Based Camp - How Autism & Anorexia Unlocked the Mechanism Behind Gender Dysphoria

00:00:00.000 hello simone today is an interesting day because i had a revelation as i was studying some data

00:00:06.600 where you know sometimes i look at data i'll be like hmm that's weird i've seen a number really

00:00:10.380 similar to that somewhere else and i'm like bring data bring data oh my god oh my god this explains

00:00:16.520 everything and i now feel like i have a much better understanding of what's causing the

00:00:24.200 transgender phenomenon in the united states do tell here is what simone had to say at the end

00:00:29.820 of this episode wow i've now experienced a paradigm change and i have a lot more empathy for people

00:00:35.280 who have gender dysphoria what we are going to be arguing using data is that gender dysphoria is the

00:00:44.500 same phenomenon as anorexia not a similar phenomenon but literally the same phenomenon and as we read

00:00:53.580 through this we will both see what is causing the phenomenon as well as why it is specifically

00:01:00.660 hitting the autistic population at such high rates and wow yeah i'll just jump right into it all right 1.00

00:01:07.260 so the thing i was reading that first got me thinking this because it was like two statistics

00:01:11.260 that overlapped and i was like that's weird why do these statistics keep overlapping so statistic one

00:01:16.420 with a scott alexander piece on culture bound mental illnesses specifically what a culture bound

00:01:22.620 mental illness is is it something like in the recent episode we did on the phenomenon in africa or

00:01:28.120 east asia called koro where people think their penises are being stolen by witches and they like

00:01:33.580 really believe this and there's lots of others that we're going to go over but in the united states

00:01:38.280 one of the particularly best studied cases of a likely culturally bound illness which we'll go over

00:01:44.480 evidence that is culturally bound is anorexia and when scott alexander was trying to judge because

00:01:50.200 he said yeah but everything is like partly biological and partly culture bound so he in his piece was

00:01:55.800 trying to judge how much is this right and he goes well i suspect that anorexia is about 80 percent

00:02:00.860 culture bound and 20 percent biological that checks out i'm gonna be like yeah that checks out

00:02:07.960 then at the end of the piece he's like now a lot of people reading this piece are probably

00:02:11.420 thinking about gender dysphoria and the transgender phenomenon in the united states

00:02:14.320 is this a culture bound phenomenon and his estimate and i will note scott alexander is a very pro trans

00:02:21.160 person okay and but he also has like an incredible amount of integrity to be willing to say this

00:02:26.520 because in san francisco saying what he said is like walking down the seat was like the sign from

00:02:33.160 die hard with a vengeance oh no you're right in this scene i imagine samuel jackson's character

00:02:39.580 to be scott alexander's trans friends trying to get him to take the piece down after it was

00:02:44.220 first published as i imagine quite a few probably did

00:02:47.140 down 9-1-1 tell the police to get up here quick somebody's about to get killed 0.99

00:02:54.320 now you got about 10 seconds before those guys see you when they do they will kill you you 0.79

00:03:00.360 understand you are about to have a very bad day tell me about it 0.95

00:03:06.200 this guy wrote a piece arguing being trans is in large part a social phenomenon now what are we

00:03:17.460 gonna do about that

00:03:18.380 like i'm pretty sure he lives with transgender people in the comments under the thing i like

00:03:36.320 i don't have a confirmation that he's dated transgender people before like this is not

00:03:40.560 he's against transgenderism he's just laying out the facts as he sees them he says it seemed to be

00:03:45.840 about the same as anorexia about 80 cultural and about 20 biological which is exactly what i'd agree 1.00

00:03:52.420 with i actually might i might put it above scott alexander here i might say it 30 biological 70

00:03:57.860 cultural when i look at things like endocrine disruptors and the tide studies and stuff like

00:04:01.660 that which you can read about in our other trans videos but there is like evidence that males due to

00:04:07.540 chemicals they're being exposed to at least males at least are they really are turning the frogs gay 0.99

00:04:12.120 i don't like them putting chemicals in the water that turn the freaking frogs gay do you understand 1.00

00:04:17.560 that turn the freaking frogs gay boom boom serious crap gay frogs freaking frogs boom it's not funny 1.00

00:04:24.360 i'm gonna say it real slow for you gay frogs they really are showing less gender presentation as males 1.00

00:04:31.800 due to biological reasons but then i saw a separate statistic that linked these two things 0.90

00:04:38.040 which was really high rates of autism uh oh and we'll go over the sounds like wait wait wait wait

00:04:47.880 i'm noticing something here so estimates of autism prevalence in anorexia populations range from 20

00:04:53.720 to 30 percent a study at the national specialist eating disorders service at maudsley hospital found

00:04:59.580 that 35 percent of women met the criteria for an autism spectrum disorder we also know that autism and

00:05:05.740 adhd commonly co-occur in a recent meta-analysis that ranged from 63 studies between 40 and 70 percent

00:05:13.700 with bulimia this was wrong at all 2021 and then anorexia nervosa carries the highest mortality rate

00:05:20.880 of any health disorder at a 10 to 20 percent suicide or death risk from this as bernstein 2023

00:05:28.300 and martin et al 2015 all right so what i'm pointing out when i point out like the suicide risk here

00:05:35.640 this is to say that even if transness is a culturally locked phenomenon that doesn't mean that these

00:05:41.300 people are not experiencing something that is loud enough to get them to kill themselves and

00:05:46.300 simone is a like sane logical person who you guys apparently like hearing her opinions she almost died

00:05:52.080 of anorexia and she also happens to be autistic so do you want to do you want to talk to that at all

00:05:58.940 before we go further here yeah when you're saying this hearing it and and you you putting the pieces

00:06:04.540 together this does make a lot of intuitive sense and i think it comes down to autistic people committing 0.99

00:06:10.500 to the bit and and having when they have a special interest they just actually go all the way they just

00:06:16.820 actually do it other people dabble autistic people go all the way you know there are train enthusiastic

00:06:23.440 and then there are autistic train enthusiasts and you know you know like those are the ones

00:06:29.440 are the train conventions those are the ones going to the train pilgrimage sites and then you know you

00:06:34.480 have people with eating disorders it takes a lot of discipline like an inhuman level you know beyond

00:06:41.920 the level of proper intuition or you know the the human body has a lot of ways of resisting starvation

00:06:48.380 right like it's pretty good at controlling for that so i think you need something else super out of

00:06:53.840 whack to be able to commit to that and it makes the same sense gender uh transition requires a huge

00:06:58.900 amount of commitment and you have to be committed to the point of tone deafness to getting there and i

00:07:06.280 think also framing anorexia as uh a body dysmorphia driven by a desire to look beautiful

00:07:14.880 is misleading and may misstate what people think anorexia is they think anorexia is the pretty

00:07:21.780 popular girl who talks about dieting when anorexia is often the very not pretty girl who looks like

00:07:29.720 skeletor who is clearly not doing this to look good it's commitment to the bit yeah well and i by the

00:07:37.540 way how how light did you get in college when you were doing this i was high school i think the

00:07:43.680 the lightest i ever was was 98 pounds i'm currently like 123 pounds which is like the minimum safe

00:07:50.280 weight i can have i'm like five foot eight and a half above that yeah so well i would note here

00:07:57.580 that this also can help you understand something which is like if as a non-autistic person you will

00:08:02.940 struggle to understand how a person with anorexia who looks like skeletor can be standing there and

00:08:10.080 being like i'm too fat like yeah but now now in your head think about the autistic train enthusiast

00:08:17.340 you know they don't understand how crazy they look yeah when they're there talking to you about a

00:08:22.860 whatever train and you're like i do not how do you not understand that i don't care about this yeah but

00:08:27.780 now think about the like don't you have enough trains and they're like

00:08:31.400 yeah now think about this in the context of the trans person which is like wait why why won't 0.99

00:08:38.740 everyone accept me like why can't i be on women's sports teams why can't i you know yeah like you we 0.98

00:08:44.720 need to go 100 with this we can't be like let's do this in a reasonable way yeah we're like i'm not

00:08:51.140 like an active impediment to other people living their lives you know yeah which and then even even the

00:08:59.040 threat of death as anorexia demonstrates with that high mortality rate you pointed out

00:09:03.300 is not at all of interest or relevant so very important here is this claim is not saying that

00:09:09.760 they are faking it or that they are imagining it or that they are yeah what we are saying is it's a

00:09:14.640 culturally bound illness but culturally bound illnesses are illnesses yeah yeah so we're going

00:09:21.060 to keep going here a large-scale study published in nature communications in 2020 found that 24 percent

00:09:26.880 of transgender and gender diverse respondents were autistic compared to five percent of cisgender

00:09:31.220 participants the study analyzed data from 641 000 participants across five data sets including

00:09:38.080 survey data population studies and online questionnaires studies have found that the

00:09:42.020 lifetime prevalence of eating disorders is also noticeably higher in transgender men 10.5 percent

00:09:46.240 in transgender women 8.1 percent compared to four percent non-autistic females 0.3 percent

00:09:51.640 non-autistic male so just like astronomically higher wow now here is where the real breakthrough for me

00:09:58.820 came from okay this is going to shock you so i decided to go and read more about from the perspective

00:10:05.380 of like psychiatrists or psychologists who work with people who have anorexia why autism might lead to

00:10:12.740 that and when i started reading their explanation if you just replace these words like you change out the

00:10:20.600 word eating with gender expression or you change out the word you know like autism with gender dysphoria

00:10:27.320 you're going to be like oh my god this is such a good explanation really oh can you read us some

00:10:33.060 quotes i'm going to go through oh lever and gertz 2016 found that up to 79 percent of autistic adults

00:10:41.060 met diagnostic criteria for a mental health condition including depression anxiety and eating disorders

00:10:46.420 we also know that many autistic individuals struggle to emotionally self-regulate use internal strategies

00:10:52.320 to calm down like breathing and co-regulate be soothed by another person so they find other ways

00:10:57.560 to self-soothe or feel okay and one example is by eating or not eating sensory sensitivities are

00:11:04.020 extremely common in autism so much so that they form part of the standard diagnostic

00:11:08.940 criteria apa 2022 eating involves all five senses and interception or the capacity to sense internal

00:11:16.660 body sensations such as hunger association is perhaps unsurprising that eating disorders are

00:11:22.300 overrepresented in the autistic population so let's reread that uh your sense of gender identity involves

00:11:29.320 all five senses and interception the capacity to sense internal body sensations such as

00:11:35.500 any of the things associated with gender dysphoria okay let's keep going here unfortunately many

00:11:43.160 autistic individuals in our society experience loneliness herkinson et al 2017 bullying and abuse

00:11:49.040 rumble 2019 they may use restrictive eating patterns as a way of distracting themselves from

00:11:54.480 these difficulties and numb the emotional pain as one autistic person with anorexia nervosa said

00:11:59.000 i can get engrossed in food and exercise and just forget about everything else okay they may use gender

00:12:06.200 dysphoria as a way of distracting themselves from these difficulties and numb the emotional pain yeah going

00:12:11.880 through a transition is is is physically mentally socially it's it's it's it will completely take over

00:12:19.920 your life and so you don't have any room to worry that's actually a really good point like i've pointed out

00:12:24.900 for example that having kids is an amazing anxiety combat tool because you simply don't have time or

00:12:31.740 mental space to be tired or stressed or worried like you're just gonna like child maxing is a new

00:12:37.600 transition yes let's just look can we can we hijack this can we but yeah that that makes a lot of sense

00:12:46.040 and that that doesn't yeah absolutely controlling well there's the thing that people have noticed is that

00:12:51.520 the pronatalist movement is like overwhelmingly autistic and that's the rumor oh my gosh it is 1.00

00:12:56.680 are we the new trans this is so exciting it'd be so fun if a bunch of autistic people are like spamming 1.00

00:13:02.680 20 kids because it's like their special interest let's do it the greater replacement theory

00:13:07.460 happening the hottest it's happening okay so i mean i think that's kind of why you're doing it right

00:13:15.340 like he's into it you get really into pregnancy and you get into all the measuring and everything

00:13:19.240 the measuring the appointments making sure all the hormone shots and everything you have to do

00:13:24.080 yeah all the yeah it's very similar to transition in a way and she gets really actively distressed

00:13:29.320 when she's not pregnant especially right after her birth oh my god i'm trans pregnant

00:13:34.400 oh you have you have gender dysphoria i have fertility dysphoria i have i have pregnancy dysphoria

00:13:41.400 gestational dysphoria there we go i have gestational dysphoria that's a thing that some 0.94

00:13:45.580 trans people experience right you know they they yeah which sucks that that's it yeah my heart goes 1.00

00:13:51.640 out to them trans woman to have a successful uterus transplant ovaries and eggs included 0.99

00:13:58.460 and i want to be the first trans woman to have an abortion mr garrison mrs garrison you can't have 0.79

00:14:08.740 an abortion don't you tell me what i can and can't do with my body a woman has a right to choose 1.00

00:14:14.320 you can't get pregnant but i missed my period you can't have periods either you mean i'll never know

00:14:22.420 what it feels like to have a baby growing inside me and then scramble its brains and vacuum it out 1.00

00:14:26.740 this would mean i'm not really a woman i'm just a i'm just a guy with a mutilated penis 1.00

00:14:32.480 basically yes oh boy do i feel like a jackass conversely they may use comfort eating to 0.99

00:14:40.560 overcome difficult feelings associated with socializing many social occasions are paired

00:14:45.360 with eating socializing can be difficult and anxiety provoking for an autistic person

00:14:50.000 c conversely they may use gender displays to overcome difficult feelings associated with

00:14:55.580 socializing many social occasions are paired with gender displays socializing can be difficult

00:15:00.700 and anxiety provoking for an autistic person you see it's all it's all falling together for me here

00:15:07.520 okay um eating disorders often begin in puberty just as the social world becomes more complex

00:15:14.460 and the autistic person experiences more problems navigating changing social expectations and trying

00:15:19.860 to connect with their peers and quote-unquote fit in they often feel very different from their peers

00:15:24.600 and may become immensely as a way of coping they may believe that they do not fit in socially

00:15:30.400 because their body or appearance so seek to change them both it is common for teenagers to connect

00:15:35.140 with peers through this common interest but an autistic teenager may be unable to connect with

00:15:39.800 interests of non-autistic groups as they become more fascinated with eating disorder behaviors

00:15:44.920 they become accepted in a peer group that embraces this culture some autistic teenagers will focus on

00:15:51.040 dieting and appearance as a way of being included and build a sense of identity all right simone so

00:15:56.660 let's reread that but change a few things here oh boy trans disorders often begin in puberty just as

00:16:03.660 a social world becomes more complex and the autistic person experiences more problems navigating changing

00:16:08.420 social expectations and trying to connect with their peers and fit in they feel very different from

00:16:13.520 their peers and may become immersed in gender transition as a way of coping they may believe that

00:16:18.800 they do not fit in socially because of their body i'm not even having to change the words here

00:16:22.580 because of their body and their appearance so they seek to change them both uh-oh

00:16:27.080 it is common for teenagers to connect with peers through a common interest but a autistic teenager may

00:16:34.760 not be able to connect with the interests of non-autistic groups again i'm not having to change any of the

00:16:38.500 words here as they become more fascinated with gender transition and trans communities they may

00:16:44.740 become accepted in a peer group that embraces this culture some autistic teenagers will focus on gender

00:16:51.180 transition and appearance as a way of being included and build a sense of identity

00:16:55.300 ah it the overlap is so strong that was found in a different community that also has all of these

00:17:04.440 over other overlaps here yeah yeah so to keep going here no it's just like the entire thing reads like

00:17:12.200 it's about trans individuals but it but it helped me understand it from this alternate perspective but you

00:17:17.880 know what i'm doing i'm there then i'm replacing this with pregnancy and like you know pregnancy

00:17:24.000 communities and fertility communities i'm like oh hello can we create a disease in our culture around 0.69

00:17:32.400 girls who want hot autistic girls who want to get pregnant all the time this is the thing people 1.00

00:17:37.820 online are like oh this is like a fetish they're like oh they must have a breeding fetish and it's like 0.84

00:17:41.120 no it's a special interest it's so much worse than that thanks it's about autism

00:17:47.420 it's about body dysmorphia guys um oh my god if we could get if we could get pronatalism categorized

00:17:57.560 in the same way that like trans people get like special rights and stuff like that that you as a

00:18:01.740 pregnant person who is autistic and it's like you're a special interest you've got to get all these special

00:18:05.920 rights because now you know well you know you're a protected class right yeah it's it's no longer a

00:18:11.760 wholesome thing it's a weird sex thing or a weird gender thing and as soon as it's that now we just

00:18:18.160 need to embrace that aspect of pronatalism right i will say here you know to all the the hate watchers

00:18:23.700 who i see the comments no hate watchers by the way you know our comment section is like 95 percent

00:18:28.940 votes on even our most hated videos wow okay well i guess i would say that there are people

00:18:33.500 who are they take umbrage to the idea of people having children for quote unquote the wrong reasons

00:18:38.700 like because it's an autistic special interest to this being one example right or for ideological

00:18:42.920 reasons instead of just loving children i think honestly and and this is something i've heard other

00:18:48.580 very um pronatalist people say you kind of have to have an ideological or logical or special interest

00:18:57.360 reason to begin having kids because it's really hard to get started then once you actually get to know

00:19:03.420 them as people you're having kids because they're amazing people and you realize that one of the most

00:19:08.600 meaningful thing you could ever do is create an amazing life for them and bring amazing wonderful

00:19:14.640 people into the world and give them the best possible life okay so you start out essentially doing it for

00:19:19.920 the wrong reason or for a heartless reason and then you start doing it for the heart i just want to

00:19:25.400 i just want to point out that it's not wrong for someone to like use special interests or ideology

00:19:34.120 or logic to get someone started because you can't really you can't show someone for example what it's

00:19:40.880 like to be in love until they're actually in love right you know they have to get they have to be

00:19:45.360 interested in getting in love from a logical standpoint first before it happens or just kind of

00:19:49.060 happens naturally you know they fall in love by mistake just like you might get pregnant by mistake

00:19:53.200 and have kids by mistake but i just wanted to comment on some very frequent pointed remarks about

00:20:00.960 oh like isn't it terrible that pronatalists would be having children just because they think it's 1.00

00:20:05.940 important to have children this is the worst reason it's when we need to keep up the facade our

00:20:11.140 children live a gray and dull and and and and dreary existence yes look miserable indy i mean look 1.00

00:20:19.200 we're we don't eat our house in the winter this is me wearing a warm winter coat inside right like

00:20:24.880 yeah and indy's wearing a snow suit because of course she is clearly our our drive towards extreme 1.00

00:20:31.200 levels of temperance is where i'd say i'd say with discipline to try to work on our internal discipline

00:20:37.920 by by not indulging in pointless she's so sad she's so deprived so i see it in her eyes that's that

00:20:48.480 her eyes we did this episode on the the girl who went and shot up a school that's what she was like 1.00

00:20:54.240 same eyes i see it i see it she knows she knows she's a mistake just like that girl her parents had

00:21:03.200 her as a mistake oh for all the wrong reasons and oh you're so not okay so simone hold on i gotta

00:21:10.720 continue here okay i'm not gonna keep reading it both ways anymore because like it just gets so

00:21:16.880 comical at this point yeah sometimes restricted eating can commence because the person seeks to

00:21:23.040 remain asexual and androgynous sometimes puberty blockers can commence because okay fearing change

00:21:31.680 and disliking the body changes that start to occur during puberty for example the person may be

00:21:37.120 afraid of becoming an adult and the changes this will bring to their lives feeling incapable of

00:21:41.760 getting a job or living independently and so they seek to stay in their childlike body oh my god what

00:21:50.960 when i started reading this revelation moment this is the same phenomenon yeah okay we found that

00:21:58.240 autistic people often experience difficulties discerning the character or personality of others

00:22:03.760 including their own personality they often define themselves in terms of their interests and knowledge

00:22:09.440 rather than in terms of personality descriptors of social roles such as mother daughter or friend

00:22:14.480 this difficulty with conceptualizing the self can lead to over-reliance on a self-identification in

00:22:20.400 terms of physical appearance including their weight rather than their character and other personality

00:22:25.600 qualities can we say including their gender rather than their character or other personality qualities

00:22:30.640 because in reality your gender should not be that important to you like to a normal person like i'd

00:22:36.560 say myself if i woke up the other day and i was in a woman's body i'd just be like okay i'll figure

00:22:41.120 out how to make this work like i wouldn't be like oh my god i need to transition back immediately

00:22:45.520 and i said this within the transgender world makes us a gender and ironically because both of us feel this

00:22:50.240 way and ironically a form of transgender because a gender is a form of gender queer and gender queer 0.59

00:22:55.360 is a form of transgender by i forgot the the main organization that does all of this one of the

00:23:00.640 main pride groups or whatever so we are technically transgender by their own definition just because i

00:23:05.920 don't understand why i would care if i was a different gender i'm like i've got to focus on the

00:23:10.960 difference i'm going to make in the world you would trounce as a woman i'm just saying i would no i'm

00:23:16.160 even like it's funny like i wouldn't even be distressed i'd just be like oh awesome like

00:23:20.720 now i can try and i'd be such a cute guy like you know like taking care of the household you and i

00:23:25.520 would make a great partner if you change nothing about our personality and just the gender yeah 0.76

00:23:30.000 oh my gosh i would watch the gender swapped ai movie of us that we will eventually create in like

00:23:34.800 two years when that becomes possible we become famous enough there will be rule 34 point of us

00:23:40.400 that's where they do gender swap or no rule 34 if they exist there's point of it and then there's rule 0.99

00:23:44.720 16 so many rules of the internet one of the other rules is that there's gender swap porn of it so 0.95

00:23:50.480 eventually there's going to be gender swap porn of us anyway part of the international definition 1.00

00:23:55.120 of autism is rigidity and thinking apa 2020 once an autistic person has made a decision they can be 0.88

00:24:00.480 very determined and stay with the decision despite data and persuasion to the contrary commit to the

00:24:07.120 bet what commit to the bet that's what they do for example the person may decide that their life

00:24:13.040 is far easier and simpler if they follow the rules dictated by eating disorder and therefore are very

00:24:19.360 reluctant to change yeah and someone does it she still follows the rules of the eating disorder and

00:24:23.280 i find this can help you if you've ever functional anorexic okay if you've ever interacted with a

00:24:29.760 trans person and they're like my life is better now and you're like yeah but like i knew you before 0.95

00:24:34.880 this and it's clearly not like you're not as happy as you used to be you you have to spend all of

00:24:40.880 this money every month on this you are not widely accepted you know a lot of people treat you as

00:24:46.480 discrimination now that didn't treat you as discrimination before like your life is objectively

00:24:51.360 not better but they're like no my life is better now and it's the same way you're talking to an

00:24:55.840 anorexic person if you go to an anorexic person they're like no you don't understand my life gosh

00:25:00.400 yeah and if i'm thinking about how i felt when i weighed like 98 pounds as a five foot eight and

00:25:06.000 half woman and people were like you need to put on weight i could imagine that's how it felt 1.00

00:25:12.320 when people are like you're you're not passing like you should just be a guy again and this feeling of

00:25:18.560 like i am not crossing that line yeah i can feel that and i yeah that that makes actually that makes

00:25:28.480 gender dysphoria feel a lot more relatable to me so this is really helpful that you're reading this to

00:25:33.200 me thanks malcolm yeah right like as soon as you who is an autistic person who it diagnosed autistic

00:25:40.560 who went through this and understanding this is really important for our family because this is

00:25:44.160 something our kids are going to be exposed to you know it i mean toasty's already showing all of my

00:25:49.120 disordered eating all of our kids are autistic so far that can or old enough to be diagnosed um

00:25:54.880 and so you know how do how could somebody have had off anorexia for you given that it's a culture

00:26:00.960 maybe we just need to make our culture so different from the culture around them that they wouldn't 0.88

00:26:05.280 even think of it maybe we make the way you relate to gender and sexuality in our culture so different

00:26:10.000 that they wouldn't even think about it no see i think that again just the mere presence of a large

00:26:16.240 family really solves this problem because again let's go back to that part where they needed something

00:26:22.160 to fill the void or the to drown out the chaos that was too noisy that was so noisy like a

00:26:28.800 a restrictive eating disorder or like gender transition that they didn't have room for social

00:26:35.200 anxiety and a large family will do that the responsibilities of being in a large family will do that the

00:26:41.680 chaos of being in a large family i really think that i and i'd love to see research on this if rates of

00:26:50.000 both gender dysphoria and anorexia and cutting and all these other i would say like kind of related

00:26:57.600 disorders are lower when there are five plus children and i really think the key is five

00:27:04.800 plus children and i don't i would not say that elon musk's family counts because they have

00:27:11.680 enough supplementary care where the kids aren't growing up in a highly constrained environment

00:27:17.520 like resource constrained and like cramped and chaotic like unfortunately they have been given

00:27:24.080 too much space for anxiety to creep in through their privilege yeah they're too privileged we

00:27:29.760 get a small house like this where you've always got other people in a room with you and you're always

00:27:34.960 there's no room for the social anxiety there's just no like you're you're literally too tired and like 0.74

00:27:39.680 fed up with it all to have room for social anxiety you give zero shits at that point which is so beautiful

00:27:46.880 like the word that was used in hannah's children so it was something along the lines of of having 0.89

00:27:53.040 enough children to burn the selfishness out of you and it really is burned away like a cleansing fire

00:28:00.560 it's so cool simone i love you by the way you're fantastic in the way you talk about this next there

00:28:06.480 are other types of thinking that are characteristics of autism and may be a risk factor for developing an

00:28:11.360 eating disorder for example black and white thinking the person may think if i am not thin

00:28:15.760 then i am fat and hold on i'd note here that and sees weight as a dichotomy rather than a range of

00:28:22.000 acceptable weights so think about this in terms of gender presentation right yeah they may be like i'm

00:28:26.640 a girl but i like some boy things or i'm a boy but i like some girl things and because of instead of

00:28:33.280 being able to be like well you can present your gender in a way but like well then it means that i'm a

00:28:37.520 girl or it means that i'm a boy exactly yeah you have to it's this is the systematizing part of

00:28:44.960 autism where it has to be in the category and that's why i'm pretty sure that titan also is

00:28:51.440 autistic because she loves categorizing oh my gosh she'll just sit and sort her dinner for like an hour

00:28:57.920 have you noticed that no they can stick very rigidly to a single number on the weighted scale as being

00:29:04.320 the only desirable number even though that number puts them at a life-threatening way part of the

00:29:09.840 rigidity of thinking it can be what we have called the and this is what i i i know here like with a

00:29:16.160 trans individual you can be like but your suicide risk is super high now like your mental health seems 1.00

00:29:22.240 really poor right now like why why do you think this is a preferable position and they're just like

00:29:27.840 because it is because it needs to fit the the thing needs to fit and and this is the only way of

00:29:34.080 doing this the the the risk of death has absolutely zero bearing when i was 98 and i weighed in at 98

00:29:42.560 pounds i was like all right so let's get to 97 all right good job let's keep going there was no there

00:29:48.400 is no stopping point with these things and there is no concern about health or death yes and so in the

00:29:56.160 past this is called the frank sinatra syndrome or the my way um syndrome once the person has decided on

00:30:02.480 their beliefs about their weight or you could say gender expression the rules around their eating

00:30:06.800 and exercise patterns you could say their presentation they can be very rigid they are

00:30:11.760 not open to other people's advice or opinions even if these are based on scientific evidence you know

00:30:16.400 i could have gone to you as papers on you know the correct weight ranges healthy ranges i could have

00:30:20.960 said why like what's the point of this weight and you'd be like i feel more comfortable this way

00:30:26.080 you know imagine how bad anorexic would get as we as a society started accepting it right and we're

00:30:32.640 like pro anna for the win pro you can't you can't hit on someone for being pro anna oh yeah if we if we

00:30:38.080 defended people's right to continue to starve themselves like how dare you put her in a recovery

00:30:45.280 home she she identifies yeah yeah you put anorexic people in recovery home and they're like this is

00:30:50.960 like you know you're denying their identity yeah like transitioning gay people right although you

00:30:55.600 know my my dad god bless his genius he he somehow figured out how to do that he he enabled me to maintain

00:31:05.760 my status as someone with a severe eating disorder and not die by giving me a food scale and a software

00:31:12.880 program where i could automatically track everything i ate and then all the calories i burned using

00:31:20.240 fitness trackers or just logging and what would that look like for for gender dysphoria though

00:31:27.520 it would probably involve like giving other categories or i would probably like introducing

00:31:34.400 different definitions of gender possibly introducing them to like the concept of of louis the 14th's

00:31:40.400 brother whose name i'm forgetting oh i yeah i actually love this idea so you actually fix it by

00:31:44.960 going you have to change the categories yeah you have to be like oh but you're you like you're

00:31:48.880 more likely you you are manifesting like what was it louis philippe i can't remember his name he was

00:31:53.680 so badass but you just have to be like you have the wrong sorry you have misunderstood the

00:31:58.960 categorization system actually you're sub-level a b five four and parts of the community have

00:32:05.840 basically done this we're like i'll meet people and we'll see them online who identify as trans but

00:32:10.720 have done literally nothing in terms of gender transition or anything like that they're just like oh i'm like

00:32:15.680 category b7 subsection 15 fascinating i think you're right yeah and it's a it's a yes and is

00:32:23.360 always the right answer with children yes and one of the qualities of autism is the intensity of the

00:32:30.400 interests a person develops and the pleasure that these interests bring one of the reasons eating

00:32:35.360 disorders can develop is because of an intellectual fascination was eating and its effects on the body

00:32:40.480 as well as the numbers involved for example in terms of calories for different foods okay i just

00:32:45.840 have to well one of the reasons for gender transition can develop is an intellectual fascination with 0.97

00:32:52.000 puberty and gender and its effects on the body as well as the numbers involved and i absolutely see this 1.00

00:32:57.040 in the trans community they're like my numbers let's let's share my numbers absolutely yes

00:33:04.080 they may enjoy exploring eating patterns rules and weight they may keep schedules and spreadsheets or

00:33:12.240 use apps to record progress entering numbers and seeking patterns that can be very enjoyable aspect

00:33:17.680 of their interest the eating disorder practices become a source of enjoyment and they embrace being

00:33:23.680 an expert in the eating disorder their expertise and commitment are admired by others within the

00:33:28.560 eating disorder social media can be a way of sharing their knowledge and gaining dopamine

00:33:32.720 to the number of likes achieved through their social media page is that not something we see with

00:33:38.960 people going through transition nail on the head wow i mean done i feel like the argument has been

00:33:45.680 has been presented this is insane um well there was actually i know you need to go soon um but for

00:33:52.320 people to believe this there's a few things we need to go into we need to go into evidence that because

00:33:56.560 a lot of people will be like wait what's the evidence that anorexia is a cultural phenomenon right

00:34:00.640 uh-huh so just to read here this is from scott alexander anorexia was mostly unknown in the west

00:34:06.720 until becoming trendy in the mid-1800s during that period doctors reported a high prevalence of

00:34:10.800 anorexia among quote-unquote hysterics but the fad ended after about 10 or 20 years and went back to

00:34:16.160 being basically unknown in 1983 a famous singer karen carpenter died of anorexia thrusting it back

00:34:23.120 into national news and suddenly lots of people in the west were anorexic again meanwhile foreign doctors

00:34:28.640 who trained in the west went back to their countries uh searched far and wide for it and

00:34:32.160 found almost nothing the few cases they did see didn't resemble the typical western version at all

00:34:36.880 for example one hong kong the psychiatrist was able to find a woman who refused to eat out of

00:34:41.200 grief when her boyfriend left her but she didn't think she was fat or feel any cultural pressure to

00:34:45.360 be thinner but this doesn't appear like the this is like a self-punishment thing the absence of

00:34:50.000 anorexia abroad was especially surprising since anorexics tend to end up in the hospital was

00:34:55.120 extremely noticeable malnutrition that doesn't really mimic anything else it's not really

00:34:59.920 possible to hide severe anorexia in the way you can hide severe depression in 1994 hong kong got its

00:35:05.760 own karen carpenter a young girl died of anorexia setting off a national pandemic in many public

00:35:10.400 awareness campaigns near instantly anorexia rate shot up to the same level as the west with

00:35:15.360 appropriate number of people presenting to hospital errs with severe malnutrition a study of the caribbean

00:35:20.480 island of and this is not from him this one's something else of caracau found no cases among

00:35:24.880 the black population while incident rates among the white and mixed-race residents were comparable

00:35:29.120 to those in the u.s and the netherlands um and in post here one thing i'm going to add is a description

00:35:35.920 of some of the alternate gender uh displays that you get in different countries because trans people

00:35:42.800 will point to them as trans just because they're a non-conforming gender display yeah they don't 1.00

00:35:46.800 actually they they point to like incredibly rigid social structures in these countries

00:35:51.760 or or tribes where like if a man takes on like a woman's job or is gay they'll say oh he's actually

00:35:59.440 a woman that's that's the way it often works it's nothing like transgenderism in the west yeah it's 0.92

00:36:04.160 nothing like oh i don't feel comfortable in my body or something like that it's like oh well that guy's

00:36:08.160 a florist so we we treat him like he's a woman and use female pronouns for him because that's a woman's job 1.00

00:36:13.920 and you know okay well or that guy likes sleeping with guys and you know women do that so we used

00:36:19.360 like uh women it's a twink basically that's that's what you're seeing you know not this big effort to 1.00

00:36:24.880 gender transition or anything like that you've got the fafaim of samoa who are effeminate males who are 0.99

00:36:31.520 attracted to other males in the united states this is not what we would call trans this is what we would

00:36:37.200 call a twink this is also seems to be the case of the mukse of southern mexico which are again just 0.96

00:36:44.880 males who are effeminate and attracted to other males twinkie sub gay males that's what they are 1.00

00:36:51.920 not trans then you have the bugus people of southern indonesia and they believe in five genders and people 0.96

00:37:01.280 will say oh this this one of the genders the kalabi these are trans people and so let's describe these

00:37:10.640 individuals and see what you would classify them as in our society they do not undergo any sort of

00:37:16.240 feminization surgery or feminization practices but they are males who are attracted to other males

00:37:24.240 and are predominantly involved in industries like wedding planning 1.00

00:37:27.520 yes it sounds very much like a trans no that's a fucking gay person 1.00

00:37:32.320 okay that's a fucking gay person trans people really seem to only exist it was in the urban 1.00

00:37:38.960 monoculture in every one of these instances the alternate gender identity that these individuals 1.00

00:37:45.040 are assigned appears to be downstream of the gender they are attracted to so if i am attracted to

00:37:53.920 men i am assigned a female gender and if i am attracted to females i am assigned a male gender that is

00:38:02.160 very different than the western version of transgenderism i think to find a phenomenon that you could

00:38:10.560 consider culturally analogous to the transgender phenomenon in the united states you would need to

00:38:15.680 find a culture in which individuals are considered the opposite gender from their birth gender but are

00:38:23.760 still attracted to the gender that their birth gender would be expected to be attracted to

00:38:28.720 i.e trans women who are attracted to women or trans men who are attracted to men and you just don't see

00:38:35.200 this anywhere else i have found in history or in any culture trans people only seem to really exist in

00:38:41.360 large numbers in the urban monoculture and we don't seem to be able to find the phenomenon really anywhere

00:38:48.160 else you will find cross-dressers throughout history but they do not appear like the trans phenomenon of

00:38:54.240 today where all of a sudden it's like oh my god i need to go through this i need to go through this

00:38:57.920 i need to be recognized for this or i'm going to kill myself it's very much oh there's that weird guy 0.64

00:39:03.040 or girl who likes dressing up as somebody else like that's that's cool or oh a girl's dressing up as

00:39:08.880 guys so that she can serve in the military or some other function that she wouldn't be able to serve as a 1.00

00:39:13.920 woman but not out of this like obsession was being recognized as another gender that's a completely 0.99

00:39:20.480 modern phenomenon if you're wondering why i'm not going into two-spirit people it's because my read

00:39:26.160 of the evidence that they're mostly a modern fabrication and didn't exist in wide numbers

00:39:30.960 across native american cultures however where they did exist they typically meant one of two things

00:39:37.280 it was either when a man or woman held a job that was typically associated with the other gender

00:39:43.040 i.e if i was a man and i was a wedding planner i would be called a woman in this tribe and that is

00:39:49.200 not a sign of gender flexibility that is a sign of intense gender rigidity or it was a way to talk about 0.99

00:39:56.560 twinkie homosexual men which as we have seen it is not uncommon for cultures to categorize as women 0.79

00:40:03.040 and to be honest i kind of get it i actually don't know of gender transition really exists 0.86

00:40:08.320 uh that widely in any other culture i take that back it does exist pretty widely in some middle

00:40:14.160 eastern cultures as a cure for gayness but i'm pretty sure that no one would consider that the

00:40:19.120 same phenomenon as what's going on in the united states i.e if there's a guy who likes sleeping with 0.98

00:40:24.480 guys well you know obviously if he's gay he needs to be put to death but you can fix that by turning him 1.00

00:40:30.000 into a woman it also exists in the form of hijras in india pakistan area this is communities of born 0.99

00:40:39.360 males who if they are living in poverty or kicked out of their family go live in these communities 1.00

00:40:45.440 where they are castrated or gender transitioned whatever you want to say so that they can act as 0.81

00:40:50.640 sex workers for other men again not anything like you would think a modern transgender individual 0.81

00:40:56.160 although the transgender community calls them transgender calling someone in poverty who was 0.96

00:41:01.360 castrated so they could be used for sex work transgender one to me feels incredibly offensive 0.94

00:41:06.960 but two it would be sort of the equivalent of calling a castrato transgender if you're not 0.98

00:41:12.320 familiar with who a castrato is that's a historic thing in italy where they would castrate young boys

00:41:18.880 who were very good singers so that they could continue to sing in the equivalent of uh high pitches

00:41:25.760 and i want to be absolutely clear here what we are not arguing is that fluid gender identity didn't 0.96

00:41:31.920 exist historically historically there is a wide range of gender presentation what we're specifically

00:41:38.720 addressing here is the modern phenomenon where somebody all of a sudden starts obsessing over

00:41:44.480 the ways that other people interpret their gender identity and the way that they see their own gender

00:41:50.000 identity and then enters the state where they feel like they're going to kill themselves if people

00:41:56.320 don't start seeing their gender identity the way that they want them to this is why we did the episode 0.99

00:42:01.200 on member stealing witches which is a culture-bound illness similar to anorexia or gender dysphoria in

00:42:08.800 the united states because we can look at something like that as outsiders and have a laugh but from within

00:42:14.960 that culture's perspective it is very real so real that some people end up killing their own babies

00:42:20.640 over it accidentally of course or end up permanently dismembering their genitalia over it and so when

00:42:27.840 we hear about this we have a laugh at them because we don't have something like this was in our culture

00:42:34.480 but when they hear about something like gender dysphoria in our culture they have a laugh at us 0.84

00:42:39.280 yes people are laughing is that is that a dumb question no no it look like to if you want to 0.96

00:42:48.240 become a lady but your man you have something wrong something wrong something wrong in your family 0.97

00:42:54.560 something wrong in you and unfortunately this new understanding of what gender dysphoria and

00:42:59.920 transgenderism is has moved me to a position where i am maybe more antagonistic towards openly supporting

00:43:07.920 any form of alternative gender identity than i was historically because if this is accurate it

00:43:14.720 means that generally supporting this as a society is just as harmful as being supportive of something

00:43:22.400 like the pro-ana movement this is a movement that promotes anorexia and is made up of primarily

00:43:27.520 anorexic people and people will be like but i feel better now in the same way that anorexic people you

00:43:33.840 know as i said i've had anorexic friends in the past and they're like look i feel better i feel

00:43:37.520 accepted i finally feel comfortable in my body and i'm like as an outsider who is looking in on you

00:43:44.080 and who has known you for a long time i can see that that's a delusion you're less happy now than

00:43:50.400 you've ever been this is this is not healthy for you but if i tell you that you will cut me out of

00:43:56.400 your life and stop talking to me something anorexic people often do to people who try to shake them out

00:44:01.200 of it and if you look at if a transgender person is is listening to this and they're like yeah but 1.00

00:44:07.360 i feel better now than i did historically and i'm like well i'm sorry i can just look at the

00:44:12.880 statistics on trans individuals and see that the suicide rate goes way up i can see that we even 1.00

00:44:18.480 know from the travestock clinic that people put on puberty blockers when you're put on puberty

00:44:23.360 blockers your suicide rate actually goes up now they were suppressing this information because they're

00:44:26.720 a pro-trans clinic i mean it's a community was a 50 attempted suicide rate if you were aware that

00:44:34.080 didn't exist in other cultures you'd be like well why are we making room for it was in our culture

00:44:40.160 and my historic position was some real trans individuals probably exist but a large part of

00:44:45.760 the movement is social and i still hold this position as i said at the beginning i think about

00:44:51.280 30 percent is probably biological however the damage done by the social part of the movement

00:44:56.880 is so severe and so demonstrable at this point that i am beginning to rethink whether it is a net good

00:45:06.320 to society to support trans individuals for the small faction that are real but i don't even know if

00:45:13.280 it would really hurt those individuals because i assume with the real trans individuals they don't 0.98

00:45:18.320 particularly care how other people see their gender presentation they just have preferences

00:45:24.960 and thought patterns that match the opposite gender they would be okay with a society that just accepted 0.75

00:45:30.240 more fluid forms of gender presentation whereas when we're talking about this new form of transness

00:45:36.880 i i guess i'd call it gender obsession a overwhelming obsession with how you perceive your own gender and how

00:45:44.560 other people are perceiving your gender because that leads to a huge amount of suffering and these

00:45:51.200 people are hurting and i think that this can be occluded from trans individuals because they when they

00:45:56.960 develop gender dysphoria they begin to look at the way a person's body looks and stop looking at simple

00:46:05.040 things like the way their eyes look so take an individual like elliot page look at his eyes pre and post

00:46:12.240 transition or look at dylan milvaney's eyes or look at really any public facing trans individuals eyes

00:46:19.680 pre and post transition and you will notice post transition there's something like a spark

00:46:26.880 that has left them and it's really really sad to see and i think trans individuals don't see this

00:46:32.560 because they're so focused on every other part of that person's body and gender identity

00:46:37.200 that they don't see that the person has become that anorexic person who is desperately trying to

00:46:44.720 tell you and everyone else that they're genuinely happy and satisfied so yeah that's wow no you've

00:46:52.560 completely you've experienced a paradigm change i've now experienced a paradigm change and i have

00:46:58.320 a lot of more empathy for people who have gender dysphoria because now i realize i

00:47:03.360 didn't do basically experience the exact same thing but with eating and pregnancy oh well now

00:47:14.880 we've got to be more worried about our kids you know he no we were already worried we already knew

00:47:20.640 that autistic kids were disproportionately they're just uh like like like modeled and aesthetic wise so

00:47:28.720 similar anorexia and gender dysphoria yeah and in terms of talking to individuals because i had a

00:47:34.800 cousin who was anorexic for example and i just remember you know trying to talk to her about it

00:47:40.160 yeah there i mean well there is a logic but you have to speak autism fortunately and she was likely

00:47:48.320 autistic we speak autism in knowing you now and knowing her she was like one of the only really fun

00:47:53.840 people in my family so i was always like oh you know she gets me because she broke the social norms

00:47:59.280 more but it was likely because she thought just maybe so do you want to go over some other culture

00:48:05.040 bound syndrome or do you have to head out i really have to go both because i have to change a poopy diaper

00:48:10.480 and we might add another day i know i i will do a separate episode on different culture bound

00:48:16.800 syndromes these these have been really fun episodes yeah and this and we've already we're 37 minutes in

00:48:21.440 yeah so this will be a different episode and i've got a life and describe if you want to

00:48:28.080 oh go to the natalism conference you use the use the code collins for 10 off it will be there

00:48:34.320 so many cool people will be there it is going to be awesome it is an awesome you can find your

00:48:39.920 autistic husband yes first annual autistic marriage market taking place austin this march

00:48:47.680 it's gonna be so we gotta make sure they do a dating market this year we should talk with

00:48:52.720 uh kevin about that do we have the call set up by the way no i need to get one on the books okay well

00:48:57.200 i just want to say i so also this this was weird like shifting for you too right like when i read

00:49:02.000 yeah

00:49:18.640 yeah but it also it it helps me understand what we would need to do just like my dad found a way to

00:49:27.440 enable me to be a functional anorexic one can easily enable someone to be a functional

00:49:33.520 trans person by functional i mean trans in a way where they're less likely to die just like i am

00:49:38.880 i am i have an eating disorder in a way where i'm far less likely to die yeah and i think that this can

00:49:43.920 also help trans people just in modeling the way that they come off to outsiders and the way that they

00:49:48.240 can think about themselves so like yeah if you're a trans person and you've had a friend who suffered

00:49:52.560 from anorexia before and you tried to talk to them about like you're clearly hurting yourself

00:49:56.720 yeah i know you say you feel better like this but i i've seen you before this i've seen you after this

00:50:01.440 this is not the same and then this person begins retreating more and more into pro anna communities

00:50:06.240 you know what pro anna is these are pro anorexia anorexia supporting communities where they'll post

00:50:10.320 like inspiration of like really sickly yeah it's called if you have a friend who's gone down that

00:50:16.240 rabbit hole that's how other people feel when they're talking to you yeah no this will help

00:50:20.000 everyone understand everyone else this is good okay i'm going off to get my teeth cleaned and

00:50:23.920 change a poopy diaper i love you so much and steak tonight wagyu let's do it and we'll use that we

00:50:29.840 didn't buy wagyu ourself i'm not a bad indulgent i got it for christmas okay i got it for christmas

00:50:33.440 best christmas present oh my gosh amazing thank you okay love you bye love you bye

00:50:37.600 bye there's snow on the window there's snow on the window there's snow on the window

00:50:45.760 oh snowy time

00:50:49.520 it's snowing it's snowing

00:50:53.760 this this aren't snow in these snow drops it's snowing

00:50:58.480 it's snowing it's snowing that was nice

00:51:07.680 what do you see octavian i see the christmas tree

00:51:10.640 are you happy yeah tosty are you happy i'm sick in it i'm sick in it 0.75

Based Camp - December 27, 2024

How Autism & Anorexia Unlocked the Mechanism Behind Gender Dysphoria

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript