https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=JJp-5qU58Ow
Then the other claim, and this is the one 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 and it seems to me that this is a form of the biological essentialism that the gender theorists typically decry proposing as they typically do that 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 maybe 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 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 fifty 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. I’m 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 little bit of a 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 virtually no over medical oversight of this process. That’s the thesis of the book. Right. And so so the alternating hypotheses are either that there’s been an explosion in transgender identifying individuals because the social structures have been taken off the diagnosis or that there’s been an explosion in psychological contagion. Right. I don’t I don’t think it’s the former. I started to explain why. I mean one of the reasons I said is you would expect you know a large, you know, rise 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 of them. You would see more of them. And you would see more of them. And you would see more of them. And you would see more of them. You know, as the social structure is growing, you know, there’s been a rise 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, you know, coming out as transgender in incomparable rates. 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 or transgender identification is going up. But we would have predicted that those things going down. With social acceptance. Instead, it seems to be, 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 want to go back to why this is happening. So there’s been a political, arguably, no, I won’t, I won’t state that there’s been a transformation in the way that transgender identity is conceptualized and treated in the last five years. 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 incentivize and to encourage them to do something. And I think that there are 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. Right. Well, it seems like that’s it’s necessary that becomes necessary to prove something. It seems to me, and that’s what I’m sure I know. 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 other axiom is true. What, what is that? Is that is the is the axiom that gender is in fact socially constructed? Do you see what I mean? Is that there’s a why you said there’s an ideological reason. What I’m going 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 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’re 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 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. You know, 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. Well, I did a lot of them. Yeah, a lot of them just insist on the immutability. The problem is, we know that’s not true. Well, except that they also insist on gender fluidity. Right, but they also insist on gender fluidity. I mean, I could I could I could answer your question this way. What is non binary? Because right now in the United States and throughout the West, certainly true in Canada, you can get your breasts removed. Not if you say you’re transgender, you don’t even have to say you’re transgender. But if a young woman 16 or up says she is non binary, that’s enough to allow her without a therapist note to get her breasts removed. Now we how do we know that a non binary person has no breasts? I know that a man has no woman’s breasts. How do we know that a non binary person has no breasts? Well, that’s you know, that’s that’s that’s a that’s a very good illustration, I would say of the mystery that I’m trying to nail down is that. Your claim is that breasts or no breasts. It’s all the same to the non binary identity, but that isn’t the way it plays out. The way it plays out is that. There’s the breast removal proceeds forthwith. And so that’s not I don’t I don’t understand that. Well, there are no diagnostic markers at all or evidence of a non binary identity except the say so of the patient. Part of part of it’s a matter of definition. Now, one of the things that you do in your book, I thought this was quite interesting is. Make the claim that when gender theory is taught in schools, the classic binary genders are presented in a very stereotyped manner, very stereotyped, very unidimensional, unidimensional stereotype manner. And then any personal deviation from that stereotype is regarded as evidence for a non binary identity. And so so that’s a matter of definition in some sense, right? Because you could say that. The only genuine genders and this would be the redefinition of the word gender in some sense. The only binary genders are the stereotypes, and if you are deviant from those stereotypes on any of the multiple dimensions along which they’re defined, then you are in fact another gender. You can you can you can you can set up a definitional structure in that way and have it be coherent. The question is, what are the consequences of that? So the consequences is a lot of confusion for young people trying to sort these things at who they are out at a time when that’s typically done in adolescence. I mean, right. You think you can you distinguish that from freedom? You know, because if I was going to take the perspective that was opposite to that, I would say no, no. What you’re doing by deconstructing the concept of gender itself is allowing adolescents much more freedom and exploration of their identities during a critical period than would otherwise be the case. Now, I would temperamentally tend to side with the confusion hypothesis. I think it’s a catastrophe to confuse adolescents with regards to their gender identity just when they’re attempting to catch up with their gender identity. Just when they’re attempting to catalyze that identity right at the same time that hormonal transformations are at their peak and they’re undergoing a profound transformation in self. To offer them a plethora, an infinite plethora of ways to be, none of which have been tested in some sense in the world seems to me a recipe for disaster, but. Does it look like freedom? No, it doesn’t look like freedom, and I’ll tell you why, because these girls are miserable. Just look at the number of young women on YouTube who regret their transitions already. They adopt behaviors after deciding online on some social media site that their true identity is non-binary. Oh, no, wait, it’s two spirit. Now I’m a two spirit. Oh, no, wait, I’m a gender. Once they go through these, they lead lives. I mean, if you talk to them, talk to their parents, if these young women were flourishing, I wouldn’t have written the book. That’s not a sad story. They’re flourishing, but instead they’re cutting off their parents. They’re dropping out of school. They have no meaningful employment. All their friends are only transgender. They hate all cis people. You see patterns that are desperately unhealthy.