Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - "Tumblr Turned Me Trans." - Interview with Detransitioners Helena & Ryan

Episode Date: April 15, 2022

We're told that for young people struggling with their gender identity, becoming transgender will bring about positive change. People, including young children, are sold the lie that being trans means they'll finally feel comfortable in their skin, living "their truth". It has never been easier to walk into a clinic and receive physically and emotionally altering hormones. There are massive movements on social media platforms like Reddit, Tumblr, and TikTok that proclaim transitioning as...

Did you ever put a sign on your bedroom door when you were a little that said, No, boys allowed, or girls only, except dad. I know I used to do that constantly. In movies, you know, the neighborhood girls would always make a sign like that and hang it on their tree house, which, by the way, I am still so salty. Kyle and Stephanie, that's my parents, that I never had a treehouse or a Barbie Jeep, but I was a little. If you did, I am eternally jealous of you.

Turning Point USA really gets the vibe, which is why we throw in. a massive girls-only two-day conference for conservative young women every June. You will hear from your favorite conservative women in the movement like Candice Owens, Ali Stucky, and Lila Rose, to name a few. I'll be speaking to. And this year, the conference is June 2nd through 4th in Dallas, and we will be doing a heavy cultural focus on speaking topics, which is going to be so different and has been a big request from conservative.

So, or I should say cute, servative. So I'm very excited to fulfill that. Any age is welcome. There are student and adult tickets available. Just go to TPSA.com slash YWS and use code POPLITES for 25% off. That is TPSA.com slash YWLS with code Pauplitics for 25% off. Sorry, boys. This one's just for the girls. The gender conversation in this country is out of control.

Let me just read a few headlines from this year alone, okay? Forbes, Y-I champion gender equality. from Syc Central. How many genders are there? And then there was a USA Today article, Marsha Blackburn, asked Kintaghi Brown Jackson to define woman. Science says there's no simple answer. I mean, in the past few weeks alone, okay, we've got a newly appointed Justice Jackson who refused to define what a woman is. Disney parks are no longer greeting guests by saying ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Instead, they're opting for this genderless dreamers thing. You have Leah Thomas, a trans woman, beating biological women in the NCAA race.

Rachel Levine or whatever, America's assistant secretary for health was called one of USA Today's Women of the Year. And of course, J.K. Rowling, aka the mastermind and creator of Harry Potter, was labeled as transphobic simply for defending women's rights, true women's rights. I mean, I'm out of breath. And this isn't even a smidge of the madness that gender ideology has caused across the nation. And you might be thinking, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Alex, madness? Let's not be too harsh. You know what? I don't want to hear it. It is madness to deny biology. It is madness to erase the intrinsic traits of men and women and boys and girls. It is madness to erase women from sports, politics, society. It is madness to justify a child undergoing

life-changing procedures that will sterilize them, maim them, scar them emotionally, and put stress on their mental health. The list goes on. And I'm not taking a stance against an adult citizen's right to live their life as they please. But all of this insanity is being perpetuated in our schools at the expense of young people. And by the way, in some cases, the grown adults themselves who make the choice to transition eventually decide that living a trans life, isn't working out for them. But instead of receiving the help to go forward in a new direction, they are totally cast out by the community that either lured them in or affirmed them in the first place.

From behind our screens, when we read headlines about gender ideology and the regression of progressives, it can all be so suffocating. And it's also really hopeless and destabilizing, too, right? And I think it leaves so many of us, conservatives and honestly liberals asking, Why? Why is this happening? Where is this coming from? Who is driving this? What does it all mean? So I'm going straight to the source today, not to the trans rights advocates who are hell-bent on spreading their agenda, no matter how many trans people they harm in the mission, you know, that they're trying to achieve. I'm actually going to go straight to two people who lived their lives, identifying trans, only to see the rabbit hole all the way through to a place that was worse than the heteronormative cisgender. lifestyle that they thought that they had left behind. One of my guests is a biological woman who

lived her life as a man before transitioning back. You may have heard her story in Abigail Schreier's exquisitely tragic book, Irreversible Damage, The Transgender Cray's Seducing Our Daughters, also Episode 2 of the Spillover. I interviewed Abigail. And then my other guest today is a biological man who transitioned to a trans woman and now identifies as a biological man once again. He is actually engaged to a cute servative. Her name is Dominique, which is how I discovered him, because his fiancé message me on Instagram was like, you know, I think you might like my fiancee story. You might find it interesting. And then when she told me what it was, I was like, uh, yeah, both of these individuals have eerily similar stories.

They were sucked into the gender trans ideology via social media sites, Tumblr and Reddit, which is just a hellscape for straight white users and detransitioners, the left. as we'll soon find out, both received their hormones from Planned Parenthood. And in fact, it was devastatingly easy for each of them to get life-altering drugs. And they both eventually realized that the identity they thought would make life better was no identity at all. Here to talk about the process of transitioning and the process of detransitioning, the hormones, broken relationships, and altered identities of it all are Ryan Serino and Helena Kirshner. please welcome them to the spillover. Even though you guys are both detransitioners, Helena, you are female to male, Ryan,

you are male to female. Your stories are both unique. So I do want to get your takes on some of the same questions, but I do want to start with Helena. So how old are you now and how long ago did you detransition? I'm 23 and I detransitioned when I was 19. So it's been a while. It's been about four years.

Okay. And what about you, Ryan? How old were you when you? you detransition and how old are you now? I de-transitioned about a year and a half ago and I'm 28 now. Okay. And I began transitioning when I was 23. And how old were you, Helena, when you began transitioning?

So I started like the testosterone when I was 18, but I started identifying as trans when I was 15. Did either of you show signs of gender dysphoria as children? In hindsight, no. but at the time of self-diagnosis, I was interpreting certain things from my childhood as potentially gender dysphoria. Like what? Just inability to connect with being male, an ability to connect with other boys, just a discomfort generally with my body. Helena, what about you? Yeah, I did something really similar where I would kind of retroactively go and reinterpret

things from my childhood. Like, I remember my mom used to like to kind of dress me up when I was really little for pictures and stuff. And sometimes I would get, you know, overwhelmed or frustrated with it. And I think that's completely normal. But I would interpret that as evidence that I was trans. But when you actually look at my childhood in my life, I have very female typical interests. I did kind of struggle socially, but not because I was particularly gender nonconforming. That was just always kind of a issue for me. Were you guys raised in very progressive homes where LGBTQ lifestyles were talked about openly and accepted, or were they more religious, conservative households, would you say?

Mine was very, very moderate. No, neither extreme would have applied. My parents were always Republicans and conservatives, but they didn't really, like, care about LGBT, really either way. Like, I had gay friends growing up and my parents didn't care. When would you say that each of you heard the word transgender first? Might have been two or three years prior to self-dainter. So probably when I was 18, maybe the end of high school.

And was it online? I think it was generally just the depiction and movies, cross-dressers and things like that. Was yours online, Helena? I think I had like a vague awareness of something, kind of like he said, that like there were like cross-dressers and that like, I think I read some article when I was young that was like man gives birth or something and it was like a trans man. So I had like an awareness by never identified with it. I always thought that that was just like those other people. But then when I kind of started identifying with it was because I saw it online. Tumblr was really kind of the indoctrination camp of gender ideology, I would say, on social media.

And actually, Helena, you wrote this beautiful piece. You're an exceptionally talented writer. And you said on Tumblr, there is a running joke that Twitter is everything Tumblr was three years ago. In other words, whatever social justice topic is fashionable on Twitter at any given time has large. long since been beaten dead on Tumblr. You went on to say as time progresses, the seriously confused debates and ideas cooking within the Tumblr echo chamber find their way to other platforms and push those user bases in the same direction. This is scary because unlike Tumblr, Twitter is taken very seriously. Citizens can converse with politicians, celebrities and influencers

in a way that was never possible before. An activist can reach a spectrum of people who would have otherwise never listened to them. And I feel like a lot of people, especially those my age and older, kind of forget that Tumblr even exists. I mean, that was so huge when I was in middle school and high school and I graduated in 2011. But yet it seems like it kind of is still alive and well and, you know, taking the younger generation's prisoner with total force. So what might or why might either of you think that Tumblr or platforms like it, like Reddit or something, has this ability. to suck people in, you know, does the indoctrination into gender ideology stuff start immediately? Or is that just something that kind of sneaks up on people, the more they get into the wormhole on

these sites? So I actually kind of feel like a little bit of a boomer now because Tumblr isn't nearly as influential as it once was. Like now, all these kids are on TikTok, which I think is even worse. and a lot of it has moved to Twitter. So, yeah, I think that Tumblr used to be really influential, but it's not as influential anymore. Was it influential for you, Ryan, or was that more Reddit?

Reddit was my drug of choice. So talk about that experience of just when you started seeing all this stuff on Reddit. Yeah, it's a lot of confirmation bias. So it's common things that people deal with as teenagers and children. and then you're looking at it through this window of self-diagnosis as trans ideology. So you go on to these transgender forums on Reddit and they start to kind of analyze, psychoanalyze things from childhood. And they apply this transgender context to it. And what was happening to you on Tumblr, Helena?

On Tumblr, it's a little bit less overt. Like there definitely were accounts that were exclusively dedicated to like trans-research. sources and trans like education, but honestly, it's more just kind of getting involved in, for me, it was fandom communities. So like communities around a certain book or TV show or celebrity. And then in these fandom communities, there's kind of this like presence of this ideology. And it's not just gender ideology. It's kind of like social justice ideology that, you know, they talk a lot about like race, like white privilege, male privilege, patriarchy. white supremacy.

And then there's the gender component as well. But it's like in order to be a part of these fandom spaces, you really have to adopt the social justice ideology. And then within that context, you start to feel a lot of guilt for being that like cis white straight person. And then when you end up seeing the kind of like gender education, it's telling you that like, oh, you could be trans if you don't fit in with other girls.

You could be trans if you don't like your body. It even like goes so far as to say like, you could be trans if you don't like the way your voice sounds on a recording. So you're thinking to yourself, like, I desperately do not want to be this cis hat white person, which means like cis straight white person. And then you see these messages that are saying you're trans if you don't like your body. You're trans if you don't fit in. And then you're like, oh my God, I think I'm trans. Okay. But wasn't one of the fandoms that you were involved in like stuff for fans?

of Harry Potter. Is that right that I'm remembering right? Okay, so what I don't understand is what's the correlation between we want to be, we're fans of this movie and this book franchise, and we're also incorporating like social justice ideology and gender ideology. Like, explain that. I'm not really sure how the social justice ideology got to be so ever present in these fandom circles. I think that's something that someone needs to go back into the internet archives and really like answer that question because it's so true that like these fandom spaces are ground zero for social justice. So I'm not really sure how it got there, but it's just there. It's really present. And you, you cannot be in those spaces and not be regurgitating social justice stuff all the

time. I want to go back to just the original mental math that both of you were going through where you were like rationalizing in your head. Okay, I think maybe I'm transgender. So Ryan, could you take us through that? What led you to transitioning in the first place? Yeah, so I'm very data-oriented. So when I went into this, I was obviously questioning the nature of these thoughts because these are very extreme thoughts. And I'm normally a very, very moderate person.

So I went into, I eased into it, essentially. So I started reading people's experiences. and their their diagnoses and their symptoms. And they sounded very similar to what I was experiencing, just general discomfort, as I said, discomfort with my body. And you were a teenager? Yes, so this was about a year and a half questioning phase prior to actually getting onto the hormones.

So I was 21, 22. So I was looking for data points best I could. Is it helping people? Are people detransitioning? And what are the symptoms that people are struggling with? And what I found was that the symptoms were very similar to what I was experiencing. It seemed to be helping people from their subjective reports of being on the hormones and transitioning. And a cursive search,

is that not many people are detransitioning. And that's spouted very often that less than 1% of people detransition. So those three things kind of combined to kind of inch me along. It was very gradual process, but inched me along to eventually come to the conclusion that, oh, well, maybe this will be a good decision for me

and it will help me. Helena, your school guidance counselor, as well as the school psychologist, were incredibly gender affirming to you, which kind of contradicted your mom's reaction to when you came out as transgender. So looking back, I want you to kind of talk about that, like coming out to your parents,

what their reaction was versus what your school's reaction was. And then did that make you feel, I think, now, you know, as someone that has detransition, when you look back on that, does that make you feel like these grown adults in an education setting essentially encouraged your transition? Yeah. So my mom definitely had a more negative reaction.

Can't really blame her. I do think that she could have handled it better in some ways. Like I think that I was, you know, just really struggling with a lot of things emotionally and I just needed that, you know, compassion about that. But she just kind of like shut down, which I think, like I said, was understandable considering like what I was coming to. her with. I don't know how anybody, especially of her generation, you know, could expect what I was saying to her because I just came out and said, like, out of the blue, I'm transgender. I'm turning 18

soon. I'm going to go on hormones. You need to call me this male name. And there's nothing you can do to change my mind. Were you experiencing things like you were just generally uncomfortable in your body like Ryan was? Or what were you going through that made you think maybe I'm trans? Yeah, so I had a long history of like severe body image issues. So like from I think the age of like seven or eight, I had this like preoccupation with my weight. My family works in the beauty industry. So that was just always something that was ever present in my mind. And so by the time I was like 13 or 14, I was like pretty seriously like really struggling with that. And so I was coming from. from kind of that perspective and those messages on Tumblr that we're talking about if you don't like your body, if you think your hips are too big, if you, you know, feel, if you don't like wearing skimpy outfits outside and you prefer to wear like baggy, you know, stuff to cover your body, that means that you're trans. And I really related to that because I was like always hiding my

body. I was always like sticking to the back of the room. I, you know, I was really self-conscious. So those are the kind of messages that really stuck with me. And that's what led me to believe that I was trans. Did your mom agree? Okay, I'll call you these male pronouns and by this male name whenever you had asked her? No. She flat out pretty much said, like, no, I'm not going to call you that. Again, she had like a pretty combative attitude towards it.

So I think that in the long run, it just made me more steadfast in it because I think when you have this dynamic of like a teenager really wants something. And then the parents are just like, nope, you can't have it. But they're not really like engaging with why you want it and like trying to understand you really. They're just saying like, no, you can't have it. I think like as a teenager, it's common that that just makes you want to go after it more. And so that's kind of where that led me. And how did that compare to what your school counselor and school psychologist had said to you? Yeah, so my school counselor and psychologist, they both were pretty much instantly affirming of it.

So I went to the counselor first and I told her, this was before I even talked to my mom about it. I told her, like, I'm going to come out to my mom and I don't think that she's going to be accepting. So, you know, can you help me figure out what to do? And she actually like kind of sat down with me and we looked at different gender clinics in the area. We looked up like the laws about transitioning as a minor and stuff. And we found that obviously like you couldn't transition as a minor without parental consent. But she kind of like, yeah, in my state. Yeah.

It's different in other states. But so that she helped me kind of look through that. And she told me like, oh, I'm so sorry that your mom is so transphobic. this is so unfair that she treats you that way. And it felt really validating to me. Ryan, did you also have institutions affirming your decision to identify as female in your eventual transition or no? Yes, after I had started transitioning, though, because I went through the informed consent

through Planned Parenthood. So there was no speed bumps. I went and got a blood test and they gave me the prescription. Later on when I was with an actual health system in California, I did go through a therapist and they kind of did the affirmative care. And what was your parents' reaction? My mom was very against it because it's always been my values and her values that we don't believe in pharmaceutical drugs if it's for an ailment such as this.

we generally try to keep our bodies healthy and avoid taking pharmaceutical drugs if we can. My dad, he just wanted me to be happy. So he was always there for me. Both my parents were there for me. But it was definitely a little questioned, especially by my mom. Do you think your mom just felt uncomfortable

with the idea of you being transgender because she just is, you know, to quote, like transphobic, I guess, is what the, you know, the left would say. Or do you feel like it was more just your mom genuinely just did not believe that you were transgender? Probably a little bit of both. I think, I think really her primary concern was just for my health of being on these hormones and what it could potentially do to me long term. Yeah. What is the whole transition process typically begin with for you guys? because I know, you know, you can dress as the opposite sex.

You can go straight to hormones. Some people start with changing their pronouns at work or, you know, in their social media bios. But what did your each, what did each of your individual processes look like? And then was there any relief that you found when beginning to transition, just emotionally and mentally? For me, I was already out to my closest friends at school, but not to, like, the general population. And after graduation was when I made a Facebook post saying that I'm like, surprise, I'm trans.

And I got so much support from it. And this is coming from someone who was like a total like recluse loser in high school. Like I had literally two friends. But then all of a sudden when I post on Facebook that I'm trans, all of these people that ignored me for four years in high school are like commenting like, you're so brave. This is so amazing. So that was really interesting. So that's kind of what I started with. and then a couple weeks later, or no, maybe two or three months later,

I started the hormones also at Planned Parenthood. What was your process like, Ryan? So I got prescribed, well, after a year and a half of self-diagnosis and just general research, I was able to get the hormones through Planned Parenthood. I did that for about a year and then started changing my clothing and my hair was growing out through that process. and I was eventually able to get prescribed through an actual endocrinologist

through the health system in California Kaiser health system and from there I was going through a name change process and then... Like legally or just telling your friends? Legally. Wow. Just my middle name because my fiance was very resistant to some of these

to some of these changes these more extreme changes She was very supportive throughout the process. So you were dating a girl. Right, right. So now we've been together over nine years. So at the time, we've been together four years. So we're four years in our relationship at this point. Okay, I'm definitely just hang on because I am diving into the fact that you were dating somebody at the time that you decided to transition.

She stuck with you. And now you guys are engaged when you went back to your biological gender. So I do want to get into that. also. So immediately was, is it fair to say that you did feel a sense of relief and euphoria when you first began your all's transitions? Yeah, absolutely. For me, I felt like validated that I was kind of like getting what I wanted, but it definitely, I felt a lot more awkward wearing like men's clothes. It was totally weird. And I felt really like vulnerable and exposed. And I almost like didn't really like the attention, I just kind of wanted to change my body and like hide until I could blossom

into this like completely different person. I was kind of like where I was coming from. So when I first came out, but my body still looked the same that it did, I felt just like really kind of skeved out by the attention and and all that. And you actually started taking testosterone through a prescription that you got at Planned Parenthood. How easy was it to get testosterone at Planned Parenthood? It was extremely easy. So basically my appointment was about an hour. For the first maybe 20 minutes or so, I talked to the social worker. And she just asked me a few kind of very basic questions. And then like, you know, how will you handle your anger on testosterone? And I think my answer. And you can read this and I wrote like the substack piece. You can see my answers that she wrote down in the records. And I think. And I think my answer. And I think. And you can read this and I wrote like the substack piece. You can see my answers that she wrote down in the records. And I think. And I think I said something like, oh, I think I'll be able to handle the testosterone anger because transition is going to make me so happy that it won't even be a problem. So I had these like really just weird answers that should have been a red flag. But they let me go forward anyway.

And I didn't even get blood work done. They just said that since I had driven so far because the Planned Parenthood was in a different state to me because at the time there wasn't a lot of informed consent in my state. They said that since I had driven so far, that they were just going to give me the hormones, my first injection on my first visit. So there was not even any blood work done. They just gave me the prescription. And I walked across the street to CVS. And then I got my prescription.

And I came back and they showed me how to do my injection and just sent me on my way. And I never saw them again. What were you told about the side effects that you would experience when you started taking testosterone versus what was it actually like? Because I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but does it seem more like culture, is telling you, oh, once you start taking hormones or testosterone, you're going to be so happy, you know, your life is going to change. Are they really even talking about what the actual mental and physical side effects are of taking these drugs? Like, were you clueless going into it or no?

So now I wouldn't even call them side effects. Like these kinds of, like I did have some pretty negative effects from them, but I think that's just the effect of being a female and taking a large dose of testosterone. Oh, talk about that. Talk about the dose that you actually were taking. Yeah. So at my appointment, they, when I was first, you know, discussing with the nurse practitioner over my testosterone dose, she wanted to start me off on a much smaller dose, which is something that other women that I've known who have been on testosterone all started at. But I told her, like, I think I need a higher dose because my thighs are so big. and I just think I produce more estrogen than other females.

So I think I'm going to need more testosterone. And she was just like, okay, we can do that. And then we kind of like went back and forth for a little bit. And we decided to start at the maximum dosage, which was 100 milligram. 100 milligrams. Which is like I've talked to some men who are into like sports medicine and stuff. And like that's a similar dose that like a 50 year old man bodybuilder would take to like get back to the testosterone levels of like a. viral young man.

So definitely as just like a 5-3 female, that was an intense dosage for me to start on. And starting off right away on 100 milligrams of testosterone, what does that feel like emotionally? So for me, it started out with just being increased irritability and just like restlessness. It was just like I felt like I was kind of like jumping out of my skin. and I was really irritable.

I didn't want to talk to anybody because I just felt like punching everybody in the face. Like I was just like totally irritable and shut down and just not having a good time. And this was when I was first starting college too. So it made kind of like making friends really difficult. And like I already struggled with the social stuff. So then like being all out of my mind on testosterone,

starting college was just not fun. But it progressed into even worse like emotional symptoms than just the irritability. And it got to the point where, like, I would have these, like, when I would get really emotionally upset, instead of, like, being sad and crying or, like, being angry and, like, punching a pillow or something, I would just have these, like, complete, like, rage meltdowns where I would just, like, just feel completely out of control of myself. And I ended up hurting myself and actually having to go to the hospital twice over this.

So, um, are you? talking about actions of self-harm? Yeah, yeah. Trying, like, I guess what I was doing was trying to, like, contain the anger because I just wanted to, like, break stuff and hurt people when I would get really overwhelmed. And, like, I felt totally unlike myself. I felt, like, a monster. And I didn't make the connection that this is the testosterone.

I just thought that I was, like, really mentally ill. But once I stopped the testosterone, I've never experienced this again. So, yeah, I definitely attribute that to the testosterone. And so, yeah, that's what it felt like for me. In what you found out later, is it actually very unsafe to start someone out right away on 100 milligrams of testosterone? I would say so, especially like a biological female. Like I said, it might be appropriate for like a 50 year old bodybuilder, but it's definitely not, you know, appropriate. I don't think any amount of testosterone is appropriate for a young female, but definitely starting on that high dose just set me up.

for some really bad experiences. Yeah. Ryan, one thing about your story that is really crazy to me is that you grew up in a family that is very anti-Big Pharma. Like you said, you guys really wanted to go like natural when it came to medicine and stuff. So how did you end up rationalizing taking hormones in these intense drugs, even though you kind of grew up with this feeling of, you know, big pharma is not good?

Honestly, I still ask myself that question. It is a lot of mental genastics and rationalization combined with the fact that I was just not happy with myself. And I, from, like I said, from hearing other people's perspectives and going on these drugs, it sounded like it was helping them. So I figured I'd give it a shot. Okay, so how did you feel when you started taking hormones and do you remember what your dosage was right away? Yeah, so I had to take a testosterone blocker and I had to take 200 milligrams without a day and I also had to take esterdyel, which is an estrogen analog and I was taking four milligrams without a day. And so what were your emotional side effects? I became a little more calmer, a little more complacent, I would say. Also very

emotional. I would I would break out into tears just over over a sunrise or just thinking about my family. I became very emotionally effective. Well, that's definitely, I mean, that is definitely what females go through. I have a specific memory where my fiancee showed me. It was a video of just an old dog. It wasn't doing well. And it just made me break out into tears. And I there was a number of events like that where I just, it was very strange to become so emotional. But it just felt like that was okay. That was the way that I'm supposed to be.

Can I tell you something that keeps me up at night? I mean, literally, I've lost a lot of sleep. And that is, my boyfriend is vegetarian? I cannot relate at all, but I'm working on him. He just has a very sensitive heart and he hates how the meat industry treats animals so horribly. And to be honest, that does bother me too.

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Moink uses independent companies for every stage of the farming, slaughtering, butchering, and packaging process. And what I love about Moink, and I know you will too, is that you can customize each box so you get exactly the meat you want every time. Keep America farming by signing up at Moinkbox.com slash spillover right now, and conservatives will get free filet mignon for a year. That's one of the best. Melt in your mouth filet mignons for an entire year, but for a limited time. Go to M-O-I-N-K-box.com slash spillover right now. That's moinkbox.com slash spillover. Did you guys experience any physical side effects right away after going on T or hormones? Yeah, so I did develop some breast tissue.

My muscle mass went down a little bit, but not to the extent that I would have thought. it didn't change my body as much as it was advertised to have. Okay. What about you, Helena? I definitely feel the same. I feel like I got away unscathed in a way. I was only on it for like a year and a half. And I think like had I stayed on it longer,

I probably would have seen more physical changes. But even like for the time that I was on it, other women that I've known have had much more pronounced effects because testosterone is really powerful. but I just did not get those for some reason. I don't have a medical explanation for it. But yeah, most of my effects were psychological. The only thing really is my voice is a little bit deeper than it used to be.

And I wouldn't even say like deeper. It's just a little bit more like frogier almost. But it's not that big of a difference and it doesn't really bother me in my day to day life. So you guys sound really normal to me. Did you feel like your voice went higher, Ryan, when you were on hormones? No, no. I had to make a conscious effort to do that. Really?

Okay, that's interesting. I am curious, does taking hormones affect who you are attracted to as far as what sex you're attracted to? Like, what did you guys consider your sexual orientations before transitioning and then after? Yeah, I was straight before transitioning. And then when I was on the drugs, I basically had no sexuality. my libido is totally crushed. Okay, that's interesting. Because you were in a relationship during,

but you were not interested in any sexual activity whatsoever while you were transitioning. Right. What about you, Helena? It's funny. Like for testosterone, it's kind of the opposite. Like, your sex drive just, like, goes through the roof. And some people maybe find it pleasurable, but for me, I've always been more of a reserved person physically. So it was extremely uncomfortable and distressing.

to me. I like, it's interesting. I wouldn't say like my sexuality changed, but it's like, okay, so, you know, not on testosterone. It's like, I'm straight. I'm attracted to men, but not that much visually. Like, it's kind of like, you know, you need more of like context there to feel like a lot of attraction, at least I do. But on testosterone, like any visual picture or video, whether it was a man, whether it was a woman that was sexually explicit, I would get like a physical response to that, which is very different from me now. Like I can see a shirtless man and not really care. But on testosterone, like that visual aspect was really strong for me. Do you think it's more common for a trans woman to date another trans woman and trans men to date

or the opposite or like what's typical in that community? I'm not sure what the representative population would be my experience was a little bit different because I wasn't really in the trans community I wasn't part of any like LGBT groups or anything like that really my only contact

was on Reddit and like later in my transition that was even to a very limited extent so to your point I'm not really sure okay one thing that Helena said was that Growing up, she wasn't like the most popular kid in school. You said you had just a couple friends in high school.

Then once you transitioned, you felt like you really gained a lot more friends than a sense of community. Did you also feel Ryan growing up that you just like didn't have a lot of guy friends or did you? No, no. I was I was, I've always been an introvert. So I've always struggled to make to make friends and have social groups. And I didn't get any kind of social benefit from transitioning. Okay. And Helena, did you, I cannot remember from your substack, Helena, did you have a serious relationship once you transitioned or no? I did, yeah. And was that with a girl or a guy?

It was a girl, but she was a trans man. She's since detransitioned and she looked very much like a male. That's, whoa. So she transitioned also. Did you guys both come to that conclusion together while you were living together? No, so we didn't know each other in high school, and we both came to that in high school. And then by the time we met, we met in college, so by the time we met, she had already, like, taken a lot of steps to change her appearance.

And she just looked very much, like, masculine. And Ryan, now I want to get into your relationship, because you said you've been together for around 10 years or almost 10 years. Yeah, over nine years now. she was dating you as a guy. You tell her I now want to transition into being a woman. Did you guys break up? Or was she like, okay, cool.

What did she go through? I mean, was she still attracted to you? Or what happened? Yeah. So when I at first told her, she was definitely a little bit hesitant, very hesitant, especially when I told her about the implications

of having to take hormones and the potential side effects of that. She was very concerned about that. aspect. But she she wanted to be there to support me through whatever decisions I wanted to make. And it definitely presented some challenges to our relationships, to my, to our relationship over the four years that I was transitioning or living as a woman. But I, I feel like she, she had this faith that I was going to figure things out. I think she saw what I was going through and, to her credit, I think she

saw the truth that I wasn't seeing that I was eventually going to find that this lifestyle just wasn't right for me. And thankfully that did work out and I'm very grateful for her support throughout the whole process because she was always there even if she didn't entirely agree

with the decision I was making she was always there to hear me out. and push back, especially if she felt something wasn't right. If I started to bring up a surgery, because I wanted to get some cosmetic surgery, and she was like, I'm not okay with that. She would straight out say that, and I'm very grateful for that. She did that. Had she been attracted to men and women before,

or she was just along for this ride with you? Yeah, yeah. We've been in a very committed relationship for a while. So I think she just wanted to be there to support me most of all. What surgeries were you thinking about getting? I wanted to get my nose changed. I wanted to get my Adams apple reduced. I did have some laser hair removal on my face.

Yeah, it was mainly like facial cosmetic surgery because I was very self-conscious of the way that I looked and I felt like people could tell. So I wanted to, I was looking into some of those surgeries. Were you ever considering any type of surgery, Helen, or no? I was considering a mastectomy, but I just never got around to it, thankfully. Jeez, when you look back on that, I mean, how big of a relief is it that you didn't go through with that looking back now? I feel extremely thankful, especially because now I have friends.

who did take those steps and like I know how hard it has been for them. And I just, yeah, I feel really, really blessed that I was able to like have this experience and yes, it was painful, but that I don't have to live with that like long term loss of my body parts. Do you all feel like the trans community was, you know, 100% something you could rely on? Or do you feel like the trans community makes relationships 100% conditional? Well, I would say, maybe this isn't answering your question, but I saw a lot of chaos in the trans community, especially around mental health. Could you elaborate on that a little?

A lot of people are struggling with depression and personality disorders in the trans community. And I've always been a, I would say I've been pretty mentally stated. other than obviously this thing. So I would try to reach out to people in the trans community through Reddit and just kind of share content of finding mental peace and fitness and exercise. Even when I was transitioned,

I just tried to reach out to people and say, look, I know you're struggling with whatever, whether it be depression or bipolar disorder and just kind of try to help them find a little bit of mental peace. I don't know if that answers your question. But yeah, it's mental, mental illnesses are definitely prolific in the community. How about you, Helena? I definitely feel like it's very conditional. It's just like I said, at least the part of the trans community that I was in was very much ideological. And it's like if you, you know,

said or expressed anything that was remotely not okay. by the ideology, then like you would be attacked by the same people who are calling you their friend five minutes ago. So it was definitely really, you know, stressful. In these social media groups online, did you guys tell them whenever you had decided, I think actually I'm not transgender. Did you open up to them and say that? I went back to my old Tumblr account and I expressed that. And I got some messages being like, you're a disgusting person. And then I went on my face. Facebook and I also said that and my trans friends unfriended me. So I, yeah, definitely as soon as I kind of detransitioned.

I wasn't close with a lot of these people at that time, but I mean, they just kind of unfriended me and unfollowed me and all that kind of stuff. It seems really odd to me that, you know, the LGBTQ community is all about speaking your truth. And so what if your truth is I'm not actually transgender and you say that? And then the reaction is, oh, well, you're disgusting. you know, you're a fraud. How dare you? Well, I mean, a lot of the trans community is kind of, it behaves like a cult.

Like, it's just very kind of black and white like that. It sucks you in and then it pushes you out if you do anything that cuts against their ideology. Were people accepting of you whenever you decided to detransition, Ryan? No. So there's a page on Reddit where people can post. kind of before and after their transition. So I had posted on there maybe six months ago of my detransition. And some people were a little accepting of it, but I did eventually get banned just from that one post.

You got banned for saying, I don't think I'm transgender. Yeah, so I had put up something along the lines of transition doesn't work out for everyone, and that's okay. and I think what people really took issue with was that I was posting on this other detrans Reddit page and many of them consider that transphobic. So I got banned from that page. And how did you come to the conclusion, Ryan, that you weren't actually transgender?

So it was a difficult process probably a year and a half. I was thinking about what it was going to entail to be taking these hormones for the rest of my life, 40, 50, 60 years. And also thinking, as I'm mentally maturing, of thinking about maybe having a family. And I want my health to be peak. I want peak health so I can be around long enough to have a long life with my family. and the idea of being on these hormones and potentially not knowing the outcome 10, 20 years from now of being on them was really difficult. So I had to kind of face the truth or rather just have difficult questions and consider is this lifestyle worth it? And how can I find happiness without living this way?

Did you feel though like you were just choosing between, okay, I really feel like I'm a woman or I really want to have a family? Like right now, do you feel like you gave up being transgendered just because you want to have a family and you still struggle with feelings of maybe I am a woman or feel like a woman, I should say? Or no, you came to the realization of I definitely am not a woman trapped in a man's body. Yeah. So now today and over the last few months, I'm aware that the feelings I was having was not what I thought they were. They were not legitimate. I don't believe in the trans cis dynamic like I used to. But at the time of questioning, so I was on the hormones for almost four years.

So about the last year of it was when I started to really think about having having, children, things like that. And so yeah, I was between what I thought was being unhappy for the rest of my life by getting off of these hormones, but having a family or not detransitioning and being happy. So I was kind of between this rock and a hard place, what I thought at the time. But I did decide to detransition and I decided I don't want to be unhappy for the rest of my life. so I need to find a way to overcome these feelings. And just by kind of distancing myself from that thinking, from always reading about it,

and focusing more on my health and not judging my body, not taking 100 selfies a day, and just generally being grateful for what my body can do. I can walk, I can see, I can breathe. I'm a healthy human being. Those things really helped. And also just kind of picking apart this supposed research about the transgender experience and the whole gendered brain hypothesis and how there's not much merit to a lot of this research. What do you mean by that?

What did you discover that led you to believe, okay, I don't actually believe there is such a thing as some people are cisgender and some people are transgender. Yeah. So the trans community shares this information that there's a male brain and a female brain and that somehow they can become swapped at birth. That's obviously simplifying their idea. But then they bring out these scientific papers and studies that supposedly suggest that's the case. And why do you say supposedly? Like are they having experts lie?

No, no, no. So they're just misrepresenting this research. Okay. They're not separating sexuality from gender. And it's a limited population size that they're doing these studies on. Just different things like that, kind of misrepresenting the researchers data. What was your aha moment, Helena, of, like that? like, oh my gosh, maybe I've also made a mistake and I'm not trans.

Mine was seeing just a lot of pictures of myself through that timeline and just recognizing that like the person that I was becoming was not really me. Like it just didn't feel like me. It didn't feel good. And that I was so much more uncomfortable at that point than I ever was in high school, like as a girl. Did you feel a little bit like you were sold a lie? Like I was told that if I started taking tea, you know, or testosterone, for those who aren't

familiar with the terminology of this community, that I was supposed to feel better. And I was supposed to feel like I was finally myself in my skin. But yet you didn't. Yeah. I mean, for the three or so years that I identified as trans before even starting testosterone, there was just like so much like fantasy involved. And that's like part of the things with the fandom communities. It's like the whole communities are just kind of based on.

on having this fantasy together where it's like you're all these like young females you all want to be trans and you all just kind of like fantasize together about how amazing life is going to be and like they even will put together like photo collages of like cute boys with like pretty pictures and like it's like you're supposed to sit there and like visualize it like this is going to be you when you transition um and then so there was just like so much fantasy involved and when I tried to move that fantasy into reality, it just was not like that at all. I didn't become like a cute Tumblr boy with like pretty flowers and scenery. Like I just was me, but a lot more unhappy and completely going out of my mind. So I kind of realized that it just really hit me how that

fantasy that I had as a teenager really was just like an immature fantasy and that I should never have attempted to bring this into the real world and the adults never should have let me. Ryan, did you think like, okay, maybe all of my preconceived notions of Big Pharma was correct. I should have gone with my gut and what I had known previously like this is a money making scheme. Or you do think like it's totally innocent. It just wasn't for me. I more so believe in emergent cultural phenomena. I don't know if there's kind of this conspiracy behind it.

I definitely lean a little more to, I think people want to do the right thing. If I were to cast blame, I would definitely cast a little more blame on the medical establishment. Because they do understand the kind of status quo. They understand the research.

They understand that this care is not exactly what people need. But unfortunately, the way our society and culture is constructed, it's difficult for physicians to question it, to kind of question the status quo. So a lot of them kind of just go along with it. And I posed this question during the last year, my transition when I was questioning a lot of this, I posed this question, my primary care physician. And I said, look, I've been looking into a lot of this stuff.

And it doesn't seem so clear cut as it's been sold. and I'm curious what your perspective is on it. And she's like, well, I don't really have many trans patients, and I defer to my endocrinologist, my other physician that I was seen. I was like, okay, so she doesn't really have a great opinion on it. So I also pose similar questions by endocrinologist, and he kind of had the same thing, like, oh, you're one of my only or only transgender patient.

I kind of just defer to the health network. So it's kind of just this layer after layer of deferrence and responsibility. So it's unfortunate that it's working out that way. But I think we need to be sharing more stories like ours and especially objective data and creating the ecosystem where researchers can present data and do research without the fear of being canceled or expelled from universities. After detransitioning, when Ryan was thinking about transitioning, you were seeing all this data saying,

oh, it's a very tiny amount. No one really ever detransitions. You know, they're so happy with their life after and nobody wants to go back. But now that you guys have actually come out as detransitioners, do you think that that data is accurate? Are there tons of you or, you know, are most people happy with their transitions? Yeah, so as I look for it more, and I find people like Helena and more online communities, there's definitely a lot of people transitioning, but what a lot means, I'm not sure.

I don't know exact numbers. A lot detransitioning, you mean. Right, yeah, I'm sorry, detransitioning. And the difficulty with getting actual hard data is that for someone like me, I went through three health providers through this point. process. So I went through Planned Parenthood, Kaiser, and then Sutter. And during that, during each transition from a health network, there's no kind of lineage to follow what happened to me. As far as Planned Parenthood, as far as any of those providers know, I'm still on the hormones.

So if you want to do, if you are a researcher and you want to kind of follow the, the path and the outcome of a transgender patient, it's difficult to determine if they're still doing that care or if they stopped and detransitioned. So it's unfortunate that the way through informed consent and just through health networks, it's difficult to kind of track what the outcomes of patients like me and Helena are. Do you think that there's something nefarious going on, Helena, why there is this sudden, you know, we must affirm every single young person who is struggling with feelings of being transgender, or is it totally innocent and people really do just want to do the right thing and they just think that it's more compassionate to accept it?

I think it's very nefarious. I was talking to my mom, who's a physician, and she was kind of telling me her thoughts on it, and she said that in all of her years being a physician, the medical establishment has always been this kind of like slow moving leviathan that it's like it takes decades for research to really make its way into the guidelines and affect the way that clinicians are actually providing care it's really hard to change the way that the like the medical institutions are recommending things and are functioning um but with this trans issue all of a sudden inexplicably, all of these major medical institutions in the United States have just uniformly changed on a dime to say that you need to affirm and trans all the kids and all the teenagers

and all the young people and that there's no other way to look at it. It just has to be this, 100% this. And if you say anything else, you lose your medical license and you, if you're a researcher, you get fired from the school that you're working through and all this kind of stuff. So it's almost been kind of in lockstep. And the fact that it's these major medical institutions that have changed in such a drastic way to recommend these treatments when really there isn't a lot of good evidence of it. Like nobody's ever even proved that there is such a thing as a trans person. There's no medical definition for that. And yet, hold on.

That's huge. What do you mean by there's no actual evidence that there is such a thing as a trans person? There's just no medical definition for what a trans person is. It's all based on this idea that your gender identity is different from, you know, what you were born as. Or, you know, sometimes they'll call it gender dysphoria. But a lot of the times, like, they don't even require that you be diagnosed with gender dysphoria. I was never diagnosed with gender dysphoria. It's just because I walked into a clinic and I said, I want hormones and they gave me the hormones. So it's very like ideologically based. And there's no test that you can do to test if someone, someone, you know, quote, is trans or has gender dysphoria. And the gender dysphoria questionnaires are so vague that they really could apply to so many people, especially young people, that there's just, there's no real standard for like, how do you understand this population? And how do you understand what the correct treatment is? Because when you think of it, even with other psychological issues, like, there's not just one specific medication that everyone must be

put on. Like there's a variety of different paths that you can take when you have a psychological condition or a health condition or something like that. But with this trans thing, it's like, nope, anybody who says they're trans or thinks they're trans after going online or after some training at school or whatever, they must be affirmed and you must put them on the track to medicalization and you must give them these procedures as early and young as possible. Like, It's this really dark, I think, phenomenon where research is being stunted. There's so much lying going on. There's so much censorship going on.

And just that to me says, you know, there's something deeply wrong here. But what are they trying to accomplish by all of this? Why the lies? Why the hidden data? Why the censorship? I think it's a convergence of different interests. Like I'm sure these, I know one major aspect of this is all of these like LGBT activist organizations and NGOs. Like they were kind of formed around the, formed around the fight for marriage equality.

And then once that was achieved, it's like they're not just going to pack up and go home. They have to switch to something else. And if you look at, I know people have done analysis of. some of like these these big organizations or even like mainstream media outlets. And if you look up like LGBT or like how how often they mention lesbian, gay, bisexual, or trans before marriage equality, it's all about gay. And then after marriage equality, it suddenly switches to being all about trans. So I think it's like they kind of a big aspect of this was hijacking that momentum.

Is it kind of a fundraising effort for the left? Yeah. Yeah. I think it's just to keep that system going, like all this infrastructure was put into place to fight for marriage equality. And then once that was achieved, it's like all those people who have built these connections, who have built these paths to making money and fundraising, they're not just going to like go home. Like I said, they need to find something else. And I think trans is what they've found. And trans has turned out to be this highly contagious, highly memetic thing.

And I think there's just a lot of energy around it. And, you know, it's kind of like with, there's just so many interests that kind of come into this at once. It's so, like, useful to so many different kinds of groups and people. This is an extremely provocative, controversial question that will really tick a lot of people off. But I just unfiltered really want your all's genuine responses, whether you agree or disagree. Some people feel like the trans movement is a gateway to accepting. pedophilia. Yes or no, you agree with that or you disagree with it? This is actually part of why I got banned from these groups in Reddit because this is an issue that I brought up. If you start to argue for

children's rights, medical autonomy, why can't they have a less extreme type of autonomy, like sexual autonomy? So I think, I don't know if this is where it's going to go, but I could see people arguing for that. It's plausible to you. Right. If you, if you, if you, if you, if you, If a child can choose to take hormones or have a surgery, why can't they consent to sex? I think that might be, unfortunately, where it could go. Do you think that is possible, Helena? Yeah, I think a lot of what's going on is blurring the boundaries between what is an adult and what is a child. Like, you have, you know, for instance, there's all this controversy around this bill in Florida that is preventing schools from doing curriculum and instruction about gender and sexuality to children.

And I think, you know, a lot of people think that's completely reasonable, but there are people who are saying that that's unreasonable. And I think when you start to blur that boundary between like what's an appropriate conversation for an adult to have with a child or what's an appropriate concept to introduce to a child, I think that does open up a gate. And there's also just the point that, you know, a cornerstone of this movement is to put children on puberty blockers. who might be, you know, attracted to the idea of putting children on puberty blockers. Like, I don't think it's so far-fetched to see a scenario in which case, like, a vulnerable child might be put on these drugs that keep them in a prepubescent state for much longer by, you know, someone who's abusive. So I think that there's, there's a lot of factors in here that really make children more vulnerable in our society. I guess even if there is no

like concerted effort to normalize pedophilia or to put children on puberty blockers for nefarious reasons. There's also nothing stopping that from happening because you can't criticize it. You can't, you can't have any caution. You can't criticize the intentions of any of the parents who are putting their kids on puberty blockers, especially, you know, considering how many of these kids going on puberty blockers are in foster care. They're not even with their biological parents. They're with, you know, oftentimes strange adults. But you can't criticize that. So there's nothing really protecting these children. I don't know if either of you saw this, but recently the White House affirmed transition in children. It was actually the National Child Traumatic Stress Network.

They're saying that they're providing health care information now to health care providers that confirms the idea that gender affirming care is not at all child abuse. It's not maltreat. It's not maltreat. It's not malpractice. And so I'm curious what you guys think, you know, at first you were getting this affirmation from just social media sites. What do you think it means if the literal White House is saying we should affirm children wanting to transition? I don't agree with the framing of it as child abuse. I really do think parents, for the most part, are trying to do the best thing for. their children. And when you have an entire society saying it's the best thing, when you have an

entire medical establishment with a consensus, that it's the best thing. I think framing it as child abuse is not the right approach. As I said earlier, I think a better approach is just sharing stories and sharing hard data so that people can make a more informed decision about these things. Do you think that's a mistake people saying that it's child abuse to transition your child, Helena? I personally don't. I understand Ryan's point about how, you know, like the medical establishment is really pushing parents in that direction. And there's also an element of social contagion, even for the parents. A friend of mine has been documenting posts from transparent Facebook groups. And there's definitely like a similar aspect of social contagion of people just

getting really carried away, not having access to good information. And there's just a lot of emotional manipulation going on. So I definitely don't think that all these parents are, you know, abusers and villains. But I think like that act, whether it's from the parent or it's from the doctor overseeing that child's care, I think that act of lying to a child that they can become the opposite sex and then giving them these medications that are extremely experimental and really dangerous. I think that's just setting them up for so much hardship down the line

that I can't help but think that that's abusive. Do you both think that all of these activists and advocates and medical professionals who are affirming the idea of letting children transition? Will this end up being one of the biggest crimes against humanity in modern times? I think so. I mean, I think at some point,

this is going to end one way or another. I think, you know, someone pointed out today to me that so much of this is like a youth subculture and these things go out of fashion. So what happens when this goes out of fashion with the primary demographic that it's popular amongst like what happens to these clinicians who have been pushing these surgeries and these medications when their main supporters now think it's cringe? And what happens to these lawmakers who have like fought for this and put this forward when their main supporters now think it's cringe. So I think that at some point there will be a reckoning.

And I just hope that, you know, we actually do get some accountability for the people who have put this forward. Do you think that there is any stopping the embedded gender ideology that's in our major institutions at this point? Or is it just full steam ahead? I don't think so. I think it's become so entrenched in universities. And unfortunately, that's where, a lot of the scientific consensus is coming from. So it's somewhat of a self-enforcing loop at this point. You have these academics producing research that support the points that the activists are producing. I think it has a lot of momentum and it's going to continue, unfortunately. What have you guys both learned about life and what it means to have an identity that is healthy

after this process? I definitely learned to just be more patient and accepting of my body and just value other things more than the way this thing is the relationships I have and the experiences I have. And as I said, just the fact that I have a functioning body, there's so many people that are sick that are on chemo that are terminally ill. and they don't understand why a healthy person like me would want to go through surgeries and medical treatments if it's not a life-saving type of care. So I think it's just being grateful for my body and grateful to be healthy, especially.

Yeah. Do you think, Helena, that if there would have been more roadblocks in your way to transitioning, that it would have been something that you would have grown out of? or would you inevitably at some point had to have gone through this process? I definitely think I would have grown out of it. But at the same time, because I personally didn't suffer any long-lasting medical harm, I think I might be saying something different if I did. But because I got away, like, physically unscathed, I think it was just like an extremely valuable learning opportunity.

And it just made me mature so much. And I feel like I just understand myself and the world a lot more than I would if I hadn't been through this. How do both of you feel in your bodies now? I feel good. I definitely prioritize just health and fitness more so now, just generally feeling good. But yeah, like I said, I just generally don't judge my body like I was through that process. Yeah, I can say the same. I still definitely struggle with the body image stuff, but it doesn't feel as urgent. Like I can kind of be okay with the fact that I don't really like my body and it doesn't like destroy my day and I'm not obsessing over it.

It's just kind of like, you know, sometimes my body looks one way and sometimes it looks another way and that doesn't have to dictate my ability to live my life. One thing that you talked about, Helena, is that, you know, it was really really. important to you and really upset you when your mom didn't immediately get on board with you wanting to transition and calling you by this other name and things like that. So for a child that is in crisis, thinking that they want to transition, what in the world is the best practice that parents should take? Do you guys think that parents should just go with it, call them by these preferred names, preferred pronouns, or is it really important that adults do not do that? I would say affirmation is not the correct approach because you're, you're ultimately enforcing those thought patterns. A few parents have reached out to me about this. And I just recommend just especially being there for your child and hearing them out because the LGBT community really promotes distancing yourself from quote unquote toxic family members. So at least just being there to hear them out.

But without walking the fine line of not being a, affirmative not promoting medical intervention or participating in pronouns or naming or anything like that. But how does a parent stop a child like you said, but well, both of you, you were not, you were a young adult, but Helena was a teenager and you guys both ended up going to just plan parenthood behind your parents back and getting what you wanted to get, you know, as far as hormones go. So what can a parent really do? I mean, some of these kids are just going to go to plan parenthood anyway. I definitely think that's true. And that's why like, you know, a lot of the work that I do kind of aims at kind of stopping that or like urging

clinicians to be more cautious. But I think like considering it is so easy now, I think a lot of these kids are going to go forward with certain medical steps. But I think the most important thing that will help to reduce the damage, both to like that child's health, but also to the family relationship, because this can just do like so much harm to families and their relationships. I think the most important thing for parents to do is to just like keep communicating with them and like don't let this become don't let this define your relationship. Don't let like the dynamic of stopping your child transitioning take over everything about the family. Like there's so much else in the family that is still worth nurturing and caring for. And there's so much in that

in that child that is still, you know, like they have other interests, they have other passions. They have other things that they're going through. And you can still have that relationship with them and just like try to maintain that so that when they go and make their mistakes, they can feel safe coming back to you and like you're not going to judge them or be angry with them. Is it more imperative that we combat this through a legislative approach or cultural? I definitely lead toward the cultural approach. I see a lot of politicians kind of weaponizing this cause, I think it's for votes just like anything else. When you kind of try to force, especially, for example, the Texas bill, when you try to force parents into a corner, it's not going to result

in what they want it to. If they want to treat their child with gender dysphoria, they're still going to do it. They're going to go out of state. They're going to have the drugs shipped in from out of state. I think, as I said earlier, the better approach is just more of us have to come out and tell our stories, and we have to cultivate a better environment for researchers to promote their hard data about this. You said both, Helena, what do you think we should be doing legislatively? I think there's a place for the legislative stuff. I think that, like, I definitely agree with Ryan that the angle that the Texas law has with kind of more coming after the, the parents as opposed to the medical industry and the medical professionals, I think that's wrong.

I think that definitely if we're going to do anything legislatively, it should be restrictions on the medical field. And it also should be holding, you know, people who are performing just wrongful, just having unethical medical practices. I think we should be maybe looking at legislation that holds that accountable. But I also think that the culture is really important. important because like I said, I want to kind of accelerate the process of this youth subculture being over, being like a thing of the past and being kind of cringe. So I think that once we can make that happen, then a lot of other things will kind of naturally follow because the young people will be looking around and being like, oh, maybe this actually isn't the coolest thing ever.

I also want to issue a congratulations, Helena, because J.K. Rowling shared your piece on your detransition story. Did you cry when that happened? I mean, what was your emotional reaction? It was pretty crazy. I was like dancing around because, yeah, like you mentioned earlier, I really loved Harry Potter and I still love Harry Potter, but especially as a teenager, I just like breathed Harry Potter. So when she tweeted out my substack, I was over the moon. It was pretty cool. That's so awesome. I feel like that really just makes your story go full circle. Yeah, yeah. It's very interesting how that worked out. Do you think that if she would have been publicly kind of against all of this transition stuff

whenever you were going through that, that would have affected your decision at all? Because you were such a huge fan of her work? I don't know. I do think about that sometimes. And I don't know because I remember as a teenager because there's kind of this culture on Tumblr where it's like people always try to frame whatever interest. you have as like being problematic. So I remember they were always calling Harry Potter racist because the main character

Harry is white and that used to really piss me off. So I think that if J.K. Rowling came out and people tried to shame me for liking Harry Potter because J.K. Rowling was like a turf or a transphobe. I think that would have really, really made me kind of upset. So I do wonder what would have happened. Do either of you guys have any social media platforms now where people can go to follow you and see more about your story or contact you? No, I've quit all social media.

Okay, what about you, Helena? I am on Twitter primarily. Actually, that's the only thing I do. So, yeah, I'm sure you can put my Twitter at in the show notes. Okay, we will. And what is it, too, for those listening? Yeah, it's just a weird spelling. So it's L-A-C-R-O-I-C-S-Z.

Awesome. Thank you guys so much. for sharing your story, not only to spillover, but just publicly for everyone to hear, I'm sure that so many people every time you share your story are positively affected. So thank you so much. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for having us. Thanks. Loved both Helena and Ryan's stories today. So undeniably powerful, unique, something that you're not hearing a lot of at war at all in mainstream media. And I know how difficult it can be to go through your teenage years and 20s with very common insecurities. But to,

just struggle with your mental health and identity in such a specific and poignant way. And on top of that, have internet troll activists, institutions, professionals, and even those you love. Again, you want to make life-changing physical decisions in some cases. It is just, it is so much. So I want to say a heartfelt thank you once again to Helena and Ryan for sharing their stories. So honestly, I know that Helena shares her story a lot, but this was Ryan's first time.

He did an excellent job. And I think that so often, you know, conservatives can get caught up in attacking this trans agenda. And I get it. I mean, the agenda is sickening. It's scary. It's disturbing. And it should be countered with truth. But I do think sometimes conservatives run the risk of forgetting that the transagenda that politicians and elites and activists hold is very different from some of those who are actually trans or think they are.

Some members of this community are real people who are really suffering. And if the left is not going to be able to be able to be. going to invite them to the table to discuss the truth about detransitioning, then we should offer that space so that the truth has a chance to change the cultural narrative. Like Ryan said, he feels like the most powerful thing that we can be doing is sharing the truth and this data that is being buried about the likelihood that someone will want to detransition after going on these hormones. And the media is suppressing these stories of young people regretting their transition. So we need to have brave people willing to give these.

people a spotlight to share those experiences. So I really, really would like you to leave a five-star review for Ryan and Helena today on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. And if you like content and stories like this, then be sure to click subscribe so that every week you hear from another person with a jaw-dropping story that we can learn from. The spillover is back every single Thursday at 9 p.m. Pacific, midnight Eastern on Apple Podcast and Spotify or Anywhere that you get your podcast, you can also watch each episode on the Poplittics YouTube channel. So subscribe to that as well. I'm Alex Clark, and this is The Spillover.

Love you, mean it. Bye.