TRIGGERnometry - Triggernometry Employee Speaks Out - Sophie Spital

Episode Date: July 16, 2023

Sophie Spital is Triggernometry's video editor and the first employee to have joined the Trig team all the way back in 2020. When she's not behind a computer screen making us look good, she speaks and writes about issues including gender dysphoria, autism and ideology - topics with which she has had more than her fair share of first hand experience! Sophie's Twitter: https://twitter.com/SophieSpital Sophie's Substack: https://sophiespital.substack.com/ SPONSORED BY: BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://www.betterhelp.com/trigger/ - get 10% off your first month, and get on your way to being your best self. SPONSORED BY: Manscaped. Get 20% off and free shipping when you use the code TRIGGER20 at https://www.manscaped.com/ Sex and Autism study: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263971492_Attenuation_of_Typical_Sex_Differences_in_800_Adults_with_Autism_vs_3900_Controls Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.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/sign-up/ 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. 00:00 Intro  01:07 Sophie Spital’s Background 04:51 The Liberal Feminist Mindset 09:29 How Autism Impacts Worldview  11:48 Gender Identification  17:27 Experiencing Gender Dysphoria 21:42 Social Media’s Influence on Gender Ideology 25:56 Sponsor Message: BetterHelp 27:47 The Connection Between Autism & Gender Dysphoria 40:38 Why Aren’t We Recognising Autism? 46:04 'Identifying With' Vs 'Identifying As' 34:13 Sponsor Message: Manscaped 55:37 The Implications of the New Trans Worldview 58:04 Do These New Trans Policies Say Something Deeper About Society? 59:21 The Invention of the Concept of Gender 1:03:23 What Other Positive Changes Do we Need to Make? 1:09:15 The Demonisation of Masculinity 1:12:11 Coming to Peace with Who You Are 1:15:32 What’s the One Thing We’re Not Talking About? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If I were born 10 years later, you know, but for the grace of God, there's no doubt in my mind that I would have transitioned. I got really involved in, like, feminism about like 10 odd years ago. I think what sucked me into it in the first place was this kind of revelation of like, everything is socially constructed. And it became quite clear to me that it's just like, no, that's not the case. The fact that I was autistic getting diagnosed was what helped me. There is a link.

I think it's something like 40% of girls who transition are autistic. Yeah, yeah. Why are we not talking about this? Letting children do whatever they want is not kind. No, and it might make you feel like you're doing the kind thing, and the whole society can tell you it's kind. But what we're doing now is like the least kind thing that can ever be done to children. Hello, and welcome to Trigonometry.

I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissing. And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Fantastic guest today is somebody you have not seen on the podcast circuit. She's, in fact, the first person that we ever hired to work with us here at Trigonometry. She edits most of the videos that you guys see. And she has a very interesting story to tell about some of the things that we talk about regularly on the show. Sophie Spittle, welcome to Trigonometry.

Thank you. It's nice to be here. Bit weird, but yeah. Bit weird to be on the other side of the camera. Exactly. It's great to actually have this conversation. You've been building up to it for a long time. We'll get into the stuff that you want to talk about,

and we want to ask you about. Before we do, though, what has been the journey that's taking you to be sitting here? Because you were the first person we hired, as I said. You emailed us saying, hey, are you looking for anybody? And it kind of took off from there. What's been your journey through life? Yeah. Yeah, well, I come from Chelmsford and Essex.

That's where I was born. I moved to Brighton, which is for anyone who doesn't know. It's like the Portland, Oregon of the UK. So it's a very, very progressive place. I got really involved in, like, feminism about like 10 or years ago because I was trying to do the right thing. At the time, it was that kind of liberal feminism of that sort of intersectional. It's totally different from the feminism.

And then she met us. But, yeah, so I was really involved with that. And I would have considered myself at that point, woke. Like, I actually, like, I've found diary stuff from that. time and I actually did call myself woke. It was like not a pejorative just like actually, you know, and I was proud of it. And I was very like into that progressive stuff. And then well, long story short on that one, I caught very disillusioned with it when I saw that it didn't actually marry up with like reality. And there was a bit, there was some good, good seeds,

seeds of truth in there, but I moved away from that. But I was really, really passionate about the truth and doing the right thing and doing what's good and right in the world. And that's kind of why I never really kind of make fun of or, you know, I don't think people are stupid on the other side because I'm like, I know a lot of them are really well-meaning and a lot of them, they just, they want to be, they want to do the moral right thing in their lives. And that was what was given me at the time. Anyway, so I, then I got really into listening to Douglas Murray, he was the gateway drug to basically leaving behind a lot of the leftism that I had at the time. I was really passionate about getting to the truth.

And I just saw these people that a lot of people have been on the show, speaking this truth that I realized just wasn't marrying up with what people said about what these people are. These people are evil, racist, bigots. And I was like, well, if I actually listen to what they say, that's not the case. And so I kind of flipped from being on the far left. to being, well, not on the far right. I'm not sure I like that analogy.

On to the legitimate right. And then I'm a bit like that. I go to extremes. And I've been finding my place on that stuff. Anyway, so I started listening to a lot of this stuff. And then I found trigonometry during the lockdown, actually, the first lockdown. And I was just like, someone said,

my friend Ruth was like, oh, just check this out. I think you're like this. And I looked through the feed. And I was like, oh my gosh, it's like all the people I love and listen to. And so got hooked on that. And then I messaged you guys being like, you know, hey, is there anything I can do to help? And unbeknownst to me at that time, young sweet Anton, who's the producer, was completely inundated with stuff.

And so I stepped in and pretty much took over from there. You absolutely did. And look, actually the thing that we want to talk to you about isn't wokeness necessarily. No, no, not all. But I was curious that you said that you said that you, You were, obviously we've talked about this before, she's spilling water on herself. Scott Coffin, classic so. Yeah.

You were talking about the fact that you were in this kind of liberal feminist mindset. Yeah. And then you mentioned that it didn't marry up to reality, which is what sort of shook you out of that to some extent. Yeah. Yeah. What was it that made you think that it didn't marry up to reality? Like, what were some of the clashes between reality and ideology that you experienced? Yeah.

Good question. There was a lot of stuff like, I think what sucked me into it in the first place was this kind of revelation of like everything is socially constructed. So for example, you look at things, people come to you and they say, well, why do we have blue as the boy colour and pick for the girl colour? And you go, oh yeah, they're just arbitrary colours, but we've assigned this to them. And then a lot of stuff was, you see stuff and I still see it online about like children's colour. clothes and it's like all the boys' clothes are like building and fighting and, you know, triumphing and all the girls' clothes are like, be kind, you know, be sweet, lovely. And at the time, the narrative was everything is socially constructed. So there's no difference between men and women at all. It's literally just how we socialise them in society. And I've really brought into that, even to the extent where I didn't believe that there was such thing as someone being subjectively beautiful. Like I remember arguing with someone being like, are you only think she's beautiful because, you know, you've been socialized that way. And you're and you're, you've been

socialize that way and all this kind of stuff. Really? Yeah, legitimately. So I was like online in line with the thinking, you're even like the kind of thinking you see now, which is like, no disrespect, but people being like obese with a shaved head and like loads of piercings, but saying like, I'm a tent and I'm just as attractive as this person who just don't understand it because you've been, you know, anyway. So sort of trouble. You know what? That makes your point so well about, you know, the people on the other side of the. there is such a thing, are not stupid because you're an incredibly smart person. And you're very intelligent, but for you to believe something that factually incorrect is

quite incredible, right? Because our standards of beauty are based on biology and hip ratio and all of that, right? Symmetry and all of that. So it's so interesting that you could have been dissuaded to think that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the thing is, I'm a bit of a normal enough person. And so when I saw the seed of this, I jumped into it and I started seeing everything through that lens. And actually, quite quickly, because I went into it full throttle, like I saw the fault in it very quickly as well, because, you know, it was just like, it's a sort of a blessing and a curse, because it kind of means that I can throw myself into something and I can be in it, like, fully in it and then see the problems like very quickly as well.

But yeah, so I started to see how this just doesn't marry up with reality. And I started to understand, well, actually, you know, there are reasons. I started learning a little bit more about the differences, like, between men and women, like, neurologically and, you know, in terms of our bodies and everything. And it became quite clear to me that it's just like, no, that's not the case. And again, even with the thing about, as I said, school, sorry, not school, clothing in, like, shops, it's the message that you get at the time was you know boys and girls are blank slate and we've socialised girls to be into flowers and pretty things and the boys into these things but the reality is is that the market is following the response the market isn't interested in like churning out like strong boys and weak girls or whatever the market is just following what people like and yes there is probably an element well there's definitely an element of um girls get socialised into it because that's the majority thing.

But it's also like the reason that, you know, if they started, you know, putting loads of, if they put them boys' clothes stuff on a lot of the girls' clothes stuff, you know, when they're old enough to choose their own, they're not going to choose it. They are, the girls are more likely to choose the kind of princess dress over the spine of my outfit, like, you know, most girls. So, yeah, I just realise it's more complicated than that. than what I'd initially thought. And there were other things, but yeah.

Sophie, you've always been a fascinating person to me. Cheers, darling. But genuinely, you have. And one of the things that I really enjoy talking with you about with you is autism, being neurologically atypical. When did you realise that you were autistic and you saw the world in a different way?

Yeah. Well, that was around... Well, actually, I always kind of knew it because I had sensed it in many ways. Actually, funnily enough, a lot of the things I've discovered about autism, I had no idea where we're connected to autism at the time when I got diagnosed. So I was diagnosed when I was 25. So that's 2015.

It's not actually that uncommon to get diagnosed that late in life. For most girls, actually, that's changed now because people are thinking about a lot more. But most women who are diagnosed were diagnosed in adulthood because they manifest differently in terms of the boys tend to kind of act out. and have meltdowns and very, like, explosive in school and the girls are just kind of like, I like rules and just like working and like high achievers. And so I was like that.

I was like that all the way through school. It's like achievement, you know, and I did my school, my, you know, college, uni, and then, but the problems didn't really arise until after uni because everything happened to that point was very structured. And then you finish uni and it's like I literally have the entire world of choices. and I don't know what to do. And like the paralysis of that

and other problems that I had with not being able to respond to change, executive functioning skills, so life management skills, just got me to a place of complete breakdown, really. Like I literally, like just not being able to function in the world. And I was very ashamed of that because at the time I didn't know it was autism. So I just thought, I don't get it.

Like I'm really high achieving and get high grades and, you know, a good degree and everything. but I can't like do the washing up and I know and a lot of that to do sensory issues as well but yeah so there was a lot of shame that I had attached to that and for other reasons which we'll go into but but yeah the warning signs are always there but it is the black and white thinking and the kind of really extreme thinking you know which you know it leads you sometimes call me an extremist but also as well I mean you told that story from your PE lesson and obviously tell it because you're going to tell it a lot better than me

when it comes to identification and gender ID. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah. So, yeah, so another part of my experience. Let's just set the context a little bit. Yeah, go for it. Because I think the issue that we've talked a lot about on the show, as you well know, is how, I mean, and this is why I asked you about wokeness,

because it just shows you how ideology is so powerful. Yeah, for real. that it can convince you even a very smart person like you and like me and like everyone, really, of things that are just patently not true. Yeah. But ideology is a very powerful thing. And one of the things we've talked a lot about on the show is the rise in transgenderism and young children in particular identifying out of their gender and so on.

Yeah. How that marries up to, you know, a lot of the other stuff, particularly in relation to autism. I mean, there's a clear link between people who are autistic and people who are transitioning. And a lot of people essentially are making the argument that the overwhelming majority of the increase in recent years is basically autistic and gay children. Sort of looking for an answer to why they're different and ending up in this new thing. And the reason we wanted to have you on is that that is actually, to some extent, your experience. So tell us that now that we've said that. Now that we've set that up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's weird that I'm about to tell my story to, however many people. Two. Yeah, two, yeah, the cameras are off. Yeah, I always experienced thinking that I was a boy from a young age. And it's hard to explain what that means because it's like, what does that mean? And it wasn't that I wanted to be a boy. or like I was telling people, I'm a boy.

I'm actually a boy. I actually genuinely thought I was. And I didn't realize that I was a girl until something would come along and remind me. So I think what you were referring to, maybe Francis was, yeah, like I think when I was in assembly in primary school. So I don't know how old I was maybe like five or something. And the teacher asked us, asked every, well, no, sorry, the teacher asked the boys specifically. a question and I started answering and I just remember the boys next to me being like, why are you answering? You're a girl. And I was like, oh yeah, I'm a girl. Yeah, got to remember that.

Got to remember that. And it was kind of like that all the way. Like I default into thinking that I was male and that other people saw me as male. And that carried on all the way through my life, really pretty much until, well, until some stuff happened later that, you know, has alleviated that. But, but, yeah, like, I had that all the time. Like, and even when I was, like, 25, like, my friends, I had my hair cut and my friends like, oh, you know, you should get some lipstick. Um, because at the time, I don't think I'd really worn makeup apart from when I've been forced to do for a special occasion, but, um, I didn't like, you know, girls stuff at all. I was completely like, I was just always with the boys and I was just a massive tomboy and I didn't like that stuff.

Anyway, yeah, my friends were like, oh, let's get you some lipstick and they sort of march me down to boots and, I mean, obviously, I love lipstick now. I can see, I love it now. Like, it's actually quite fun. It's like a little sort of coloring in book at the start of the day, every day, which is fun for me. But like the, we went there. They put the lipstick on me. And I just genuinely felt like just really like ashamed because I just felt, well, I felt like a clown, first of all. And then when I walked home wearing the makeup, I was just like expecting everyone to look at me like, you know, like, you know, because I thought that they were seeing a man.

The way people might look at a man wearing obvious makeup. Yeah, exactly. And I thought that they would see a man walking down the street in drag. So I thought I'd draw, you know, stairs. But then I had to remind myself, oh, no, you're a woman. And so they're seeing a woman wearing lipstick, which is normal for them. And so, like, that was as I say, when I was 25 before I was diagnosed. So that was kind of my story all the way through life.

And it wasn't the done thing back in those days to, especially not for girls, to do anything about it. Because you don't. You just say, I'm a tomboy and I'm comfortable with these. things and I just carry on. Also, there's no, like the reason why up until very recently with the whole explosion of girls identifying is trans, it was pretty much all boys. And I think the reason, one of the reasons for that is that there's no socially safe way for a boy to sort of, gender bend, as it were. Like for me, I just wore shorts and t-shirts and whatever. So I could wear boys' clothes, but it didn't look like I was cross-dressing, whereas if you're a little

boy and you hate being a boy and you want to be a girl, you know, you'll start wearing dresses and then, you know, you're going to very quickly, it's going to be evidence to everyone around you that there's some incongruity going on there. And Sophie, did you feel, apart from this one instance with the makeup, did this cause you particular distress? Did you feel a sense of discomfort or disgust for your own body, which is what some people talk about? Yeah. Well, actually, interestingly, I feel like the pressure almost like in terms of fit in with the narrative is to say, yeah, I really, you know, had a problem my body. I actually, I actually didn't.

I had, because when you, when you don't have a choice to opt out of your gender, as so many teenagers have given the choice now, you just get on with it. And, you know, realistically speaking, there's not too many moments in one's life where your sex actually comes into play. And so, you know, you learn to use the bathroom with this symbol on it, the lady symbol. And that's it really. And when people referred to me as a woman,

it was just a little reminder, oh yeah. I mean, there was a bit of a, there was, it did hurt not being able to join in with the boys. And like, so I explain, when I talk about gender dysphoria now, which is what it is, you know, it's defined as the persistent discomfort and distress associated with your sex.

I think that's the right definition. When I, yeah, when I experienced that, I talk about it in terms of like two separate categories. There's the actual thinking I was a boy and then there's the wanting to be. So as I, the wanting to be wasn't there when I was young. But when I got older and I would have a reminder that I'm a woman, I would then have feelings of, my life would be so much better if I were a man and everything would be, I don't know, like I just got really annoyed with the seemingly arbitrary things that were foisted on me as a girl to, to, to, that seem to be valuable to other people, like in terms of looking after your appearance

or whatever, like, I have to wash my face every morning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but seriously, it's just like, I mean, like, I didn't, like, wash my hair, do my hair. And I've talked about it before, and I think my mum feels quite bad about it. But, you know, she basically said to me, when I was, like, 13 or something, like, you need to start washing your hair. And if you don't wash your hair, like, I will cut the whole lot off. And because it had genuinely got to the stage of being, like, matted and horrible. And I was just so not bothered about that stuff.

and I saw it as such a waste of time and such a stupid imposition that I just couldn't tell us. Anyway, she did cut all my hair off. So she was a woman of her word? She was, yeah, yeah, yeah. And she feels bad about that because she thinks people will think that,

you know, that she's an evil mother. But I think it was the right thing to do, to be honest, because it did make me buck up my ideas a little bit. But yeah, so there were, sorry, there were like those feelings. But I think one of the interesting things is I see a lot of people who are going through gender dysphoria online talking about their hatred for their bodies. But I was different in that I never thought about my body.

Like, I don't think I realized I had a body until I was like 23 or something, which is, obviously, that's a little bit exaggerated because, of course, you know, you have a body. But what I mean is I never thought about it. Like, you know, I probably thought about my body as about as much as you think about your capillaries. Do you mean? Yeah. Yeah. I know they're there or, or maybe like choose something that you can actually physically see. Like, I don't know, the crook of your elbow or something. It's like, I know it's there. I can see it, but I never think about it. And I didn't think about, yeah, so I actually, you know, contrary to, yeah, what a lot of people kind of experience with their sort of hatred of the body, I was just completely disassociated from it.

And I actually, so I had the blessing of never being in any way dissatisfied with my body. because I just never thought about it. So I was just like, it's working, it's functioning, it's fine. Do you think that's part of the problem now is because of social media and gender ideology that kids are now being encouraged and in fact could be argued, manipulated into an obsession with their own bodies? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, like, I'm showing my age, but we didn't really have social media when I was growing up back in the day. It's impersonating us. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so we didn't really have social media. So it was, there wasn't that fixation on, I mean, girls around me were always kind of, you know, especially in school, the girls were like, you know, doing their hair and makeup and stuff. But, I mean, I actually, yeah, I think I developed quite a lot of sexism, really, against women because of, because of that.

Because I didn't understand the value of it. And I, yeah, the audience. Do you think they were vain or something? thing. Yeah. Like I had a, I, when I was working through, so obviously we will come to like how, because, you know, basically there was an alleviation of my gender dysphoria. Due to. We'll get there. Yeah, we'll get there. But, but yeah, I realized that because of the autism and my black and white way of thinking, there just wasn't any space for like, there wasn't any space for nuance. Autists don't do nuance.

I mean, I try really hard to do it now because, like, I care so much about the truth and the truth is nuanced. And so you have to, like, I have to actively go against the type to really, really work on that because it's important to me. But I basically just looked at the girls were like, like, you know, why would you rather play with a Barbie than an action man? An action man abseils and shoots missiles and, you know, does cool stuff, you know, rock climbing and what. And the Barbie is literally just standing there with like a mirror. And I was just like, and so it blew my mind that other girls would choose this. And, you know, like now, as I say, with a bit of nuance, I understand that, you know, dolls and things like that are very good, like social tools for learning many things. And they're very, very useful.

and there's nothing wrong with choosing a Barbie. But at the time, I just had so much disdain for girls. And that made me disassociate even further to the point where I didn't even consider myself one of them. And so I had, when I was working through trying to get over my gender dysphoria, I met with one of the pastors of my church, Stephen, and he, you know, I were talking about it. And I was like, oh, like, what? I don't want to be a woman. women are so boring and just air-headed and all they care about is their appearance and,

you know, like, and I'm really, like, passionate about, like, philosophy and history and all these important intellectual things and, you know, and they're just, they're just not on my level. And he was like, yo, you're being really sexist. You need to repent. Genuinely. And I was like, that just really hit me because I was just like yeah I am I'm being sexist

and what I'd done is I'd conflated all of the worst things I'd seen about this sort of picture of femininity had built up in my mind to almost make an enemy so if you've got an enemy you can run away from it

or fight it or whatever and then I just realized that I mean obviously that was sexist and I'm being a bit over the top about it. But so, but yeah, I had to work through that because I realized that there's just so many, that's so not true.

And like some of the things that I had a problem with are just women, just being women, in the same way that a lot of people have problems with the things that are masculine. And they're just, you know, it's just men being men a lot of the time. And it's like, it's not, it's just that I was an outlier on the belly. curve that I resented that. So can we come back chronologically a little bit? Yeah. Because one of the narratives in the modern world is that a lot of young people experience all

of these sort of feelings and thoughts around puberty because that's when the shock of reality of their biology comes in. I know it's an intimate question, but I think it's relevant to this conversation. You would have gone through. Did that not have an impact on? Puberty. Yeah. Literally not at all.

Like, I don't remember when I started my period. I don't remember my body changing. I don't really. Literally, I couldn't give you any insight into that at all. That's so interesting. It was like, yeah, I have not one memory of thinking that. That is fascinating. That is so interesting.

I think I noticed, I think once when I was in PE, when I was in high school, I noticed that I had hair on my legs for the first time. That's the only memory I have. Yeah. Okay, well, moving on then. from the hairy legs conversation. I'm just curious to talk about the link with autism. Yeah, yeah.

Because this is something you've done a lot of looking into. For real. How do these things connect? Yeah, yeah. Well, this is the thing. I think a lot of people, people know now that it does connect. Yes. I think several years ago I was tearing my hair out

because I was just like finding out about my health, the fact that I was autistic getting diagnosed. was what helped me to, which helped me to heal really from gender dysphoria. Maybe not here wasn't the right word, but like it alleviated it as I understood my autism because it just explained it all. And yeah, so I was looking into, when I found out I had autism, when I got diagnosed, I started looking into the neuroscience of it because obviously autism is a neurodevelopmental condition. And so I started looking to neurodevelopment. I read this brilliant book by Professor

Sir Simon Baron Cohen of Cambridge University. He's like the world leading authority on autism, really, or one of them. But he's also like world leading in cognitive sex differences. So the way men and women's brains work differently. So he's about five minutes away from getting cancelled. That's true enough, yeah. So. I was reading his book. He wrote a book called The Essential Difference, which if it was brought out, if it all brought out 10 years ago,

probably would have been torn to shreds, but it was about, I think it's about 20 years old now. But he basically distills all of the scientific literature on the differences between the way men and women think into this, you know, very readable book, and I'd recommend anyone to read it. But one of the things that I learned in that book

was the differences between men and women in terms of what's called empathy, empathising and systematising skill sets. And so, like, this is kind of, this is just putting the scientific label on what we already know, which is that generally speaking, the majority of men are more interested in things and concepts and systems and, like, problem solving and that. And the majority of women are less interested in that and more interested in the kind of emotional side of life, relationship building, looking after children, nurturing, building that kind of thing.

And so I think summed up, really, it's that most men are more interested in things and most women are more interested in people. And those are the bell curves. And obviously there's outliers, which we'll come back to. But anyway, so then I learned about the extreme male brain theory of autism because the amazing thing that, you know, that, you know, the combining his two fields of autism and cognitive sex differences is that

if you look at the brain of someone with autism, their brain is like an exaggerated version of the male brain, right? So, really high systematizing, really low empathizing. And that's the same for men and women. I mean, I've got a little graph that I can put up, but it shows the differences that, you know, you've got the men and the women. The men are less empathic and the women are more empathic, but they're quite similar. And then down the other end, you've got really unempathic men and women with autism. Anyway, obviously, to learn that the autistic brain is like a male brain on crack,

you know, started to answer my questions. Because I think before that, I'd thought there was something wrong with me. You know, like I was, I was deeply ashamed because I felt like a failure as a woman before, which was one of the reasons I ran away from it because I had such low levels of empathy. I'm in like the second percentile for compassion. So, you know, 100 people in a room is like one person with less compassion than me. And that's way lower than the average for a male, let alone a female. And so I'm a Christian, as you well know, a top-level crozzo, as you call me.

And for me, one of the really important things to do is to love people and to be loving. And I think, again, like that's probably why I got involved with feminism, because at the time, I was like, I want to fight, I want to do the right thing, I want to make the world better for women. But yeah, so this injunction to be loving was so important to me, but I didn't feel loving feelings, right? Because I didn't have these compassionate empathic feelings. And I was surrounded, particularly in the church, with loads of amazing, compassionate, like, pastoral women. And they were just, and I just felt nothing, you know. And so I felt really deeply ashamed of that.

But then when I, so I thought I was defective, I thought I was a failure, really, as a woman. And then when I started learning about the extreme male brain stuff, I was like, well, like, I'm autistic. I'm not, you know, I realized that I was just, I wasn't a man, you know, I realized that I was just a rarer type of woman. And that was the key, really. That just unlocked everything, you know, because, I mean, it was gradual. It was like the key turned and then the door opened really slowly because I, yeah, I did move quite slowly into appreciating that. But it started to explain everything because I was like, well, okay, I don't need to, I did try. I went for a few years of trying really hard to sort of be what I thought a woman should be in terms of.

some of it stood me in good stead now in terms of like helping people but I I took a lot of like lessons and training and like pastoral care and so like I can I know the right things to do like if someone is in distress or like I'm not you know if someone is grieving or stuff so I've learned actually a lot of practical skills but doesn't mean the feelings there but anyway another one of my elders or you know pastors same thing at church really helped me with that because before I was diagnosed of autism I went to him and I was saying, you know, I feel really bad because I haven't got these loving feelings and I want to be loving and I want to, you know, following Jesus footsteps and love people. But I don't feel these feelings and he said, you know, like, you know, that he basically said, you're perhaps you could be the one person in a room where there's like a crisis and everyone else is overwhelmed by their emotions. and, you know, but you can be like, see through it and, you know, be like really

helpful in that situation and just use your gifts and, and, yeah, that really helped me, that really stuck with me because I realized that, yeah, I was, I was trying to, you know, I was trying to be the opposite of what I was. And now I see actually that the love, primarily isn't about feelings. Like any parent knows, or you have to be a parent, but you were a teacher,

I think you mentioned it once or twice. And also isn't your mum from Venezuela? Exactly. Nailed it. Yeah, what was the same? So you... The love isn't necessarily about feelings, it's about actions, I'm guessing.

Well, not even necessarily, like, you can... This is a problem, I think, that we really just kind of messed up with over the last few years that we think to be loving to someone is to just go along with everything they want. And, you know, like, if you're a loving parent and your child wants, like, chocolate, like, just before bedtime

or whatever, you just say, no, you can't have that. And that's being loving in the moment. And they feel like, you know, you hate me or whatever, like you want me to die, you know. But it's just like you actually know what's best. and what you're doing is loving. But I think at the moment we are so, I think that one of the only values that we kind of hold to

in this kind of sort of post-Christian-Christian-y, sort of failing liberal kind of Western project is, one of the only things we have is be kind. We just have to be kind and nice. And that's how we know we're good people. And I think because we everyone wants to be good, I think. I think most people care about it. They want to be good.

They want to be on the right side of history. And what they're told now is the loving good thing to be, is to be kind. It's to be really kind. And so, but it isn't tempered by truth. And, you know, I think, so here's some Chryso stuff, just pre-warning. But like the Bible says of Jesus that he was full of grace and truth. And I think that the Western project has only flourished in as much as it's held to those, that Christly balance of grace and truth. I want to say grace, I mean like, you know, grace, compassion, mercy, tenderness.

We need, it's nice to show grace to someone, but you also need to do the right thing and the thing that is true. Your point is letting children do whatever they want is not kind. No, and it might make you feel like you're doing the kind thing. And the whole society can tell you it's kind. But what we're doing now is like the least kind thing that can ever be done to children. And I often think about this with pronouns because like if I were born 10 years later, you know, but for the grace of God, there's no doubt in my mind that I would have transitioned, that I would have gone the whole hog.

And that's the thing about autistic. people is like we go the whole hog. Like if you notice. Yeah, just a little bit. It's just like, I got into Star Trek and like two weeks later I'd bought like a full uniform and like that's just that's just me but that's just autists like. Like that's what we're like and and you know, there's some beauty to that and some craziness. But going the whole hog, I would have done that with transition.

I would have had a mastectomy. I would have, you know, it would have been, it would just. wasn't a solution at the time. But like, I look back in that. I'm just like, I can't believe that we're getting to, we've gotten to a place in society where we think, oh, that's okay, like, that's the loving thing to do, just give them what they want when their children, the literary children. The brain doesn't finish developing until like 25 anyway. But to give, you know, puberty blockers and, you know, medical intervention to children. It's just like absolutely insane. It's like how do we get to this place? And I do think it's this lack of, of like, truth and like the value of like freedom and

being loving just in scenes the ultimate value. And why do you think as well? Because I think there must be another reason. I accept your point. I think that's a major part of it. But the link between autism and gender dysphoria, why is it that we, that we are not looking into, to that. Why are we not studying that? Because that is, that there is, there is a link. I think it's something like 40% of girls. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Why are we not talking about this? The, the, the figures are scary. Like, the Tavostock's, like, the CQC report on the Tavistock clinic for the, for child gender transition, is like 50% had autism or ADHD, which is very similar in some ways.

There's also a report, an article written by two of the previous JIDs members of staff that say that 50% of their, like they did a strategic sort of analysis and 50% of them are autistic. There are so many reasons why it's such an appealing prospect to autistic people. Yeah, one of them is, you know, like obviously on the, the female side of things, you've got that kind of, yeah, that neurological shift to the male direction. So of course, all your interests are going to be similar to your male peers, all of everything you see, like everything that's expected of you, which is kind of, again, as I say, it's, it's natural and it's based on the, it's based on the majority. Like, everything we have in society is based on

the majority. So it's like, if you're an outlier, that's, that's going to affect you badly. But, I think France's question was more about why is it that we don't look at this obvious thing that's staring us in the face as a society dealing with this issue and we're not going, well look, if autism is, let's say it's a comorbidity is that maybe something we should look at?

Maybe we should think about that? Do you see what I mean? Yeah, 100%. The only thing I was just going to say about the other side of it, which is the boys thing, is that because you could say, oh, well, the boys are getting an extreme male brain. So surely they should be more manly.

But there's so many other things that come along with autism that are going to affect you in terms of your social impairment. Like, if you are just socially delayed, and autism is a delaying thing, you know, like I was like the last in my class to learn to read. I was, yeah, say I didn't know about my body until there's, you know, in my 20s, I didn't, yeah, I didn't make a friend until like I was 10 or something. So there's that delay.

And if you've got that delay and you're a boy and you're going to be socially less confident as well. And the girls would tend to make friends of you more like the autistic guys I know, you know, like most of their friends are girls because they're more accepting of your quirks or your, your uncoolness or whatever and they take you under their wing in a way. And so you kind of get on the boy's side. Why don't we recognise it as a problem in society? I mean, we are saying, oh, it's one of the many comorbidities. You say, oh, you know, a lot of people who are transgender,

they are some, you know, a lot of them are, you know, ADHD or a lot of them have autism. But it's just like we've totally neglected to understand that there's a difference between having a comorbidity and something being the cause of something. So, like, there was a study in 2019 that showed that of, what was it, of those who identified as trans and non-binary, 42% met the criteria for an autism diagnosis. And, you know, obviously, the normal rate of autism in the general population is about 2%. So, and Dr. Stack, who led the study, was like, you know, I don't know if he was a whistleblower, so speak, more probably just following the outcome of his study, but it was just like, we need to be screening people for autism, anyone who comes in to ask about gender stuff.

And, yeah, as I say, the tragic thing is that we haven't looked into it. But I think I know the reason why we've been so rubbish at looking into, um, all of the comorbidities and problems and causes, I mean, like, if you look at the, like, the stats on the Tavistock from Hanna-Bahn's book, Time to Think, which is an excellent piece of journalism, the stats are just terrifying. It's like 2.5% or something of the intake didn't have any kind of major, like issue with like abuse or yeah neurodivergence or I think 25% of them had been in care compared to 0.6, 7% of the population. Like a lot of them had had 10 times more likely to have experienced abuse, like sexual abuse,

I think. There are all these things like there's self-harm, there's OCD, there's all these different things. and they weren't looked up. I think I know the reason. And the reason is, like, well, I split life, as we know it, history, into two eras. So I think there's the era of old trans and the era of new trans. And the era of old trans goes up to about 2017, I'd say, around that period. And then the era of new trans is everything after that. And these are two wildly different ways of at the trans experience. So up until 2017, the way that we thought of the trans experience was,

like, it wouldn't have been like, because I lived in Brighton, as I say, I live in Brighton. And you would sometimes see a fella in a dress 10 years ago, 15 years ago. But if you'd spoken to him at the time, you said like, oh, you know, why you wearing your dress? He might say, well, I know I'm a man, but like, I feel more comfortable in women's clothes. And I've always related to women. And I always, you know, I've always identified with women. But then when this shift happened around 2017, people went from saying that they identify with women to identify as a woman. And so we went from saying, I feel like something to I am something.

and the repercussions of that, that little shift, affect literally everything. Like, it is all, the entire problem that we have now is all down to this shift. And I can give you myriad examples. But like, so, I mean, we had Marcus Evans on the show, a whistleblower from the Tavistock. He'd been there for like 35 years, you know, consultant psychotherapist, I think. And he said, you know, like, in the old. days before this big shift and everything. If someone comes in saying, you know, I'm really distressed, you know, like I feel like trapped in the wrong body or whatever, the treatment pathway for them was

exploratory therapy. So it's like, let's look at your life in the round. Let's look at, you know, your relationship with your parents, relationship with your peers. Has there been any abuse, any trauma? What are your expectations of what actually means to be a man or a women in the world. Talk us through that. And all these different things, and they explore those things. But when this new kind of way of thinking of saying it's your identity and it's who you are, rather than just feelings that you have, came in, you can't do that anymore. Because if your gender is who you are, and it's not that you feel like a boy, you can't treat something that you are. Yeah. Quite. Yeah. I mean, it's like, it's like, because, you know, it's not, you feel like a boy. You can't treat something. You can't treat something that you are.

Quite, yeah. I mean, it's like, because it would be transphobic. It'd be like, or it's be like someone with Down syndrome going into the doctor. They don't try to cure your Down syndrome or they don't try and cure you of being black. It's just like, do you know what I mean? Because it's, that would be. Yeah. Well, no, it's not even your identity. It's who you are. It's intrinsic to your. So this is the thing. So like, there's, in the old days, it was seen as, again, The reason I'm giving this 2017 cut-off point is because something strange happened there. I think it might be to do with people needing to shore up their sense of being a good person in the wake of Brexit and Trump. Very, very polarising year 2016. And people were desperate to kind of, I think, no, commits themselves and others that they were on the right side. And this was the thing that came along. And you have certain things that came along around that time, like India Willoughby, former guests of the show. was on Celebrity Big Brother in 2018.

I'm a real woman, Amanda. I want you to know that. A real woman, okay, I'm glad that's syncing in. I'm going to say one more time so it really penetrates. I am a real woman, okay? And then obviously around that time, you see the emergence of the phrase like trans women are women. And in fact, if you think about it,

when was the last time you heard someone say, identify as a woman? They don't do it anymore. They don't even say that anymore. So the identifies even been dropped. So now it's who you are. And as I say, so once, yeah, I thought, so when I read time to think the book about the Tavistock, I thought, I had this idea in my head that the kids are coming along to the Tavistock being referred.

And there must be some, like, it can't just be that they rubber stamp them and said, oh, you know, puberty blockers. There's adults in the room. It's all not the way that people say in the media. It's all being properly looked into. And you would think that because you're like, this is. is a place of clinicians, it's on the NHS, it's being overseen, there's no way. And you read the book and you're like, oh, Flip, it actually was like that. Like, there was so much intervention from, from, like, mermaids and other, like, politicised bodies and such a culture of fear,

they were literally just being like, okay, they had this thing called, this model called gender affirming care, which is, you know, an Orwellian sort of a, uh, uh, twisting of words really because, you know, it's like, you know, to really affirm someone would be to say you're brilliant just the way you are and you don't need to change, and you don't need to try and fit into these sex stereotypes and, you know, you go for it. But anyway, so this affirming care, which comes in with this idea of it's who you intrinsically are, that just made everything a problem. It sort of solidified it. And it became the gold standard, not just the gold standard of care, but like the American psychological

Association and all these top bodies said this is the way to care. And if you're not doing that, if you're just exploring it, like in the old days, you're kind of casting down their problems, sorry, you're casting doubt on their identity and who they intrinsically are. And it's not that they've got a problem, they've just discovered the truth of who they are. But this problem, this shift from I feel like to I am, this old trans way of thinking and this new trans way of thinking has affected everything else as well. So it's not just, you know, autistic and gay and other vulnerable children being treated because of this, you know, in my mind, a massive medical scandal and medical neglect.

But it's also, we see it in every area like in terms of women's spaces. Because, again, it's like old trans. You've got a man who, you know, he feels like a woman, he feels comfortable, woman's close, fine, but it's not going in the women's change rooms because he's not entitled to, he's not a woman. But now it's like, well, he is a woman and therefore, you know, he's entitled to that, that space. And this is why, this is why I think people, a lot of people just think, I don't get this trans argument, like why can't we just live and let live and why can't they just reconcile? Because it can't be reconciled. It's a conflict of rights. It's a conflict of

rights. And so the only way that we can deal with these problems is by going back just a few years ago, just what, like seven, eight years ago, whatever, to, you know, live and let live, wear what you want, call yourself what you want, like, that's fine. And I don't mind, I don't care. Like, no one cares how someone dresses and chooses to live there, you know, express themselves. But I'm sorry, we can't overreach into the area of you actually are this. And we just, but this is, this is, this is the great news because, as I said before, like, that I think the trans experiment has failed because we are seeing all these dominoes fall when people are suddenly realizing that the negative results of what's happened.

people are suddenly realizing that the negative results of what's happened because it started, as I say, 2017-18, started building up online. Then we're going to lockdown. Everyone's in their homes or online for a few years. The real-world implications of this new trans worldview aren't manifested. We come out of lockdown. We try to apply those, that new way of thinking, in the real world. world and it's an absolute catastrophe in so many areas. And so you see people starting to backtrack. And like, so in the last few months we've seen like in terms of women's sports, we've seen great like changes in that in terms of like world athletics, like world cycling or aquatics,

pardon me, all deciding, you know, look, we want to be nice, but at the end of the day we do have to recognise that your bodies, you know, are different. isn't talking of male athletes. And so they've said, look, we don't want to discriminate, but we're going to have an open category. So it's going to be female category and an open category. So the dominoes have started to fall in the sports area. You know, we've seen public backlash to the gender self-ID stuff,

like in terms of the double rapist that was put in a woman's prison in Scotland, you know, caused this great, you know, didn't realise this was going on. And again, even someone like me who's really involved in it, I still had to say, I only to check the sources here and make sure this is actually happening, are actually men being placed in women's prisons? Because I thought, no, it sounds like a sort of daily male made up thing.

No disrespect to the daily male. But, you know, it sounds like one of these sort of like... I think there's quite a lot of disrespect to the male. Okay, fine, fine, fine, fine, okay. Sorry, sorry, but you know what I mean? It sounds like a sort of like they're putting men. in women's, but they actually are, like, around the world, and they have been doing so. And so there's been pushback on that.

This rapist has been moved out of the women's prison, and that's, you know, people are calling for more of that. That's taking a turn. That's taking a tumble. Then you've got, like, changing rooms and stuff, like Prime Arc Institute, gender neutral changing rooms, and then, you know, surprise, surprise, people are coming on, you know, TikTok. Sophie, and I think you're, and I think you're,

You're making great points, by the way. For real. You know, and what you're saying is, it's true. But don't you think this says something deeper about society as a whole? Yeah. That we as a society have come undone from our mooring, so to speak. Yeah. Where we will say things like her penis.

Yeah. And no one bats an eyelid. Yeah. I mean, to put it bluntly, that is mental. Yeah. The thing is, I understand why you say it's mental. But I don't actually think it is mental. Because I think if you do, if you, like I said when I was a feminist before,

if you accept that everything is a construct and everything is up for being constructed, then because what they've done is they've said, we're going to expand the categories of the word man and woman. They're not saying, I think people think, oh, someone's saying that someone can become the opposite sex. They're not saying that. They're literally just saying that the word woman, used to be, you know, like hogged by biological women.

And now we're expanding it to what it truly should be, which is to include, you know, women, biological women, and men who want to be women or call themselves that. I think the big problem here comes from the invention of the concept of gender itself. Well, yeah. Feminists don't like hearing this because they're the one that popularized this aspect of it. But it was kind of created as a way of being a... able to opt out of femininity so that you could say, well, I am a woman, but I'm not going to behave in the stereotypical ways that women are expected to behave. And I understand the need,

or at least a desire, to do that. But if you invent the concept of gender, everything else follows. Gender isn't a word that applies to human beings. I mean, animals don't have gender, right? And neither do human beings. But once you create the idea that there can be a difference between your sex and this other thing, this is where you end up inevitably, which is why you say it makes perfect sense, because it makes perfect sense. It does make perfect sense.

Because if you have gender, then a woman can have a penis. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And so this is why I say to people, because I do speak about this stuff, and I try and help people to understand it. And I say, like, I don't use the word gender because it means different things to different people,

but also because of what you said. And I say to people, when you hear the word gender, just replace it with feelings because that's what they are. And so what I was saying, so it used to be the case that obviously sex and gender was synonymous.

So if you had a form and it asked you for your gender in the 70s, you knew they just meant sex. Yeah. And so you'd write male or female. But then as you say, like it started to be used in different ways and it started talking about your roles and your expression and things like that. And I think there is some utility to that,

but there's also problems of it. And then, but now, as I say, like, if you add identity onto it, and you're saying it's an inherent, like, innate thing about someone that they have an identity, sorry, that they have, like a sort of a gendered soul, as people have talked about, then, then, yeah, that causes all these problems. And so I was chatting to the boys, production boys. And I was trying to work this out and I was saying, well, look, if the word gender didn't exist at all, right? But you wanted a word to explain what gender is, which is basically ultimately, I think it's about your feelings and how you fit in with your sex.

That is it, really, because it's dependent on your sex, like by definition because it's it's in relation to your sex. So it's like, you know, if you're transgender, the idea is that there's a transition from, you know, your sex. So I said, like, if we didn't have the word gender, which is confusing so many people, because people think sex, gender, same thing. And we just use the word fit thing, as in how you fit in and feelings. And you just said, I have a fitling and everyone has a fitling, right? okay, so, or t, fitling, if you want to pronounce your T's, but I'm from Essex, so I don't pronounce my T's, but yeah, so, and if, and if you said, you know, no form is going to ask you for your fitling. Every form is going to ask you if it's relevant for your sex, and the word gender doesn't

exist, so, and then you come along and you say, well, you know, I really feel that I have a blue fitling or I have a pink, fluffy fiddling. It's like, okay, that's fine, but it doesn't affect anything. Whereas, you know, I think the reason it's so confusing is that people actually think that because it's the word gender, which they know and associate with something that's real in their mind, they can, they sort of, I think it confuses a lot of ordinary people that, do you see what I mean? It'd be so much easier if we just got rid of the word gender. Well, I know. That we can agree on. That we can agree on. Unfortunately, it's now running round, as it were, it is the monster that was created, and now it's running rampant.

We are starting to see changes, positive changes, I think we can all agree on. What else do we need to do? Because for me, one of the most worrying things, as a former teacher, everyone can drink, obviously, is gender-neutral toilets in schools. And when I saw this come in, my head was in my hands. Because I just thought, these are people who have no understanding about what it is like to be a teenage girl going through puberty and the vulnerability that these women feel girls feel?

Everyone except for me, but yeah. Yeah, no, I acknowledge that most girls feel some kind of vulnerability when they are in puberty. It's a very good impression of Greta Thumburg. Well, we've got a lot in common, me and Grets. Yeah, no, I agree. What can be done? Yes.

Well, actually, I... while there's a lot of mental stuff going on, I'm actually incredibly encouraged right now. I don't think, I think, I have a very strong sense that this whole thing is coming crashing down right now. I mean... It's because you haven't been to America. Well, yeah, okay, fine.

I know, I know. So obviously in America it's different. It's very different. I know, and they've got this massive profit incentive that we don't have over here, which is, you know, one of the main reasons why I think that it's continuing to go there, but I think people are starting to push back. And, you know, we are seeing, we've seen so many things. This is, like I was talking about these dominoes falling, or if you want to think about it in

terms of a jenga block, you know, like all these things are being pulled out. Like you've got, yeah, like the Tavostok being closed down and like the massive public shaming of what happened at the Tavistock and everyone's realizing it's such a scandal. And then you've got over a thousand families suing the Tavostok. I don't even think, I think you only saw about 10,000 people in the last five, six years, something. And like over a thousand families are suing it. And this is Britain. It's like we're not like in America where they just sue anyone at the drop of a hat. You know, we're not a litigious society. But a thousand families suing the Tavostock, very public, a lot of coverage, you know, stories of like, you know, you actually see in

mainstream newspapers like the Times and Telegraph, Richie Herron, the detransitioner, had his story, out, Kira Bell, like these, these things. So that's, that's one jenga block.

We've had the, the self-ID gender block taken away, but people being like, it's mental, and people, normal people being, mobilised,

as it were, to kind of get together and say, actually, we're not, we're not having this, actually. And, yeah,

as I say, that then you've got the sports thing, you've got the change rooms. What I was going to say before about Primark is that they, so many people came on TikTok being like, So I was just in Primark in Cambridge and I feel really stupid being emotional about this but yeah I was trying on some clothes and it was a unisex changing room which I'm really full and

I love that because you know it makes everyone feel included but twice um two men walked opened the curtain, walked in on me. Luckily, both times I was wearing fully clothes, but I could easily not have been. And I, yeah, it was two different people, clearly from the same group, and there was probably like 100 changing rooms available. So it's not like, you know, it was like,

always someone in here or not. It was, you know, clearly. And both times, like, I was so shocked and I was like, oh, sorry, like, as if it was my. fault. But yeah, I have to say though, Primark have been amazing. They were really, really good about it. Yeah, they have walked me back to my car and everything because I was scared. Apparently it's not the first time it's happened and security are watching back the tapes and seeing if they can find who it is. But yeah, I just want to say to people, please be careful. And if you go in the changing room, try not go on your own.

I will never be doing that again. I would rather take it home, try it on, and then take it back and get refunded. So yeah, stay safe. So many people came on TikTok being like crying and saying, oh, someone was filming me in the changing rooms that they did a U-turn and they reinstated, you know, single-sex spaces for changing.

All these things are falling into place. And I think we are going to come out of this in almost like a dreamlike state in a few years being like, I can't believe that we let a very, very small minority of incredibly political voices just, yeah, as you say, run rampant. And we thought, well, you know, they're progressive and we want to be progressive and good people and they seem to know what they're doing and they've got degrees in like gender theory and queer theory and stuff. And, you know, I want to, you know, I'm a liberal person and, you know, I love gay people and, you know, and I don't care if someone

what's to wear dress. So, you know, people think they outsource their thinking of this and they assume the experts, especially someone like the NHS, they assume that they will be, you know, competent enough. And then you realize, like, you did a brilliant, like, Twitter thread in the video about, like, why we've lost trust in institutions. Turns out all these institutions just didn't have, you know, the backbone or all the principles to stand on. And this is why I said before about truth. Well, it comes back to the other thing you said, actually, which is about children, because you talked about how it's all about kindness, but what you didn't mention is as part of the demonization of men, it's not actually about men. It's about what masculinity is. And part of that is strength and authority, which we fear more than anything in modern society. And to exercise strength and authority is seen as, I mean, quoting Jordan Peterson here, but it's seen as automatically. being conflated with tyranny, right? And so to say to somebody, well, we understand that you have these feelings, but we are a medical profession. We don't just cut bits off children.

That's not what we do is a sign of tyranny. It's a denial of your identity. It's a denial of medical treatment that you need out of the kindness that we're supposed to act with. And so I think part of what you're talking about societally where this comes from is an unwillingness of people to essentially be adults. Yes. Yeah, yeah. I was thinking about this yesterday. I think that something's happened in the millennium generation

or slightly before that maybe, where we all kind of communally took a puberty blocker. And we literally, like, I think a couple of decades, we just decided, I mean, like, the trans identity, thing is a way of opting out of reality at the end of the day. It's your, there's something about yourself that you don't like and you're trying to disassociate yourself from it. And I think that's what we've done. I think we've, I think we saw reality, like life is difficult. I have

to take responsibility. But we were given this kind of opt out of adulthood. And that's where you get a lot of adolescent-ish men who are kind of your age. And you're not in this camp at all. But it's like instead of like, instead of the puberty blockers, we've got like porn and just weed and gaming and just casual sex and like... All things we enjoy. Yeah, indeed. In moderators.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, not at all. Yeah, so, but you know, I mean, it's like we've... There's a way you can be that doesn't require you to grow up and take responsibility. And one of the things about being a man is eventually getting to a point where you have to be the authority. And it's very uncomfortable, particularly if you haven't been properly socialized to be in that position. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know this story because I've told you, but I was dreading hiring, not you specifically, although you specifically as well, but just hiring anyone.

Because I was like, we're going to have to manage this now. Yeah, yeah. don't really know how. So I know what I mean. So we're running out of time. So before we go to locals, then we'll do a good chunk on there for people, because your story actually raised a lot of interest. Tell us very quickly, before we ask the last question, but very quickly about how you got peace with who you are. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. I'm just very, very grateful for people in my life who... You're welcome. Not you all.

largely Christians actually who had what I talked about that, that balance of grace and truth. You know, as a society, we can go too far towards, you know, truth at the expense of being gracious. And we have done that in the past. And Christian societies have done that in the past. You know, if you look at sort of Dickensian Britain and, you know, it's just like, you know, if the poor would rather die than they'd better do it and decrease the surplus. population, you know, if anyone thinks I'm smart for knowing Dickens, that's straight from Muppets Christmas Carol. But you know what I mean? It's like, so we have done that. And so I'm

not saying Christianity is perfect, but that's why I'm saying, like, if you do it right. And so Christians are speaking to my life being like, doing what the genital clinics were doing back in the day, which is exploratory therapy, and being like, okay, so there's a reality of who you are. And so it really helped me to be like, so. I knew with the help of other people and with the help of the scripture as well, because that, you know, it's evident to me. There's just no concept of gender identity in the Bible. It's like, you know, you get amazing characters like King David,

and he was like this amazing king. And he was also like, he was a warrior, but he was also a poet and a musician and a harp player. And there's nothing in the Bible about like, well, he was being really manly when he was being a warrior, but he was exploring his feminine inside. It was just like, no, he's just a man. And so, like, you know, there was that. But the kind of holding on to grace and truth really, really helped me to come to peace in that. Because I realized that I was a woman with a mind that was disconnected from reality at times.

So a woman. Yay. And so. What an ending. Classic Francis. But no, I'm just going to say, my mind needed to be brought into alignment with the reality of my body. As opposed to the other way, right?

As opposed to a body that needs to be brought into alignment of the reality of your mind. And the Bible is very skeptical of our feelings as being the true north. So in our society, we're like, your feelings and your sense of identity is like the main thing. Whereas the Bible says the exact opposite. It says that the heart is wicked and deceitful above all things and who can understand it. And that is why it must be cancelled. Now, so it's great to have you on the show.

Please keep up the amazing work you're doing, obviously. But as any guests on the show, you have one final question on before we go to locals, which is, of course, what is the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be? I think the whole trans thing is a microcosm of a much broader problem. So you know, I was saying about just a failure to bring the truth and reality into alignment with the way you want things to be, well, the way you think things should be. So the whole problem of the trans-identifying movement is I want my life to be like this. I really, or it should be like this.

Like as I say when I was a feminist, it's like it should be like this. But reality always bites back. And so you're always going to be at odds like with reality. And you're never going to find peace while you're. you're trying to live outside it. I mean, we've got a whole world and social media telling you, you can, you can, you can, you can. Well, you can't.

And, you know, the many detransitioners are testament to that and the people who've been betrayed by that. But I think it's a microcosm of a broader human problem. So, like, I think, again, like what I'm saying about us taking puberty blockers, like over the last best part of the century, and Peter Hitchens writes about this brilliantly in The Rage Against God, brilliant book.

He talks about how have we gone from being this kind of country with its massive Christian heritage and then suddenly like all of the institutions and all of things in society and that's all just fallen away. And he sort of charts brilliantly that certain events that happened during the, the last century that really kind of, it's kind of like you, you know,

what you were saying in your thread about how people lost trust in it in institutions. The same thing happened with Christianity over the course of, you know, a few decades, you know, with the wars and the Suez Crisis and the Prima affair and all these different things. So the point is, I think we said around the 60s, given some of these crises, I think the world should be like this and I don't like the reality of the way the world is and I'm going to live in accordance with that

and then you see the sexual revolution obviously which we've covered with brilliant people like Louise Perry and Mary Harrington just doing such a brilliant job. And Mary Eberstadt too. Yeah, Mary Eberstadt, yeah, top-level Crizo. Yeah, loads of people have been writing about this now which is, again, they tried the trans experiment. It was so extreme.

It's failing. It's crumbling. I think what we're seeing now is what's happening in the wake of that last best part of a century of just, let's do things our way. Let's completely reject God and the way he says that things, that life should be ordered in accordance with thriving. Let's say that, you know, let's throw out marriage. let's throw out people taking responsibility for children, let's take, let's throw out, you know, sex is just, you know, it's just a pleasure activity at the end of the day and we should be able

to have that and placing that as the highest good in society, the highest value is like freedom and sexual, you know, fulfillment. And then the repercussions of that, you know, downstream, are massive in terms of like, you know, women's unhappiness, in terms of, you know, people, women's unhappiness, in terms of the dating market, trying to have sex like men, as it were, in terms of no strings attached and, you know, trying to be this empowered sexual being. And they don't, inside a lot of them, don't want that. They want to be with a man who's committed to them

and have a relationship and have children and build a family and build a home and a community. That's what most women want. And I think probably a lot of men want as well. And then you've got, you know, the other downstream consequences, which are really sad. like abortion and just like if you if you say the highest value in society is that I should be able to have sex whomever I want and you know that's the most that's the highest priority that's highest

value then you know the it's almost like obligatory then that a child's life should be sacrificed because of that because it's like well that's that's my right that's the most important thing comes before responsibility and anything else so we're seeing all these you know repercussions come out of it. And I'm sure that many people will disagree with me, and that's fine. I don't mind talking and debating with anyone. But what I'm saying is, we tried an experiment of rejecting God, I think, and rejecting, you know, the inheritance of Christianity that had been brought down over hundreds and hundreds of years. And I think that's failing in many ways. But again, in the same way I'm encouraged about the trans thing failing. I think I've seen a lot of people interested in

Christianity again. And I think that we've seen a lot of people talking about it more freely and more openly. And I think a lot of people interested in pursuing it in a way that they weren't before. And I've seen a lot of people coming to Christ, whoever, completely no background in it whatsoever. And I think if you'll permit me to have one more minute. So I talked about the trans thing as a microcosm of like what's happened over the last century. I think that is a microcosm of the human experience, the human problem, which is, you know, if you want to look at history, if you want to look at the Old Testament, if you don't know what the Old Testament is in the Bible, pretty much the story of the Old Testament is, God tells gives people like, says this is what, you know, know, this is what's good and right. And everyone's like, yeah, let's do it. And then after while they're like, actually, you know, we're not going to do that. They start doing their own

thing. Everything goes wrong. They repent and turn back to God. And the cycle goes on and on and on. That's like the human problem. And I think that we're seeing that come around again. There you go. Sodom and Gomorrah is coming, but it's going to be fine after that. Yeah, exactly. If you give your life to Christ. That's like terrified. Anyway, Sophie Spittle, thank you so much. Do you want people to follow Are you online? Yeah.

Yeah. Where should they do that? Just Twitter, probably. You need to tell them. The CESPET. Yeah. Sophie, Spittle, S-P-I-T-A-L, like hospital without the ho. Okay.

Okay. Great. Follow us on locals where we will continue the conversation. Also, I've got a substack in it. Perfect. Lemming Jr. asks, is there anything which can persuade autistic people that transitioning? isn't the answer.