What Makes Men And Women Different? - Dr Carole Hooven

If you're a female who then goes on to transition, I have heard now from several people who lived as females and then transitioned that their libido went through the roof. They were shocked by it. They were disturbed by it. Most of them said, "I get it now. I'm looking at this other person, whether they're attracted to men or women. I can't stop thinking about their body parts." (air whooshing)

I have been looking forward to speaking to you for quite a while, because you shared an article by Chelsea Conaboy in the New York Times-

(gasps)

... called Maternal Instinct is a Myth That Men Created. She says that, "The maternal instinct is a social construct generated and upheld by the patriarchy to impel women to raise children and keep them out of the workforce." However, partway down, you, you shared a quote that was quite revealing, I think. This is from her, "New research on the pa- uh, parental brain makes clear that the idea of maternal instinct as something innate, automatic and distinctly female is a myth, one that has stuck-

(laughs)

... despite the best efforts of feminists (laughs) to debunk it from the moment it entered public discourse." What are your thoughts on Chelsea Conaboy's article, Carol?

Well, I have a lot to say. Uh, most of it is not good, and I feel kinda bad about that, because Chelsea was probably pretty excited about having her article in the New York Times, and she probably worked really hard on it. And I think her heart is in the right place. Uh, I think the- there are lots of articles kinda like this, but this is one of the most egregious example of this particular kind of article, mm, maybe that I've ever seen. Uh, New York Times, you know, it's not super surprising it was printed in that particular outlet. Um, but, uh, so I said I think her heart is in the right place, and I guess I think that people who write these kinds of articles, especially from a kind of feminist point of view, are grasping at straws to find something kind of real and biological that will support the idea that, uh, women should have equal rights and equal opportunities, you know, relative to men. And, while that goal may be laudable... Actually, I don't... Yeah. While that goal may be laudable, and we can talk about that goal later, um, what is not laudable and what really bothers me as a scientist is the idea that anyone believes and that intelligent people are promoting the idea that in order to secure anybody's human rights, whatever you think those rights should be, we have to basically, uh, (sighs) lie. (laughs) Of course, there's a maternal instinct. You know, we don't need to, uh, kinda twist the facts of biology to support anybody's rights. We don't have to distort reality. We have to... You know, we can tell the truth and fight for people's rights. Those are different things. Like, what exists in nature is not the same thing as what people's human rights are. We decide, us humans, we decide what we want and what kind of society we want, regardless of the facts of nature and sort of- I don't- I think conflating those two things is dangerous from many, uh, perspectives. But this is a- it's just also blatantly false and pretty much everybody knows it. So, it is like, uh, an example of, um, the emperor is actually not wearing any clothes, and nobody is saying so. I wanna say so.