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The Joe Rogan ExperienceThe Joe Rogan Experience

Joe Rogan Experience #1509 - Abigail Shrier

Abigail Shrier is an author, journalist, and writer for the Wall Street Journal. Her new book "Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters" is available now. https://www.amazon.com/Irreversible-Damage-Transgender-Seducing-Daughters/dp/1684510317

Joe RoganhostAbigail Shrierguest
Jul 16, 20201h 45mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:01 – 1:09

    Framing the debate: supporting trans adults while focusing on teen girls

    1. JR

      Hello, Abigail. How are you?

    2. AS

      I'm doing great. How are you?

    3. JR

      Thanks for doing this. Appreciate it.

    4. AS

      Thanks so much for having me on.

    5. JR

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

    6. AS

      It shouldn't be, though.

    7. JR

      No?

    8. AS

      It really shouldn't be.

    9. JR

      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.

    10. AS

      Of course.

    11. JR

      Yes.

    12. AS

      Of course. I interviewed a lot of them.

    13. JR

      And w- we fully support that, right?

    14. AS

      Absolutely.

    15. JR

      Okay.

    16. AS

      I have friends who, who fall into that category. (laughs)

    17. JR

      Your concern is about-

    18. AS

      T-

    19. JR

      ... very young children.

    20. AS

      That... Teenage girls.

    21. JR

      Teenage girls.

    22. AS

      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.

  2. 1:09 – 2:53

    Why Shrier wrote the book (and what the cover is implying)

    1. JR

      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?

    2. AS

      (laughs) Well, it-

    3. JR

      'Cause this is like... The cover, it looks a f-

    4. AS

      A little girl.

    5. JR

      ... four-year-old. Right?

    6. AS

      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-

    7. JR

      What is that?

    8. AS

      I assume, her uterus.

    9. JR

      Oh. It's just crazy.

    10. AS

      Infertility is what's-

    11. JR

      It looks like a pillow.

    12. AS

      Yeah.

    13. JR

      Oh, infertility. The big circle.

    14. AS

      Yeah, that's what-

    15. JR

      Right.

    16. AS

      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.

    17. JR

      Because it's such a minefield. Because-

    18. AS

      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.

  3. 2:53 – 4:32

    Peer influence, anxiety, and the ‘ROGD’ idea: what might be driving teen girls

    1. JR

      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?

    2. AS

      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.

    3. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    4. AS

      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.

    5. JR

      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?

    6. AS

      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.

  4. 4:32 – 7:29

    The Lisa Littman paper and the ‘more visibility’ counterargument

    1. JR

      (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?

    2. AS

      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.

    3. JR

      Have you had a-

    4. AS

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      ... 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-

    6. AS

      Yeah.

    7. JR

      ... 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.

    8. AS

      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.

    9. JR

      Right.

    10. AS

      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.

    11. JR

      So when you're saying suicide rates are going up, you mean suicide rates with teens who turn trans?

    12. AS

      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.

  5. 7:29 – 9:31

    Social media as accelerant: comparison culture and self-harm pathways

    1. JR

      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...

    2. AS

      Yeah, and it was on your show-

    3. JR

      Okay.

    4. AS

      ... 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-

    5. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    6. AS

      ... all the... among these same girls.

    7. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    8. AS

      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.

    9. JR

      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.

    10. AS

      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-

    11. JR

      But is it great for so many transgender adults?

    12. AS

      Yeah.

    13. JR

      'Cause even in transgender adults, the suicide rate's very high.

    14. AS

      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.

    15. JR

      Sure.

    16. AS

      But these girls are not being helped by transition.

    17. JR

      Just universally?

    18. AS

      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.

  6. 9:31 – 11:47

    Medical access and ‘informed consent’: hormones with minimal gatekeeping

    1. JR

      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?

    2. AS

      So, yeah.

    3. JR

      Like, it's one thing if someone's a 25-year-old woman-

    4. AS

      (laughs)

    5. JR

      ... 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.

    6. AS

      Right.

    7. JR

      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.

    8. AS

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      But yet it's really popular to do that.

    10. AS

      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.

    11. JR

      Planned Parenthood is doing this?

    12. AS

      Yeah.

    13. JR

      S-

    14. AS

      It's one of the biggest distributors.

    15. JR

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

    16. AS

      You can get your breasts removed with no therapist note.

    17. JR

      Whoa.

    18. AS

      Yeah.

    19. JR

      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?

    20. AS

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

    21. JR

      No.

    22. AS

      Sorry.

    23. JR

      No.

    24. AS

      Yeah.

    25. JR

      We didn't say that.

    26. AS

      You can also-

    27. JR

      Yeah.

    28. AS

      ... 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.

  7. 11:47 – 13:34

    Surgeons’ incentives, limited follow-up, and detransition stories

    1. JR

      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?

    2. AS

      Yeah.

    3. JR

      What do they think?

    4. AS

      They think that-

    5. JR

      Obviously, we're generalizing.

    6. AS

      Right.

    7. JR

      They vary.

    8. AS

      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.

    9. JR

      The surgeon is basically a mechanic, right? They just remove the tires-

    10. AS

      A little bit.

    11. JR

      ... and send you on your way.

    12. AS

      Yeah, the problem is we're not cars.

    13. JR

      Right.

    14. AS

      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.

  8. 13:34 – 21:54

    Validation loops and online grooming risks: praise, ‘glitter family,’ and exploitation

    1. JR

      Why do you think people get cheered on for this decision?

    2. AS

      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-

    3. JR

      I'm not, I wasn't aware of these binders. So this is something like a corset.

    4. AS

      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.

    5. JR

      So it, but it's just an appearance thing? Or is it-

    6. AS

      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.

    7. JR

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

    8. AS

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      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.

    10. AS

      Yeah.

    11. JR

      And you, you see it with social media, and particularly people.

    12. AS

      Absolutely.

    13. JR

      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."

    14. AS

      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."

    15. JR

      Yeah.

    16. AS

      "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.

    17. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    18. AS

      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."

    19. JR

      (laughs)

    20. AS

      She said, "It was embarrassing."

    21. JR

      How weird.

    22. AS

      Like, "I had people in restaurants stopping to celebrate me."

    23. JR

      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.

    24. AS

      Right.

    25. JR

      Like, that's classic. Like-

    26. AS

      Right.

    27. JR

      ... human beings are so malleable. We're so easily influenced.

    28. AS

      That's, that's exactly right, and that's what people miss.

    29. JR

      Yeah.

    30. AS

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

  9. 21:54 – 31:22

    ‘Social contagion’ mechanics: why clustering can spread among girls

    1. AS

      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?

    2. JR

      Okay.

    3. AS

      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."

    4. JR

      Hmm.

    5. AS

      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.

    6. JR

      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.

    7. AS

      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.

    8. JR

      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-

    9. AS

      Okay.

    10. JR

      ... and work really hard as well. 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.

    11. AS

      Yeah, and, and m- men are more competitive, for sure.

    12. JR

      Yeah.

    13. AS

      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-

    14. JR

      Yes.

    15. AS

      ... attention. Yeah.

    16. JR

      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?

    17. AS

      (laughs)

    18. JR

      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-

    19. AS

      She's a ... Looking a little fat.

    20. JR

      I don't know.

    21. AS

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

    22. JR

      Come on. Really?

    23. AS

      I don't know, the one on the audiobook. Yeah.

    24. JR

      That's a video.

    25. AS

      I think it was her first one. Um-

    26. JR

      Was it a video or was it a photograph?

    27. AS

      It was a photo, I think. I just looked at it.

    28. JR

      I don't know.

    29. AS

      Yeah.

    30. JR

      I just ... That's long ago.

  10. 31:22 – 35:39

    Defining dysphoria vs sudden-onset identification: DSM history and childhood onset

    1. JR

      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?

    2. AS

      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.

    3. JR

      Hmm. Um, so what about women that were trans?

    4. AS

      Right.

    5. JR

      Like you say, predominantly-

    6. AS

      Yeah.

    7. JR

      ... it's, it's boys who wanted to be girls.

    8. AS

      Right.

    9. JR

      But what about girls-

    10. AS

      Girl.

    11. JR

      ... who wanted to be boys?

    12. AS

      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.

    13. JR

      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-

    14. AS

      It's in the DSM.

    15. JR

      I know.

    16. AS

      Is the whole DSM hate speech?

    17. JR

      Yes. Everything.

    18. AS

      (laughs)

    19. JR

      You're hate speech.

    20. AS

      I am? Okay. (laughs)

    21. JR

      (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-

    22. AS

      Yeah.

    23. JR

      ... 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.

    24. AS

      So that's very typical.

    25. JR

      Yeah.

    26. AS

      Most of these, most of these kids would emerge as homosexual adults.

    27. JR

      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.

    28. AS

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      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."

    30. AS

      Right.

  11. 35:39 – 42:07

    Policies and professional pressure: WPATH shift, affirmative care, and conversion therapy laws

    1. JR

      Why is that? Why is there no review? Why, why is there no oversight? Why is this so free and loose?

    2. AS

      It's-

    3. JR

      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?"

    4. AS

      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.

    5. JR

      In Oregon it's 15?

    6. AS

      Yeah.

    7. JR

      That's crazy.

    8. AS

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      You're not even a fully formed person.

    10. AS

      No. And you don't need your parents' approval.

    11. JR

      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-

    12. AS

      Yeah.

    13. JR

      ... 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."

    14. AS

      Right, so-

    15. JR

      And if I get surgery, then I'm gonna be happy. This is what I'm supposed to be.

    16. AS

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

    17. JR

      And you're doing it at 15.

    18. AS

      Right.

    19. JR

      Yeah.

    20. AS

      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.

    21. JR

      There's 19 conversion therapy?

    22. AS

      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."

    23. JR

      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?

    24. AS

      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?

    25. JR

      How-

    26. AS

      I mean, they're-

    27. JR

      How much time have we been doing this for?

    28. AS

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      How long is the time period w- when this really started to escalate?

    30. AS

      The last decade.

  12. 42:07 – 47:53

    Scale of the trend: prevalence claims, UK data, and why parents stay silent

    1. JR

      What kind of numbers are we talking about? Like, how m- how many people are doing this?

    2. AS

      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.

    3. JR

      2%?

    4. AS

      ... two percent.

    5. JR

      And when did this happen? Did, did-

    6. AS

      And most of them are girls, yeah.

    7. JR

      Really?

    8. AS

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      Most of them are girls?

    10. AS

      Most of them are girls.

    11. JR

      Really?

    12. AS

      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.

    13. JR

      Wow. Two... That's a stunning number, two percent. You go from 0.1%-

    14. AS

      Of the whole population.

    15. JR

      Of the whole population to two percent.

    16. AS

      To two percent of high schoolers.

    17. JR

      And the vast majority of them are teenage girls.

    18. AS

      Yeah.

    19. JR

      What, what, what is the majority? Like, what are we talking about? 80%? Like, what is the number? Do you know?

    20. AS

      I, I don't know, but we have to look at-

    21. JR

      But most of them are teenage girls.

    22. AS

      ... te- yeah.

    23. JR

      More teenage girls-

    24. AS

      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.

    25. JR

      Mm.

    26. AS

      So you just go in and get it. You don't-

    27. JR

      So you, you know-

    28. AS

      ... 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%.

    29. JR

      Holy shit.

    30. AS

      Yeah.

  13. 47:53 – 1:24:20

    Women’s spaces and sports: fairness, safety, and the backlash to dissent

    1. JR

      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.

    2. AS

      And let me-

    3. JR

      And they do so with a very aggressive-

    4. AS

      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-

    5. JR

      They wanna be happy.

    6. AS

      They wanna be happy. They wanna-

    7. JR

      Yes.

    8. AS

      ... be left alone. It's great. Like-

    9. JR

      Yeah.

    10. AS

      ... 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.

    11. JR

      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.

    12. AS

      Right. And-

    13. JR

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

    14. AS

      I mean-

    15. JR

      I mea- Do we need trans bathrooms? I mean, what do we need? I mean, how does that work?

    16. AS

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

    17. JR

      Right.

    18. AS

      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-

    19. JR

      Yes.

    20. AS

      ... in the state of Connecticut.

    21. JR

      And they don't have to do anything-

    22. AS

      No.

    23. JR

      ... in terms of transition. They just have to say they identify as a woman.

    24. AS

      Right. Right. That-

    25. JR

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

    26. AS

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

    27. JR

      Yes.

    28. AS

      Right?

    29. JR

      Yeah.

    30. AS

      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.

Episode duration: 1:45:29

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