The Joe Rogan Experience - #1509 - Abigail Shrier

Episode Date: July 16, 2020

Abigail Shrier is an author, journalist, and writer for the Wall Street Journal. Her new book "Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters" is available now.

Hello, Abigail. How are you? I'm doing great. How are you? Thanks for doing this. Appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me on. Irreversible damage, the transgender craze seducing our daughters. Boy, that's a hot buttons object, right? That is a, this is a minefield. It shouldn't be though.

No? It really shouldn't be. No, it shouldn't be. So I think we should probably establish some things like up front, right? Some people surely as adults are transgender. Of course. Yes. Of course.

I interviewed a lot of them. And we fully support that. Absolutely. Okay. I have friends who fall into that category. Your concern is about very young children. Teenage girls. Has nothing to do with adults who are transgender, okay?

Many of whom are amazing people. They, you know, went through mental health, you know, therapy, and they decided, they made these decisions. They suffered with discomfort in their bodies from the time they were young. And as adults, they made a decision to transition. Fully support them has nothing to do with my book. What was the motivation to write this book? And if it's about teenagers, why is there a very young girl on the cover?

Because this is like the cover looks like a four-year-old. Right. It does. I mean, obviously I didn't do the cover, it looks like a little girl, a year old. Right. It does. I mean, I obviously I didn't do cover, but I think I think the cover is very good because I think it's supposed to evoke what we've lost in our a whole generation. Well, yes. What is that? I assume her uterus. Oh, it's just infertility. It's like a pillow. Yeah. Oh, infertility. Yeah, that's what that's what happens. I mean, I got involved in this. This wasn't a personal issue for me. In fact, it was an issue originally I thought I was going to avoid.

A reader wrote to me. I write most often for The Wall Street Journal. And a reader wrote to me and she said, listen, I've tried to get every mainstream journalist to pick this up. No one will touch it. But my daughter got caught up in this. All of a sudden, she went off to college. All of a sudden, with her friends, she had a lot of mental health issues, anxiety, depression. And all of a sudden, with her group of friends, they all decided they're trans.

And she went on hormones. And this is happening to parents all across the country, teenage girls, all of a sudden deciding with their friends, they're trans, wanting surgeries and hormones and getting them. And at first I thought, I don't need this. And so I tried to get another journalist to take it up, a real investigative reporter. I'm not, I'm an opinion journalist, usually, you know, that's what I've done. And I couldn't get someone to take it up. Because it's such a minefield, because... Yeah, because it's a minefield, because for some reason, the activists who are not representative of transgender adults that I've met at all, but the activists had convinced the world that because they object to anyone's transition being questioned, we can't talk about a mental health issue facing teenage girls.

Now, I've heard there's an issue with some teenage girls who are on the spectrum who wind up getting sort of roped into this idea that that's what's wrong with them. Is that one of the things you cover in your book? Yeah, I actually don't deal with that specifically very much. And the reason is that's a whole book in and of itself. Because a lot of it is true that a lot of girls who are high functioning, autistic, and I did interview some experts in autism. And that's when I realized that's a book of its own, which is that a lot of girls who are high-functioning autistic, they tend to fixate. And they are particularly susceptible to fixating on the idea that they might be a boy when it's introduced to them. So, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about.

And they are one part of this phenomenon, but they're a big part. So the teenage girl part. So you're talking about teenage girls that are susceptible to influence? Are you talking about teenage girls that are confused? Like, why are there so many teenage girls that are going in this direction? Like, what do you think is happening? So these are the same girls that would have been anorexic, they would have been bulimic, and they would have been they are high anxiety, very precocious girls, but they don't really fit in. They come to high school and they don't have friends. They don't have a click for them. And they're so smart and they're so lonely because they're on the Internet all the time and they're with mom all the time and they don't fit in at school.

And this is a way to understand their pain that they're really feeling. They're in pain, but they decide that their problem is that they're supposed to be a boy. And the fix is testosterone. So you heard of this problem. You knew of people that their children were going through this. And how long did it take you before you decided to commit to pen to paper on this? How long did it take you before you decided to commit to pen to paper on this? So I spent maybe a month or so just hearing the reports of the parents and reading the original study. There's an original study that the book jumps off from, which is the Lisa Littman paper at Brown University, a public health researcher who looked into this.

There was all of a sudden this huge epidemic in America of teenage girls deciding they were trans with their friends after social media emerged and pushing for hormones and surgeries. Have you had a conversation about this with someone who's a trans activist that says, well, maybe what's really going on? I mean, I'm just taking the argument of it. Maybe what's going on is there are a lot of trans women and there would be more. Or there's a lot of women who would turn trans, become a man. There would be more, but they never had that door open to them before. And that maybe there's more trans people than we think. Amazing. Amazing.

So it's a great point. And I thought about it because I've, you know, I tried to look. I'm a journalist. I like to look at ideas on both sides. I didn't have, like, I did not have a dog in this race. So let me tell you three reasons I don't think that's compelling. Number one, when Lisa Lippman looked at the prevalence rate, she found that it's 70 times what we would expect within a friend group, which means it's highly concentrated in groups of friends. But there's two other reasons. So we wouldn't expect that if it were randomly distributed among the population.

But there are two other reasons I don't think that's right. Number one, if we're just reverting to normal now that there's greater societal acceptance, right? Say we're just reverting to a normal base rate of transgender women. Why are all the women in their 40s and 60s coming out as trans? They should be coming out. Now's their time. Now's their moment. We should see tons of women in their 40s and 60s and so on coming out as transgender. We're not seeing that. We're seeing the same population that gets involved in cutting,

demonic possession, witchcraft, anorexia bulimia, and convinces themselves there's a problem. And there's one last reason, is that suicide rates are going up. But if these women who were living under a prior – you know, supposedly all these transgender, these real transgender people who are living under a more repressive regime and are now just finding themselves, you would think the suicide rate would be going down with greater acceptance. So when you're saying suicide rates are going up, you mean suicide rates with teens who turn trans? Both. The rate of trans, of suicide among this population, first of all, among girls in general, is extraordinarily high. This is just one part of the mental health crisis they're in. And second of all, we know that the rate that these kids, these trans-identified kids have very high rates of suicide, suicidal ideation. It's really, you know, an area of real concern.

Well, there's definitely an area of real concern as well with social media. Did you read Jonathan Haidt's book, The Coddling of the American Mind? Yeah, and it was on your show that I really like this light bulb went on when I rewatched it because he talked about exactly this. He connects it to social media and he talked about on your show the huge rates we're seeing in anxiety, depression, all among these same girls. And, you know, putting it together with Lisa Littman's research and the other investigation I'd done, I think it's really pretty clear that one more manifestation of these girls who we know are involved in a lot of cutting and all kinds of self-harm, this is one form of self-harm for them. So let's essentially say there's young teenagers that are confused and they're looking for something that makes them feel whole or something that makes them feel normal or something that gives them some sort of an escape from this angst that they suffer from. And you're thinking that turning trans is one of those pathways that they gravitate towards, but it might not necessarily be a good idea for them. Yeah, that's exactly right.

If these girls were transitioning to boys and they were living great lives and their mental health was great, like it is for so many transgender adults, I wouldn't have written this book. That's a great story. But is it great for so many transgender adults? Because even in transgender adults, the suicide rate's very high. There's no question. And that's a separate issue. But I do think that, yeah, I agree. I think that there are, I personally believe that there are transgender adults who've been helped by transition. But these girls are have been helped by transition. Sure.

But these girls are not being helped by transition. Just universally? I think as a population, yeah. I mean that's what Lisa Littman's study showed. But also through my investigation, I hear from – I interview a lot of parents. I also interview transgender youth. And they'll tell you their anxiety is a mess, their depression is a mess. Transition is not curing these girls.

They drop out of school. They cut off their families. They're not living a great life. It's such a strange call, right? I don't mean strange in a negative way. I mean you're dealing with hormones in a human body. Like you're taking a woman and you're injecting hormones into her body. And you're saying that these exogenous hormones are what's going to fix her. And I never,

I never understand that. Like if, if this is my argument about this, like how do we know, how do you know that that's what's going to do it? And when you are doing that, what damage is being done? It's one thing if someone's a 25-year-old woman and they say, I have always wanted to be a man and I think I'm a man. I think I'm born in the wrong body.

But when you're going through this developmental cycle from 17, 18, 19, 20, there is a lot of chaos. There's a lot of hormonal chaos. There's a lot of confusion. I don't think there's anything specifically that you can point to that could say some sort of an intervention chemically, some sort of if you just step in now and start injecting this body with male hormones, it's going to fix all your problems. But yet it's really popular to do that. It's really popular. These girls are getting it on their own diagnosis. So they're just going in and self-diagnosing. Nobody questions it. We now have informed consent, which means you walk into

Planned Parenthood, you sign a waiver, you decide you have gender dysphoria, you walk out that day with testosterone. Planned Parenthood is doing this? Yeah. It's one of the biggest distributors. So you don't have to have some sort of a long, some transitional therapy session with a... You can get your breasts removed with no therapist note. Whoa. Yeah. So you could be a confused 18-year-old girl and walk into a Planned Parenthood self-diagnosing

with no therapy at all, and they'll prescribe testosterone and you can get your breasts removed? Absolutely. Sign a form. Oh, wait, wait, wait. You can't even get your breasts removed at Planned Parenthood, though. No, no. Sorry. No, we didn't say that. You can also get your breasts removed from, yeah, surgeons.

Surgeons, some of them require a therapist note. I interviewed them in my book, some who do not. And, you know, there are both kinds. Jesus. That's a big decision, right? That's a decision that you can't really come back from. What did the surgeons, have you talked to surgeons about this? What do they think?

They think that. Obviously, we're generalizing. Right. So they think a couple of things. I mean, obviously, there are a lot of surgeons who refuse to do it. So I interviewed them as well. They say you don't destroy the biological function. Like I didn't become a doctor to destroy someone's biological function for something that they've decided they have without even any oversight. But the ones who do it say, look, this population is really desperate for surgery. It's a civil rights issue.

I, you know, if I'm, you know, I'm giving them what they what will seem to bring them comfort seems to bring them comfort. The problem is that there's no like follow up to see how their mental health is afterwards. The surgeon is basically a mechanic, right? They just remove the tires. A little bit. And send you on your way. Yeah. The problem is we're not cars, right?

It's all connected. So unfortunately, very often the mental health deteriorates. I mean, I talked to one young woman, Desmond, who's amazing. And she decided in high school she was trans. She got celebrated everywhere. Her teachers, her therapist told her, yeah, you're definitely a man. You're supposed to be a man, affirmed her everywhere she went. She got on testosterone, and it caused uterine cramping, which can happen.

It's one of the many bad side effects of testosterone. She had to have a hysterectomy. So at 21, she wakes up with a hysterectomy, and she realized this whole thing had been a giant mistake. Her mental health had not improved at all. And this was a huge mistake and path she had gone on. And all of a sudden, she didn't know what to do. There was no one cheering her on anymore. Why do you think people get cheered on for this decision?

I think in America, we have a weakness for anything that gets cloaked in civil rights. And part of that is very noble and good. Obviously, the civil rights movement was extremely important in our country and extremely, you know, valuable and valorous. But now anything that gets called a civil rights issue, you can't question. So I interview parents and they'll tell me they're almost all politically progressive. Okay, most of the parents that call me are politically progressive. And I interviewed almost five dozen of them now. And they'll tell me, like, I support LGBTQ, but I really I'm not sure this is right for my daughter.

Like, I don't I don't think she's really gender dysphoric. She's getting worse. Like, what is going on here? And I'll say to them, would you take away her binder? You know, binders, that compression garment they wear to flatten their breasts. And they'll say to me, oh, I can't do that. I mean, I, you know, I support LGBTQ and whatnot. And I'll say to her, you know, sometimes I'll say to them, would you give her cigarettes? Why don't you give her cigarettes? Because a binder will deform breast tissue. It can cause rib cracking. It can cause shortness of breath. You know?

I'm not, I wasn't aware of these binders. So this is something like a corset. Yeah, right. So it makes them look like a man. So it's got to squash. And if you're a big-breasted woman, it's going to squash even harder. I mean it's going to really try to flatten you to give you the physique, the appearance of a male physique. But it's just an appearance thing?

So that's just an appearance thing. They usually – 16-year-old girls don't usually go straight to top surgery. They start with a binder or, you know, 13, 14-year-olds. So do you think that something about people are really susceptible to praise, right, when they lean towards love and they lean towards anything that celebrates their actions? It's real common. I mean, you see it with artists and sometimes for the worst, right? You see it with comedians, which is my general area of expertise when it comes to this. You see sometimes a comic will do something, particularly online, and then they get sort of celebrated for that.

And then they start doing a lot of it. And it seems just ingenuous and weird, but they're like fishing for for love and you see it with social media in particular with people i mean this is a lot of what happens with social justice warriors and online virtue signaling right they're trying to get this reaction from people so if someone uh comes out as trans and everyone celebrates if perhaps they're a little confused and they come out as trans and no one says anything, and then they're just sort of, they have to sit and think about it for themselves. That's one way. But if someone comes out as trans and everybody says, that's amazing, that's amazing. They want that feeling of that's amazing. That's exactly right. So I talk about

this in my book. I interviewed this young woman, Benji, who was going through a really hard time in middle school, really hard. And at 13, you know, she got really into these YouTube trans stars and who promised testosterone is like the greatest thing ever. And she decided to start an account on one of the social media sites, and she came out as trans. And everybody congratulated her. This is a girl who was lonely. Everyone was telling her, you know, this is the

you should be. I'm so proud of you. I'm there for you. I'm your glitter family. And a lot of them were adults. And lo and behold, she waits, you know, all of a sudden they start asking for things like pictures. Right. And I talked to transgender adults like I talked to this. I interviewed this trans woman, Crystal, in my book who was, you know, very, very nice. I interviewed her and she made the decision as an adult to transition. And she said to me, it was biological man, now woman. And she said to me, you know, when Caitlin happened, it was a nightmare for me. Because I had been going wrong in my job. I know I didn't look perfectly like a woman, but I felt comfortable. Like I wasn't, now I had people crossing the street to hug me.

She said it was embarrassing. Like I had people in restaurants stopping to celebrate me. Well, it's on one hand – see, this is where I'm torn. Because on one hand, if you are trans and you do feel better about this, but you confuse how people are going to react. And then all of a sudden people are celebrating you like, yes, this is great. I love the idea of an accepting society and people are open, loving and happy that someone is making this transition. But on the other hand, I'm very aware of the influence of the masses and of just people's love and praise. It can shift you one way or another. I mean, it's like a classic scene in a movie, right, where there's a boy who doesn't want

to get involved in manly things, but his dad's like, come on, son, I want you to do it. And he just does it for his dad, but then he feels bad about it. Like, that's classic. Right. Human beings are so malleable. We're so easily influenced. That's exactly right. And that's what people miss.

Like, teenage girls, they can convince themselves of lots of things because they're going through a hard time. Puberty is hard. Not having boys like talked about when in terms of social media like the comparison of each other I mean and what you're talking about facetuned is perfect, too The I don't know if you're there was which one was it Chloe the the face one, okay? Khloe Kardashian took a photo and put it on Instagram and it's not her. I mean, it's just not her It's not her face and and a friend of mine, she sent this to me. She's like, what the fuck is going on? And she showed me that while they had Photoshopped her photo, they had accidentally removed part of her chain.

So she had a chain on, like a thin chain. She had the pendant, but the right side of the chain is missing because they had these wacky photo filters and they reshaped her face. And it's like, it's not her. Right. So if you're a kid and you look like Chloe, what she used to look like is kind of a little bit awkward.

You think you're ugly. Yeah. And then all of a sudden she looks like someone who's an anime character, like the perfect woman, you know, in terms of like society's beauty standards. And that's not even really what she looks like so if you're a kid and you're looking at yourself in the mirror and you're looking at this picture of her you're like

fuck what do i have to do right what how do i look like that why do i look like this i hate myself that's exactly what happens the girls in your class put facetune photos up so you stare you sit there and you're like i'm not as pretty oh my god she's got 10 times the number of friends likes that i have or whatever. I love that expression. Face tuned. I've never heard that before. It's like auto tune for your voice, right?

Exactly. Face tune. Yeah. It's that comparison thing. So strange. It's really weird that people do that. These filters that they use and it's very strange. I mean, look at Lana Del Rey, right?

She came out with an audio book last week and she went to celebrate it on social media. She posted a picture. And the first comment on it is, you look fat. So young girls see that and they think they don't have a chance. This is one of the most streamed female recording artists ever.

Right? Beautiful woman. You look fat is the first comment. That's a troll. She's not fat. Is Lana Del Rey, did she get fat? No, she's not fat. Did she get a little heavy? I don't know. I haven't kept up on her weight.

Let me see what Lana Del Rey looks like. Let me see that picture. I mean, there's one thing. If she actually got large, that's just a mean person. But if she didn't, that's one thing. If she actually got large, that's just a mean person. But if she didn't, that's a troll. But teenage girls don't evaluate it that way. I understand that.

You know what I mean? They should not be online. They should not be on social media. No, there's a lot of them who should not be on social media. I mean, not even just teenage, like well into womanhood. I know women that like read things and they get, they'll ruin their whole day. Like it'll wake them up in the middle of the night. It's not good.

No. And it's these faceless, nameless people that are saying these mean things that aren't even accurate, but for whatever reason they resonate. Yeah. Women have always been like really empathetic creatures. They like care about what their friends think. They care about what other people think. You know, it's.

Some of them. We're making massive generalizations here about trans people, about doctors. No, but here's why I say that. Because the reason that there's a reason that social contagion spreads among teenage girls specifically. OK. Because you don't see tons of boys going around becoming anorexic because their friends are. If a teenage boy is depressed, his friend says to him, let's go play basketball or video game. He doesn't say, let's sit and talk about it.

And because girls try to take on their friend's pain very naturally and meet their friends where they are and they care, they take on the pain of other people, especially their girlfriends, are and they care, they take on the pain of other people, especially their girlfriends, they are more likely to share and spread a pure contagion like anorexia, like cutting, and like trans identification. That's fascinating. You're talking about these mental health disorders like they're a contagion, like they're actually contagious. Like you can give it to your friends and your friends can take it on as well.

Right. Well, we know this, right? Anorexics, they are always really careful when they put them together. They have to be on hospital wards because we know that it will cause it to spread. Anorexia will become more severe and they'll spread it if you put a bunch of anorexic girls together and you don't take precautions to make sure that they're not just encouraging each other to lose more and more weight. Well, that sort of phenomenon exists in men as well, but it exists like if, if like a good aspect of it is if you have friends that are very ambitious and work really hard, you'll want to be ambitious and work really hard as well. And if you have friends that are losers and they want to drink and just waste their life, you tend to gravitate towards that too,

because you get reinforced by the behavior and the acceptance of your peers. Yeah. And men are more competitive for sure. I think men are more outwardly competitive. Their buddies do, you know, I see it in my kids. You know, if I say to one brother, your brother's doing this, all of a sudden I have the other one's attention.

What's Lauren Delbray look like? What do you got? What's her Instagram? What does Lauren Delbray look like? What do you got? What's her Instagram? It's been, yeah, I see it work. There it goes.

Do we need a new box? There's a book, but nothing on there. I mean, there's a photo of her. Where's the image? She doesn't look a little fat. That's outrageous. Which one did you see where they said she was fat? I think it might have been that one.

I don't know. The one on the audio book. Yeah, I think it was the first one. That's a video. Was it a video or was it a photograph? It was a photo I think. I just looked at it. I don't know. Yeah. That's long ago. It was last week, I think. Or earlier this week. Anybody who said, okay, let me stop right there. Anybody who said that's fat is a troll.

That's just a guy, probably, who's an asshole. I think it looked like it was a woman posting actually, because I was curious about that. But if I was going to be a troll, I would pretend to be a woman and just be the meanest woman ever and just go on these women's pages and make them feel bad. I think there's a lot of people, men and women, that really enjoy hurting people's feelings

online. Yeah. You know, if you look at that woman right there and you say, you look fat. Well, that why not say you look like a giraffe? Because both of them are equally inaccurate. She doesn't look fat at all. Right. But teen girls aren't good at like assessing that.

So for instance, I talked to one detransitioner. So she had gone on testosterone and regretted it, came back. Detransitioner. Yeah, detransitioner. Young woman, Helena, brilliant young woman. And I really learned a lot from her. young woman, Helena, brilliant young woman. And I really, you know, learned a lot from her. One thing she said to me was, you know, everybody just cares about how perfect you look today and how feminine. And at the time I said to her, I was interviewing her and I said, wait a second,

hold on. What are you talking about? Like, I just saw a star is born with Lady Gaga. She's not perfect looking, but she's an awesomely talented human being, like a woman that every young actress and singer should be looking up to. And she said to me, and I'll never forget this. She said to me, are you kidding? Do you see how they talk about her online? And I realized I was only listening to her albums and seeing her in the movie. But Helena was looking at social media and she was seeing women you know even as amazing as Lady Gaga torn apart yeah again this is the problem with social media that we kind of discussed in

the the green room about the percentage of people that are really fucking stupid that are posting you're getting a lot of people see if you just have people commenting on things without knowing who they are like if you're if you work in an office and you have a bunch of people in your office that you respect and they're your peers and they say, Abigail, I think this. And you go, hmm, that's interesting, Mary, because I respect your opinion. So I'm going to have to take that into consideration. But if you just read some no face, no name, you don't know who the fuck it is, blocked account, and they write something mean, you will take that into your brain the same way you'll take your friend Mary, who you respect and love. It's a problem with human beings, the way we process information. If you know that someone's a moron, they say something to you, you're like, well, Mike's a moron. Everyone knows Mike's a moron. It's clear. But when you just read something in text, your text looks just like some idiot's text.

You're using the same font. You know, it comes off of an iPhone, just like him. And it's hard to tell. It's hard to differentiate. And when people are doing it specifically just to be mean, it can be very, very confusing. And it just highlights the really poor quality of discourse that you get when you're reading comments and you're dealing with social media and YouTube comments and Twitter and all that stuff. It's just a really bad way to communicate with people. And most of the people that are saying shitty things would not say those shitty things if they were right in front of you. That's exactly right. And I think one of the things that are saying shitty things would not say those shitty things if they were right in front of you. That's exactly right.

And I think one of the things that makes it even worse is because somebody makes a mean comment to you. Okay, maybe it bothers you. Maybe it doesn't. Right? But it's not in front of, I don't know, a thousand of your friends. Now it's in front of a thousand of your friends. That's humiliating. Yes.

Yeah. Wow, you just amplified that. Yes. Yeah. Well, we're not designed for this. Yeah. You know, we's humiliating. Yes. Yeah. Wow, you just amplified that. Yes. Yeah. Well, we're not designed for this. Yeah. You know, we really aren't. It was someone like me.

I mean, I have pretty thick skin, but I'm not designed for it. So I don't read it. I just don't read it. I post things and I run away. You know, it's like some people can just sit in there and try to soak up all the hate and turn people around. I've heard people say, oh, they say me things to me, but I say nice things back. And they say, hey, I was only kidding. I'm like, why waste your time?

Like, what are you doing? You're going to proselytize? You're going to fix people? What are you doing? Like, you're engaging in one of the worst forms of communication we have available to us. Anonymous human beings that just post their opinions. Let their opinions be their opinions. I don't have any power over people's opinions beings that just post their opinions. Let their opinions be their opinions. I don't have any power over people's opinions.

Let them have their opinions. It's hard not to. I mean, personally, I think it's really hard. Like somebody's supposed to post something about you on Facebook or Twitter or whatever. Everybody's seeing that. Yeah. You just got called a name in front of a thousand people, you know, way more depending on which, you know, forum it's on which, you know, forum

is on, whatever. It's really hard to just ignore it now. It's really hard. And it's particularly hard if you're young and developing, you know, it's really hard if you're a 50 year old man. But if you're a 17 year old girl and you're in this awkward time in your life, it can be really devastating. But that's why they shouldn't be on it.

It's fucking bad for them. It's bad for everybody. I agree. But I tell parents, if you can, don't introduce social media and get them off it. The problem is their friends are on it. One of my daughters who's 12, her friend has an Instagram page. She's like, I want an Instagram page. I'm like, you are out of your mind. You don't want that. You think you want that. You don't want that. Your friend doesn't even want that. Let's check in with her in three years when she's going crazy. Right. It's not good. Right. So we've, we can now pinpoint, right. A lot of mental health issues, especially for teenage girls,

right to social media. Yeah. And again, the coddling of the American mind is a fantastic book that covers that. And you know, it's not just girls, it's boys, it's humans, it's adults, it's grown women, it's grown men. It's just, it's a really bad way to communicate with each other and it's a bad way to exchange ideas. And now they're telling, they're watching these, they're these influencers, which is another thing. You know, you have these trans influencers and they promise these girls that if they just go on T, everything will get better.

And the problem- Why do you think they do that? Okay. So why do they, a will get better. And the problem- Why do you think they do that? Okay. So why do they? A couple of reasons. So one is testosterone has certain good effects. So it delivers a euphoria and it suppresses anxiety. And anxiety is one of their biggest problems.

So they go on it and they feel great and they can't wait to tell their friends. It makes their period go away and it redistributes fat. So now these girls feel like, I just beat puberty. I feel amazing. I want to tell everybody how great I feel. And they are brave. All of a sudden they're braver and socially bolder. The problem is, of course, what they don't like to talk about online is all the really dangerous stuff that comes with testosterone too. Like it leads to heart infertility, like risk of cardiovascular attack, you know, heart attack, risk of heart attack goes way up. There's, you know, body hair, facial hair. But don't they want that? The body hair, facial hair part? For now, but it's permanent. Body hair is permanent?

It can be. But what about when trans women, when a man transitions to a woman, don't they lose a lot of their body hair? They lose some of it, but some of them are, I mean, everybody's different, but some of them are stuck with a five o'clock shadow for life. Five o'clock shadow for life. How does a kid know whether they are someone who's being easily influenced and someone who is giving in to this anxiety? And you are a part of the way you're describing a contagion amongst your friends versus someone who's genuinely trans, like someone who genuinely is born in the wrong body. So we have a hundred year diagnostic history of gender dysphoria. We know what it is. It's not guesswork.

We know that it is in this whole history. It typically presents in early childhood, ages two to four is when we see it starting. And it was overwhelmingly boys, little boys who say, no, mommy, I'm not a boy. I'm a girl. Call me a girl. Only want to play with other girls. Only want to play with girl toys. Only want to do, you know, play with girl toys. And they sometimes they hate their sexual organ. I mean, sometimes, you know, it's a severe, persistent, insistent, consistent feeling.

And then a lot of them would grow out of it and some of them wouldn't and they would become what we used to call transsexuals. Now we're seeing an explosion of young women, you know, suddenly deciding they're trans with their friends and they are doing it in friend groups. They'll have a whole friend group of trans kids. They are, you know, doing it after social media immersion. Transgender adults never did it because of social media. And it certainly never won them friends. So what about women that were trans?

Like you say, predominantly, it's boys who wanted to be girls. But what about girls who wanted to be boys? So that existed, too. And that also typically began in early childhood. And most of these kids, if left alone, would outgrow it. So gender dysphoria is something that most kids, even if they experience the real thing, will outgrow and some won't. Yeah. I was reading an article about gender dysphoria.

They were talking about it. First of all, even saying gender dysphoria I think is hate speech now. I don't think you're supposed to. It's in the DSM. I know. Is the whole DSM hate speech? Yes. Everything.

Your hate speech. Okay. But do you know what I mean? I mean, like everythingM hate speech? Yes. Everything. Your hate speech. Okay. But you know what I mean? I mean, like, everything's hate speech. Because people have gone so wacky. But they were talking about, there was a study done on men who experienced gender dysphoria at a young age and then transitioned to become gay. And just became gay. Just were gay.

And they realized, like, this was just a part of their process and they're happy as a gay man and they didn't transition so that's very typical most of these most of these kids would emerge as homosexual adults that's the thing is just like if we're cool with people being trans and we are obviously we mean especially adults why you know what why is it better that do we like this idea that if you just leave them alone they become gay men or would we i mean how many of them would be trans if they were encouraged in that direction how many of are they happier this way or that way? Like this is a very human problem. By human problem, I mean, there's not really a good answer. Human problems are slippery problems where it's like you're developing, like particularly you're talking

about young people. We're hijacking their development. You're deciding, okay, have you made a decision? You know what you're going to do forever? All right, we're going to jump in now and we're going to stop your reproductive cycle. We're going to jump in now and introduce hormones that were never in your body. Well, they're a little bit, tiny amounts. We're going to jack it up to the roof like fucking Hulk Hogan. And you're going to be a different person now. And I hope you can make this decision at 17

that will affect the rest of your life. I hope you're mentally capable of doing that. That's a tall order. It's a tall order and there's no medical oversight right now. There's no, I mean, we have no idea what long-term testosterone use does to a female's body at 10 to 40 times what her body would normally have. OK, we don't know. We can talk about the risks, but we don't know. But it's not presented to people as a highly experimental medicine, which it is. It's not reviewed by an institutional review board. They make it sound like it's something you can just sign a waiver for and no big deal.

Why is that? Why is there no review? Why is there no oversight? Why is this so free and loose? I mean, is it a sign? Is it a good sign that we're like more progressive now, more open minded? And but because of that, things have gotten a little slippery in terms of what we celebrate and what we should rationally step back and objectively analyze and say, hey, is this really the right way to handle this? I think one of the things that happened was in 2012, WPATH, which is the transgender health

organization, worldwide organization, changed to an informed consent model saying that people should be able to get the drugs they want or claim to need based on their own recognizance. You sign a form, you're aware of the risk, and then you get it. And the problem was maybe they felt that there was too much gatekeeping, as they call it, or too much questioning. They felt that there were people who weren't getting the medical care they needed. The problem was you hit 18 and the age of medical consent varies by state. In Oregon, it's 15. It varies. And you hit that age.

You can get it. You walk out the door with it. In Oregon, it's 15? Yeah. That's crazy. You're not even a fully formed person. No. And you don't need your parents' approval.

Oh, my God. We were talking before we got on the air about children, like really young children transitioning. You were saying that most people who transition know when they're very young. That is a real, that's a hot button topic for people. Children and hormone blockers and children. children and hormone blockers and children. What I keep going to is if you are a woman and you know you're a woman, why do you need to get these hormones injected into your body? Why can't you just be a woman? I'll call you a woman. What are we doing with all these hormones? Why are we complete? Imagine you're a person who says, I need to transition to be a woman.

And I know that I need a chemical that I've never had in my body before. And if I get that chemical injected, then I'm going to be happy. Right. And if I get surgery, then I'm going to be happy. This is what I'm supposed to be. Right. So the big problem with this is that you're making all the decisions that normally a doctor would make. And you're doing it at 15.

Right. In any other area of medicine, a doctor makes that. They say, hold on. I know you think you need, you know, whatever, an opioid, but just relax. Let's see what your, you know, I mean, that's, you know, effectively what, you know, what facilitated the opioid crisis. Doctors just handing over the prescription pad. And we're seeing that right now with anybody who claims to have gender dysphoria. They get it. They self-diagnose. They say, no, no, no, I know it's

my problem. They don't have a mental health professional who says, oh, wait a second, hold on. You have a very high anxiety, depression. You have a lot of other mental health stuff going on. Let's deal with that first. Any therapist who dares to say that might violate one of the 19 conversion therapy laws we now have in 19 different states. There's 19 conversion therapy? I think it's 19, yeah, which bans so-called conversion therapy, even on gender identity, which means that therapists could lose their license if they say, hold on, I know you want to transition. I know you think your problem is gender dysphoria. Let's talk about some of

your other problems. Wow. So a therapist, if you're a 15-year-old kid and you come to a therapist and you say, all my friends are going trans and I think I'm trans too, the doctor has to essentially go with you on this little path you're on? The doctors feel that they have to. I mean, the number of associations, American Medical Association, Endocrine Society, I mean, you name it, American Pediatric Society, you know, all these medical professional organizations, most of them have adopted affirmative care, which means their job is to affirm the patient's self-diagnosis with regard to this one issue. I mean, they're, you know, it's turning doctors into, I don't know, life coaches, right? How much time have we been doing this for? How long is the time period when this really started to escalate?

The last decade. We've seen it fly across the West. I mean, it's in Canada, UK, you know, Scandinavia. We're seeing numbers across the West. All of a sudden it's teenage girls. It's the very same girls who spread every other, you know, contemporary hysteria or every other hysteria. Boy, it makes you feel like there's a lot of lawsuits coming. I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, these girls are getting these things so easily, and they're 15, they're 16, they're 17, they're 18. How many did you interview when you were doing this book?

So I conducted almost 200 interviews. So how many teenage girls or specifically, I actually don't know. I interviewed a lot, a lot of people and, uh, and a bunch of adolescent girls as well. More than 10, more than 20. Yeah. More than 10, but I don't know. I have to, I have a like spreadsheets for this. Um, did you interview ones that were happy with the transition? Yeah, I did. Um, you know, still very young, but I, you know, I interviewed influencers and I interviewed parents and I interviewed adolescent girls. And some of these girls have, you know, stayed with their transition and claim to be happy. Maybe they are, some of them.

But the problem is if you ask, if you find out objective things about their lives, right? Are you still in school or did you drop out? Or did you cut off your family or did you not? Do you have friends? What's your social life like? What's your job? Do you have a regular job? Very often the picture is a dark one.

It's not a good one. Isn't that just the case with a lot of people in general though? I mean especially people that have the kind of problems that they have to begin with and they make this gigantic decision. The question is, did this decision of transitioning help or hurt? And where would they be if they didn't? You were talking about them before saying they were already in a dark place. They're already awkward, teenagers, the kind of girls who cut themselves, kind of girls who are prone to anorexia and witchcraft. You're dealing with someone who doesn't have a rosy future already. Right. But I think we used to call that

angst, teenage angst. I mean, they got past it. The problem is, yeah, you're right. Not everyone. But now they're getting prescriptions. They're changing the whole course of their lives so easily with no medical oversight. What kind of numbers are we talking about? Like how many people are doing this? Okay, so the numbers are harder to track in the United States because we don't have centralized medical care. But here are the numbers that I can tell you, okay? So gender dysphoria used to afflict 0.01% of the population, so 1 in 10,000 people, so probably no one you went to high school with. But today we already know that 2% of high school students are identifying as transgender.

And 2% of high school students, you're talking about 1.1 million teenage high school kids in America. 2%. 2%. And when did this happen? Most of them are girls, yeah. Really? Most of them are girls? Most of them are girls. Yeah. Really? Most of them are girls? Most of them are girls. Really? Well, I mean, the number, we can just look at the number of gender surgeries. And we see that in 2016, between 2016 and 2017, the number of

gender surgeries for biological females quadrupled. So we know they are the biggest and fastest growing population. Wow. That's a stunning number. Two percent. You go from 0.1 percent. Of the whole population. Of the whole population. To two percent of high schoolers.

And the vast majority of them are teenage girls. Yeah. What is the majority? We're talking about 80 percent? What is the number? I don't know. But most of them are teenagers. Yeah, for every indication.

I mean, we know that, you know, I can give you a bunch of other statistics. One of the reasons it's hard to know exactly how many, aside from the fact that we don't have a centralized control of this, is because you don't need an actual diagnosis of gender dysphoria to get testosterone. So you just go in and get it. You don't need the diagnosis. In England, where you have a centralized it. You don't need the diagnosis in England where you have a centralized medical care and there you do need a diagnosis. They know that the numbers for adolescent girls are up over 4,000%. Holy shit. Yeah. So you knew all this stuff before you wrote the book. This was all the numbers that... Well, no, it came out in the course of

writing it. Yeah. Some of it. So that had to kind of affirm your idea that this was a real problem i mean everywhere i looked it seemed to be a real problem it wasn't and nobody wanted to talk about it but it's real well just because like even when we're talking about i'm like oh here's a landmine oh here's a landmine like everything we're saying like if you talk at all about trans people um you run the risk of pissing people off and offending people and staying out. You know, you're going into an area where it's unless you are 100 percent in support of their decision and their rights and you celebrate them, you're going to get in real trouble.

Right. But that's why we have this problem because nobody will talk about it because parents will call me and say, I've been pro-LGBTQ my whole life. I just don't think this is right for my daughter. I can't even talk to my friends about it. I'll get fired from my job if anybody finds this out. But my daughter's not, she's got a lot of problems, but gender dysphoria is not one of them. Like, I don't think this is right. And I don't think it's going to cure her. And if you have to work and you're at work all day, you know, how much time do you have to even convince your daughter? Your daughter is with her wacky friends eight hours a day.

And she's on the internet. And the problem is her school, her school's already filled out a form calling her Jimmy, right, for a year. They don't even tell you. year they don't even tell you and for the people that don't think people are easily influenced that's how cults start cults don't start because they make sense cults start because people want to belong you know and the idea that there's not a difference between someone who's willing to join some crazy radical cult to belong versus any other sort of social movement. That's a lot of what people do.

I mean, people, you're seeing it now with a lot of our society. There's paths that people go on to where they see other people doing it, and they see a lot of people getting celebrated, and so they go down that path. And, you know, this really is a lot of the foundation of the social media influencer. I mean, one of the reasons why they're doing that is because they see other people do it, and they get this sort of positive reaction from it, and then they wind up saying, oh, well, this is the path that I'm going to go on. To make the jump from that sort of thinking and behavior to changing your gender is where people hesitate.

They're like, is she right about this? Is this woman a bigot? Like, who are you? Who are you? And why did you write this book? And what is the reaction been? What's the negative reaction been from people who are trans? So, you know, I get a lot of positive reaction, to be honest, parents from all over the country writing to me and be like, thank you so much. No one will talk about this. Let's talk about transgender reaction. The best reaction I get from transgender people is that has nothing to do with me. And I would say I agree with you.

This has nothing to do with a normal transgender person's experience. They didn't come up with this online. But do some activists attack me? Yeah. You know, biological men who are trans activists believe that we should not be able to have a conversation about the mental health of teenage girls. And they're shutting it down. happen? And what are the repercussions of them fighting against this? Is it what you were talking about before? Where are these therapists, if they in any way suggest that this is not a good idea for the kid, they can lose their license? Right. Everybody. I mean, I get so many doctors will contact me like we live in the Soviet Union. They will say, oh, my God, I can't talk about this. But I really, you know, I have to let you know that what's going on here is crazy. And I don't agree with this diagnosis. And it's clearly socially influenced and, you know that what's going on here is crazy and I don't agree with this diagnosis and it's clearly socially influenced and you know all this stuff and you think like you can't give your

medical opinion without getting fired that's not good yeah one this is dangerous but one of the things that I see is when women or trans women when a male transitions to being a woman and then enters into women's spaces, they do so with the aggressiveness of a male. And this is something that a lot of women have been very upset about, particularly TERFs, you know, trans, exclusionary, radical feminists. biological males talking about feminist issues and shutting down discussion about whether or not trans people are women, whether or not they should be in these spaces, whether or not they should be in these conversations. And they do so with a very aggressive. Yeah, very aggressive. And I just want to say, I've interviewed a lot of transgender adults. And let me tell you, they're not out there to make women uncomfortable. The ones I interview, they want to be happy. They want to be happy. They want to be happy.

They want to be left alone. It's great. Like, they're wonderful people. These activists are a little crazy. You know, people who will push into a locker room, insist on showering where you've got a bunch of – and this happened. I wrote about it in Palm Springs. A girl's water polo high school team showed up to shower in their locker room. And there's a full man showering in the shower. And the girls got scared,

you know, got uncomfortable. And he announces he's a woman, he's entitled. Yeah. And you can have a penis and be a woman, which is also okay. Like, you're not even going to make the commitment. Like, if you're going to be in a shower with a woman, Jesus Christ, like saying you're a woman and having a penis and being in a shower with a bunch of women. I mean, we got to come up with some sort of a way of protecting young girls from people who are doing things like that, where you shouldn't have to see a naked man in a shower. If you're a biological female and you you know you're 15 years old and you're you're you think you're showering with your team and a male comes in right but this male says that they're a woman and you have to take them at their word well you're a woman do we need trans

bathrooms i mean what do we need i mean how does that work it's a good question i mean you can't even nobody's standing up for these girls right so few people are saying hold on like you can't even, nobody's standing up for these girls, right? So few people are saying, hold on, like you can't. They are rewriting the state of Connecticut, okay? Now the biological boys are allowed in to out-compete girls. They are mediocre boy runners and they're winning the trophies. They are setting records in Connecticut. They are literally erasing tremendous girl athletes records in the state of Connecticut. And they don't have to do anything in terms of transition.

They just have to say they identify as woman, which is crazy. It's not like they have to be on estrogen therapy for multiple years. Some of them are, but you know what? The effects of testosterone on the body during puberty on a male's body are profound, right? I mean, I know you talk about this, like fast-switch muscle fiber, muscle mass, bone density. They have bigger hearts, men, bigger lungs, but more oxygenated blood. The differential is profound. Yeah, it is profound.

And it's interesting that if you discuss this, you're a bigot. It's really weird. And it's this denial of reality that it's not like you don't want someone to be happy. But for someone to say that it's fair for a biological male to compete against biological females, that's crazy. And when you have this conversation with people, I always say, okay, well, do you think men should be able to join women's teams? No. Well, then what are we doing? Right.

Well, what are we doing? Should men be able to compete against women? No. Okay, so biological males that identify as women should be able to compete against women. Is that what you we doing? Well, what are we doing? Should men be able to compete against women? No. Okay. So biological males that identify as women should be able to compete against women. Is that what you're saying? Because they're still males. When do you make the transition? When is it? Do you have to... And then when people point to outliers, well, there's some women that have more testosterone naturally. Okay. But those are very rare. When one of those gets in your division and you're a woman and she happens to also be a woman and she has naturally more testosterone, well, I guess you're fucked. But that's just nature.

I mean, that's also like if you're my size and you want to play basketball against LeBron James, you're fucked too. You know, like competition is not necessarily all that fair when it comes to just human bodies. Like some people are just genetically gifted and some people are not. But we make a distinction for a reason, the biological distinction between males and females. It's because men are overwhelmingly stronger, faster, have larger hearts, more oxygen capacity, bigger bones. There's so many factors, Different shape of the hips. Right.

Different. Yeah, there's a lot. Look at Alison Felix, right? The world's fastest woman, right? This amazing U.S. Olympian, right? So she ran the 400 meter and I think 49.26 seconds. Unbelievable. Unbelievable time.

She has more Olympic gold medals than Usain Bolt. Okay. Amazing athlete. In 2018, 300 boys in high school in America could beat her. That's nuts. Yeah. It's unfortunate because outside of athletic competition, I would like them to be recognized as a full woman. I would like that.

I would love it if everybody just treated them like they're a woman and respected them with their new name or whatever they want to do. But when you get involved in athletic competition, where I took a lot of heat was when it was about mixed martial arts, where there was a mixed martial arts fighter who transitioned. And there was just a story written about it the other day. a mixed martial arts fighter who transitioned. And there was just a story written about it the other day. It was a ridiculous story saying that the science, protesting it as junk science, which is horse shit. And this person was a male for 30 years,

became a woman for two, and started beating the fuck out of women without telling them that she had been a male most of her life. And people were so, that was where I really realized – that's when I first started to realize that there's some crazy psychological connection to this. There's like – the arguments that people have, these progressive arguments, they're saying these things not necessarily because they've objectively, rationally dissected this problem and looked at it in terms of pros and cons and what's really happening now they looked at it from an ideological standpoint in a very rigid one like if you want to be accepted by progressive people that is a woman always a woman like i i this was back when i used to talk to people on twitter

but i had this one conversation with this woman and she said that she was always a woman. And I said, no, she was a man for 30 years. And she goes, no, she was always a woman. I said, even when she got a woman pregnant and had a baby, she goes, yes, even then. I'm like, well, we're done because that doesn't make any sense. We're in la la land. Right. But whatever your ideology, women are getting beaten to a pulp by Fallon Fox.

Right. They were. Well, they were. But, you know, I mean, look who pulp by Fallon Fox. Right? They were. Well, they were. But, you know, I mean, look who's standing up for women. That's the problem. Biological women get fucked because the idea is that trans women in this Olympics of oppression, trans women are they're deemed higher on the scale. They're more oppressed and more marginalized than biological women. So biological women. So biological

women get fucked over in this design. And because so few people are trans, this person can do this and everyone can celebrate. And if you're not competing against her, so what? Like no one has a stake in the game. So they don't really care. And the women that fought her without knowing, see, I'm in full support of people fighting her if they know that she used to be a man. If that's what you want to do, I'm in full support of people skydiving, riding bulls. You want to jump motocross bikes and do flips, do whatever the fuck you want, but you should know what you're getting into. If you show up to go on a pony ride and someone puts you on a bull, that seems, that's not good.

You should know that you're about to get on a bull. If you think you're going to fight a biological female, it turns out to be a man who was a man for 30 years and then transitioned to be a female and has been on natural male hormones all throughout puberty, all through his life, and then becomes a she, now you're going to fight her and they're not going to tell you? That's crazy. Look at Martina Navratilova. She got canceled, now you're going to fight her and they're not going to tell you? That's crazy. Look at Martina Navratilova. She got canceled, right?

Yes. She lost her sponsorship for saying it's not fair for biological men to compete with women in sports. But what sponsorship was it? Athlete Ally. Well, who the fuck is Athlete Ally? I don't know. They're an LGBTQ.

Imagine. Right? First of all, how do all those things get lumped together? You know, Douglas Murray has a great book about this. The Madness of Crowds. I'm in the middle of it right now. One of the things that he points out is generally the idea of lesbians and gay men being together

is kind of ridiculous. They're so different. Because gay men, lesbians think of gay men as being like Peter Pan. They're never going to grow up. They don't have to. And lesbians, it's like different things. They don't necessarily pal around together. Yeah, I interviewed a lot of lesbians for the book who have really taught me a lot about just how beaten down they are in the broader culture today. Because, you know, their groups get infiltrated.

They have these underground social groups now. I've heard this from many lesbians across the country. They have underground. these underground social groups now. I've heard this from many lesbians across the country. They have underground. And the reason they need these vetting processes for their social groups is trans activists will try to come in insisting they're lesbians. Yeah. And that's what I'm talking about. Men that become women, they retain some of the characteristics that make men gross. And part of that is being aggressive and competitive and wanting to dominate spaces. And this is some of the things that a lot of these TERFs have had a problem with.

And this is why they became trans-exclusionary radical feminists, because they felt like these biological males were entering into their spaces with that sort of male energy. I mean, even the name TERF, like they don't call themselves, nobody calls themselves. I mean, I guess they do now as a joke, but like that was a derisive term. It was like any woman who stood up for women was a TERF. Yeah, it's it's it's so weird, you know, because you can't like there's this thing where you're supposed to say a trans woman is a woman. Can but you're a trans woman. No, but you are right. You are a trans woman, But you're a trans woman. No. But you are, right? You're a trans woman. But you're a woman. Like there's a weird game we're playing.

Yeah. And it's new. I mean, you know, what they used to call transsexuals in prior eras, they never said they were always, they don't lie about their biology, right? They're very open about the ones I have interviewed many and they're very open about their biology. They say, yeah, I grew up as a boy. I'm most comfortable presenting as a girl. They don't pretend that history didn't exist. Well, this is all because of social media and it's all because if you don't go – if you don't toe that line, you will experience attacks. And if you read those attacks, it will hurt your feelings and so then you adjust.

And I've seen people do that. I've seen people say things that they really believe and then get attacked and then adjust and say something that is more to appease the masses than it is their actual thoughts on the matter. And it's hard because they can get fired. You can get in real trouble. It's so funny. I think you're right about this, actually. I really do because I think social media has more to do with suppressing speech than anything else in a sense because it's like these parents will call me and they'll be like, my daughter says she's a boy and it's getting worse and worse. The more I go along with it, it's getting worse. And I'll say, why don't you tell her whatever? They don't want to go along with it. And why don't you take away her binder?

Why don't you – what would happen if you did this? I'll ask, you know. And they'll sort of say, I can't do that. And what they're afraid of, to some extent, is aside from alienating their daughter, they're afraid of social media. Right. I mean, everybody's always watching. They're afraid of the mom. They're afraid of the mom.

Yeah. And also, you're not going to get a lot of support from other people that aren't being attacked by the mom. If you get attacked by the mom, here's what's interesting. Very few people will come to your aid because they're worried about being attacked by the mom, too. They'll sit back and even if they love you, they'll hope you survive the attack, but they won't jump into the fray. And sometimes I have to say to parents, listen, this has nothing to do with LGBTQ rights, okay? If you see your daughter's in harm, if you think she's not doing well, you're a parent. Right.

You don't have to make a policy statement, okay? You can still support every kind of civil rights issue about, you know, LGBTQ rights or whatever. This has nothing to do with it. You think your daughter's in harm's way, you can protect her. That's your job as a parent. Well, it's also we're denying the nuances of psychology, that people are malleable and there's a lot going on there. There's a lot. I mean, people are not binary. It's not one or a zero. You're a this or that. You're happy or you're not. And this is going to fix it. We just need to inject you and slice

off your boobs. That's not human. We vary so wildly that I think for someone to look at a teenager and come to this conclusion that you, in fact, would be happier, that should be an arduous process where you're presented with all sorts of opposing information. It's almost like you should be at a debate. There should be pros and cons presented. It should be something where you're looking at a life like your future will be radically different if you take path A versus path B. Right. So that's how medicine is discussed and other types of medicine at medical conferences. Right. They have a new drug out for cholesterol and there's a conference and everyone discuss the risks and benefits. And what are the harms and what is the percent chance that this could hurt?

You know, everybody is open in discussing it. And whenever I talk to doctors who, you know, work around this issue, maybe they're an endocrinologist or whatever, they will tell me that when they attend medical conferences and transgender medicine comes up, it is a purely celebration festival. Nobody's discussing risks. Nobody's talking openly about them. They can't. Yeah, it's so hard because I've met female to male trans people. Like we were talking about Buck Angel before the show. He was great. I love him.

He's a nice guy. He's really interesting to talk to. I had him on the podcast. And that makes sense. Like he always knew that he should have been a male and he feels way better. And when you're around him, like you get it. Totally. Totally. And he doesn't, look, he didn't do this to win friends. No. He didn't do this because of social media immersion, right? No YouTube star convinced Buck Angel. Okay. He stands up to all of them all the time. Yeah. That is also the thing. And he uses a term,

the term biological that they don't like. Right. He uses biological female, biological male. Because he lives in reality. He doesn't pretend that he was always biologically male. He's like – Have you – as you're examining this, have you gone back and forth on this? Have you had like opinions that you abandoned? Yeah.

Yeah. How so? So I'll tell you one the one that that I think I really struggled with or that surprised me big time was people always try to get me to say it's child abuse to put your kid on puberty blockers and whatnot child abuse the parents are committing child abuse and I don't say that and I don't say that for a reason because I've interviewed the parents and once you interview parents of kids that, you know, parents who have transitioned their kids, you start talking to them and you realize that they thought they were doing what was right for

their kid. They were really scared. They didn't know. Like, they're very concerned. I mean, they're worried. And they've been encouraged by mental health professionals who should have been looking out for the child that if you don't do this, your child could kill herself or himself, you know. And that's terrifying. And sometimes I'll bring up the risks with them and they won't have heard about them. I'll say, but, you know, just checking with you, you know, what about the long term, you know, maybe you're foreclosing orgasm. Like if your kid goes through all this and goes on that to testosterone and then gets the surgeries, because they never went through normal puberty, they may never experience orgasm.

What about that? And they'll never have heard of that. Or we're putting so many capacities at risk. Well, there's a real problem with the way people are willing to discuss things that they're not willing to in any way address the negative aspects of transitioning. And one of the things about hormone blockers that drove me mad was they were trying to say that you could put a child on hormone blockers and if the child changed their mind, there would be no problem whatsoever. Well, they've reversed that. They've reversed that in England. In England, they've reversed that. Reversed it in America, too. Very recently, there was something that

got released where they were saying, well, this is absolutely not true. Well, this is something that people have said over and over again, progressive people in particular. Right. Totally neutral intervention. That's what they've said. Yeah. Hey, let me relieve you of any of the stress about this because we know that there'll be no problem at all. You can transition right back. but you can't. That's not true. It'll affect your development. That's right. And hormones shower the brain and they don't just, you know, and you know, there's right. I've talked to a lot of experts, but I've also talked to parents who were never told about this. And so I don't blame them. Like I just, I just, I don't.

But then if you're a parent, like how do you know whether your kid is in this contagion, as you put it, or your kid is actually trans? Like how do you know? And how would anyone know? How would the person that's transitioning themselves, how would they know? Right. So there's symptoms in the DSM that have evolved persistent, consistent, insistent, severe discomfort. And a two-year-old and four-year-old doesn't keep his feelings to himself. If he hates being a boy, insists that he's really a girl, is punching his penis and whatever,

it's not something parents aren't going to know. Okay, but isn't that a generalization? Because people vary widely in the way they deal with things that bother them. Right. So I think that the DSM is a list of generalizations about different mental health disorders and different afflictions. Right. But that when you're talking about a boy hating their penis and the way they react, they'll let you know. Not everybody lets you know when they're in agony or in pain or kids, preschool age kids are pretty in a typical family where

there's not, you know, been abused or mistrust or whatever, you know, kids pretty much announce, in my experience, announce almost everything. I mean, they're really open. I hate this. Whatever. They, you know, it's not the kind of thing a parent won't know. But do you think that kids should be on hormone blockers? I don't. I have never, look, I'm a journalist. So I explored, I talked to everybody and I explore every side of every issue. And I think that hormone blockers

are really significant interventions. They can be dangerous. We don't fully have a handle on the long-term effects, but am I someone who believes they should be totally banned? You know, I have never said that. I've never taken that position because a lot of psychologists that I really respect haven't said that. A lot of doctors that I respect haven't said that, that there's no one they could help. Could you imagine that those doctors and psychologists would be in fear of expressing that they don't think it's a good idea the same way you were discussing. Therapists will secretly talk to you about the problems of them expressing themselves honestly.

Right. I mean, this is how I see it. Like, say there's one kid who could be helped by puberty blockers. I mean, I explored a lot of these issues with a lot of people. Until, you know, psychologists I respect, people who have been very open on a lot of this stuff, until they tell me there's no children who could ever be helped by puberty blockers, I'm not someone who will come out in favor of a ban, a banning. I understand. But that begs the question, how would one know whether your kid is the kid that could be beneficial, could benefit from puberty blockers versus one who you really should just let become an adult and go through all the various changes that children go through. Remember that most kids outgrow this.

So not right. So not doing anything, not doing a major intervention is probably in many cases, a totally safe bet. In other words, you don't have to go in there and immediately, I mean, totally safe bet. In other words, you don't have to go in there and immediately, I mean, part of what's crazy about our age is we think the moment our kids are in distress, we need to medicate them. They can never be upset, right? We are pushing this accommodation of every discomfort and everything our kids say. And it's pretty safe to say that there's going to be a lot of people listening to this that don't even want us talking about this because you are a stereotypical biological female. I'm a stereotypical biological male. And maybe a lot of people would say this is not even your space to be discussing.

Right. So I'm not an expert in psychology. I wrote about a pure contagion affecting teenage girls. And I can't talk about that either. In which I explore, I let the experts talk, you know, in the book. I mean, that's what I did. I put together, you know, studies. And I mean, like, that's what journalists do. We just put together the material based on who we interview and what they had to say and their expertise and their research. And you know what? It's getting shut down all over the place. How so?

I've had podcast hosts write to me and say, I'd love to have you on. It's too hot. Really? Yeah. They'll say to me, you know, basically, and what they don't say is, a bunch of trans activists are offended

that you're talking about teenage girls, the mental health of teenage girls, not the activists, right? Who are mostly biological males. This is teenage girls' health. Why can't we talk about it? I mean, I've had my publisher, they're trying to get my publisher to drop me. There's a huge campaign for that.

I mean, it's like, you know, I've used this example before, but like abortion. Some people say abortion is just a woman's issue. No one else can have an opinion about it. And other people feel like people feel different ways about abortions. Other people feel, wait a second, it's not just about a woman's health. It's also the life of this unborn child. And so, you know, people feel differently, like who's allowed to have an opinion on abortion. But this issue is that I'm talking about is just about the health of teenage girls. That's it. So why can't we talk about what's going on with these teenage girls?

Why can't we try to get them some help? I agree with you, but we're in 2020. People are going bonkers. I know. That's really what this is, is you have identified something that is, that's a real concern when you're talking about the percentage. When you said 2% of all these kids are identifying as trans in high school as opposed to 0.1%, where it used to be. So it used to be 1 in 10,000.

Right. Now it's 2 out of 100. Just in the high school population. Just in high school, yeah. I mean, it's like, that's a lot. And objectively, the way you're describing that particular time period in a child's development, it is fraught with peril. Right.

Right? There's so much going on in a girl's life as she's transitioning from being a kid to being a woman and going through all the hormones and all the society and all the chaos of school and social stuff. Right. Yeah. It's the hardest period for and social stuff. Right. Yeah. It's the hardest period for any woman to go through. It's so hard.

Puberty, right? Except now these girls are being taught in school and they're being encouraged online. You have an escape hatch. Yeah. When you've had some discussions, you were talking about a discussion that you had on a television show with trans people. How do they react to this? Oh, so I haven't been on a,

the one with, Oh, that, that, Oh, so there, I was just talking about sports. Yeah.

That was not, I don't think the reaction was good. That was just sports. And I didn't even know they were on it. You were on with a trans athlete. Two trans athletes. Yeah. What were their thoughts?

They should be allowed to break world records? I guess something like that. They should be able to- They should be able to compete with women? Yeah. Yeah. How did the host handle it? I think he was a little nervous.

I mean, nobody wants fights. We're having trouble just having normal conversations today. It's crazy. Except on your show. Well, some other people out there, too. But yeah. Well, because there is backlash. Right.

And but again, the ones who are getting fucked over, biological women. And I just think that's crazy. I just I don't understand why people are willing to kowtow to the mob like that. And girls are noticing. Girls know that they have fallen in regard and fallen in status in the broader culture. They know it. They know that they can't speak up if they don't think it's fair that a mediocre boy athlete just beat them in a race and took the title. Yeah.

They know that's not fair. They know they shouldn't have to walk, that nobody's protecting them from that full man in their shower in the locker room. Nobody's speaking up on their behalf. They know it. They feel it. And so they don't think womanhood is such a great thing right now. Well, some organizations are recognizing that it's an issue.

Power lifting. They're starting to ban biological males from competing in women's divisions of power lifting because they've literally blown the roof off what world records used to be. Wow. I didn't know that. Oh, it's crazy. I mean, there's one who was winning these world records and you looked at her and you're like, what in the fuck are you even talking about?

That is nonsense. They can probably bench twice or something, right? Well, we're talking about squats and cleans and presses and Olympic lifts, which are particularly, I mean, these are really difficult to do anyway. And to achieve the type of numbers that these trans women are achieving, they're world record numbers. Because they've never had a woman do that before because they really weren't born women. Right. So think about how many female athletes you're eliminating. You're not just taking the trophy.

You're eliminating everyone. You're saying that Venus and Serena Williams never existed. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very strange thing. And it's one of the byproducts of being progressive and open-minded and caring and loving. We want these people to find their truth and be themselves,

and we want them to do that. But not at the expense of biological women. It shouldn't be that way. And we're talking about athletics. If you're talking about athletics, you're talking about physical human bodies, and they are different. They're different between men and women. And anybody who says they're not, let me introduce you to a few people

because I know a lot of men that are freaks. And if you tell me you know a woman that like that like get the fuck out of here all the so all the like yoel romero who is uh one of the top uf uh ufc fighters if that guy decided that he was going to be a woman and transitioned to being a woman you only gave him two years or whatever you would deal with the most spectacular woman athlete the world has ever known by far because he's a freak, because he's a freak as a male. And there's that line, that spectrum when you get into male physicality, when you get into strength, pure energy, the ability to lift things, the difference between men and

women is so vast. Just grip strength. Just the average male's grip strength in comparison to an elite female athlete's grip strength. Average male is much more strength. Just average guy who barely does anything. That's right. And think about like the heroes for these young girls. I mean I grew up in the era of like worshiping like Martina and Chris Everett and tennis.

I played tennis. And you really look up to these women. I mean, they're so strong. They're so fast. And what if all of a sudden not only did you never get to hear about Chris Everett because she was beaten long ago by a biological man. Now you have a man who says he's a woman who's now. Well, how many girls are lining up to be just like him? I don't know.

Yeah. The Martina Navratilova thing is where it just shows you how fucking crazy everybody's gotten. Right. To say that she's anti-LBGT. Like, what? Yeah. She's literally the spokeswoman.

Yeah. I mean, literally, like, she was out before anybody. Right. I mean, we're dealing with a really insane byproduct of these times where people are dealing with social media, organized groups of people, attack people for having divergent opinions. And this need that people have to be loved and not have people attack them. So they'll alter their stance on things in order to appease the mob, in order to align themselves with the progressive group think. It's real weird. Yeah, it's a big problem, and we're seeing whole populations.

I mean, this is why this problem with teenage girls got out of hand. Well, it's just the sports thing is one thing. this seems to be a bigger problem than the sports thing i mean when you're dealing with the sports thing what is the numbers it's not not that great it's not a lot of people it's not yet it's enough that it's concerning yeah it was your child that got screwed over if your kid was going for a basketball scholarship and all of a sudden the biological male was on her team i don't know if you know the and all of a sudden a biological male was on her team. I don't know if you know the story about the 50-year-old biological male

who transitioned, went to high school, played college basketball, and then transitioned to being a woman and then went back to school as a woman and was in his 50s and playing women's college basketball. I think he was 6'5". He was enormous.

I mean, see if you can find that story. 50-year-old, he was more than 50, and then playing college basketball competing. Wow. Now imagine if your daughter is playing college basketball, looking to get a scholarship, and she keeps getting stuffed by this gigantic former dude who is now on her college basketball team at 50 years old.

Right. This is women's rights that are disappearing. We're rolling them back, right? I mean, when Title IX came in, right, that gave scholarships to young women who worked so hard, who were so talented. These are young women we should be so proud of, and their achievements are being erased right now. And you're right. It's not yet a widespread social problem, right? You figure— Oh, wow.

L-O-L. Wow. Come on. I understand that you want to be a woman. I get it. I'll change the name I call you. But listen, man or ma'am, you can't do this. You can't do this.

This is not fair. Yeah. And think about all the girls who don't bother going out for the team. Right. They see that and they're like, fuck. Or a girl who would compete for that position. Forget it. And she can't get it.

Yeah. They give up. I mean, that's just rational to give a male body yeah that you know they're gonna get hurt they don't want to get hurt exactly um what when you say that you've experienced all this all this uh what's the best way to describe it? Pressure on your publisher. People are angry at you. Have you ever thought you shouldn't have done this? You shouldn't have written this book?

Has it ever been enough of a pain in the ass that you were like, I made a mistake? I shouldn't have entered into these waters? Has that ever entered – yeah. I mean, of course, right? I mean, I think – you know, people like the book a lot. You know, thank God they like the book. They're happy. You know, it's a good read. But do I like all the negative attention? No, I mean, I'm not a provocateur. Like, that's not my thing. You know, I'm just a journalist. And I looked into a mental health issue and it makes people really angry. And do I like that? No, but this is how I see it, okay? This is how I saw it as I was going through, but I believe this, okay?

What's in this book is the truth. It's a real story. It's a real phenomenon. I'm irrelevant. If I didn't write this book, eventually some other journalists would have. So all the anger at me is silly. Read the book, disagree with it. Maybe there's some, you know, maybe you don't think I got something right. Tell me. Fine. Or don't tell me. Write an article about it. But if I hadn't

written it, somebody else would have. Because it's what's going on. It describes a real phenomenon. And I think these activists would prefer to keep scaring people to the point where nobody does read this because they think being trans should never be questioned. Nothing about being trans ever should be questioned. Right, which is crazy because, you know what, this has nothing to do with the activists. It doesn't. Like teenage girls are in crisis. They really are.

And their experience has nothing to do with, you know, what, you know, activists are going through. And we should be able to investigate it and see if they're getting the mental health they need, these teenage girls. And that's all it does. And that just shouldn't be controversial. one parent that can reach one child and show them this book and explain to them that there's something going on that can influence you physically, mentally, psychologically. You could be very confused and you could think that this is the path towards happiness and cause yourself irreparable damage and still not be happy. I get calls every day from parents. So I got a call just this week. I got tons of calls literally every. So I got a call just this week. I got tons of calls, literally every day.

I got a call this week. So I leave my messages open on Twitter in case they need to get, you know, there are great resources out there. Fourth Wave Now, parents of RGD kids, there are great resources, but sometimes they don't know about them because, you know, all these resources

need vetting processes now because the activists attacked them. So they'll call me. I got a call from a woman this week. And she was sobbing because parents usually cry when they're on the phone because it's about their kid. And you know what she said to me? She said, I feel this is a progressive woman in a progressive city in America, totally not religious. And she's sobbing.

And she said to me, I can't believe I get – my daughter started down this road and I can't believe I get the benefit because of other parents who went through this, who were brave enough to talk. I'm so grateful to them. Is there a way that I can do something for them? And I just thought, wow. That's heavy. Yeah. What an incredible woman. Like what an amazing like that's who i get calls from yeah and it seems like that's

really the only way these people that are going through this with their children are ever going to get any light at the end of the tunnel is to see that some people have already done this and to learn from the mistakes of the past and learn from these the problems that these kids have encountered upon transitioning and that this group think model, this contagion as you describe it, does happen to kids. It happens with cutting. It happens with even suicide packs. It happens with a lot of weird stuff that kids, particularly kids that feel like they're outcasts and they're depressed. It's a real problem. Yeah, there's a great book on this. You know, there are a couple,

there are a bunch of really great books, but one of them, Lee Daniel Kravitz wrote this book, Strange Contagion, about these suicides that went through a community in Palo Alto. So all of a sudden, like there were a bunch of suicides at one high school. And what's happening is kids are imitating each other. And then, you know, they get this idea, like you said, they're open to suggestion,

they feel unhappy. And now there are other, you know, they know several other kids who committed suicide. Maybe I should kill myself. I just failed chemistry or whatever. And it becomes a thing in their minds that's always an option. And that's what transition has become. It's an out. It's the one of the first thing, I mean, I think about cutting, right? So I'm a 19, I grew up, I'm a 1978 baby. So I'm 42. So cutting, I missed cutting. That didn't exist. Okay. When I was, when I was a teenager, but I thought when I heard about it, cause I heard about it from younger, just kids younger than me, I used to, you know, I would come back from college or whatever, hear about all this cutting. And I, and I used to think like, wow, I'm glad I didn't know about

that. I was neurotic. I was high anxiety. Maybe I would have done that. I didn't, nobody told me about cutting as like an option, but, but kids who are looking for a way to manifest their distress, they look to the culture and they look to their friends. Yeah. What could be done different in terms of some education or programs or some sort of psychological help in groups of kids to let kids know in school? Like we address all these different aspects of a child's development, like mathematics and English and history, but we spend very little time addressing the one thing that is probably most important is how they interface with the world, psychology and what's wrong, what's going on inside of them and knowing what's going on inside of them and giving them some tools to navigate life. This is not something that gets taught in school, strangely. And this is one of the reasons why they go looking for it afterwards.

People, they're constantly looking for motivation and self-help people and books, trying to find some tools. So I think that's a brilliant idea. I mean, I never considered teaching kids about psychology. I never encountered psychology until I was in college. And I think that's an amazing idea. The problem is, is that these kids are getting indoctrinated instead of, you know, instead of exploring a topic, they're getting indoctrinated in gender ideology. California starts in kindergarten.

This is a mandated part of the curriculum you can't opt out of. What are they saying? So, you know, it varies by class, obviously, but in, you know, they explore, first they have to introduce the gender stereotypes, and then they explore genders in various classrooms. This goes on in California as part of the framework. There's a whole curriculum, and there are books they supply, and they explore what is a girl body, and they explore the gender unicorn or the gender-bred person. And they teach them that your genitalia does not mean that you're necessarily a boy. You might be something else. You might be gender nonconforming.

You might be nonbinary. These kids all know these terms. They know they have every option. And the problem with that is then they hit 11 and they start to develop or, you know, they hit a hard time. Their parents divorce. They move. Whatever. Things get hard. And these options leap to mind. Oh, a hard time. Their parents divorce. They move. Whatever. Things get hard.

And these options leap to mind. Oh, my God. I heard about this. I might be a boy. That seems crazy that they're teaching kids that that early. And to teach them that, I mean, like how comprehensive is this class? I mean, how much time do they spend doing this? Are the parents involved?

Do the parents get to see what's being taught to them and discuss it with them? Very often parents will ask for the curriculum and not get it. And there are all kinds of ways they supply it. There's digital libraries they provide in California to the teachers. And there's all kinds of ways that this is taught. Sometimes it's taught with videos. And there is curriculum and it's supplied. The curricula are usually supplied by activist groups. And it's very confusing. Parents aren't allowed to opt out of this in California. Really? Yeah. Because it's not part of the sexual education curriculum that you're

allowed to opt out of. It's part of the anti-bullying curriculum. Whoa. And you can't opt out of anti-bullying. Everybody has to, you know, treat each other well. It's also the word activism. It sounds like you're doing a good thing. You know, like all activism is under the same blanket, whether it's, you know, anti-racism activism or, you know, gender nonconformity, non-binary, 50 different pronoun activism. And a lot of it is indoctrination. It's indoctrination to progressive groupthink. And it's not necessarily what you would really think of when you think of activism. You think of the civil rights movement.

You think of activism. You think of positive things and changes that we want to take place. But when you're dealing with children and developing human beings and minds and you're dealing with an influential person who's standing in front of these people who's older and wiser, supposedly, and they try to bend these minds towards the ideology they support, things get real weird. the ideology they support, things get real weird. And if you're a parent and you're not aware that this is happening to your kid while your kid's at school, I have a buddy of mine who found something like this out was happening in his school. And then he got a hold of the paperwork and he was like, he was furious. He was like, this is crazy.

Like, what are we doing to children? Has this been vetted? Is this something where we're all in agreement on this sort of education process for children? Right. So they're reading books like I Am Jazz in California to kids. And that suggests that you might – and it tells kids that you might have a boy's brain in a girl's body. They are being taught this as if this is true, right? Now, of course, there's no evidence that you could ever have a boy's brain in a girl's body. I mean that doesn't make sense, right?

But they're taught that alongside things that are factual, that are biological. that you could ever have a boy's brain in a girl's body. I mean, it doesn't make sense, right? But they're taught that alongside things that are factual, that are biological. But if someone is a trans person, so if you are a boy who feels like you should be a girl, wouldn't you think that that is how you would describe it? You have a girl's brain in a boy's body? Oh, I don't think so. I mean, there are some evidence that there are neurological differences, you know, that is certainly worthy of study. I mean, it's open to various kinds of interpretation and it's a new area that's being studied and there may be differences in transgender people's brains. There might be I certainly would not say that that there aren't but a boy's brain I mean every part every cell in a boy's body has is stamped with an XY chromosome right so the idea

that somehow an XX chromosome to brain got stuck into his head is kind of silly right it's sort of more like tooth fairy stuff yeah it would be fascinating if it was true I mean imagine if you could run a scan like oh my god, my God, your brain's pink. Right. Now we know what's wrong. Right. Exactly. It would be wonderful if it was that simple.

Like, oh, you have a cavity. Right. We can give you a filling. Right. Yeah. It's I mean, it's such a hot button subject. And when this gets discussed, anytime it gets discussed on this podcast, and I'm assuming on any podcast,

it's just people explode and they get so angry about it. But where people are getting more and more sensible is when it comes to sports. I mean, that seems to be where the rubber hits the road. It really does. It seems to be where people are going, hey, this doesn't seem right. And and particularly like the fighting one to me was like so egregious and so obvious it's i'm hopeful that this is a transitionary period for our culture and that we realize like yes you should be kind yes you should be progressive and open to all these different people that have all these different ways of being and existing in this world, but not at the expense of other people.

And not in particular, let's not pretend that that six, five gentleman who's 50 is the same as your 18 year old daughter is in college because it's not. We're playing games. We're playing weird ideological games. Right. And we know we are. And I think sports is, you're totally right. I mean, Americans are very proud of their female athletes. We have been for decades and decades. And now you're telling them that none of them would exist today could exist because, you know, some we'd let biological men take away their trophies. I mean, sports is about bodies. It's not about identification. Nobody asks you how you identify before you run a race. Yeah, it's just about bodies.

identify before you run a race. It's just about bodies. It is. And it's real clear that they're very different, which is why we have men's divisions and women's divisions. What is it like for teenage boys? Did you look into that at all? Did they have similar sort of issues with transitioning? Yeah. So teenage boys is a harder case because I think for a few reasons. Are there boys whose moms will call me and say, oh my God, this happened to my son and it's not real. It's not, it does not look like real gender dysphoria. He never had it. It came all of a sudden because of some trauma or some crisis, or it was suggested to him by a therapist right after his dad died or some story like that. Okay. And I didn't focus on the boys and I didn't do it for a really important reason, but I think it's worthy of explanation and exploration.

I didn't focus on the boys because with the girls it's clear. Because we have known for 100 years that there's this thing called gender dysphoria and it overwhelmingly afflicts males. And now out of nowhere across America and across the West, the predominant demographic is teenage girls with no childhood history. We know that's not typical gender dysphoria. So then the question is, what is it, right? But with boys, it's more complicated because there have always been these boys, these males, who have had real gender dysphoria. So I think a lot more research

has to be done in that area. And the problem is, it's hard to do it, right? Lisa Littman, who's the one who did the study on the teenage girls, she's been trying to study detransitioners, doing big, great studies on detransitioners, women who regret it, because, well, all people who regret it, but a lot of them are now women. And the reason, of course, they're now women is because they never had gender dysphoria. So they weren't cured by medical transition. So now they regret it. And they're called detransitioners, right?

And she's already had her study undermined because a bunch of people, trans activists on social media, said, everyone come and validate the study, essentially. And they all did. So they falsified her results, right? Because they ruined the results. The study had to be scrapped. And now she's trying to redo it. How did they falsified her results, right? Because they ruined the results. The study had to be scrapped and now she's trying to redo it. How did they falsify her results? Well, they took the survey, but they were able to skew the results, right? And she saw on social media they were directing people to take the study to mess up the results. So now we have a population, detransitioners, that we need to study, we need to learn from, and you can't, right? It's hard. And that's cancel culture right there. That's shutting down medical study that will help us understand more about gender transition

and more about gender dysphoria and also this population of teenage girls. And it's hard to even study them. Yeah. I was looking at a discussion about there was a particular website that was dealing with male to female transitioners who then went back to being male again. And they were furious at this page and furious at these people for expressing their story. And I was like, I was looking at this and I was thinking to myself, it's so strange that I was looking at this and I was thinking to myself, that's,

it's so strange that you, you're looking at, when you're talking about someone who transitions, you're, you're, you're talking about a very small percentage of the population that is a male that feels they should be a female to begin with. And then you have this surgery and you have this chemical or hormonal intervention and you change your body and you change who you are and then regret and then coming back. And they were so vehemently opposed to this website. I'm like, but couldn't you imagine, like, imagine a person who's gone through this change. So you know that you are very different than someone like Jamie, who doesn't have this issue, right?

Who's just a man. You know that people are different. So why would you think that there's no way anybody could go through that and have regret? Right. Because people vary so much. But they were so in opposition to these people's stories. And they were saying that essentially this is – these people – putting this website out was hate speech. And this is promoting anti-trans feelings and thinking.

Because their line is that detransitioners don't exist or they're so marginal you shouldn't even discuss it. Exactly. Except that when a scientist in good faith tries to study it, they try to invalidate her results. So we're trying to figure out how big a problem is regret, right? And it's hard to know. I mean, she's redoing the study, but it's hard to know. And what you just said is exactly right. People have different experiences, okay? This does not invalidate your experience. Exactly. Exactly. And that's the problem.

And I guess they would point to someone who's anti-trans would point to that website and go see these anecdotal stories of people that transitioned that had a horrible time of it and hated it and went back. This is everyone. And the other people just in denial. Right. Well, that's stupid. Yeah, it is stupid. It is stupid. It denies nuance.

Right. And also differentiate. People have, we know that there are different causes of the same kind of symptoms, right? I use the example in my book. I mean, osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis, apparently one of the experts I talked to, Ray Blanchard, gave the example of they both cause swollen fingers. OK, so you've got two types of people who say they're transgender. One who's genuinely suffering gender dysphoria and always has in childhood and another who discovered it on the Internet with her friends. So now we're supposed to pretend those are the exact same conditions and we're not supposed to look at them or explore them or figure out what's the difference. I'm not supposed to look at them or explore them or figure out what's the difference.

Now, when you present, have you ever presented this discussion to someone who opposes you and how or this argument to someone who opposes you? And how do they how do they treat that? Just what you just said right there, which is very, very concise. You know, I try. I've engaged with all kinds of people online, you know, and I always invite people to talk to me in a reasonable way. I can't think of, you know, a good, you know, response that I've, well, well, let me think. Okay. So sometimes people will say, and I get this, and I actually think this is a good response to me. They'll say to me, but if you make it harder, if your book makes it harder, number one, people are going to misconstrue it. They're going to think this applies to everybody, which is a legitimate concern, right? And then somebody who's really gender dysphoric who needs these surgeries won't be able to get them, right? And also they're going to think that everybody would regret and no one's helped by transition.

And some of these people might, you know, come to harm because of that. I think that's a legitimate response, right? come to harm because of that. I think that's a legitimate response, right? And it's not compelling to me because my attitude is let's discuss it all. Let's investigate this. Let's talk to more experts. Let's get more science here and figure out what's going on. And by the resistance to your book and the resistance to these conversations, we realize that people are not looking at this objectively. This is not something that everyone's looking at all sides of it. They're not. They are activists.

They have this agenda. This agenda is very ideologically driven that anybody who even thinks they might be trans should be trans and the more trans people, the better. And the more kids that transition, the better. And then they say, but some are gender fluid. So the activists will say some kids are gender fluid. And you say, well, then why would you push permanent hormonal intervention and surgeries on someone who might later decide that they were fine as a woman, right? I mean, that you've just acknowledged with gender fluid.

I mean, this thing is all over the place. I have surgeons. Surgeons will give this surgery. They'll remove healthy breasts for a woman who says she's non-binary. OK? So she doesn't even say she's really for a woman who says she's non-binary. Okay? So she doesn't even say she's really a man. She says she's non-binary now. Well, wait.

I thought the whole point of the surgery was to help this woman become who she really is, a man. But now you're saying that you'll give it to, you know, 16-year-old girls who say they're non-binary. The medical explanation seems to be shifting. And if we're supposed to accept people as they are, shouldn't non-binary people just be themselves? Like, why are we introducing hormones into their body? Why is that the best approach? This is what's so confusing. If someone feels they were born a woman, why can't you just be a woman? If someone feels they're born binary or asexual or whatever, or gender fluid, just be who you are.

I think in part because of social media and part because of the gender ideology in the schools, everybody needs their little identity. So we're dividing people up like insects. Everybody needs their special bucket, right? So we're dividing people up like insects, right? Everybody needs their special bucket, their special label. Well, that was one of the weirdest things about the Caitlyn Jenner thing when she transitioned and then had surgery. You know, there was an interview where she was saying, well, I finally did get the surgery. Not that I wasn't completely a woman before the surgery. And I was thinking, well, why would you get the surgery then? Well, did she get the bottom surgery? The bottom surgery.

That's what they call it. Is that what they call it? Yeah. Yes. Oh, I didn't know that. Yes. Yeah. She got the bottom surgery.

But that was her argument was that she was completely woman, all woman before that. We're in la-la land. Right. So that's religion, right? Exactly. I mean, that's not science. You can't say, I was always a woman, but then the surgery will make me a woman. Right. The hormones made me a woman, but I was always a woman. The surgery makes me a woman, but I was always a woman. The quart of estrogen every couple of weeks. I don't know what what whatever we decide you know as as a group it's very it's

very confusing and then people say why do you even care like why is this something that you're obsessed with well i care about people and i care about weird shit i care about things get when things get weird when i see teenage girls and i have all daughters when i see teenage girls and i see this issue that you're talking about where 2%, 2% are succumbing to this. I know how awkward it is. I've seen it. I know how awkward it is for everybody growing up. Growing up is fucking crazy. I mean, you have no idea what the future holds. You don't know if you're going to come out on the other end. Okay. You just don't know. That's exactly right. And and adults have forgotten they've started treating

these kids like prophets it's like the moment they say they're trans it's like oh everyone stop what you're doing forget that she's 13 years old listen to the prophet whatever she says about herself must be correct that is a great way to put it that is a great way to put it because yeah when i was 13 i was a fucking moron you know and i'm thank god i never had an idea to change my gender when i was 13 right it's um it's i'm hoping that over time people realize you can be both open-minded and progressive and kind and also aware of the pitfalls of a very real problem yeah and that's what this seems to be it seems to be a very real problem that again i gravitate towards things people shy away from so people are shying away from this i'm like why like why are we shying away from this why is everyone so scared of this trans

subject why is everyone so scared and well it's because of social media it's because of these activist mobs they're not doing themselves any good and they're not doing the the whole idea of being a trans person any good because they make people associate trans people with the types of mobs that attack Martina Navratilova, the type of mobs that go after these studies that show detransitioners and what their experience were and fuck up the study. were and fuck up the study. And you know what? Transgender adults reach out to me online all the time and say that. They say to me, you know, I'm embarrassed by this crazy activist group. I don't want people to say that, think that I'm like that.

I don't support, you know, their mobbing. And I just say that, you know, whenever I'm interviewed, I say, listen, this is not, you know, the activists don't represent all transgender adults by a long shot, you know? So where do you go from here? What's your next book going to be about? I don't know. Take something a little less. I don't know. Flowers.

Right. Exactly. This is my favorite flower. Something real easy. I mean, what have you written about before this? Have you written books before this? No. It's just, you know, I write for the Wall Street Journal most often and I write opinion journalists.

This is my first book. And, you know, it's like one of those things. Like once I got down the rabbit hole, I thought, wow, this is really true. And I got a – nobody – I realized something, you know. Nobody could write about it. I had teachers telling me they couldn't speak up about what was going on in the classrooms. I had therapists afraid, doctors afraid. And I realized if journalists aren't going to talk about this, who will? Yeah. Well, I'm glad you did. Oh, thanks. I really am. And I'm glad we got a chance to talk

about this. And I hope people listen to this with an open mind and just listen to it. And this doesn't discount anyone who's trans. It really doesn't. This is not what we're talking about here. And if you are trans and genuinely trans and happy being trans, you should want people to understand that there's other things going on. Right. Exactly. We're not talking about you. This is a condition that young girls are facing as they become adults and going through these crazy hormonal transitions and social transitions and it can damage them.

Yeah, that's exactly right. Thank you, Abigail. Thank you. It's called Irreversible Damage, the Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, and it's available right now. Thank you. Stay offline. Don't read the comments.