The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss - Lauren Schwartz and Arthur Rousseau | The War on Science Interviews | Day 17

Episode Date: August 9, 2025

To celebrate the release on July 29th of The War on Science, we have recorded 20 podcast interviews with authors from the book. Starting on July 22nd, with Richard Dawkins, we will be releasing one interview per day. Interviewees in order, will be:Richard Dawkins July 23rdNiall Ferguson July 24thNicholas Christakis July 25thMaarten Boudry July 26thAbigail Thompson July 27thJohn Armstrong July 28thSally Satel – July 30Elizabeth Weiss – July 31Solveig Gold and Joshua Katz – August 1Frances Widdowson – August 2Carole Hooven – August 3Janice Fiamengo – August 4Geoff Horsman – August 5Alessandro Strumia – August 6Roger Cohen and Amy Wax – August 7Peter Boghossian – August 8Lauren Schwartz and Arthur Rousseau – August 9Alex Byrne and Moti Gorin – August 10Judith Suissa and Alice Sullivan – August 11Karleen Gribble – August 12Dorian Abbot – August 13The topics these authors discuss range over ideas including the ideological corruption of science, historical examples of the demise of academia, free speech in academia, social justice activism replacing scholarship in many disciplines, disruptions of science from mathematics to medicine, cancel culture, the harm caused by DEI bureaucracies at universities, distortions of biology, disingenous and dangerous distortions of the distinctions between gender and sex in medicine, and false premises impacting on gender affirming care for minors, to, finally, a set of principles universities should adopt to recover from the current internal culture war. The dialogues are blunt, and provocative, and point out the negative effects that the current war on science going on within universities is having on the progress of science and scholarship in the west. We are hoping that the essays penned by this remarkable group of scholars will help provoke discussion both within universities and the public at large about how to restore trust, excellence, merit, and most important sound science, free speech and free inquiry on university campuses. Many academics have buried their heads in the sand hoping this nonsense will go away. It hasn’t and we now need to become more vocal, and unified in combatting this modern attack on science and scholarship. The book was completed before the new external war on science being waged by the Trump administration began. Fighting this new effort to dismantle the scientific infrastructure of the country is important, and we don’t want to minimized that threat. But even if the new attacks can be successfully combatted in Congress, the Courts, and the ballot box, the longstanding internal issues we describe in the new book, and in the interviews we are releasing, will still need to be addressed to restore the rightful place of science and scholarship in the west. I am hoping that you will find the interviews enlightening and encourage you to look at the new book when it is released, and help become part of the effort to restore sound science and scholarship in academia. With no further ado, The War on Science interviews…As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube. Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribe

Hi, and welcome to the Origins Podcast. I'm your host Lawrence Krause. As many of you know, my new book, The War on Science, is appearing July 29th of this year in the United States and Canada. And to celebrate that, we've interviewed many of the authors of the 39 authors who have contributed to this volume, and we have 20 separate podcast interviews

that will be airing over the next 20 days, starting July 22nd, before and after the book first appears with many of the authors in the book on a host of different subjects. The authors we will have interviews with in order of appearance over the next 20 days are Richard Dawkins, Neil Ferguson, Nicholas Christakis, Martin Boudre, Abigail Thompson, John Armstrong, Sally Sattel, Solveig Gold, and Joshua Katz, Francis Woodison, Carol Hoven, Janice Fiamengo, Jeff Horsman, Alessendro, Stouffer, Alessendro, Strumia, Roger Cohen and Amy Wax, Peter Bogosian, Lauren Schwartz and Arthur Russo,

Alex Byrne and Modi Gorin, Judith Sisa, and Alice Sullivan, Carleen Grible, and finally, Dorian Abbott. The topics that will be discussed will range over the need for free speech and open inquiry and science and the need to preserve scientific integrity, stressed by our first podcast interviewer Richard Dawkins and we'll once again go over historical examples of how academia has been hijacked by ideology

in the past and the negative consequences that have come from that to issues of how specific disciplines including mathematics have been distorted and how certain departments at universities now specifically claim that they are social activists, and a degree in their field is a degree in either critical social justice or social activism, not a degree in a specific area of scholarship,

how ideology is permeated universities. We'll proceed also to discuss issues in medicine. Sally Settel will talk about how social justice has hijacked medicine. And also, when it comes to issues of gender-affirming care, we have a variety of authors who are going to speak. about the issues there and how too often gender affirming care claims are made that are not based on empirical evidence. In fact, falsely discuss the literature in ways that are harmful to young people. We will talk to several people who, for one reason or another, have been canceled for saying things.

Francis Whittleson at Mount Royal University in Canada and Carol Hoeven from Harvard, who eventually had to leave Harvard after saying on television that sex is binary in biology. We'll be talking to people who've looking at the impact of diversity, equity, inclusion in academia, and how it's restricting free inquiry, and also restricting in many ways scientific merit at those universities. And finally, Dorian Abbott, the last contributor to our series, will be talking about three principles he believes are essential to separate science and politics and keep academia free from ideology and more for open questioning and progress and to make sure that science is based on empirical evidence and where we go where the evidence is,

whether it's convenient or not, whether it's politically correct or not, and we're willing to debate all ideas that nothing is sacred, a central feature of what science should be about and what in some sense this podcast is about. So I hope you really enjoy the next 20 days and we've enjoyed bringing it to you. So with no further ado, The War on Science, the interviews. Well, Lauren Schwartz and Art Rousseau, I'm so happy to have you here. I'm going to be on the podcast. I'm happy you're spending your time talking to me,

and I'm really happy that you wrote your piece also for the book, The War on Science. So welcome to the Origins podcast. Thank you, and you're welcome. We're excited to be here and very grateful to be able to participate in the book as well. Yeah, it's a great. It's a great contribution, and I wish you could be together, but it's nice to meet you virtually in two dimensions. Now, what you may not know is this, the Origins podcast, I try and understand people's origins before I get to the point of where they began the subject we want to talk about it.

And I want to do that with both of you. And I'll hit Lauren first. I was going to ask you, I must admit, if your parents had any influence on your future. But I now understand that one of your parents is sitting right next to you. was that's right? Correct. So clearly you did. There was, well, let me, well, let me ask you, Lauren, and then I'll get to art later, but did, was there pressure on you to become a doctor? There actually was opposite of that. So my, my pathway to medicine was a little bit more convoluted, I think, than most. My first career was as a professional valet dancer. I knew that.

Yeah, I danced professionally for eight years. I was the kid that graduated high school and was never looking back. and set off for California. And I danced with the Sacramento Ballet for a while and came back here and danced locally and did some guest performances here as well. But my career ended. I retired when I was 26. And I like to tell people that my parents, there really wasn't pressure, I think, to go into anything other than what I loved.

They did a remarkable job, both of them, of kind of dusting over their own footsteps so we could create our own path. So I think everyone was maybe surprised when I came back, went back to college, then found medicine, loved medicine, and fell in love with psychiatry. Okay. And I knew I was going to, I was so proud of myself for delving into your past enough to know that you were a ballet dancer, which intrigued me. For a moment, what got you into dancing? Was it just a reason to get away or was it something you started as a child? or? I was excited. I mean, I started when I was four or five. I was probably the kid that they needed in every activity possible because I was a mover or I was asking why. So I'm here all over the place. They're asking questions. And I think they found activities. And I fell in love with classical ballet. So I was classically trained. And I think it was such a wonderful thing. Neither of my parents knew a whole lot about ballet. So I didn't have dance parents. I didn't.

have the ballet mom. I did I just had loving parents that supported me and what I wanted to do. Well, I'm going to reveal something first for the first time that I actually did, took ballet for two years when I was, but it was only later on because I used to wrestle. And for some reason, I don't know if my coach or someone thought ballet would would help out. I don't know idea why. But in the nation balance. Yeah, well, maybe. You know, I was easily accepted because I was one of the only boys who was doing it. So I was in demand for that reason. not be any talent. But then so you retire, I mean, it's a grueling thing.

And I see, I can understand where you retired early. But you decide to go back to college, which is not so easy. And did you choose psychology because of the family or because you were or anything? Why psychology? Well, it was something I was very much drawn to. And I actually originally started in visual arts, which led me to art therapy. And I loved art therapy. And then that kind of, it drifted over.

into psychology and then it turned out that kind of, I think, flip back on my, maybe more nerdy side of my brain because I loved statistics and advanced statistics and got into research and really loved that. And then when I actually have been accepted into a graduate program for a PhD, and I was just on the two programs. That's true. But I just, I knew that if I would get to the point where someone said, well, it's time to refer on your patient onto someone. for for medications. I wanted to understand all of it.

And I loved, I loved learning. So off, off my, my path went into medicine. That's amazing. I mean, that's, I, it's interesting because, yeah, I've talked to psychology, PhD psychologist, but you're right. They can't dispense medication, and that's one of the main differences. But if you love statistics, then I have to ask you my question. I love to ask people.

That means you like math. And if you like math, why didn't you go into physics? No, it's okay. Well, now we can talk about my first panic attack ever. Um, always require the premeds and get or whatever to take physics. And it's often the most dreaded subjects. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, that's okay. It's okay. Not everyone has to do that. Okay. Thanks, Lauren. Now let's go to our. Yeah.

Well, I know less about it, except now I know you're Lauren's father. But I do. So, and I guess your parents weren't psychiatrists, certainly are doctors. Were they? No. My grandfather was. My grandfather on my mother's side, which I never knew. knew him. He died when I was about six months old. So the idea of possibly going into medicine

was always in the background. And as a child, I thought about that, but it was right along with being a cowboy and a fireman. And through a number of different avenues, I ended up going to medical school and then to become a psychiatrist. I would say as the combining of us, you know, Many times people will ask me, well, that must have been a dream come true, that your daughter would come and work with you. And I tell them, no, it was never a dream. I never had it till the day she said that she was going to go to medical school. And then I wasn't sure she was going to go into psychiatry. She was leaning a little more toward pediatrics.

And then as her training went on, she began to ask me more and more questions. and it was certainly a very proud day when I mentioned to her, she wanted to join me, I would be thrilled to death. And then, of course, she said yes. And it was great for, I guess, 10 years? 10 years, yeah. You know, we've been practicing, we practiced together for 10 years. I retired.

As a matter of fact, it'll be three years ago today, yeah, July 1st. July 1st is today, yes. Well, today. I still have an office up here. It's my fact. My office is right next door. You're going to say joining office as far as I knew. That's right.

Right. And so it is still just a thrill whenever I come down or whenever we get together, when our family will let us. Yes. We'll talk about medicine and problems. And I get to share some of my more traditional ways of handling things. But I take great pride. saying that the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

She became a psychodynamic psychiatrist, which is what I wanted, which is what I am, and was very happy that she did as well. Well, that's amazing. Now, you, but you, did you do an undergraduate degree in psychology, too, or did you, so you were in the brain? I mean, I was when I was a kid. I wanted to be a brain surgeon when I was a kid because I didn't know what a neurologist or psychiatrist was, neither my parents got to college or finished high school.

Yeah, you know, it kind of went a number of ways. Initially, I started off in engineering. When I was in the Navy, I was on a submarine, and I was an electronics technician. Oh. And so I was going into electrical engineering and just had totally lost interest in electronics. And as I took my general courses, I got into psychology. I just couldn't get away from it. And then an opportunity came to go to medical school.

I took it. And the rest is history. The rest is sort of history. Exactly right. Well, but one thing I wanted to, I did read when I was, when I was looking up in record, is that you've, you've spent time sort of on, on sort of national mental health issues and organizations. You devoted some time to promoting mental health and social and biological basis of models of psychiatry, right? So, oh, yes. And I was, I've been involved in, legislation. I was chairman of the Oklahoma State Medical Association's Legislative Committee and did that for a good 10 years. And so I was very much into that. I also did some forensic work, as well as the majority of my practice being outpatient psychiatry. And that is more in the later

years. I was also a medical director of a psychiatric unit here in Oklahoma City. Yeah, that's right. I learned that as well. Well, okay, your interest in phoning mental health nationally, and clearly your daughter shares that, both of you share that, and your concern about national standards, which is really the basis of your article entitled, Gender Affirming Care, the Abandonment of Medical and Academic Standards. And I want to read the beginning of it. which I think really sets the stage. It says the foremost fundamental responsibility of the physician is to protect the safety and well-being of every patient.

First, we do no harm. And it goes on to say patients seeking care related to identity and gender deserve to receive the same evidence-based, safe, comprehensive health care that we strive to provide for all patients. And I think the whole point is, again, you next say, gender affirming care, which will call GAC, and you do in the article, fails to meet even the most basic expectations demanded of medicine through the insidious conflation of experience with clinical expertise

and civil rights with patient rights. And I think, you know, and the substitution, as you point out, and this is the key point. Evidence is the basis of science and should be the basis of medical procedure. What you say in place of scientific principles, Gender-affirming providers offer their lived experiences, basically, to replace that. I think, so what's the problem with you? When I just starve, what's the problem with gender affirming care?

How many days do you have? I think when I first started to deal with this concept, I think maybe the first thing that really struck me as completely different than anything I had ever seen is that this is a model that aims to alter a person's body, many times a child's body, to match their current view of self. You know, our concept of self is ever changing, ever evolving, always growing, and a child has so much growth and development to go through. And this is a model in which we're using many times off-label, experiment doses of drugs and hormones, as well as surgeries, to alter a child's body to match how they see themselves in that moment, right? So it's an underdeveloped view of self. And it locks them in

a lot of times. They can't necessarily move beyond that. So that was maybe the first thing that really struck me. So I think that's, that is one of the first things that I saw is very problematic. Yeah, I mean, the idea that, and we'll get to it, whether children can even consent or knowingly consent to treatments that may be appropriate, that they may want at one time and not the next day. And I think, you know, my wife always said she was a tomboy. And if given, you know, when she was young, she would have happened, happy to be a boy. And then found out later she was happy to be a girl. But the other, the other, as far as the public has concerned, I think one of the things that really this article makes clear will go through in detail is

there's a lot of misunderstanding and deception, one. The first one is that somehow the claim that there's consensus about this treatment. And U.S. professional associations insist that there is consensus, but there really isn't, right? No, not at all. And I think that is what really kind of brought me into it. You know, Lauren was already knee-deep in it before,

and then she came over and said, are you aware of this? And, you know, I treated transgender patients throughout my whole career. Look. Even before it was popular. Yeah. And I said, well, I didn't realize, you know, all what was going on. And so she began to introduce me to a number of the articles and books. And I, I had to say I was one of the ignorant.

I did not realize what had happened in regards. to how the medical societies and organizations got so skewed in their view on this. And anyone, you know, who, and I assure you, I went into it very objectively, you know, trying to weigh what was going on. And I'm very, very disappointed in my own organization as to how they have at this point, you know, I wish I would say totally avoided it, but they, They have. They've been doubling down on your position and not listening to what the literature is saying. I was shocked to that when I read peace the first time, you know, how, how claim, adamant claims are made in spite, not just ignorant of the literature, but in spite of the literature.

And the point you make, which is now more clear because it's been getting more attention, that the United States is kind of an outlier that other countries like Finland, Sweden, and now with the cast report, the United Kingdom, have already tamped down on this, on this treatment. but the United States is an outlier and not just an outlier, but as you say, the medical and health communities have been doubling down. And you ask the question, why is that the case? And I was, and I, you know, it is surprising. You think that they would, I hate to say, follow the signs, but you think in some sense they'd be more scientifically critical. I hate to use your critical too, because that's got a, that's also got the wrong.

It's a misnomer lately in a variety of things. But they, they, why haven't they? And I think you point to the answer, which is something was not something new to me, the culprit, and tell me if I'm wrong, but the culprit seems to be this incredibly powerful organization called the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Oh, absolutely. Sure. Yeah, we can talk about it. You know, this is an entity or an organization that presents itself and is a self-proclaimed. professional organization, it's there to provide the best standards and guidelines for physicians, for mental health providers, for any providers that are providing care for transgender individuals.

And I think it's like, as we said in our chapter, it's neither professional or focused on health of any individuals. Now, and I think what has become even more apparent, as we go along is that many of their claims were made, but they were not rooted in anything. They have said repeatedly and they continue to say it, and then our medical organizations echo this, that this is evidence-based, this is medically necessary, this is life-saving. And in addition, it does harm to withhold gender affirming care from patients. So those are strong statements that most of the time when we look at guidelines, in medicine, they're very rigorous. They go through a tremendous amount of scrutiny. And that was not

the case with these guidelines. Even the newest version, the Standards of Care 8, they are remarkably disappointing and lacking anything that they promised to have. Yeah, well, we'll get to, you know, I was intrigued by reading the story of Standards of Care 8 that you talk about in your piece. But what struck me was the organizations that championed. this group, include the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Psychological Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Academy of Family Physicians. It's just amazing who brought on, you know, jumped on this bandwagon. And, and of course, this last year, you know, for the first time at least large-scale public report was unveiled, the cast report in the UK.

and it or it began, in fact, it points out that this organization has been highly influential. I think there was the review was the World Professional Association of Transgender Health has been highly influential in directing internal practice, although its guidelines were found by the University of York appraisal process to lack developmental rigor, which is just shocking. Are they well funded? Is that one of the, you know, I keep wondering why they're so powerful. And I honestly could not speak to exact funding, the size, you know, reports are changing. So I try to stay focused just on medically what they put forth. What I will say is, and I think that's been part of the problem over this, at least the last decade or so that I've been aware of,

is that in every medical association, under transgender health care, they defer to W-Path. And so when you do that in every single one of these associations, and we saw with most recently the Scrametti case that the Supreme Court heard, they, along with 23 other American Medical Associations and societies, submitted an amicus brief supporting W.PAT and saying the exact same things. It's life-saving. It's evidence-based. This is more evidence-based than any any. other standards out there. And these are not standards and these are not guidelines. Certainly not medical guidelines. It's, you know, and well, you outline what is clearly, seems to me to be unethical behavior. In fact, counterethical is the kind of thing you think pharmaceutical companies would do, namely, and that's why I thought to have money. They, in 2017, you point out that they selected a research review team at John Hopkins to perform a systematic review addressing all sorts of

issues. And then they basically interfered with it. They limited. They basically not only interfered, they pushed for authority over what they could publish and eventually did limit what they published. Isn't that the case? Absolutely. We're waiting on at least what they've said is dozens of, of systematic reviews coming out of those, that comprehensive review. I don't know if we'll ever see them. Again, it's, that's under W-Path's control still. Yeah, you say when the results began to emerge, they determined that John Topton University's finding conflicted with their ability to continue recommending certain hormonal and surgical interventions. So they pressure, withdraw, systematic reviews already submitted for publication. And then after, in August 2020, after blocking the publication,

they created a new policy. And prior for an approval mechanism over future publications, This is the kind of thing that's not, you know, where an organization supports research and then has approval over what research can be produced. It reminds me in tobacco industry or something like that. It's really, and I'm surprised that hasn't, I mean, that seems to be almost illegal, but it's certainly unethical. Yeah. And not coming to the defense of the medical associations in any way, but if I understood

the history of this was that when all of these issues started coming out, And I think it mainly came from the government. We had no real anyone taking the front seat as to giving us the policies and the approach to the treatment of this. So everyone turned to, and I'm not sure if it was W-Path or its previously named organization, and said, well, what do you think? And then all of a sudden, they became the authority. And it was not based in science, but then they began to develop standards of care. and everyone started incorporating that into their treatments. And I think that's where it became, where it got its power.

Yeah, you know, this, now, S-O-Sad Medicare 8 is something approved by the associations. Is that right? I'm sorry, say that again. Care 8 is some medically approved report guideline, right? Well, they published it. So it's not. Publishes it. W-BF?

Yes. And, well, you know, that, okay, so there was something in here that confused me, but I was amazed. So, so the, the review says one thing and then they publish another, right? The review says, that's the published review, presumably from J.HU. It's a strength of evidence for these conclusions across the outcomes investigator is low due to methodological limitations. It's a possible to draw conclusions about the effects of hormone therapy on death by suicide. And then W-Path publishes their strong evidence that the benefits in quality of life and well-being of gender-affirming patients, including endocrine and surgical procedures, properly indicated and performed by the standards of care. They're safe and effective at reducing gender incongruance and genders for it.

So it's sort of a, you know, the review actually says one thing and they report the other, which which is. Right. And reference that particular review? Yeah. as support for it being safe, effective and... And most people, they go back to review, they see the reference and they assume the study... That's what it is. Totally unethical, the way they're approaching.

No question. And that's, I think when they first, the standards of care ate first drops, a lot of us were waiting. You know, we were waiting kind of in the wings thinking, okay, they had said, because they made the statement before putting them out, we are doing the studies.

We're doing the research. This amount of research is not. never been done in this area to this extent. And then when they dropped, you know, of course, that's what we immediately want to do is comb through, find, okay, show me where this really is evidence-based, where we can maybe start utilizing things that there, and it just wasn't there. They do take a position of saying we're using evidence-informed. Yes, I know instead of evidence-based, but evidence- Right, yeah, which is like a notch-down from evidence-based. But they even kind of, and I'll use the term, bastardized that.

Because evidence informed should include evidence-based information, but you're adding even more. Well, they kind of excluded the evidence-based and focused totally on lived experience, subjective findings, incidental occurrences, and non-medically evidence-based theory that just took me over the edge. Well, as you say, what they lacked in rigor they made up for in political and legal influence. But there was a case in Alabama. I named Dr. Cantor provided an expert report. I don't know. He was obviously not a case against W-Path or maybe it was. But he stated in the report, which I think is really quite telling.

Members of the W-Path Guideline Development Group went so far as to explicitly advocate that I also see that standards of care aid be written. to maximize impact on litigation and policy, even at the expense of scientific accuracy. Exactly. Explicitly, not implicitly, but explicitly say that. Which says to me at the expense of patient safety. Yes, exactly. And patient well-being, for sure.

It's patient well-being and safety. I was, again, confused. It seemed here, and this is even more worrisome, if you're concerned about W-path itself, but then you've got the medical organizations and the government going even beyond it. You got the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Assistant Secretary for Health, a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, pushed W.Path to go further than, as far as I can tell, further than W. Path itself wanted to go. They pushed them to remove all age restrictions for medical transitions and for engines,

even though, is it not true, the W. Path originally wanted to have age restrictions? Yes. That's my understanding. Yeah. And they were actually, when they very first released, those of us that were watching it, the day did release, they were there for a minute. and then were very quickly removed. So it, whether it was serendipitous or not,

it brought attention to the fact that they pulled the age restrictions. And no one knew why. There wasn't any indication as to that they had that. So we didn't find out until the case that you described in Alabama unsealed all of these documents. And then people were able to see, oh my gosh, this was actually influenced by the United States government. I mean, that's, that's shocking.

And well, maybe nothing's shocking anymore. But, and, you know, and that, that's the, for people like me, the particularly worse than thing is, is have young kids pre-purity. I have no idea what even their gender really is, much less, you know, any sexual aspects. Any, to be, to intervene before they have any sense of that is just shocking. Right. You say other kinds. It just amazes me that they would even consider what they were doing was getting informed consent because a child. And that's what we're talking about, not even an adolescent.

We're talking children. Yeah. Not having any idea of what we'd be talking about. You know, one of the things we haven't touched on, but, you know, because it hadn't all completed or occurred prior to our or before our writings. and that was this Germetti case, the decision of the Supreme Court. Yeah, let's get, you'll get there. I've added some notes at the end. Oh, okay.

You want to hold back off on that? Hold back for a moment because I've, I mean, it's sort of a nice addendum and epilogue. But the next thing you talk about, okay, it's bad enough for these professional organizations. But doctor training is, you know, obviously this becomes important. If doctors are mistrained and then pass that on to patients, and you point out that the training, is they're trained. Gender affirming care is taught in medical schools and to students as an accepted clinical practice. And the students are not aware that there's any medical consensus.

But worse than that, residents, as you point out in New York Post story, residents reported that they're instructed that gender questioning children will kill themselves. They'll prescribe purity blockers and cross-sex hormones. They're barred from talking to their young patients about other treatment options. and saying that, you know, that the APA's textbook, gender affirming psychiatric care instructs trainees and practitioners to ignore evidence-based practices. And does that.

Specifically ignore it. And as you say, to ignore, I mean, the notion that children can't actively or effectively give consensus. What we're seeing here, and you pointed out, and this is in cities, and this is one of their, it meshes with a number of the other articles. We're concerned in the book about scholarship and science and obviously things that impact society and the incursion of ideology on that. Well, this is clearly non-scientific kind of ideology, but then you point out that it actually, when they talk about evidence informed versus evidence-based, they, they, then you begin to see what becomes a social justice, a political agenda, not just a personal anti-science agenda for whatever reason,

but clearly motivated. And the gender affirming psychiatric care chapter says, cisgender people in power have traditionally created systems that bar access to quality gender care. This, again, this power versus oppressed versus non-oppressed, which we've seen, and I've talked to many, you know, in many of the articles, and many people have talked to, that kind of critical social justice

slash kind of Marxist narrative seems to be the origin behind behind a lot of this. Yep. And it becomes, I think in some ways, it becomes the way in which this particular, very vulnerable

subset of the population, receives substandard care. And that's unacceptable. Absolutely. I mean, politics should not enter into science and medicine should be a science. And as we point out, as you point out in our article, that, you know, we're not saying that there aren't problems in gender dysphoria.

That does exist. And we acknowledge that. And both of us had treated that type of issue and helped people improve their quality of life, whichever direction they choose to go. But, you know, it is just gone, you know, off. the rails in regards to what they're... And then insisting that there's a solution when the evidence doesn't, is at best and conclusive is anti-science. And as I say, medicine would be scientific. I wanted to be a doctor

early on about my parents convinced me some science and I learned that not all of medicine science, so I became a scientist. So my medicine should be based on science. And then you talk about something even more in cities. Well-meaning parents are sort of who might be waffling are told once again this suicide myth. And we had a variety of our people writing in the book talking about the total lack of evidence that suicides are reduced by gender affirming care. But this is particularly poignant when you talk about this young person, Chloe Cole, who testified that when she was 12 years old, prior to any intervention,

quote, they asked my parents a simple question, Would you rather have a dead daughter or a living transgender son? I mean, that is just, I mean, what's any parent? What position does it put a parent in? Yes. And I mean, any parent is going to want to save their child. And when you present it that way, it's tragic. Now, you do quote the Castro, and I think this is really important,

which basically says, well, let me read it because explicitly, this is an area of remarkably weak evidence. Yet results of studies are exaggerated or misrepresented by people on all sides of the debates to support their viewpoint. The reality is that we have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress. It's been suggested that hormone treatment reduces the elevated risk of deaths by suicide in the population, but the evidence found did not support this conclusion.

This review would recommend an extremely cautious clinical approach and a strong clinical rationale for providing hormones before the, age VIP 18 and it will keep options ocean but they keep open the key ideas that there's no evidence to support this thing that's used over and over again and one of our other articles point out that people refer like just like referring to the cast report referring to a review that doesn't say what they do people refer to one or two studies on suicide that have known problems and in fact in many cases don't even refer to suicide but they've been so highly cited that everyone assumes that that's what that's what it's all about right and and i think an important

point to note also is the patients do as well. So when this is not only set in front of the parents, but in front of a distressed child, even if the child is not suicidal in that moment, think about the fear that that plants in them, that the only way I'm going to avoid feeling suicidal or wanting to kill myself or take my own life or dying is if I get on this track. If I'm not on the track, I'm going to die. And then they get on the track and they start to feel terrible. And maybe they do, as Chloe did, then started to feel suicidal. And she didn't know what to do because she was afraid if she told her providers or her parents, then they would pull the only medicine that's keeping her alive.

You are putting these children in the, I just can't imagine the cycle of fear that they're in the midst of. And then the parents, I think that's one of the reasons why I got involved when I did. I have free children in my own. And I could not imagine going to an expert. I go to my pediatrician and I need them to be the doctor. When I'm mom, I'm not always rational. I get worried about all kinds of things that there's no way it's going on in the room. Very normal.

But it's a normal response to, then you want to trust the person in the room with you. Yeah. And they're telling you things that are true and they're planting seeds of fear that push you further down a path that there are not very many off-rants. And if that thought comes, you know, some suicidal thought, it caused by medications or or the the changes that the individuals going, that's going on with them and they begin to have some suicidal thoughts, you know, if they do share those, what happens is the way the system operates is they double down on it. Well, that means we've got to keep going forward and keep going forward and not addressing what all the other underlying problems may be

that needs to be addressed from a psychiatric standpoint. Yeah, any other comorbidities or anything like that. And while the other equally worrisome is that you raise is this issue of informed consent and children. And it's an issue that, as your point, comes out and basically the fact that children probably can't give informed consent or at least understand what the issues are. Do you want to elaborate on that a little bit? Sure. I mean, I think when you look at just how medicine handles consent and informed consent in general, first is when it's a minor, the parent or caregiver is involved in giving informed consent. And part of that consent is understanding risks and benefits, what we know and what we don't know. And in medicine, you better be talking about what we don't know, just as much as what we know. Absolutely.

But to ask a question of a 12-year-old who has no conceptual understanding of what it would be to have children, or much less what it would be to be in a healthy sexual relationship, to be able to achieve orgasm. They have no concept of what that is. And you are now asking that child to give all those things up. And permanently, it just amazes me. anyone that would say, yeah, I got consent from that child. Yeah, exactly.

It's, it's, it's, it's, it's just. I mean, as in, in, and one of the, uh, released, um, uh, tapes were someone said, yeah, you know, I started talking about sexual things and they go, ooh, I don't, you know, babies, ooh, I don't, I'm going to talk about that. And that's going to be your consent. Yeah, exactly. The, the child goes, ooh. Yeah.

I mean, I, I, it, it, it, it, it, it's, it, it's, it's, oh, absolutely. It's child endangerment. You talk about the way forward and you basically say it's about time the education of both parents, patients and medical schools and doctors is really important. And it's time that the United States begins to comply with the rest of the world. And interestingly, you say that the professional associations have been challenged to address this complicity about lies and have basically irresponsibly remained. silence or double down. It hasn't, it hasn't changed. And, and that surprises me. I guess I don't know

why that would be, but maybe they're, the, maybe the social justice warriors are in control or what, what is it? Do you have any sense? I don't know. I'm not going to give up trying. We wrote, I was one of the authors on the letter that we wrote openly to the American Psychiatric Association. We sent it to their leadership. We now have oversaw. 7,200 signatures that are international concerned physicians, concerned citizens, concerned providers, concerned parents and grandparents. There is no response. However, they do continue to publish this gender affirming psychiatric care textbook and realize

this is the publishing house that also publishes the diagnostic and statistical manual that we use in every psychiatric office, but also mental health provider, school psychology. use it. Internal medicine, family practice, pediatrics. So this is, and they also supply the textbooks to med schools and residences. So this is,

it's still for sale. You can go get it today. We read the whole thing. I'll just lit at it right before we came on. It is still up on site there. Yeah. And, you know, both of us are members of the American Psychiatric Association. I'm a distinguished life fellow of the

organization. And Lauren is a fellow. And, you know, I can't think of any other word other than embarrassed that they at least and not had taken their, you know, expressed their position as to what it is. And hopefully as they would in almost every other area acknowledge where they have maybe not so much overstepped, but, you know, assume certain things and that they're going to, you know, reassess it. But they're not doing that at all.

all. And again, even on the, in this Scrimetti case, they, they ended up, you know, supporting it as an, you know, from, from their their, Amer, amicus brief. So, yeah, it is. Let me give you guys. Let me give guys both the penultimate word and then the addendum word, but I'm going to read your last, last little bits before you get to an endendum. The argument claiming that politics and legal bans are preventing children from accessing life-saving care is misdirected. It's the lack of evidence supporting GAC, gender affirming care, a disregard for safe clinical practice and an unfounded push for irreversible interventions of children that have spawned these types of legislative bans. And it goes on later, our young patients and their families deserve better research, better guidelines, and better

treatment options. The fundamental chain of trust between physicians and their patients can be restored, but the medical community must acknowledge harm has been done. As the lack of evidence behind the affirmation model comes to light, medicine cannot remain complicit. I have just a wonderful statement. And then you talk about the Tennessee case. And, well, I don't want to give the punchline too early. But why don't want to talk about the Tennessee case now? I held you off before. Well, my position is, you know, I'm very pleased with the decision that the Supreme Court made. And that was just to point out, it was just last week, I think, as when I heard. Yes.

Just to make it clear, upheld the Tennessee law limiting the availability, gender affirming care to minors, right? Correct. And the majority decision was based on the fact that it did not discriminate against people based on sex. That was their constitutional reason for doing it. So I kind of take the position. I'm glad they came to the decision that they, they did, but it was really for, from a medical standpoint, the wrong reason. But I find great

comfort in Justice Thomas's report that he submitted along with it, because he goes through everything that we have been talking about today in his, he, in his, his summary. And it just, in my mind, in a sense, concretizes all the things that we've been saying. He talks about how poor the evidence is and that the state has every right

to limit it. Now, I will take one other position, and this is what I have learned through all my work that I've done with the legislative committees with the Oklahoma State Medical Association, is that

once the law, take control of medical treatment, it is because we as physicians have failed miserably. That because we have done harm, finally, the legislature has to come in and say, we got to do something about it. And I've seen that almost every time, you know, that old Pogo comic strip where it says, I've seen the enemy and it is us. Yes, us, yes. And that is exactly. what we have to accept. You know, this is our responsibility. I don't want to say our fault.

Our responsibility. And as with medicine, we can fix it. And it is something historically in medicine from the peanut allergy thing that we probably caused, but also even from the idea of when we didn't know about infections being caused by bacteria

and that if you didn't wash your hands, that you probably were going to spread this on to other people. We finally had to admit, yes, we need to wash our hands. We need to sterilize things. But there was a time that the medical community fought that. And that's what I'm kind of seeing here. Well, and it's important. And another dialogue I had, the key thing about medicine is it changes because you learn what works.

And it's all right to say you're wrong. Right. You should say you're wrong if you learn it doesn't work. and that's what's required here. And I'm going to paraphrase what is your last line in the addendum or last paragraph as being, I'll say to paraphrase someone else, the price of good health care is eternal vigilance. Namely, you point out that, yes, there's this legal case.

But Howard, without the involvement of medical associations, licensing boards, research, and academic institutions, the inexcusable risk of harm remains. the infiltration of gender ideology at the expense of patient safety cannot continue. And your article gives, I mean, is a wonderful thing for people to read about to understand why. And I really appreciate both of you as a psychiatrist getting involved in general and contributing to the book and then coming here to talk about it. So it's been a real pleasure. Thank you very much. Well, it's been a great experience in regards.

we're being able to work with Lauren on this. And we've just done a lot of, spent a lot of hours as we've dug through all these different things. Was it the first thing you ever wrote together, just so I know. Oh, no. No, we've written a number of papers together. Yeah. That's nice.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, but this, like, maybe the first chapter. Yeah, I think this, yeah. Yeah, we've written articles. Even while she, I again found great. joy and I was able to participate in some of her training. And so we were able to put paper together and she won an award for it.

So I was very proud and pleased that we were able to do that. Well, I'm glad you got tradition for us in this book. And I'm glad you had the opportunity. I'm glad it gave you guys the opportunity to work together. Right, right. And I would say, just one thing is I'm a little disappointed that Europe doesn't want to publish it or in, in the article. and because we owe so much to them. Yeah, I know it's true.

If it wasn't for the cast report and all that, we'd be really struggling. And so if no other reason to let them know. European public fears may have figured that the cast report put that issue to rest in the UK. I don't know if it did. But it's okay. But you're in the States.

Wonderful. We're incredibly grateful for the opportunity. So thank you so much. Important. And to be less facetious, that's the place where it really matters, you know, right now, is to get this out in the U.S. of Canada and because that's where... Oh, absolutely. Yes, because we're from behind the A ball here on this week.

Yeah. Thanks again. Thank you very much. Yeah. Absolutely. Hi, it's Lawrence again. As the Origins podcast continues to reach millions of people around the world, I just wanted to say thank you. It's because of your support, whether you listen or watch,

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