UNLOCKED 19.1 From the Mormon Priesthood to Trans Advocate Dad w/ Blair Hodges Pt 2

Back for Pt 2 of my conversation with Blair Hodges—Salt Lake City journalist, former Mormon insider, and dad to a trans kid—by digging into Mormon masculinity. Blair explains how Mormon emotional vulnerability descends from early charismatic revival culture, but also how a rising alt-right strain inside the church is pushing toward a more punitive “muscular” Christianity.

On parenting: why children’s rights and autonomy require dismantling authoritarian habits, how neurodivergence exposes the cruelty of “normal” discipline, and how institutions often treat kids as property. Also: the privilege of political disengagement, what it feels like when the “flood” of fascism reaches your floor, and why listening to marginalized people is the starting point for real antifascist practice.

I close by reading a short excerpt from my upcoming book, a section on gender performance and why trans liberation matters to all of us.

Notes:

Relationshapes: Blair Hodges

All theme music by the amazing www.kalliemarie.com.

Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times (North Atlantic Books, April 2026).
Preorder: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/

Instagram: @matthew_remski

TikTok: @antifascistdad

Bluesky: @matthewremski.bsky.social (Bluesky Social)

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AntifascistDad

Chapters

(00:02:50) - Mormons' Emotionality
(00:07:25) - In Defense of Children's Rights
(00:13:59) - The Time of a Parent's Death
(00:16:10) - White People's Feelings About Fascism
(00:22:01) - The Concerns of a More Moderated Mormon
(00:31:14) - The Moment of Becoming Aware of Trans People

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Episoder(82)

UNLOCK 42.1 Friendship (is not easy)

An excerpt from the audiobook of Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times — Chapter Eight, Friendship Is Not Easy. I'm putting this out as a companion to my interview w...

9 Aug 43min

UNLOCK: 41.1 The Anti-Vance Would Like a Word Pt 2 w/ Nathan Evans Fox

Part 2 of my convo with Nathan Evans Fox, going deeper into the psychological and theological architecture of what JD Vance is actually doing in his new memoir, and what it costs him and everyone else...

2 Aug 45min

42. Keep the Little Flame Alive w/ Carsie Blanton

I sit down with socialist singer-songwriter Carsie Blanton to explore how unstructured freedom — from schooling, the music industry, and institutional religion — became the soil for her political and ...

29 Jul 1h 1min

UNLOCK 40.1 Episodic and Thematic Thinking and Feeling

Picking up a on thread from my interview with Nora Loreto interview: a coda on the tension between zooming in on the daily news cycle and zooming out to a coherent analytical framework. I draw on Shan...

26 Jul 19min

41. The Anti-Vance Would Like a Word w/ Nathan Evans Fox

JD Vance's Communion presents itself as a spiritual memoir but functions as a rebranding operation: It's the same narcissistic trick he played with Hillbilly Elegy. Who better to sit down with to sort...

22 Jul 52min

UNLOCK 39.1 Epistemic Injustice

Years ago, I failed to understand my autistic son's needs. Instead of fully taking in his distress at school, I projected my own story, values, and experience on him. He'll manage. He'll get used to i...

19 Jul 21min

40: We Live on This Planet to Do Good Work w/ Nora Loreto

Today I sit down with Nora Loreto, a Quebec City-based journalist and labour organizer, to discuss her five-volume Canada in Decline series — a forensic history of the dismantling of Canada's social d...

15 Jul 1h 8min

UNLOCK 38.1 Gramsci’s Wars of Position, Wars of Maneuver

Antonio Gramsci, writing in a fascist prison in the early 1930s, distinguished between wars of position—the slow struggle over culture, values, and consent—and wars of maneuver, or direct confrontatio...

12 Jul 33min