TRIGGERnometry - The Truth About Trans Medicine - Christina Buttons

Episode Date: July 17, 2024

Christina Buttons is an independent journalist. Formerly a Democrat, Christina’s primary focus is gender transition, detransition and the lack of evidence supporting the gender-affirming model of care. She is passionate about debunking pseudoscience, and her articles are informed by experts in gender medicine research and adhere to the principles of evidence-based medicine (EBM). She also writes about ‘Social Justice’ ideology, mental health disorders, autism - she has Asperger’s Syndrome - and critical thinking. Check out her website and Substack: https://buttonslives.com/ Christina on X: https://x.com/buttonslives SPONSORS: Express VPN. Go to https://www.expressvpn.com/trigger/ and get an extra 3 months free on a one-year package! AG1. Go to https://drinkAG1.com/triggernometry and get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs with your first purchase. Join our Premium Membership for early access, extended and ad-free content: https://triggernometry.supercast.com OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube: @xentricapc Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/#mailinglist Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media: https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry: Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A lot of the doctors that have signed on and endorsed gender affirming care believe that they are civil rights heroes. They're taking on after the gay rights movement. Which is kind of ironic, isn't that? Yeah, because they're actually hurting mostly gay kids. What we see with detransition is that it typically takes between four to eight years for regret to occur. People are not receiving accurate information about their kids. condition. They're lying to people. Christina, great to finally have you on the show. We kind of have stopped talking about trans

as much as we have because, A, we spent a lot of time trying to work out what woman was, finally succeeded, so now we know. We don't really want to talk about it. And the other reason is, as I think you're aware, in the UK, we're actually making quite a bit of progress in terms of rolling back some of the extremes and the excesses of trans ideology and the way it's being implemented in medicine and maybe even in education and so on. But that isn't the case here, is it? No. U.S.-based medical organizations have so far refused to align their guidelines with the best available evidence provided by systematic evidence reviews, which many European countries have done, that found that the risks of youth transition outweigh any purported benefits.

and they've significantly rolled back and halted the use of puberty blockers and how are prioritizing psychotherapy now as a first-line treatment for youth who are experiencing any kind of gender-related distress. Why do you think that is, Christina, that in the UK, we've been quite good on this, but in the US, they seem to have held back? Well, a few different reasons, but one of the big reasons was Kira Bell, her detransition lawsuit that she won. And the other is UK's National Health Service.

It has been every year releasing its referral data. And we've seen, you know, so the first year available they had in 2009, there were. about 78 youth referrals to the Gender Identity Service. And as of the latest review, for probably the year 2023 to 2024, it was over 9,000. And I think that represents like 11,500% increase in that time frame. So I think the fact that the data has been more available, And we've seen this exponential increase. Those are a few reasons why people are alarmed and recognizing that there's a serious problem.

But it's a little different in the United States where we don't really have like a national health service. We don't have any data on the over 100 gender pediatric gender clinics in the United States. and you know this is where the gender affirming model of care was born it was created in the united states um and u.s-based medical organizations have all endorsed it but they've you know they've uh they've all been referencing each other for their endorsement of this particular protocol. It isn't actually based on any kind of sound evidence or signs. So rather than being lots of separate validation and verification is basically a very small number of people kind of quoting each other about how right they are on this. Yes. We recently had a systematic review

come out at the same time as the cast review that found that, you know, the initial guidelines that were released by W Path and Endocrine Society, who both co-authored. the guidelines. They did what was called circular referencing. So there's a number of like national and regional medical organizations that relied on the endorsements from those medical organizations. And then when the W-Path and Integran Society released newer guidelines, they were referencing those regional and regional medical or organizations.

organizations to support the endorsement of youth transition. And so what you get is just a whole bunch of medical organizations circularly referencing each other, which I would sort of liken to a citation cartel. This is when researchers, you know, sort of inflate the number of citations that they have in order to like increase their prestige. That's something that's something that's

It's done in research that's a problem. But it's, there's no good evidence to support youth transition or this gender affirming model of care. It's all consensus-based, but they portray it as evidence-based. But that actually, it has a specific meaning, and they're really misleading the public by representing it that way. Explain that a little bit more. When you say it's evidence-based and that term has a specific meaning,

Tell us more about that. Well, Professor Gordon Goya, he is the pioneer of the evidence-based medicine movement. He reviewed all of the guidelines for adolescent gender medicine, and he came to the conclusion that they are untrustworthy and not evidence-based. Systematic evidence reviews, they represent the pinnacle of evidence-based medicine in sort of the hierarchy, the pyramid of evidence. and U.S. BIMs medical organizations have not been aligning their guidelines with the results of the systematic evidence reviews. And that's a major problem. We want them to. The AAP, American Academy of Pediatrics, for years, members of this organization have been submitting resolutions every single year asking leadership to align the guidelines with the results of systems.

systematic evidence reviews, and they have actively refused calls to do so, except for last year. They finally said that they would conduct their own systematic evidence review, and we'll see what happens with that. Christina, do you think there's a financial incentive element here? Because obviously in the U.S., people are making money from these types of these types of surgeries. I was talking to somebody who is a surgeon and they were saying, and look, this may be wrong, this may be anecdotal, that you can find far more from doing trans-based surgeries

than you can from doing regular surgery. There is that incentive, sure, I think, but I'm a little bit less cynical, and I think that a lot of the doctors that have signed on and endorsed gender-affirming care believe that they are civil rights heroes. they're doing it because they think it's similar to being gay. They're taking on after the gay rights movement.

They believe trans rights are almost the same thing. Which is kind of ironic, isn't that? Yeah, because they're actually hurting mostly gay kids. Right. And it's not just gay kids as well. It's, and we see this, and I'm taking this stat from the UK, but it's around about 40% of, I think it's mainly girls, are autistic when they identify as trans or say that they want to be transitioned. How many of these kids have autism in the US and is it higher amongst girls? Well, the study you were referring to was a 2018 study of kids. It found 35% had moderate to superiors. severe autistic traits, higher if you're considering like mild autistic traits and mild autism.

But that's actually probably some of the best data that we do have is coming from GIDS. In the U.S., there are clinics where small sample sizes, but they're as many as 47% at an autism diagnosis. It's they're highly overrepresented in the cohort. And what about you mentioned gay, obviously we were talking about that, what percentage did gay kids make up of? Well, based on all the research that we have seen on desistence, it's very high. It's something like 70%.

You know, we had like about 12 studies. on children who went into gender clinics when they were, this was prior to the gender affirming model of care, but in like the history that we know of, you know, 60 to 90% of the kids who didn't socially or medically transition would desist and no longer have a cross-sex identity by the time they became an adolescent. And I think it was something around like 60 to 70,

would just grow up to be like a normal, well-justed gay adult. It's, that's primarily what we see. I mean, the awful thing about this is that these kids are being exposed to these types of medications and push back if I'm wrong about this, but a lot of them, we just simply don't know the long-term effects of them, do we? Do we actually know what the long-term effects of puberty blockers are? if they're taken by a prepubescent? No, there's absolutely no long-term data on the safety and efficacy of any of these medications,

and that's a big reason why we've rolled back in the UK. And I wish that the U.S. would get on board and do the same. I'm hoping that will happen. And I think part of the reason why we've rolled back as well is because there have been, like you said, court cases, but that's, you know, when money gets involved, when compensation has to be paid, and that's really when the rubber starts to hit the road. Has there been those types of court cases in the U.S., because, you know, as a society, you're far more litigious than we are? There's a number underway. There's, I think, at least like 14 cases lawsuits underway from

detransitioners. And do you think that if those are decided in their favor, do you think you're likely to see the kind of rollbacks that we've seen in the UK? Are you optimistic? I'm hoping so. I think a lot of times medical scandals and things of this nature end with lawsuits because medical organizations

can't take the kind of risks that they're doing now. I don't know why they're taking them currently. But that's what happened with the recovered memory movement as well. I mean, it was just this faddish type of therapy, ruined a lot of lives. Sorry to interrupt, Christina, because there's a lot of people going to be listened to us that don't, not aware of that. So if you could give us a little bit of background as to what the recovered memory movement is, because I'll be honest, I've got a vague idea, but I don't know. The recovered memory movement took place from sort of like the late 80s and 90s, and it came from, therapists had this idea that people possessed these repressed memories of significant trauma

that could explain, you know, why their adult patients were coming into their office. They said that, you know, you're dealing with some kind of unresolved trauma, but what would end up happening is these, like, susceptible and vulnerable adult patients, they were very, they're just highly suggestible. So therapists would end up like implanting false memories in them. And they would become convinced a lot of times they had to do with like incest with family members. And they would become convinced that, you know, their dad molested them or something as a child and they buried the memory. And so they worked through the therapist to uncover the memory and confront their family members. And it ended up just destroying so many families. And it even when this kind of testimony was accepted in court,

it even put some people in prison. And they don't allow that kind of testimony anymore because it's shown to be complete pseudoscience. So that the recovered memory movement ended with lawsuits. From the patients who sued their therapists for basically ruining their lives and their family lives based on absolute junk science. And you know what we're dealing with today is junk science. That's what I use the term gender pseudoscience. I've been passionate about science and skepticism and debunking pseudoscience for over 12 years. And my focus now is on what I call gender pseudoscience and communicating what that is to the lay public. And gender pseudoscience is unfounded scientific claims about innate gender identity and medical claims about the gender affirming model of care that are presented as sound science, but in fact are not supported by any empirical evidence.

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Well, on that subject, if you were talking to somebody who's really not clued in, hasn't been paying attention, who probably thinks, you know, the doctors and scientists have got us all under control. Of course, they must be doing everything right, you know, blah, blah, blah. What would be a kind of summary that you might give them to explain what's really going on? Well, it's, that's the difficult part is it's not even just the medical organizations and the doctors. It's academia, it's research institutions. It's the Biden administration. It's activist organizations like gay and civil rights organizations, mainstream media.

They're all sort of complicit in promoting this particular narrative that gender affirming care is life-saving, medically necessary, evidence-based. And so in a lot of ways, it's like other medical scandals we've seen in history, but in other ways, it's nothing like we've ever seen before. So why is it like it and why is it not? So what are the similarities between former medical, scandals and what is unique about this medical scandal? Well, former medical scandals, I sometimes liken it to like the opioid crisis that we saw. It was these pharmaceutical companies

who took a study or even, you know, it wasn't even a real study, but they used that to say that their particular new brand of opioid wasn't addictive at all. And they got it sort of pushed through the FDA and into clinics. And then we saw, you know, terrible things happened as a result of that. And we saw pain pills. They were called pill mills. There's these clinics that just popped up all over the country to meet patient demand rather than medical necessity. And that's kind of similar to what we're saying with all these gender clinics. Like there were virtually none like 15 years ago. Now there's at least 100 pediatric gender clinics and probably over 900 clinics that will

prescribe medical interventions for the purpose. of gender affirming care. So there are a lot of similarities to that, I think. And the differences? Why is this particular scandal unique? Because it's sort of disguised in this couched in social justice framework. It's people, people think it's sort of a continuation of the gay rights movement. So they'll dismiss, And part of the other problem too is how mainstream media sort of portrays it as, you know, something that only religious conservatives would oppose. So it's become highly polarized and people readily dismiss any concerns, anyone has, even me, are liberal. I regularly get called a bigot and a transphobe and anti-trans and anti-LGB.

or basically just saying that I believe all areas of medicine, including gender medicine, should be aligned with the principles of evidence-based medicine. And that's something that really should not be controversial at all. I think we all want what's best for these vulnerable groups of people. They deserve so much better than the current treatment they're getting. And Christina, you mentioned your own views. You have a very measured demeanor, but what people won't see is that actually you're very passionate about this stuff.

And I think it'd be interesting to talk about why that is in terms of your own background and views and so on. Yeah, I came into this after reading D-Transitioner Stories and finding so many similarities. I mean, it was like kind of reading my own journal or journal. diary when I read their stories because when I was a teenager, I had a lot of similar problems to what we see with the current cohort that is identifying as trans today, the ones that we consider sort of rapid onset or late onset who didn't have gender-related distress as a child, but suddenly we see all these teenagers with, you know, psychiatric issues and suicidality and

cutting, eating disorders, many of whom are homosexual or on the autism spectrum or both. And I relate a lot to that because I had sort of a troubled teenage experience where I was in and out of hospitals. And even in the troubled teen industry, I spent a year at a residential treatment. Center because I was just having a really difficult time. And that's what I see with detransitioners today. So I feel pretty confident that, you know, if these beliefs about gender and these transgender narratives were kind of in vogue when I was a teenager, I don't think it would have

taken much convincing to believe that I was, you know, really a boy trapped in a girl's body. I think that a lot of young people are encountering these narratives online and attributing symptoms that they may be experiencing from other things to a trans identity and thinking that it's going to relieve them of their suffering and the distress they feel because that part is very real. And I think they're just desperately looking for relief, but they're finding it in the wrong places. That's so interesting. So what you're saying is you feel passionate about it because when you were a teenager, you had similar feelings of distress and discomfort and all sorts of other things going on. And it's very understandable that young people who are distressed are looking for a way out of that discomfort that they're experiencing.

But then they're being presented with a solution for which there is no evidence that it actually makes their lives better. And in fact, for some of them, it makes it a lot worse. Yes. That's what I'm finding. I've done surveys with the transitioners too, all of whom were just immediately affirmed in their trans identity. There was no differential diagnosis. There weren't exploring any other kinds of factors that could have been contributing to this.

I mean, there's no other area of medicine where the doctor relies on. the patient's self-diagnosis and then immediately affirms it and immediately refers them for medical interventions. There's nothing else like it. Right. So if I came into a hospital and I said, I've got a cracked rib, can you do whatever you're supposed to do with a cracked rib? They wouldn't just like start injecting me with stuff. They would do an x-ray or whatever, right? Exactly. But that's unfortunately what we're seeing today. I think there's like over 20 states that have basically said that you cannot question a gender identity because that's considered conversion therapy. And so a lot of doctors now are just immediately affirming this self-diagnosis.

And why do you think that is, Christina? Do you think that's because they've imbibed the ideology? Or do you think they're worried that they're going to be criticized or call transphobic or have professional opportunities curtailed? Because it's considered the standard of care currently. That's what the gender affirming model of care is that's been endorsed by all of these medical organizations. It's in the American Academy of Pediatrics position statement. It's the immediate affirmation of their trans identity. and then referrals for medical interventions. What is it exactly about autism?

Because I think it's very difficult for people who don't have that condition to be able to understand what it is to be autistic. So what exactly is it about autism, particularly autism with puberty, but I think especially for autism as a female, that makes you want to transition that creates this profound sense of discomfort? Well, what we know about autism in girls is that they typically don't get diagnosed until

they're an adult. For a long time, autism is sort of conceptualized as like a boy's disorder because they believed that there were about like four to five males to every one female would get diagnosed, but what research has shown in large-scale population studies have shown is that that race of male to female diminishes as they get older. So what we're finding is that, you know, if there's four to five to one in childhood, that ratio decreases to about two to one in adulthood

once you control for like intellectual disabilities. So that sort of points to like a non-biological reason for why girls aren't getting diagnosed. And we found that there are a lot of diagnostic criteria and screening tools that were sort of created with boys in mind. So that's one reason. There appears to be a sort of female presentation of autism that goes undetected. Girls are also more socially motivated and they're better at camouflaging their traits. So one of the other reasons was Asperger's was sort of consult.

into autism spectrum disorder in 2013 in the DSM. And with the removal of that, I think we're seeing a lot of what we call like high-functioning autistic females who are going flying under the radar, going and detected. And I know from my personal experience, puberty, it's very difficult. That's when social things start becoming a lot more important. and friendships start becoming a lot more important. And not fitting in and not knowing why you can't function at the level of your peers causes a lot of young people to turn inward

and they desperately are seeking an explanation as to why and looking everywhere for it. And that happened to me. I mean, I spent time sort of just trying on different diagnoses to see what fit. and desperately seeking an explanation for why I was different. And I think that's what's happening today with a lot of young autistic girls, and I think it could represent at least part of the equation, why we're seeing so many adolescent teens adopting trans identities today.

At least a partial explanation can be some of them just have not gotten diagnosed with autism yet. or they are attributing their autistic symptoms or traits to signs of gender dysphoria or a trans identity because we have very high rates of gender nonconformity in the autistic population. And those signs of gender nonconformity are really easy to interpret as signs of gender dysphoria because all of these medical organizations and scientific organizations have broadened what it means to be transgender. and they have conflated a trans identity with common gender non-deformity. And I think that's very confusing to young people, especially autistic, who have rigid thinking patterns, social communication problems, identity issues, issues with feeling body connected to their body,

and a lot of different other things like that. And it's surprising as well because we know so much more about autism. We know we know so much more about it. We're more aware of it as a condition. We're more aware of the traits that you would think that people would be able to spot this more effectively. And I take your point that it presents differently and girls and girls want to, you know, tend to mask it far more than boys. But still nevertheless, you'd think that, you know, somebody would be sitting opposite a girl who's profoundly distressed, especially a psychiatrist, and they'd be like, well, this girl is clearly autistic, we'll do a test.

Well, unfortunately, a lot of autism orgs have totally capitulated two activists, and they're completely on board with gender affirming care. I mean, we have like the most prominent researcher at that sort of intersection of autism and gender dysphoria. And his work is extremely troubling. I mean, he will, he sees it as a good thing. He will endorse transition for even autistic people who have intellectual delays. Wow. Yeah. It's not a good situation.

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treated with Ebbglis. Before starting Ebbglis, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about Ebbglis and visit Ebbglis that Lill's. or call 1-800-Lilly RX or 1-800-545-9. And one of the things that people, you know, becoming a father has really influenced the way I think about these things because I can't imagine the distress of a parent whose child is struggling with life. They take them to get help. They're told your child is a different gender or they're now going to be called Stacey

or whatever. and then when they raise questions about it, they're told, well, if you don't do this, your child's going to kill themselves. What is the evidence on the efficacy of transition or social transition or any of these things that are being advocated as gender, firm and care, and inverted commas. What is the evidence about their effectiveness, those interventions? all they have is very short-term follow-ups and low-quality studies that show maybe there's like a short-term benefit and improving their mood or something like that it's I mean if you inject people with testosterone especially stressed girls there's all there's all they're very low quality studies that there's all kinds of other things they also are

getting psychotherapy at the same time so it's very very very low-quality studies that there's all kinds of other things they also are getting psychotherapy at the same time. So it's very, very poor, poor quality studies that show some kind of like short-term benefit. But what we see with detransition is that it typically takes between four to eight years for regret to occur. And it's just terrible the way detransition has talked about in the mainstream media because it's mostly to downplay, diminish their experiences, all the time you see them citing studies on low rates of regret who these studies were on a completely different cohort than the ones that people are most concerned about today. They were on adults with a completely different model of care rather than adolescents

who are under the gender affirming model of care and they have a very high loss to follow up tons of other kinds of methodological flaws. And the best research that we currently have comes from a comprehensive review of medical records from, I think, 2022 that showed about 30% of adolescents and young adults discontinued hormone use after about four years. And that's much higher than, you know, the 1% studies that we sometimes see cited on the different cohort. And in terms of regret, by the way, like, I have a trouble admitting to my wife that I regret buying a t-shirt that I bought. Do you know what I mean? Like, once you've made a mistake, especially one that really, like in this case, really significantly affect your life,

you know, A, it's going to take time to get around to the idea that it may not have been a good idea. And also, some people will, you know, persevere and pretend to not have regret. Like, I know that I've done that. I'm not saying every trans person is doing that. And I want to talk to you about trans people who are kind of happy with their transition. But just instinctively, I would say that it's quite possible that not everyone who says in a survey, I don't have any regrets, actually has no regrets. Do you know what I mean? Exactly. Yeah, there is a bit of like a sunk cost fallacy that I think. And, you know, I want people to be happy with the decisions they're making.

I want people to be happy in the long term with their transition, but I don't see that being possible right now because people are being lied to about the nature of their condition. You know, gender dysphoria is a psychiatric condition with a high rate of desistence. But in my survey of detransitioners and the sisters of a trans identity, I found that, you know, of those who did get medical interventions, 85% said that their doctors and mental health professionals conceptualize their trans identity to them as a medical condition that required medical treatment or that being trans was a biological aspect. that they had no control over. And they were not told that this was a psychiatric condition with a high rate of desistence. And I'm thinking if I was in their position

with the sort of authority that a doctor has, that kind of power imbalance between the doctor and patient, I would have transitioned too in their position. People are not receiving accurate information about their condition. Their doctors are lying to them. Wow. It's very, very troubling.

Do you think that one of the reasons that people are being lied to is there is a stigma around saying that something is a psychiatric disorder in a way that there isn't about a biological disorder? Like if you get skin cancer, no one is going to say, oh, you know, something's wrong with you. You know, you're ill and you need treatment. Whereas with a psychiatric condition, there has been historically a lot of, you know, stigma around that.

Do you think that's part of what's driving this? Yeah, that's a big part of what's driving this, is activists have worked really hard to de-emphasize the importance of gender dysphoria. And now they've moved on to innate gender identity. And this is what activists' organizations have been working really hard to do, is try to obtain some kind of trait that they, some kind of immutable trait so they can obtain civil rights jurisprudence. So in American jurisprudence, if you can find an immutable trait,

you'll receive all of these civil rights protection. So they've sort of decided that innate gender identity, which they sometimes call brain sex or neurological sex, can override sex, your biological sex. and this is this is what we've been seeing I mean it affects so many different other domains besides health care we see it

in legislation as well is a pseudoscientific concept of innate gender identity but there is no empirical evidence to support a biological basis for gender identity and I've looked I've spent the last two years just obsessing over this

there is research to support gender nonconformity sexual orientation, disorders of sexual development, but there is no evidence for an innate gender identity. There's no blood, brain, or any other kind of objective tests that can differentiate between a trans-identified person and a non-trans identified person. Which brings us neatly just to finish this line of discussion. onto people who transition and who are happy with it.

Yeah. How do we explain that? Well, what I'd like to work towards is conceptualizing transgender person as a lifestyle choice and one that, you know, I'm, we totally find accepting other people who decide to live that way. I have no issue with it. But I think that's what we need to work towards. It's, it is a psychiatric condition.

psychiatric condition. And if there are some people who would prefer to live that way, I don't see a problem with it. I just don't want people being misled about the nature of their condition. But I do think that adults should be able to choose that lifestyle for themselves if they want to. It's just, it's, those are cosmetic elective procedures, though. They're not medically necessary. And I think it's a huge mistake to frame them that way. Christina, one of the things I really enjoyed about this conversation is and one of the things that I actually really like about you is that you're clearly a very empathetic person. You care about people and you and the reason you've got involved in this is because

it directly affects you and you want to help people in particular children. Do you get frustrated with the way that this issue has been discussed by certain people online and it has become a cultural topic for want of a better way of describing it? Yeah, I do. I get pretty upset by it. I mean, as much as I can get upset by something, I guess. But I don't like the way that people are demeaned. transgender people

I mean are people first and foremost just like us but they're struggling to reconcile fundamental human needs of identity and belonging and I think that's something we can all relate to and we can relate to that as well and I just think as well and push back if you disagree that

it's fundamentally unhelpful the way that some people are having this conversation because you're going, what you're doing now is toxifying the debate. I think part of the reason that we've actually managed to push back on this stuff in the UK is because it's not really a left or right issue. Yeah. There are people who talk about it on the right, but there's also people like J.K. Rowling, the Labour MP, Rosie Duffield, who are, as far as I'm concerned, absolute heroes who've

stood up to the left and some people on the left and actually said, no, this is wrong. And then there's Suzanne Moore Hadley, for a reason. Like, you could go down, you could find 30 your left wing, prominent left woman who've campaigned on this. Whereas you left, you left, the daily wire, partly over your concerns about the way that they were having that conversation, didn't you? Yeah, I wanted to sort of publicly distance myself from public statements that were made. I strongly believe that we have the evidence and the arguments and the moral high ground, and we need to lead with that and not attack individual people or make claims about eradicating transgenderism from public life, I think.

That's a mistake to talk about this issue that way. Yeah, because for you, what is a... the best way to talk about this issue? I just focus on communicating to people, you know, what the evidence says. And trying to explain to people that this is not a continuation of the civil rights movement. I think a lot of people perceive themselves as social justice warriors, and this is, it's not that. And what can you tell us about that? Because you kind of used to be a bit of a social justice warrior, didn't you? Yeah.

For a long time, I wasn't really involved in politics, but around 2020, I became a social justice warrior during the, you know, I, I, I, was it BLM? Yeah, I didn't have any, I mean, I didn't go out to, like, protest or anything like that. You didn't burn down any cities, mostly peacefully? I can't say going around large groups of people like that. I love the way that's the only reason you didn't burn down cities. Like you just couldn't be in a crowd. No, I just, I did enough damage online.

I was a keyboard warrior. Right. Right. And what was motivating you? What got you into that? Because I trusted all of these institutions and I trusted the mainstream media when they told me that we were experiencing a racism pandemic. And that, you know, I eventually came to my senses and realized that something wasn't right with this. narratives that they were pushing. And that eventually led me to look and see, like, I basically

had to reevaluate everything I've ever learned. I just, I feel like the mainstream media has lost its ability to be objective. They, a lot of times are acting just as activist mouthpieces. And that's one of the reasons I became a journalist in the first place a few years ago, is, because I want people to have access to more accurate information, especially on this topic. They're not getting it currently. I mean, I think since I started working at conservative outlets because there was no other place where you could publish something that was even remotely critical of the gender affirming model of care and the current sort of transgender narrative.

But thankfully, other outlets have sort of stepped up, like the New York Times and Reuters. I mean, we're seeing some progress on that front where even the Washington Post in the last couple weeks has published two op-eds that were sort of, you know, critical of the gender-affirming model of care. Does that frustrate you as a liberal that the left side of the spectrum, for one, of a better way of putting it? because I know it's not the best way, but let's just use that terminology for the moment, that they were so slow to challenge what was happening. It's, they're not doing their jobs.

They're supposed to be journalists. They're not, they weren't doing their jobs. It's, it's, it's, we're in a very strange place right now in the United States where journalists have just, basically been acting as activist mouthpieces. I mean, Jesse Single pointed this out the other week where there's a stock sentence that CNN.com will use, and it's in dozens and dozens of articles. Even in an article, they were writing about the recent cast review. They inserted it, stating that gender affirming care is medically necessary and evidence-based. Those words have

meaning, you know? Yeah, yeah. And they're lying. to people. Christina, I'm really grateful that, you know, this conversation may have seemed dry to some people, but actually I think it's so, so important to have a conversation with less heat and more light. And you bringing the evidence, bringing the facts in a calm and measured way is really, really important because I think it makes it easy for people to hear. When you see people, you know, jabbing their finger in each other's faces and talking about

this from a really unconstructive place, I think a lot of people switch off. from that and I think you're very calm and fact-based analysis is really, really important. So I'd encourage everybody to follow your work. We'll put all the links in the description where they can follow everything that you're doing. And before we move to locals, where we ask you questions from our supporters, tell us what's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be? I think we could be talking about autism more. There's a lot of actual parallels going on between trans activism and sort of the neurodictional. diversity movement, which, you know, neurodiversity. It definitely has, there's positives about it,

but there are a lot of problems going on there, too. Christina, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been an absolute pleasure. Head on over to locals. We will see you there with your questions for Christina. Do you believe in retroactive justice for the perpetrators of this movement? And would you be active in its pursuant.