The Joe Rogan Experience - #1665 - Carole Hooven

Episode Date: June 10, 2021

Carole Hooven is an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University. Her new book, "T: The Story of Testosterone, the Hormone that Dominates and Divides Us", will be available July 13.

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. Hello. Hi. Welcome. Thanks for doing this. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

My pleasure. I'm excited to talk about this. What made you want to write about testosterone? What was the motivation behind this? So I'll give you the short story first. And then later I can give you the longer story. Can you give me the longer story? The longer story involves chimpanzees.

So that's kind of fun. One of my favorite subjects. But the short story is that I teach at Harvard about hormones. I teach a course behavioral. Well, it's on behavioral endocrinology. It's called Hormones and Behavior. And I've taught that for a long time now. And I got my PhD at Harvard studying testosterone and behavior, studying sex differences and the way we think and process information. And I just love the topic. I love how much understanding testosterone helps me understand the world, understand men. I'm not a man. I don't really understand men or how they work, but understanding this hormone really has helped me a lot. and specifically testosterone, I get so much feedback from students about how it changes

their lives, changes how they understand themselves personally, how they understand their relationships, how they understand the world. And it's empowering for them. And it's been empowering for me. And so I've just always had this natural intellectual enthusiasm for this topic. But I'd say in the last five years, I felt like the science was coming under attack. And there's been kind of a program to dismantle the science of testosterone and how it shapes behavior, particularly the evolutionary basis of behavior has kind of come under attack. The idea that sex differences are grounded in biology, and I know that testosterone is a really important part of that. And there's a movement to kind of discredit that science or downplay the importance of biology

and specifically testosterone in our lives and especially in sex differences. And I'm fascinated by sex differences. And I'm fascinated by how evolution shapes sex differences across different species and how it works. And so that's ultimately why I wrote the book, because I kind of want to get all the science out there and kind of push back against what I see as an attack on really good science. There's nothing wrong with understanding who we are from a biological point of view. And I think we should all be open to that and learn as much as we can about who we are and how we work. Yeah, I agree with you. But I also think it's fascinating when I watch the attack on the science of biology, the science of how... I think that if we were an objective observer, like

something other than human, and we're watching human beings, we would be really interested in the sex differences between the male and the females, and why there's this real clear pattern of behavior on both sides. Obviously, there's a spectrum in that pattern, but depending upon the levels of hormones and the genetic variants, there's a lot of like consistency and what is causing this and what is, you know, what is it about male behavior that leads to this and female behavior that leads to that. But then you get into this weird thing where ideology has somehow or another overtaken science with a lot of human beings today so they're willing to abandon science if it's inconvenient for

their ideology it's very strange because you see really intelligent people do yes yes which is where it's really spooky because they're scared of being chastised and attacked on Twitter they're scared of being chastised and attacked on Twitter. They're scared of being canceled. So they're scared of going against the mainstream, which is ideologically based instead of scientifically based. That's right. And I think the fear is that the science is getting in the way of the ideology. So I agree with most of the goals of the people who are ideologically motivated.

We want to reduce human suffering. We want to make sure that we have equal human rights for people who have all kinds of differences. And so I agree with all that. But I don't think that if science tells us that some of these differences are grounded in biology, that means that, A, these traits that may be like extreme male aggression, that doesn't mean that that's immutable. I mean, we have tons of evidence that it's not immutable. Humans have control over their behavior. It depends heavily on the culture. So denying the importance of, say, testosterone in male aggression isn't going to change the way that sort of differences in our natures or the impetus for males to feel

more than females that they want to be physically aggressive or to respond aggressively in certain situations. And I like that you said that there's you implied that there's lots of overlap in behavior between males and females and the degree to which that is grounded in biology. So the point isn't and I just want to make it really clear at the beginning. It's not that females are like this and males are like that in humans or in other species. And especially, you know, culture plays such a huge role in how we develop and how we express ourselves. But even apart from culture, there are differences on average. So there are some females who are highly physically aggressive and there are many males who are really emotional and sensitive and totally peaceful.

Can I say that you just said you tear up sometimes? I cry all the time. Okay. I cry mostly for happy things. Okay. So yeah, no. And I just cry when I'm moved or passionate. I cry a lot. And I actually talk about that in the book because there's a relationship with testosterone there that we can talk about later, which is really interesting. But the point is that my book, is that my book, Tea, is not about trying to explain why males are one way and females are another way, but why we're different on average, why we have somewhat different natures. And testosterone is, to me, the most powerful way to understand those differences in our natures, you know, from an evolutionary point of view and looking at how we as animals, as mammals,

try to maximize our reproductive success, right? And so that's what testosterone does, is it helps males maximize basically the number of offspring they have through increasing mating opportunities. It doesn't mean that males are only interested in having tons of sex and tons of sex partners, but they're definitely more interested in that than are only interested in having tons of sex and tons of sex partners, but they're definitely more interested in that than females in humans. And in many other species where increasing the number of mates yields reproductive benefits for males but not females. And that's what sex hormones do. Estrogen and progesterone do similar things in women, but it doesn't motivate us to fight aggressively for mates.

Right. Clearly, if we were looking at this again as an objective observer, we would see all this. There wouldn't be any debate. It'd be like, this is fascinating. Well, this is why. They've only been around for a couple hundred thousand years, and for a long time they were eaten by jaguars, and so they had to make as many babies as possible in order to ensure survival of the species.

All this makes sense. Did you talk to any people that has, have switched genders? Yes. What was that like? Like one of the things that I found fascinating was listening to Chaz Bono talk about his transition and how, you know, he just like kind of got it once he started taking testosterone. Like, oh, this is what the fuck's been going on with the world. Yes. So I try to understand how testosterone works in humans by first thinking about it from an evolutionary point of view.

What is the purpose of sex differences and sex hormones? Why do male animals have high testosterone and females have high, say, estrogen? High to male animals have high testosterone and females have high, say, estrogen. And what do those do to our bodies and to our psychology to help us maximize our reproductive success, meaning have ultimately sort of as many, get our genes into the next generation as efficiently as possible. So one way is to look from an evolutionary point of view. Another way is to look at different kinds of experiments in non-human animals. And then another thing we can do is look at what happens in humans who change their hormone levels. And this is absolutely fascinating.

And because we have some examples of that, you know, happening right now. So I talk to people for the book and I use their words because they're the ones who are living through these experiences and I wanted them to tell what it was like. So I interviewed a male to female transgender person, a female to male transgender person, a non-binary person who was taking puberty blockers, and then somebody who is female who transitioned to male and then transitioned back to female. So I got this really wide range of experiences, and I thought that what they had to say was incredibly powerful, and I can describe some of what they said, which helped me to understand myself better, helped me to understand my husband better, and really just had a big impact on me personally. I found this evidence really, really sort of moving and powerful. But one thing I want to say before we talk about that is that one of the biggest

influences on human and non-human sex differences is differences in the womb and what happens to us when we're inside our moms as fetuses developing. So males have testes that produce male levels of testosterone in utero. And that testosterone, that's called a perinatal effect or an organizational effect. So that's early on in life. We start out right from the get-go with these very different levels of testosterone, and that shapes the brain and body. So it helps to develop the genitalia, internal and external genitalia. So it changes male genitalia to, say, form the penis and internal structures. But at the same time, it shapes the brain. So the cool thing about sex hormones, which are steroids, is that they can just get right into the brain and alter neural development.

And that's what happens early on is we have these big differences that shape childhood behavior. So everybody pretty much can accept that little boys behave differently on average, again, from little girls. Boys are definitely all over the world much more interested in rough and tumble play. So, you know, I'm somebody who used to love to climb trees. I played baseball. I was pretty aggressive, I would say, which is a little bit more on the masculine side. So I'm just illustrating that, you know, again, this is kind of a, this is a spectrum, but we have these differences where boys, including my son, who does not like baseball and is not as kind of probably boyish in some ways as I was, but he tackles his friends. Like one of his favorite things to do is to like roll around on the floor

and try to pin each other down. Boys do this a lot and girls typically don't. They do other stuff on average. That seems to be consistent with what we see in non-human animals and a result of early exposure to testosterone because the levels. So in boys, levels are high at certain periods in utero and then go up again for a short period of time after birth. That seems to have these effects on the brain that shape that rough and tumble play. And it's not an accident that

boys have higher sort of aggressive physical play because that's what, in a different environment, in our sort of ancestral environment, they're practicing those skills that they would have needed for physical male-male status competition. So in our modern environment, males have different ways of competing that don't necessarily require physical competition, but it requires other kinds of behaviors that testosterone also seems to promote. I think I'm, this is a long-winded answer to your question, which I no longer remember. No, no, no, it's great. Don't worry about that. this is a long-winded answer to your question. No, no, no, it's great. Don't worry about that. So, oh, okay, so about the trans thing. So the reason I'm going into what happens prenatally is because the evidence that we get about testosterone from looking at transgender people

is really interesting. However, if you are a female-to-male transgender person and what happens when you – if you decide to alter your hormones, not all transgender people will want to alter their hormones. Some people just will change sex socially. They'll change their pronouns. They might adopt the clothes, say, or behaviors of the opposite sex. the clothes, say, or behaviors of the opposite sex. But some people will, many people will want to alter their hormones to be consistent with those of the opposite sex. So if you're male to female, that would mean blocking testosterone and increasing estrogen. And if you're going the other way, female to male, that mean blocking estrogen and jacking up your testosterone. So we can look at that evidence, but we have to remember that once people transition, say if a male transitions to female,

that person, so we'll call that a natal male, had high testosterone in utero. So even though as an adult, they might not have testosterone, and we can look at what their behavior looks like as an adult when they block testosterone and start living as a woman, there's something different about their brain. So that their brain has been masculinized in utero. And female brains, you can say have been feminized or not masculinized. Female brains are not exposed to hormones. Can I stop you for a second? Yeah. When you say their brains have changed or their brains have developed this way, what are we basing this on? Is this fMRI? What method are we using to

examine where the brains are different? Yeah. So that's a really good question. So most of the evidence that we have is from non-human animals, that we have clear differences in the brain, that one area of the brain is called the sexually dimorphic nucleus of the preoptic area of the hypothalamus. And the hypothalamus is an area that basically controls the action of the pituitary, which is kind of the master gland for controlling all of our many, many hormones in our body. And the sexually dimorphic nucleus, so sexually dimorphic means basically different sizes or shapes in each sex. So testosterone increases the size of this. We know that it increases the size of this part of the hypothalamus. And then that predicts male sexual behavior, mounting behavior, say,

in rats. So we know that sex differences in testosterone in many non-human animals do change, do help to explain differences in the size of different areas of the brain. do help to explain differences in the size of different areas of the brain. But there are also really small differences in just parts of the brain and how neurons, say, branch or make connections. So they tend not to be, in humans, as far as we know, big, obvious differences like the SDNPOA. But there are some suspected differences in human brains that are due to testosterone differences, but we don't have that kind of evidence. I guess I'm not an expert on the brain differences, but it's subtle differences in, say, branching or neuronal connections or the birth and death of neurons in utero. So differences in testosterone can cause differences in the population of neurons

or the number of cell bodies in different areas or the way that they make connections. But the question is like as they transition. So if someone transitions from male to female, how are we measuring the fact that their brains have differences than people that were genetically? Oh, right. Yeah, we don't. We don't. It's an assumption that because they were exposed to – so a male is – because he has testes, he's exposed to male levels of testosterone in utero.

So the assumption is that their brain has been masculinized. But it's a good question because there's a lot of controversy around brain differences and whether there really are any. But my understanding of that literature is that brains can be sexed by experts in humans with 85% accuracy. But I don't think there is one really loud signal there that can be attributed to testosterone exposure in utero. people so that we shouldn't necessarily assume that if they change their hormones in adulthood that they will be sort of just like the other sex psychologically because there may be other differences in their brain due to having high exposure to testosterone okay but i can tell you some of the differences that we then see sure once they transition um Did you have a question?

No, no. Go ahead. Okay. So one of the biggest, what do you think the biggest, one of the biggest sex differences is in human behavior or human psychology? What would you? I don't know. Would it be aggression?

There's aggression. Yep. That's big. There's one other thing. be aggression? There's aggression. Yep. That's big. There's one other thing. Another thing? Yeah. Sex. Sex.

Sex. Do males want more sex? They do. But what about females that want a lot of sex? Yeah. There are lots of females who want a lot of sex. But on average, everywhere, males want more sex and they want more sexual partners. I read something once.

I don't know if you're aware of this, but a study out of, I think it was University of Rome, where they were examining a link between promiscuous women and their offspring being male, having a disproportionate amount of gay men in their offspring. And they were thinking that it was some sort of a variant in the X chromosome, that there was something about the X chromosome that was leading them to be much more attracted to men than normal. And that this is what led these women to be promiscuous and it led their sons to be gay. Which sounds like madness. I did not hear that.

I would want to see replication. Yeah, I'm sure you would. You work at Harvard. That's interesting. When you're a moron like me and you read something like that and you go, oh, okay. No, no. I mean, I haven't heard anything like that. When I see one study that has that kind of sort of explosive finding. I want to see more.

More data. Here it is. Researchers by Andrea Camperio-Gianni from the University of Padova in Italy. That's right. So the findings linked between homosexuality and female fertility strongly support the balancing selection hypothesis,

which suggests that a gene which causes homosexuality also leads to high fecundity or reproduction among their female relatives. Okay. The team noted that- But fecundity is different from the number of sexual partners. But they had it connected to promiscuous women. Okay. Because you don't have more babies necessarily by having more partners.

Right. The team note, but you have more of a chance of having more babies if you have a lot of partners. I don't think you do. You probably have more sex. Like naturally. If you're with one partner, as time goes on, we all know you have less sex. But if you have new partners all the time, you have sex constantly. So if it's a woman is having sex every day with

different people. Well, that's highly, highly promiscuous. Is that what we're talking about? Super hose. The researchers analyzed the personality and fecundity of 61 females who are either mothers or maternal aunts of homosexual men to 100 females who are mothers or aunts of heterosexual men. Originally, the team thought the reason why the women who inherited the gay man gene might have more babies is simply because they increased androphilia. What is that? Or attraction to men.

Attraction to men. That's it. There it is. Thus making the male inheritance homosexual and the female inheritors more promiscuous. Okay. That's it. Okay. Yeah, I'm just super skeptical about everything.

Keep that up, Jamie. Scroll down because there's a stupid ad in the way over here. So the idea is that since they're really attracted to men, their sons are going to be really attracted to men? The idea is it's a variant of the X chromosome. There's something about the X chromosome. What does that mean, variant of the X chromosome? I don't know. I'm an idiot.

No, no, no. You're not. However, after analyzing the personal characteristics of 160, so here's the however that probably puts it in line. So here's the however that probably puts it in line. Of 161 female maternal relatives of homosexual and heterosexual men, researchers changed their hypothesis and suggested that rather than making the women more attracted to men and therefore more promiscuous, the gay man gene appears to make female inheritors more attractive to men. Okay. Huh. So how do they know that, though? Okay, but females who are highly attractive, who have what we would call high mate value,

tend not to be super promiscuous because they can get a high status, high investing male. Right. And you screw up that relationship if you're promiscuous. Right. Then you're no longer high mate value because your partner is going to question whether the offspring are his. That's why I'm confused about how they switched because it seems like they're 180 degrees from each other. If sexually antagonistic genetic factors that introduce homosexuality in males exist, the factors might be maintained in the population by contributing to increase the fecundity,

greater reproductive health, extroversion, and a generally relaxed attitude towards family and social values in female of the maternal line of homosexual men. That's interesting. What year was that? It was a long time ago, if I remember correctly. Because, okay, 2012. 2012. So you would think that if it's 2012, if there's something to it, it might have been replicated. And if it's just one study from 2012, you have to look at where it was published, where

it was cited. I don't trust Italians. Really? Yeah, I'm one of them. Are you Italian? Yeah. I don't trust my people. What part of Italy are you from?

Well, part of my family's from Palermo and part of my family's from Naples. Okay. Yeah. And then a little bit from Ireland. I'm joking around about not trusting them. No, I'm half Irish. But I always joke around about how I would never trust, I would never buy an Italian car because they don't pay attention.

They're not like really tightening the bolts down. You know, I like German cars. They're more engineered. Okay. They're more like rigid. Rigid. They're disciplined. You know what I mean?

Yes. Like they're more structured. Japanese cars are excellent. I love Japanese cars. Very structured. Yeah. Rel know what I mean? Yes. Like they're more structured. Japanese cars are excellent. I love Japanese cars. Very structured. Yeah. Reliable. Italians aren't reliable.

But they're so different from the Germans in personality. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And art and food. Sex. And they're fun to hang out with. Yeah. They're great. So speaking of sex, the biggest effect of changing your hormones is changing yourself sexually, what you want sexually.

So and I learned this. This is one of the most salient points from interviewing the transgender people I interviewed was how their sexuality changed. And it's also completely backed up by all the literature on transgender transitions. And it sort of confirms the stereotypes about testosterone. So if you are a female and you jack up your testosterone to male levels, that's a huge difference. So the female body is very, very sensitive to testosterone increases because we have so little compared to men. We have a minuscule amount.

And so any little change will have huge effects. And so you have very dramatic effects on natal women who take a lot of testosterone. So first of all, their bodies change. They get jacked even if they're not lifting weights. They get a lot of muscle mass. They get facial hair. Their voice can deepen. And they, especially when they're first taking the testosterone, they're going through something like a male puberty. I don't know what your male puberty

was like, but I bet you were totally horny. I'm just guessing. For sure. Like really kind of, and this is something I'd love for more people to talk about. I'm just guessing. For sure. Like really kind of, and this is something I'd love for more people to talk about. I'm interested in what that is like, because yeah, I shouldn't talk about my own puberty, but yeah, that was a time when I was interested in sex and felt very different because my hormones were changing. You know, estrogen helped to make me a sexual being, but testosterone has a different effect. It seems to be more intense. And what was so interesting to me is the way that some of the people I interviewed for the book talked about how their sexuality changed.

And natal females who took on a male identity started viewing other females, according to them, as objects, sexual objects. Objects. That they had so much lust. started viewing other females, according to them, as objects, sexual objects. Objects. That they had so much lust. And this is not how all men are or how all trans people are. But this was the effect in the few months after increasing testosterone, sort of like a male puberty, which can feel overwhelming, where thoughts of sex are overwhelming, and that there's an intense need to kind of get some release.

And there's a way that these trans men started viewing women, which was kind of alien to them because they hadn't looked at other people as sexual objects in that that same way but sort of a really intense need to get a release and seeing other um women as vehicles for that and also orgasms changed so but when you mean by objects you mean yeah i don't want to overstate it as people i i don't i really don't want to overstate it. I really don't want to over male sexuality and that we think that men should kind of be more like us and respect everybody. And why can't they just treat me like a human being instead of looking at me as a sex object, right? So women get frustrated because men look at them as sex objects. Right. But conversely, women dress very provocatively and still think that. Yes.

That they don't like that men look at them like sex objects when their cleavage is showing and they're wearing skirts and their legs basically have a vagina curtain on and their legs are hanging out. It's very odd because they're obviously, right, they're accentuating this sexuality. Yes, but I think that women don't understand the effect that that has on men or trans men because they don't feel that same urgency, right? Right. And what I learned, I just was really interested in understanding what that's like. Instead of shaming men for feeling that way, I want to understand what that feeling is. Like,

I really want to get it. And so talking, and again, so talking to people who transitioned, who are natal females, who are then like, holy shit, this is what it's like to live as a man and have this sexual desire that was foreign to them. So there was that piece of it. That's a major piece. It does soften with time. So that's really just sort of the male puberty part of it. And that's an intensity that females, I think, don't get. But then there's this orgasm thing, which I thought was really interesting. So the male

orgasm apparently feels very different from the female orgasm. And people who transitioned talked about how their experience of orgasm changed. So do you want to hear about that? Yes, I do. I have so many questions. Yes, I do. I have so many questions. So I can say, so I've had an orgasm. Whoa. I can see I have. Crazy.

And so for men might not understand that for women, it is a full body experience that takes a while to build up. It plateaus, but it takes a while to kind of terminate. And sometimes after sex, men are like, oh, done, blah, blah, blah. you know, I'm falling asleep. I'm going to go do this or do that. And women are like sort of luxuriating in the afterglow. Right. And it can be feel insulting or hurtful for because when – for trans men, the experience changes from the full body experience to a sharper, more intense, more acute, more time-limited experience. So it's more intense at the peak. But yet they're still getting an orgasm in the same method that a woman would get an orgasm. What do you mean method? Because they still have the same equipment. No, no, no. A trans man.

Yes, yes. A trans man. Yes. So they change the orgasm, but you still have female equipment, essentially. Yes. Interesting. But the experience changes. And the body...

And if you go the opposite direction, you soften that intensity. And there's more of a... The whole body is responsive in a way. You're confusing the shit out of me. Okay, sorry. I'm probably confused. If you go the other way, you're talking about male to female. And then male to female have orgasm, but are they keeping the equipment?

See, this is where I get. You can keep. Yeah, but you can't. How are you getting an orgasm without that? You mean if you have a penis? If you don't anymore. Well, most trans people now are keeping their genitalia. They're not surgically...

Can we say that? I can say it because I just did. And I believe that that's the case. And I think the trend is changing. Yeah, but I should have some evidence behind it. But this is where I'm confused. Is that essentially the only way to achieve orgasm?

You can still have an orgasm. Even if you remove your genitalia? So that's a whole other area. You're not just removing the genitalia, you're creating something like female genitalia. And yes, you can definitely have orgasms.

But I don't know as much about exactly how that works. But definitely? Well, I had a trans woman come talk to my class who had had the surgery and discussed in graphic detail what her orgasms were like. Hmm. So, yes. Okay. That's where I'm confused. Yeah.

But so female to male. But let's assume that they're keeping their genitalia. Yeah. Well, for female and male, they definitely are, right? They assume that they're keeping their genitalia. Yeah. Well, for female and male, they definitely are, right? But this is consistent with the literature about sex differences in orgasms and sexual experience, where it's more sort of acute and less concentrated on the whole body for men than it is for women. So essentially the testosterone is leading the body to a very specific kind of experience during orgasm.

It seems that way. It seems that way. And that's something that I thought was fascinating. So the orgasm, but just in addition to what it's like sexually to be in the world and how you view the sex that you're attracted to and what the urgency is like. And I still, you know, as a woman, I don't really understand. Obviously, I don't understand what it's like to be a man or have high testosterone or what it's like to be a man sexually in the world. And that's part of why I'm interested in the hormone. And aggression, interestingly, does not seem to – there's not good evidence that men – that trans men become much more aggressive or that trans women become much less aggressive.

There are some anecdotal changes in anger and emotions. So the emotional piece seems to be that – so I talked a lot. I asked questions about emotional expression partly because I cry. I was telling you earlier I tear up a lot when I am moved and I seem to be moved all the time and I can't control it. I cry when I'm teaching, which is really embarrassing. But I teach about what I think are really important issues. You're a human. You care. I care a lot, but I care so much that I just cannot control my reactions. I think that's great.

I think people are scared of that for some strange reason. They think they're supposed to be stoic all the time. It's masculine. So being stoic is masculine and having a lot of emotions and expressing them is more feminine. Of course, again, this is a spectrum and there's lots of overlap, but that also seems to be a function of testosterone. So the people I interviewed described taking testosterone and then feeling that their emotions were blunted.

They couldn't access their emotions. They stopped crying, and that anger was the only accessible intense emotion. That seems silly. As a person who intense emotion. That seems silly. As a person who's male, that seems silly. Yes, so that was one person I talked to. That is not a universal experience, and there aren't big sex differences in anger in the first place. There are large sex differences in physical aggression,

like really fucking somebody up is more of of a, you know, much higher rates of that in men, killing people, you know, that's basically all men, like serious physical violence where you put yourself at risk. There's a large sex difference there. But when you sort of move to the middle and you're talking about anger and you're talking about throwing stuff and pushing and hitting, there's not a huge sex difference there, at least in terms of interpersonal romantic relationships. But that's another area. But so the things that change in transgender people,

the biggest thing is sex and sexuality and sex drive. And then there's some evidence, a little bit of evidence about aggression, but that doesn't seem to be very pronounced. What's always interesting to me that there's a lot of people that they sort of dismiss traditional gender stereotypes in terms of makeup and clothing. And then some of these people are actually not just dismissive of these stereotypes, but they seem to think there's something wrong with them. They're insulting of these things. They think that these things are in somehow or another holding back women or holding back men. And what's odd to me is that it's celebrated in transgender people. So whenever a trans woman is like wearing a ton of makeup and short skirts and a lot

of like nail polish and big hoop earrings, everybody's like, you go, girl. No one is ever looking at that trans woman saying like, you are accepting these harmful gender stereotypes and embracing them right yeah it's part of what you know i'm saying like yeah i do and i think that's so complicated because if you have gender dysphoria if you're come if you're really uncomfortable with your body and how it's sexed and you desperately, you know, you really go into puberty and you're horrified at how your body is changing because it doesn't represent how you feel, then I can understand how you want to adopt maybe a more extreme version of what you perceive the opposite sex to be like. So I get it and I have sympathy for people who are suffering in that way. But you're right

that there is a sort of stereotyping of the gender role. And that's just super complicated. It is super complicated. And I also, I understand it and I sympathize with them and I support them. Go do that. Wear all the makeup. Wear all the fake eyelashes. Go crazy. But why do you give a shit when women do it? When biological women do it? Like, why does anybody care?

Like, that's what they like. Like, there's clearly something different. Right, right, right. Like, look at you. Okay, you're very conservatively dressed, but why do I see your whole arms? Like, what's that about? But imagine. Because I'm psyched because I work out.

Because you got the guns. But if I was dressed like you, it would be odd, right? If you were wearing a dress. Well, men wear tank tops and show off. Very rarely. Not for formal things like this or a podcast. It would be odd. If someone just showed up here with a wife beater on,

it would be odd. So I wish that weren't odd. In the book, that is something that I write about at the end. What I want for my son. Here's where I start getting emotional. It's really important to me that he feel free to express himself in whatever way he wants. And I wish

this is what I get upset about when I teach that there are these restrictive norms and people who feel different feel they just have to break out of that norm instead of feeling comfortable just being who they are with their bodies. And, you know, I wish like that he could wear whatever clothes he wants and be accepted. And but there are these norms that we still have. And there is this confusion where women are stigmatized for being ultra. can be super masculine. We can be ultra feminine. It's basically fine. Men have much more narrow constraints that they have to operate in because it's, you know, women are who grow up to be gay are more likely to want to play with girls and play with dolls and wear dresses. And they are bullied for that. And they are tortured. And a lot of those boys, I mean, some of those boys now are becoming transgender. So maybe it's in some ways it's they're becoming very uncomfortable with their sex because it's an extremely unpleasant experience. And then they end up feeling like they are the opposite sex because you can't, there isn't the leeway for them to just express themselves

and be who they are. Right. What I was getting at is that females in our culture are allowed to wear very little clothing at formal events. Like if you go to a restaurant and the man is wearing a suit and a tie and a jacket, the woman will often be wearing this vagina curtain, long legs, all exposed. You see her toes. You see all of her feet and these strappy little shoes. There's a long cut where her full arms are exposed. Her breasts are at least half exposed, right? There's cleavage. I'm not criticizing this. I'm just, again, I'm looking at it like an objective observer.

I'm on the outside. Are you? I'm trying to. But are you objective? This is what I'm saying. I'm looking at this like an objective observer. Okay. It's fascinating that you're saying that as females transition to males, they start objectifying females. But females that are just identified as female and are attracted to men often dress in a way that would make them much more sexually,

if not available, much more looked at like a sexual object. This is not all of them. I'm not generalizing. I'm just saying. Yes. like a sexual object. This is not all of them. I'm not generalizing.

I'm just saying, you do not see very many men out at dinner with short skirts on where you see their feet and you see all of their arms and deep into their armpits and you see a deep cut. It's odd, right? Just as an objective observer,

just looking at it, like as looking at this species, if I was an alien from another planet. I don't see why it's odd. Because it's very different than males. It's hugely different. Because, but that has to do with sex differences in what promotes reproductive success. Right?

So for, if women. That doesn't make any sense. Here's why it doesn't make any sense. Because if a guy showed up in short skirts, if a short shirt, short skirts where you could see big muscular legs, and he had a tank top on where you could see his arms, and this low-cut thing where you could see his chest,

that would be a masculine man that would be more likely to provide you with healthy... He'll show up in his Maserati. He'll show up in his Maserati and his expensive suit. We're not talking about a vehicle. We're talking about clothing. We're talking about clothing. We're talking about clothing. We're talking about a stark difference in the way males versus females dress.

Where females, although you're saying they don't want to be sexually objectified or they don't realize they are, and females to males, when they start taking testosterone, are more likely to objectify females. It's a weird thing. And again, I'm just looking at this for what it is. Humans have these strange patterns with males and females. And females show way more of their bodies, even in formal settings. So why do you think that they show more of their bodies?

Why do you think that is? I'm asking you. I think that the patterns of attraction differ in humans because it's adaptive for males to seek out females who have high reproductive value. And our reproductive value has more to do with our physical health than if a female is seeking a mate, she wants somebody who's high status, who's healthy, but who can provide for her and her offspring on average. But these are the, you know, we have different mating psychologies on average. And so for me, it's more important that I, yes, I mean,

both sexes want partners who are healthy and relatively attractive and smart and kind, right? So that's well established. But there are these differences in which sex values physical attractiveness more, and that's males value it more because it has more to do with female reproduction. So females do better when they live a long, healthy life and they want to advertise cues of youth and health. It's such a stark contrast. But I think for males, it's much more important to be – for women, they're going to – the emphasis is more likely to be on status and success and resources. Like in our society, that's money and cues of high status. So men are going to advertise that more than women, just on average.

But, yeah, our culture has really amplified in some cultures, not everywhere, you know, the expression of those signals. And then there's also a reaction to that in other countries, other cultures like Islamic cultures where they cover the women up completely. Yes. And they take a completely opposite approach. Yeah. It's fascinating, right? If you look at the real raw difference between male and female wardrobe, it's very, very different.

I mean, that might be one of the biggest differences amongst us, except for the fact that you guys carry the babies. Yeah. And you have, I mean, culturally, it's really interesting to look at different cultures and how they vary in terms of those sex differences um yeah it's very weird right yeah yeah now when you set out to do this what obviously you have a son you're a woman you're trying to understand these things like did you approach this from a did you have a neutral position did you have a bias going

in here did you did you were your biases confirmed or were you surprised by anything so I try to have a neutral position. My position is firmly pro-science and the truth. And I'm extremely passionate about – I tear up talking about this. It's so important to me. But I think that it's respectful. respecting another person's intelligence and ability to handle the truth is so much more respectful than giving them information that might make them feel good. So, and I don't even remember what your question was now. Whether you're not, you went in this with a neutral perspective. Yeah, okay. So my perspective is that science is the way to get at the truth. And I love teaching this class because I get a lot of students who are not scientists, think they don't like science, but they want to know about themselves and their bodies.

And we don't just talk about sex and testosterone. We talk about hunger and diabetes and energy and parenting and how hormones shape all these different kinds of behaviors. So they love learning that. And it's not stuffy. It's fun and it's accessible. And through science, they're learning about who they are and how they work. And they find that tremendously satisfying. So I'm going to tell a little story about science and what it meant to me in learning about testosterone. And that is I describe this in my book. And when I was a grad student, I so I went to change my career late in life. And so I was in gosh, I guess I was in my early, very early 30s. And I

got accepted to Harvard. And I felt like an imposter, like a lot of people do. You know, I don't belong here. They made a mistake. So I'll just back up and say that I was not a stellar high school student. This is hard to admit to such a big audience because I teach at Harvard, but it's also a lesson. Like I was at the bottom of my class in high school. I was somebody, I grew up in Weston and Weston, sorry, Mass. Yeah. So I'm just Weston because I know that you lived in Newton or something. And I skipped classes and just had like very little parental oversight and was kind of a party animal, but kind of destructive. Like I really, and so I ended up

failing gym and English, which is ironic because I just wrote a book and I'm extremely athletic. But so I failed gym and English. I just didn't go. I just extremely athletic. But so I failed gym and English. I just didn't go. I just blew it off. And I didn't know, which is a lesson because I have students at Harvard who are just totally freaked out about getting a B plus. And I just feel like I always tell them, like, look, you don't know where I came from and what you can change. And, you know, a plus, a B plus is great. And you're going to be where you're supposed to be,

just like work hard and be disciplined, et cetera. So that was my high school experience. So and then I went to this great college, Antioch College, but then I didn't know what I wanted to be. But it was I graduated from college in 1988 and I was like really excited about computers, from college in 1988. And I was like really excited about computers, which is so funny because they like computers were sort of fairly, fairly new. And I wanted a job where I could work with computers. So I just got this job in financial software. And that's there was like 10 years of just doing this financial software stuff. But I was just doing that so I could get my life together. I really had a lot of growing up to do. I just wanted to live on my own and be responsible and have a job and save money.

But I traveled a lot and I read a lot. And then I figured out that I wanted to understand human behavior. So I quit my job and I applied to grad school. So that's kind of the long story about how I got there. But again, I just forgot about you. So I asked you if you came into it with... I got there. But again, I just forgot what you. So I asked you if you came into it with. But I think you asked something about the background. But so. Oh, so, you know, I was going to tell my story of what happened, why I felt like an imposter. It's partly because I didn't have the same background that my Harvard students have. They were all like had their shit together from the get go. And they were, you know, had these habits that enabled them to be successful. They were getting A's in high school and president of this and captain of that. And they're really mature, amazing students. And that just wasn't me. It took me a long time to kind of get to a place where I felt like I belonged. And I'm probably

still not there. But so I was in this seminar, this grad student seminar. I think it was my first year at Harvard. And it was the evolution of human sexuality. And we were reading a paper on the evolution of rape. And there was this explanation about rape in the scorpion fly and this implication that humans rape, men rape because they – it's an adaptation. If they don't have the resources to acquire a mate, they'll just use rape. And I had to comment on the paper.

It was my turn to talk. And I was getting really emotional. And I felt I was pissed off. And I just was like, why isn't anyone else outraged here? And so I remember just my eyes were watery and I was kind of angry. And I said, this guy's an asshole, like the guy who wrote the paper. And that wasn't an appropriate scientific response. That was an emotional response. And I will just say, if you jump forward, that kind of response now seems to be in many places okay, that you're supposed to have an emotional response.

And if you do, then maybe we shouldn't have assigned that paper. But I have an experience with rape. And so it was upsetting to me. And I didn't want rape to be a natural part of human behavior. I wanted it to be something pathological. And so I was having a hard time analyzing the data. But the professor kept saying, look at the data, look at the data, look at the data. And this to me was one of the most formative experiences because it helped me realize how important the truth is and that I can use science as a tool to get to the truth and understand myself and understand my life and understand even men or things that have been troublesome to me, even if it is painful.

And that pain is okay. And I grew from that pain. And I learned that I can use science to understand. And ultimately, it made me feel better and more empowered and more in control. So my bias is like so firmly with the science and how important it is and how I was respected as a young scientist and given the truth and sort of really encouraged to look at the data and analyze the science instead of like give into my emotions and believe what I wanted to believe. I don't want to give anyone else like a line of bullshit about anything like that the sexes are on a spectrum, you know, that there's five sexes because maybe that makes people feel good about being different. You can feel good about being different even with the truth that there are two sexes. That's OK.

You know, we can talk about that. It's just confusing to be fed lines about science just because it makes people feel better. But what is this shift? lines about science just because it makes people feel better. But what is this shift? Where do you think this shift happened in academia, where it became, does it drive you crazy? It's so sad and discouraging to me. I mean, you know, it makes me want to leave. Like it's really, it's sad, like socially it's sad because I can't talk about what I want to talk about.

I showed you some of the things my students said. They want the truth, but they're afraid to speak up. Sorry, I didn't. Okay, it's okay. Science really changed my life. It is what helped me go from somebody who was confused and had no direction and lacked confidence, you know, to like finding something that works for me, finding something that's so powerful to explain the world. And I love helping other people do the same thing and have, you know, imbue in them a love for science and how powerful it is. And I just feel like it's getting shat on because I don't have a great

explanation. I think social media has a lot to do with it. What aspect of social media do you think accentuates it? There's a lot of shaming on social media. There's a lot of shutting down conversation. Everybody's always advocated for certain points of views and had their agendas. Right. And that's OK. And but we should be able to have open conversations about people's points of view that should be informed by reality. Right. But now I think we have the ability to make people feel bad about what they believe. Like I, before I really understood how things work, I did teach a couple of classes where I said that sex,

I thought sex was on a spectrum. And I remember feeling good about that. I remember feeling like my students really liked that. And I feel good saying that. And that was sort of back in the day. How long ago was this? That was probably seven years ago or something. What made you want to teach that sex was on the spectrum?

Because I thought that the features associated with sex, because they can vary so much. So sex is really about what kind of gametes you make or what your gamete plan is, whether you have large immobile gametes or whether you're going to be making small mobile gametes, so like sperm and eggs. That's really how sex is defined across the animal kingdom. It's not chromosomes. It's not sex hormone levels. It's not body types. That's not how you define sex. Those are features that are associated with sex, right? And those things do vary. Even genitals vary. You know, you can have all these different combinations, right? So I thought I sort of wanted to see things that way because I wanted to validate people who are different because I really do care so much about identify somehow, I don't know why, with I think

people who are different. And I thought that that kind of validated people with differences. And I have since learned that that's just not, it doesn't validate them. It's just not true. So I sort of studied it more and got more into the to the literature. And I realized, no, it's really about gametes. And I'm muddying this up to make me and my students feel good. And that's just not how it works. And since I've been, I think I'm getting better at teaching what is now controversial information. My students are saying that they appreciate having someone who's willing to talk about sex and sex differences and admit that there are two sexes and to explore how that works. They're craving that. But I think that social media somehow, and, you know, I hate to

say it's a generational thing. So I don't know if I'm just old. I think it's an academic spillover. I think the academia spilled over into social media because people that were in school started using social media. And then the people who are overwhelmingly progressive that run institutions. Yeah. Well, their people are just capitulating all over the place to a vocal minority. So people who disagree, which is the majority, are being shamed. They get scared and they don't want to lose their jobs. Yeah. And that's a whole other ball of wax. But I am scared as a science educator, because science is such a beautiful, powerful tool.

It's reality. It's reality. It's reality. And that story I told about that seminar, it's just so clear to me how important science is and that you not twist the truth to try to make people feel better. It's disrespectful to them. And it doesn't solve problems in the world. You're not going to solve problems and make social progress by twisting science. You see these people are compassionate towards people that want to be something other than they are they have body dysmorphia or whatever you want to be

their allies yeah and I understand that and it's not they're not I'm not smarter than they are I'm not better than they are I think I see things differently but I think it's the wrong direction and I'm scared and I don't know what is going to put an end to this, but it seems to be getting worse and worse. And I, you know, my students are congratulating me for teaching just basic science now. Like it's risky. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's strange. I mean, we've, we've, we changed terms to make people feel better as Yes. As if somehow. Chest feeder.

Yeah. Uterus haver. Menstruator. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it's very strange. But smart people think that is the right thing to do. And that does make me wonder if I'm just completely wrong.

What am I missing here? You know, these are smart people I respect and I have questioned myself over and over again. But are they cowards? I think they think they're doing the right thing. Do they? A lot of them, I bet, don't. A lot of them, I think, are, as you said, they're capitulating. I think a lot of them are really worried that this is the trend and you can sort of get out the basic facts while sticking with the current ideology. Well, they also get a lot of approval, a lot of social approval. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. You, a lot of social approval. That's what

I'm saying. Yeah. You get a lot of social approval and more importantly, you avoid the criticism. You avoid the harsh hate. I don't know. I don't know. I think when you get that much social approval from other smart people, you feel like this is the right thing. Right. But if you step out of that, then you get hated on. Yes. And that's worse. The social approval is great, and for sure people do that. They virtual signal left and right online. It's like one of the main activities on Twitter. Yeah. But the one thing that they happen to do while doing that is avoid the hate that you get from stepping on that third rail of, you know, when you step out of line and start saying things that maybe you actually believe,

but aren't a part of the orthodoxy, then you get hated on and piled on. And that's terrifying for people. Yeah. And that's why I wrote the book, because it's not just social media. It is, I have air quotes here. It is the science that is coming out now about testosterone. There are books coming out, and there are even studies coming out that are completely designed to show that testosterone differences are less than we thought, that there aren't really large sex differences in testosterone, that there's an overlap in testosterone that's just not that powerful and important, which means we can celebrate everybody as really being sexless, you know, that there's no such thing as male and female. Testosterone really doesn't do that much, or females have much higher testosterone than we

thought. And that just to blur the biological differences so that people, I guess the agenda is so that people feel more comfortable expressing themselves and their gender as they see fit, which I just think you should do anyway. Let's promote that. Let's just do that. True. That's the problem with it. I remember watching this YouTube video where this woman was talking about the differences between males and females. We're all cultural and there's no difference between males and females, even with strength and athletics. And I was like, this is one of the dumbest conversations I've ever heard anybody speak out loud.

This is so stupid. So the athletics is a huge issue right now because there's I wrote about this in the book also because there's questions about whether trans women should be able to participate on women's sports teams so the big issue is well does testosterone really confer an athletic advantage and I write about these examples where people are arguing that it doesn't it is insane of course it does and it's not just common sense there is tons and tons of evidence find Find that quote. What is that tweet by Amy Alcon who tweeted, I sent it to you before, about the differences in sprinting speeds. And she was talking about a woman's world record, I believe in a 400 meter. That's 10%.

And that 300 high school kids that are boys every year break that. Yes. They break the women's world record for sprinting. Yeah. No, and it's testosterone. I mean, it's very clear that that's what it is. The fastest female sprinter in the world is American runner Allison Felix, a woman with more gold medals than Usain Bolt.

Her lifetime best for the 400-meter run is 49.26 seconds. Usain Bolt. Her lifetime best for the 400 meter run is 49.26 seconds. Based on 2018 data, nearly 300 high school boys in the U.S. alone could beat it. That's fucking bananas. Okay, but people are saying that

some people are saying that that advantage is cultural. And it's not, and I outline in the book pretty clearly what going through male puberty and having high testosterone in puberty, how that changes. I mean, you know you're jacked, and part of it's because you take testosterone. And so you can speak from personal experience about the change in your athletic capacity and muscle volume. It's all super clear.

There's no doubt that you have increased hemoglobin. You have increased muscle mass. You have increased hemoglobin, you have increased muscle mass, you have a larger body size, you have increased bone strength, all directly a result of high testosterone. And it doesn't all go away when you reduce testosterone. In their defense, it doesn't all go away when you reduce testosterone, but some of it does go away. Oh, certainly. So the hemoglobin plummets. I mean, it depends if you go, if you're male to female, hemoglobin plummets. And hemoglobin is important because it carries oxygen and it has to do with lung capacity and aerobic capacity and power. And so that's an important decline. But muscle mass does not, I mean, it's totally variable, but typically it does not go down to typical female levels. There's definitely an advantage that's retained. And bone strength and height and grip and all that stuff is retained.

And just the shape of the bones. It's very different. It's a strange time when it comes to the reality of the differences between genders. to the reality of the differences between genders. It's a very strange time because it doesn't, no one's ever said men are better than women or women are better than men. We're just different things. And transgender people are different as well.

We're all just different. We should be accepting of each other and loving of each other and give each other equal rights and laws and respect. But when it comes to athletics, there's a reason why men don't compete against women. And I had this bizarre conversation with this guy once who has this TV show where he kind of debunks things.

But when I got him alone to talk about these things, like without a team of writers, when you leave someone to just their opinions, and he had these sort of very progressive talking points that he would kind of blurt out but then when i started challenging him on these and going deep he realized he didn't even really think about this he just wanted to appear that he was progressive which i am i am a progressive person i know i look like a meathead but i'm very progressive yeah i just look at reality though i grew up with martial arts and with fighting and I know there's a fucking radical difference between males and females. It's radical.

It's not small. It's not subtle. It's radical. You mean in physical strength? In physical strength and violence and psychology and attitude and competitiveness. It's radical. There's a radical difference. And also, there's a spectrum.

And some people are far more feminine than they are masculine and they happen to have penises. And some women are far more masculine than they are feminine and they happen to have vaginas. But it doesn't change the norm. It doesn't change, and it certainly doesn't change on the high ends of these spectrums. That's right. The high ends of these spectrums, ultra female versus ultra male. You're looking at two radically different things. Yeah. Yeah.

And I like, really like what you said about, I'm getting emotional again. I like what you said about just accepting and understanding each other. Yes. That, to me, you don't have to accept bad behavior. You don't have to accept hurtful behavior. But it does help us to really work hard to understand it. And those are the extremes of behavior. But you're right. We're different. And I think it's interesting and it's exciting the way that we're different, the ways that we're different. And testosterone really does help to explain so many of those differences. So understanding that hormone helps us understand each other.

And I want it, it helped me, even though I have been teaching about this stuff for ages, writing the book and especially reading about the transgender experiences helped me to have sort of this epiphany. So you can see how emotional I am, right? I'm like ultra emotional. My husband is a British philosopher, and he is not – he doesn't get angry. He doesn't really express a lot – a huge range of emotion. He's a wonderful guy and I love him, but I've always kind of picked on him and thought there was something wrong with him for not being more emotional, not being able to have these long conversations about emotions and

psychology and what happened in his childhood to make him like that. And I have a temper. He doesn't have a temper. I cry during lecture and can't even cry at home and can barely control that. My epiphany was I'm not better than he is because I'm so in touch with my emotions. I have issues. Like he probably has issues too, but he doesn't have to come to be closer to me in my way of being in the world. I need to work on accepting who he is. He's an awesome guy. And I was always trying to get him to be more like me. And I think women really want men, if they're in heterosexual relationships,

to be more like them emotionally. But I had this epiphany like, no, it's working out. And our marriage would be better if I just shut up about some of the getting him to be more emotional all the time. I need to take the gifts that he's giving me. And I have to look at myself and where my emotionality, which I'm getting emotional again. But that was all through learning more about this hormone and what it does. It's just who he is as a man. It's not that all men are that way, but it did help me, just the understanding helps us to accept each other. And that's sort of one

larger point in the book that I don't try to make so explicitly, but I hope that, and again, I don't mean we have to accept bad behavior, but we can try to understand these extremes of male behavior that are disturbing and more disturbing than extremes of female behavior. You know, I can cry and have a fit, but I'm not raping anybody. Well, because that's an extreme of that's a bad extreme of male behavior that we need to understand. But let's understand where that's coming from instead of shutting down the conversation or shaming men for just being men, who all men are being blamed for the extremes of male behavior. That's ridiculous in my view. I agree as well. I look at the human race as a puzzle that is whole, but every piece is different. And you cannot get a person maybe like husband, to be shaped like your piece. That's right.

It's not going to work. But together, we fit together in some very strange synchronicity. It all works. That's beautiful. It works. That is beautiful. But you have to find the right people. If you found someone who didn't jive with you, it wouldn't work. And you can't change people. You can can kind of influence them a little bit no that's right but I think that's important in regards to everything it's important in regards to gender to

transgender people and if there's anything that upsets me more than anything it's when I get misrepresented as being either hostile towards transgender people or dismissive of transgender people. It's not the case. Is that because of the Fallon Fox thing? 100%. Because I was furious at that. Because I know what that is.

Here's what that is. That's someone who wants to win. That's someone who's sandbagging. You're pretending that you're not a male and you're competing against females without letting them know. If you wanted to tell them that you were male for 30 years and became female for two years and they still wanted to compete against you, we have no qualm. I'm all in. But that's not what that is. When you say, I don't have to tell them because it's a medical condition. Well, that's horseshit. And we all know it's horseshit. Was that what happened?

Exactly. That's why I was so furious. Because she fought two people without telling them that she was a male for 30 years. But she said it was a medical. Yeah. She said she didn't have to tell anybody because it was a medical issue. Okay. Which is nuts. So that's why I got angry. And when I get angry, I would normal never get into that sort of subject.

I wouldn't have such a strong opinion. But it's in my wheelhouse. I'm a martial arts expert. I do cage fighting commentary. That's what I do. I've done it for more than 20 years. So when that kind of shit happens and you try to tell me there's no difference between males and females, like, fuck you.

I watch males and females fight. I've seen thousands of fights. Feet away from me. So can I ask a sensitive question? Yes. Do you understand why people got upset about the way that you talked about it? Oh, for sure. Why do you think they got upset? Because I called her a man. Would you call her a man now? I said you're a fucking man. I, in the same situation, I would be just as furious. Well, you could be furious,

but would you use the same language knowing that people who are listening they're not her but they are people who feel like a woman yeah I want to identify it was very painful aggressively insulting right and insensitive and also inflammatory in a way that would incite people who are transphobic. Right. Which I'm not. That's part of the problem. I see.

Is that even though I look like a meathead, and like I said, I'm a very progressive person. I'm very open-minded. If I meet transgender people, I'm extra kind. I try to treat them with the most amount of respect because I don't want them to feel bad. That's how I feel. Yeah. But this is not one of those situations. This was a girl who got her face crushed.

Right. And I'm like, you're a fucking asshole. Right. Like, you're not supposed to do that. Do you know what sandbagging is? Sandbagging is, like, say if we were in a martial arts tournament. Okay. And you were, like, a 10-year Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt.

But you entered into this tournament and lied and said you were a purple belt, and you started competing against people that had only been doing it a couple years, and you fucked them up. That's what sandbagging is. That was the general consensus for a lot of people, how they felt about people that transition

and compete against females in a lot of sports. Without making it known? Without telling them. But that's in martial arts. In martial arts, I feel like it should be, it's like riding bulls. Do you choose to ride a bull? You have a massive disadvantage against that bull.

There's no way you're going to hang on. The best chance you got is eight seconds. You want to do that? I'm all for it. Have you rode a bull? Ridden a bull? No, I have not. I'm all for anything that people want to do where they understand the risks where they're getting into it.

I don't like deception. When someone tells you that they're a biological female and they're not, that made me furious. Because I knew the story and I knew this one girl literally got her skull broken. And I'm like, this is a person who's probably going gonna be injured for the rest of her life like and from deception Like had she known that this was not a biological female that she was competing against Maybe she would not have taken on that bout. That's that's what made me feel you want people to have the truth exactly but now when it comes to sanctioned events like

Powerlifting there's a there's a giant issue right now with the Olympics where they're allowing a transgender male who's breaking all kinds of world records compete. With trans female. I'm sorry. You're right. You're right. Trans woman. Yes. Transgender male to female.

Sorry. Who's competing against females and breaking. Well, this is also part of the problem, right? We don't see the opposite. There's not a lot of trans males that are kicking ass no it's kind of true so what do you think should happen trans people should compete against trans people if there's so many of them that we have to change all these rules why not have a transgender league why not have a transgender division we

have two divisions right there's a reason why we have two divisions why for fairness men and women don't compete against each other for what Amy Alcon highlighted. This issue is not going to go away. It's not going to go away. But it doesn't mean people aren't compassionate. There's a reason why males don't compete against females. And this is part of the thing that I had with this guy, this TV show host, where I was telling him, okay, do you think that males should compete against females?

And he's like, no. I go, well, what are we doing then? Because it's transgender. The way people are trying – so my feeling here is that the way to decide these issues is not to pretend that males don't – that natal males do not have any kind of advantage or to suppress discussion of that or to suppress knowledge about testosterone. So I feel like I know what the literature says and there is an advantage. Natal males will have an advantage. But to me, that doesn't decide the issue. I think there is a really, you know, there is a case to be made that if you are legally female, you should be able to compete as a female.

There's an ethical case there. Legally female meaning what? Well, if you have had your sex changed on your birth certificate. Right. But if there's physical advantages. No, no. So all I'm saying, yeah, and I agree there's physical advantages. We're talking about competition. No, no, no. We're not talking about a person.

I agree. Just identifying and living life in society. Yeah, but I think that the conversation can't happen when it's if we don't get the scientific facts out there because people are so hung up on the science and arguing about the science that they're not even open to hearing the ethical case. So let's establish the science. let's work with the facts, and then let's sensitively the facts on the table so that we can have that conversation. But that conversation isn't even happening so that people are closed off to what could be a decent ethical case because maybe it's not all about physical advantage. Maybe there's some human rights issues that people aren't even hearing or open to right now. But we're talking only about athletics. But there are human rights issues that people aren't even hearing or open to right now. Right, but we're talking only about athletics. But there are human rights in athletics, too.

Yeah, but there's not, if you have a massive physical advantage, if a guy identifies as a woman and he doesn't want to take hormones and he wants to compete in women's boxing. Oh, okay, if you're not taking hormones. But you know what I'm saying? Yes. You understand what's happening in high school sports, right? Of course, I do.

There's two men. I know. Or two biological males in Connecticut. Let's say natal males. Whatever it is. Okay. Trans girls. They have 18 state records.

Yes. Which is crazy. So imagine if you were a biological female and you're the cream of the crop and you've busted your ass your whole life through dedication and discipline to get to that point and you want to get a scholarship somewhere and you're getting denied yep this is this is the reality of biological females but what if you're the i'm just playing devil's advocate here but what if you are one of those trans girls you identify as a girl you believe on some level that you're a girl you really want to be accepted you want to do your sport you don't want to play in some third league like

some sort of weirdo. You know, say you just want to be a girl. You want to play against the girls. There is an ethical issue there. And I agree they have an advantage. I don't think there is. There isn't even one to be discussed. No, if you are biologically male and you're competing against biological females and you have an extreme advantage, I don't think the ethics would lean towards letting you have this advantage because we want you to feel like you're female.

I think you should be treated like a member of society with all equal rights and equal respect and equal love. But we're not talking about being a member of society. We're talking about competing. But is competition part of society? If you're a 300-pound person and you identify with being a 100-pound person and you want to compete with the 100-pound people, that's not fair, right? But that is different.

Well, if you're a biological male and you have all these physical advantages of being a biological male, but you identify with being a female and you want to compete as females, which is what we're seeing in high schools, where I don't think in some schools they're not even required to do anything. I think that's correct. Which is fucking bananas. Right. And this is what drives these kids crazy. Because if you are a biological female, you know there's a distinct advantage to having that testosterone.

And this is what they're dealing with. No, and I see. It's ideology. Yes. That flies in the face of science. And people are embracing the ideology because they want to be compassionate. They want to be progressive and they don't want people get mad at them. Yeah.

And I think you're right. And I think that's the problem. And I think we should be able to have a conversation, which some, you know, we should definitely be able to have a conversation where you hear the point of view of the girls who are losing to the trans girls, hear their point of view, hear the point of view of the trans girls, and get the scientific evidence in and have the conversation. That is not happening because it's being shut down, because you're not allowed to say basically what you just said.

We have seen some of the evidence and world records being broken. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's a big piece of evidence. When you see trans women crushing world records. Oh, yeah. There's an mean, that's a big piece of evidence. Yeah. When you see trans women crushing world records. Oh, yeah. There's an advantage. No doubt about it.

There is an advantage. And then the other question is, well, how much of an advantage is it to be an outlier as a female? Like, there are female outliers that are extreme athletes that are just better genetically. They're stronger and faster. Everybody uses the example of Michael Phelps. It's a perfect example. He's a genetic outlier.

And there's always going to be outliers in male to female. But the gap and the crossover is significant. That's right. And that's the reason why men and females don't compete against each other. That's right. I don't think there's anything wrong. I don't think it makes you a freak to be in a female, rather a transgender league. I don't think that makes you a freak. It might feel that way. It might feel like you have to be in a female, rather a transgender league. I don't think that makes you a freak.

It might feel that way. It might feel like you have to be in a third. If you're in a third league, then you're not a girl. I'm just trying to understand the other point of view. We're making it seem like having the right to compete in the gender that you associate with, identify with, is a right. Right. That sounds crazy.

Right. That sounds crazy. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's a tough, I think it's a really hard, I think it's a hard issue. My only feeling is that people should be able to voice their opinion without being shamed and to use facts and to talk about their opinions. That's not happening. It's not happening because if you have an opinion that varies, that steps out of line from this orthodoxy.

From the orthodox. But it's the majority opinion as far as I can tell. But that majority is being silenced. They're just scared. They're scared because the people that are the activists are so incredibly aggressive in trying to enforce this ideology. They're so aggressive. Yeah.

And they have to be aggressive because i think they feel like they they're trying to gain ground it's working yeah it's working right yeah there you go i mean look this trans man or excuse me trans woman male to female um is now in the olympics for weightlifting and has a really good chance of winning the gold medal well maybe if that happens that's going to press the issue and get uh in a way that it hasn't really been but the problem is like at the expense of how many biological women's athletic careers yeah how many of them are going to be a footnote in this transition and this is significant when you're talking about people that literally dedicate a decade of their life that they can never get back. The prime of their athletic career.

You have 20 to 30. This is your window. That's all you have. That's it. After 30, you can maintain for a couple years, but you hit 34. Ooh, 36. Ooh, not so good. The fucking extreme outliers can make it to like 36 and compete. But you have a small window.

And if that window is dominated by someone who really, in all fairness, should not be in the same division as you. But that's the only area. That's the only area. This is where the rubber meets the road. But you're. And I understand that, you know, your concern is with the natal females, right? Yes. But what about the trans women? And I know that you're talking about physical advantages and that's clear. The issue there is clear. Because we're talking about sports. But what does fairness mean in sports?

I think there is a question there. It's not just about, is it just about physical advantages or is it giving everybody the right to participate, say, in what's important to them if they can qualify? If it wasn't just about physical advantages,

males would compete with females. There's a reason there's two divisions. Right. No, there is a reason. It's stark. But now we have an issue where there's natal male people who are identifying and maybe legally be female. I just think there is some attention needs to be paid to their concerns and their rights and what's fair in sports. And I'm not saying that it is fair to have them compete against females. I'm saying that that, I do think, needs to be brought into the conversation.

How so? Show me a scenario where you think that that would work out and be fair for biological females. No, I'm not saying it would work out. The concerns need to be addressed explicitly. I'm not saying it would work out. The concerns need to be addressed explicitly. I'm not saying it would work out. I'm saying we want to pay attention to the experiences of those trans people and what it's like for them to not be able to do their sport or to be relegated to some third team like that. I'm just saying that perspective needs to be aired. And I understand what we in the light of the physical advantage.

I understand, but we're talking about feelings rather than sports. Right. Okay. But isn't some high school sports maybe also about self-esteem and feelings? Not when you're competing for scholarships. Okay. It could change your life. Yeah.

It could change your future. Yeah. If we're competing, then someone's going to win, right? And then we have to determine what's fair and what's not fair. And we've kind of done that. Yeah. That's why we've separated males from females. Now we have this weird gray area where we have transgender males and transgender females.

And where do you put them in terms of the competition as opposed to know, as opposed to biological males and biological females. Yeah. And then there's this urge to use the term cis and like, it's not real. People are making it up that aren't biologists and it's a thing that gets accepted because it shows that you conform to the ideology. Right. You've given into this.

Right. Cisgender. I mean, I don't use that in the book. I think it's confusing. I think the concept of gender identity is even a little bit confusing. It is confusing. Sex assigned at birth is confusing. So those are terms that make some people feel good, but I think scientifically are confusing. But it's just where the rubber meets the road is athletics. That's where it gets crazy. Because other than that, it's just the where the rubber meets the road is athletics that's where it gets crazy because other than that it's just human beings being what they think is their true self which is we should all support right we should all support you identifying and being whoever you

whether you're but you could be just a hardcore dude who likes wearing fake eyelashes. Who gives a fuck? No, I agree. I agree. Whether you're gay or you're straight or you're – there's a lot of people that become trans women and then they become lesbians. I don't get it. Right. But I don't have to, right? It's not my – but if I meet them and I talk to them, I treat them with respect and love the same way I do everybody.

I just get angry when it comes to sports, particularly fighting, because that's what I did most of my life growing up. What kind of fighting did you do? Martial arts. Mixed martial arts. Taekwondo and kickboxing at the time. There was no mixed martial arts like the UFC when I was young and competing. Can I change track a little bit and ask you, tell you a little background evolutionary basis of fighting and testosterone and then sort of ask about your experiences? Sure, if you want to.

Okay. So I went, you know about red deer and testosterone and red deer. Have you heard about that? The antlers and all that jazz? And they, in the rut is when they're it's mating season. So I went to see this in Scotland, this population of red deer, because there's a lot of research on them and how testosterone controls their this sort of unites their aggressive and sexual behavior. And it's seasonal. So there's these big seasonal changes in the red deer males. changes in the red deer males. And when testosterone is low, when there's no fertile females and it's outside of mating season, they live together in bachelor herds and they're relatively peaceful and they can hang out and chill and everything's fine. When the females are fertile and it's rutting season, the antlers grow. So their weapons, testosterone creates these basically

weapons that they can use to poke out each other's eyes and try to kill each other in the fight for females. It gets their testes up and running. It gets sperm made. So it coordinates the ability to reproduce with the aggressive behaviors and the antlers. So when they're, they signal to each other through roaring and through strutting around and they have to make these decisions about who to fight and when. And the most successful males will accumulate these harems of, you know, up to 20 or sometimes even more females. So these really successful males are the best fighters. And they have large, strong antlers. They're at the right age.

They're in prime condition. And it's testosterone that basically gets them to that place. But what's amazing to see with my own two eyes was the way that they fought and how they are so tuned into the cues of the ability of whether they're going to have a chance against another male. So some males are just roaming around the hillside with no females. And they're like covetously eyeing the dominant males who have a harem. And so they have to decide if they're going to challenge that harem holder. So they listen to the roars. The roars are a really good sort of indication of what kind of condition that male is in right now. How big is he? Is he tired? And they will, they'll say run down the hill, and then they do this thing called a parallel walk.

So they'll have a roaring contest, and then maybe they'll decide to have a parallel walk. They walk next to each other, and then they back and forth, back and forth, just side by side, and they're sizing each other up. And a lot of the time, one will decide, no, I'm not going to fight this guy, I'm not going to win. But it's this very formal thing, they go through these stages. And it's predictable that the steps that they go through on the way to battle. And if they decide to, if the challenger decides to fight, sorry, now I think it's if the challenger will lower his head with his huge antlers. And then if the other one accepts, he lowers his head down and they lock antlers and they try to push each other down so that if one can get the other on the ground, he can poke him or he can try to poke his eyes out. So they become very violent and aggressive. But what's interesting to me is

human fighting. And I haven't studied like the kind of fighting that you're interested in, but I was wondering, it's so amazing, first of all, to see in non-human animals, these parallels to human fighting when two males are sort of really trying to size each other up in terms of how big are they? How threatening are they? Are they tired right now? Are they strong? Are they experienced? And what is the motivation like for you or for your fighters? What is that motivation to want to just kick the shit out of somebody? And how do you make the decisions on the road to battle? And it's obviously not because you're going to take over somebody's harem.

So what is it that's at stake when you're trying to – what is behind that motivation to fight? And what do you feel like is at stake? Is it status? Is it reputation? And there's a lot of evidence that testosterone upregulates dopamine in different contexts like sexual context and aggressive context. It's not for females. So I just wanted to hear a little bit from your perspective about, from a male perspective, a man's point of view who's really into fighting. If you can see any of those parallels with non-human animals. Okay. First of all, we're talking about two very different things. Yes. There is fighting, meaning competing for females where men puff up or men go to the bar and they fight with other men. And there's a big difference between that. Have you ever done that? No. Okay. There's a big difference between that and competition. What competition is,

is high level problem solving with dire physical consequences. And the reason why people are attracted to people that do that is because they know it's a terrifying endeavor because you're risking your emotional health, your physical health, your self-esteem, you're risking it all at the chance of being a conqueror, at the chance of being a champion. And it's a very rare position because only one person can hold it in each weight class. And so the extreme of the extreme in terms of people who, and a lot of them, you wouldn't even, especially in jujitsu, you wouldn't even imagine that these would be the people that would do that because they're just

really intensely intellectual people. I always call them like nerd assassins because they're just really super smart people that are absolutely dedicated to trying to figure out this puzzle. They're playing a game of human go or human chess. It's not what people think about it when they don't engage in it. People look at it like it's brutish. It's like too dear. Like welcome. Just trying to compete and jab each other's eyes out.

It has nothing to do with that. It has nothing to do with that. It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with you're trying to figure out a way to get better at everything in life. You're trying to reach the maximum of your human potential. And that's what fighting does. What fighting is, it's a vehicle for developing your human potential. With every improvement, with every success, with every setback, we have to regroup and relearn and then reassess all the parameters, reassess all the dangers and the risks and all the pros and cons, all the things you did wrong, all the things you did right. Were you 100% disciplined or were you only 80?

And if you were 100, would you have won? Like what if you slept more? What if you got more massages? What if you stretched more? Would you have won? What if you stopped, you know, hanging out with girls and drinking with your friends and doing this and doing that? Would you have won?

And the winners do everything right. And it's so hard to do. It's so hard to do. It's so hard to do. And you have to have everything in line. The winners have all the things. They have the genetics. They have the mental strength. They have the technique.

They have the experience. They have all the things. And it's such a rare combination of traits and attributes and experiences. And they all come together under the bright lights of thousands of people watching. So you have the intense pressure of you looking across the octagon or the ring at another human being that's in the same thing, where you've prepared for weeks and weeks and weeks

for this one moment where the referee looks at you, are you ready? Are you ready? Let's go! go and then it happens and then you have to be in the moment you have to be in the moment you have to be able to exist and be mindful in the middle of chaos in the middle of someone with massive amounts of kinetic energy and training hurling their bones in your direction with the object of knocking you unconscious, which is totally possible. You know it's possible because you've done it to other people and you know it can happen to you.

Maybe it's happened to you before. And so you have to put that aside and you have to think about defense and offense and you have to try to be in the zone. That's what people are addicted to. It has nothing to do with those stupid fucking deer, those stupid deer that are going sideways. They get to fuck in the zone. That's what people are addicted to. It has nothing to do with those stupid fucking deer. Those stupid deer that are going sideways. They get to fuck once a year. It's a terrible life, and they're probably going to get eaten by mountain lions.

Fighting between human beings is very different, and that's why it's so attractive. That's why it's so exciting. Okay, so I guess I'm trying to get at the motivation and the kind of ritual nature of it. The motivation is glory. There's a glory to conquering. There's a glory to victory. But tell me, what is... Because you're scared of losing.

You're gambling. You're gambling it all. But why does it have to be battle? All the things that you just talked about... No, no, no, no, no, no, no. They don't exist anywhere else. But no, explain why it's battle. Because of what I said.

Why does it have to be physical male-male competition? Because of what I said. It's not male-male competition. It exists in female-female competition as well. Yes, yes. No, and that's interesting. It's high-level

problem-solving with dire physical consequences. But couldn't you just go do rock climbing or something? No, no, because then you fucking die.

But you could fucking die doing mixed martial arts. Can't you just get really screwed up? Very, very rarely. Very rarely do people die. No one's ever died in the UFC. The UFC's been around since 1993.

Have people become paralyzed or blinded? Some people have lost vision in their eyes, yeah. But relatively few in comparison to the thousands and thousands and thousands that have competed. So you don't see it as a status competition. It is in some way, but it's a status that's achieved by accomplishment. It's not about the status as much as it's about the accomplishment. It's about figuring out how to do this thing and also how to do it against someone who is not just a professional, but an elite professional. Like this weekend, this weekend, I'm going to Phoenix because Marvin Vittori is challenging Israel Adesanya

For the UFC middleweight championship of the world and it's an intense fight because they fought a long time ago They fought like four four or five years ago, and it was a really close fight And now they're gonna and they were talking shit to each other and they're gonna go at it But these are two elite super athletes in the prime of their career and in style bender You have probably like the slickest most intelligent most technical striker that's ever fought in the prime of their career. And in stylebender, you have probably like the slickest, most intelligent, most technical striker that's ever fought in the UFC. And then in this guy, Marvin Vittori, you have this fucking Italian savage who's just like this really good brawler who's good at everything.

He's good at wrestling. He's good at ground and pound. His striking is solid. That's this weekend. I'm telling you, the moment that happens Saturday night, when I'm sitting there, and it's me and Daniel Cormier and John Anik, and we're calling the fight, and we're sitting there cage side, and we're just, holy shit.

It's wild. But what's wild about it is, first of all, for me, there's a tremendous honor in being able to give words to this experience and try to make it exciting for people watching at home and to let them know that, you know, as much as I've seen in this life, as much as I've experienced in this life, I'm still enjoying this as much as they are, if not more. And I want them to feel that. I want to accentuate their experience. And for the athletes that are fighting, I want to I want to explain it in a way that honors what they've done. I want to explain in a way where when it goes down in history, they can watch that videotape and they get fucking pumped up hearing the things that I'm saying. So what is enjoyable to you is seeing all of this training and intensity and humanity coming together.

Everybody, these participants putting everything on the line and seeing the talent. What exactly is so enjoyable to you? Human excellence. Okay. That's what I like. I like human excellence. It's not beating the shit out of each other. It is beating the shit out of someone.

But why do you want to see excellence in that particular domain? Because it's so hard to do. To beat the shit out of someone. It's so hard to do. It's so hard to beat the shit out of someone who's really good. I'm just interested in men fighting, I guess. I understand what you're saying, but listen to me. You're looking at it in terms of the actual physical act.

I'm looking at it in terms of the extreme difficulty in getting to that physical act. I'm looking at the whole path of the warrior. It's insanely difficult, and there's a mindset involved that I'm deeply aware of. I mean, I haven't fought since 1989, I think, was the last time I fought. It's a long fucking time ago. Why'd you stop? Because I was worried about brain damage and there was no money in it.

Okay. And I was definitely getting loopy. There was something going on. But what I'm interested in when I'm watching these things is when I see a guy like Stylebender, one of the elites of the elites, I know how insanely hard it is to be that guy. There's only one of him.

Do you understand? There's like millions of people doing martial arts. Okay. Millions of people watching the UFC. There's one Stylebender. There's one 185-pound champion. And when he walks into that octagon and raises his hands and everyone goes, fuck yeah, whoo, he's here because they know that guy has gone through a journey, like an insane journey to be who he is. It's not easy to be that guy. when you don't want to, the discipline, all the fucking physical preparation that's involved,

all the strength and conditioning and all the sparring sessions and all the chaos that's involved, leading you up to that fight, watching your diet, the nutrition and supplements and everything and studying tapes and going over techniques with the trainers and keeping the mind on point,

not letting the demons of doubt enter your mind and fuck with your psyche. All that stuff. The psychology of it is so intense. There's so much involved. Can you get jacked up? What are the doping rules there? No, you can't.

No, there's USADA, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. They'll wake you up at 3 o'clock in the morning and check your pee. They randomly testADA, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. They'll wake you up at 3 o'clock in the morning and check your pee. Yeah, they randomly test people all the time. They just show up. Well, you can't say that because some people have been busted. Some unscrupulous agents have been busted because there is a desire to cheat. There's always a desire to cheat.

You know, like what I talked about with sandbagging? That exists with MMA, too. There's people that want an advantage, You know, like what I talked about with sandbagging? That exists with MMA, too. There's people that want an advantage and they want to be able to have that advantage even if it's not fair. And there's cheating. But they get caught. With the UFC, they get caught quite a bit. And they get suspended for two years.

Okay, that's pretty serious. So you've got no fucking money at all coming in for two years. So what is the women's... How does the women's fighting differ if you could just generalize from the male fighting well the elite women it's uh it's the same thing that's why it's not a male thing it's high level problem solving like the probably there's two of the best women in the world well not just there's a few a few in the UFC that are really exceptional. There's one who's really interesting. Her name is Rose Namajunas.

And she's an intensely, like, sweet person. She's super emotional. There was a video of me interviewing her after she just re-won her title. And I was talking about her mindset. Find that on my Instagram because I was talking to her after she won the title. It was this amazing thing. She knocked out this girl, Zhong Wei Li, who's this monster. She's terrifying.

She's this physical specimen and she knocked her out with a head kick in the first round. It was crazy. But before the fight, she was like almost in a trance. And she was standing there while they were getting ready, and she's going, I'm the best. I'm the best. She was standing there. Like, this is after she won the title. Give us the volume.

This girl just got knocked out. Back it up. Back it up. Emma, we've been seeing that s**t for years. You're the best, mother f**ker. Emma, who the best? I'm the best. Who the f**k? That's Pat Barry. Back it up. That's Pat Barry. That's her boyfriend and her trainer.

And he's like, who's the best? She's like, I'm the best. And so they give her the title, and then I talk to her about it. And when I'm talking to her, she's emotional. She's crying. And I cried. I totally cried. This is the first time i ever cried during an interview the first time but god did it man i i really just had to have faith in him and

us that's what got me through you were so focused before the fight started you were standing over there and as bruce buffer was saying your name you you were saying to yourself, I'm the best. I'm the best. I am the best. See, do you understand that has nothing to do with male savagery. That has nothing to do with male savagery. That has nothing to do with someone trying to overcome all of the obstacles that are in play when you're trying to be great. That's what that is.

It has nothing to do with men. She's like one of the most feminine people ever. She's beautiful. She shaves her head so she doesn't have to think about her hair. But if you see her with long hair, she's a gorgeous woman. She looks like a model. It's like it has nothing to do with deers. It has nothing to do with men beating each other up.

It has nothing to do with brutishness. It has to do with high-level problem solving with dire physical consequences and the reward. You see the reward? She's a champion of the world. That's how beautiful she is. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, she's fucking stunning. Oh, my gosh.

She's gorgeous. She's gorgeous. And she is the champion of the fucking world. She's the 115-pound champion of the world. She's gorgeous. She's gorgeous. And she is the champion of the fucking world. She's the 115 pound champion of the world. She's tiny. Yeah. Well, she weighs 115 for a brief amount of time. She really probably weighs like 125 and she cuts weight. Okay. That's what they do. So that, so that, that's, she's a great example because she, there's nothing about her that's aggressive. Nothing about her that's brut, nothing about her that's brutish. When she won the title the first time, when I was interviewing her, one of the things

she was saying is just, we have to be better people. She like had this message while I was interviewing her in the cage after winning a fight. And she's like, we got to be nicer to each other. That was her message. It's about transcending whatever you think you are and becoming something better. That's what it's about. See, look at you. See, I told you. Now we're both crying. No, it's intense because I didn't obviously understand it at all. Most people don't. I've heard you talk about it and it's really, I hate to say it, but deep.

It's very deep. It's really intense and I didn't understand because, you know, in my life I work hard. I try to improve myself and I feel like a lot of people who are really driven that way have some demons or something they're trying to prove or overcome. And maybe what you're doing and what you're involved in, you know, because I asked you, couldn't you just do rock climbing or write a book or play chess? And no, it's not. Rocks don't hit back. Right. It's not enough. No, it's not enough.

It's not enough. It's not enough. It's not risking. Obviously, I feel like I'm taking a risk writing a book and putting it out into the world, but it's not sort of going head going head to head um directly where you have to always respond intelligently and use your body yes but let me be clear you don't have to do that like nobody has to do that right but some people have a calling to do that some people have a

calling to rock climb right or some people have a calling not just a rock line but to free solo like alex honnold i've had him on several times i'm amazed at him and he's so calm one of the things about alex that's so interesting he's so nice he's so calm and sweet he's like the sweetest guy he's so nice and you know like you see he's like very boyish, you know, like in his charm and the way he carries himself. His eyebrows are always raised. And, you know, he's literally one of the most courageous people alive. Not only does he climb these fucking mountains without ropes, but he establishes paths that have never been established before. established before and that's part of the thrill for him is to free solo these places where sometimes he's hanging for his life on like a two inch lip with his fingertips and then he wedges his hand and he's rocks and he pulls himself up slowly and he's hanging on this and then oftentimes

he's at angles right so he's not even there's not even a 90 degree angle he's at angles where his gravity's pulling him down. And he has to make it up this ledge. And he has to follow this path. I mean, that's kind of similar in a lot of ways. Because he's recognizing that what he's trying to do is so difficult that a mistake equals death. Yeah. Like maybe that's the most challenging of all the pursuits.

Maybe that's the most. But it's different. His mindset, as I talked about before, if we're looking at the human race as a giant puzzle where every piece is important but every piece is different. I would not want Alex Honnold to be kickboxing. He doesn't have to. That's not what to be kickboxing. He doesn't have to. That's not what's interesting to him.

It doesn't have to be. He doesn't have to be a sprinter. But it's something where he's pushing himself to the absolute limit and drawing strength and lessons from that. So I have an example that I hesitate to bring it up because it just completely pales in comparison. But for me, it's really meaningful. And I just mentioned this in the book, but just running a marathon. I ran

two marathons. I ran one when I turned 30, one when I turned 40. And I couldn't, I got injured in training for the one when I was 50, which is why we have age classes, right? Just like sex classes. You're not the same person. But when I talk about that, sometimes I feel like doing even just one marathon, I draw on that experience more almost than any other when I need strength sometimes. And then when I need to get through something, I recall feeling like I couldn't go on and what it took, you know, all the training, like a marathon is great because what you put into it is what you get out of it. It's not luck. It's just work and discipline. And just the lesson that you teach yourself when you push yourself till you feel like you can't go on. And then you go a little bit, I'm getting emotional again, you go a little bit further and it's just a marathon. Like I haven't, you know, climbed. But it's not just a marathon.

But for me, it's that experience of really pushing yourself and figuring out how to do it and having people support you. So the reason I even applied to Harvard Graduate School was because somebody believed in me. You know, I had someone believe in me, even when I thought like, this is a dream, I could never do this, blah, blah, blah. Someone believed in me and pushed me to work and do the work. And I, you know, I think you get the same. So just hearing you talk about mixed martial arts, it is emotional. And I didn't understand, but I get it a little bit just because of my experience with marathon where it teaches you so much. And it's something you can draw on your own strength and your own discipline.

You know you have what it takes maybe to get through all kinds of other situations. It really does translate to the rest of your life and that when things are hard, you can press on, especially if people are supporting you and applauding you and believe in you. That makes a huge difference. Yeah, great moments like that, these wild, crazy moments, they elevate us. They elevate our potential. They change the way we look at what's possible. I have goosebumps. Yeah, it's important.

That's what sports are all about. I really have goosebumps. Yeah, I mean, that's why it drives me crazy when we're talking about sports yeah and we're talking about unfair advantages for biological women it drives me nuts oh this is really contextualizing yes your passion here that someone like that get it thank you so much for putting this on together she's that that girl. So it infuriates you to think somebody's going to come in. And cheat. Okay.

You're cheating. Just like when someone gets caught doing steroids. Just like when someone gets caught using EPO. You know, you're doing. And we're going to have to deal with a bunch of these things coming soon in the future. With CRISPR and with genetic editing and all the stuff that's going to come down the pipe in 10, 20 years with new athletes that are coming that have been literally genetically altered. We're going to have to reassess what's important and what's not.

Hopefully, we're going to come to a point in time where transgender people don't have to concern themselves with the differences between biological sexes because they will be biologically different. That is my ultimate hope. I don't have any hateful thoughts about transgender people. My thoughts and concerns, and one of the reasons why this all came to light, was all about competition. And unfortunately for me, it wasn't just casual competition. If it was competition like running, I'd probably be like, that's kind of fucked up.

But it's this, which is a part of my DNA. This is a part of who I am as a human being. It's been a giant part of my life. Martial arts changed who I am as a person. It changed me from a loser to someone who had confidence. What kind of loser were you? I didn't have a future. I didn't know what I was doing.

But you weren't like a big screw-up in high school like I was. I wasn't paying attention. I barely got through high school. I used to have nightmares after I graduated that I had to go back. Oh, everybody has that. I have that all the time. But this was, I was teaching Taekwondo at BU. I was a US Open champion.

I still had nightmares about having to go back to high school. I'm not kidding. Well, that actually happened to me. I didn a U.S. Open champion. I still had nightmares about having to go back to high school. I'm not kidding. Well, that like actually happened to me. I didn't go. It was the only thing that I ever did that made me feel like a winner. The only thing. And I started when I was 15 years old and become obsessed with it. But I was lucky in a lot of ways.

I was lucky that I found a really good school. I was lucky that I was – it was a pure luck situation. I was coming home from a baseball game in Boston, and there was a long line leaving Fenway Park to get on the tee. And me and a friend of mine went up to this Taekwondo school, because it was there, and I'm like, let's go see what this is about. And we walked up the stairs, and as we walked up the stairs, I heard this crazy sound, and there was this guy hitting the heavy bag.

And this is a guy named John Lee. And John Lee was a U.S. national champion who was competing in the World Cup soon. So he's in peak training. So he was the elite of the elite. And I got a chance to watch him hit this heavy bag and do things that I never thought a person could do with their body. Like I saw him generate the kind of force that I couldn't imagine a person could do. And I was thinking about that hitting me. I was like, holy shit, how can he do this?

And I became obsessed. I signed up immediately, and it became my life for the next six years, like day in, day out, every day, obsessed. That's all I did. And it was the first thing that I ever did. Because you were good at it. I became good at it. I wasn't good at it.

I was terrible. But you put in the effort and you could see the progress. Yes. I put in the effort. And that's one of the more important things about belts. Like when you get a white belt and then you go from a white belt to a blue belt. There's all these belt systems and you learn and grow and get better. And along the way, I realized like I can do this with anything.

And that's what made me a comic. That's what made me a podcaster. That's what made me everything else I've ever done in my life. Is I've realized through that when I was 15 years old, that through focus and discipline and overcoming obstacles, you can get better at these things. And these things make you a better person. They define your character. They make you more aware of the flaws and the positive aspects of other people.

You can see these things. I feel like that about teaching. I'm sure. I feel like I can see, when you make a mistake, it's so public and I got a lot of smart kids taking my class and if i screw up they are on it you know they're they'll call me out and i grow so much from that but i realize you know when you're teaching something that's when you really you i go in there i think i understand

exactly what i'm talking about and then i'll try to explain it or someone asked me a question that's when i realize i don't understand it as thought as I thought I did. And they kind of call you out and challenge you. But that's, you know, you grow from that and you know you're growing from that. And that feels great. Yes. And it's fun. And it's, I get to, you know. And people avoid that.

And that's what tenure is all about. They do, but it's a risk. I mean, you're taking a risk. Well, that's what it's all about when you get a really arrogant professor, right, who doesn't want to listen to the children. Someone who doesn't want to connect with the kids. Well, you're 17 years old. You're a fucking kid. Oh yeah. 18 years old. You're a kid, right? When you see someone like that, like what that is, is a person who's gotten too soft, right? They've gotten comfortable. You see that with comedians. You see that with fighters. Well, insecurity prevents that. I think

for a lot of people it prevents it for me like i am always worried i'm going to screw something up so i work my ass off well that's not insecurity that's awareness insecurity is in it is a part of insecurity but it's more it's over it's all encompassing yeah it's awareness you're you're you're aware you're you're looking at yeah, it's not a negative I look I'm very insecure in that way. I fucking hate everything I do But doesn't that mean you work harder and you prepare it's why yeah And you know I have these conversations with friends that are they're comedians and you know they think that somehow or another I'm confident

Cuz I'm successful. I'm like you got to listen to me man. I fucking hate everything I do Everything it's a constant process of hate everything I do. Everything. It's a constant process of hating everything I do. And then- Which keeps you working your ass off, right? Exactly. Exactly. I'm the worst critic I could ever, like you can't, I don't, other critics, people who criticize me, congratulations, but it doesn't, you're not going to put a dent on what I do to me. What I do to me is horrible. And I do it all the time, every day. Around the comedy or around the podcasting? Everything.

About being a husband and a father? Everything. I'm constantly evaluating, could I do it better? Everything. Constantly. All day long. I'm always like, in interaction with someone, if they say, have a nice day, I'm like, you too.

I'm like, maybe I could have done that better. Maybe I should have said. Did you ever have social anxiety? Yeah, when I was younger'm like, you too. I'm like, maybe I could have done that better. Maybe I should have said. Did you ever have social anxiety? Yeah, when I was younger. Yeah, for sure. Like in high school? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Were you kind of always evaluating your social behavior? Well, I grew up in a bunch of different places. Right, right, right. And so I lived in New Jersey until I was seven. Then San Francisco from seven to 11. And then Florida from 11 to 13. And then Boston from 13 to 24, and then New York from 24 to like 26, 27-ish.

I was back and forth. And then L.A., yeah. So I lived in a lot of places. And because of that, it made me formulate my own opinions on things because I didn't have the opportunity to have a conglomeration of opinions that I could adopt as my own from my friends that I grew up with. But we all agreed, you know, we're all right wing or we're all this or we like the Green Bay Packers. I didn't have

any of that shit. So I had to look at things from my own perspective and try to figure out what, and I would see things in people and go, well, that's kind of fucked up and see things in other people and go, man, I wish I was like her. And these kind of interactions shaped me. But until I found martial arts, I was ruthlessly like shy and nervous. And did humor get you out of that? No, humor didn't come later. Humor came way later. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't, if you talk to anyone I went to high school with and they're like, Hey, do you think Joe Rogan would have been a funny comedian? They're like, what the fuck are you talking about? They would have never thought it was funny. I wasn't funny. I wasn't funny until I started fighting. And when, when me and my friends would go, like, I'm really good friends with a guy named Steveve graham and uh he was 30 when i was 15 and uh he was a student at the same place where i was training yeah and uh you know he's like a really exceptional guy he was on the u.s ski team he he was a flight pilot in the air force and just a ophthalmologist, an amazing person,

just amazing, like super accelerated person that just like, he just goes for things. He always has been this guy that like has no complaints, just go for it. And he talked me into doing comedy when I was like 19, 20 years old. I was, we would- When you weren't yet funny? I was funny to them.

Okay. But I thought I was a psychopath because all I wanted to do was fight. And my thought was like, we would all go to these tournaments. We would travel either by airplane or we'd travel all over the country to compete in these tournaments. We'd fly to Ohio and California and all these different places. And everybody was so scared. It was so scary, because you'd see your friends get kicked in the head and knocked unconscious. It's really freaky, especially when you're young. And so it was like gallows humor. I would make fun of everything.

So I would do my impressions of my instructor having sex with one of the other students. I would just try to make everybody laugh. And then he pulled me aside, and he he said i think you should be a comedian and i was like you don't i go you think i'm funny because you like me i go but other people are gonna think i'm an asshole because our comedy is crazy person's comedy it's savage comedy like we're crazy people we're choosing with no money on the line it was no there's no career in this we're choosing to fly and spend your own money to fly across the country to try to kick someone in the face who's trying to kick you in the face it's a crazy thing to do

and but by making the team laugh like i would make them laugh yeah i'd make them laugh in the locker room like when we're about to spar we When we were putting cups on, we would laugh. And so that's how I became a comedian. I became a comedian through fear. Because comedy was a release valve for something way scarier. Because for everybody else, comedy is really scary. Getting on stage is scary. But the only thing scarier is getting kicked in the liver.

Yeah, so you have this kind of fear, overcoming fear theme. Yes. And you're working really hard to feel in control of it somehow. There's no control. You never have control. But you constantly feel it. You constantly. It's like the waves of the ocean. You ride them and you try to achieve balance. You try to achieve balance and whatever you can do in order to stay upright, make sure you do that. Do you think everybody feels this on some level? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe they're not in touch with it or...

I know a lot of people do. There's a lot of people I know like me. There's a lot of people like me. I know those people from jujitsu. I know them from Thai boxing and taekwondo and all the martial arts. There's people like me. There's not a lot though. It's not that they couldn't be a lot.

It's that they haven't inserted themselves in that thing and understand and learn the rewards of that. Instead, they're fearful of it or they're dismissive of it. They look at it like it's a brutish path, you know, that's a terrible person's path to me. It's not. It's not that. I mean, just thinking about just working at Harvard, I know a lot of super successful people. And many of them, I think think are on some level fear driven about not being good enough somehow and that they just work really really hard and are you know

they're brilliant and they're amazing at what they do but they still have this sense of having to be one of the best absolutely having to but at the at the end of the day like why here's the real question like what are we really trying to do because i think what we're trying to do whether you take apart human sexual interaction transgender people gay people straight people sensitive people aggressive people what are we trying to do we're trying to get through this thing with the best the most good feelings and the least bad feelings we're trying to get through this thing and figure out what it is and there's a lot of ways to do it but ultimately we're kind of working together and we don't really communicate all of the real insecurities and the real emotions and the real problems involved in this. And instead, we sort of fortify our tribe and we fortify our positions and we get aggressive about our stances on things

and we fight against people who disagree with us or differ from us. We don't realize that often we're fighting against ourselves, especially when it's not important. The best strategy is to just communicate with openness and kindness and we don't do that very often because we're scared and that is a battle in and of itself. That's another kind of fight. The fight against your own emotions, the fight against your own insecurities and your own fears and your own, you know, the importance of camaraderie and love. It's very important.

I got to inject in here this. So I'm tearing up again and i was saying that i felt you know i feel when i'm teaching and i i someone advised me not to get emotional when i um do interviews or come on joe rogan because it will discredit my authority someone tell you specifically not to get emotional yes because i said i'm going to cry who told you that i can't i'm not going to say you don don't have to, but listen, they're wrong. Someone who's like a very successful, high-profile person. But they're different from you.

And in teaching, I do worry that it will discredit me because I'm not as much of an authority. But I've thought about it a lot, and it's really, it's just perceived as masculine not to get emotional, to sort of keep your emotions in check. And masculine is perceived as the authoritative sex. So I want so I'm trying to own it and say that, you know what, it's hard for me to own it because it's embarrassing to me. But I feel like this is the way I am. I am a woman. And I also know what I'm talking about. And I'm also authoritative.

And students are responding. They feel that somebody who's open and real creates a trusting environment for them to open up to new ideas. So that's just a different way of doing something. And maybe it's a low testosterone way. But the way you're being right now, you have a shitload of testosterone. That is obvious. And you're so open and raw and emotional. And I love what you're doing. And I love what you're talking about. And it's a great sort of you're exemplifying how sex differences work. You're

totally jacked and strong and like, you know, maybe beating the shit out of people, but you also have a huge heart and are really emotional. And that's, you know, there are some differences on average there, but there's so much variation. And that's my whole, what I really try to, in the book, T, I'm just going to say the name of it, the story of testosterone, the hormone that dominates and divides us. I'm trying to show how understanding each other can promote the values that you're talking about. By understanding this hormone, we can understand each other and hopefully accept our differences. Yes. yes um we i don't think i think our differences are unique and they're fascinating but i don't think it's everything and i think that this idea that somehow or another emotions or weakness is

for fools yeah i'm very you're showing it you're showing it right now look i'm emotional i've always been emotional my whole life. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. No, thank you. I think it's fuel. You're going to give license to more men, I hope, to feel that it's okay to express their emotions.

I think it's hard for men to sometimes get in touch with their emotions. I think some of that is due to the hormone, but some of that is due to culture and it's they interact They're scared that they don't have a tribe You know one of the better they're not in control Maybe it's it's also one of the beautiful things about martial arts is that you you do it with a bunch of people You can't you don't do it in a vacuum. You don't get good in a vacuum you know and because of, you struggle together. It's one of the things that I love

the most about Jiu Jitsu is because you can do it without hurting each other. Because you're not hitting each other, you're just strangling each other. If somebody gets me, I just tap out and then I go, good job. Then you keep going. Tap out means you give. I've heard you talk about that and that means you're like, uncle.

Right. If someone gets me in an arm bar and and they extend my arm, and it's in trouble, in training, they're very kind. Like, they'll just hold it. Like, they won't break your arm. Like, everybody will just hold it. Everyone knows how to do it. Like, most of the time when I roll, I'll roll with, like, a black belt, right? Roll, roll.

Roll, I'm sorry. Roll is jujitsu sparring. Okay. So, if you're sparring what is is like this open-ended it's almost like a conversation of techniques it's like you say this and i say that helson gracie who's like a very famous jujitsu uh instructor who's he's a part of the greatest lineage of all jujitsu which is the gracie family and he said this is jujitsu he which is the Gracie family. And he said, this is jujitsu. He's like, I say this and you say that and I do this and you do that forever. And this is his thought.

But it's like, I move this way and you counter that way and we keep going until one person gets stopped. One person gets tapped out. In doing that with each other, you learn about each other and you learn there's other people like you and you learn there's a whole tribe of people like you that also are trying to accomplish these great things and figure out themselves and optimize their human potential through martial arts. And you feel this deep bond.

Yes, deep bond, deep bond, deep bond. I have friends that i that i fought with to this day well one of them is dead now he died a few years ago from from no he died from he got electrocuted it was crazy i found about it in the news but this guy and i we hadn't talked for a long time but every time we'd see each other like we had this weird connection because we fought together all over the country we'd travel and it was a weird bond you know like we trained together I'm sorry no I'm sorry no it's okay but it's um these bonds are through experience and it's through the experience of difficult things.

And there's so many people in this life that are looking to retirement. They're looking to getting out of the game, and they're looking to all these things. There's a thing that's happening with all of us, where we're trying to figure out ourselves, and we're trying to find truth ourselves and we're trying to find truth and you seek truth through combat you seek truth through these very difficult things and

there's but also through marathons marathons combat when you're telling me about marathons and about how you develop strength from those experiences and it applied to your regular life that's a combat between you and your mind. You are in combat. Oh, yeah. When you're in fucking mile 24, you're in combat, right? No, but I love that part. I do spinning at home.

I don't know if I can say the name of the company, but whatever. Peloton? Yes. And I get depressed. No, I get depressed. They were one of our sponsors for a long time. Oh, okay. Like I need it.

I'm addicted. I literally get depressed if I don't have a lot of aerobic activity. But one of the things I love about it is that I get to that point. I love getting to that point where I'm like, get me off of this bike. I'm drenched. I feel like I can't go on. And then I have somebody in my face, yes, on the screen saying, push it, push it, push it. You can do it. Those are the greatest moments. And I'm like in ecstasy. And then I get off and I feel like a rock star. What did I do? I just had 45 minutes an hour on the bike and it's over, but I have that.

But that's like a Zoom conversation. You really should go to an actual spin class. No, no, no, no. I've been to a spin class. I don't like all the sweating. It's too much sweatiness. I don't, I won't. Too many people?

I don't know. Well, with COVID, like I got injured running. So too much sweatiness. I don't, I won't. Too many people? I don't know. I, well, with COVID, like I got injured running, so I had to get, I had to do something and I got the bike. But it is a little bit of that every day. But COVID is eventually going to go away, right? Of course it is. Get back in there. But can I just say one thing about, I want to just say something because I was just reminded

of like, so I use the bike to prevent depression, right? I just want to say that that's in my nature. I have a genetic predisposition. I have it on one side of my family. And I write about this in the book because a lot of people, if I'm writing about testosterone and saying it promotes X, Y, and Z, they're like, well, you're justifying male aggression and you're justifying rape. And if you say, if you write a book, they say that if people believe that if you discuss the effects of, say, genes on behavior, then it implies that that behavior is immutable, that then we're fucked. Then we're just going to be stuck with aggressive males who justify their aggression by saying that it's in their genes or in their hormones or in their biology, right? So it's bullshit because you can have a genetic predisposition to lots of different things. There are things that are in your nature, like I do with depression,

but there are things that I can do in my environment. There are ways that I can create my environment. So I keep that at bay. But I know that if I let up, if I stop paying attention to it, or if I can't exercise or eat right or whatever it is, or do my fulfilling work, that it will come back. I think most people are like that. So I think it's the same thing about all of our sort of genetic predispositions, but including differences in sex hormones and how they affect us. It doesn't mean that we're stuck with any particular behavior. It means we learn more about how we can alter our environment to reduce, say, the negative effects of certain predispositions like high testosterone. It's just on the extreme end. But I would also just like to make a plug for high testosterone also

potentially having something to do with heroism, like physical heroism. Yeah. Listen, if the shit goes down, you want people that understand who they are to help you. Yeah. You want someone who understands danger and how to get through danger. I mean, it's true that men take more physical risks to help others. I'm not saying women don't do physically heroic things, but there is a difference there.

There is a difference. But here's an argument for what you're saying and for the people that are saying these things to you as if you're justifying rape. Well, they write about that. But let me explain this. The reason why they're doing this is because they're not talking to you. It's an ineffective way of communication. You're talking in a way where you're writing things down in a vacuum and you're talking to someone who doesn't get to. If they sat in front of you, they would never think you're justifying rape. This conversation that they're having where they're just typing things out alone in an office and then they send it out through the Internet on a fucking blog post. Yeah.

Those people are just doing. I mean, it's not as extreme. They're expressing themselves in a very. It's a very short-sighted, ineffective way. The best way to express themselves in that way, if you're going to be accusatory, is to communicate with someone. Because then you get an understanding. And you would say, hey, do you think that rape is justified because of high testosterone?

You're like, no, no, that's not what I'm saying. We're just talking about, like, look, if we go back 100,000 years ago, what the fuck was rape about? Like, what, 200,000 years ago? Let's look at chimps. Let's look at, like, higher primates. Why is it happening?

Like, what is it? What's causing it? It's obviously negative, but what is it? And then they would go, oh, okay. And then they would, if they were honest and they had personal sovereignty, but what is it? And then they would go, oh, okay. And then they would, if they were honest, and they had personal sovereignty, they could communicate about you objectively and honestly.

But the problem is how few people have been through the fire. We got a lot of weak ass people out there that are out there casting aspersions and pointing fingers at people where they don't point them at themselves. Well, that is interesting. It is easy to point fingers at people where they don't point them at themselves. Well, that is interesting. It is easy to point fingers at other people

instead of looking at your own. Instead of developing character. This is, like, when we were talking about this before, like, one of my takes that I've always had is if you get 100 people in a room, how many of those people are going to be fucking idiots? At least one. You got one idiot.

So you got 300 million people. You got 3 million fucking idiots. That's a lot of people on Twitter. That's a lot of people jibber jabbering and they don't have control of themselves. And they're on a fucking handful of SSRIs and trying to figure out what's wrong and trying to self-actualize. And yet they're shaping culture at the exact same time and part of the problem is they're not with other people no but you're right it's a lot of judgment yeah but it's a lot of judgment without love and

compassion and trying to understand yes and really asking questions and trying to understand where the other person is coming from because when you you do, it makes sense. Right. I mean, people who to inject politics, but the sort of shaming of Trump voters instead of trying to understand their point of view and where are they coming from and what shaped their political opinions? What are their circumstances? Instead of just sitting back and saying, I'm superior to you, you're a piece of shit. I'm not even going to ask any questions. Well, he was uniquely problematic. And I think this is where this works out. The problem is like we want a quick fix to all the things that ail us and I think that with a guy like Trump, the people that were on the left that found him abhorrent and they found like his policies and the way

he discussed things disgusting, what they're doing is signaling to the people on the right that here's all the problems we have with this one individual's approach. Maybe there's some merit in some of his fiscal decisions, and maybe there's some merit in some of, and when more things come down about China, maybe there's some merit in the way that he deals with things with international business. Maybe, I don't know. It's a little too nuanced. Right, but we need someone who is a compassionate, balanced human being who we respect and love to express similar values, but maybe with more nuance. Yeah, no, I agree.

But also I think we don't get anywhere when we just shut down the conversation and shame people who disagree with us. No, but people want to be heard. And the only way to get heard is to do that. I mean, how many people that are on Twitter that are race hustlers are really just race hustlers because they found a niche. Like if you just tell all white people they're racist, that's how you get attention.

You know, and if you tell all men they're pieces of shit or all straight people, they can go get fucked. Or all white people, you want to shoot them in the head I mean that's literally Oh you know about that that just happened Hilarious. Oh I was all over that. Hilarious Yeah but what happened to her? Nothing right? Nothing. Nothing happened to her

Imagine if this same woman said I just want to find all Chinese people and shoot them in the head Well she addressed that in her response What did she say? That it's not equivalent. Why? It doesn't matter. I dare not speak about that topic.

We don't need to. It's just people wanting to be heard, and they probably don't deserve to be. And so they find a way to be, and that way is to be inflammatory. That way is to be, you know, to find something that's completely outrageous to say that maybe some people will support you on and other people attack you on the next thing you know you're front page news you know and that's what's going on you're all over twitter you're trending where do you think it's gonna go mind reading that's where

i think it's gonna go i think we're to reach a point where we're so fucking confused. We're going to let Elon Musk drill into our head and put some fucking wires in there and put that neural link in there. And we're going to have an elevated state of consciousness through some symbiotic relationship with technology. Somebody was just giving you shit about saying that. You had somebody on who was saying that that was ridiculous, that you're talking about mind reading was ridiculous i don't remember most people look i'm a ridiculous person i'm patently ridiculous what's ridiculous everything everything about me who i am what i've done all of it fill in the blanks i'll agree with you it's all ridiculous yeah i'm not resistant to that i wonder if i just think that there think that there's going to come a point in time where it's going to be unavoidable,

where technology surpasses our personal current capabilities. And I think that's one of the best ways to figure out intent, right? Because so much of this stuff that they're doing, when people are talking shit about people and people are mad about people, it's like, what are we doing? Well, you're trying to label a person without that person being able to respond. You're shaming a person and boxing a person into some deplorable category, into some unredeemable category.

Like, what are you doing? Like, what are you doing? You're trying to paint someone in a way. You're trying to describe them in a way that they can't get out of that box. But what do you think is going to happen in the near future? Chaos. I mean, do you think it's just going to heat up and institutions are going to keep capitulating to the vocal minority? And I'm going to be out of a job maybe because I said that they're male and female?

I think you're going to be able to teach online. I think teaching online is the future because I think that online – It's awful. It's awful. Teaching online was so hard. Oh, you mean through Zoom and shit? Oh, my God. It was just so hard, and I was just dying to be with my students in person.

The problem is the institutions themselves. They're cowards. I know, but yeah. Why? It's very hard to really make sense of. Because those are the vocal minority. Okay, so people need to stand up. People need to stand up.

But it's too hard because you could lose your career. Yeah, but if everybody does it, then... Listen, Cornel West didn't have tenure. Do you know how crazy that is? Yes, I know about that. Cornel West didn't have tenure. When I found out about that is? Yes, I know about that. Cornel West didn't have tenure. When I found out about that, I'm like, that is insane.

He's one of the proudest people I've ever had on my podcast because I've always been a giant fan of his. And just to be able to sit and talk to him and listen to the way his brain works and the fact that he's been doing this and he's been involved in the civil rights movement for fucking decades and decades

and the contributions that guy's made yeah and when you find out that guy didn't have tenure because he criticized israel or his controversial views on israel and the israel palestine crisis you're like what like who what so you're just talking about people not standing up for what they think is right people are scared of consequences they're scared you. People are scared of consequences. They're scared. You know, they're scared of consequences. They're scared of the mob. They're scared. Yeah.

They're scared. Yeah. I think we need to, the problem is these institutions, they're subsidized by the government. You know, like, and also there's like this weird financial situation attached to them where it's the only thing that you can't get out of if you go bankrupt is student loans. So you get out of debt. I've been talking about on stage lately that you get out of school and you're saddled down with hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans. And you know what the most depressing shit that I've ever read? Not the most, but it's right up there. I read about this guy who was getting social security and he was

getting social security docked by the government because he owed student loans. So it's over. The game's over. Can I make a segue to the scared thing? Yeah. So I sometimes feel scared teaching about controversial topics, but I believe that it's really important to do what I feel is right and to teach the science as I understand it. And so I work really hard to try to understand the truth and to convey that to students. And I just, I brought something with me because I asked on our final exam, one of the questions at the end of the final exam was, how did this course change you or something you believe in? And what was the evidence that led you to change your mind about some issue? So can I just read what one student wrote?

Yeah, for sure. Because it was so moving to me. And I think it shows the value of telling the truth and how important it is and that we not capitulate. important it is and that we not capitulate. Something that I learned in class changed my attitude and assumptions surrounding genetic differences of sexual differentiation and the naturalistic fallacy. So I'm just going to say that the naturalistic fallacy, do you know what that is? No. It's the idea that whatever we find in nature is good. And that if it's not in nature, somehow it's bad, but that what is natural is good. Something along those lines. During my freshman year of college, I somehow built up the courage to tell my very Catholic parents that I was dating my friend who was a girl.

Needless to say, I can categorize that day as the worst day of my life. After many years of therapy, I'm in a better place, but I never stopped feeling that something was wrong. That's sorry. This is what really gets me when my students feel that something is wrong with them because they're different or they love the same sex or something. And that's how this student felt. I have a lot of students like that who just feel bad about who they are. Needless to say, okay, so that was the worst day of her life imagine telling your parents that you love someone and they that's the worst day of your life okay after many years of therapy i'm in a better place but i never stopped feeling that something was wrong with me until this class when i told them they actually brought up what i now know to be

the naturalistic fallacy they told me that what I was doing was not found in nature and thus it was wrong and I was shunned. Even though I never believed, okay, blah, blah, blah, blah. I've always believed that people are people and that everyone has the autonomy to live the way they want despite what anyone else has to say about it. But I never understood the biology of why people felt like they were born into the wrong gender or didn't fit a mold. But learning about all this really opened up my mind and made me feel for people who don't feel like themselves in their own body,

even though I've never experienced what they are going through. Gender and behavior is not as simple as external genitalia at birth or genotype. And I really appreciated learning about these topics, not only for the sake of others, but also for myself and my sanity. So I just wanted to read that because I think it's just a testimony to the truth and what it can do for people and that we need to stand up for the

truth and not tell people what we think will make them feel better. You know, like in my seminar, when I learned the truth, it's painful, but I interacted with it and it ultimately really empowered me. And I know that for my students, telling them the truth and helping them learn how to learn the truth and how to critically evaluate evidence, how important that is to them. And I just want, I guess I'm just making a plug for standing up for the truth and not thinking that it helps people to just tell people what they want to hear or pretend that sex isn't real or testosterone doesn't matter or that genes don't matter. Environment and culture matter too,

but it all works together to produce the variation that we see and that we have. And it doesn't mean we have to celebrate anything. You know, it just means we have to understand how it all works. But, you know, using science or art or whatever else as a tool, but let's not distort the science. Yeah, and it's one of the most depressing aspects of that thing you just read was the idea that the parents didn't, look, their kid is in love.

Yeah, but science helped her accept herself. I understand that. Yeah, for who she is. But that's not what's sad to me. What's sad to me is that science failed or someone, education I should say, failed the parents. Well, but religion plays a role in there. I know.

But even that, like let let it. Jesus Christ. Yeah. LOL. You know, one of the things I wanted to bring up is that, you know, in ancient Native American cultures, transgender people were revered because they could look at things from both sexes. Yeah. Like they, they, there's a famous battle,

the Fetterman battle with the, the look, there was a Lakota transgender person who, they, they thought this person is a visionary because they could see things as both male and female perspective. And they had a word for it. I can't remember what the word is. But this person recognized that there was this place

that they should go to have this battle, and they had a vision. And this vision was that they were going to conquer these white soldiers and that they did this thing and they came back and they said there'll be 100 bodies. They wound up killing like 80 soldiers, they tricked them. They had like 10, they had 10 Native American, it's on this podcast, the Meat Eater podcast

that my friend Steve Rinella has and it's a really interesting story. This guy talks about how these, they set a trap and these 10 Native americans led these soldiers up and they wound up killing them but that's neither here that's what's interesting to me is there was like 10 000 people waiting for these soldiers and they all they killed them because it was like at that point in time like they were just it was a suicide run right they had realized that the end of their way of life was pretty much there.

And these white settlers had sort of made their way across the plains and all the way to the Pacific coast and they realized that this was it. And that coincides with the Battle of Little Bighorn and a lot of the other battles that went on. It's like these are the last gasps of the Native American empire

that existed in this continent. But the way they looked at Native Americans, the way they looked at rather transgender people is fascinating to me. They looked at it as a very valuable member of the society because a person who could look at things from both a female and a male perspective. They didn't look at it like, oh, he's a sissy. He likes dressing up like a girl. Or, oh, look at her.

That bull dyke likes wearing men's pants. They didn't look at it that way. But these are people who didn't take hormones, right? These are people who just felt like. Exactly. They didn't have hormones. It wasn't possible. But that's interesting that there are.

That it exists. Right. That you feel like you're not, you're biological sex, but you can be comfortable in your body and being, you know, if you're a natal male, maybe you can be comfortable expressing femininity. Why do you insist on that natal? Why is natal better than biological? Because male is biological. So I think biological male is redundant. And so I think natal male.

But wait a minute. But female is biological too. Right. So biological female or biological male is a differential. So you could just say male and female. Well, you're saying biological because you've made this concession. Well, I'm not saying biological. I am.

Yes. Because I made this concession that someone is transgender. Well, then you can say trans man or trans woman. Why does it matter? You know who says biological male, biological female? Buck Angel, who's a transgender male. Yeah, he's great. He's great.

Yeah. And he uses that term, which is why I use that term. Because he wants to be clear with everyone what his biological sex is. So he's emphasizing that he's a biological female and that's fine. Right. But I think female means biology. So I guess I feel like I don't need to specify that that's an aspect of our biology. If you're female, that's biological.

Right. Right. But you're just making this distinction. So biologically female. Yeah. Biologically male. X, X, X, Y. But why not just say female?

Well, because there's transgender. Yeah, but then. So even though they're biologically female, we're talking about the physical differentiation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah. We're talking about this male has a uterus. This male has a vagina.

No, no, a male doesn't have a uterus. What are you talking about? Biological female. Oh, I thought you said this male has a uterus. Transgender male. So this male has a uterus. This male has a vagina. So they're a trans male.

Okay, but I wouldn't say a male under any circumstances has a vagina. You wouldn't say trans male? I would say trans male. What about their vagina? Yes. Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm saying. Yeah.

So there's these hard lines that we take. Yeah. How do you take a hard line when someone swaps genders? Well, it's hard because also you don't want to be, but you don't want to, right. Sorry. I mean, you don't want to, you don't want to, I want, the goal for me is to consider, obviously be sensitive to people's feelings and their identities while being accurate about the science.

So I chose natal male and female because saying biological male to me somehow sounds harsher to the person as an, as a trans woman say. Um, I'd rather just say, this is what you were at birth and now you're something different. Is this commonly accepted nomenclature? Is this just your own personal own personal thing? No, it's commonly accepted. I think it's accurate. For me, it's a way to be accurate while being as sensitive as possible, but without distorting reality. I think that being a stickler for this stuff just clouds it even more. Yeah, it's difficult yeah because the whole biological male you know with a

vagina biological female with a penis you know like what what are we doing yeah you know what's confusing it's we're getting confused it is a lot but here's the thing it's okay to be confused this is what's what what's most important is how we treat each other but it's also most important how we treat biological females involved in sports. That's important too. And this is where I get crazy because I have all daughters. I have three daughters.

So the idea of protecting biological females when it comes to we want to protect these people's feelings that are in this place where they wish they were a biological female, but they're not. Yeah. It's not fair. the source of the male advantage in sports and how testosterone shapes the male advantage. And it's totally clear how it works. There's lots of evidence. So, you know, you're 100% right. Well, there's been males, or excuse me, there's been females that have taken, especially in mixed martial arts, there was a Wild West period

where you could kind of do whatever you wanted. There was no drug testing. When was that? In the early days. Okay. Whoa. The UFC started in 1993, and female MMA didn't start until the early 2000s. Well, there was some female MMA, but early 2000s it started to come on.

There was a few that were juicediced up women like women on a ton of testosterone so develop voices like this and acne and facial hair acne facial hair i mean yeah there's there's some you can't get the voice you can only get the voice back with surgery if you decide yeah that voice is theirs forever and it's so obvious yeah it's so obvious like you hear them talking you're like no it's it's hard because for detransitioners that's that's very very hard to want to live as a woman again but you have a male voice and and that really signals masculinity so potently yes it does it does it does and there was a real problem with some of the females that were competing in MMA because they were competing against, they were like natural females.

Against jacked up females. Jacked up females. Yeah. It was a real problem. And just getting the crap beat out of them. Yeah, getting the fuck beat out of them. And that was pre-transgender MMA fighters fighting. Yeah.

And it's only been one that I know of. There's been a few Thai fighters because you know the lady boys in Thailand it's like more accepted but quite honestly most of them compete as males. Yeah in Thailand. Yes I've heard more than one of them that started off as a male and then transitioned and kept continued to compete as males and the problem was I'm sure that some of them have competed as females as well but the problem was some of them were elite as males, but they identified as female. Does everybody know, tell what ladyboys are?

Oh, I think everybody knows. Oh, okay. Just, it's like, their culture is different. Like, they're far more acceptant of transgender people in Thailand for whatever reason. Yeah. And there's one of them that I know of is a fairly infamous one, whereas he was elite as a male and then switched over and became female. And unfortunately,

after getting castrated and getting the surgery and losing his testosterone and becoming a female, then she started losing because she was competing against males without testosterone. losing because she was competing against males without testosterone. Right. And she wasn't allowed to. No, but she didn't want to. She was a woman at that time. Right. Right.

So she switched over. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm hoping one day people that have this sort of gender dysphoria are able to legitimately, 100% transition. You know, I mean, I'm hoping there's going to be a time where we understand biology far greater.

Just imagine a time just 300 years ago where you thought about fixing someone's ACL or repairing backs, doing back surgery. It wasn't possible. The things that we can do today with stem cells and with robots doing surgery. It's wild shit. We can do brain surgery and get out the next day. We can totally change someone's sex and someone's brain, change their brain also to match? I think it's

possible. I think it might take a hundred years. I think it'd be a great thing for people who want it. What about if people fewer people wanted to transition and felt like they could be super feminine in a male body?

Maybe that just won't work culturally because we're always going to have sex roles. Yeah, but maybe that's okay. Maybe that is the move. Maybe it won't work because if you feel, if you want to be feminine, if you're going to have a beard and a deep voice, that's not going to work.

Maybe it'll work with someone who's into that shit. What do you mean? Oh, you mean someone who feels like i can be feminine likes being around you when you're feminine but you have a deep voice yeah like there's different strokes for different folks yeah that's why there's bear bars oh right you know like some gay guys are into like effeminate gay guys and some gay guys are into gorillas with a bunch of back hair. Yeah. Right? What is that?

Well, it's because people are into different things. I think you just got to – that's one of the beautiful things about the internet is you could find other people that are also into different things. Can I just say something about gay and testosterone that I think is interesting that's in the book? gay and testosterone that I think is interesting. That's in the book that, um, which is a lot of people think gay men are feminized and that they must have had lower testosterone at some point. What do you,

do you know anything about that? Do you have any opinions, thoughts about that? I have a bit about it where I go. What would your speculator, what do you know? Well, I say the gay guys are guys who fuck guys.

That's all it is. Thank you. And stop getting confused. guys who fuck guys. That's all it is. Thank you. And stop getting confused. Thank you. Yeah. And they want to have a lot of sex. On average. On average.

Have you ever been to Boys Town in Los Angeles? No. It's amazing. It's your drive-thru. No, but because... Describe what goes on. They're just partying. How are they partying?

Just fucking dudes with bikinis on and baseball hats. And it's wild. Yeah. It's wild. I mean, pre-COVID, of course. And there's a lot of sex. Are you saying there's a lot of sex happening? I'm assuming.

You know, when you see brass poles and dudes throwing money in the air, I'm assuming there's sex involved. There's just. Okay. It's just there's a bunch of freedom. There's a different. There's a different sort of, you know, that one of the cool things about gay men in particular is they find these neighborhoods and they dominate these neighborhoods

with other gay men, you know, and I have a joke about it that like lesbians never really get a chance because they move in and straight guys find out and they go, I'm an ally. And then they fuck up the neighborhood, you know? guys find out and they go, I'm an ally. And then they fuck up the neighborhood. No, but that's the point is that people think that gay men are feminized somehow, so testosterone should be lower. There's zero evidence that that's the case. And plus, they're guys. They have a male sexuality. And one of the main things testosterone does is give male animals a different kind of sexual nature than female animals. And gay men have that and they can express it in the way that they want.

And so you see those differences, say, between two women and two men in sexual relationships or the way that they are sexually. So there's just no evidence that there's any feminization of sexuality or that testosterone has anything to do with that. So I just thought, I think that's a really interesting point that a lot of people get wrong. They're just, they're guys who like to have sex with other guys. Yeah, it's just a sexual orientation thing. It's like, we don't know what it is, right? Like that study out of Italy, we don't know what it is, but it is a thing. It's clearly real. Right. I mean, there are some, there is some feminization of behavior in that gay men as kids say, we're more likely to have more feminine interests and have some

more feminine interests in adulthood, but it has nothing to do with testosterone. Hold on. Some. Right. Some. Some gay men are gorillas. Yes. so it's on average. I've known gay men that are fighters. Yeah. Yeah. You have no idea. You'd have no idea. Yeah. And they look like fucking savages, like gladiators.

Yeah. They just want to fuck dudes. Yeah. That's normal. Yeah. You know, it's, again, we need to be more accepting about all. But I think human beings are slow to learn. And it takes a long time for us to adopt all this information and adapt. It's going to take time.

And more of these conversations have to take place. I hope so. Here's the other thing. It's like these kind of conversations between you and me, they don't happen that often, right, where people get a long form hashing out. I mean, I just met you. You know, we met a few hours ago. That's it. And we've cried together.

A couple times. But that's how people should be. You should be able to do that with people. But we don't get a chance because this is this is how human beings as oddly as it seems and i don't know how i stumbled upon this accidentally human beings are supposed to have conversations with each other one-on-one undistracted where you get to feel how that person actually thinks and feels yeah and you don't usually get that in real life because they're checking their phone they're talking to other people and there's a lot of activities involved and you're moving around and there's ideologies that come into play and there's cultures that come into play

and there's all this pressure and influences. It's hard for people to just be. And there's something you might have said five years ago, one thing you might have said that pisses somebody off and they're not going to listen to anything else you said and anything else you said is bullshit because you said maybe one thing yes five years ago that uh was offensive and they don't want to appreciate the fact that people grow which is crazy and change yeah like are you the same person you were when you were one days old so what the fuck are we talking about like everybody grows and then also when you get to a certain age like you know you look at someone like, he's 70 years old. Fuck him. Like, he's never going to figure it out.

But he's not like he's 70 years old. He's alive. He's breathing. He can learn. You know, there's that thing. And especially like young people are really quick to do that. You look at some, you know, old racist and you're like, fuck that old guy. You know, and you're like, that old guy was probably raised by morons and just never got a good understanding of human beings. And here he is scared and insecure and all fucked up

and wearing a fucking white robe looking stupid. Do you know who Daryl Davis is? No. Daryl Davis is a brilliant guy. He's a blues musician who has actively converted more than 200 KKK and neo-Nazi people. Oh, no, I do.

I do know. I have heard of him. Yes. One of my favorite guests I've ever had on the podcast. Yes. Because he's so unassuming and he's so nice. And he's also so intelligent. And he's not judging.

Not at all. He's finding out where people come from. That's how it works. And that's how you get someone to be open to you. Not just that. You ask questions. He went and had dinner with these people. Yeah, no, that's amazing.

And they ate at their house and had these guys turn in their robes. It's amazing. The first guy had dinner with these people. Yeah, no, that's amazing. And had these guys turn in their robes. It's amazing. The first guy that did it, he was like a grand wizard. And three, four months into their friendship, he handed him his robe. He says, hey, I want you to have this because I can't ever wear that anymore. Because being friends with you has taught me that I'm wrong. And that I had this idea about the differences between white people and black people. And it's stupid. And what would have happened if instead he had just insulted the KKK guys and said, you're a piece of shit. Nothing happens. People just become more extreme.

So it's through that openness and conversation that people grow. Daryl Davis is the truth. That's how you learn. I mean, that's an incredibly difficult path to be on and it takes an amazing temperament and personality and character. And luckily Daryl has those things. But how do you get that? How do you get that temperament? The path of life, you know, through him, his path, I'm sure he got it through becoming great at music and a lot of other things. And also. Because music brings people together who might disagree and not even like each other.

But they're all getting down to the same rhythm. And that's pretty incredible. Also, Daryl grew up overseas. Yeah. And came to America when he was young. And then he was attacked for his race and he didn't understand it. Yeah. He would talk to his parents about it.

He's like, what is going on? He didn't understand because overseas he was. Where was he in Italy? I forget which country that he lived in but when he came to America he didn't understand racism so all of a sudden he's like dealing with this like so it like he had developed as a human being right up until I believe it was like 10 or 11 years old when this started happening. I don't remember. Might have been a little younger than that. But the idea was that it was so stunning to him and so stupid that he's seeing grown adults behaving this way. And he's like, okay, there's got to be something.

So when he was finally doing his music and he ran into this guy, the story was he's talking to this guy and the guy's like, you know, I never had a drink with a black guy before. He thought he was joking. Yeah. He thought the story was he's talking to this guy and the guy's like you know i never had a drink with a black guy before he thought he was joking yeah he thought the guy was joking he's like you're joking he's like no man i'm in the kkk he's like what and the guy shows him is like kkk membership and they they had a conversation and for whatever reason the guy and him connected to the point where daryl gave him his phone number. And he said, hey, man, when I'm back in town again, you know, give me a call. Let's have a couple of drinks and we'll sit down and talk. So he comes back in town again.

And then they found a little opening and he worked it. And they become friends. And then they went to dinner together. He ate over the guy's house. They became friends. And then, like I said, three or four months into their friendship, that guy gave up his position in the KKK.

And how many people did you say? More than 200. That's incredible. Neo-Nazis, and he goes out and he meets them, and he's so nice. When you meet Daryl, also, he's so brilliant. He's so articulate and intelligent that when you talk to him, you can't imagine that he's inferior.

Because he's just too smart. So he's like, hmm. Like, hmm. You're trying to find holes in this game, but those holes don't exist. But this is the power of one-on-one conversation. One-on-one conversation is the only way people are supposed to talk. The worst aspect of human communication is through text anonymously. And that's what you're seeing through social media.

And that's unfortunately shaping the zeitgeist. It's shaping culture. It's shaping the way we think about ideas and issues and people. And it's not real. It's not how people are. If you talk to each one of those individual people with real issues got together with with nothing gain or lose and just talked in a room by themselves yeah most of these things would work themselves out if and if they didn't you it would be clearly illuminated to anybody observing that

one of these people has a deep emotional problem one of these people is doesn't live in reality or one of these people is unnecessarily aggressive or whatever the fuck is wrong will be eliminated. Yeah, but they're getting a lot of rewards from doing,

that's real. The rewards and the shame I think are real. They're real. That's what keeps it going. Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah, don't live online.

Yeah. It's not a good environment. It's a shitty game. It's a rigged gig. Really, it's a rigged thing. Yeah. That's what it is. It's just not healthy. It's not how human beings. Really, it's a rigged thing. That's what it is. It's just not healthy. It's not how human beings are supposed to interact with each other, ever.

Human beings should look at each other one-on-one and be in the room with each other and talk. That's what I think. Maybe we're, we don't know, yeah, we just don't even know how to do that anymore. We do. You see people when people are out to dinner and couples are

both on their iphones or even and if you travel to other countries i'm not gonna say which ones like everyone's on their phone yeah all the time yeah wherever they are it's just totally normal but you don't have to but you anyone listening you anyone listening to my words, you, you don't have to do that. Put your phone down. You and I have had a three-hour conversation. Oh, holy shit. It's three hours in. We haven't looked at our phones.

People can do that at dinner. Just put that fucking thing on silent. We had a three-hour conversation, but seriously, we talked about, from my point of view, some intense stuff. Yes. About the meaning of life. And people are so guarded, even in person, even without their phones. And what I appreciate is that you're not, you are open and raw. And I think we need more examples of that to facilitate that kind of open communication. And more examples of you.

Same thing. Like the fact that you come in here. You don't know me. You fly and do this podcast and promote your book. You don't know what the fuck you're getting into. No, I have no idea. But it worked. And you're raw.

Well, I hope so. And you're open. And you're confident enough to be vulnerable. It's easy. It's just easier. It's just like there's so much less energy involved in just being who you are. Some people won't let you do that, though. But the good thing is that you find out who you can be real around and who you can't.

Yeah. And then you just can't help those people. Like, I can't do this. Yeah, if it's just uncomfortable. Right. And that's how it should be in friendships. That's how it should be. And I think it's's how it should be in friendships. That's how it should be. And I think it's probably how it should be in business too.

I don't think you should be in business with people you don't love. That's my feeling. What? I really think that. All business is going to fail. I don't know about that. I don't think they have to. I think you just have to be real selective. Well, you're very idealistic.

I am. Yeah. Have you always been that way? I'm not sure. Yeah. I'm not sure yeah i'm not sure i think i've uh like i probably had a general sense of it initially but it's been solidified with experience yeah good yeah the best way yeah i have like ethics you know i have boundaries I won't cross. I have lines that I think are important. And I think that one of them is whenever... Obviously, I fuck up.

Everybody fucks up. But one of them is whenever possible, embrace humanity. Embrace the weirdness. Embrace the laughs. Embrace the tears. Embrace all those things. Don't be running away from crying. The fuck are you scared of crying for?

Crying is energy. It gives you something. You're going to suppress that? It can sometimes express love in a way that nothing else can. When two people are talking about something and then you talk to them about how you feel about them and tears start rolling down your face, their face too.

You know you both experience real love. Their face too. Like, you know. You are making me feel so much better. I hope everybody at work hears this because I also cry at like faculty meetings. And I've been so embarrassed. But you're making me cry again. No, I cry when I talk because I also do advising. And I always want my students to travel. If they haven't left the country, I want them to travel.

And I start talking about my traveling or that they should travel or whatever. And I just start crying talking about traveling. It's okay. You're an open person. It's good. No, I'm feeling a little better about it. You should feel better about it. The only reason why you feel bad about it is because there's not enough strong people that support you in it. But it does take the attention off of whatever somebody's talking about and on to why are you crying. No, it doesn't. It doesn't with me. I know that you're being real. You feel it.

When you're crying about something, I'm like, oh, this lady feels it. You feel it. You feel it. It's real. It's coming out. And then people sense that too, unless you're a fucking psycho and you just try on command. You just cry on command. You're some fucking monster.

But no, people, they recognize that. You can cry like that. Like I said, when Rose was doing that, that was the only time I've ever cried ever during an interview. I came once. I came real close once with Ronda Rousey. I was interviewing her and I almost cried, but not as much as with Rose. With Rose, I couldn't help it. Tears were streaming down my face.

I was interviewing her. I'm so glad you explained all of that about fighting and what it means. I think I'm starting to get it. I think it's important, and I don't think everybody should do it. I think it's important to understand why people do it. I don't advocate it. I don't think everybody should do it. I think it's important to understand why people do it. You know, I don't advocate it. I don't think everybody should do it. But I think martial arts in general are great for developing your human potential.

Just because it's hard. But you could do other things that are hard. Like you explained your experience doing marathons. Yeah. And then how it strengthened you. But everyone I know who did a marathon had the same experience. It meant just as much to them. I bet everyone I know that has done martial arts has had the same experience. It meant just as much to them. I bet everyone I know that has done martial arts

has had the same experience. Do hard things. Hard things are good for you. Test yourself. Challenge yourself. And also you'll find camaraderie in other people that are seeking you to do those hard things. And you'll find community.

I think I found community with people who wrote a book that was hard. I'm sure. Yeah. All those things. Everything you do that was hard. I'm sure. Yeah. All those things. Everything you do that's difficult. That's what life is. Life is overcoming difficult things.

And loving. And loving. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's difficult too, right? Yeah. Because part of loving is you have to accept someone who- And you have to be vulnerable and be known.

And also you have to be open. You have to not just be vulnerable. You have to give. You have to be vulnerable and be known. And also you have to be open. You have to not just be vulnerable. You have to give. You have to give them love. It's not just a matter of being vulnerable. It's also about being compassionate and loving. Right? Yeah.

And don't be scared of that. But that's the thing with a lot of men. They get taught by like shitty dads that you're supposed to shield those emotions. Emotions are fuel. They can propel you. And if you're fighting off anything, fighting off anything, the only thing you should ever fight off is weakness. Find whatever is making you weak.

Find whatever is making you insecure or doubtful. Find whatever the fuck that is and just solidify your position so you don't have to deal with that as much. Unless your position sucks. That's true too. Unless you're being an asshole. Don't solidify that. Then you need to change.

Yes, very important. Yeah, live in reality. Jamie, pull up a copy of her book so people can see it. Oh, yes. Pull up the image. It's available. Did you. Pull up the image. It's available. Did you read the audio?

No. I asked to read the audio. Those motherfuckers. Well, they said basically there's no way you could do it as well as the trained person. That's horseshit. No, no, no. I spoke to the I listened to auditions.

The person who read it is amazing and I think did a much better job. I mean I thought, no, I went through these things. It's my voice. But she had this long conversation with me. What exactly did you mean by this sentence? She really wanted to know what – she read the book. Did you get a full size of the image? Shrink it down? She was great, but I haven't heard the audiobook, but she was fantastic.

But why is it doing that? I don't know. Oh, okay. Not that top one. Just T, the story of testosterone. No, no, no, move it up. It's not the top one. Right there, that one.

But this one right here. Oh, there's another one. Go back to where you were. No, no, don't go. The one that's available July 13th, 2021.'s not the one over. Oh, there's another one. Go back to where you were. No, no, don't go. The one that's available July 13th, 2021. That is the one. T, the story of testosterone, the hormones that dominates and divides us. All right.

Thank you. Thank you, Carol. That was fun. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it. I really did. Thank you. Me too.

It was a great conversation. All right. I've never cried more. I've cried like three times during that podcast. Really? Yeah. Wow. Because it's you

you're vulnerable and I'm vulnerable with you that's what it is thank you thank you okay alright that's a wrap

goodbye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye

bye bye bye bye bye bye bye bye

bye bye bye