Gender: A Wider Lens
We’re proud to sponsor the world’s leading podcast on gender. Co-hosted by Genspect Director Stella O’Malley and Genspect Advisor Sasha Ayad, “Gender: A Wider Lens” combines expert analysis with personal experiences, providing new and intriguing ways to understand trans issues in today’s world.
In this podcast, now in it’s fourth year, therapists Stella O’Malley and Sasha Ayad take a deep dive into the psychological and cultural forces impacting the social changes around “gender.” Through interviews with researchers, doctors, therapists, parents, detransitioners, and others, Sasha and Stella’s podcast is a “must listen” for anyone trying to navigate the current gender landscape. With their sharp analytical minds and deep compassionate hearts, Stella and Sasha have also become known throughout many parent networks as lighthouses in the midst of some very stormy seas. Previous guests include Helen Joyce, Jesse Singal, Leor Sapir, Kathleen Stock, Jamie Reed, Peter Boghossian and more.
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.widerlenspod.com
In this bonus episode for premium subscribers, Freya India highlights the complex interplay between mental health treatment, marketing psychology, medication side effects, and sexual identity.
“If you strip back some of this, marketing and look at actually what it is…what they’re saying is women can’t handle life without constant intervention and solutions and medication and products. And it’s so patronizing.”
SSRIs, or Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, are a class of antidepressant medications commonly used to treat depression, anxiety disorders, and certain other mental health conditions. Reported side-effects of many SSRI’s and antidepressants include decreased libido and difficulty achieving orgasm. As western cultures observe a trending rise in asexuality among young women as well as a rapid increase in the widespread use SSRIs and other antidepressants for depression and anxiety, could there be link between post-SSRI sexual dysfunction (PSSD) and the identification of some individuals as asexual? As these kinds of drugs are being so regularly prescribed, are patients being adequately warned about the potential for long-term sexual side-effects?
Freya India wrote about this in her article, Are You Asexual Or On Antidepressants?: You deserve to know if your sexual identity is a side-effect.
And are the mental health companies targeting women with patronizing marketing tactics implying that women need pharmaceutically induced wellness?