Episode 254: Gender Without Identity with Avgi Saketopoulou and Ann Pellegrini

Holy hell, do we have a PIPING HOT EPISODE for you! When previous guest Avgi Saketopoulou and her partner Ann Pellegrini (both practicing psychoanalysts and faculty members at NYU) received an award for an academic article they co-authored, they were thrilled to find out that their paper would be published in a prestigious journal. They spent the following year working closely with the editors to revise their article for publication...only to be told at the last minute that they would be required to remove parts that the journal deemed "too political." Instead of bowing to pressure, Avgi and Ann decided to expand upon their thesis and publish it as a book, thereby making their work accessible to laypeople as well as academics. In this riveting conversation, Avgi and Ann discuss their controversial argument: that queer and trans people are not, to quote Lady Gaga, "born this way," but rather that any number of outside factors (including trauma) *can* affect and inform our sexuality/gender. It's a truly liberating, paradigm-shifting discussion about how we as queer people police ourselves as a result of (justified) fear that our words will be weaponized against us. And most importantly, we finally get to the bottom of the eternal question: *did* seeing the movie Mannequin as a child make Lauren gay??

Follow Avgi and Ann on Instagram at @avgolis98 and @apell168 respectively. And give Jeff Bezos the finger by ordering their incredible book at uitbooks.com instead of at the other place!