Author's Conclusions
[00:43:00] The Hotel Room Metaphor
ROGD REPAIR Course + Community gives concerned parents instant access to over 120 lessons providing the psychological insights and communication tools you need to get through to your kid. Now featuring 24/7 personalized AI support implementing the tools with RepairBot! Use code SOMETHERAPIST2026 to take 50% off your first month.

PODCOURSES: use code SOMETHERAPIST at LisaMustard.com/PodCourses

PRODUCTION: Looking for your own podcast producer? Visit PodsByNick.com and mention my podcast for 20% off your initial services.

MUSIC: Thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude & permission.

 ALL OTHER LINKS HERE.

To support this show, please leave a rating & review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe, like, comment & share via my YouTube channel. Or recommend this to a friend!
Learn more about Do No Harm.

Take $200 off your EightSleep Pod Pro Cover with code SOMETHERAPIST at EightSleep.com.
Take 20% off all superfood beverages with code SOMETHERAPIST at Organifi.
Check out my shop for book recommendations + wellness products.
Show notes & transcript provided with the help of SwellAI.
Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our theme song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude and permission.

Watch NO WAY BACK: The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care (our medical ethics documentary, formerly known as Affirmation Generation). Stream the film or purchase a DVD. Use code SOMETHERAPIST to take 20% off your order. Follow us on X @2022affirmation or Instagram at @affirmationgeneration.
Have a question for me? Looking to go deeper and discuss these ideas with other listeners? Join my Locals community! Members get to ask questions I will respond to in exclusive, members-only livestreams, post questions for upcoming guests to answer, plus other perks TBD.

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Constitutional attorney Dean Broyles, president of the National Center for Law and Policy, joins me to continue untangling the legal battles reshaping how public schools handle gender identity — and what they mean for parents, teachers, and students.
Picking up where we left off with Laura Powell in episode 207, Dean begins with a detailed breakdown of the Mirabelli v. Bonta case, which started in Escondido, California, when two Catholic teachers refused to comply with “gender secrets” policies requiring them to conceal a child’s gender identity from parents. Dean walks us through Judge Bonita’s landmark ruling, which found that California’s parental exclusion policies create a “trifecta of harm” to children, parents, and teachers alike — and the March 2nd Supreme Court decision reinstating the statewide injunction squarely on the side of parental rights.
We go deep on what these rulings mean in practice: the secret “shadow records” schools have been keeping on students’ gender identities, the religious accommodation rights teachers can assert against California’s coercive PRISM training, and the student free speech protections guaranteed by Tinker v. Des Moines. Dean explains the difference between a parent’s right to be informed and a teacher’s legal obligation — and where the courts are headed on whether parents can block social transition at school entirely.
We also address the growing wave of detransition malpractice cases, including the Varian v. Einhorn verdict, and what a pending Supreme Court case could mean for therapists’ freedom of speech in counseling. This is essential listening for parents, teachers, and mental health professionals navigating what Dean calls an Orwellian environment in today’s public schools.
Dean Broyles is a constitutional attorney who serves as the president of the National Center for Law & Policy. He is a free speech, religious freedom, and parental rights advocate with extensive experience involving sexual identity issues in the courts, culture, and public schools. Dean regularly files amicus briefs at the U.S. Supreme Court in landmark cases, provides legislative testimony, and advises mental health professionals. He lives in southern California and has been married to his wife, Shona, a public-school teacher, for 36 years. Dean is the father of four adopted children and two grandchildren. Follow him on X: DeanBroyles. His blog can be found here.
[00:00:00] Start
[00:02:08] Mirabelli v. Bonta: Background and Origins
[00:05:55] Judge Bonita's Ruling: Trifecta of Harm
[00:09:25] Supreme Court Reinstates Statewide Injunction
[00:13:52] Teachers' Rights vs. Obligation to Inform
[00:15:45] Shadow Records in California Schools
[00:24:33] First and 14th Amendment Parental Rights Explained
[00:38:35] Students' Free Speech Rights: Tinker v. Des Moines
[00:44:50] Orwellian Coercion of Religious Students and Teachers
[00:51:20] AB 5 and California's PRISM Teacher Training
[00:58:40] Teachers Win Exemptions After Supreme Court Ruling
[01:00:50] The Spiral of Silence — and How to Reverse It
[01:07:15] Can Parents Block Social Transition at School?
[01:12:36] Desistance Rates and the Danger of Medicalization
[01:18:20] Detransition Malpractice Cases: Who's Liable?
[01:23:46] Pending Supreme Court Case on Therapist Free Speech
ROGD REPAIR Course + Community gives concerned parents instant access to over 120 lessons providing the psychological insights and communication tools you need to get through to your kid. Use code SOMETHERAPIST2026 to take 50% off your first month.
PODCOURSES: use code SOMETHERAPIST at LisaMustard.com/PodCourses
PRODUCTION: Looking for your own podcast producer? Visit PodsByNick.com and mention my podcast for 20% off your initial services.

MUSIC: Thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude & permission.
ALL OTHER LINKS HERE.

To support this show, please leave a rating & review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe, like, comment & share via my YouTube channel. Or recommend this to a friend!
Learn more about Do No Harm.

Take $200 off your EightSleep Pod Pro Cover with code SOMETHERAPIST at EightSleep.com.
Take 20% off all superfood beverages with code SOMETHERAPIST at Organifi.
Check out my shop for book recommendations + wellness products.
Show notes & transcript provided with the help of SwellAI.
Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our theme song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude and permission.

Watch NO WAY BACK: The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care (our medical ethics documentary, formerly known as Affirmation Generation). Stream the film or purchase a DVD. Use code SOMETHERAPIST to take 20% off your order. Follow us on X @2022affirmation or Instagram at @affirmationgeneration.
Have a question for me? Looking to go deeper and discuss these ideas with other listeners? Join my Locals community! Members get to ask questions I will respond to in exclusive, members-only livestreams, post questions for upcoming guests to answer, plus other perks TBD.

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★