Joe Rogan Experience #1509 - Abigail Shrier

Joe Rogan 0:01 Hello, Abigail. How are you?

Abigail Shrier 0:03 I'm doing great. How are you?

Joe Rogan 0:04 Thanks for doing this. Appreciate it.

Abigail Shrier 0:05 Thanks so much for having me on.

Joe Rogan 0:07 Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters. Boy, that's a hot buttons object, right? That is a... This is a minefield.

Abigail Shrier 0:18 It shouldn't be, though.

Joe Rogan 0:19 No?

Abigail Shrier 0:20 It really shouldn't be.

Joe Rogan 0:21 No, it shouldn't be, but... So I think we should probably establish some things, like, upfront, right? Um, some people surely, as adults, are transgender.

Abigail Shrier 0:33 Of course.

Joe Rogan 0:33 Yes.

Abigail Shrier 0:34 Of course. I interviewed a lot of them.

Joe Rogan 0:35 And w- we fully support that, right?

Abigail Shrier 0:38 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 0:39 Okay.

Abigail Shrier 0:39 I have friends who, who fall into that category. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:42 Your concern is about-

Abigail Shrier 0:45 T-

Joe Rogan 0:45 ... very young children.

Abigail Shrier 0:46 That... Teenage girls.

Joe Rogan 0:47 Teenage girls.

Abigail Shrier 0:47 Has nothing to do with adults who are transgender. Okay? Many of whom are amazing people. They, you know, went through mental health, you know, therapy and they decided, they made this decision s-... They suffered with discomfort in their bodies from the time they were young and as adults they made a decision to transition. Fully support them. Has nothing to do with my book.

Joe Rogan 1:09 What d- what, what was the motivation to write this book and, if it's about teenagers, why is there a very young girl on the cover?

Abigail Shrier 1:18 (laughs) Well, it-

Joe Rogan 1:19 'Cause this is like... The cover, it looks a f-

Abigail Shrier 1:21 A little girl.

Joe Rogan 1:21 ... four-year-old. Right?

Abigail Shrier 1:23 Right. It does. I mean, I obviously I didn't do the cover, but, uh, I think, I think the cover is very good 'cause I think it's supposed to evoke what we've lost in our... a whole generation. Well, yeah, she-

Joe Rogan 1:32 What is that?

Abigail Shrier 1:33 I assume, her uterus.

Joe Rogan 1:34 Oh. It's just crazy.

Abigail Shrier 1:35 Infertility is what's-

Joe Rogan 1:36 It looks like a pillow.

Abigail Shrier 1:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:38 Oh, infertility. The big circle.

Abigail Shrier 1:39 Yeah, that's what-

Joe Rogan 1:39 Right.

Abigail Shrier 1:40 That's what happens. I mean, I got involved in this... This wasn't a personal issue for me. In fact, it was an issue originally I thought I was gonna avoid. Um, a reader wrote to me. I write most often for the Wall Street Journal and a reader wrote to me and she said, "Listen, I've tried to get every mainstream journalist to pick this up. No one will touch it, but my daughter got caught up in this. All of a sudden, she went off to college. All of a sudden, w- with, with her friend..." She had a lot of mental health issues, anxiety, depression. And all of a sudden, with her group of friends, they all decided they're trans and she went on hormones and this is happening to parents all across the country. Teenage girls, all of a sudden, deciding with their f- friends they're trans, wanting surgeries and hormones and getting them. And at first I thought, "I don't need this." And so I tried to get another journalist to take it up, a real investigative reporter. I'm not... I'm an o- I'm an opinion journalist usually. You know, that's what I've done. And I couldn't get someone to take it up.

Joe Rogan 2:28 Because it's such a minefield. Because-

Abigail Shrier 2:31 Yeah, because it's a minefield, because for some reason, the activists who are... d- do... Not representative of transgender adults that I have met at all. But the activists have convinced the world that because, you know, they, they, you know, object to anyone's transition being questioned, we can't talk about a mental health issue facing teenage girls.

Joe Rogan 2:53 Now, I've heard, um, there's an issue with some teenage girls who are on the spectrum who wind up getting sort of roped into this idea that that's what's wrong with them. Is that one of the things you cover in your book?

Abigail Shrier 3:08 Yeah. I, I actually don't deal with that specifically very much and the reason is, that's a whole book in and of itself.

Joe Rogan 3:15 Mm-hmm.

Abigail Shrier 3:15 Because a lot of the... It is true that a lot of girls who are high-functioning autistic, and I did interview some experts in autism and that's when I realized that's a book of its own, which is that a lot of girls who are high-functioning autistic, you know, they tend to fixate. And they ha- they are s- particularly susceptible to fixating on the idea that they might be a boy when it's introduced to them. So, uh, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about and they're, they are one part of this phenomenon, but they're a big part.

Joe Rogan 3:43 So, the teenage girl part... So this i-... You're, you're talking about teenage girls that are susceptible to influence? Are you talking about teenage girls that are confused? Like, why, why are there so many teenage girls that are going in this direction? Like, what do you think is happening?

Abigail Shrier 4:00 So these are the same girls that would have been anorexic, they would have been bulimic, and they would have been... They are high anxiety, very precocious girls, but they don't really fit in. They come to high school and they don't have friends, they don't have a clique for them. And they're so smart and they're so lonely 'cause they're on the internet all the time and they're with mom all the time and they don't fit in at school. And this is a way to exp- understand their dis- their, their pain that they're really feeling. They're in pain, but they decide that their problem is that they're supposed to be a boy and the fix is testosterone.

Joe Rogan 4:32 (clicks tongue) So y- you heard of this problem, you knew of people that their children were going through this. And, uh, how long did it take you before you decided to commit to pen to paper on this?

Abigail Shrier 4:44 So I, I spent, uh, maybe a month or so just hearing the reports of the parents and reading the original study. There's an original study that the book is, you know, ju- j- jumps off from, which is the Lisa Littman paper at Brown University. She's a public health researcher who looked into this. And she found that there was, all of a sudden, this huge epidemic in America, um, of teenage girls deciding they were trans with their friends after social media emergent and, and pushing for hormones and surgeries.

Joe Rogan 5:11 Have you had a-

Abigail Shrier 5:12 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:12 ... conversation about this with someone who's a trans activist that says, "Well, maybe what's really going on..." I mean, I'm just taking the-

Abigail Shrier 5:18 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:19 ... the argument of it. Maybe what's going on is there are a lot of trans women and there would be more, or there's a lot of women who would turn trans, become a man... there would be more...... but they never had, had that door opened to them before, and that maybe there's more trans people than we think.

Abigail Shrier 5:35 Amazing. Amazing. So it's a great point and I thought about it, 'cause I've, I've, you know, I tried to look... I'm a journalist. I like to look at ideas on both sides. I didn't have, like I did not have a dog in this race. So let me tell you three reasons I don't think that's compelling. Number one, when, when Lisa Littman looked at the prevalence rate, she found that it's 70 times what we would expect within a friend group, which means it's highly concentrated in groups of friends. But there's two other reasons. So we wouldn't expect that if it were randomly distributed along- among the population, but there are two other reasons I don't think that's right. Number one, if we're just reverting to normal now that there's greater society- societal acceptance, right? We're just, say we're just averting to, uh, reverting to a normal base rate of transgender women. We're... why are all the women in their 40s and 60s coming out as trans? They should be coming out.

Joe Rogan 6:23 Right.

Abigail Shrier 6:23 Now's their time. Now's their moment. We should see tons of women in their 40s and 60s and so on coming out as transgender, but we're not seeing that. We're seeing the same population that gets involved in cutting, demonic possession, (laughs) witchcraft, uh, anorexia, bulimia, and convinces themselves there's a problem. And, and there's one... anyway, there's, there's one last reason, is that suicide rates are going up. But if these women who were living under a prior, you know, supposedly these, all these transgender, these real transgender people who are living under a more repressive regime and are now just finding themselves, the su... you would think the suicide rate would be going down with greater acceptance.

Joe Rogan 7:02 So when you're saying suicide rates are going up, you mean suicide rates with teens who turn trans?

Abigail Shrier 7:06 Both. With... that's the rate of trans... of suicide among this populat... first of all, among girls in general is extraordinarily high. This is just one part of the mental health crisis they're in. And second of all, we know that the rate that these, th- these kids, th- these trans-identified kids have very high rates of suicide, suicidal ideation. It's, it's really, you know, uh, an area of real concern.

Joe Rogan 7:29 There... well, there's definitely an area of real concern as well with, um, social media. Did you read, uh, Jonathan Haidt's book, uh, The Coddling of the American Mind? Uh, great, great...

Abigail Shrier 7:37 Yeah, and it was on your show-

Joe Rogan 7:38 Okay.

Abigail Shrier 7:39 ... that I really like, this light bulb went on when I rewatched it, because he talked about exactly this. He, he connects it to social media and he talked about on your show the huge rates we're seeing in anxiety, depression-

Joe Rogan 7:52 Mm-hmm.

Abigail Shrier 7:52 ... all the... among these same girls.

Joe Rogan 7:55 Mm-hmm.

Abigail Shrier 7:55 And, you know, putting it together with Lisa Littman's research and the other investigation I'd done, I think it's really pretty clear that one more manifestation of these girls who are, we know are involved in a lot of cutting and all kinds of self-harm, this is one form of self-harm for them.

Joe Rogan 8:09 So there are chi... so let's essentially say there's young teenagers that are confused and they're looking for something that makes them feel whole or something that makes them feel normal or something that gives them some sort of an escape from this angst that they suffer from. And you're thinking that turning trans is one of those pathways that they gravitate towards, but it might not necessarily be a good idea for them.

Abigail Shrier 8:37 Yeah, that's exactly right. If these girls were transitioning to boys and they were living great lives and their mental health was great, like it is for so many transgender adults, I wouldn't have written this book. That's a great story. Like, that's a happy-

Joe Rogan 8:49 But is it great for so many transgender adults?

Abigail Shrier 8:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:51 'Cause even in transgender adults, the suicide rate's very high.

Abigail Shrier 8:54 Th- there's no question, and that's, you know, that's a separate issue, but I do think that... uh, yeah, I agree. I think that there are... I bel- personally believe that there are transgender adults who've been helped by transition.

Joe Rogan 9:05 Sure.

Abigail Shrier 9:05 But these girls are not being helped by transition.

Joe Rogan 9:08 Just universally?

Abigail Shrier 9:09 I think as a population, yeah. I mean, that's, that's what Lisa's stu- Lisa Littman's study showed, but also through my investigation. You know, I hear from p... I interview a lot of parents, I also interview transgender youth, and they, you know, they'll tell you their anxiety's a mess, their depression's a mess. Transition's not curing these girls. They drop out of school, they cut off their families, they're not living a great life.

Joe Rogan 9:31 It's so... it's such a strange call, right? And I mean, I mean strange, I don't mean strange in a, a negative way. I mean, it's... you're dealing with hormones in a human body. Like, you're, you're taking a woman and you're injecting hormones into her body and you're saying that these exogenous hormones are what's going to fix her. And I never, I never understand that. Like if a, if, if s-... this is my argument about this. Like, how do we know? How do you know that that's what's going to do it? And when you are doing that, what damage is being done?

Abigail Shrier 10:08 So, yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:08 Like, it's one thing if someone's a 25-year-old woman-

Abigail Shrier 10:10 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 10:10 ... and th- they say, "I have always wanted to be a man and I think I'm a man. I think I, I was b- I think I'm born in the wrong body." But when you're going through this developmental cycle from 17, 18, 19, 20, there is a lot of chaos.

Abigail Shrier 10:24 Right.

Joe Rogan 10:25 There's a lot of hormonal chaos. There's a lot of confusion. I don't think there's anything specifically that you can point to that could say some sort of an intervention chemically, some sort of a, if you just step in now and start injecting this body with male hormones, this is gonna fix all your problems.

Abigail Shrier 10:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 10:42 But yet it's really popular to do that.

Abigail Shrier 10:44 It's really popular. These girls are getting it on their own diagnosis. So they're just going in and self-diagnosing. Nobody questions it. We now have informed consent, which means you walk into Planned Parenthood, you sign a waiver, you decide you have t- gender dysphoria, you walk out that day with testosterone.

Joe Rogan 10:59 Planned Parenthood is doing this?

Abigail Shrier 11:01 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:01 S-

Abigail Shrier 11:01 It's one of the biggest distributors.

Joe Rogan 11:03 So you don't have to have some sort of a long, uh, some s- transitional therapy session with, uh-

Abigail Shrier 11:11 You can get your breasts removed with no therapist note.

Joe Rogan 11:15 Whoa.

Abigail Shrier 11:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:16 So you could be a confused 18-year-old girl and walk into a Planned Parenthood self-diagnosing with no therapy at all and they'll prescribe te- testosterone and you can get your breasts removed?

Abigail Shrier 11:29 Absolutely. You sign a form.Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. You can-- you can get your breasts removed at Planned Parenthood, though.

Joe Rogan 11:35 No.

Abigail Shrier 11:35 Sorry.

Joe Rogan 11:35 No.

Abigail Shrier 11:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:36 We didn't say that.

Abigail Shrier 11:36 You can also-

Joe Rogan 11:37 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 11:37 ... get your breasts removed from, yeah, surgeons. Surgeons v- somet- some of them require a therapist note, I interviewed 'em in my, in my book, some who do not. And, and, you know, there are, you know, both kinds.

Joe Rogan 11:47 Jesus. That's a big decision, right? That's a decision that you can't really come back from. What, what did the surg- have you talked to surgeons about this?

Abigail Shrier 11:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:58 What do they think?

Abigail Shrier 11:59 They think that-

Joe Rogan 12:01 Obviously, we're generalizing.

Abigail Shrier 12:02 Right.

Joe Rogan 12:02 They vary.

Abigail Shrier 12:02 So, they think a couple things. I mean, obviously there are a lot of surgeons who refuse to do it, so I interviewed them as well. They say, "You don't destroy the biological function." Like, "I didn't become a doctor to destroy someone's biological function for, you know, something that they've decided they have, without even, you know, any oversight or..." But, but the ones who do it say, "Look, this population is really desperate for surgery. It's a civil rights issue. I, you know, if I'm, you know, I'm, I'm giving them what they w- what will seem to bring them comfort, seems to bring them comfort." The problem is that there's no, like, follow-up to see how their mental health is afterwards.

Joe Rogan 12:39 The surgeon is basically a mechanic, right? They just remove the tires-

Abigail Shrier 12:43 A little bit.

Joe Rogan 12:43 ... and send you on your way.

Abigail Shrier 12:44 Yeah, the problem is we're not cars.

Joe Rogan 12:46 Right.

Abigail Shrier 12:47 Right? It's all connected. So unfortunately, very often, the mental health deteriorate- I mean, I talked to y- one young woman, Desmond, who's amazing. And she, uh, she decided in high school she was trans. She got celebrated everywhere. Her teachers, her therapist told her, "Yeah, you're definitely a man, you're supposed to be a man." Affirmed her everywhere she went. She got on testosterone and it caused uterine cramping, which can happen. Um, it's one of the many bad side effects of testosterone. She had to have a hysterectomy. So at 21, she wakes up with a hysterectomy, and she realized this whole thing had been a giant mistake. Her mental health had not improved at all, and this was a huge, like, mistake and path she had gone on. And all of a sudden, she didn't know what to do. There was no one cheering her on anymore.

Joe Rogan 13:34 Why do you think people get cheered on for this decision?

Abigail Shrier 13:39 I think in America we have a weakness for anything that gets cloaked in civil rights. And part of that is very noble and good. Obviously, the civil rights movement was extremely important in our country and, and, and extremely, you know, valuable, um, and valorous. But, but now anything that gets called a civil rights issue, you can't question. So I interview parents and they'll tell me, they're almost all politically progressive, okay? Most of the parents that call me are politically progressive, and I interviewed almost five dozen of them now. And they'll tell me, like, "I support LGBTQ, but I, I really, I'm not sure this is right for my daughter." Like, "I don't, I don't think she's really gender dysphoric. She's getting worse. Like, what is going on here?" And I'll say to them, "Would you take away her binder?" You know, binder is that compression garment they wear to flatten their breasts. And they'll say to me, "Oh, I can't do that. I mean, I, you know, I support LGBTQ," and whatnot. And I'll say to her, you know, sometimes I'll say to them, "Would you give her cigarettes? Why don't you give her cigarettes?" 'Cause, 'cause a binder will deform breast tissue. It can cause rib cracking, it can cause shortness of breath, you know? I-

Joe Rogan 14:44 I'm not, I wasn't aware of these binders. So this is something like a corset.

Abigail Shrier 14:48 Yeah, but it, yeah, right. So it makes them look like a man. So it's gotta squash, and if you're, you know, a big-breasted woman, it's gonna squash even harder. I mean, it's gonna s- really f- try to flatten you to give you the physique, you know, the appearance of a male physique.

Joe Rogan 14:59 So it, but it's just an appearance thing? Or is it-

Abigail Shrier 15:01 So that's just an appearance thing. They usually, 16-year-old girls don't usually go straight to top surgery. They start with a binder, or you know, 13, 14-year-olds.

Joe Rogan 15:10 So do you think that something about... Well, people are really susceptible to praise, right? When, when they lean towards love.

Abigail Shrier 15:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:18 And they, they lean towards, uh, anything that celebrates their actions. It's real common. I mean, you see it with artists, and sometimes e- er- sometimes for the worst, right? You see, you see it with comedians, uh, which is my general area of expertise when it comes to this. You see, sometimes a comic will, will do something, particularly online, and then they get sort of celebrated for that, and then they start doing a lot of it. And it seems disingenuous and weird, but th- they're like fishing for, for love.

Abigail Shrier 15:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 15:47 And you, you see it with social media, and particularly people.

Abigail Shrier 15:49 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 15:49 I mean, this is a lot of what happens with social justice warriors and online virtue signaling, right? They're trying to get this reaction from people. So if someone, uh, comes out as trans and everyone celebrates, if perhaps they're a little confused and they come out as trans and no one says anything, and then they're just sort of, they have to sit and think about it for themselves, that's one way. But if someone comes out as trans and everybody says, "That's amazing, that's amazing," they want that feeling of, "That's amazing. I'm amazing."

Abigail Shrier 16:16 That's exactly right. So I talk about it in this, my book. I interviewed this young woman, Benji, who was going through a really hard time in, in middle school, really hard. And at 13, you know, she got really into these YouTube trans stars, and, who promised testosterone was like the greatest thing ever. And she's, she decided to start an account on one of the social media, you know, sites, a- and she came out as trans. And everybody congratulated her. This is a girl who was lonely. Everyone was telling her, you know, "This is y- yours, you should be... I'm so proud of you."

Joe Rogan 16:47 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 16:47 "I'm there for you. I'm your glitter family." And a lot of them were adults. And lo and behold, she waits l- you know, all of a sudden they start asking for things, like pictures.

Joe Rogan 16:55 Mm-hmm.

Abigail Shrier 16:56 Right? And I talked to transgender adults, like I talked to this, I interviewed this trans, uh, woman in, Crystal, in my book, who was, you know, very, very ni- I interview her and, and she made the decision as an adult to transition. And she said to me... It was biological man now, now woman. And, and, and she said to me, you know, "When Caitlyn happened, it was a nightmare for me. Because I had g- been going around in my job. I know I didn't look perfectly like a woman, but I felt comfortable. Like, I wasn't... Now I had people crossing the street to hug me."

Joe Rogan 17:27 (laughs)

Abigail Shrier 17:28 She said, "It was embarrassing."

Joe Rogan 17:29 How weird.

Abigail Shrier 17:29 Like, "I had people in restaurants stopping to celebrate me."

Joe Rogan 17:32 Hmm.... well, it's on one hand... See, this is where I'm torn. 'Cause on one hand, if you are trans and you do feel better about this, but you're confused how people are gonna react, and then all of a sudden people are celebrating you. Like, "Yes, this is great." I love the idea of an accepting society and people are open and loving and, and happy that someone is making this transition. But on the other hand, I'm very aware of the influence of the masses, and, and, and of just people's love and praise. It can shift you one way or another. I mean... I mean, it's like a classic scene in a movie, right, where there's a boy who doesn't want to get involved in manly things and then... but his dad's like, "Come on, son. I want you to do it." And he just does it for his dad, but then he feels bad about it.

Abigail Shrier 18:15 Right.

Joe Rogan 18:15 Like, that's classic. Like-

Abigail Shrier 18:16 Right.

Joe Rogan 18:16 ... human beings are so malleable. We're so easily influenced.

Abigail Shrier 18:20 That's, that's exactly right, and that's what people miss.

Joe Rogan 18:22 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 18:22 Like, teenage girls, they can convince themselves of lots of things 'cause they're going through a hard time, right?

Joe Rogan 18:27 Sure.

Abigail Shrier 18:27 Puberty is hard. Not having boys like you. And now you add social media. They don't have a chance at looking like these Facetuned celebrities or even their Facetuned friends.

Joe Rogan 18:37 Right.

Abigail Shrier 18:38 So they feel terrible about themselves.

Joe Rogan 18:40 Yeah, that is one of the things that Jonathan Haidt talked about when... in terms of social media, like the comparison of each other. I mean, and what you're so- talking about, Facetuned, is perfect too. Um, the, uh, uh, I don't know if you're... (laughs) there was, uh... Which one was it? Khloe? The, the, the face one? Okay. Khloe Kardashian took a photo and put it on Instagram, and it's not her.

Abigail Shrier 19:01 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 19:01 I mean, it's just not her. It's not her face. And, and a friend of mine, she, she said this to me, she's like, "What the fuck is going on?" And she showed me that, um, while they had Photoshopped her photo, they had accidentally removed part of her chain. So she had a chain on, like a thin chain.

Abigail Shrier 19:19 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 19:19 She had the pendant, but the, the right side of the chain is missing-

Abigail Shrier 19:21 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 19:22 ... 'cause they had this, these wacky photo filters and they reshaped her face. And it's like, it's not her.

Abigail Shrier 19:27 Right. It-

Joe Rogan 19:27 Like, so if you're a kid-

Abigail Shrier 19:29 Yeah, right.

Joe Rogan 19:29 ... and you look like Khloe, what she used to look like, it's kind of a little bit awkward.

Abigail Shrier 19:33 You think you're ugly.

Joe Rogan 19:34 Yeah. And then all of a sudden, she looks like someone who's an anime character-

Abigail Shrier 19:37 Right.

Joe Rogan 19:37 ... like the perfect woman, you know, in terms of, like, society's beauty standards. And that's not re- even really what she looks like. So if you're a kid and you're looking at yourself in the mirror and you're looking at this picture of her, you're like, "Fuck, what do I have to do?"

Abigail Shrier 19:51 Right.

Joe Rogan 19:51 Like, "What... How do I look like that?"

Abigail Shrier 19:52 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 19:52 "Why do I look like this? I hate myself." You know?

Abigail Shrier 19:55 It's exactly what happens. They... Girls in your class put Facetuned photos up.

Joe Rogan 19:59 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 19:59 So you stare, you sit there, and you're like, "I'm not as pretty. Oh my God, she's got 10 times the number of friends likes that I have."

Joe Rogan 20:06 Yes.

Abigail Shrier 20:06 Or whatever. It's-

Joe Rogan 20:06 I love that expression Facetuned. I've never heard that before.

Abigail Shrier 20:09 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 20:09 That is-

Abigail Shrier 20:10 That's a-

Joe Rogan 20:10 It's like autotune for your voice, right?

Abigail Shrier 20:12 Right, exactly.

Joe Rogan 20:12 Facetuned. Yeah, it's... That comparison thing is so strange. It's really weird that people do that. These filters that they use, and it's just- it's very strange.

Abigail Shrier 20:23 I mean, look at Lana Del Rey, right? She came out with an au- she, she came out with an audiobook last week, and she went to celebrate it on social media. She posted a picture. And the first comment on it is, "You look fat." So young girls see that and they think they don't have a chance. This is one of the most streamed recording art- female recording artists ever. Right? Beautiful woman. "You look fat," is the first comment.

Joe Rogan 20:47 Well, that's a troll.

Abigail Shrier 20:49 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 20:49 You know? Right? She's not fat.

Abigail Shrier 20:51 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:51 Is Lana Del Rey... Did she get fat?

Abigail Shrier 20:52 No, she's not fat, but I'm just saying-

Joe Rogan 20:54 Did she get a little heavy?

Abigail Shrier 20:55 (laughs) I don't know. I haven't kept up on her weight.

Joe Rogan 20:57 Let me see what Lana Del Rey looks like.

Abigail Shrier 20:58 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 20:58 Let me see that picture. (laughs)

Abigail Shrier 21:00 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:00 I wanna know. I mean, there's one thing if she actually got large. That's just a mean person. But if she didn't, that's a troll.

Abigail Shrier 21:08 Right, but teenage girls don't evaluate it that way.

Joe Rogan 21:10 I understand that. So they should-

Abigail Shrier 21:11 You know what I mean?

Joe Rogan 21:12 They should not be online.

Abigail Shrier 21:13 They should not be-

Joe Rogan 21:14 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 21:14 They should not be on social media.

Joe Rogan 21:15 No, there's a lot of them who n- should not be on social media. I mean, not, not even just teenage, like well into womanhood. I, I know women that, like, read things and they get... They'll ruin their whole day. Like, it'll wake them up in the middle of the night.

Abigail Shrier 21:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:28 It's not good.

Abigail Shrier 21:30 No. I mean-

Joe Rogan 21:31 And it's these faceless, nameless people that are saying these mean things that aren't even accurate, but for whatever reason, they resonate.

Abigail Shrier 21:39 You know, women have always been, like, really empathetic creatures. They, like, care about what their friends think. They care about what other people think. You know, it's-

Joe Rogan 21:48 Some of them.

Abigail Shrier 21:49 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:49 We're, we're making massive generalizations-

Abigail Shrier 21:51 Right, but, but-

Joe Rogan 21:51 ... here about trans people-

Abigail Shrier 21:53 Right?

Joe Rogan 21:53 ... about doctors.

Abigail Shrier 21:53 Look-

Joe Rogan 21:54 I know.

Abigail Shrier 21:54 No, but, but here's, here's why I say that. Because the reason that's... There's a reason that social contagion spreads among teenage girls specifically, okay?

Joe Rogan 22:03 Okay.

Abigail Shrier 22:03 Because you don't see tons of boys going around becoming anorexic because their friends are. If a teenage boy is depressed, his friend says to him, "Let's go play basketball or a video game." He doesn't say, "Let's sit and talk about it."

Joe Rogan 22:14 Hmm.

Abigail Shrier 22:14 And because girls try to take on their friends' pain very naturally and meet their friends where they are and they care, they take on the pain of other people, especially their girlfriends, they are more likely to share and spread a peer contagion, like, like anorexia, like cutting, and like trans identification.

Joe Rogan 22:33 That's fascinating. You're, you're talking about these mental health disorders like they're a contagion, like, like they're actually contagious. Like, you can give it to your friends and your friends can take it on as well.

Abigail Shrier 22:42 Right. Well, we know this, right? Anorexics, they are always really careful when they put them together. They have to be on hospital wards 'cause we know that it will cause it to spread. Anorexia will become more severe and they'll spread it if you put a bunch of anorexic girls together and you don't, you don't take precautions to make sure that they're not just encouraging each other to lose more and more weight.

Joe Rogan 23:01 Well, that sort of phenomenon exists in men as well, but it exists, like, if, if... Like, a good aspect of it is if you have friends that are very ambitious and work really hard, you'll want to be ambitious-

Abigail Shrier 23:14 Okay.

Joe Rogan 23:14 ... and work really hard as well.

Joe Rogan 23:16 And if you have friends that are losers and they want to drink and p- and just waste their life, you tend to gravitate towards that too because you get reinforced by the behavior and the acceptance of your peers.

Abigail Shrier 23:27 Yeah, and, and m- men are more competitive, for sure.

Joe Rogan 23:30 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 23:30 I think men are more outwardly competitive. If their bu- buddy is doing... You know. I, I see it in my, my kids, you know. If I say to one brother, "Your brother's doing this," all of a sudden, I have the other one's-

Joe Rogan 23:39 Yes.

Abigail Shrier 23:39 ... attention. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:40 What does Lana Del Rey look like? Oh, wow. What do you got?... the- What's her Instagram? ... took a photo. Oh, why is it not working?

Abigail Shrier 23:48 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 23:48 It's been ... Yeah, see? It worked. There it goes. Um ... Do we need a new box? There's- There's her book, but I ... There's nothing on there. I mean, there's a photo of her. Where's the, where's the image? I don't-

Abigail Shrier 23:57 She's a ... Looking a little fat.

Joe Rogan 23:58 I don't know.

Abigail Shrier 23:58 That's outrageous. Which one did you see where they said she was fat? I, I think it might've been that one.

Joe Rogan 24:02 Come on. Really?

Abigail Shrier 24:02 I don't know, the one on the audiobook. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:04 That's a video.

Abigail Shrier 24:05 I think it was her first one. Um-

Joe Rogan 24:06 Was it a video or was it a photograph?

Abigail Shrier 24:07 It was a photo, I think. I just looked at it.

Joe Rogan 24:10 I don't know.

Abigail Shrier 24:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:10 I just ... That's long ago.

Abigail Shrier 24:11 It was last week, I think.

Joe Rogan 24:13 Oh. Well-

Abigail Shrier 24:13 Or earlier this week.

Joe Rogan 24:14 You see, anybody who said ... Okay, would you ... Let me just stop right there. Anybody who said that's fat is a troll.

Abigail Shrier 24:18 Right.

Joe Rogan 24:18 You're ... That's just c- a guy, probably, who's an asshole.

Abigail Shrier 24:21 Well, it was a wo-

Joe Rogan 24:22 You look fat.

Abigail Shrier 24:22 I think it w- It looked like it was a woman posting-

Joe Rogan 24:24 Really?

Abigail Shrier 24:24 ... actually.

Joe Rogan 24:25 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 24:25 'Cause I, I was curious about that. But-

Joe Rogan 24:27 If I was gonna be a troll-

Abigail Shrier 24:27 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:28 ... I would pretend to be a woman and just be the meanest woman ever-

Abigail Shrier 24:31 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 24:31 ... and just go on these women's pages and make them feel bad. I think there's a lot of people, men and women, that really enjoy hurting people's feelings online.

Abigail Shrier 24:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 24:39 You know? If you look at that woman right there and you say, "You look fat," well, that ... D- why not say, "You look like a giraffe"? 'Cause-

Abigail Shrier 24:46 Right.

Joe Rogan 24:47 ... b- both of them are e- equally inaccurate.

Abigail Shrier 24:49 She doesn't look fat at all. Right, but teen girls aren't good at, like, assessing that. So for instance-

Joe Rogan 24:54 Of course.

Abigail Shrier 24:54 ... I talked to one detransitioner. So she had gone on testosterone and regretted it, came back.

Joe Rogan 24:58 Detransitioner. So sh-

Abigail Shrier 24:59 Yeah, detransitioner, young woman, Helena, brilliant young woman. And I really, you know, learned a lot from her. And one thing she said to me was, "You know, e- everybody just cares about how perfect you look today and how feminine." And, and at the time I said to her ... I was interviewing her, and I said, "W- wait a second. Hold on. What are you talking about? Like, I just saw A Star is Born with Lady Gaga. She's not perfect-looking, but she's an awesomely talented human being, like, a o- ... A woman that every young, you know, actress should, and singer, should be looking up to." And she said to me, and I'll never forget this, she said to me, "Are you kidding? Do you see how they talk about her online?" And I realized I was only loo- listening to her albums and seeing her in the movie. But Helena was looking at social media, and she was seeing women, you know, even as amazing as Lady Gaga torn apart.

Joe Rogan 25:48 (smacks lips) Yeah. Again, this is the problem with social media that we kinda discussed in the, the green room-

Abigail Shrier 25:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:54 ... about the percentage of people that are really fucking stupid that are posting. You're getting a lot of people ... See, if you just have people commenting on things without knowing who they are, like if you're ... if you work in an office and you have a bunch of people in your office that you respect and they're your peers and, uh, they say, "Abigail, I think this," and you go, "Hmm, that's interesting, Mary, because I respect your opinion, so I'm gonna have to take that into consideration." But if you just read some no, you know, m- no-face, no-name, you don't know who the fuck it is, you know, blocked account, and they, they write something mean, you will take that into your brain the same way you'll take your friend Mary-

Abigail Shrier 26:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 26:37 ... who you respect and love. It's like, it's a problem with human beings the way we process information. If we don't have ... Like, if you know that someone's a moron and they say something to you and you're like, "Well, Mike's a moron. I ... Everyone knows Mike's a moron."

Abigail Shrier 26:48 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 26:48 "It's clear." But when you just read something in text, your text looks just like some idiot's text.

Abigail Shrier 26:54 Right.

Joe Rogan 26:54 You're using the same font. You know, it comes off of an iPhone, just like him. And it's hard to tell. It's hard to differentiate. And when people are doing it specifically just to be mean, it can be very, very confusing. And it just highlights the really poor quality of discourse that you get when you're, you know, reading comments and you're, you're dealing with social media and YouTube comments and Twitter and all that stuff. Like, it's just a really bad way to communicate with people. And most of the people that are saying shitty things would not say those shitty things if they were right in front of you.

Abigail Shrier 27:24 That's exactly right. And the ... And I think one of the things that makes it even worse is because somebody makes a mean comment to you, okay, maybe it bothers you, maybe it doesn't, right? But it's not in front of, I don't know, a thousand of your friends. Now it's in front of a thousand of your friends. That's humiliating.

Joe Rogan 27:41 Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 27:42 Wow, you just amplified that.

Joe Rogan 27:44 Yes. Yeah. Well, we're not designed for this.

Abigail Shrier 27:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 27:47 You know, we really aren't. Um ... I mean, someone like me. I mean, I'm ... I have pretty thick skin, but I'm not designed for it. And so I don't read it. I just don't read it. I post things and I run away. You know? (laughs) 'Cause like some people can just ... sitting there and, and, and t- try to soak up all the hate and turn people around. Like, I've had, I've heard people say, "Oh, they say mean things to me, but I say nice things back and they say, 'Hey, I was only kidding.'" I'm like, "Why waste your time?" Like, what are you, you g- what are you doing? You gonna proselytize? You gonna fix people? What are you doing? Like, you're, you're, you're, you're engaging in one of the worst forms of communication we, we have available to us.

Abigail Shrier 28:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 28:21 Anonymous human beings that just post their opinions. Let their opinions be their opinions. I don't, I don't have any power over people's opinions. Let them have their opinions.

Abigail Shrier 28:29 It's hard not to. I mean, I- personally.

Joe Rogan 28:32 It is hard. Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 28:32 Like, I think it's really hard. Like, somebody's post- post something about you on Facebook or Twitter or whatever, everybody's seeing that.

Joe Rogan 28:38 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 28:39 You just got called a name in front of thousand people.

Joe Rogan 28:42 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 28:42 M- you know, way more depending on which, you know, forum it's on, whatever. It's, it's really hard to just ignore it now.

Joe Rogan 28:48 Well, it's really hard, and it's particularly hard if you're young and developing.

Abigail Shrier 28:52 Right. Right.

Joe Rogan 28:52 You know? It's really hard if you're a 50-year-old man. But if you're a 17-year-old girl-

Abigail Shrier 28:57 Right.

Joe Rogan 28:57 ... and you're in this awkward time in your life, it can be really devastating.

Abigail Shrier 29:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:01 But that's why they shouldn't be on it.

Abigail Shrier 29:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:02 It's, it's fucking bad for them.

Abigail Shrier 29:03 I-

Joe Rogan 29:04 It's bad for everybody.

Abigail Shrier 29:04 I agree, but I tell, I tell parents, "If you can, you know, don't introduce social media and get them off it." It's-

Joe Rogan 29:10 Well, the problem is, their friends are on it.

Abigail Shrier 29:12 Right.

Joe Rogan 29:12 You know? I'm ... My ... One of my daughters, who's 12, her friend has an Instagram page.

Abigail Shrier 29:16 Ah.

Joe Rogan 29:16 She's like, "I want an Instagram page." I'm like, "You are out of your mind."

Abigail Shrier 29:19 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 29:19 Like, "You don't want that."

Abigail Shrier 29:20 Right.

Joe Rogan 29:20 "You think you want that. You don't want that. Your friend doesn't even want that."

Abigail Shrier 29:23 Right.

Joe Rogan 29:23 Hey, let's check in with her in three years when she's going crazy.

Abigail Shrier 29:25 Right.

Joe Rogan 29:26 It is not good.

Abigail Shrier 29:27 Right. So we've ... We can now pinpoint, right, a lot of mental health issues, f- especially for teenage girls, right to social media.

Joe Rogan 29:34 Yeah. And again, The Coddling of the American Mind-

Abigail Shrier 29:36 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:36 ... is a fantastic book-

Abigail Shrier 29:37 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 29:38 ... that, that covers that. And, you know, it's not just girls. It's boys, it's humans, it's adults, it's grown women, it's grown men.

Abigail Shrier 29:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 29:44 It's just, it's a really bad way to communicate with each other.

Abigail Shrier 29:48 (coughs)

Joe Rogan 29:48 And it's a, a bad way to exchange ideas.

Abigail Shrier 29:51 And now they're telling ... They're watching these y- They're these influencers-

Joe Rogan 29:54 Mm-hmm.

Abigail Shrier 29:54 ... which is another thing.

Joe Rogan 29:56 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 29:56 You know, you have these trans influencers and they promise these girls that if they just go on T, everything will get better. And the problem-

Joe Rogan 30:04 Why do you, why do you think they do that?

Abigail Shrier 30:05 Okay. So why do they ... A couple reasons. So one is, um-... testosterone has certain good effects. So it delivers a euphoria and it- it suppresses anxiety. And anxiety is one of their biggest problems. So they go on it and they feel great and they can't wait to tell their friends. It makes their period go away and it redistributes fat. So now these girls feel like, "I just beat puberty. I feel amazing. I wanna tell everybody how great I feel." And they are brave all of a sudden. They're braver and socially bolder. The problem is, of course, what they don't like to talk about online is all the really dangerous stuff that comes with testosterone too, like it leads to heart, uh, infertility, like risk of cardiovascular atta- you know, heart atta- risk of heart attack goes way up. Um, there's, uh, you know, body hair, facial hair, cl- uh...

Joe Rogan 31:00 But don't they want that?

Abigail Shrier 31:02 So I think-

Joe Rogan 31:03 The body hair, facial hair part?

Abigail Shrier 31:04 Y- for now. But it's permanent, you know? A lot of this-

Joe Rogan 31:08 Body hair is permanent?

Abigail Shrier 31:08 It can be. It can be.

Joe Rogan 31:10 So what ... But what about when trans women, when a- a tr- a man transitions to a woman, don't they lose a lot of their body hair?

Abigail Shrier 31:16 S- they lose some of it, but some of them are ... I mean, everybody's different.

Joe Rogan 31:18 Uh-huh.

Abigail Shrier 31:18 But some of them are stuck with a five o'clock shadow for life.

Joe Rogan 31:22 How does a kid know whether they are someone who's being easily influenced and someone who is giving into this anxiety and you are a part of, well, the way you're describing it, a contagion amongst your friends, versus someone who's genuinely trans, like someone who genuinely is born in the wrong body?

Abigail Shrier 31:42 So we have a 100-year diagnostic history of gender dysphoria. We know what it is. It's not guesswork. We know that it is, in this whole history, it typically presents in early childhood, ages two to four is when we see it starting, and it was overwhelmingly boys, little boys who say, "No, mommy. I'm not a boy, I'm a girl. Call me a girl. Only wanna play with other girls. Only wanna do ... you know, play with girl toys." And they ... sometimes they hate their sexual organ. I mean, sometimes, you know, it's a severe, persistent, insistent, consistent feeling. Um, and, and then a lot of them would grow out of it and some of them wouldn't, and they would become what we used to call transsexuals. Um, now we're seeing an explosion of young women, you know, suddenly deciding they're trans with their friends and they are doing it in friend groups. They'll have a whole friend group of trans kids. They are, you know, doing it after social media emergent. Transgender adults never did it because of social media, and it certainly never won them friends.

Joe Rogan 32:39 Hmm. Um, so what about women that were trans?

Abigail Shrier 32:44 Right.

Joe Rogan 32:44 Like you say, predominantly-

Abigail Shrier 32:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:46 ... it's, it's boys who wanted to be girls.

Abigail Shrier 32:49 Right.

Joe Rogan 32:49 But what about girls-

Abigail Shrier 32:51 Girl.

Joe Rogan 32:51 ... who wanted to be boys?

Abigail Shrier 32:52 So that existed too, and that also typically began in early childhood. Um, and most gr- most of these kids, if left alone, would outgrow it. So d- gender dysphoria is something that, you know, most, most kids, if they ... even if they experience the real thing, will outgrow, and some won't.

Joe Rogan 33:09 Yeah. I was reading, uh, an article about gender dysphoria. They were talking about it. First of all, even saying gender dysphoria I think is hate speech now. I don't think you're supposed to even-

Abigail Shrier 33:18 It's in the DSM.

Joe Rogan 33:19 I know.

Abigail Shrier 33:20 Is the whole DSM hate speech?

Joe Rogan 33:21 Yes. Everything.

Abigail Shrier 33:22 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 33:22 You're hate speech.

Abigail Shrier 33:23 I am? Okay. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 33:25 (laughs) But you know what I mean? I mean, like, everything's hate speech, um, because people are gone ... they've gone so wacky. But they were talking about, um, uh, there was a, uh, a study done on, uh, men who experienced gender dysphoria at a young age and then transitioned to become gay-

Abigail Shrier 33:41 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 33:41 ... and just be- just became gay, just were gay. And they realized, like, this was just a part of their process and they're happy as a gay man, and they didn't transition.

Abigail Shrier 33:52 So that's very typical.

Joe Rogan 33:53 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 33:53 Most of these, most of these kids would emerge as homosexual adults.

Joe Rogan 33:57 That's ... The thing is just, like, if we're cool with people being trans, and we are obviously, we ... I mean, especially adults, why w- you know, w- why ... Is it better? Do we like this idea that if you just leave them alone, they become gay men? Or would we ... I- mean are ... How many of them would be trans if they were encouraged in that direction? How many of ... Are they happier this way or that way? Like, this is a very w- this is a very human problem.

Abigail Shrier 34:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:28 And by human problem, I mean there's not really a good answer. It's, there ... Human problems are slippery problems, where it's like you're develop- like particularly you're talking about young people. They're ... We're hijacking their development. You're j- you're deciding, "Okay, have you made a decision? You know what you're gonna do forever? All right. We're gonna jump in now and we're gonna stop your reproductive cycle."

Abigail Shrier 34:50 Right.

Joe Rogan 34:50 "We're gonna jump in now and introduce hormones that were never in your body."

Abigail Shrier 34:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:54 "And we're gonna ... Well, they're a little bit, tiny, tiny amounts."

Abigail Shrier 34:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:56 "We're gonna jack it up to the roof like fucking Hulk Hogan-

Abigail Shrier 34:59 Right.

Joe Rogan 34:59 ... and you're, you're, you're gonna be a different person now. And I sh- I'm ho- I hope you can make this decision at 17 that will affect the rest of your life. I hope you're, you're mentally capable of doing that." That's a tall order.

Abigail Shrier 35:13 It's a tall order and there's no medical oversight right now.

Joe Rogan 35:16 Right.

Abigail Shrier 35:16 There's no med- ... I mean, we have no idea what long-term testosterone use does to a female's body at 10 to 40 times what her body would normally have. Okay? We don't know. We can talk about the risks, but we don't know. But it's not presented to people as a highly experimental medicine, which it is.

Joe Rogan 35:32 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 35:32 It's not reviewed by an institutional review board.

Joe Rogan 35:35 L-

Abigail Shrier 35:35 They, they make it sound like it's something you can just sign a waiver for and no big deal.

Joe Rogan 35:39 Why is that? Why is there no review? Why, why is there no oversight? Why is this so free and loose?

Abigail Shrier 35:45 It's-

Joe Rogan 35:45 I mean, is it a sign ... Is it a good sign that we're, like, more progressive now, more open-minded, and ... but because of that things have gotten a little slippery in terms of what we celebrate and what we should rationally step back and objectively analyze and say, "Hey, is this really the right way to handle this?"

Abigail Shrier 36:03 I, I think one of the things that happened was in 2012, WPATH, which is the transgender health, you know, uh, uh, organization, um, worldwide organization, um, changed to an informed consent model, saying that people should be able to get the t- the drugs they want or, you know, uh-... claim to need on, based on their own recognizance. You sign a form, you're aware of the risk, and then you get it. And the problem was maybe they felt that there was too much gatekeeping as they call it, or too much questioning. They felt in, you know, that there were people who weren't getting the medical care they, they needed. The problem was you hit 18 and the age of medical content varies by state. In Oregon it's 15. It varies. And you hit that age, you can, you can get it. You walk out the door with it.

Joe Rogan 36:51 In Oregon it's 15?

Abigail Shrier 36:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:53 That's crazy.

Abigail Shrier 36:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:54 You're not even a fully formed person.

Abigail Shrier 36:55 No. And you don't need your parents' approval.

Joe Rogan 36:57 Oh my God. (sighs) We, we were talking before we got on the air, um, about, uh, children, like really young children transitioning. You were saying that most people who transition know when they're very young. Um, that is a real, uh, that's a hot button topic for people, children and hormone blockers, and children-

Abigail Shrier 37:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 37:23 ... I, (sighs) m- what I keep going to is if you are a woman and you, you know you're a woman, w- why do you need to get these hormones injected into your body? Why, why can't you just be a woman? I'll, I'll call you a woman. Like, what are w- what are we doing with all these hormones? Like, why are we complete, like ... Imagine you're a person who says, "I need to transition to be a woman and I know that I need a chemical that I've never had in my body before. And if I get that chemical injected, then I'm gonna be happy."

Abigail Shrier 37:55 Right, so-

Joe Rogan 37:55 And if I get surgery, then I'm gonna be happy. This is what I'm supposed to be.

Abigail Shrier 37:58 Right. So the big problem with this is that you're making all the decisions that normally a doctor would make. Any other-

Joe Rogan 38:03 And you're doing it at 15.

Abigail Shrier 38:04 Right.

Joe Rogan 38:04 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 38:05 A- any other area of medicine, a doctor makes that. They say, "Hold on. I know you think you need," you know, whatever, "an opioid, but just relax. Let's see what your p-" You know. Uh, I mean, that's, you know, effectively what cau- you know, what facilitated the opioid crisis. Doctors just handing over the prescription pad. And we're seeing that right now with anybody who claims to have gender dysphoria. They get it. They, they self-diagnose. They say, "No, no, no. I know it's my problem." They don't have a mental health professional who says, "Oh, wait a second. Hold on. You have very high anxiety, depression. You have a lot of other mental health stuff going on. Let's deal with that first." Any therapist who dares to say that might violate one of the 19 conversion therapy laws we now have in 19 different states.

Joe Rogan 38:46 There's 19 conversion therapy?

Abigail Shrier 38:47 I think it's 19, yeah, which bans conversion, so-called conversion therapy, even on gender identity, which means that therapists could lose their license if they say, "Hold on. I know you wanna transition. I know you think your problem is gender dysphoria. Let's talk about some of your other problems."

Joe Rogan 39:00 Wow. So a therapist, if you're a 15-year-old kid and you come to a therapist and you say, "All my friends are going trans, and I, I think I'm trans too," uh, the, the doctor has to essentially go with you on this little path you're on?

Abigail Shrier 39:15 The doctors feel that they have to. I mean, the American ... The number of association, American Medical Association, um, Endocrine Society, I mean, you name it, American Pediatric Society, you know, all these med- medical professional organizations, m- most of them have adopted affirmative care, which means their job is to affirm the patient's self-diagnosis with regard to this one issue. I mean, they're, they're ... You know, it's turning doctors into, I don't, life coaches, right?

Joe Rogan 39:40 How-

Abigail Shrier 39:40 I mean, they're-

Joe Rogan 39:41 How much time have we been doing this for?

Abigail Shrier 39:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 39:43 How long is the time period w- when this really started to escalate?

Abigail Shrier 39:47 The last decade.

Joe Rogan 39:48 The last decade.

Abigail Shrier 39:48 We've seen it fly across the West. I mean, it's in Canada, UK, you know, Scandinavia. We're seeing numbers across the West. All of a sudden it's teenage girls. It's the very same girls who spread every other, you know, contemporary hysteria, or every other hysteria.

Joe Rogan 40:03 Um, boy. It makes you feel like there's a lot of lawsuits coming.

Abigail Shrier 40:09 I, I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, these do- these girls are getting these things so easily and they're 15, they're 16, they're 17, they're 18.

Joe Rogan 40:18 How many did you interview when you were doing this book?

Abigail Shrier 40:20 Um, so I, I conducted almost 200 interviews. Um, so how many teenage girls?

Joe Rogan 40:26 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 40:26 More specifically? I actually don't know. I interviewed a lot, a lot of people. And, uh, and a bunch of adolescent girls as well. And I-

Joe Rogan 40:34 More than 10? More than 20?

Abigail Shrier 40:35 Yeah, more than 10, but I don't know. I, I have to ... I have a, like, spreadsheets for this stuff.

Joe Rogan 40:40 Um.

Abigail Shrier 40:40 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:40 Did you interview ones that were happy with the transition?

Abigail Shrier 40:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:43 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 40:43 I did. Um, you know, still very young, but I, you know, um, I interviewed influencers and I interviewed, um, parents and I interviewed adolescent girls. And some of these girls have, you know, can, stayed with their transition and claim to be happy. Um, maybe they are, some of them. But the problem is if you ask, if you find out objective things about their lives, right: "Are you still in school or did you drop out?" Or, "Did you cut off your family or did you not? Do you have friends? What's your social life like? What's your job? Do you have a regular job?" Very often, the picture is, is a dark one. It's not a good one.

Joe Rogan 41:22 Well, isn't that just the case with a lot of people in general, though? I mean, especially people that have the kind of problems they have to begin with and they make this gigantic decision.

Abigail Shrier 41:31 Right.

Joe Rogan 41:32 The question is did, did this decision of transitioning help or hurt?

Abigail Shrier 41:36 Right.

Joe Rogan 41:36 And where would they be if they didn't? You were talking about them before, saying they were already in a dark place. They're already awkward-

Abigail Shrier 41:41 Right.

Joe Rogan 41:42 ... teenagers, the kind of girls who cut themselves, kind of girls who are prone to anorexia and witchcraft.

Abigail Shrier 41:47 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 41:47 This is ... You're, you're dealing with someone who doesn't have a rosy future already.

Abigail Shrier 41:52 Right, but I think we used to call that angst, teenage angst.

Joe Rogan 41:55 Mm-hmm.

Abigail Shrier 41:56 I mean, they got past it. The problem is-

Joe Rogan 41:59 Some, some folks.

Abigail Shrier 41:59 Yeah. Oh, yeah. You're right. Not everyone. But now they're getting, they're getting prescriptions. They're changing the whole course of their lives so easily with no medical oversight.

Joe Rogan 42:07 What kind of numbers are we talking about? Like, how m- how many people are doing this?

Abigail Shrier 42:10 Okay, so the numbers are harder to track in the United States 'cause we don't have centralized med- medical care. Um, and w- here, but here are the numbers that I can tell you, okay? So gender dysphoria used to afflict .01% of the population, so one in 10,000 people. So probably no one you went to high school with. But today, we already know that 2% of high school students are identifying as transgender. And 2% of high school students, you're talking about 1.1 million teenage, you know, high school kids in America.

Joe Rogan 42:40 2%?

Abigail Shrier 42:41 ... two percent.

Joe Rogan 42:42 And when did this happen? Did, did-

Abigail Shrier 42:43 And most of them are girls, yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:45 Really?

Abigail Shrier 42:45 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:45 Most of them are girls?

Abigail Shrier 42:46 Most of them are girls.

Joe Rogan 42:47 Really?

Abigail Shrier 42:48 Well, I mean, the number... We can just look at the number of gender surgeries. Um, we see that in 2016... Between 2016 and 2017, the number of gender surgeries for biological females quadrupled. So we know they are the biggest and fastest growing population.

Joe Rogan 43:05 Wow. Two... That's a stunning number, two percent. You go from 0.1%-

Abigail Shrier 43:12 Of the whole population.

Joe Rogan 43:13 Of the whole population to two percent.

Abigail Shrier 43:15 To two percent of high schoolers.

Joe Rogan 43:16 And the vast majority of them are teenage girls.

Abigail Shrier 43:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:19 What, what, what is the majority? Like, what are we talking about? 80%? Like, what is the number? Do you know?

Abigail Shrier 43:23 I, I don't know, but we have to look at-

Joe Rogan 43:25 But most of them are teenage girls.

Abigail Shrier 43:25 ... te- yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:26 More teenage girls-

Abigail Shrier 43:26 Every indication ... I mean, we know that... You know, I can give you a bunch of other statistics. One of the reasons it's hard to know exactly how many, aside from the fact that we don't have a centralized control of this, is because you don't need a, an actual diagnosis of gender dysphoria to get testosterone.

Joe Rogan 43:42 Mm.

Abigail Shrier 43:42 So you just go in and get it. You don't-

Joe Rogan 43:44 So you, you know-

Abigail Shrier 43:44 ... need the diagnosis. In England where, where you have a centralized medical care and they're ... you do need a diagnosis, they know that the numbers are up for te- for adolescent girls are up over 4000%.

Joe Rogan 43:54 Holy shit.

Abigail Shrier 43:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:57 So you knew all this stuff before you wrote the book. This is all the numbers that was-

Abigail Shrier 44:01 Well, no, it came out in the course of writing it. Yeah, some of it.

Joe Rogan 44:04 So that had to kind of affirm your idea that this was a real problem.

Abigail Shrier 44:08 I mean, everywhere I looked, it seemed to be a real problem. It wasn't ... And nobody wanted to talk about it, but it's real.

Joe Rogan 44:13 Well, it's just ... Because like even when we're talking about them, I go, "Oh, here's a landmine. Oh, here's a landmine." Like, everything we're saying ... Like, if you talk at all about trans people, um, you run the risk of pissing people off and offending people and staying out... You know. You're, you're, you're, you're going into an area where it's unless you are 100% in support of their decision and their rights and you, you, you celebrate them, you're gonna get in real trouble.

Abigail Shrier 44:42 Right, but that's why we have this problem.

Joe Rogan 44:44 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 44:44 'Cause nobody will talk about it, because parents will call me and say: "I, I, I've been pro-LGBTQ my whole life, I just don't think this is right for my daughter. I can't even talk to my friends about it. I'll get fired from my job if anybody finds this out."

Joe Rogan 44:57 Mm.

Abigail Shrier 44:58 "But my daughter's not... She's got a lot of problems, but gender dysphoria is not one of them. Like, I don't think this is right and I don't think it's gonna cure her."

Joe Rogan 45:05 And if you have to work and you're at work all day, you know, how much time do you have to even convince your daughter?

Abigail Shrier 45:10 Right.

Joe Rogan 45:10 Your daughter is i- with her wacky friends eight hours a day.

Abigail Shrier 45:13 And she's on the internet, and the problem is-

Joe Rogan 45:15 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 45:15 ... her school, her school's already filled out a form calling her Jimmy, right? For a year-

Joe Rogan 45:20 Ugh.

Abigail Shrier 45:20 ... they don't even tell you.

Joe Rogan 45:21 (inhales) Ooh. And for the people that don't think people are easily influenced, that's how cults start. Cults don't start 'cause they make sense. Cults start because people wanna belong, you know? And th- the idea that there's not a difference between someone who's willing to join some crazy radical cult to belong versus any other sort of social movement, that ... Let's ... That's a lot of what people do. I mean, people ... You're, you're seeing it now with a lot of our society. You're ... There's, there's paths that people go on to where they see other people doing it and they see a lot of people getting celebrated, and so they go down that path. And, you know, this is ... This really is a lot of the foundation of the social media influencer. I mean, one of the, one of the reasons why they're doing that is because they see other people do it and they see they get this sort of positive reaction from it, and then they wind up saying, "Oh, well, this is the path that I'm gonna go on." To make the jump from that sort of thinking and behavior to changing your gender is where people hesitate. They're like, "Is she right about this? Is this woman a bigot?" Like, who are you?

Abigail Shrier 46:30 Right.

Joe Rogan 46:30 Who are you and why did you write this book? And what has the reaction been ... What, what's the negative reaction been from people who are trans?

Abigail Shrier 46:39 So, you know, I get a lot of positive reaction, to be honest. Parents from all over the country write to me and be like, "Thank you so much. No one will talk about this." Let's talk about transgender reaction. The best reaction I get from transgender people is, "That has nothing to do with me." And I would say, "I agree with you." This has nothing to do with a normal transgender person's experience. They didn't come up with this online. But do some activists attack me? Yeah. B- you know, biological men who are trans activists believe that we should not be able to s- have a conversation about the mental health of teenage girls, and they're shutting it down.

Joe Rogan 47:17 Yeah. Why are we letting that happen? Like, who's letting that happen and what are the repercussions of them fighting against this? Is it what you were talking about before where these therapists, if they in any way suggest that this is not a good idea for the kid, they can lose their license?

Abigail Shrier 47:30 Right. Everybody ... I mean, I get so many... Doc- doctors will contact me like we live in the Soviet Union. They will say, "Oh my God, I can't talk about this, but I really... You know, I have to let you know that what's going on here is crazy, and I don't agree with this diagnosis, and it's clearly socially influenced," and, you know, all this stuff. And you think like, "You can't give your medical opinion without getting fired?" That's not good.

Joe Rogan 47:53 Yeah. One of the ... This is dangerous, but one of the things that I see is when women, uh, or trans women, when a male transitions to being a woman and then enters into women's spaces, they do so with the aggressiveness of a male. And this is something that a lot of women have been very upset about, s- particularly TERFs. You know, trans exclusionary radical feminists. They have a real hard time with tr- biological males talking about feminist issues and shutting down discussion about whether or not trans people or women, whether or not they should be in these spaces, whether or not they should be in these conversations.

Abigail Shrier 48:34 And let me-

Joe Rogan 48:34 And they do so with a very aggressive-

Abigail Shrier 48:35 Yeah, very aggressive. And, and I just wanna say, I've interviewed a lot of transgender adults. And let me tell you, they're not out there to make women uncomfortable. The ones I interview are-

Joe Rogan 48:43 They wanna be happy.

Abigail Shrier 48:44 They wanna be happy. They wanna-

Joe Rogan 48:45 Yes.

Abigail Shrier 48:45 ... be left alone. It's great. Like-

Joe Rogan 48:47 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 48:47 ... they're wonderful people. These activists are a little crazy.You know, people who will push into a, a rest-, you know, a locker room, insist on showering where you've got a bunch of ... And this happened, I wrote about it, in, in a, you know, in, in Palm Springs, a girls', you know, water polo high school team showed up to, uh, uh, shower in their locker room and there's a m- full man showering in the shower. And the girls got scared, you know, got uncomfortable, and he announces he's a woman, he's entitled.

Joe Rogan 49:15 Yeah, and you can have a penis and be a woman, which is also ... Okay. Like, you're not even gonna make the commitment? Like, if you're gonna be in a shower with a woman, Jesus Christ, like it, saying you're a woman and having a penis and being in a shower with a bunch of women, I mean, we gotta come up with some sort of a way of protecting young girls from people who are doing s- things like that, where you, you shouldn't have to see a naked man in the shower if you're a biological female and, you know, you're 15 years old and you're, you're, you think you're showering with your team and a male comes in.

Abigail Shrier 49:50 Right. And-

Joe Rogan 49:50 But this male says that they're a woman and you have to take them at their word, "Well, you're a woman."

Abigail Shrier 49:54 I mean-

Joe Rogan 49:54 I mea- Do we need trans bathrooms? I mean, what do we need? I mean, how does that work?

Abigail Shrier 49:58 It's a good question. I mean, you can't even s- nobody's standing up for these girls, right?

Joe Rogan 50:02 Right.

Abigail Shrier 50:02 So few people are saying, "Hold on," like, you can't ... They are rewriting Kinetic, in Kinet- in the state of Connecticut, okay, they now th- biological boys are allowed in to out-compete girls. They, they are mediocre boy runners and they're winning the trophies. They are setting records in Connecticut. They are literally erasing tremendous girl athletes' records-

Joe Rogan 50:22 Yes.

Abigail Shrier 50:22 ... in the state of Connecticut.

Joe Rogan 50:23 And they don't have to do anything-

Abigail Shrier 50:24 No.

Joe Rogan 50:24 ... in terms of transition. They just have to say they identify as a woman.

Abigail Shrier 50:27 Right. Right. That-

Joe Rogan 50:28 Yeah. Which is crazy. It's not like they have to be on estrogen therapy for multiple years.

Abigail Shrier 50:32 Some of them are, but you know what? The effects of testosterone on the body during puberty, on a male's body, are profound.

Joe Rogan 50:38 Yes.

Abigail Shrier 50:38 Right?

Joe Rogan 50:39 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 50:39 Yeah. I mean, I know you talk about this, like fast switch muscle fiber, you know, b- muscle mass, bone density, uh, they have bigger hearts, men, bigger lungs, but more oxygenated blood. The, uh, the, you know, differential is profound.

Joe Rogan 50:53 It is, it is profound. And it's interesting that if you discuss this, you're a bigot. It's really weird. Um, and it's this denial of reality that it's, i- it's not like you don't want someone to be happy, but for someone to say that it's fair for a biological male to compete against biological females, that's crazy.

Abigail Shrier 51:14 It- Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:14 And when you have this conversation with people, I always say, "Okay, well do you think men should be able to join women's teams?" "No." "Well then, wha- what are we doing?"

Abigail Shrier 51:21 Right.

Joe Rogan 51:21 "Well, what are we doing? If- Should men be able to compete against women?" "No." "Okay. So biological males that identify as women should be able to compete against women. Is that what you're saying? Because they're still males." Like when do you make the transition? Like when is it ... Do you, do you have to ... And then, well, people point to outliers, where there's some women that have more testosterone naturally, and ... Okay, but those are very rare. You know, and m- you know, when one of those gets in your division and you're a woman and she happens to also be a woman and she has naturally more testosterone, well, (slaps desk) I guess you're fucked.

Abigail Shrier 51:51 Well-

Joe Rogan 51:51 But that's just nature. I mean, that's also like-

Abigail Shrier 51:54 Right.

Joe Rogan 51:54 ... if you're my size and you wanna play basketball against LeBron James, you're fucked too.

Abigail Shrier 51:58 (laughs) .

Joe Rogan 51:58 You know, like, competition's not necessarily all that fair when it comes to just human bodies.

Abigail Shrier 52:05 (laughs) .

Joe Rogan 52:05 Like some people are just genetically gifted and some people are not. But we make a distinction for a reason, the biological distinction between males and females. It's because men are overwhelmingly stronger, faster, have larger hearts, more oxygen capacity, bigger bones. There's, there's so many factors, different shape of the hips.

Abigail Shrier 52:26 Right.

Joe Rogan 52:26 Different ... Yeah. There's a lot-

Abigail Shrier 52:28 Look at Allyson Felix, right? The world's fastest woman, right? This amazing, uh, US Olympian, right? So she ran the 400 meter in I think forty, 49.26 seconds. Unbelievable. Unbelievable time. She has more Olympic gold medals than Usain Bolt. Okay? Amazing athlete. In 2018, 300 boys in high school in America could beat her.

Joe Rogan 52:53 (blowing raspberry) That's nuts.

Abigail Shrier 52:55 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 52:56 Yeah. (sighs) It's unfortunate because outside of athletic competition, I would like them to be recognized as a full woman. I would like that. I would love it if everybody just treated them like they're a woman and, and, and respected them with their new name or whatever they wanna do.

Abigail Shrier 53:13 Sure.

Joe Rogan 53:13 But when you get involved in athletic competition, where I took a lotta heat was when it was about mixed martial arts, where there was a mixed martial arts fighter who transitioned and there was just a story written about it the other day. It was ridiculous story saying that the science ... Protesting it as junk science, which is horse shit.

Abigail Shrier 53:32 (laughs) .

Joe Rogan 53:32 And this person was, uh, a male for 30 years, became a woman for two, and started beating the fuck out of women without telling them that she had been a male most of her life. And, uh, and people were so ... That was where I really realized ... That's when I first started to realize that there's some crazy psychological connection to this. There's like, the, the, the, the arguments that people have, these progressive arguments, they're, they're saying these things not necessarily because they've objectively, rationally dissected this problem and looked at it in terms of, uh, pros and cons and what's really happening. No, they looked at it from an ideological standpoint, and a very rigid one. Like if you want to be accepted by progressive people, that is a woman, always a woman. Like I, I ... This was back when I used to talk to people on Twitter, but I had this one conversation with this woman and she said that she was always a woman. And I said, "No, she was a man for 30 years." And she goes, "No, she was always a woman." I said, "Even when she got a woman pregnant and had a baby?" She goes, "Yes, even then." I'm like, "Well, we're done," (slaps desk) "'Cause that doesn't make any sense."

Abigail Shrier 54:37 Right.

Joe Rogan 54:37 "We're in la-la land."

Abigail Shrier 54:39 Right. But-

Joe Rogan 54:39 Like, you're, you're talking crazy.

Abigail Shrier 54:40 ... whatever your ideology, women are getting beaten to a pulp by Fallon Fox.

Joe Rogan 54:44 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 54:44 Right?

Joe Rogan 54:44 They were. But see, it's-

Abigail Shrier 54:45 Well, they were, but, you know, I mean, look, who's standing up for women?

Joe Rogan 54:48 That's the problem. Biological women get fucked-

Abigail Shrier 54:51 Right.

Joe Rogan 54:51 ... because the idea is that trans women, in this, uh, Olympics of oppression-

Abigail Shrier 54:56 Right.

Joe Rogan 54:56 ... trans lim- women are ... They're deemed higher on the scale. They're more oppressed and more marginalized than biological women, so biological women get fucked over in this des- And because so few people are trans-... this person can do this and everyone can celebrate. And if you're not competing against her, so what? Like, no, no one has a stake in the game, so they, they don't really, they don't really care. And the women that fought her without knowing ... See, I'm in full support of people fighting her if they know that she used to be a man. If that's what you wanna do, I'm in full support of people skydiving, riding bulls, go- you wanna jump motocross bikes and do flips, do whatever the fuck you want, but you should know what you're getting into. You know? If you show up to, uh, go on a pony ride and someone puts you on a bull, that, that seems, that's not good. You should know that you're about to get on a bull. If you think you're gonna fight a biological female and it turns out to be a man who was a man for 30 years and then transitioned to be a female, and has been on natural male hormones all throughout puberty, all through his life, and then becomes a she, and now you're gonna fight her? And they're not gonna tell you? That's crazy.

Abigail Shrier 56:05 Look at Martina Navratilova. She got canceled, right?

Joe Rogan 56:08 Yes.

Abigail Shrier 56:08 She lost her sponsorship for saying it's not fair for biological men to compete with women in sports.

Joe Rogan 56:14 But what sponsorship was it?

Abigail Shrier 56:15 Athlete Ally.

Joe Rogan 56:16 Well, who the fuck is Athlete Ally? What, what, what's-

Abigail Shrier 56:18 I don't know. They're an L- LGBTQ ...

Joe Rogan 56:21 Imagine.

Abigail Shrier 56:22 Right? She's anti-

Joe Rogan 56:22 First of all, how do all those things get lumped together?

Abigail Shrier 56:24 Right.

Joe Rogan 56:24 You know, uh-

Abigail Shrier 56:25 Well, that's a, yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:26 Douglas Murray has a great book about this.

Abigail Shrier 56:28 Yeah. He does.

Joe Rogan 56:28 The Madness of Crowds.

Abigail Shrier 56:29 It's excellent.

Joe Rogan 56:29 And I'm in the middle of it right now and one of the things that he points out is like, generally, th- the idea of lesbians and gay men being together is kind of ridiculous. They're so different.

Abigail Shrier 56:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:38 Because gay men are th- like, lesbians think of gay men as being like Peter Pan, like they're never gonna grow up, they don't have to. And lesbians, he, he's like, it's like different things. They don't necessarily pal around together.

Abigail Shrier 56:49 Yeah, I interviewed a lot of lesbians for the book who have really, like, taught me a lot about just how beaten down they are in the broader culture today. Because, you know, their groups get infiltrated. They have these underground social groups now. I've heard this from many lesbians across the country. They have underground ... And the reason they need these vetting processes for their social groups is trans activists will c- try to come in, insisting they're lesbians.

Joe Rogan 57:11 Yeah. That, and that's what I'm talking about. Men that become women, they, they retain some of the characteristics that make men gross and part of that is being aggressive and competitive and wanting to dominate spaces. And this is some, some of the things that a lot of these TERFs have had a problem with. I mean, this is why they became trans exclusionary radical feminists, because they felt like these biological males were entering into their spaces with that sort of male energy.

Abigail Shrier 57:38 I mean, even the name TERF, like they don't call themselves, nobody calls themselves a ... I mean, I guess they do now, ter- as a joke. But like, that was a derisive term.

Joe Rogan 57:47 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 57:47 It was like, any woman who stood up for women was a TERF.

Joe Rogan 57:50 Yeah. It's, (sighs) it's, it's so weird. You know? Because you can't s- like, w- there's this thing where you're supposed to say a trans woman is a woman. Can y- ... But you're a trans woman. No. But you are, right? You're a trans woman. But you're a wo- ... Like, there's, there's a weird game we're playing.

Abigail Shrier 58:11 Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's new. I mean-

Joe Rogan 58:12 Yes.

Abigail Shrier 58:13 ... you know, what, what they used to call transsexuals in prior eras, they never t- said they were always. They don't lie about their bio, right? They're very open about ... The ones that ... I have interviewed many and they, they're very open about their biology. They say, "Yeah, I grew up as a boy. I'm most comfortable presenting as a girl." They don't pretend that history didn't exist.

Joe Rogan 58:29 Well, this is all because of social media.

Abigail Shrier 58:31 Right.

Joe Rogan 58:31 And it's all because if you don't go, if you don't toe that line, you will experience attacks and if you read those attacks, they'll hurt your feelings and so then, you adjust. And I've seen people do that. I've seen people say things that they really believe and then get attacked and then adjust and say something that is more to appease the masses than it is their actual thoughts on the matter. And it's, it's hard because they can get fired. You know, you can get in real trouble.

Abigail Shrier 58:56 It's so funny. I think you're right about this, actually, because ... I really, I really do, because I think social media has more to do with suppressing speech than anything else, in, in a sense. Because, you know, it's like these parents will call me and they'll be like, uh, "You know, my daughter says she's a boy and it's getting worse and worse. The more I go along with it, it's getting worse." And I'll say to ... You know, I'll say, "Why don't you, you know, tell her whatever." You know, they don't wanna go along with it and take, "Why don't you take away her binder? Why don't you ... You know, what would happen if you did this?" I'll ask. You know? And they'll s- they'll sort of say, "I can't do that." And what they're afraid of, and to some extent, is aside from alienating their daughter, they're afraid of social media, right?

Joe Rogan 59:36 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 59:36 I mean, everybody's always watching.

Joe Rogan 59:38 They're afraid of the mom.

Abigail Shrier 59:39 They're afraid of the mom.

Joe Rogan 59:39 Yeah. And also, you're not gonna get a lot of support from other people that aren't being attacked by the mom.

Abigail Shrier 59:44 Right.

Joe Rogan 59:44 If you get attacked by the mom, here's what's interesting. Very few people will come to your aid because they're worried about being attacked by the mom too.

Abigail Shrier 59:50 Right.

Joe Rogan 59:50 They'll sit back and even if they, they love you, they'll hope you survive the attack, but they won't jump into the fray.

Abigail Shrier 59:55 And sometimes I have to say to parents, "Listen, this has nothing to do with LGBTQ rights, okay?"

Joe Rogan 1:00:00 No.

Abigail Shrier 1:00:00 If you see your daughter's in harm, if you think she's not doing well, you're a parent.

Joe Rogan 1:00:04 Right.

Abigail Shrier 1:00:05 You, you don't have to make a policy statement, okay? You can still support every kind of civil rights issue about, you know, LGBTQ rights or whatever. This has nothing to do with it. You think your daughter's in harm's way, you can protect her. That's your job as a parent.

Joe Rogan 1:00:18 Well, it's also, we're denying the nuances of psychology.

Abigail Shrier 1:00:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:22 That people are malleable and there's a lot going on there. There's a lot ... I mean, people are not binary. It's not one or a zero, you're a this or a that, you're happy or you're not and this is gonna fix it. We just need to inject you and slice off your boobs. It's not-

Abigail Shrier 1:00:35 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:00:35 That's not r- human. You know? We vary so wildly that I think for someone to look at a teenager and come to this conclusion that you, in fact, would be happier, that should be an arduous process-

Abigail Shrier 1:00:49 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:00:49 ... where you're presented with all sorts of opposing information. It's almost like you should be at a debate. Like, it should be a, like, there should be pros and cons presented. There should be, you know, uh, it, it should be something where you're looking at a life. Like, your future will be radically different if you take path A versus path B.

Abigail Shrier 1:01:09 Right. So that's how medicine is discussed and o- other types of medicine at medical conferences, right?

Joe Rogan 1:01:15 Yes.

Abigail Shrier 1:01:15 They have a new drug out for cholesterol and, and there's a conference and everyone discusses the risks and benefits and what are the harms and what is the percent chance that this could hurt ... You know, everybody is open and discussing it. And whenever I talk to doctors who, you know, work around this issue, maybe they're an endocrinologist or whatever, they will tell me t- that when they attend medical conferences and transgender medu- medicine comes up, it is a purely celebration festival. Nobody's discussing risks.

Joe Rogan 1:01:39 Mm-hmm.

Abigail Shrier 1:01:40 Nobody's toking, talking openly about them. They can't-

Joe Rogan 1:01:43 Yeah. It's so hard because I've met, uh, female-to-male trans people, like we were talking about Buck Angel-

Abigail Shrier 1:01:49 Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:49 ... before the show, who's great. I, I love him. He's a nice guy.

Abigail Shrier 1:01:52 I interviewed him in the book, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:54 He's really interesting to talk to. I had him on the podcast. And that makes sense. Like, he always knew that he should've been a male-

Abigail Shrier 1:02:01 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:02:01 ... and he feels way better. And, and when you're around him, like, you get it. Like, yeah.

Abigail Shrier 1:02:05 Totally.

Joe Rogan 1:02:05 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 1:02:05 Totally. And he doesn't... Look, he, he, he didn't do this to win friends.

Joe Rogan 1:02:10 No, not at all.

Abigail Shrier 1:02:10 He didn't do this 'cause of social media immersion.

Joe Rogan 1:02:13 No.

Abigail Shrier 1:02:13 Right? No YouTube star convinced Buck Angel, okay? He stands up to all of them all the time.

Joe Rogan 1:02:17 Yeah. That, that is also the thing, right? And he uses a term, the term biological, that they don't like.

Abigail Shrier 1:02:24 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:02:25 You know, he uses, uh, biological female, biological male. He used that term.

Abigail Shrier 1:02:28 'Cause he lives in reality.

Joe Rogan 1:02:30 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 1:02:30 He doesn't pretend that he was always biologically male. He's n- He's like (laughs) ... Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:36 Have you, like... A- As you're examining this-

Abigail Shrier 1:02:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:38 ... have you gone back and forth on this? Have you had, like, uh, opinions that you abandoned or-

Abigail Shrier 1:02:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:43 Yeah?

Abigail Shrier 1:02:44 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:44 How so?

Abigail Shrier 1:02:44 Well, so I'll tell you one. Um, the one that, that I, I think I really struggled with or that surprised me big time was people always try to get me to say it's child abuse to put your kid on puberty blockers and whatnot. It's child abuse. The parents are committing child abuse. And I don't say that. And I don't say that for a reason, 'cause I've interviewed the parents. And once you interview parents of pe- uh, of kids that, you know, parents who have transitioned their kids, you, you start talking to them and you realize that they thought they were doing what was right for their kid. They were really scared. They didn't know. Like, they're very concerned. I mean, th- they're worried. And they've been encouraged by mental he- by mental health professionals who should've been looking out for the child that, "If you don't do this, your child could kill them, could kill herself or himself." You know? And that's terrifying.

Joe Rogan 1:03:30 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 1:03:30 And sometimes I'll bring up the risks with them and they won't have heard about them. I'll say, "But, you know, just, just checking with you, you know, what a- what about the long-term? You know, m- maybe you're foreclosing orgasm. Like, your, if your kid goes through all this and goes on the, you know, you know, that to testosterone and then goes, you know, gets the surgeries, you m- because they never went through normal puberty, they may never experience orgasm. What about that?" And they'll never have heard of that. Or, you know, w- we're putting so many capacities at risk.

Joe Rogan 1:04:00 Well, there's a- there's a real problem with the way people are willing to discuss things, that they're not willing to, in any way, address the negative aspects of transitioning. And one of the, one of the things about hormone blockers that drove me mad was they were trying to say that you could put a child on hormone blockers, then if the child changed their mind, there would be no problem whatsoever.

Abigail Shrier 1:04:20 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:04:20 Well, they've reversed that.

Abigail Shrier 1:04:21 They've reversed that in the England. In England, they've reversed that.

Joe Rogan 1:04:24 Reversed it in America too.

Abigail Shrier 1:04:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:25 They ve- very recently, there was something that got released where they were saying, "Well, this is absolutely not true." Well, this is something that people have said over and over again.

Abigail Shrier 1:04:32 Over and over. Right.

Joe Rogan 1:04:32 Progressive people in particular. It's j-

Abigail Shrier 1:04:34 Right. Totally neutral intervention.

Joe Rogan 1:04:36 J- j- j-

Abigail Shrier 1:04:36 That's what they've said.

Joe Rogan 1:04:37 Yeah. Let's, l- hey, let me, uh, relieve you of any of the stress about this-

Abigail Shrier 1:04:42 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:04:42 ... because we know that there'll be no problem at all. You could transition right back.

Abigail Shrier 1:04:46 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:04:46 But you can't. That's not true. Y- It'll affect your development 100%.

Abigail Shrier 1:04:49 That's right. And, and hormones shower the brain. They don't just, uh-

Joe Rogan 1:04:52 Yes.

Abigail Shrier 1:04:52 You know. And th- you know, th- that's right, I've talked to a lot of experts, but I've also talked to parents who were never told about this.

Joe Rogan 1:04:59 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 1:04:59 And so I don't blame them. Like, I just, I just, I don't. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:05:02 But if you're a parent, like, how do you know whether your kid is in this contagion, as you put it, or your kid is actually trans? Like, how do you know? And how would anyone know?

Abigail Shrier 1:05:14 Well-

Joe Rogan 1:05:14 How would, how would the person that's transitioning themselves, how would they know?

Abigail Shrier 1:05:18 Right. So, there's symptoms in the DSM that have evolved persistent, consistent, insistent severe discomfort. And a two-year-old and four-year-old doesn't keep his, you know, feelings to himself. If he hates being a boy and insists that he's really a girl, is punching his, you know, penis and whatever, it's not something parents aren't gonna know.

Joe Rogan 1:05:35 Okay. But isn't that a generalization? Because people vary widely in the way they, they deal with things that bother them.

Abigail Shrier 1:05:41 Right. So, I think that the DSM is a list of generalizations about different mental health disorders and different afflictions, like physical afflictions.

Joe Rogan 1:05:48 Right. But that, when you're talking about a boy hating their penis and the way they react-

Abigail Shrier 1:05:52 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:05:52 ... they'll let you know. Not everybody lets you know when they're in agony or in pain or, or-

Abigail Shrier 1:05:58 Kids, preschool-aged kids are pretty, in a typical family where there's not, you know, been abuse or mistrust or whatever, you know, kids pretty much announce, in my experience, announce almost everything. I mean, they're really open. "I hate this." Uh, th- whatever. They... You know, it's not the kind of thing a parent w- won't know.

Joe Rogan 1:06:17 Mm-hmm. But do you think-

Abigail Shrier 1:06:18 And-

Joe Rogan 1:06:18 ... that kids should be on hormone blockers?

Abigail Shrier 1:06:22 I, I, I don't ... I have never... Look, I'm a journalist, so I explored, I talk to everybody and I explore every side of every issue. And I, I think that hormone blockers are really significant interventions. They can be dangerous. We don't fully have a handle on the long-term effects. But am I someone who believes they should be totally banned? I, I, you know, I have never said that. I've never taken that position because a lot of psychologists that I really respect haven't said that. A lot of doctors that I respect haven't said that, th- that there's no one they could help.

Joe Rogan 1:06:56 Could you-

Abigail Shrier 1:06:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:58 ... imagine that those doctors and psychologists would be in fear of expressing that they don't think it's a good idea, the same way you were discussing-

Abigail Shrier 1:07:06 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:07:06 ... therapists will secretly talk to you about the problems of them expressing themselves honestly?

Abigail Shrier 1:07:11 Right. I mean, this is how I see it. Like, say there's one kid who could be helped by puberty blockers. Until... I, I mean, I explored a lot of these issues with a lot of people. Until, you know, psychologists I respect, people who've been very open on a lot of this stuff, until they tell me there's no children who could ever be helped by puberty blockers, I'm not someone who will come out in favor of a ban, abandoning them.

Joe Rogan 1:07:31 No, I understand. But the, there, that's-

Abigail Shrier 1:07:33 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:33 That begs the question, how would one know whether your kid is the kid that could be beneficial... Th- that could benefit from puberty blockers-

Abigail Shrier 1:07:41 Or, or-

Joe Rogan 1:07:42 ... versus one who-

Abigail Shrier 1:07:43 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:07:43 ... you really should just let become an adult and go through all the various changes that-

Abigail Shrier 1:07:48 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:07:48 ... children go through?

Abigail Shrier 1:07:50 Remember that most kids outgrow this.So-

Joe Rogan 1:07:52 That's what I'm saying.

Abigail Shrier 1:07:53 Not... Right. So not doing anything, not doing a major intervention is probably (laughs) in many cases a totally safe bet. In other words-

Joe Rogan 1:08:02 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 1:08:02 ... you don't have to go in there and immediately... I mean, part of what's crazy about our age is we think the moment you're in... Our kids are in distress, we need to medicate them. They can never be upset, right?

Joe Rogan 1:08:15 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 1:08:15 We are, you know, pushing this accommodation of every discomfort and every... Right? Everything our kids say.

Joe Rogan 1:08:21 And, and it's pretty safe to say that there's gonna be a lot of people listening to this that don't even want us talking about this, because you're a stereotypical biological female, I'm a stereotypical biological male, and maybe a lot of people would say, "This is not even your space to be discussing."

Abigail Shrier 1:08:38 Right. So I'm not an expert in psychology. I wrote about a peer contagion affecting teenage girls, and th- I can't talk about that either-

Joe Rogan 1:08:46 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 1:08:46 ... in which I explore... I let the experts talk, you know, in the book. I mean, that's what I did. I put together, you know, studies and... I mean, like, that's what journalists do. We just put together the material based on who we interview and what they had to say and their expertise and their s- their research. And you know what? It's getting shut down all over the place. People are-

Joe Rogan 1:09:06 How so?

Abigail Shrier 1:09:07 I've had podcast hosts write to me and say, "I'd love to have you on. It's too hot."

Joe Rogan 1:09:11 Really?

Abigail Shrier 1:09:12 Yeah. They'll say to me, you know, basically, and what they don't say is, "A bunch of trans activists are offended that you're talking about teenage girls, the mental health of teenage girls. Not the activists." Right? Who are mostly biological males. This is teenage girls' health. Like, why can't we talk about it? I mean, I've had... My publisher. They're trying to get my publisher to drop me. There's a huge campaign for that. I mean, it's like, you know... Y- uh, you know, I've used this example before, but, like, abortion. Some people say, "Abortion is just a woman's issue. No one else can have an opinion about it." And other people feel... Like, people feel different ways about abortions. Other people feel, "Wait a second, it's not just about a woman's health. It's also the life of this unborn child." And so, you know, people feel differently. Like, who's allowed to have an opinion on abortion? But this issue is... That I'm talking about is just about the health of teenage girls. That's it. So why can't we talk about what's going on with these teenage girls? Why can't we try to get them some help?

Joe Rogan 1:10:08 I agree with you.

Abigail Shrier 1:10:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10:09 But we're in 2020-

Abigail Shrier 1:10:10 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10:11 ... and people are going bonkers.

Abigail Shrier 1:10:12 I know. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:10:12 And that's, that's really, that's really what this is, is-

Abigail Shrier 1:10:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:10:15 ... you have identified something that is... That's a real concern when you're talking about the percentage, when you said 2% of all these kids are identifying as trans in high school, as opposed to 0.1% where it used to be. So it used to be one in 10,000.

Abigail Shrier 1:10:32 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:10:33 Now it's two out of 100.

Abigail Shrier 1:10:34 In, just in the high school-

Joe Rogan 1:10:35 Just in high school.

Abigail Shrier 1:10:36 ... population.

Joe Rogan 1:10:36 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 1:10:36 I mean, it's like-

Joe Rogan 1:10:37 And you-

Abigail Shrier 1:10:38 ... that's a lot.

Joe Rogan 1:10:39 And, uh, objectively, the way you're describing that particular time period in a child's development, it is fraught with peril.

Abigail Shrier 1:10:48 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:10:48 Right?

Abigail Shrier 1:10:49 Totally.

Joe Rogan 1:10:49 There's so much going on in a girl's life as she's transitioning from being, uh, a kid to being a woman, and going through all the hormones and all the society-

Abigail Shrier 1:11:00 Puberty is hard.

Joe Rogan 1:11:00 ... and all, all the, all the chaos of school and social stuff.

Abigail Shrier 1:11:05 Right.

Joe Rogan 1:11:05 Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 1:11:05 It's the hardest, it's the hardest per- period for any woman to go through. It's so hard, puberty, right? Except now these girls are being taught in school and they're being encouraged online. You have an escape hatch.

Joe Rogan 1:11:16 Yeah. When you... You've had some discussions. You were talking about a discussion that you had on a television show with other, with trans people. How do they react to this?

Abigail Shrier 1:11:27 Oh. So I haven't been on a sh-

Joe Rogan 1:11:30 The one with the... Yeah.

Abigail Shrier 1:11:30 Oh, that, that... Oh, so there, I was just talking