WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Hillsdale Interview: Mary Margaret Olohan

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

Mary Margaret Olohan is a senior culture and politics reporter for the Daily Signal. She joins Kamden Mulder on Radio Free Hillsdale to talk about her new book, "Detrans: True Stories of Escaping the Gender Ideology Cult." 

This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I am Camden Mulder here with Mary Margaret O'Hohan, senior culture and politics reporter for The Daily Signal. Ms. O'Lohan previously wrote for both The Daily Wire and the Daily Caller News Foundation. She's here today to talk about her upcoming book, D-Trans, True Stories of Escaping the Gender Ideology Cult, which will be released on May 28th of this year. Thank you so much for speaking with me today, Mary Margaret. Thanks so much for having me on. Of course, to get started, I just want to set up some context for the book and what people can expect. If you'd want to comment on sort of your motivations for writing this book, what inspired you to get involved in telling these stories and sort of give a quick summary of what people can expect.

Yeah, so I was inspired to write this book after I started following a bunch of different detransitioners online. and a detransitioner is somebody that tried to change their gender, or like, let's say a man, who tried to become a woman, and then through surgical or hormonal interventions, and then realized, actually, there's impossible, you can never become a different gender. And so they detransitioned. They went back to living as a man. And I encountered a couple of these people online a couple years ago, and I started paying attention to them and who they were interacting with and who they were following on social media and

following more of them. And as I did that, I began to encounter more and more of their perspectives. And at the time, they were not very vocal, like not very many detransitioners had spoken out. And so one day I was making myself dinner in my Arlington apartment. And I noticed that they were having a Twitter space event, which is just like a, you know, it's like a Twitter forum where people were going to talk. So I decided to tune in. And I listened as all these different people started sharing all the horrible things that had happened to them, And they began taking hormones. And this was specifically about hormones, I believe.

And they were sharing all these really sad and surprising stories about how the hormones had affected them. For example, the women were saying that when they took testosterone to try and become a man, it made them not be able to cry. It made them not be able to scream, things like that. And then there were a lot of mental repercussions as well, really intense mental suffering that I get into in the book. And as I was listening to them share these stories and hearing about how it affected their bone growth and their hair growth and their muscles and their mood. I was thinking this is almost like sci-fi. Yeah. Stuff.

You know, this is the kind of thing we'd see in a movie. And it, I couldn't forget about it. I was so bothered because they were really sad too. They were saying this fundamentally altered my life. And so I was, you know, I wasn't really in a position to be writing about it at the time. I felt like I didn't have enough facts because, you know, these were just people sharing anecdotal stories. but I didn't forget about it and I thought about it for a while and when it came time that I had the opportunity to write a book, I was like, I'm writing about detransitioners. And so there were a couple specific people whose stories I had been following that I knew were legitimate and I knew I wanted to share their voices. And so I asked all these people, would you be willing to be in my book? And I specifically said to them, look, this is a reported book. There's lots of people who are smarter than I am who will write comment.

on this and will tell you why transgender ideology is wrong or they'll tell you how this is harming people. This book and my goal was and I hope that I accomplished that was to tell the stories of detransitioners to show people this is what this does to you and this is how this affected these people and now you can judge for yourself whether this is a good thing or not. And so that's what my goal with this book was was to just tell these stories and let people understand them because There's no way that you can read, for example, Prisha's story and not be angry at the doctors and the therapists who lied to her and pushed her down this path. And there's no way that you can listen to Chloe's story, for example, and not be furious that a little girl was tricked into this life that

she now has to live. And an important point that they made in the book was they still have lives. They're still obviously here, thank God. And they're spending a lot of time doing advocacy and trying to help other people understand that this is not the end. You know, maybe you made these decisions, but you can still have a fruitful life and you can serve other people and you can hopefully, you know, live a very fulfilling and happy life. There's hope after detransition. But the last story in the book is about Abby Martinez, whose daughter ultimately committed suicide by jumping in front of a train and she had been taken away by the state of California.

She was transitioned by the state and they put her on hormones. And so Abby's story I close out the book with as kind of a reminder that not everyone survives this kind of thing. And Abby was very emotional when she shared it with me. And I think it's a very sad chapter. Very important though. So that's kind of the story of how I got to write this book and why. Yes. And I think everything you've said specifically about how you just want to share the stories of people,

I found that rang so true when I was reading the book and so many things are so jarring and, you know, made me physically uncomfortable at times to read. And I guess my question about that is when you were even on the Twitter forum the first time or since you've been experiencing these stories. And I know you commented a little bit in the book and how the media doesn't typically talk about detransitioners. Has there been negative pushback from people sharing these stories? Have you felt that even on the Twitter forum, for example, there were people commenting who were pushing the transgender agenda and were frustrated that the detransitioners were wanting to share your story? And then how do you feel that has impacted your decision to then share it if you noticed negative repercussions? That's a really good question. For the Twitter forum, this was a couple years ago. And I think the only people in that spaces event were detransitioners and myself. It was very low-key, private. it and I think it was more for the detransitioners to speak to each other and talk about what they had experienced. And I was just lucky enough to have noticed it. So I tuned in. But in general,

this is a topic that invites very, very, very harsh and cruel reactions from the transgender lobby. The people who are brave enough to speak out about their experiences receive so much hate and so much vitriol from the left. And I find that, that pretty ironic considering that the same transgender lobby that pushed all these people to transition was telling them, we love you, we affirm you, the people who aren't loving you and affirming you hate you and want you dead. And that sounds harsh, but it's what they're told. And so when they speak out and say, actually, my experience was this was terrible for me and I'm suffering from it and I wish that I never did it, they're very cruelly attacked by the same

people who told them that, you know, the people trying to tell them not to transition, hate, them. Personally, I haven't really experienced too much pushback on it yet. Maybe that will change. I found that you have a lot of safety and just telling the truth. People can't necessarily get mad at you for telling true stories. I mean, they can, but they don't have a lot to stand on. So we'll see if, we'll see if that changes. I love that. There's comfort in the truth. That's really profound. Was there a moment at all during either the research stage or the writing stage where all of this felt too heavy and you almost thought about stopping or weren't sure if you wanted to continue with it just because of the intense nature of what you're writing about. Well, that's very sweet that you asked that

because I, you know, there wasn't a moment where I thought I'm not going to do this anymore, but I definitely felt like, oh my gosh, this is heavy. And there were a bunch of different, very emotional phone calls that I had with different people who were in this book. You know, they're telling me some very intimate and vulnerable stories. And there definitely were moments where They became emotional and so did I. And so it was not easy to write. It definitely, I went through a couple months where, you know, I was, I wrote this in six months. So I wrote it between January and June of 2023.

And those last couple months were hard. But I pushed through. I think I finished writing it while I was at my parents' house. And I have a lot of siblings. Some of them are little. So I would tell my little sister, I go, oh, I got to go work on my book. And she'd say, what's your book about? And I would say, oh.

Right. I was like, you know what? I think it's about people who made decisions that they wish they didn't make. And I can't really share it with you yet. So she was really cool about it. But I did think it was funny. And then I had to have some of my brothers helped me with my citations. And I said, sorry in advance, guys, because some of these are pretty gruesome. And it's so interesting that you talk about, you know, your little sister and her not understanding these things because so many people in this book were so young when they had such an intense exposure to. all of these topics. It's obviously so great that in your family, your younger siblings are protected from all those things. But I think people when they read this book, they'll really get a sense of, wow, this is a strong and scary part of our culture. And even a difference from 20 years ago, 30 years ago, kids are in a really unique spot these days and are so vulnerable to all of these different things. No, you're so right. I think one of the parts of this that I found the most upsetting is I dwelt heavily on how people were first experienced. to social media and how they were first exposed to transgender content online. And I talk in the

book about how Chloe and a bunch of the other girls were exposed to pornography right about the same time that they were exposed to social media. And I found it really interesting and sad that these girls were exposed to pornographic imagery so young. And Chloe explains that she was also confronted with all these really sexualized images of womanhood. So you know, you're like a 10-year-old. old girl, you're online, you're seeing all these really beautiful, sexy women and you're thinking, oh, that's what I'm supposed to look like if I'm a woman. And they get hundreds of thousands of likes and all this affirmation from men and they go on these expensive vacations and they have perfect clothing. And you're thinking, oh, okay, if I want to be like an amazing woman, that's what I need

to be. And then they told me they were also seeing these depictions of women in pornography, which I get into a little bit in the book. These girls tell me this, it looks to a young girl who's watching this pornography and seeing the way women are treated. We already know women are treating and very degrading and horrific ways and pornographic materials. So these girls are seeing this and they're thinking, that doesn't look fun, that doesn't look safe, that looks scary. And then you throw in transgender activists saying, oh, well, you don't think you're a woman or you're scared of that stuff? That's probably because you're a man. Right.

To me, I have a 13-year-old sister in imagining her being confronted. with any of that makes me so sad. And it's hearing Chloe's story or Preachia's story or Luca or Helena, any of the people in this book, it makes me so angry on behalf of them that they had to go through any of this. And I think that my hope is that other people will have that reaction when they read this. But having siblings or young people in your life really helps you contextualize this. When you think, oh my gosh, that could be my little sister being exposed to that. You realize how wrong that is and how they should have been safe from that kind of thing. Exactly. And just a reminder, you are listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Throughout my exposure to your book as well,

I noticed that in so many of the stories, you talked about the faith life of the people who have decided to detransition. And I'm just curious, how is your faith life impacted writing the book and just having these conversations with all these people? I'm Catholic. I was raised Catholic. I was homeschooled and my faith is a very important part of my life. I try to go to Mass every day and say the grocery. Ideally, I would like to go to heaven someday. And I believe that my work right now is to tell the truth and to shine light on the truth in the best way possible. And I try and do that with my reporting to shine light on what's going on and to tell stories that aren't being told. This book is part of that. I think that these are stories that haven't been examined very thoroughly

and that telling stories of detransitioners is one of the best ways to combat the ideology that has hurt so many people because it is, I think, near impossible to hear one of these people's stories and think, yes, we should condone any kind of so-called gender affirming care without any kind of restrictions, which is what these leftist activists want. And, you know, the United States is pretty extreme when it comes to this. Most European countries are stricter than we are. Most European countries are trying to take care of children. As of late, there's been a lot of progress in Europe. United States still seems to be very far behind. So I think telling these stories is a great way of combating that evil that we are seeing towards our children's innocence in our country and against this ideology.

On the flip side of combating the movement, have you noticed through your research any sort of social movements or cultural changes? in the past 20 years or so that you've felt have been setting the stage for the emergence of transgenderism and just the prevalence of it in the United States. Because as you said, the European countries are implementing a lot more protections for children. Absolutely. I mean, I'm definitely not the best expert to weigh in on this. Ryan Anderson, for example, is the king of this issue and could speak to it better. But there have been many trends in recent years that often conservatives and specifically religious conservatives will say,

this is heading in this direction, and they're called crazy, they're called radical. And not too long ago, conservatives were worried that embracing transgenderism and promoting transgenderism would lead to people saying that children could be transgender, or that children should undergo transgender procedures. And they were laughed at. And yet here we are in the modern day. You can be punished for saying that a man is a man and that a man can't become a woman.

parents face severe scrutiny if they decide that their child shouldn't be transitioned by a school system. It's something that many parents now have to worry about if they undergo scrutiny from child services from the public school education system. Like I was saying about Abby Martinez and her daughter, because Abby wouldn't affirm her daughter's so-called transgender identity, the state of California took her daughter away from her and transitioned her themselves. And she ultimately committed suicide. is the reality for parents in America. Now, it might be different depending on the state you're in or what kind of friends you have or your ability to fight back. There have been parents recently that have literally picked up and moved to a different state to save their child. But we're in a very scary place now. There are resources for parents who are fighting this kind of thing, but they shouldn't have to, right? They should be free to raise their children the way they want and no child should be exposed to this kind of material so early. We'll hear Republicans especially saying, People can live the way they want, but children should be left out of it. And that is true for sure.

Children's innocence should be protected. But I think we're selling this argument short if we're only looking at children and how this affects them. Because Walt Heyer, for example, is one of the people that's in my book. Waltz transitioned as an adult or sought to transition and he deeply regretted it. He is now, for the last several decades, been an advocate against this type of thing who's been helping people who tried to transition and obviously failed, since that's impossible. It is a movement across age groups. At the end of the day, it's a movement that is sinister, particularly because these activists on the left are telling people who are already suffering. They're mentally unwell. And they're being told you will be happy if you take these steps. So these activists are harnessing a desire for happiness and a desire for identity. And they're weaponizing that towards surgeries and hormones that you may be dependent on for the rest of. of your life. That part I find particularly insidious, this weaponizing of happiness. Yeah, and that's definitely a frustrating thing to think about, especially when you look at the

culture of America and emphasis on the American dream and freedom and all these things. These people seem to get misconstrued thinking that that's an attempt at experiencing freedom, and in reality, it's shackling them down emotionally, mentally, all of those things. Did you feel there was a common denominator between the people you interviewed, like one thing that all anchored them in the struggle of transitioning and then detransitioning, or where everyone's stories pretty diverse in your opinion? Everybody's story was unique. They're not exactly the same.

Honestly, I think it would hurt them, you know, if anyone were to say they all follow the same patterns. But that being said, they're definitely or similar attributes in several of their stories. And I think one is that everyone I spoke with had severe mental health problems when they first we're going down this path. That's something that's not really taken into account. When a mentally ill person seeks help, they should be given help. They shouldn't be given hormones to try and do something impossible. And that is what would happen largely.

It's these mentally unwell people would go asking for help and they'd be told, oh, it's because you're a boy. Oh, it's because you're a girl. Helena, for example, was struggling deeply with her mental health. She started taking testosterone, which she bought it, Planned Parenthood, or she got through Planned Parenthood. And it made her so much worse. She was so unhappy. She had severe rage attacks. She couldn't cry.

She was just suffering intensely. And she finally checked herself into a hospital because she couldn't, she didn't know what to do. She was suffering so much. I find this story crazy because of what happened next. She went to the hospital looking for help. And the hospital, instead of saying, oh, this is happening because you're injecting yourself with testosterone, they affirmed.

that she was a boy, and the way they treated her was as if she were a boy that was just had mental health problems. Wow. So they just pretended the testosterone didn't exist and that she was a guy and that they were going to help her from there. So then they just prescribed her all these drugs and antidepressants and other things that were supposed to help her in this situation and sent her on her way. Of course, she ended up back in the hospital, right? Because that was not the solution to her problems. And they were addressing ideology rather than science. And that, I think, really epitomizes how the medical system has bought into all of this and how these people are being burdened by a rejection of science in this situation, which we've seen so much of in recent years.

Yes. Everywhere science is rejected. So that's definitely, you know, the mental health issues for sure. Like Precha was suffering from anorexia really badly. She was struggling with it. And she told me part of her decision to get a double mastectomy, top surgery, was that she would lose weight, which is crazy. And going into your double mastectomy for gender dysphoric reasons and knowing that you're

going to lose pounds from getting your breasts removed, there's so many things that are wrong there that should have been red flags to her doctors. But no one was paying attention to her underlying conditions, such as anorexia. Or the fact that she had been sexually assaulted. Those kinds of things absolutely should have played a bigger role in her therapist and doctors' there's evaluations of whether she was fit for such surgeries, which I think I would argue, no one is fit for so-called gender-affirming surgeries, but certainly not a girl who's suffering from anorexia and thinks that it might help.

Exactly. And I think it's so interesting that you bring up the prevalence of ideology in the medical field when, as you said, science is rejected so often in society, but also then there's such a strong emphasis on weaponizing science with certain cultural issues. Like for example, abortion. And it's really insidious, in my opinion, that there's such a cherry picking between all of these different topics and deciding, oh, with this one, we're going to focus on the science, but this we're going to focus on ideology. And that's a really scary place that our country's in. Yeah, you're so right. They're absolutely as cherry picking. And in the medical system, it's really scary because that's where we trust people with their lives and with their health. People would often make the argument that many of us don't really trust the medical system anymore because when you prioritize, ideology over science, why should we trust you? I'm not advocating for completely distrusting the medical system, but I do think we should pause and we should take note of what's going on in the coming years. Thank you for being here today. I really appreciate you having conversations with me

on all of this. And it was really great to talk about your new book, Detrans, True Stories of Escaping. It's a gender ideology call. This is Camden Mulder here on Radio Free Hillsdale at 101.7 FM. Thank you.