Joe Rogan Experience #1509 - Abigail Shrier

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   Hello, Abigail. How are…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:01

      Hello, Abigail. How are you?

   2. ASAbigail Shrier0:03

      I'm doing great. How are you?

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:04

      Thanks for doing this. Appreciate it.

   4. ASAbigail Shrier0:05

      Thanks so much for having me on.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:07

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

   6. ASAbigail Shrier0:18

      It shouldn't be, though.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      No?

   8. ASAbigail Shrier0:20

      It really shouldn't be.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:21

      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.

   10. ASAbigail Shrier0:33

       Of course.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:33

       Yes.

   12. ASAbigail Shrier0:34

       Of course. I interviewed a lot of them.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:35

       And w- we fully support that, right?

   14. ASAbigail Shrier0:38

       Absolutely.

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:39

       Okay.

   16. ASAbigail Shrier0:39

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

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:42

       Your concern is about-

   18. ASAbigail Shrier0:45

       T-

   19. JRJoe Rogan0:45

       ... very young children.

   20. ASAbigail Shrier0:46

       That... Teenage girls.

   21. JRJoe Rogan0:47

       Teenage girls.

   22. ASAbigail Shrier0:47

       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.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:09

       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?

   24. ASAbigail Shrier1:18

       (laughs) Well, it-

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:19

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

   26. ASAbigail Shrier1:21

       A little girl.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:21

       ... four-year-old. Right?

   28. ASAbigail Shrier1:23

       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-

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:32

       What is that?

   30. ASAbigail Shrier1:33

       I assume, her uterus.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   So that's just an…

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

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

   2. ASAbigail Shrier15:01

      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.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:10

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

   4. ASAbigail Shrier15:17

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:18

      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.

   6. ASAbigail Shrier15:46

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:47

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

   8. ASAbigail Shrier15:49

      Absolutely.

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:49

      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."

   10. ASAbigail Shrier16:16

       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."

   11. JRJoe Rogan16:47

       Yeah.

   12. ASAbigail Shrier16:47

       "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.

   13. JRJoe Rogan16:55

       Mm-hmm.

   14. ASAbigail Shrier16:56

       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."

   15. JRJoe Rogan17:27

       (laughs)

   16. ASAbigail Shrier17:28

       She said, "It was embarrassing."

   17. JRJoe Rogan17:29

       How weird.

   18. ASAbigail Shrier17:29

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

   19. JRJoe Rogan17:32

       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.

   20. ASAbigail Shrier18:15

       Right.

   21. JRJoe Rogan18:15

       Like, that's classic. Like-

   22. ASAbigail Shrier18:16

       Right.

   23. JRJoe Rogan18:16

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

   24. ASAbigail Shrier18:20

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

   25. JRJoe Rogan18:22

       Yeah.

   26. ASAbigail Shrier18:22

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

   27. JRJoe Rogan18:27

       Sure.

   28. ASAbigail Shrier18:27

       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.

   29. JRJoe Rogan18:37

       Right.

   30. ASAbigail Shrier18:38

       So they feel terrible about themselves.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Why do you, why…

   1. ASAbigail Shrier30:00

      go on T, everything will get better. And the problem-

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:04

      Why do you, why do you think they do that?

   3. ASAbigail Shrier30:05

      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...

   4. JRJoe Rogan31:00

      But don't they want that?

   5. ASAbigail Shrier31:02

      So I think-

   6. JRJoe Rogan31:03

      The body hair, facial hair part?

   7. ASAbigail Shrier31:04

      Y- for now. But it's permanent, you know? A lot of this-

   8. JRJoe Rogan31:08

      Body hair is permanent?

   9. ASAbigail Shrier31:08

      It can be. It can be.

   10. JRJoe Rogan31:10

       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?

   11. ASAbigail Shrier31:16

       S- they lose some of it, but some of them are ... I mean, everybody's different.

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:18

       Uh-huh.

   13. ASAbigail Shrier31:18

       But some of them are stuck with a five o'clock shadow for life.

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:22

       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?

   15. ASAbigail Shrier31:42

       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.

   16. JRJoe Rogan32:39

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

   17. ASAbigail Shrier32:44

       Right.

   18. JRJoe Rogan32:44

       Like you say, predominantly-

   19. ASAbigail Shrier32:46

       Yeah.

   20. JRJoe Rogan32:46

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

   21. ASAbigail Shrier32:49

       Right.

   22. JRJoe Rogan32:49

       But what about girls-

   23. ASAbigail Shrier32:51

       Girl.

   24. JRJoe Rogan32:51

       ... who wanted to be boys?

   25. ASAbigail Shrier32:52

       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.

   26. JRJoe Rogan33:09

       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-

   27. ASAbigail Shrier33:18

       It's in the DSM.

   28. JRJoe Rogan33:19

       I know.

   29. ASAbigail Shrier33:20

       Is the whole DSM hate speech?

   30. JRJoe Rogan33:21

       Yes. Everything.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   And if you have…

   1. ASAbigail Shrier45:00

      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."

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:05

      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?

   3. ASAbigail Shrier45:10

      Right.

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:10

      Your daughter is i- with her wacky friends eight hours a day.

   5. ASAbigail Shrier45:13

      And she's on the internet, and the problem is-

   6. JRJoe Rogan45:15

      Yeah.

   7. ASAbigail Shrier45:15

      ... her school, her school's already filled out a form calling her Jimmy, right? For a year-

   8. JRJoe Rogan45:20

      Ugh.

   9. ASAbigail Shrier45:20

      ... they don't even tell you.

   10. JRJoe Rogan45:21

       (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?

   11. ASAbigail Shrier46:30

       Right.

   12. JRJoe Rogan46:30

       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?

   13. ASAbigail Shrier46:39

       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.

   14. JRJoe Rogan47:17

       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?

   15. ASAbigail Shrier47:30

       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.

   16. JRJoe Rogan47:53

       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.

   17. ASAbigail Shrier48:34

       And let me-

   18. JRJoe Rogan48:34

       And they do so with a very aggressive-

   19. ASAbigail Shrier48:35

       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-

   20. JRJoe Rogan48:43

       They wanna be happy.

   21. ASAbigail Shrier48:44

       They wanna be happy. They wanna-

   22. JRJoe Rogan48:45

       Yes.

   23. ASAbigail Shrier48:45

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

   24. JRJoe Rogan48:47

       Yeah.

   25. ASAbigail Shrier48:47

       ... 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.

   26. JRJoe Rogan49:15

       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.

   27. ASAbigail Shrier49:50

       Right. And-

   28. JRJoe Rogan49:50

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

   29. ASAbigail Shrier49:54

       I mean-

   30. JRJoe Rogan49:54

       I mea- Do we need trans bathrooms? I mean, what do we need? I mean, how does that work?
5. 1:00:00 – 1:11:34

   No. …

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      No.

   2. ASAbigail Shrier1:00:00

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

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:00:04

      Right.

   4. ASAbigail Shrier1:00:05

      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.

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:00:18

      Well, it's also, we're denying the nuances of psychology.

   6. ASAbigail Shrier1:00:22

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:00:22

      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-

   8. ASAbigail Shrier1:00:35

      Right.

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:00:35

      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-

   10. ASAbigail Shrier1:00:49

       Right.

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:00:49

       ... 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.

   12. ASAbigail Shrier1:01:09

       Right. So that's how medicine is discussed and o- other types of medicine at medical conferences, right?

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:01:15

       Yes.

   14. ASAbigail Shrier1:01:15

       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.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:01:39

       Mm-hmm.

   16. ASAbigail Shrier1:01:40

       Nobody's toking, talking openly about them. They can't-

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:01:43

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

   18. ASAbigail Shrier1:01:49

       Right. Yeah. Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:01:49

       ... before the show, who's great. I, I love him. He's a nice guy.

   20. ASAbigail Shrier1:01:52

       I interviewed him in the book, yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:01:54

       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-

   22. ASAbigail Shrier1:02:01

       Right.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:02:01

       ... and he feels way better. And, and when you're around him, like, you get it. Like, yeah.

   24. ASAbigail Shrier1:02:05

       Totally.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:02:05

       Yeah.

   26. ASAbigail Shrier1:02:05

       Totally. And he doesn't... Look, he, he, he didn't do this to win friends.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:02:10

       No, not at all.

   28. ASAbigail Shrier1:02:10

       He didn't do this 'cause of social media immersion.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:02:13

       No.

   30. ASAbigail Shrier1:02:13

       Right? No YouTube star convinced Buck Angel, okay? He stands up to all of them all the time.

Episode duration: 1:45:29