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The claim that you just made for example that there is a very large literature. Supporting the idea of medical transition and a very small literature criticizing it is striking. I don’t understand it. What’s going on like what’s driving this? Why is it that the medical associations and the psychological associations have rushed so precipitously? Into gender identity affirmation when the cost of it when it’s taken to its logical conclusion is extraordinarily invasive surgical modification. Which carries substantive risk and which I think it’s of which I think it’s fair to say has. Disputable benefits. What why is this happening? Well, there are a number of reasons it’s happening, but if you’re asking why more medical, you know more doctors and therapists aren’t speaking out, I think the answer is because if even Jordan Peterson is a is concerned about having this interview with me. And with with all of your courage and all the stances you’ve taken imagine what far less courageous doctors are willing to say. It still strikes me it still strikes me as as remarkable that this change has occurred over such a short period of time. I mean one of the things you do in the book and maybe you can you can talk about this is document the. The nature of the treatment that the medical treatment for gender dysphoria when the treatment is gender transition. When the treatment is gender transition. So you you talk about the use of testosterone and its subsidy on university campuses and then you talk about the more invasive surgical transformations double mastectomies. Fellow plastic and and which is the creation of a new. Penis if you use that word loosely. These are very. These are not minor procedures including the use of testosterone and it’s remarkable to me given that how fast these guidelines for treatment have changed. Well I think you’re right the medical the the activists have been very aggressive and very effective here in the medical accrediting institutions. But I think that all of at root of all of these changes is a series of polite lies that we were that we swallowed unfortunately in the public sphere. So in the last week for instance the California Insurance Commissioner has has said that for the purposes of insurance in California. That on breast surgery top surgery double mastectomy on healthy breasts for even teenage girls needs to be regarded regarded no longer as cosmetic but something that corrects abnormal structures. Because if you’ve accepted the lie that a young woman who says she’s a boy truly is a boy then healthy breasts become abnormal structures. This is the corruption of language so you must remove them regardless of her age. Yeah well language tends to be associated with action and it was the corruption of language that I objected to you know four years ago because it has consequences now. You know you made the strongest statement so far I would say that you made in our interview. Which is the lie that an adolescent girl who thinks she is a boy truly is a boy and I suppose it’s language like that that gets you in trouble to the degree that you get into trouble. Because that’s a pretty strong statement the gender theorists who are driving this movement I would say. Put forth the proposition that. First of all that. An individual always knows. What gender they are even if that changes from day to day there isn’t an authority outside the individual themself that can. Oppine on gender identity that’s that’s part of the philosophy that drives the gender affirmation movement I would say. Correct. Right that’s part of the philosophy but unfortunately there’s no biological or empirical or means of verifying that we have no means of saying of establishing that a girl who believes she is a boy is truly a boy. Well it’s a it’s more it’s more of a definition than anything else right it’s a place to start it’s an axiom the axiom is that the only person who can. Offer an informed opinion about the about their gender is the person themselves no medical professionals no parents no loved ones no one else only the individual and that’s even the case if it changes from day to day or our tower. Right exactly okay begin with the conclusion okay and then. Then the other claim and this is the one that that I have difficulty with logically is that. A girl who thinks she is a boy is in fact a boy. Trapped in a girl’s body. Which seems to me and that that’s been the case ever since birth. It seems to me that this is a form of the biological essentialism that the gender theorists typically decry. Proposing as they typically do the gender is a social construct now it isn’t obvious to me how gender can be a social construct and be. Something immutable. From birth that’s only known to an individual themselves which sounds a lot more like a biological explanation to me. So right. Right I mean I interviewed affirmative therapists and I would say to them and they would say well some kids are gender fluid and I would say to them well then how can you recommend. You know top surgery on a young woman who’s who may be turn out to be gender fluid meaning she decides at some point she isn’t she was wrong she isn’t a boy she’s a girl and and. You know this response was essentially well only she can know her truth, I mean we are we are we’re this is not medicine any longer it’s closer to witchcraft. So. Let me let me let me start at the beginning and outline. The hypothesis of the book. So. Over the last five years there’s been a tremendous transformation in the language and the conceptualization that’s been applied by medical associations in relationship to gender. And gender is being defined as something that’s a personal choice essentially and. That personal choice has been extended to the. To the domain of physiological transformation. And medical professionals have been required to be able to do that. And medical professionals have been required are now required to exceed to any requests for physiological transformation on the part of their clients or patients. As a consequence of the mandates of their professional organizations and the consequence of that has been a shift in the transgender phenomenon from a tiny percentage of primarily males to a. One in 50 percentage of primarily adolescent females. Many of whom are undergoing the full physiological or. Many of whom are undergoing at least part of the physiological transformation process that sums it up essentially I believe. Not sure I totally followed that but I think so okay. Well I probably should have asked you this at the beginning of the interview but the basis I was trying to outline the basic argument that you were making. Right the basic argument that I’m making is that girls are is that a lot of large population of teenage girls who probably do not have gender dysphoria they certainly have an atypical form of gender dysphoria are able to. Quickly obtain hormones and surgeries they are they are very much you know they’re acting under so you know social media influence and peer influence we have numbers on that. Certainly not my studies but others have done studies on this and they’re acting under the influence of peer influence and social media influence they are quickly obtaining hormones and surgeries and there is a virtually no over medical oversight of this process. That’s the thesis of the book right and so so the alternating hypothesis are either that there’s been an explosion in. Transgender identifying individuals because the social structures have been taken off the diagnosis or that this is a form of psychological contagion. Right I don’t I don’t think it’s the former I started to explain why and one of the reasons I said is you would expect you know a large you know rise in gender in transgender identification across populations it wouldn’t just be teenage girls you would see women in their 40s 50s and 60s you would see more men. But but not only that you’re seeing among this population we know that rates of suicide and depression are rising as social acceptance of gender dysphoria is going there are transgender identification is going up but but we would have predicted that those things going down with social acceptance instead it seems like. You know coincident and comorbid with teenage girls mental health crisis in which we’re seeing very very high rates of anxiety and depression. I have to think about I have to think for a minute here and I have to think about the way that we’re seeing the mental health crisis in which we’re seeing very very high rates of anxiety and depression. I have to think about I have to think for a minute here and. I want to go back to why this is happening so there’s been a political arguably no I won’t I won’t state say that there’s been a transformation in the way that transgender identity is conceptualized and treated in the last five years. What’s. What’s motivating the people who are who have been behind this transformation what’s in it for them. Well I think that there are you know people who are there are a number of things there is a strong ideological and and. Financial commitments and incentives for certain people to insist that that that transition on demand regardless of age context or other mental health problems be always immediately facilitated. And it seems like that’s it’s necessary that becomes necessary to prove something it seems to me. That’s what I’m trying to get at is that. It’s necessary to set up the medical system so that. Gender dysphoric transgender identifying teenagers have access to the full arsenal of medical transformation and that helps demonstrate that some of the things that are happening in the medical system are not just in the medical system. That helps demonstrate that some other axiom is true. What what is that is that is it the is the axiom that gender is in fact socially constructed. You see what I mean is that there’s a why you said there’s an ideological reason what I’m trying to do is to specify that reason I’d like to understand that reason. I don’t know know that there is a larger sociological or ideological goal I think they are at ideologically motivated so in other words they have these commitments but I don’t think that they’re trying to prove something you know except in the way that I suppose that they are that they are saviors of some kind. You know look well that would be that would certainly be something to that would be motivating to prove. I mean if you notice the doctors who are pushing this very often that we were certainly seeing in the United States is a young generation of doctors and and therapists who are activists first and doctors or therapists second we’re seeing this across society. In all kinds of you know professions their their ideological commitments proceed their their professional investigation they begin with their conclusions. What the ideological commitment is that this is what I can’t I can’t wrap my head around it because the ideological commitment. If it’s that gender is socially malleable or a social construct which seems to be. That seems to be a fundamental axiom that drives this kind of ideology I can’t see how that can live side beside side by side the proposition that. The girl who’s trapped in a boy’s body has an immutably male identity.