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Origin Story

Origin Story

By: Podmasters
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What are the real stories behind the most misunderstood and abused ideas in politics? From Conspiracy Theory to Woke to Centrism and beyond, Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey dig into the astonishing secret histories of concepts you thought you knew. Want to support us in making future seasons? There are now two ways you can help out: • Patreon – Get early episodes, live Zooms, merchandise and more from just £5 per month. • Apple Podcasts – Want everything in one place with one easy payment? Subscribe to our premium feed on Apple Podcasts for ad-free shows early and bonus editions too. From Podmasters, the makers of Oh God, What Now?, American Friction and The Bunker.Podmasters / Ian Dunt & Dorian Lynskey 2022 Politics & Government Social Sciences World
Episodes
  • J.K. Rowling – Part Two – Transparent

    J.K. Rowling – Part Two – Transparent
    May 27 2026
    Welcome back to Origin Story and part two of the story of J.K. Rowling. In this episode we turn away from her life story towards her public statements and the information she is consuming. In 2020, Rowling publishes her first full-length statement about her gender-critical beliefs and it becomes her defining issue. We unpack some of the phrases she uses and the books she is reading and we explore what the science says about key issues: safety in trans-inclusive spaces, trans women (and women with Differences in Sex Development) in sports, and healthcare provision for gender-questioning youth. Since 2018 trans people in the UK have faced an enormous backlash: rising prejudice, restricted healthcare, political abandonment and obsessive media hostility. And Rowling has put herself in the forefront. Her tone has become more aggressive and her activism more overt, accelerated by Scotland’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill. So when HBO announced its ambitious new Harry Potter TV series last year, in the midst of the Trump administration’s war on trans Americans and the UK Supreme Court’s explosive ruling on gender identity, it became a battleground. It’s hard to separate the art from the artist when supporting the art means funding the artist’s activism. How did Rowling move from the appearance of moderation to explicit militancy and how does that align with her professed values? Are her arguments supported by the research? How did anti-trans sentiment go mainstream so quickly? What are the ethics of continuing to consume Rowling’s work? And is the viciousness of right-wing transphobia causing some people to think twice about the consequences of their beliefs? • Support Origin Story on Patreon • Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory • Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube Reading list Articles • O. Rose Broderick – ‘Evidence Undermines “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” Claims’, Scientific American (24 August 2023) • Cass Review: Final Report (2024)• Christina Cauterucci – ‘Impeccable Timing, Pamela Paul!’, Slate (16 February 2023) • Theara Coleman – ‘A timeline of JK Rowling’s anti-trans shift’, The Week US (April 2026) • Matt Craig – ‘J.K. Rowling is a Billionaire — Again’, Forbes (30 May 2025) • Laura Dattaro – ‘Largest study to date confirms overlap between autism and gender diversity’, The Transmitter (14 September 2020) • Caroline Davies – ‘JK Rowling’s journey from Harry Potter creator to gender-critical campaigner’, Guardian (18 April 2025) • Sarah Ditum et al. – ‘An Oral History of the Gender War’, The Radical Notion (Autumn/Winter 2024) • Alona Ferber – ‘Judith Butler on the culture wars, JK Rowling and living in “anti-intellectual times”’, New Statesman (22 September 2020) • Molly Fischer – ‘Who Did J.K. Rowling Become?’, The Cut (22 December 2020) • Amelia Hansford – ‘JK Rowling sets up “women’s fund” to support gender-critical legal cases’, Pink News (26 May 2025) • Nick Hilton – ‘JK Rowling, Britain’s gloriously nasty novelist’, New Statesman (15 January 2024) • Katherine J. Igoe – ‘JK Rowling’s Under-the-Radar Book Series Gives a Clear Picture of Her Beliefs’, Marie Claire (5 August 2020) • Jessica Kant – ‘Anatomy of a Moral Panic’, jessk.org (3 February 2024) • Jessica Kant – ‘Welcome to the anti-trans outrage factory’, jessk.org (8 February 2026) • Alice McCool – ‘How the US Christian Right and Anti-Abortion Lobbyists are Reshaping NHS Policy’, Byline Times (2 April 2026) • Parker Molloy – ‘The IOC’s New Policy Isn’t Really a Trans Story’, The Present Age (26 March 2026) ... Reading list continues on Patreon Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Videographer: Connor Newson. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production www.podmasters.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    1 hr and 28 mins
  • J.K. Rowling – Part One – Transformation

    J.K. Rowling – Part One – Transformation
    May 20 2026
    Hello and welcome to Origin Story. This week we begin the story of J.K. Rowling and how the world’s most beloved author became its most divisive. How did she become obsessed with trans rights and how did her colossal wealth and celebrity shape the backlash? We’re telling two parallel stories. One is how Joanne Rowling transformed into J.K. Rowling. The first Harry Potter book comes out of dark times: a shattering bereavement, a terrible marriage, relative poverty and a crushing sense of failure. When it is published in 1997, it changes Rowling’s life beyond recognition: the publishing industry’s equivalent of Beatlemania. By 2000, the attention is overwhelming and the religious right is denouncing her for endorsing witchcraft. By the time she moves into fiction for adults in 2012, her life seems guarded but stable. But then she joins Twitter and becomes very interested in online discourse at the birth of “cancel culture”. The second story is about feminism’s fraught relationship with trans inclusion and the concept of gender identity. This has divided feminists since the second wave in the 1970s but it came to the fore in 2010s as trans visibility reached an all-time high and so-called “gender critical” feminists rallied to oppose the introduction of self-ID legislation. Disparate issues such as prisons, sports and youth healthcare were pulled into a movement that fundamentally denied gender identity. In the US, anti-trans activism was another wedge issue for social conservatives but in the UK it emerged from the centre left — and that’s where Rowling came in. This is also a story about social media and what happens when a disagreement about civil rights plays out on Twitter. That’s where, in 2017, Rowling begins quietly expressing interest in anti-trans voices. After some initial denials, she breaks cover in 2019 by supporting Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who claims to have lost her job due to her gender critical views. Overnight, this one tweet transforms Rowling’s reputation, mainstreaming the movement while dismaying many Harry Potter fans and horrifying trans people. This is the rupture. There is no turning back. What can Rowling’s early life tell us about the path she has taken over the last decade? What is her relationship to fame and fandom? Why did the question of trans rights become all-consuming? What do gender critical feminists believe? And why can people not even agree on what words to use? It’s a story of obsession, polarisation, celebrity, Twitter and how people can radically change. • Support Origin Story on Patreon • Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory • Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube Reading list Articles • Decca Aitkenhead – ‘JK Rowling: ‘The worst that can happen is that everyone says,‘That’s shockingly bad”’, The Guardian (22 September 2012) • Julie Bindel – ‘Gender benders beware’, The Guardian (31 January 2004) • Jackson Bird – ‘“Harry Potter” Helped Me Come Out as Trans, But J.K. Rowling Disappointed Me’, New York Times (21 December 2019) • Theara Coleman – ‘A timeline of JK Rowling’s anti-trans shift’, The Week US (April 2026) • Caroline Davies – ‘JK Rowling’s journey from Harry Potter creator to gender-critical campaigner’, Guardian (18 April 2025) • Sarah Ditum et al. – ‘An Oral History of the Gender War’, The Radical Notion (Autumn/Winter 2024) • Alona Ferber – ‘Judith Butler on the culture wars, JK Rowling and living in “anti-intellectual times”’, New Statesman (22 September 2020) • Molly Fischer – ‘Who Did J.K. Rowling Become?’, The Cut (22 December 2020) • Simon Hattenstone – ‘Harry, Jessie and Me’, The Guardian (8 July 2000) • Paris Lees – ‘On Germaine Greer and the Hypocrisy of the “Left”’, Vice (20 November 2015) • Eve Livingston – ‘How an Online Forum for Moms Became a Toxic Hotbed of Transphobia’, Vice (6 December 2018) • Dorian Lynskey – ‘The Burchill Ultimatum’, 33 Revolutions Per Minute blog (14 January 2013) • Ian Parker – ‘Mugglemarch’, New Yorker (24 September 2012) • Aja Romano – ‘Is J.K. Rowling transphobic? Let’s let her speak for herself.’, Vox (30 May 2025) • J.K. Rowling – ‘Text of J.K. Rowling’s Speech’, Harvard Gazette (5 June 2008) • Amia Srinivasan – ‘Who Lost the Sex Wars’, New Yorker (6 September 2021) Books • Hannah Barnes – Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children (2023) • Judith Butler – Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990) • Shon Faye – The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice (2021) • Helen Joyce – Trans: Where Ideology Meets Reality (2021) • Sean Smith – J.K. Rowling: A Biography (2001) ... reading list continues on Patreon Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams...
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    1 hr and 10 mins
  • European Union – Part Three – The Expanse

    European Union – Part Three – The Expanse
    May 13 2026
    Hello and welcome to the final part of the story of European union, in which we finally see the European Union come to pass — and run into trouble. The transition begins with Jacques Delors, a pragmatic idealist in the mould of Jean Monnet, orchestrating Europe’s great leap forward. As the Berlin Wall comes down (and so does Margaret Thatcher), the balance of power shifts from France to a reunited Germany. In 1992, the 12 member states sign the Maastricht Treaty, which turns the EEC into the EU and sets a timetable for a common currency, the euro. This is the peak of European confidence and ambition. As the EU takes on the challenges of assimilating Eastern Europe and achieving monetary union, inertia sets in and Euroscepticism emerges as a political force. The failure to agree a constitution is nothing compared to the eurozone crisis beginning in 2009. The crisis is ethical as well as financial, pitting German bankers against the Greek people and making the EU seem, for the first time, cruelly doctrinaire. Delors wails that it is “killing Europe”. Eurozone drama and anti-immigrant populism make 2016 an ominous year for the UK to vote on whether to remain in the EU. The “Yes!” of 1975 becomes an angry “No!” And yet the chaos of Brexit shows other restive nations what there is to lose. Perhaps it is existential danger, from Trump and Putin’s anti-European nationalism to populism and the pandemic, that makes the project feel essential despite everything. Perhaps the EU is remembering what it stands against, and therefore what it is for. Did the end of the Cold War actually make life harder for the European project? Why, after 1992, did the EU add members but lose momentum? What weaknesses were exposed by the eurozone crisis? How did the question of membership come to consume and derange British politics? Did it take the shock of Brexit to finally inspire mass Europhilia in Britain? Is Europe rediscovering its purpose in hard times? And why is the remarkable, hard-won achievement of European unity so easy to take for granted? • Support Origin Story on Patreon • Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory • Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube Reading list • Anonymous – ‘Europe: Then It Will Live...’, Time (6 October 1961) • Roderick Beaton – Europe: A New History (2026) • Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi – Crusade of Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement (1943) • W.B. Curry – The Case for Federal Union (1939) • House of Commons – Schuman Plan debate (27 June 1950) • Roy Jenkins – A Life at the Centre (1991) • Morgan Jones – No Second Chances: The Inside Story of the Campaign for a Second EU Referendum (2026) • Tony Judt – A Grand Illusion? An Essay on Europe (1996) • Tony Judt – Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (2005) • Tom McTague – Between the Waves: The Hidden History of a Very British Revolution 1945-2016 (2025) • Jean Monnet – Memoirs (1978) • George Orwell – ‘Toward European Unity’ (1947) • Fintan O’Toole – Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain (2018) • Ernesto Rossi and Altiero Spinelli – The Ventotene Manifesto (1941) • Robert Saunders – Yes to Europe!: The 1975 Referendum and Seventies Britain (2018) • Martin Sustrik – ‘Jean Monnet: The Guerilla Bureaucrat’, LessWrong (20 March 2021) • Simon Usherwood and John Pinder – The European Union: A Very Short Introduction: Fourth Edition (2018) Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Videographer: Connor Newson. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production www.podmasters.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    1 hr and 23 mins
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