Press play below to listen to the podcast, download it in the iTunes Store, or stream it via Stitcher.

Chapter 1: Sex, Gender, and Embodiment 

Chapter 2: Is the Science Settled?

Chapter 3: “Girls Like Us”

Chapter 4: People of Faith and Our Transgender Moment

Contemporary Americans are living through an age of expressive individualism. No right, it seems, is as sacrosanct as the right to define one’s own identity free of social constraint and opprobrium. And no phenomenon better captures this spirit of the age than the rise of the transgender movement. In the worldview of the trans movement’s activists, an individual’s biological sex, gender, and sexual orientation have little to no relationship to each other, and the objective facts of biology must always yield to the subjective self-conception of the individual.

In Commentary’s April 2018 cover story, “The Disappearance of Desire,” Sohrab Ahmari takes a deep dive into the world of today’s transgender activists. And he challenges the facts and science behind the reigning cultural orthodoxies about how best to help transgender individuals live lives of true fulfillment and dignity.

In this podcast, Ahmari joins Jonathan Silver to discuss his essay. In a conversation that spans philosophy, science, and culture, Ahmari and Silver seek to understand the worldview of the champions of transgender rights and wrestle with its implications for the way we understand, sex, desire, and the human person.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

More podcasts:

• • Leon Kass on His Life and the Worthy Life
  • Clifford Librach on the Reform Movement and Jewish Peoplehood
  • Michael Doran on Theology, Zionism, and American Foreign Policy
  • Yoram Hazony on the Bible’s Political Teaching
  • John Podhoretz on the Best and Worst of Jewish Cinema
  • Jamie Kirchick on Europe’s Coming Dark Age
  • Introducing Kikar – Elliott Abrams on Hamas, Gaza, and the Case for Jewish Power
  • Ruth Wisse on the Nature and Functions of Anti-Semitism
  • Jeffrey Saks on Shmuel Yosef Agnon
  • Samuel Goldman on Christian Zionism in America
  • Martin Kramer on Ben-Gurion, Borders, and the Vote That Made Israel
  • Russ Roberts on Hayek, Knowledge, and Jewish Tradition
  • Yossi Klein Halevi on Moving In and Out of Extremism
  • Charles Freilich on the U.S.-Israel “Special Relationship”
  • Jeffrey Salkin on “Judaism Beyond Slogans”
  • Erica Brown on Educating Jewish Adults
  • Mark Dubowitz on the Future of the Iran Deal
  • Greg Weiner on Moynihan, Israel, and the United Nations
  • Daniel Polisar on Nationhood, Zionism, and the Jews
  • Jon Levenson on the Danger and Opportunity of Jewish-Christian Dialogue
  • Leora Batnitzky on the Legacy of Leo Strauss
  • Wilfred McClay on America’s Civil Religion
  • Robert Nicholson on Evangelicals, Israel, and the Jews
  • Charles Small on “The Changing Face of Anti-Semitism”
  • Daniel Mark on Judaism and Our Postmodern Age
  • Ruth Wisse on the Perversity of Brilliance
  • Daniel Troy on “The Burial Society”
  • Matthew Continetti on William F. Buckley, the Conservative Movement, and Anti-Semitism
  • Jonathan Sacks on Creative Minorities
  • Elliott Abrams on “Dictatorships and Double Standards”
  • Jay Lefkowitz on His Life in the Arena
  • Michael Doran on America’s Middle East Strategy
  • Gabriel Scheinmann on Bombing the Syrian Reactor
  • Elliott Abrams on His Calling and Career
  • Jeffrey Bloom on Faith and America’s Addiction Crisis
  • Gil Student on the Journey into Orthodoxy
  • Meir Soloveichik on “L’Chaim and Its Limits”
  • Michael Makovsky on Churchill and the Jews
  • Neil Rogachevsky on the Story Behind Oslo
  • Mark Gottlieb on Jewish Education
  • Mitchell Rocklin on Jewish-Christian Relations
  • Liel Leibovitz on the Jewish Poetry of Leonard Cohen
  • Ruth Wisse on Tevye the Dairyman
  • Samuel Goldman on Religion, State, and the Jews
  • Leon Kass on the Ten Commandments
  • Ruth Wisse on Cynthia Ozick’s “Innovation and Redemption”
  • Yossi Klein Halevi on Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s “The Iron Wall”
  • Tevi Troy on the Politics of Tu B’Shvat
  • Jay Lefkowitz & Mitchell Rocklin on the Jewish Vote
  • Yuval Levin on the Long Way to Liberty
  • Ruth Wisse on Sartre and Anti-Semitism
  • Edward Rothstein on Jerusalem Syndrome at the Met
  • Matthew Continetti on Irving Kristol’s Theological Politics
  • Meir Soloveichik on King David
  • R.R. Reno on “Faith in the Flesh”
  • Arthur Herman on Why Everybody Loves Israel
  • Peter Berkowitz on a Liberal Education and Its Betrayal
  • Meir Soloveichik on Rembrandt, Tolkien, and the Jews
  • Yoram Hazony on Nationalism and the Future of Western Freedom
  • Jason Bedrick on Jewish Day Schools and School Choice
  • Allan Arkush on Ahad Ha’am and “The Jewish State and Jewish Problem”
  • Bret Stephens on the Legacy of 1967 and the U.S.-Israel Relationship
  • Jay Lefkowitz on Social Orthodoxy
  • Norman Podhoretz on Jerusalem and Jewish Particularity
  • Michael Doran on Western Elites and the Middle East
  • Ruth Wisse on Campus Anti-Semitism
  • Meir Soloveichik on “Confrontation”
  • Yuval Levin on Religious Liberty
  • Elliott Abrams on American Jews and Israel