We Can’t Know: Lisa Selin Davis On Getting Comfortable With The “Giant Mess” That Is The Current Gender Conversation

Part three of Gender Nuance, a three-part series for the week of October 4, 2021 In the third and final part of the podcast’s weeklong “Gender Nuance” series, Meghan talks with journalist Lisa Selin Davis about the cultural and political forces that have factored into the current gender movement and why the media has failed to cover the whole story. The author of a book about the evolution of gender stereotypes and herself the mother of a gender nonconforming child, Lisa explains how the movement was galvanized by shifts in journalistic norms during the Trump administration and how institutions like schools, the nonprofit sector and the medical establishment got caught up in a worldview and treatment protocol that’s backed up by very little reliable data. She traces some of the history of gender nonconformity and explains what the concept of a “third gender” means in indigenous, nonwestern populations in places like India and Samoa. Mostly, Lisa talks about what she’s learned as a journalist covering gender issues in recent years and why it’s so difficult to publish anything that deviates from the accepted narrative. Ultimately, she says, we have to accept that talking honestly about the subject entails dealing with "a giant mess” and that “we have to get comfortable with the fact that are some things we simply can’t know.” Guest Bio: Lisa Selin Davis is the author of Tomboy: The Surprising History of Girls Who Dare to Be Different, and the forthcoming Housewife: Exploding the Myths of Motherhood, Women’s Work and the Modern Family. She has written articles, essays and op-eds for The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and many other outlets, and has published two novels, Belly and Lost Stars. She writes a regular Substack newsletter about gender issues called Broadview.