WTW102: What It's Like Being the Center of a Culture War
Logan was an out trans man serving children of servicemembers overseas as their pediatrician until the Trump Administration targeted trans folks in the military. Now that Logan has safely discharged, we're honored to have him join us to talk about the entire experience. If you enjoy our work, please consider leaving a 5-star review! You can always email questions, comments, and leads to lydia@seriouspod.com. Please pretty please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com/wherethereswoke!
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Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism and you see woke principles being pushed.
Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic can sound.
The woke monster is here and it's coming for everything, Instead of go-go boots, the seductress green Eminem will now wear sneakers.
Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke.
This is episode 102.
I'm Thomas.
That's Lydia.
How you doing?
You know, I'm going to say great today.
How are you?
Wow.
I don't think I could ever say great.
Yeah, I'm really hungry, but that's important for them to know.
That's important for listeners to know.
Someone get me some food.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I am really excited.
And I imagine you are referring to the fact that we have a really cool guest today.
We don't do like a ton of interviews for this show.
We do a few.
We've done a few, I think, more lately.
And when we do, I think they've been really awesome and really key.
And this is someone who reached out to us who is so central to culture war stuff in every aspect of their identity and their work and their everything.
And we just really wanted to give folks, you know, we cover a lot of woke bullshit here and we cover the culture wars and we do debunks.
And this is a chance to really get more of like the human side of the cost of being the target of those kinds of things.
And so I'm really excited for today's show.
Yeah, I agree.
Really excited to talk to Logan, who we'll meet shortly when he joins us here.
But Logan served in the military as a pediatrician and is also a trans man.
And so we get into all of the things regarding how this administration has been targeting trans folks in broader society, but then also specifically in the military as well.
Yeah, so much more to it as well.
I'm excited.
Big thanks again to Logan for reaching out and coming on.
And with that said, why don't we just take our break and get right to it?
So let's do it.
Hey, please support the show and conversations like this, patreon.com slash where there's woke to keep this stuff happening.
I think it's more important now than ever.
I keep saying it and it keeps being true.
So thanks so much to the listeners and supporters who make the show happen.
And we'll take a break and get over to our interview.
Logan, so great to have you on the show with us today.
I know we met at QED and I got some of your backstory.
Yeah, the last QED.
And you had reached out to us as well on Patreon.
But I think where I'd love to start out with is just if you want to introduce yourself to the audience, kind of give a little bit of backstory and why you're here today, because we have a lot to talk about.
Yeah, there's so much.
Yeah.
So it's great to talk to you guys.
I have been a longtime listener of all of your shows.
And so it was interesting.
It was great to get to meet you guys at QED.
For my background, I am a pediatrician.
Up until very, very recently, I did that through the United States Air Force.
So I was an active duty military pediatrician.
I did all my training through the Air Force.
And unfortunately, I am now out because I have been separated as a transgender man.
Basically, they said I can't serve anymore.
And so over the last few months, I have been out-processed from the military and now have to make it on my own.
Wow.
And so I know there's a lot to talk about because I kind of sit in this interesting junction between doing the medical care and being a medical provider, as well as being subject to everything that's going on under this administration.
And we've gotten to the point, just to clarify, where it's that out and out.
It's that like, it's that direct.
It wasn't like anyone was like, hey, maybe you should find another job.
It wasn't, it was just like, nope, trans can't do it.
You're done.
It's like that direct now.
Yeah, absolutely.
So under the way that I joined the military, they paid for my medical school.
So I was supposed to pay back that debt of them paying for my medical education.
And I was supposed to be serving until the summer of 2031 to pay that back.
Wow.
Wow.
And so they actually not only had me, they wanted to separate transgender people bad enough that they actually have waived that debt.
They like ate the cost of their bigotry.
Yeah, that fits.
Yeah.
Wow.
And that's on the taxpayer.
I know.
And like, it just goes to show like how truly dedicated to being pieces of shit they are.
Like it's not, it's not convenience.
Yeah.
It really goes to show like all these arguments about transgender people being expensive.
It's like they just decided to eat.
All of a sudden they turn into the Attenborough that's no longer with us on Jurassic Park.
Like, no expense to be bigots.
You know, I can just, the sky's the limit.
We're currently in this status where the only people who are separated at this point are the ones who quote unquote volunteered to go to get out under this policy.
They are still trying to separate everyone who didn't volunteer.
Why did you opt to volunteer from that respect?
Oh, so you did volunteer.
Maybe I misunderstood.
So it was, were you voluntold or were you?
I was voluntold.
Gotcha.
So, so basically the policy that came out stated that if you, again, quote unquote volunteer to get out, you will leave with any debts waived.
If you make us kick you out, you will owe that debts of training.
Oh, wow.
And so for me, we're talking about like $800,000 to a million dollars.
Oh, my God.
I was going to ask, but I didn't know if that was too personal.
But Jesus Christ.
I mean, that's just.
Oh, my God.
No, no, you were forced out.
On one hand, it's like, I guess you're free of that.
But yeah, that was, you did not have any choice in the matter.
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
So that's why I say, quote unquote, volunteer.
Like it was very much not a, it was a threat, essentially.
Yeah.
Like you will have crippling debt, which will completely ruin your life, like the entire rest of your life.
When people are hit with that kind of debt related to something, like, oh, my God.
But yeah.
So the people who are like, people are staying and fighting, but obviously they are not people who are in my situation.
Right.
That's very different.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's the same kind of thing about like, you know, taking into account the level of risk that you as an individual are able to take on and that all the fighting that we can do is worth it.
It's just going to look different for everybody.
Like, I guess this is another example of that, right?
Where those folks have a little bit of privilege in that they, you know, don't owe as much or they're, they're pretty much paid off.
Yeah, like relative privilege, I guess.
Yeah, exactly.
So, so they can kind of carry that mantle a little bit, whereas others who don't have that privilege had to, you know, make a different determination.
Yeah.
There's also a big difference in like, with me getting out, I have a career that I can easily jump into.
Like I'm a P, I'm a fully trained pediatrician and I'm very employable.
Whereas we've got a lot of people in the military who are in jobs that just don't exist outside of the military.
Right.
Famously, you know, veterans don't like do amazing often in our country.
And it's like probably part of the reason, right?
Yeah.
So there's just a lot of different nuances in the positions of people, again, taking the quote unquote voluntary separation versus trying to go through the process that they're kind of building the plane under them as they go on how they're getting people out.
Wow.
Are you keeping in touch with anyone with people who are kind of fighting who are taking a different route?
To some extent, there is a large organization, Sparta, that is like the transgender active duty organization.
And so I see a lot of people on there who are fighting, kind of trying to figure out what this is going on.
And then I do know a number of people from my most recent duty station who are in that position, including people who are in a position of the Air Force basically tried to screw over a bunch of folks under this policy, like even more so than the baseline.
It got a little reported in the news, but basically they initially said that people who had been serving for 15 to 18 years might be eligible to get early retirement benefits, which makes a big difference for folks.
And then kind of out of nowhere, after some people already had orders, they suddenly pulled that back and went, oh, no, no one gets this for the Air Force.
And so there's a legal case going on right now.
And I know a couple of people involved in that who are trying to fight and say like that was just arbitrarily decided and unconstitutional.
Yeah, bait and switch.
Wow.
Is that a case like we could we could follow?
Or I don't know if this, if military stuff is any different.
Yeah, that's an actual legal case.
I know that it was filed.
There's a like 17 or 19 people who are in that position who filed a case.
And I've seen the postings about it on some of the media pages.
Oh, yeah, we should track that down.
Yeah, we should, we should keep track of that.
Yeah.
So can I ask just, you know, like going back a little bit in terms of background, why the connection to the military or, or I guess, which came first?
Did you want to be a doctor and then why via the military route?
Or did you want to be part of the military and then found love, the career or whatever in medicine?
What was that journey like?
I was planning on becoming a doctor before I thought about joining the military, essentially.
When I was looking for options for medical school, I stumbled across the pathway that I eventually took, which is a university called Uniformed Services University.
The easiest way to think about it is West Point, but for medical school.
Everyone who's there is in the military, but you're getting going to an actual medical school, doing all the same training that you do at any other medical school.
I was drawn to that because at the time I was thinking of doing emergency medicine and I was and still am very interested in humanitarian work.
And up until pretty recently, the U.S. military was actually a big provider of humanitarian aid internationally.
And so, and again, they pay for your medical school.
The financial incentive is definitely a big part of why I think most people go that route.
Right.
And then it was also an idea of, well, this is also a way of doing something I'm already interested in.
Yeah.
How did you land in pediatrics then?
That was when you're in medical school, you get you get to do rotations in a bunch of different major medical areas.
And I actually discovered that I really loved working with kids specifically, interestingly enough, on a adolescent inpatient psychiatric unit, which is not the place that most people would realize that they enjoy working with kids.
Yeah, I would I imagine that's pretty an intense situation there.
Is this because the gay agenda is to come for the kids?
Is that why radical transition?
There's a little bit who people warned you about, the atheist trans queer man who works with kids, you know?
But yeah, the, I realized I really liked working with kids there.
It was like every day I came home and it was, I was just so much, I took so much more passion about treating my patients home with me on that rotation than anything else.
And then shortly after that, I got to do my actual pediatrics rotation and realized that's like, I just, as much as I like working with anyone, I like working with kids so much more.
And I find it so much more rewarding that that's what I wound up going into.
Yeah.
Gosh, that's got to be so like also tough, though, depending on what it is.
I could, I couldn't like, I would also want to do that if I were a doctor, but I feel like I'd be too sad all the time if anything went wrong with anybody.
Definitely the sadness is fewer and further between, but more intense when it happens, I would say.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I could believe that.
And now, when did you end up?
Because I remember we did a lot of coverage in the first Trump administration and interviewed a few trans people that were in the military.
And it was, you know, he tried to do that ban and it did my memory.
You know, it's been so long, but like, and, you know, it's been many, many brain-altering, you know, happen through this.
Crises since then.
But my memory is kind of like, it was not really anything anyone on the ground wanted.
Like any of the people actually in the military for the most part were like, this sucks.
We don't want to do it.
Even I feel like there was testimony from like generals that were like, don't do this.
Like that we don't.
We're going to lose a lot of really good people.
Yeah.
And I just wonder, A, I don't know when, when you enlisted or whatever, and if you experienced the first Trump administration, and B, maybe if there's any differences you know about in terms of how that's kind of gone about the second time around.
Yeah.
So to kind of backtrack and kind of tell that story.
So I entered, I commissioned into the Air Force in July of 2017.
Oh, wow.
That's pretty significant because Trump's tweet to ban people from, ban trans people from the military came out in July of 2017.
Oh my gosh.
About two weeks after I joined.
Were you out?
I was not out at that time, actually.
Being in the military kind of brought things to a head very quickly because I was a very like masculine, genderqueer person before I joined.
And then all of a sudden being called ma'am all the time, I was like, oh, oh, maybe I need to deal with this actually.
Maybe I need to deal with those gender feelings in a way I haven't in a long time.
Right.
That happened very shortly after I entered the military as I was kind of coming to terms with things.
And the irony is I actually feel like the impending, because there was litigation going on.
So things didn't like come down right away in 2017.
I feel like the impending like ban coming down the pipeline that as it seemed actually pushed me to transition faster than I might have otherwise.
Oh, like the urgency.
Which is definitely not what they're aiming for.
Right.
Yeah.
The exact opposite of what they're trying to do.
Yeah.
But kind of my thought process was like, I, as I mentioned, I was supposed to be in until 2031.
Like I was owing a lot of time.
And so it kind of, I felt I was in this position where it's like, well, if I don't do it now, I might never get to.
Wow.
And then not actually live as yourself.
Yeah.
For all those years.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so I changed my name like January of 2018 and then started like my medical transition in the summer of 2018 as well.
It's kind of when things got started.
And then things were going through litigation at the time.
And the final ban that actually went into place under the previous Trump administration was announced in February of 2019 and then implemented fully in April of 2019.
Now, I do see a lot of people kind of citing that ban as being what's going on now.
And it very, very much is not.
Yeah.
Can you talk about that difference?
Yeah.
Everyone, anyone who was serving at the time of the previous ban going into place was allowed to continue serving, allowed to continue their medical transition, allowed to continue serving as their correct gender.
Right.
And so I actually served under that entire ban as a man because I'd already started my transition and was quote unquote grandfathered in to the Obama era policy.
By two weeks.
Wow.
Well, it was as of April 2019.
Right, right.
Oh, no, I just mean when you joined, but yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I definitely had that timing.
Interestingly, to my knowledge and from everything I've ever seen, no one was ever actually separated for being transgender under the previous ban.
The way it really impacted people was anyone who came out after that April 2019 deadline was forced to serve in their sex assigned at birth and not allowed to undergo any medical transition.
Oh, wow.
So I imagine people just would not have come out.
Yeah.
So people just really didn't come out.
I knew some people who were out socially, but not medically transitioned who just like their life was put on pause essentially through that entire time, which was incredibly rough for them.
Yeah.
And then no one was allowed to join the military who had already transitioned was the other piece of that.
Right.
That was the status quo until Biden came in.
And then in January of 2021, he repealed that policy.
Right.
Because both parties are the same.
So naturally it made no difference who was in.
Oh, no.
No, I don't.
I know there's so many criticisms of Biden, but like, it's also always important to realize that things can be worse, everybody.
That's my message.
Yeah.
It's, it is annoying when people are like, it's the same.
It's like, I can promise you.
Yeah.
It's very different from the, from where I'm sitting, at least.
I lived both of them.
Yeah.
But yeah.
So since January of 2021, people have been able to serve and transition openly in the military.
And so when the election happened, I can tell you all the organizations, I am one of the people who definitely saw the writing on the wall that things were going to go badly for this new administration.
They made no, they didn't hide the fact that they were planning on doing this again.
But going in, I truly thought that it was like they were going to do a ban similar to what they did the first time and I would be grandfathered in.
Or my thought on the worst case scenario is they were going to try to do it and like it was going to take a while.
I definitely didn't expect less than a year later to be on my way out the door.
Wow.
How did you, well, when that news came out, can you kind of share with us what that day was like for you?
Like, like, do you remember where you were when you saw the news break or what was that experience like?
This is where the intersection of working as a pediatrician and going through this experience myself kind of starts intersecting because I was already dealing with the avalanche of the bans for youth care coming out.
Because another piece of this is I, up until it was not allowed anymore, was actually providing gender affirming care to older adolescents, like older teenagers in the area that I was working for the military.
And so it was just like every single week I was getting, there was another policy coming down of like, oh, we're not allowing any care, any like new initiation of care.
We're blocking care for trans kids.
We're going to block Medicaid from paying it for it.
We're going to block TRICARE, which is the military medical insurance from paying for it.
And then on top of all that, the memo came down of banning trans people from serving.
And so it's like, honestly, that entire like end of January to end of February is just a blur of swinging between like heart racing anxiety and just being absolutely furious and wanting to punch something.
Wow.
Because it was just like, it was just item after item after item of awful.
And so again, like back in November of last year, if you had asked me, I would say like, oh yeah, I'm going to like join a lawsuit.
I'm going to fight tooth and nail about getting out.
And by the end of everything, especially like, again, having to cut families off from care, I was like, I am so done.
I am just so done with all of this.
It really burned me out.
Yeah.
And just don't, I don't know anything about the military.
So just the basic question.
So you're treating family member, like children of people in the military.
Is that what it is?
Yep.
So the reason we have pediatricians in the military is because military members make a lot of kids.
And someone's got to be able to do that.
We don't yet have child soldiers, I guess, is what I'm asking.
Not yet.
The funny thing is they actually use the fact that pediatricians are trained to treat people up to age 26.
And actually, most of our enlisted folks are under 26 years old.
Interesting.
Didn't think about that.
So we do do a little bit of younger military member care, but the job that I had most recently was taking care of the children of active duty service members.
And like, because I was the only one available in my region to provide trans care, I was doing it for children of retirees and Gold Star, which is families that have like the service member died, but they continue to get services from the military, those families as well.
Oh, wow.
And yeah, and you were, you were the gender clinic for your region.
Yes.
There was someone there before me who left at the start of the Trump administration.
He was a civilian employee, so he resigned seeing the writing on the wall and I adopted all of his care.
Wow.
As things were being stripped away from all of your patients, I mean, I obviously that was really, really challenging for you.
And I imagine it was incredibly challenging for the families too to hear that.
Any particular, I mean, within reason, I know you can't share a lot, but like any particular like reactions that really stood out to you?
Any stories?
As those things were changing?
Yeah.
So I think the biggest thing that we ran into was just the lack of information.
It was really unclear like when, because when the president signs an executive order, we know that that's going to be implemented as policy, but that isn't in and of itself policy.
Like the military doesn't jump based off of what the executive order says.
You have to have actual directions written by your branch before you do anything.
So we knew that this was going to come down, but when the actual cutoff date was going to be was really unclear.
I was very encouraged by some of the families I was caring for because, like I said, I adopted a lot of this care as their previous provider left.
And so not everyone got a chance to meet me before I'm calling them, trying to update them on what the next step of this policy is and telling them, like, hey, I'm not being given any direction on this.
And a lot of the families responded with very righteous anger on behalf of their children that their kids were being cut off from care without a plan in place.
And I'm here like trying to reassure like, okay, they're not giving me a plan.
Here is my plan for you of the best I can do in a bad situation.
Yeah.
And so the families that are going to get care for like gender affirming care for their kids are already going to be some of the most supportive parents you're going to run into.
But yeah, a lot of anger, a lot of panic of what can we do because I was also working outside of the continental U.S. where you can't necessarily get care just from any doctor because you're not in America.
Yeah, it's definitely not a demographic of people that you would think would be super trans-friendly.
But like you say, I guess it's, it is like a cherry-picked kind of sample of people that you're seeing, I'm sure.
Yes, yeah.
Because the biggest thing is you're like the kids who are actually getting gender affirming care, you're talking about kids who are certain enough in themselves and comfortable enough in their families to come out to their parents at an early enough age, who then have family members who are supported enough to bring them to the doctor and then sign off on care.
So we're talking about like a percent of a percent of a percent.
It makes you wonder how did they even get the woke mind virus?
Like for children of the military.
It's really contagious.
That's true.
Highly, it's the what is it?
The P value, the N value?
Well, it was the R value.
There you go.
It's all those DEI books they had to pull out of the military schools, you know.
The age range of the kids, I'm just, I'm picturing what that experience must have been like for the children too.
And, you know, not necessarily understanding what's happening, just that things are changing.
Yeah.
I mean, obviously from the parents' perspective, like the anger, the, you know, like, let's make a plan, let's figure this out.
How can we still get what we need, but maybe in a way that's, you know, going around certain things, you know, whatever we can do kind of thing.
But from the kids' perspective, just like the helplessness, I mean, that's tough.
Yeah.
And most, most of these kids are teenagers.
So like we're talking like a lot of like 14 to 17 year olds for the most part.
I had a couple who are outside of that, but that was the bulk of them.
And so they're also at this age where they're really just starting to potentially follow the news or kind of be aware of the more general political zeitgeist that's going on around them.
And we're also talking about kids who are going through having gender dysphoria, who are experiencing bullying at a higher rate, who are already at increased risk for depression, anxiety, suicidality, all of these things.
And now they're being suddenly cut off from care.
So to say that I still worry about how they're doing is would be an understatement for sure.
Yeah, of course.
Goodness.
It's the kind of thing where it's not like, are you able to keep in touch or anything?
Like, you know, I don't know how that works with that kind of relationship.
In general, I try not to share personal details with my patients.
This is just kind of a general life policy.
Different doctors follow different ways on this.
I am loosely in touch with them in that I am actually on the Facebook support group for the area I was in for those families.
And so I can at least kind of get a general idea of what's going on.
Based on it, what they're posting and yeah, if they're posting kind of thing.
Yeah.
How was that experience?
I mean, I guess I don't know your predecessor for the clinic in particular, but how was that experience for you and for them that, you know, you are, you are a trans individual helping, you know, potentially guide them through their own gender dysphoria and their own journey and what those relationships were like with your patients.
For at least some of the patients, I know from talking to the parents, because of course the kids don't say it to me because that would be embarrassing.
But they cringe.
But yeah, exactly.
Oh, God, the way kids talk about what things are and aren't cringe.
Something else.
I was told that therapy is cringe by a teenager once.
That's a whole other story now.
Oh, no.
It was like, we are doomed.
I've been told that masks are cringe.
I'm like, we are truly doomed.
Oh, my gosh, that's so silly.
Yeah, we're regressing.
But anyway, I definitely had kids who enjoyed seeing me as a trans person.
And just, and like, I think it's helpful for the parents as well, because a lot of trans portrayal in media is not of a successful adult professional.
And so I think having like that image can be really helpful for some of the kids.
Some of them don't care because they're teenagers who are lost in their own world anyway, but for some of them, they definitely.
They're the main character.
Yeah.
For some of them, it was definitely helpful for that.
And then the person I took over from, I actually, I'm pretty sure he knew I was transgender.
It was a, it was kind of a known thing in the circles we ran in in the military because I never made any secret of it and people talk.
Right.
When the second Trump administration was looming, was there any part of you that was questioning about being out?
You know, like as you said right now, that like you didn't make it a secret and people talk.
What, what was that experience like?
Did you, did you like, I don't want to say regret, but like thought of having done it differently or something like that, just for like your own self-preservation or did that not cross your mind at all at that point?
I sort of considered it in that when I got, so I started at the job I recently left just in the summer of 24.
So I actually hadn't been there terribly long at the time of the election.
And so I actually hadn't been out at that job at all because I kind of wanted to feel things out.
And I have the advantage of like people don't assume I'm trans when they meet me.
I had actually not been out to, I think one person knew because I had, I ran to an issue getting medically cleared for the duty station I was going to, but most of the people I was working with had no idea.
And so after the election, I spent a while debating what I was going to, like whether or not I was going to say something to my command.
Yeah.
And ultimately, I actually did sit down with them towards the end of November or beginning of December of last year and was like, hey, you probably don't know I'm transgender.
And I think that when the Jude administration comes in, there's going to be a ban put in place.
And so you need to deal with that.
They were surprised both by the fact that I was trans and by the fact that I thought a ban was going to come down.
They didn't seem to believe me.
Obviously, unfortunately, I turned out to be correct on that front.
Yeah.
The pessimism has been working out well in this administration.
But I did sit down and kind of tell them.
And it like the idea of potentially not saying anything and seeing how I could ride it out crossed my mind.
But there wasn't really any hiding my records either since I transitioned while I was in the military.
So it's all over my medical record.
I changed my legal documentation while I was in.
Watching it now and how badly they're bungling trying to identify people, apparently that wasn't even enough.
There have been people who've tried to, again, like voluntarily get out to avoid the repercussions of not doing that.
I've been told that like the Navy can't verify that they're trans.
So it's my guidance.
Like, what, what is happening?
Wow.
That's incredible.
I did not know that was happening.
Wow.
Well, who knows if there's any sort of like people, I don't know, intentionally like strategic incompetence or anything.
I mean, I feel like I heard about some amount of that in Trump One under this.
Again, under the idea that like, I don't think most people in the military even wanted this because it's not really good for anybody.
But who knows?
You know, I don't know at this point.
I don't know who's who's left.
Yeah, I think there might be some component of that.
The way they're trying to identify people and honestly, in my opinion, the most likely way for them to be successful is all military members have to have an annual telephone, like phone call health visit.
And as part of that, they're screening for people being trans.
I was just saying, like, are you trans?
And I'm just kidding.
Genuinely, there is a question of like, have you ever been diagnosed with gender dysphoria?
Oh, wow.
The other piece is that person who does that visit is supposed to go back through their medical records and look and see if they've ever been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
Oh, interesting.
That is the way that they're trying to identify people now.
I don't know if there are, is anyone just kind of ignoring that diagnosis or not?
I couldn't speak to that at all.
But that would be the most likely place for that to occur.
I hope so.
The big issue for the people who are running into like this actual incompetence of we can't verify that you're trans are people who are being forced to present as their gender assigned at birth.
So for trans men, it tends to be less of an issue because you can meet, you can look like a man and still be under female standards.
But for a lot of trans feminine people and trans women, they had what was called exemptions to policy to allow them to dress and present as woman while their marker, well, their gender marker was still male.
And so when these policies came out, those were rescinded.
And so there were people who were forced to cut off their hair, who were forced to start wearing male dress again.
And so like that is very traumatizing for those people.
And so for them, one of the things that came under this policy is something called administrative leave, where people were basically put on leave until they're separated.
For some people, that is almost a kindness because it means that they're able, they're not being forced to again, like shave off all their hair and present in a way that doesn't fit with who they are.
As you got ready to leave, like your final date, was it a sense of relief, of sadness, of everything?
Like, what, what was that like?
I mean, and you were also overseas and having to come back to the States.
Yeah.
So I would say that what I've been feeling probably over the last like two or three months is just a deep sense of loss more than anything else.
Yeah.
Because I'm in this position where I have a job lined up that I'm looking forward to.
And I think that I'm going to be fine on the other side of all this.
But being kicked out of my job that I had thought I was going to be doing for an entire career, having to change every plan I had and doing it very much not under my own terms and for my identity.
I got in a car accident.
I can't do my job anymore.
Nothing like that.
No, I can still do my job and I'm doing it every day, but I'm somehow not good enough because of who I am.
So it's just this, it's a deep feeling of loss, a lot of anger just directed at people who I can never do anything about.
But I think, I think that's the bulk of it.
And a lot of annoyance about the fact that, again, I'm being told that I'm not good enough to do my job.
I think the phrase used at one point was like categorically unfit was the phrasing used in one of the policies.
Wow.
It's like, yes, I'm categorically unfit to do the job that I actively continued doing as I was being kicked out and did it well.
Especially by like Donald fucking Trump.
How dare you?
And Pete Heggs.
Any job.
Yeah.
Just the most incompetent group.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Did you have anybody in your life that is more like conservative leaning or perhaps even like voted for Trump either in Trump 1.0 or 2.0 that saw this happening to you and had their minds changed or were impacted?
Or have you kind of cleared all those people out of your life and don't have any relationships with them anymore?
So I was lucky enough not to have many people in my life who fell into that category.
And a couple of people who did weren't respecting me as a person anyway.
So they weren't really involved by the time this started.
I do have actually one aunt who my parents still help out quite a bit who was a big MAGA Trump supporter.
And like probably around a month and a half ago started saying that she's not so sure about Trump anymore.
And now she's really turned sour on him.
And my family actually thinks it's because she was asking them like, oh, is Logan visiting?
And they're like, yeah, he's, he's coming back.
He's, he's getting kicked out of the military.
She's like, wait, they're still kicking him out?
Oh, wow.
Like, she just thought I would be the exception.
Yeah.
That's how it always is, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so I think that she's currently going on a whole thing about how she thinks Trump has dementia and how he's getting so much worse.
And I'm like, it's nice that you're trying to fix that for yourself in your mind, but this was always who he was.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hey, I mean, if it, if it helps change hearts, even if it's like, you know, you have to excuse it in your own mind in some weird way, then at least she's on that journey, I guess.
Yeah, never thought leopards would eat my hands.
Yeah.
And then obviously politics are not talked about at work in the military.
That's very much inappropriate.
Right.
Well, until you have Heg Seth doing military rallies, you know, political rallies and stuff, which is just so deeply disturbing and inappropriate, right?
Yeah, it's just so grossly inappropriate and against everything that the military is supposed to stand by in terms of serving through any administration.
Yeah, it's the one place.
As somebody who does, like, I am pretty realistic in that I think politics is everything.
I think, I think Supreme Court justices are politics and shouldn't pretend otherwise.
I think most things, like the military is the one place where it's like, hey, I think it is good if this was the thing where you're like, well, we're not, we're not political.
Like we're just political, expressly neutral.
We're, you know, because it just, it doesn't serve anybody, doesn't serve the country, doesn't serve anybody to be having that kind of thing going on, that kind of partisanship in what can be an incredibly important, you know, job, depending on like, if we were attacked by somebody or whatever it is, like or the decision to attack somebody else.
Like, yeah, well, yeah, it just, it, it does suck that like that's the one place where it was like, maybe let's keep this not being political.
And it seems like they are demolishing that too.
I mean, they've fired so many people that we don't even hear about, you know, like there have been a lot of higher ups that were just got fired for no good reason.
And it's, it's really, really disturbing.
Yeah, they've been stripping especially minorities and women of command positions.
They've been decimating DEI offices.
There was actually a Navy family medicine doctor who is still in the military, but was stripped of her titles and her position because she still had the fact that she was doing transgender care on her LinkedIn.
Oh, wow.
Oh, wow.
Libs of TikTok went after her.
Of course.
It's always Hyru Reutchik.
God.
Every single time.
Every single time.
She needs to be in fucking prison.
God.
People are just getting stripped away.
A lot of people are just quietly resigning when they're not willing to follow the orders, which I personally think is the wrong move.
Like I think they need to be screaming from the rooftops why they left instead of just quietly saying, oh, I won't do this and leaving.
And so the public still doesn't really understand what's going on.
Do you mean like higher ups, like prominent people that would like generals?
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Prominent generals.
Yeah, we're seeing that with judges.
There's that judge recently who retired and like expressly for the, I think he was already on whatever status, senior status or whatever, but like retired for the express purpose of like, I need to express how not good this is.
And it would be nice to see this.
And democracy is falling.
Yeah.
Yeah.
of generals for sure.
There's so many areas to go in this.
Just in general, my overall question is like, how does it feel being a culture war?
You're just like, you're just in so many parts of this culture war.
But I also, I mean, gosh, there's so many places to go.
I also think there's a really interesting component of it that I would love to hear your thoughts on, which is like, I think a lot of these bigots kind of forget about trans men.
you know, because it's not really like their religious kind of thing is all about trans women often.
Is that something that, or am I wrong about that?
I mean, what do you have any kind of thoughts or how what it's been like kind of from your perspective?
Yeah, trans men get forgotten a lot in the culture war space.
I think it's gotten, we were, I would say back in 2016, we were basically invisible.
We are now becoming, it's just shitty.
They basically trans men only come up in this conversation of, oh, these girls are mutilating themselves.
Oh, right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which is really the only way they think of trans men now.
But generally, we're all, we are still forgotten.
Right.
It's some way for them to still get in like their idea of women's bodies into it or whatever.
Like they smuggle in their like religious views.
That's like the one nexus.
Yeah.
And it's, it's very funny from the military perspective because they're always like, oh, transitioning makes you weaker for battle.
And it's like, dude, I'm doping on tea, basically.
I don't know.
I'm stronger now than I'm.
I'm going to wrestle you right now.
So I think, especially leaving, one of the things that I had to think about was like returning to the U.S. and what my alternatives were and kind of what the best next step was.
And as a, again, pretty cis passing, surprisingly straight passing trans man, I, and white as well, I, I would be relatively safe walking around the U.S. Cause again, people don't necessarily know I'm trans if they meet me unless I bring it up in some way or unless they have some like record of my history.
It is more actually because I provided gender affirming care to minors in a way that's very trackable because it was in the military.
Like I honestly think that is a bigger target on my back than being trans myself.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Especially if they ever succeed in kind of creating that database of, you know, all trans people and, you know, the kids that have received care.
I mean, their, their stuff on, oh, shoot, I'm going to totally blank on, oh, do no harm has like an entire tracker of like by doctor within each state, the amount of money that they've billed related to gender affirming care.
And like my- I know so much of that is for actual cis people too.
Like quote-unquote gender affirming care.
It's like still counting against trans people.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That, man, that, that, since you say that, being a, being a, it also plays perfectly into their stupid worldview that you're like, you know, you're trans, so you're probably transing our kids or whatever, you know, that bullshit, rather than like what's probably true in, I would imagine a lot of areas of medicine is like, if you have a personal connection of any kind to something, you might want to go into that field.
I don't know, you had a family member with cancer, so you want to get, you know, or something, or you had cancer, you might want to treat people with cancer.
It's, it's so obviously, you know, like that's what's going on or just compassion in general, but it must be really scary to be in a position where I'm sure it would suit their propaganda purposes to, you know, like, I don't know, like blow up your whole spot kind of thing.
Yeah, I have no doubt that they would go on this narrative about me transing the youth.
And like the irony is like, I've actually never diagnosed a child with gender dysphoria.
I have had kids and families come to me who are already diagnosed seeking to continue or to start care and I'm following the guidelines of care.
And so like, I definitely could diagnose a child with gender dysphoria if they came to me with all of these signs.
But like, honestly, most people with gender dysphoria present going, hey, I think I'm trans.
And then you're like, okay, let's, let's deep dive into that and kind of tease this apart.
Like people aren't just being told like, hey, I think you're trans and doctors point out.
I love how that's the one place where they think our medical system is like working fucking great.
You'd be like actively having a heart attack.
They'll be like, ah, lose weight, you know, or whatever.
The treatment is awful.
But if you're, if you're at all, you know, or even if you're not trans, the doctors are going to be like, no, you're trans.
I'm giving you all this medic.
I'm giving you all this fucking free health care in the United States of America.
Stupid.
It is so dumb.
The other piece of that is that like there is nothing that I do for trans kids that is that isn't a medication that I, that is used in another completely unrelated part of pediatric medicine.
Right.
All of it is used for other things.
Yeah.
As we saw in that one fucking court case that was so infuriating where it's like, the only difference seems to be whether someone is a certain, you know, identifying a certain gender or not seems to be the difference in whether or not they can access this medicine that's totally safe and fine for other people.
Yeah.
But the state can ban that, but not conversion therapy.
Oh my God.
Because that makes sense.
Yeah, that's dark.
I mean, just the potential of that being okay again is just very, very, very concerning.
Yeah.
What do you think about, I mean, basically this entire field of medical science, like I've been deeply worried about how much they are just destroying, I guess I wouldn't say like knowledge, but they're kind of trying to, right?
I mean, they're trying to destroy a lot of institutional knowledge, a lot of things that I know.
I've spoken to so many people like yourself, so many medical professionals who are like, no, this is pretty fucking obvious.
It's like, it's pretty no nonsense.
So in that sense, I guess they can't really destroy science because it's science, you know, like science will, you know, if anybody studies trans people in a science, in an actual scientific way, they will find, oh, this is real.
And here's how we treat it best, you know, or roughly speaking kind of thing.
But it does, does it feel like your entire field or an entire field and area of medical knowledge is like under attack and maybe going to be in some ways like lost?
It's definitely concerning.
And it's not at this point because of modern technology.
It's not necessarily that the knowledge will be lost, but it will be the expertise that's lost.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's kind of what I mean.
Yeah.
That's a better word for it.
If people aren't being trained and practicing this, like that piece of it is lost and the skills in providing that care are lost.
And unfortunately, we've got lots and lots of parallels to 1930s Germany and the book burning they did of all of the studies we had on trans people that set us back decades.
Yeah.
It is unfortunately very scary in that way as well of history kind of repeating itself in terms of trans people being one of the bleeding edges of this issue.
So weird that that's the era of history that's repeating itself.
Isn't that odd that it's that particular fucking time and place?
That everything that we always talk about is as of recording.
I think even Laura Loomer was like, I think we have a Nazi problem on the right.
Wait, seriously?
Yeah, that was just today.
I think I saw that quote.
I haven't read too deeply into it, but I believe she was quoted as saying that today.
I'm sure by the time people are hearing this, they'll have more context.
But yeah, like, yeah, I think you do have a Nazi problem.
Yeah, we know.
We know, Laura Loomer.
Oh, man.
So what's next?
I mean, you're, you, you have potentially a job lined up and you're going to be able to continue offering medical care for kiddos.
Yeah, I have a job offer lined up.
Not being too specific, but I'm looking at actually, I'm actually in the process of trying to get a work visa and immigrating to Canada where I'll be able to provide this care and have it still be approved.
Fucking Canada is going to get all our best people.
I know they are.
I want to go too, actually.
No, but Ken, I didn't mean it.
I didn't mean, sorry.
If my immigration officer is here reviewing this file, I didn't mean it.
I was totally joking.
I would like to be there.
I would like to go to there.
Yeah, I kind of looked at potentially because I'm originally from the New England area, which is relatively protected right now.
But as you guys know from like Kaiser cutting off care and now Federate Health, which was one of the biggest centers in Massachusetts cutting off care, like I just don't have any faith that even if I got hired a place where I could practice the way I want to, that it would stay that way.
And pediatrics in the U.S. is already getting rough just in terms of like vaccines and the threats to ADHD treatment.
And like just so much of my practice is under threat right now that ultimately when I was looking at it, and especially again with like the list they're trying to make of pediatric providers of trans care, like I finally just decided to cut and run well, I still can.
Yeah.
So I looked at like potentially moving to a blue state and practicing there, but I just don't trust that I'll still be safe to do that in a couple of years.
And if I'm going to uproot it, but I also worry internationally, though, like it's, it's these movements are not, I mean, I, I'm not, and not in any way a criticism of your decision, but I do, I do worry just going forward too, that like this stuff is, I don't know that we're exporting it per se or if it's the same fucking billionaires, ghouls who are making it happen everywhere.
I don't know how it's happening, but it does, I do start to worry, especially when you see the UK and how bad they've been on this particular issue.
Like, shit, man, what's going on?
Like, why can't we, why is this spreading so much?
It's kind of swinging around all over the place.
The UK is really bad as well right now.
Like the, I feel like the US and the UK are just kind of like hopscotching over each other on this.
Yeah.
But there are some, there are some positives, kind of semi-identifying where I was working this last year.
Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, which come out with joint guidelines because they all speak German, they actually published guidelines in March of 2025 that very explicitly stated that we should be providing gender-affirming care to adolescents and really ripping apart the CAS review that came out of the UK.
I was going to say, and that the CAS report is bullshit.
Yeah, good.
And so like there are countries that are moving the right direction because they had actually put kind of a pause on youth gender affirming care outside of people enrolled in studies.
And then just in March kind of came back around and said, no, we looked at the data.
We actually should be doing this.
No fucking shit.
Yeah.
I think Dr. Alito would disagree though.
Dr. Clarence Time.
I think even Clarence Thomas might have been really bad on that particular one too.
Yeah.
No one worse than Sam Alito though.
Yeah.
I mean, none of them know medicine.
You should have seen how much I was screaming at their arguments about the abortion stuff.
And they were like, what's the difference between a 19-week fetus and a 25-week fetus?
I'm like, so much.
Yeah, a lot.
Yeah.
I mean, to be fair, though, like, not a lot of people in health and human services are like really, we should be listening to them for medical advice either.
So that's the state of this country.
No.
But seed oils, we'll get rid of those.
Oh, God.
Don't you worry.
Seed oils and food dies.
They're real threat to our children.
One of my coworkers spent like an entire week just telling parents that, yes, they can give their baby Tylenol if they have a fever.
Oh, my God.
Wow.
The area you're in and just your life and your work is so impacted by these fucking culture wars, these idiot culture wars.
It must just be so infuriating.
I don't know how you stay so calm.
I am a angry smiler, so I smile as I see through all of this.
Just like a more intense smile, like we can kind of rate how angry you are based on that intensity.
Yeah.
Well, is there anything else that our audience should know?
I know there's so many places we could go, so much we didn't talk about as we're kind of in the waning moments.
Anything else you want to make sure that our audience knows or heard?
I think one thing that I didn't mention that is worth mentioning in all of this is that while it seems like it's a small group that's being impacted by like trans people getting kicked out of the military or trans people being cut off from care, it's actually a pretty substantial population.
I made sure I saved the statistics so I would actually have them in front of me, but we don't have good knowledge of how many trans people are in the military because it's just not data that people keep.
Or might be willing, as we've covered, you know, might be easy to get, you know, just because who's going to fucking volunteer this now?
Yeah.
Yeah.
But so the data we have from like 2014, 2015, which is actually before the ban was lifted the first time.
So still probably an underestimate.
Oh, interesting.
Found that like somewhere around like 18 in one study and 21.4% in another study of trans people have served in the military at some point in their life.
Wow.
That's crazy.
And that's like 8% in the general population.
Yeah.
Trans people serve in the military at a way higher rate than cis people.
It's really interesting.
I wonder why that is.
This is not like we don't know how many people it is, but like trans people are a small percentage of the population, but they are a bigger percentage of the military.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Yeah, I did not know that.
I wonder why that is.
Do you have any intuition on why that might be?
I have a lot of hypotheses, but nothing like firm.
What's your favorite one?
Yeah.
I think that there's a component of especially like trans women choosing to go to this space where it's like, oh, this will make me more masculine.
And then someone's shooting at you and you're like, maybe I should be true to myself.
Yeah, it's like the last ditch effort, like kind of thing.
But yeah.
That's interesting.
Well, absolutely keep in touch.
Thank you so much.
But it was great to meet you at QED and to get that message.
I think I, I don't think I can't remember if I responded, but I gave it to Lydia right away.
I was like, oh man, we have to talk to this person.
So I hope if I didn't respond, apologies, but I did definitely see that message.
And thank you for reaching out.
Yeah.
Because right away we were just like, oh, man, we have to talk to this person.
So you are right on the forefront of all of it.
So please let us know if you have any news to share going forward and stay safe.
Yeah, we're rooting for you.
I appreciate it.
Thank you guys for the conversation.
You have really done a lot in terms of, I really appreciate the content you've put out because like, I'm hate listening to the New York Times and then you guys are putting out really good rebuttals of a lot of this bullshit around trans care.
And especially as people who aren't directly impacted by it, I really appreciate that.
