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April 17, 2025 - On Brand

01:21:28

Oh, It's Time To Blame Trans People Again Is It?

This episode deals with Russell's coverage of trans people in sports, RFK Jr's effect on health in the US, and trans rights being eroded in the UK. Russell's takes on it are, to put it mildly, less than great.Support Al on Patreon! - https://patreon.com/OnBrand

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	This is propaganda live.
	I only suggest how to think and how to vote.
	Extraordinary cultural moment.
	Already iconic.
	Already iconic.
	We love you.
	You're welcome here.
	I almost sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it's a bit lame now.
	They don't want to have a conversation debate, but they're lying.
	And this is a matter now of fact and record.
	Trump is like Hitler.
	Let me count the ways.
	I'm a Nazi, actually.
	I'm a Nazi actually and I've kept it now until now but this is my chance.
	God is propaganda.
	Did you get it?
	Did you get it?
	I feel that Christ may have had a better vision.
	One.
	Bastards, aren't they?
	I mean, you can't watch too much of this without realising they're absolute bastards.
	Let's go full screen on Russell.
	This is On Brand, a podcast where we discuss the ideas and antics of one, Russell Brand.
	I'm Al Worth, and each week I go through an episode of Stay Free with Russell Brand in order to dissect and debunk it.
	A whole bunch of you have come to me and told me you love the solo episodes of the show, so congratulations, because we're going to be leaning more in that direction going forward.
	I will still be having guests because I like it and it's fun, but you will be hearing more from just me in general.
	Today's episode will be covering trans people in sports, the effects RFK Jr. is having on health in the US, and the new ruling from the UK Supreme Court determining that the legal definition of woman is based on biological sex, and therefore trans women aren't women.
	It's going to be a lot.
	Don't worry, we'll get through it together.
	But before we get into that, allow me to thank a new Awakening Wonder here.
	So, Amy White, you are now an Awakening Wonder.
	You are indeed an awakening wonder.
	Thank you so much, Amy.
	And if anyone wants to support the show financially by becoming an awakening wonder, joining the Invisible Hand, or donating on an elevated tier, head to patreon.com slash onbrand and sign up, and you will have my eternal gratitude, and you will be able to access additional content as well as a completely ad-free version of the show.
	Speaking of additional content, I had a great time at the On Brand Book Club livestream this past weekend, and in reading up to the end of Chapter 11 of My Booky Wook, we learned that Russell likes comedy, Because to him it's all about power and the aspect of forcing people to laugh without their having a choice.
	And we also learned that Russell admits to pushing boundaries to their limit at every opportunity since he was a child, which continues to this day.
	There are very genuinely aspects of this book that could be used against him in a court of law.
	In any case, it was otherwise a lot of fun, and the recording is available and up exclusively for patrons.
	And coming next Sunday will be the return of Music Is Nice, where I'll be going through some tunes and chatting about them.
	I was going to do that for this Sunday, but then some family stuff came up, but it's in the works and will be with you all soon.
	So head to patreon.com slash onbrand to stay updated with all of that good stuff.
	Now then.
	What are we looking at this week?
	Well, America is sliding headfirst into even more of a fascist capitalist hellscape under Donald Trump, with tariffs abound, the humanitarian parts of the federal government eviscerated, and minorities successfully either demonized or deported.
	So, what can the alt-right do to distract from all the horror and economic destruction?
	That's right, let's blame everything on trans people a bit more.
	We'll be talking about all manner of things, including trans sports.
	John Oliver advocates for more, I guess, sort of trans sports.
	Folks will be analysing that.
	Let me know what you think, by the way, in the comments and chat on the very day that there was a pool tournament in the UK, my beloved country, now a penitentiary island where people are jailed for social media posts.
	Unless, of course, they're government paedophiles and they seem to get extraordinary largesse.
	What's going on lately there is that there's a female pool tournament where both the finalists were trans men.
	Let me know in the comments in chat what you think about...
	I also like pool.
	Trans women.
	It ain't strength or speed or anything.
	There's no advantage, actually, to testosterone there.
	Yeah, now that you mention it, the uproar over two trans women competing in eight ball pool does sound pretty fucking stupid, doesn't it?
	Nonetheless, bigots in the UK have been up in arms over this one, trying to claim that height and strength are vital factors to a game of pool.
	Though according to the Independent, quote, an MIT professor argues that as long as the player can break above a certain speed, which is achievable to both sexes, there is no inherent advantage gained by a higher Q velocity, unquote.
	Makes sense to me.
	On a personal note, I'm six foot two, and from a family of barrel-chested, broad-shouldered individuals, I learned to play pool as a teenager in an old man's pub near my grandparents' house, getting roundly thrashed by all the old boys there.
	And one of the key things I learned was that, for the most part, strength and speed have very little to do with it.
	It's a game of finesse, physics, and maths.
	Like, those are the things actually vital to being a good pool player.
	It's all angles, isn't it?
	Angles and, you know, velocity, etc.
	Nonetheless, players like Lynn Pinches, who is credited as being among the best female pool players in the UK, refuse to play against trans women.
	Pinches is herself part of legal action trying to ensure trans women can't compete in female categories in the UK.
	Describing her logic, she said, quote, We're going to have science to back up our court case.
	I suppose the onus is on us to prove they...
	Transgender women do have an advantage rather than the other way around, but you'd have to have been hiding under a rock for the past hundred years to not know that men are better at sports across the board." And, I mean, in some sports, sure,
	I'll agree with...
	Part of that assessment.
	But now tell me definitively whether transgender women are better at sports than cisgender women, because a transgender woman is fundamentally different from a man, with trans women usually having their hormones monitored on a regular basis to prove that they are in fact...
	Female enough to play sports in the female category.
	But people like Lynn Pinches clearly believe that trans women are actually just men in a dress, making her argument bigoted to its core.
	And hopefully that will eventually be part of the reason her legal action fails, but you never know over here.
	We shall see.
	Nonetheless. Back to the rest of Russell's nonsense.
	And what I should make clear up top is that the title of this episode of Stay Free with Russell Brand that we're covering is The Trans Con How Did We Miss This?
	Which, uh, gross.
	And naturally I came into this episode expecting like an hour or so of focused bullshit against trans people, as the title implies.
	What actually transpired was about an hour of talking about different things, and then the last 20 minutes was spent focused on the issue of trans women in sports.
	Trans men doesn't come up, by the way, but trans women in sports.
	Notably, that last 20 minutes, there was available only to Rumble Premium users and didn't even make it into the main part of the show.
	What I'm saying is, if you were an anti-trans bigot without Rumble Premium and came to Russell's show to wallow in your bigotry, you'd have a reasonable claim of false advertising there.
	Like, hey Russell, you promised me anti-trans bullshit and then you put it behind a paywall?
	How very dare you.
	So, what we'll look at here are a few of the subjects covered in the main show.
	Before we skip ahead and see what stuff Russell has to say about trans people this week.
	First, however, we must look at a clip of HealthGriff...
	Mr. Callie Means.
	Callie Means has long been a friend of our show, and he's one of the reasons that I believe that the HHS will improve significantly under Bobby Kennedy.
	Callie Means is a former employee of Coca-Cola turned whistleblower and now expert in nutrition, but not only what we should eat and what we shouldn't eat, what we should put in our mouths and what we shouldn't put in our mouths, but what we should allow into our consciousness.
	Here is Callie Means appearing at a Politico conference.
	Remember, the Politico is funded in all sorts of interesting and extraordinary ways, where he's given the opportunity to...
	To oppose some people that query not only his perspectives, but the Maha movement more generally.
	And I suppose if I was to define the Maha movement, it's if MAGA is Donald Trump and the kind of libertarian, free market, America first kind of no-nonsense robustness that Trump represents, then Maha is Bobby Kennedy.
	Health, wellness, anti-corruption, trying to awaken and enlighten yourself and others.
	That's why I was so excited personally about MAGA and MAHA coming together.
	Here in this clip, Kali Means defends the MAHA movement from many of its detractors.
	Let's watch it together.
	What the voters were trying to say, and I think they were right, is that the system is really on the wrong track.
	That the existing health authorities, just demonstrably, the NIH oversaw, and this is just consensus at this point, the creation, the literal creation.
	Don't they excite you to see that getting said publicly by an employee of the HHS and therefore of your American government that the pandemic was literally a creation?
	Ooh! Okay, we're off to a flying start here.
	American audience, feel free to chime in in the comments.
	Does it excite you that a prominent HHS employee partially responsible for health policy in the USA is saying that the NIH oversaw the literal creation of a pandemic?
	Does that excite you?
	Inquiring minds want to know.
	And here's the thing, like, that statement on its own, like, stripped of context, could seem innocuous enough, like, oh, the pandemic happened while the NIH were watching.
	Like, were it not for the dozens of pandemic-related conspiracy theories insisting that not only were the NIH funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan, but that Fauci himself created the coronavirus.
	That claim has been made on Stay Free with Russell Brand.
	None of it is true, but the claims have been made in this very space that Cali Means exists in.
	And you know who else has made those claims?
	Cali Means' boss, the Director of Health and Human Services for the United States Government, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
	And I can practically feel the excitement from all my American audience here.
	Oh, and by the by, I don't want to let it slide that Russell claimed Politico were funded in interesting ways in that clip.
	Which, yeah, there were a bunch of alt-right shitheads trading conspiracy theories about Politico back in February, with one claiming that Politico were receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from USAID to push anti-Trump propaganda and to lie to the American people.
	Russell was, of course, well on board with this notion, but here's what Politico had to say.
	Quote, Politico has been the subject of debate on X this week.
	Some of it has been misinformed and some of it has been flat out false.
	Let's set the record straight.
	Politico is a privately owned company.
	We have never received any government funding, no subsidies, no grants, no handouts, not one dime ever in 18 years.
	Millions of people around the world read our journalism on politico.com, politico.eu and in newsletters.
	It is supported by advertising and sponsorships.
	Politico Pro is different.
	It is a professional subscription service used by companies, organizations, and yes, some government agencies.
	They subscribe because it makes them better at their jobs, helping them track policy, legislation, and regulations in real time with news, intelligence, and a suite of data products.
	Most Politico Pro subscribers are in the private sector.
	They come from across the ideological spectrum and subscribe for one reason:
	value. And 90% renew every year because they rely on our reporting data and insights.
	Government agencies that subscribe do so through standard public procurement processes, just like any other tool they buy to work smarter and be more efficient.
	This is not funding, it is a transaction, just as the government buys research, equipment, software, and industry research.
	Some online voices are deliberately spreading falsehoods.
	Let's be clear.
	Politico has no financial dependence on the government and no hidden agenda.
	We cover politics and policy.
	That's our job.
	Unquote. And, uh, yeah.
	That makes a lot more sense there, doesn't it?
	It is a shame, because, like, for those of us who insist on living so relentlessly in the real world, reality is much more mundane.
	I mean, imagine for a moment believing all the things that these conspiracy theorists alt-right folks believe.
	Like, it would be terrifying, but...
	Much more exciting, you have to admit.
	So for us, instead of a Democrat USAID-funded media conspiracy to take down Donald Trump and lie to the American people, you and I are faced with the reality that, like, oh, it's just a subscription service, huh?
	All right, then.
	Now, unfortunately, we have one more bit of Cali Means saying things that we have to look at, and he starts this clip talking about how Fauci is bad.
	Who continually, continually went against expert opinion in favor of the pharmaceutical industry, who many people here were collaborating with him with.
	The fact that somebody like that can't be fired and he can't install tremendous people like Marty McCary and Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Oz to start reforming these agencies and put in their people, of course he should do that.
	That's what people voted for.
	There you go.
	Democracy in action.
	As I've told you before, I know Marty Makari, Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Oz, and I would say that to varying degrees, all of those people I even know well personally or have studied their work and what they talk about publicly.
	We couldn't be in a better position, when I say we, I mean the people of America, than with those people in charge of our health, certainly under Bobby Kennedy.
	when you look at what preceded it and the fact that Anthony Fauci is still out there peddling treachery and looking at ways that he can, through his public life, advance the interest of the pharmaceutical industry and continue to ensure that people are spiritually sick and operating on a
	We are in a much better and improved situation with Bobby Kennedy Dr. Oz, Jay Bhattacharya, Kali Means himself, and Marty Makari in positions of power.
	These are principled men who are telling you exactly what they believe, and now what they believe will be clinically tested through scientific trials before enacted as policy.
	That seems to me to be a radical upgrade on what preceded it.
	Ah, yes, because the NIH weren't doing any clinical trials or anything before.
	Sure thing.
	I should make it clear that if you see any cuts or any kind of choppiness in this, this is because Russell played two pre-recorded editorials that had been, you know, edited in his traditional choppy fashion.
	I haven't made any cuts to these at all.
	So, Russell reckons that the US is better off with RFK Jr. in charge because he's going to prove things through clinical trials and then enact them as policy, right?
	And what sort of things might those be?
	Well, recently, RFK Jr. has claimed that he will find the cause of autism by September of this year.
	This is a matter that's been studied for literal decades, but don't worry everyone, he'll have it all figured out by September.
	Now, given that the man we're discussing has spent many, many years blaming autism on vaccines, it would be a fair assumption that his findings might be swayed in a particular direction.
	Though it turns out he's actually trying to blame it on some kind of environmental toxin at this point.
	Allow me to read from a piece in The Guardian for a moment.
	The U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in his first press conference that the significant and recent rise in autism diagnoses was evidence of an epidemic caused by an environmental toxin which would be rooted out by September.
	Autism advocates and health experts have repeatedly stated the rise in diagnosis is related to better recognition of the condition, changing diagnostic criteria, and better access to screening.
	Many also reject the label of an epidemic, arguing that neurodivergence should be valued.
	This is a preventable disease.
	We know it's environmental exposure.
	It has to be, said Kennedy.
	Genes do not cause epidemics.
	They can provide a vulnerability, but you need an environmental toxin, he said, despite known evidence against this claim.
	Kennedy's remarks come after a new federal report suggests that autism rates in the US are rising.
	The report states that autism prevalence across the country has increased from 1 in 36 children to 1 in 31. Health researchers across various autism advocacy groups attribute the increase to the expansion of diagnostic tools and access to care, along with other factors.
	RFK disagreed with the consensus of health researchers and said that we need to move away from the idea that the increase in autism prevalence is simply due to better diagnostic tools.
	The health secretary is instead using the data to support the idea that the rise in autism diagnosis is evidence of a growing epidemic.
	He added that epidemic denial towards autism had become a feature of mainstream media.
	Kennedy has also asserted that he was going to lift the taboo on autism research at the same time that the CDC has gutted numerous programs and that the National Institutes of Health, NIH, the largest publicly funded biomedical and behavioral research body in the world,
	is conducting an ideological review of grants that has led to widespread fear among researchers.
	We're going to remove the taboo that people will know they can research and follow the science no matter what it says without any kind of fear that they're going to be censored, said Kennedy.
	Unquote. So, I ask again, my dear American audience, you're feeling excited?
	Well, you should be.
	Because not only is RFK Jr. going to figure out the cause of autism by September, but supposedly Marty Makari, Jay Bhattacharya, Kali Means, and Dr. Oz are all principled men telling you what they believe.
	None of them are linegrifters at all.
	And that is a radical upgrade from Anthony Fauci, who is still trying to keep everyone spiritually sick and operating on a lower frequency.
	Russell doesn't elaborate on how Fauci's doing that, but presumably it's something to do with either vaccines or masks.
	So from here, for those curious about Russell's financial situation, because I know I am, we get a brief bit of insight into what his deal with Rumble consists of.
	We're leaving you, YouTube.
	We can't stay there for another second, not while you continue to bow down and kowtow to globalist agendas and decrees, particularly when it comes to attacking some poor old adorable fool just like me.
	Remonetize the content.
	I don't even keep this stuff.
	I've got a minimum guarantee.
	No, you don't need to know about my financial affairs.
	All you can know is I can afford this shit.
	I can afford it.
	That's all you need to know about me.
	Yep, I mean, I am quite aware Russell remains among the richest 0.01% of people in the world, so yes, he can afford this shit.
	But what is interesting is that despite all that fuss over YouTube demonetizing him for separate issues, by the way, around the time of the allegations against him coming out...
	Russell himself was never actually making money off YouTube anyway at that point because apparently he has some kind of minimum guarantee in place as part of his Rumble deal.
	So that whole shtick about YouTube was never actually about him losing any money.
	It was solely so that he could play the victim.
	That's what that was for.
	Which, yeah, completely tracks.
	I'm like, oh, that's actually revealing.
	Tell me more, please.
	Yeah, I would love to know more about your financial situation, Russell.
	Please, elucidate.
	Now, from here, I need to clarify what the rest of this Thursday show from last week turned out to be.
	See, a little while ago, Russell stopped doing his Oracle series with Lara Logan and Neil Oliver, right?
	Good, because they were god-awful.
	It was just three incredible know-nothings sitting around and saying yet more nothing to each other, only with different accents.
	It was boring and dumb.
	But he used to air those on Thursdays, and because he then got rid of them, he needed something to replace it with.
	Because his recording schedule is a live-streamed regular show Monday to Wednesday, and then one...
	Slightly lazier show, relying on other people and pre-recorded content on a Thursday.
	And then Russell has a three-day weekend.
	So instead of his Oracle series, what Russell is doing at the moment is him sitting and chatting shit with his production team.
	Notably not including Gareth Roy in any capacity, by the way, even though he does have some people on digitally for this.
	Gareth Roy is curiously absent.
	But this will include the at this point infamous Isaac, who we will get to shortly.
	But first, we have a contribution from a producer called Jake.
	Okay, we'll be back in a matter of seconds.
	In fact, we're going to continue right now with some input and insights from the team.
	Now, I don't know if you, like me, are a fan of The Chosen.
	I love Dallas Jenkins, the creator of the show.
	I love his wife.
	Amanda Jenkins, I love the star.
	Jonathan Rumi, Jesus is my body double.
	I'm a big fan of The Chosen.
	And when The Chosen goes quiet, i.e.
	it's pre, you know, we're not in, they're in production, I think, for season six and some of season five has been released.
	Let me know in the comments and chat if you've seen it.
	I get very...
	What do I get?
	I miss it.
	I miss it, and I'm looking for another show to watch.
	Now, Jake is the producer of the show and the leader of this kind of little battalion of Lost Boys.
	Thanks for staying with us, guys.
	I really appreciate that, by the way, at this difficult time.
	How have you been coping with the chosen not being on TV?
	What is it that you do, and how do you pass the time?
	I'm assuming, as a Christian man, it's not through mindless acts of fornication and self-abuse.
	No, I mean, I think you're just left with the old-fashioned Bible.
	Just jump it straight into the holy arms of the Lord.
	It's just the word of God.
	Not televised.
	Yeah, Russell.
	No, I'm pretty sure most people traditionally don't get their Bible stories from television or movies.
	And by the way, for a moment there, I was expecting him to be like, so have you been coping with, you know, the charges against me, the criminal charges against me?
	Have you all been coping with that?
	But no, we don't get to see that conversation, unfortunately.
	But yeah, Russell's sort of surprise there to me about Jake here being like, well, you're just left with the Bible.
	Like, Russell's surprise was to me a little bit telling.
	Because I know Russell loves The Chosen.
	He's had the creator of The Chosen on Stay Free, as well as the guy who plays Jesus as well, who used to be a body double for Russell back when he was still getting acting gigs and was in HBO's Ballers.
	But it hadn't fully occurred to me how much of Russell's experience of both Christianity and I must say, if that is the case...
	It's incredibly sad, but it would make a lot of sense.
	Russell has a famously short attention span, and the Bible itself is famously dense and difficult to read.
	Not only that, but his understanding of many of the texts from philosophers and great thinkers that he likes to reference have been provably incredibly shallow.
	It would absolutely track that Russell would be taking his religious cues from a glitzed-up, high-budget TV show interpretation of what the story of Jesus is meant to be.
	Like, yeah!
	That would make a lot of sense.
	I know he was doing his read a Bible in a year thing that took him a year and a half, but still.
	But yeah, this feels consistent to me.
	This feels like it makes sense.
	But, you know, happy to be proven wrong if you want to prove me wrong, Russell.
	Anyway, from here we get Jake's assessment as to why House of David, the show on Amazon about David and Goliath, is just so good, but not before Russell throws some casual anti-Semitism at his Jewish employee, Isaac, who is also on camera.
	Also, though, I happen to know that you watch The House of David.
	I'm worried, though, that The House of David is the poor man's chosen.
	And I don't mean that offensively to Isaac, who is, let's face it, one of the chosen people.
	Isn't he?
	He's a Red Sea pedestrian.
	He lets us know all the time.
	He's an APAC contributor.
	We need to be reminded.
	Okay, so tell me, let's talk a little bit about the House of David.
	What are you saying, mate?
	Yeah, so we talked about this before.
	When you grow up in America, a lot of the Christian media entertainment stories, they're not very good.
	They're not done very well.
	Well, they make it cheesy or something.
	They're just cheesy.
	They can't really show details.
	It's like you don't understand what the full story is because you know sex was going on, but they can't actually show that sort of...
	It's not a thing.
	Everybody has to be covered up.
	The story is not very good.
	It's just bad.
	So when you start seeing good media coming out like The Chosen, that's cool.
	Playful, still biblical.
	Good actors, good looking actors, reverent.
	Then you got House of David, which is like the number one show on Prime.
	Is it good?
	It's great.
	I've been worried about it.
	I've worried that...
	I thought it was Poor Man's Chosen.
	Knock-off Chosen.
	I would say House of David.
	Like how people say you're the knock-off me.
	Yeah, I'm the Teemu Russell Brand.
	Is it Teemu Chosen?
	Wouldn't make that sense.
	I'd say Chosen's like more playful, joking, different things like that.
	There's some scenes in House of David you've got to cover the kid's eyes.
	Hey, so there's more fucking and violence, and that's what makes for good Bible stories, everybody.
	Good stuff!
	What you want to be teaching your kids are Bible stories so violent and laden with sex that you have to cover your children's eyes when they're televised.
	Also, I love the blatant hypocrisy there of like, hey, yeah, these old cheesy Bible movies and TV shows were terrible because they didn't include any sex or whatever.
	You know, they were censorious and prudish, right?
	And then the same guy being like, oh yeah, there are moments where these things are shown in House of David and I have to cover my kids' eyes.
	Like... Should there be sex shown or not?
	Like, which is it?
	Which is it?
	Like, I got a vibe from this guy where I could legitimately picture him as Dennis Reynolds from It's Always Sunny, being like, hey, you know what's never been done before in film?
	Full penetration.
	That's where it's at.
	Like, that's what I was getting from this guy.
	But we can't show the kids!
	But it is better, though, isn't it?
	I am, for some reason, much more invested when I can see the sex and violence, huh?
	Hmm. Hmm.
	Hmm. Hmm.
	And yeah, don't be making claims that you're a Timu Russell brand.
	I would just advise against that in general for...
	There's a long list of reasons.
	A long list of reasons, Jake.
	Just maybe steer away from that.
	Alright, so now we get to Isaac's contribution to this show, and...
	Well, up until this stage on Brand, I've mostly just been pointing out all of the times that Russell has been nakedly anti-Semitic towards him on camera.
	Here, however, Isaac is allowed to contribute a new story of his own to the show, and my opinion went quite quickly from reasonable amounts of sympathy to fuck that guy.
	If you're watching us on Rumble, then you're going to have to click the link in the description and join us on Rumble Premium because we are handing over now to our APAC representative.
	It's Isaac.
	Isaac, you've been concerned for some time now about tennis or something, or women and men's sports.
	But what is it?
	What's bothering you now, Isaac?
	So, I really just don't understand where people get off sometimes where it comes to this stuff.
	At the end of the day, we all understand that men and women have different physiology.
	And I don't know where in the culture over the past 10 years we kind of lost all of that.
	So John Oliver did a clip on his show talking about how basically trans men or trans women don't have any statistical advantages over regular women.
	So that's the first clip.
	And then we have Serena Williams and another more recent clip.
	of a disc golf player who basically just refused to play when she was put up against a trans man.
	Trans woman, again, actually.
	And that same disc golf player was perfectly happy to play against cisgendered men, but didn't want to play against a trans woman.
	And they swear, it's got nothing to do with bigotry against trans people.
	It's all about the sanctity of the sport.
	Forgive me if I remain unconvinced.
	So we'll be getting to the news from the UK about the Supreme Court ruling over here in a bit, but first we are going to tackle Russell's perspective on trans people in sports, because...
	Isaac really wanted to talk about it.
	Again, fuck that guy.
	I still don't think he deserves to have anti-Semitic comments thrown at him, but fuck that guy in other ways for being a bigot.
	But before we get into the actual clips on the subject at hand, we do get yet more anti-Semitic shit from Russell, though at least with Isaac fighting back in jest to a degree.
	But it does feel very much like Russell showing his true colors here.
	You've put a lot of thought and a lot of research into this, Isaac.
	Shouldn't you be, I don't know, observing the Sabbath?
	Well, Passover is on Saturday.
	Well, make sure you pay attention to that, is what I will say.
	Because, you know, in case a Messiah turns up and you accidentally nail him to the cross or something, you don't want that happening again.
	You're a little bit sick and tired of the way you keep killing our chosen ones.
	Russell, what would you have gotten Jesus for his bar mitzvah?
	What I've got out the King of Kings for his bar mitzvah.
	That was just in his quiet era.
	I don't know.
	What do you generally get people for their bar mitzvahs?
	Money. I've never been to one.
	I'm actually a bit of an anti-semit.
	Listen, I love Jews.
	I've attended a PACER celebration.
	I was actually on LSD, and from what I understand about PACER, it improved it.
	Yeah, Russell just did the Jewish equivalent of, hey, I have tons of black friends.
	I can't be racist.
	Immediately after saying, I'm actually quite anti-Semitic, he had to be like, I love Jewish people.
	At which point I'd be like, alright Russell, name your Jewish friends, without including those who work for you.
	Because I feel like those are going to be two very different tallies.
	So... We got a little more of casually throwing around the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that the Jews killed Jesus there, which is at this point basically becoming a weekly staple of Russell's show, albeit this time with Isaac pointing out, hey, you know Jesus was Jewish,
	right? Which is...
	Some kind of pushback.
	Also, Russell doesn't seem to think that his attending a Passover or Pesach meal and ceremony while high on LSD and saying that the LSD markedly improved the experience is in any way disrespectful.
	That's fine.
	The most forthright and believable part of that clip for me was him saying, I'm actually a bit of an anti-Semite.
	Because, like, at this point, he might as well just come out and say it.
	There is mounting evidence that that is his position.
	And I didn't expect that to ever be a segment of this show, of just, like, building up the case of how much of an anti-Semite Russell actually is.
	But here we are.
	Now... For a bit of contrast, before we get to dealing with the issue of trans people in sports and the ruling in the UK, I want to show everyone an old clip of Russell that I've put together.
	And when I say old, I mean not that old.
	What I'm going to show you is from November 2022, six months before I began my coverage of him, when Russell was in conversation with Jordan Peterson and vocally defending Elliot Page's right not to be deadnamed.
	I was myself struck with, you know, I think the tweet that you were banned for was sort of like commenting on Elliot Page.
	How do we prioritize compassion, kindness, love?
	And can't this basic palette of principles prevent us from getting into conflict around these ideas?
	Well, it isn't obvious to me that love can be reduced to compassion at all.
	And when that's applied to the self, I can see that the requirement for this judgment, the great success you've had in, you know, clean your room, stand up straight, these kind of edicts offered to young men or young people who require discipline, I can see the success of that.
	But Jordan, I feel that when it becomes an...
	Outward strike of like, this person should not have done this thing.
	This is the impact of these actions we'll have on the culture.
	This will lead to this kind of denigration.
	This will lead to decisions that are, in my view, palpably wrong.
	I feel that this is where we have to redress an imbalance around compassion.
	I feel that Elliot Page should be able to do whatever Elliot Page wants to do.
	And my only role is to say, I recognise that I don't understand.
	And why would I understand?
	There are less obvious things that you could never understand about me.
	They're less evident and obvious.
	And for me, the basic principle of kindness and compassion is going to be my guide when dealing with Elliot Page and when posting something about Elliot Page.
	I do have, of course, the idea of what do I want Elliot Page to feel?
	Happy. Accepted.
	That's what I want Elliot Page to feel.
	You know, and if there are aspects of that I don't understand, then I'm willing to take the hit.
	But the evident and palpable anger, I feel, diminishes your position because now anger is in the conversation.
	I think you offer a great deal that is valuable and necessary, but I feel beyond the value and necessity of honesty, authenticity and...
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Yeah. I believe in love and I know it's complicated.
	I think you're beautiful and full of love.
	I really believe in that.
	And then when I hear people being dismissive of you, it upsets me.
	It upsets me.
	And I see how you arm them.
	I feel that you arm them by, in their language, deadnaming Elliot Page.
	And I feel like, why would you do that?
	It isn't necessary.
	It isn't necessary.
	Of course, the statistics you've cited about the Tavistock Clinic appear to speak for themselves.
	Is there a way that we can handle this that would be more akin to how we might imagine Christ would handle it?
	Otherwise, what's the point of Christianity?
	What's the point of Christianity if we're not going to embody Christ in our behavior?
	Hmm. Yeah, as I've mentioned before, the turning to Christianity thing is not new.
	Russell had already been on that tip for years, since at least 2018.
	Though one could argue his making it official and being baptized by Bear Grylls was something more calculated in light of the allegations against him.
	In any case, when it comes to this issue, other than describing Jordan Peterson as being full of love, which is something I vehemently disagree with, I otherwise agree with most of the things Russell is saying there.
	And this is just two and a half years ago, right?
	Like, we should prioritize compassion, kindness, and love.
	We shouldn't be striking out at others.
	Anger creates more opposition.
	Intentionally deadnaming Elliot Page was clearly inflammatory and arming Jordan Peterson's opponents, as well as like, hey, even if I don't fully understand it, I want Elliot...
	All good things.
	The whole Tavistock clinic thing, by the way, is because there was one clinic in the UK that was directed at care for trans kids specifically, and the alt-right got all fucking up in arms about them prescribing puberty blockers, despite those things literally just delaying puberty and having entirely reversible effects,
	as well as those same drugs being merrily prescribed to cis people without any problems.
	But anyway, that whole fuss led...
	To the closure of the Tavistock Clinic and then the Cass Review, which is bigoted to its very core, and the continued banning of puberty blockers in the UK, which is having, well, towards trans kids specifically, which is having real-world detrimental effects on trans kids everywhere in the UK right now.
	Russell could serve to be a little bit more incredulous of the people he's interviewing.
	But, as demonstrated many times, he pretty much just believes whatever they tell him, even when it's plainly coming from a position of bad faith and bigotry.
	Which... Honestly makes a lot of sense, because when he was doing his whole interview thing through Lumos, he was interviewing famous people and whatever else, and he was increasingly having conversations that were supposed to be more combative with people from the alt-right.
	Given how much we've seen of him just being like, yeah, whatever you say, I'm gonna believe it.
	Like, I'm like, yeah, it's not terribly surprising that you started talking to much more people on the alt-right, believing everything they told you without fucking fact-checking it, and then you've ended up here.
	Like, yeah, I think that's part of this tapestry of bullshit.
	Anyway. Let's keep that clip in mind and compare the Russell of two and a half years ago to the Russell of present day.
	So here is Russell playing the clip from last week tonight with John Oliver to begin with, and it opens with some commentary from sports scientist Joanna Harper.
	Let's have a look at Isaac's item this week, which is trans women in sports, where we're going to see a whole bunch of stuff.
	Let's get into it before.
	Before we have APAC on phones, is Thomas Massey still okay?
	Here she is explaining what we do and don't know at this point.
	It is undoubtedly true that trans women will maintain advantages in some sports.
	Probably not so much in endurance sports, but in size and strength sports.
	Trans women will also have...
	Some physiological disadvantages.
	Our larger frames are now being powered by reduced muscle mass and reduced aerobic capacity, and that can lead to disadvantages in terms of, like, quickness, recovery, endurance, things that maybe aren't quite as obvious as being bigger and stronger.
	Right, bigger and stronger bodies are not automatically advantaged in every scenario.
	I mean, put the rock in a purebar class and see what happens.
	I mean...
	We know what would happen.
	He'd take a video of himself, caption it, mad respect to these mamas, everyone go see Moana too, and try to use it to sell his tequila before eating 13,000 pancakes and drinking a cow.
	We know what would happen.
	But the degree of difference here matters because we expect a certain amount of difference in athletics.
	taller basketball players are expected to compete against shorter ones, faster soccer players compete against slower ones.
	Michael Phelps was allowed to compete with other swimmers despite being part dolphin.
	And crucially, none of the studies I've mentioned so far bear much relevance to what these new laws target.
	It's interesting this because I really admire John Oliver as a stand-up comedian a lot.
	I think he's really, really funny and I think he's brilliant and I think he's for real.
	That is a weird thing to say, given that Russell didn't so much as crack a smile during that clip.
	He sat stone-faced the entire time.
	Even if you're a bigot, that bit about The Rock is objectively funny.
	Now... I went and watched this full show.
	It was one of the rare instances where the research for OnBrand actually led me to something entertaining and informative.
	And I like John Oliver anyway, so that does help.
	The full show is very interesting and nuanced, and I highly recommend people go watch it if you want to be better informed on the debate around trans people in sports, particularly in the US.
	There were some key takeaways from that episode for me.
	Among those being that, as covered in the clip Russell played, bigger and stronger bodies do not have advantages in every sport.
	There are crucial differences between a cis man and a cis woman competing compared to a trans woman and a cis woman competing, given that there is usually extensive monitoring of trans athletes' hormone levels, among other things.
	But the broader point of the show is to address what is happening in the U.S. right now in terms of laws against trans kids.
	And that is where Russell cut the clip off.
	Before John Oliver could get to his point about how the essential outlawing of trans kids from sports in a lot of states is going to do a lot of harm and will likely result in trans kids feeling yet more isolated and ostracized from society than they already do.
	just a casual reminder for everyone the
	What was it?
	A member of LGBTQ plus youth in the US attempts suicide every 45 seconds.
	So that's between the ages of 14 to 24. Every 45 seconds.
	And they're looking to make that number smaller if possible.
	That's the effect this is going to have.
	So Russell, cut that off there.
	And in doing so, separated this topic out from the real-world harms being done.
	He's now able to talk about it in the abstract without ever having to actually confront just how discriminatory and harmful the laws against trans kids actually are.
	Which is very convenient, because Donald Trump, who Russell ardently supports, has been the one pushing all of these laws with his executive order and insistence that he will withhold federal funding from universities who allow trans athletes to participate.
	It's a marked and obvious case of government overreach enforcing an ideology upon the entire country with literal threats, but Russell doesn't have to talk about that now because he cut the clip off early enough.
	Almost like it was intentional.
	Hmm. Alright, so let's get to Russell's actual assessment of the situation, where unfortunately a former guest who has been on his show is brought into things, but he can't quite remember her name.
	Watching here, there's a kind of rejection that there could be indefatigable and absolutely static categories, and male and female would qualify as static categories.
	And that's drawn, yes, from biology, as I learned some time ago, that at the cellular level there is a distinction, just almost every component of anatomy.
	But more importantly...
	And certainly it seems to me relevant, but the culture has always had categories for male and female sport.
	Like we've just always known, well, you know, if you are playing tennis against a man, not that, you know, not like people that are mediocre at stuff.
	I was, when I was talking to like that brilliant MMA fighter, what was her name that was in?
	Rousey. Oh, it wasn't Rousey.
	It was the lady that was in The Mandalorian.
	Yeah, Gina Corona.
	Like, Gina Corona, I mean, she's so beautiful, it's sort of difficult to even think straight, but, like, I feel like she would probably kick the ass out of...
	If you were an MMA fighter, you'd know how to rip people to bits, right?
	A hundred percent.
	A hundred percent.
	But the difference is, is that, you know, put her up against, you know, somebody, you know, like Conor McGregor, and, you know...
	Well, like, you don't have...
	Why have categories, I suppose, is the word.
	Yeah, you break everything down at that point.
	You also have age-related categories, don't you, for sport?
	You have weight-related categories for sport.
	I mean, there's sort of various ways of introducing taxonomy.
	Poor Gina Carano.
	Relegated to being Gina Corona, according to Russell, and being beaten up by Conor McGregor in an imaginary scenario from Isaac.
	Tough day for her.
	Though that is more or less where my sympathy ends.
	So, firstly...
	Male and female are not static categories, and you really need only speak to a biologist to come to that conclusion.
	This is very clearly some intersex erasure happening here, not surprising.
	And in my experience, biologists are the ones most frequently up in arms about people saying that sex is a binary between male and female.
	Really pisses them off because it's just factually incorrect.
	But when it comes to sports, like, Russell raised an interesting point there.
	Like, why have categories at all?
	And for the record, that is something I'm...
	All in favor of.
	Gender-neutral sports leagues has the potential to be a fucking great idea if handled correctly.
	Though I get the feeling that's not what Russell was advocating for.
	I think his mention of it was more stemming from an idea of like, well, if you can't have male and female, why have anything then?
	And then a broader defense of further categorizing athletes by, you know.
	Age or weight class or whatever.
	I will say, out of all those he mentioned, when it comes to combat sports, you do kind of need weight classes.
	That's pretty essential.
	It's where that whole hypothetical of Muhammad Ali versus Bruce Lee comes in, where like, yeah, Bruce Lee was quick, but because of body weight and power, if Ali so much as clipped him with a punch, Lee would have been out of the count.
	So like, sure, some categories are necessary, but some are much less necessary.
	And beyond that, one of the chief reasons male and female sport have been separated for so long...
	is that it was for a long time considered improper for women to do pretty much any kind of sports at all.
	And you only have to go back to like the 1960s and 70s to see a time when doctors legitimately believed that if a woman ran for more than three miles, her uterus would fall out.
	I wish I was kidding.
	Plus, like, this way, you also have the separation of funding in sports, where female sports teams are consistently underfunded compared to their male counterparts across the board throughout the world.
	There is so much misogyny wrapped up in this discussion.
	Now, the argument thus far has been a little bit confused and muddied from Russell, so now he's got to truly bring the culture war to the forefront of this whole thing.
	And I reckon in a way, it's obviously part of a broader project, which we saw oddly in an adjacent, an event that's adjacent to sport, the Olympics opening ceremony, where it became clear that there's a kind of agenda to create bewilderment and the disintegration of certainty that comes with ideas like tribe,
	family, male, women.
	Male, female.
	These are sort of like archetypal forces that go beyond the individual and to sort of to reform them categories or at least even to deny that those categories there or to use science as that item attempted to to sort of equivocate on whether or not those differences even exist.
	It's pretty disingenuous and odd.
	Ha! So...
	A couple of years ago trans people were to be respected, even if you didn't fully understand them, whereas today the existence of trans people in relation to categories of sex and gender is disingenuous and odd, and not only that, but part of an agenda to create bewilderment and a disintegration of certainty within society.
	Trans people are part of the globalist agenda now, according to Russell, which feels like a marked shift compared to where he was not that long ago.
	So from here we get to a clip of Serena Williams and whether she thinks that she'd be able to beat the top male tennis players, though before that Russell does have to dedicate a moment or two to getting all horny over her.
	Yeah, I agree.
	And that's why I put in that Serena Williams clip, which is like the next one down after John Oliver, because she covers that exact same idea that you just brought up.
	When I talk shows, I think it was Serena Williams.
	So it's Venus Williams as well.
	I'm pretty sure it was Serena Williams.
	Let me see when this clip starts.
	And I was thinking it was not about tennis.
	Let me tell you, I was a younger man.
	I was single.
	It was a different time.
	Not so different as it's sometimes played.
	Actually, it's funny because Andy Murray...
	Yeah, that's up.
	Murray, he was been joking about myself and him playing a match.
	And I'm like, Andy, seriously, like, are you kidding me?
	Because for me, tennis and men's tennis and women's tennis are completely almost two separate sports.
	So I'm like, if I were to play Andy Murray, I would lose 6-0, 6-0.
	Five to six minutes, maybe ten minutes.
	No, it's true.
	Honestly, really?
	It's a completely different sport.
	The men are a lot faster, and they serve harder, they hit harder.
	It's just a different game.
	And I love to play women's tennis.
	I only want to play girls because I don't want to be embarrassed.
	I would not do the tour.
	I wouldn't do Billie Jean any justice.
	So, Andy, stop it.
	I'm not going to let you kill me.
	Why was this ever even politicized?
	Why have we generated a tension between men and women?
	Of course, it's something that we've always joked about, like in marriages or whatever.
	Oh, men, aren't they dumb?
	Oh, women.
	Like, we make sort of light-hearted, colloquial, vernacular gags about the differences between men and women.
	But the simple truth is that we are a centrifugal and centripetal force that have to operate in absolute harmony with one another, that we're here to love and align with one another, that it ought to be some sort of joyous sort of...
	Sexist fest to say that Venus Williams is not as good as a mediocre tennis player.
	Yeah, that's like because it's sort of a whole set of categories, ideas.
	It's an endocrinal, psychological, anatomical, biological competition that's not really even worth measuring.
	Now... There's a number of things to tackle here, but first, I have to say, as someone with even a passing interest in tennis, describing Andy Murray as a mediocre tennis player is fucking insane.
	He was in 2016 literally the number one tennis player in the world.
	I could understand why Serena Williams in that clip might have some reservations about going up against him, particularly as that clip was from an interview on David Letterman's show in 2013, right?
	That's how far we're fucking...
	Searching back for this shit at this stage.
	At that point, Andy Murray had won the Olympic gold and won Wimbledon, where he beat Novak Djokovic, and he was at that time ranked third in the world.
	Again. Utterly insane.
	And my inexpert assessment remains that Serena Williams, or Venus Williams, could thoroughly destroy a mediocre male tennis player if that match occurred.
	But I do want to address the point that Serena raised there where the sports of female tennis and male tennis seem very different to play.
	Now, tennis is a sport where height, reach, and strength make a difference.
	But between the male and female divisions, there are also key differences in technique and, for lack of a better phrase, style of play.
	There is much less of a focus on power in the female game and much more of a focus on tactics and psychology.
	There are also systemic differences between the two games when it comes to the slams, for instance, where the men's matches will have five sets and the women's matches will have three.
	So, like, the men have to train more for endurance than the women might, for instance.
	And, of course, the women are training to face off against female opponents.
	They haven't trained to go up against male players in most cases.
	And so, like, they're going to be coming at the match.
	If there was a matchup between the two, which there sometimes are, right?
	If they were coming at that match, it would be from fundamentally different perspectives and approaches.
	Though, to put the whole power thing to bed to a degree, at the 2015 US Open, Serena Williams hit a 126mph serve.
	That was one mile per hour faster than the men's champion at that time, Novak Djokovic.
	In 2008, Roger Federer hit a 129mph serve in his infamous match against Nadal.
	Venus Williams faced off against Serena Williams that year, and in that match, Venus also hit a 129 mph serve.
	So, like, it is more nuanced than one might think.
	And I, for one, would be fascinated to see a gender-neutral league emerge in tennis, because my suspicion is that the women would do one hell of a lot better than people seem to think.
	Well, I say that.
	Than men seem to think.
	Because the average man seems to believe that they could score a point against Serena Williams in a game of tennis.
	And I'm like, people are fucking absurd.
	Oh dear.
	Oh dear.
	But yeah, for real.
	If you gave a gender-neutral tennis league some time to get itself together, I think there would be not that much between the two, personally.
	Now... All of this conversation is very interesting, but unfortunately it is a bit besides the point, because again, we're not talking about cis men going up against cis women like what Serena Williams was discussing.
	We're talking about trans women going up against cis women, and that is fundamentally different from a biological standpoint, and there is ultimately no conclusive evidence to prove that trans women have an advantage over cis women in sports.
	Again, watch that John Oliver piece.
	They go through it in more detail.
	It's great.
	Oh, and I don't want to move on without answering Russell's question.
	He asked, why have we generated a tension between men and women?
	And I would like to turn that around and say, I don't know, Russell.
	Why does the patriarchy exist?
	Why don't you tell me?
	You seem as good a representative of it as anyone out there benefiting from inherently misogynistic systems of power, so do tell me why there might be a tension between men and women on the whole.
	Like, this isn't a new issue.
	Like, should we discuss the pay gap, equal rights, or lack thereof?
	Pick a subject and we can really explore why there might be some tension in the world between men and women.
	Fuck me.
	So... Naturally, after a good bunch of stoking conflict around this issue of trans people, Russell must ask why it is everyone stoking conflict around this issue.
	The conversation that I'm interested in having is, why are we continually stoking and generating conflict in areas that are designed around harmony?
	Life itself is created as a result of the union between men and women.
	Ideally, my prayer is as a result of the act of love.
	Anyone that's in a family, married to a partner they love, whether you're a husband or a wife, raising children, recognize that you are part of the great alchemy of reality.
	And when Miyazaki says it's sacred to create things, that there's a pain in it, of course there's a pain.
	There's a tension to go that near glory.
	To be that near the wings of the fallen angels, to experience the lightning, to know what it is to move in a world where there are forces vast, diverse and conflicting, and yet to find within it love and creativity like he that created us is a holy thing indeed.
	And to get locked up and baffled and confused and befuddled in the mad and giddy mixture that can occur when you claim that all there is is matter and man and woman and men are better than this and women are better at that is a kind of...
	It's a kind of ridiculous false dichotomy, if you ask me.
	And it's not the kind of thing we should be focusing on.
	We should be focusing on holy union.
	We should be revering, honoring, celebrating, and loving one another, not worrying about whether a vagina makes you better or worse at tennis.
	I know that I'd find one very distracting.
	Gross. Thanks, Russell.
	And I do mean gross in more than one sense.
	If that Miyazaki reference seemed to come out of nowhere, it's because elsewhere in this episode, Russell covered Hayao Miyazaki condemning the theft of his work to create AI renderings in a Studio Ghibli style, which...
	Loads of people seem to be doing at the moment.
	Stop doing that.
	It is theft, by the way.
	As well as the concept of AI art itself.
	He is very much against.
	So now Russell is trying to use those words to advance a theocratic, fundamentally bigoted agenda.
	And in that clip, he was also essentially conflating the notion of trans people and secularism, which is incredibly dumb.
	Because, like, there are plenty of religious trans folks out there, some of which listen to this show.
	But Russell making that conflation leans into the idea that secularism and rationalism created trans people and created conflict in doing so, and really what we should all be focusing on is holy union and getting with God.
	For context, Russell has long argued that the Age of Enlightenment, rationalism, and secularism have been the downfall of society at large.
	According to him, that's where we all went wrong, and now he's considering trans people to be a byproduct of that downfall.
	Oh boy.
	So from here, we're going to skip forward a bit as I have to address the news from yesterday that in the UK, the Supreme Court ruled that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex.
	The reason I very much have to cover this is that Russell decided to make it the main subject of his show for the day, simply entitled Trans Women Not Legally Women, Supreme Court declares.
	And the thumbnail used for this is a couple of pictures of the anti-trans activists celebrating outside the courthouse and Russell grinning like a fucking idiot.
	Tonally, it looks very much like gloating, and it's gross.
	In any case, we're going to look at how Russell actually responded to it on the show, starting with this clip here, where he will be reading from the New York Times.
	Let's have a look at today's main story.
	It's that a UK Supreme Court has said that trans women are not legally women under the Equality Act.
	Let me know what you think about that in the comments and chat.
	Is that plain old common sense?
	Or is that...
	A transgression against a vulnerable minority.
	Let me know.
	The Supreme Court in Britain ruled on Wednesday that trans women do not fall within the legal definition of women under the country's equality legislation.
	The landmark judgment which said that the legal definition of women is based on biological sex is a blow to campaigners for transgender rights.
	It could have far-reaching consequences for how the law is applied in Britain to some single-sex services like domestic violence shelters as well as to equal pay claims and maternity policies.
	Fitting that Russell is reading from a paper that has merrily published anti-trans screeds among its pages.
	Anyway, I did want to briefly explain what this ruling is, why it happened, and what effects it's likely to have in the UK.
	Here is a brief summary from the BBC.
	Quote... The Supreme Court has ruled that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex in a decision which could have far-reaching implications for who can access single-sex services and spaces.
	It came about after the Scottish Government included transgender women in quotas to ensure gender balance on public sector boards.
	Campaign group For Women Scotland argued that sex-based protection should only apply to people who were born female.
	The judges were tasked with deciding on the correct interpretation of sex and woman in the main piece of legislation setting out sex-based legal protections.
	Specifically, they ruled that the definition of sex as used in the Equality Act of 2010 is binary and decided by biology.
	A person who was not born as a biological female cannot obtain the legal protections the Act affords to women by changing their gender with a gender recognition certificate." It's bad.
	It's real bad.
	I'm not going to lie to you.
	It's real bad.
	And now I'm going to read some commentary from Blatt.
	BLAT, the Bristol Leads Against Transphobia group.
	Quote... The UK Supreme Court has ruled that under the Equality Act, the word woman refers solely to someone assigned female at birth.
	Trans women, even those with a gender recognition certificate, are not legally recognized as women under that law.
	The case centered on a legal challenge to a Scottish law that included trans women with GRCs, gender recognition certificates, in public board quotas.
	The claim was that this conflicted with the Equality Act's definition of woman.
	And the court sided with that argument.
	Trans voices were notably absent from the case.
	No trans organizations were granted permission to intervene.
	Victoria McLeod, a retired judge and one of the most senior openly trans legal figures in the UK, applied to offer her perspective and was refused.
	She later said, the only affected group was excluded.
	This ruling strips away key protections.
	Trans people who've gone through the long, intrusive GRC process are now being told your legal sex doesn't count when it comes to rights, representation, or protection under equality law.
	It raised a serious question.
	If a GRC doesn't legally change your sex under the very legislation it was designed to work alongside, what is it for?
	The decision makes gender recognition feel symbolic, not substantive.
	The Equality Act already recognized that trans people should be able to access single-sex spaces aligned with their gender.
	Exclusion was only ever meant to happen where proportionate and justifiable.
	This ruling undermines that whole framework.
	The court suggested that recognizing a GRC for Equality Act purposes would cut across sex-based protections, implying that rights must exist in silos.
	But this ignores the real world.
	Protected characteristics often intersect.
	People live at the overlap of multiple identities, such as being trans and disabled, or black and non-binary.
	Legal protections must reflect that complexity, not erase it.
	While the court claimed that trans people remain protected under gender reassignment, that offers limited reassurance.
	Without legal recognition of sex, those protections are harder to rely on and easier to challenge or deny in practice.
	This isn't about clarity.
	It's about narrowing who gets counted and who gets left out.
	For over 20 years, trans people have been legally recognized.
	For 15 years, we've had Equality Act protections.
	This ruling disrupts both.
	This isn't a Scottish issue, it will affect how the Equality Act is interpreted across the UK and risks setting a precedent that could be used to justify broader rollbacks on trans rights."
	Agreed. Now, I do have another point to add to all of this.
	The campaign group who've led this whole thing...
	Four women Scotland have had their case funded by none other than J.K. Rowling, who is currently gloating and celebrating on X alongside all the other fucking bigots.
	I know many people who disagree vehemently with J.K. Rowling's views, but still have affection for the Harry Potter franchise.
	And well, if any of you wondered how bad it could be just watching the movies on streaming services or playing the games, J.K. Rowling still makes a fortune from those today.
	And this is how that money is being spent.
	If you have a conscience and support trans people, do not consume work that J.K. Rowling can profit from.
	If you really feel the need, try your luck sailing the seven seas.
	Give that a go.
	See what you find.
	Just do not give money to this absolute atrocity of a human being because this is what she'll do with it.
	And as for what we can do about all of this here in the UK, well...
	The Supreme Court is the Supreme Court, so there's no way to appeal it.
	So what has to be changed is the legislation itself.
	That we can do something about.
	Now is the time to organize.
	Join up with your local and national trans advocacy groups.
	Badger your local MPs and work towards getting the Equal Rights Act amended or having new legislation introduced to provide proper protections for trans people in this country.
	It's going to be a long, tough road here on Turf Island, but I do believe we can get there.
	Also, reach out to all of your trans homies.
	Like, just check in.
	Because, you know, tough times likely ahead.
	Now, let's get to Russell's assessment of things.
	Though first he has to take issue with the New York Times' coverage of it.
	What's interesting about this piece of analysis is you can already see the biases.
	Because biological sex, if you're going to have biology as a discipline and as a subject, if you're going to use science as an orthodoxy, for example, in the way that it was used during the pandemic, do you remember how we were told to follow the science?
	Do you remember that?
	Do you remember that we were meant to put aside ideological beliefs?
	Like, what about our freedom to move around?
	No, no, no, put that aside because the science says that we have to keep still and stay in our home to stop these pathogens.
	And then we found out, hold on a minute, they're not telling the bleeding truth.
	So, check this out.
	The subject it points out Are transgender rights, okay, like minority groups are potentially vulnerable amidst heterogyny because they could be washed aside.
	Their rights could be lost.
	Look at this.
	It could have far-reaching consequences for how the law is applied in Britain to some single-sex services like domestic violence shelters.
	It draws your attention, this piece of analysis, straight away to circumstances where you would want, say, like, in this...
	Hypothetical situation being conjured up by the New York Times.
	There's a trans woman who's being beaten up and she's being denied access to a single-sex domestic violence shelter.
	Why would you bring up something so highly particular?
	Trans issues are ultimately human rights issues.
	That, I agree with.
	Or human rights.
	All human beings have rights because we are made in the image of God.
	If you are sort of extremely devout and living a very devout life yourself, you might say, well, then how can you tamper with and tinker with the biological realities as endowed by the Creator?
	And I would say probably the principle of non-judgment and the principle of love must take precedent in any situation where you're not dealing with yourself personally, when you're dealing with other people.
	But if you have to conjure up in order to get a moral argument together, An even more intricate and granular example of a trans woman who's being domestically abused, being denied access to a single-sex domestic shelter, it seems like is a pretty niche issue.
	And at the level of law, it seems more important and significant that biological categories continue to be observed, I would say.
	Again, biologists will be the first people to tell you you're wrong about this, Russell.
	And what he's describing as an intricate and granular example to make a moral argument is actually just a very probable consequence of what this ruling means.
	It's describing how the law is going to affect trans people when being excluded from these spaces, single-sex spaces, which will include domestic violence shelters.
	That's not reaching far for a conclusion.
	That's a very likely consequence of this.
	So, maybe it's not that crazy an idea.
	One thing I am somewhat curious about, by the way, is that, well, this ruling, disagree with it, though I absolutely do, it means that definitionally...
	Trans men who were assigned female at birth are now allowed into women's only spaces.
	Because, by this ridiculous definition, trans men are apparently still female.
	So, like...
	If you don't know many trans men, most of them tend to skew pretty heavily towards the masculine, with great facial hair and all sorts.
	Despite my being non-binary, I do present in a relatively masculine way a lot of the time, and in my experience, many trans men are far more masculine than I have ever been.
	So I would be really interested to see how Protect Women Scotland would respond to trans men appearing in women's only spaces, because they would just be following the left.
	Hmm. Now,
	from here, naturally, where Russell lands on this whole thing is that everybody needs to get with God.
	Then equal pay claims and maternity policies.
	I don't know how it can affect maternity policies because you cannot believe your way into a uterus.
	Trans men have them, you dick.
	It was a years-long legal battle that began in Scotland over whether trans women can be regarded as female under Britain's 2010 Equality Act, which aims to prevent discrimination, and it comes amid intent.
	and at times bitter public debate over the intersection of transgender rights and women's rights.
	Announcing the decision on Wednesday, the Deputy President of the Court, Lord Hodges, said, the unanimous decision of this court is that the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act refer to biological women and biological sex.
	So, in a sense, it's quite a particular judgment of our very particular subject.
	But doesn't it point to the fact that we are morally lost and morally bewildered?
	How has this bewilderment...
	From what principles have we strayed and what input have we accepted that's generated this crisis of understanding and faith?
	Let's get into it, because at some point you have to accept and respect the rights of feminists, and at some point you have to consider...
	That all human life is sacred.
	If you start to query those ideas, start to pick them apart and pull them apart because you don't really believe in anything, and that you can nominate any ideology, that you can decorate a pantheon with deities of your own choosing, it's very,
	very difficult to find a constellation of moral principles by which to guide your ship.
	And I think that what's happening now is that we are in a total...
	Ethical and moral crisis.
	Some people are returning to a straightforward faith in God.
	Other people are delving yet more deeply into the dark, perjured terms of a set of curiously rational, but also berserk conjecture that the modern culture is creating.
	Huh. So now trans people are being equated with delving into dark, turgid terms of curiously rational and berserk conjecture that the modern culture has created.
	Again, leaning into the idea that trans people are a byproduct of secularism, which has in of itself caused the downfall of society and left us morally lost and bewildered.
	Russell very clearly believes that trans people existing is a byproduct of evil.
	He has at other moments described secularism as a Luciferian project.
	Regardless what other performative shit he says about love and acceptance and non-judgment, Russell is not an ally to the LGBTQ + community.
	In literally...
	Anyway, within the last couple of years, I've watched him give performative pushback towards Jordan Peterson and Candace Owens' bigotry against trans people, but over the course of the last year especially, that has evaporated.
	Though he doesn't seem to have the balls to come out and say it, Russell is on their side in this discussion.
	In other news, Russell, like many alt-right commentators, doesn't seem to realize trans men exist.
	And also, I absolutely do not have to respect the rights of trans-exclusionary feminists.
	They are harmful bastards peddling in fascist ideology, and I have absolutely no time for it, nor will I ever respect it for even a microsecond of my day.
	Now then.
	We're going to move back to the final moments of last week's Thursday show, because I didn't want to leave everyone with feelings of being bummed out over this particular topic, because it isn't fun, let's be honest.
	So we'll move to a subject I truly didn't expect to cover, as it's not exactly hard-hitting or recent news.
	But first, for those wondering about the whole David Icke feud and that situation, we do have an update.
	Now, look, all of us, we are standing on the shoulders of giants, whether they have fallen from heaven or not.
	And as well as David Icke, who's coming on the show pretty soon, I'm honored to say.
	I can't wait.
	I know he's going to give me a hard time because he never stopped bullying me on X. Popcorn at the ready, everyone.
	Icke vs.
	Brand will be coming to a screen near you very soon.
	I personally cannot wait.
	Oh, it's gonna be fun.
	Again, fuck David Icke, but it will hopefully be satisfying to watch him tear Russell a new one, because he is quite good at that as well.
	And he seems to have Russell pegged, so that'll be something.
	It's nice to have things to look forward to, is all I'm saying.
	Anyway, as I mentioned, we'll be getting to some non-recent, non-urgent news, and specifically...
	Russell wanted to listen to a parody song about Alex Jones.
	For those in the know, yes it is that one.
	It's by Nick Lutzko from five years ago and the lyrics are made up of quotes from Alex Jones with the music in the style of an indie folk song.
	Here is Russell introducing it and playing an initial portion from it.
	We have to say that one of the early augurs, avatars, and initiators of the online space in which we currently operate is Alex Jones.
	I remember when I first saw this, folks.
	You may have seen it already.
	I was like, I don't think I...
	Well, I knew Alex Jones.
	I'd already met him.
	I didn't sort of love him the way that I do now.
	That great, muscular, hench, husky, new version of post-Sandy Hook settlement, Alex Jones, Infowars.
	You can infowarm me, baby.
	Have a look at this of Alex Jones.
	I love this folk song version of Alex Jones' rants.
	I particularly like how he said,"She literally stinks.
	She stinks of fuss for us." Let's have a look.
	And that's why we're just out here doing simple things, pointing out that we're meant to be in nature and be natural.
	And this is where we find the source that God made.
	You can really see the good intentions of what Alex Jones was doing there, isn't it?
	What you know what we should do is just go out into nature.
	You know?
	Getting all too much into these supplements and talking all the time about Illuminati and reptilian beings.
	Let's just go out and show people what we're supposed to be doing and get in a goddamn lake.
	Even that sort of makes him angry.
	It's almost like the two feelings that Alex feels comfortable expressing are joy and rage, and there is basically no middle ground.
	Interestingly, Russell's first appearance on Infowars was actually way back in 2013, and he's spoken of listening to Alex Jones back when Russell was still using drugs, which would be way back before, like, 2002.
	Nonetheless, he apparently loves post-Sandy Hook settlement Alex Jones even more, which is, um, revealing.
	Like, if you learn the extent of the truly awful things that Alex Jones has said and done, and it makes you love him more, that really does say a lot about you.
	It really does.
	Now, I don't want to be playing much of this track, because, you know, it would strain the meaning of fair use, and this is very much Nick Lutzko's property, so let me read the relevant Alex Jones quote out, which prefaces what Russell is about to say.
	Quote. I'm angry.
	I've had enough of these people.
	They're a bunch of Christian murdering scum that run giant death factories keeping babies alive and selling their body parts.
	What more do you need to know about these people?
	I go out and face these scum.
	They literally crawl out from under rocks.
	They have green-looking skin and they run around screaming, We love Satan.
	We want to eat babies.
	I have them on video.
	Unquote. Still haven't seen that video, by the way.
	And that quote leads to Russell saying this.
	Doesn't make me like him less, you know?
	The stuff about the babies being kept alive is, like, actually true.
	Sorry. The bit about Christian murdering scum running giant death factories and keeping babies alive and selling their body parts is true, is it?
	Okay! This particular conspiracy theory has tendrils going way back, but I would say has been popularized with the rise of QAnon, with the idea that people like Hillary Clinton are keeping babies alive so they can drink something called adrenochrome from the baby's blood.
	There's a lot more, but...
	But that's the broad stroke here that's relevant.
	And Russell seems to be entirely on board with this concept.
	Like, I do not think he was joking there.
	He seems to have been at least marginally pilled by the QAnon side of things.
	Yep, yep, that tracks.
	Now, I'm going to include the last lines of the song for context, because it does pretty accurately display at least a fraction of the uglier side of Alex Jones' content, where he is demonizing migrants and Muslims.
	It says, quote, Millions are pouring in, people of the very worst type, and I'm so pissed.
	We're going to stab your daughter at the mall.
	We're going to stab your wife and son.
	We're going to stab you with a butcher knife.
	And then the police chief is going to say, we love our Somalis.
	We love our Muslims.
	Oh, they're so good.
	Oh, they're so sweet.
	Unquote. And let's hear Russell's response to it.
	That is good stuff.
	That's good creativity from...
	Alex Jones and from the people that made that, it's a very, very beautiful collaboration.
	They should work together more.
	It's a good song.
	It's lovely.
	You can tell that it's not a favourable or loving take.
	It's so good.
	Yeah, you can tell it's not a loving take because it's pointing out Alex's bigotries and just how ridiculous he can sound all in the same breath.
	I love Nick Lutzko's work, but this song does sit as an unfortunate example of how alt-right shitheads can use even comedy that paints them in a negative light to their own benefit.
	Alex himself will sometimes sing this song on air, because fundamentally it's made up of quotes from him and he stands by what he said.
	And then people like Russell can watch it and go, oh, that Alex Jones, isn't he such a character?
	So where you and I might see evidence of a bigoted shithead...
	Others can feel endeared.
	Yeah, it's a tricky line to walk.
	All that said, you should go and listen to Nick Lutzko's latest album, by the way, because it is fucking sublime.
	As well as he did a video recently with a hundred different animators that is fantastic.
	But yeah, there we go.
	We're going to close it out with some defensive Alex Jones.
	That's because...
	I mean, I wish it weren't so frequent.
	That's where I'm at.
	But there we go.
	That is the show, everybody.
	I hope it hasn't been too harrowing.
	I know the subject matter is less than fun in terms of what we're having to tackle this week, especially dealing with real-world harms and their consequences.
	But it is important to track where this guy sits on all of this stuff, because it is evolving in a very negative way.
	In any case, that's the show, everybody.
	If you want to support OnBrand, head to patreon.com slash OnBrand, where you can access additional content.
	I'd love to have you there.
	Otherwise, I will see everyone next Thursday for what will be a very special horror show of an episode with a returning guest.
	But in the meantime...
	Take care of yourselves and each other.
	Reach out to your trans homies.
	And thank you very much.
	I love you.
	Bye! Alright.
	I'm going to finish now because I'm hungry and I want to eat something.

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