Based Camp - The Left is Turning on Trans (The Atlantic Goes Ape on Trans Arguments)

00:00:00.000 Hello, Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today.

00:00:02.940 Something really shocking happened because we often discuss sort of the ebbs and flows of the trans movement.

00:00:09.980 And we have talked for a while that it is in significant retrograde at the moment, whether it's the Supreme Court case or the case ruling in the UK.

00:00:17.720 But now we are seeing even mainstream leftist newspapers.

00:00:23.100 The New York Times did a number of transcritical stuff, but The Atlantic.

00:00:26.320 And if people are like, well, is The Atlantic really a leftist newspaper?

00:00:30.180 So I decided to ask an A.I. just be like, what does A.I. think, left or right political leaning?

00:00:33.660 So it says The Atlantic leans left politically.

00:00:37.020 Its coverage often emphasizes progressive issues like social justice, climate change and critiques of conservative politicians.

00:00:42.260 So very left leaning publication.

00:00:45.140 OK, so they had a piece titled The Liberal Misinformation Bubble About Youth Gender Medicine, How the Left Ended Up Disbelieving the Science by Helen Lewis.

00:00:56.320 And so mainstream leftist publication allows this piece to be published.

00:01:02.360 And this happens immediately after.

00:01:04.020 Now, normally, when the trans movement historically had suffered major defeats, the leftists would all come around to rally around it.

00:01:11.440 You know, you had this with recently the the court ruled that Tennessee's law, which prohibits hormone therapies and puberty blockers for transgender minders with gender dysphoria, does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

00:01:24.260 And in fighting this, very interestingly, because a lot of papers were unveiled and sort of the best trans arguers like the people who are pro trans got against the best anti trans arguers in a very recorded stage where all evidence had to be counted and you couldn't just make stuff up.

00:01:42.900 They basically had to concede that they had made up a bunch of the arguments that people had accepted as fact.

00:01:50.040 And you might be surprised by some of the arguments that even the top tier of the trans community now admits are just fictional.

00:01:57.000 And this also comes downstream of not just the cast report, but the UK in law now, making it so that if you are a company in the UK now and you let a trans woman use a woman's bathroom, you can be sued by your female staff.

00:02:12.840 Really?

00:02:14.000 Oh, OK.

00:02:15.060 So this is some serious.

00:02:16.040 This is significant in terms of how things are changing.

00:02:18.640 But I want to dive into the article here.

00:02:20.960 Allow children to transition or they will kill themselves. 1.00

00:02:25.280 For more than a decade, this has been the strongest argument in favor of youth gender medicine, a scenario so awful that it stifled any doubts or questions about puberty blockers and cross sex hormones.

00:02:36.800 We often ask parents, and this is a quote here, would you rather have a dead son than a live daughter?

00:02:43.600 Joanna Olson Kennedy of Children's Hospital Los Angeles once explained to ABC News.

00:02:48.500 So this is somebody who is working at a children's hospital in a major city.

00:02:52.760 Says we at the hospital often go to parents and say, would you rather have a dead son or a live daughter?

00:02:59.800 Variations on this phrase crop up in innumerate media articles and public statements by influencers, activists, and LGBT groups.

00:03:07.140 The same idea that the choice is transition or death appeared in the arguments made by Elizabeth Prager, the Biden administration's solicitor general, before the Supreme Court last year.

00:03:19.340 Tennessee's law prohibiting the use of puberty blockers and cross sex hormones to treat minors with gender dysphoria would, she said, quote,

00:03:27.240 increase the risk of unaliving, end quote, but there is a huge problem with this emotive format.

00:03:34.200 It isn't true.

00:03:35.160 When Justice Samuel Alito challenged the ACLU lawyer Chase Stragio on such claims during oral arguments, Stragio made a startling admission.

00:03:46.520 He conceded that there was no evidence to support the idea that medical transition reduced adolescent unaliving rates.

00:03:54.020 And this is a really, really big deal because this is, if you're looking at like media, when these people go on media, nobody can, with any sort of legal justification, say, hey, does the evidence actually say this?

00:04:08.480 Like, they're not actually forced to tell the truth.

00:04:10.720 And this is why this case has been so damaging to the movement, because it forced their top advocates, who have more knowledge of all of their arguments and all of the research than anyone else, to tell the truth on issues that we just didn't have a public forum to pin them down on before.

00:04:27.180 And the truth is, there is not evidence, and there's even more evidence now, because the UK banned this, and now we have studies that have looked at the unaliving rates post-ban versus the unaliving rates pre-ban, which we'll get into later here, and there's no difference.

00:04:42.740 So we now know that this is fictional.

00:04:45.080 And potentially, that things like puberty blockers actually increased unaliving rates, and we'll get into evidence of that as well.

00:04:52.580 But it's not from this paper, it's from other evidence that she doesn't appear to be aware of.

00:04:57.120 At first, Strategio dodged the question, saying that the research shows that blockers and hormones reduce, quote-unquote, depression, anxiety, and unaliving, that is, unaliving thoughts.

00:05:08.260 Even that is debatable, according to reviews of literature research.

00:05:12.620 So here are the two reviews that she cites.

00:05:14.320 Our pediatric gender medicine longitudinal studies have not consistently shown improvement in depression or unaliving rates.

00:05:20.560 Hormone therapy, mental health, and quality of life among transgender people, a systematic review.

00:05:26.520 But when Alito referenced a systematic review conducted in the Cass report in England, Strategio conceded the point.

00:05:33.560 Quote, there is...

00:05:34.300 Are you talking about Chase Strangio?

00:05:38.980 Strangio?

00:05:40.140 Whatever you want to call him.

00:05:41.120 Strangio.

00:05:42.020 Strategio.

00:05:42.960 Strangio.

00:05:44.260 Most people say Strangio.

00:05:46.280 Strangio.

00:05:46.840 Okay.

00:05:47.160 There is no evidence in some, in the studies, that this treatment reduces completing unaliving rates, he said.

00:05:55.780 And the reason for that is, is that completing unaliving, thankfully and admittedly, is rare.

00:06:00.240 We're talking about a very small population of individuals, which the studies, that don't necessarily have completed rates within them.

00:06:07.220 So note, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, but, but the actual rates, are they higher?

00:06:14.120 And he was forced to say, no, they're not higher.

00:06:17.340 And note here that he, because this is something that would show up.

00:06:20.780 Like there's big studies on this.

00:06:22.020 These aren't like small studies.

00:06:23.260 He's forced to admit that this is just not in the evidence.

00:06:26.220 And, and it's not just the studies that she's noting here that show that he was lying when he said that you have higher rates of, for example, self-harm.

00:06:35.500 Because, for example, we know from the Travestock clinic, which we'll go into, after it was shut, or during the process of shutting it down, it was found that they had done a study that showed that puberty blockers were increasing ideation.

00:06:49.120 They were increasing self-harm.

00:06:51.360 They were increasing a lot of this other stuff.

00:06:53.760 And they had decided not to publish this.

00:06:56.460 Or, you know, obviously goes against their narrative.

00:06:58.780 They said it was because the data was poor.

00:07:00.400 Yeah, the data's poor because it doesn't support what you want it to support.

00:07:03.320 But that's not the way science works normally.

00:07:05.800 You know what I mean?

00:07:06.780 And so we're, we're seeing that, that, you know, even the evidence he's citing here is no longer backed by like the big meta studies that she was citing.

00:07:13.980 Here was the trans rights movement's greatest legal brain speaking in front of the nation's highest court.

00:07:20.860 And what he was saying is that the strongest argument for a hotly debated treatment was, in fact, not supported by the evidence.

00:07:28.540 Even then, his admission did not register with the liberal justices.

00:07:31.660 And I find this really, like, messed up, right?

00:07:34.100 When the court voted 6-3 to uphold Tennessee law, Sonia Sotomayor claimed in her dissent that, quote,

00:07:42.260 access to care can be a question of life or death, which is, she heard the arguments in the data that that is factually untrue.

00:07:51.700 And yet, what you see from this liberal perspective is facts, when they go against their reality, appear unable to pierce the veil of their world perspective.

00:08:02.280 They have an intensely theocratic and religious world perspective that prevents them from interacting with an external narrative that honestly reminds me a lot of when I, because I grew up in Dallas, Texas, the extremist evangelicals, which was, actually, if you talk to, like, educated evangelicals today or educated, like, extremist Catholics today, they're familiar with all the counter arguments.

00:08:27.000 Like, they're, because they're now not a dominant cultural force within any particular region of the United States in a way where they are not exposed to the other side.

00:08:35.800 They're forced to learn the other side.

00:08:37.360 Whereas people like Sonia Sotomayor just are not forced to engage with an external perspective.

00:08:42.220 And so they are able to sort of petrify their brain and harden themselves to external information sources.

00:08:48.880 Interesting.

00:08:49.360 If she meant any kind of therapeutic support, that might be defensible.

00:08:54.040 But claiming that this is true of medical transition specifically, the type of care being debated in the Schimetti case, is not supported by current research.

00:09:03.260 Advocates of the open science movement often talk about zombie facts, popular soundbites that persist in public debate even after they had been repeatedly discredited.

00:09:13.400 The one that Simone always loves is the number of straws that go in the ocean, which came from a sixth grader's science report for, like, a fair project.

00:09:21.580 It was, like, a science fair project.

00:09:22.900 Yeah, but a new one that I just read about from Scott Sanders' July or June Link Roundup was that Chess Grandmaster has burned 6,000 calories a day, which is based on some really crazy speculation that weirdly involves Robert Sapolsky.

00:09:40.660 Oh, she's wild. 1.00

00:09:41.400 Yeah, because they don't.

00:09:43.740 Many common political claims made in defense of puberty blockers and hormones for gender dysphoric minors meet this definition.

00:09:50.960 These zombie facts have been flatly contradicted not just by conservatives, but also by prominent advocates and practitioners of the treatment, at least when you're speaking to them candidly.

00:10:01.340 Many liberals are unaware of this.

00:10:03.680 However, because they are stuck in media bubbles in which well-meaning commenters make confident assertions for use gender medicine, claims for which its elite advocates have long since retreated.

00:10:16.080 And this is really – and I think this point is really interesting because I have, you know, trans friends.

00:10:21.120 I have friends who are educated, like, ultra-progressives and stuff like this.

00:10:24.740 And there is a class of them that you can engage them about these facts and be like, hey, like, you know this fact isn't true.

00:10:30.420 And they're like, yeah, I know that fact isn't true.

00:10:32.180 You know this fact isn't true.

00:10:33.080 Oh, yeah, I know that fact isn't true.

00:10:34.560 And they're like, yeah, but I still, you know, when I'm arguing publicly, sometimes I'll, you know, retreat to them to make big, you know, dramatic claims.

00:10:41.560 But it is remarkable to me how many of the elites will, in private, when I am speaking with them, be like, oh, yeah, I know all that stuff isn't true.

00:10:50.920 But, you know, this is my team, basically.

00:10:52.940 Or what am I supposed to do, publicly say there isn't evidence for this?

00:10:56.620 And you've seen this too, right, Simone?

00:10:58.300 One of the ones that I found most interesting to me that was coming to me from a trans friend at one of our parties who we were talking to was they were like, you know, I was like, candidly, like, within the communities, how much is this, like, just, like, a sex or arousal thing, right?

00:11:13.820 Like, not a gender.

00:11:15.320 And they're like, the reason why that talk of that gets shut down so heavily publicly is because within the community, everybody knows that when we're behind closed doors, this is predominantly an arousal thing.

00:11:27.760 Oh, no.

00:11:28.880 Oh, no.

00:11:29.620 Or at least a chunk of the community, right?

00:11:31.440 Like, not everyone, but at least a big chunk of the community. 0.96

00:11:34.160 And the community mostly admitted this when they had the fight between the true scums and the two cutes. 0.99

00:11:39.300 For people who don't know, there was a portion of the community that said, you are born this way, and that was the true scum. 0.99

00:11:44.520 And they were named the true scum by the two cutes who said, well, if you say you're born this way, then that medicalizes it, and really it's just a choice. 0.98

00:11:51.740 And so the mainstream perspective in the community is this is just a choice now. 0.98

00:11:55.000 And so this is what the educated people, and you'll go out and you'll hear a progressive, and they'll say they don't have a choice over this.

00:12:00.320 And they won't realize that this isn't what the mainstream trans community is arguing anymore.

00:12:04.360 But they think that this is the position, right?

00:12:06.780 They think, oh, these people will, you know, which I find really interesting.

00:12:11.620 Perhaps the existence of this bubble shouldn't be surprising.

00:12:14.300 Many of the most fervent advocates of youth transition are also on the record disparaging the idea that it should be debated at all.

00:12:23.060 Stragio, who works for the country's best-known free speech organization, once tweeted that he would like to scuttle Abigail Schreier's book, Irreversible Damage, a skeptical treatment of youth gender medicine.

00:12:35.900 Abigail Schreier is fantastic, by the way.

00:12:37.240 We've chatted with her.

00:12:38.120 She's so cool.

00:12:38.600 Yeah.

00:12:40.480 Stragio declared, stopping the circulation of this book and these ideas is 100% a hill I'll die on.

00:12:47.720 Wow.

00:12:48.960 He works for the country, the United States' number one free speech organization, and he advocates for-

00:12:56.140 He'll die on the hill stopping the circulation of this book, right?

00:12:59.360 I mean, it's a book that, if you read it, is not like a spurious attack.

00:13:03.060 It's a list of facts and studies.

00:13:05.140 Wow.

00:13:05.700 Masia Bowers, the former head of the World Professional Association of Transgender Health, WPAS, the most prominent organization for gender medicine providers, has likened skepticism of child gender medicine to Holocaust denial.

00:13:20.420 There are not two sides of this issue, she once said, according to a recent episode of The Protocol, a New York Times podcast.

00:13:26.540 And you've seen this as well.

00:13:28.140 It's not surprising that if they say questioning this is the equivalent of participating in the Holocaust.

00:13:35.780 And this is normalized within places like the New York Times and stuff like that.

00:13:40.960 You've seen this some-

00:13:41.860 I mean, talk to your experience.

00:13:43.440 You grew up in San Francisco.

00:13:45.280 You grew up likely believing that, you know, this is not a thing that should be discussed or talked about.

00:13:50.800 Okay, okay, yeah, I can speak to that.

00:13:52.920 Yeah.

00:13:53.440 It definitely blew my mind when I met you and I discovered that it was allowable to express-

00:14:01.260 It is not allowable.

00:14:02.920 Or at least not that good.

00:14:03.960 I don't know that, like, okay, that outside the progressive bubble, it was allowable.

00:14:08.180 Because there were a lot of things that I just thought I- I don't know how to articulate it well.

00:14:12.140 I literally thought I couldn't believe them.

00:14:14.040 It wasn't about even expressing certain views.

00:14:16.420 Like, oh, well, you know, behind closed doors, I think and say this.

00:14:19.360 But in public, I would never say it.

00:14:21.160 It's more that actually it was like a thought crime.

00:14:26.420 Like, literally a thought crime that I- I didn't think I would-

00:14:28.740 Was it in your own brain?

00:14:29.640 Like, you wouldn't consider it?

00:14:30.640 Your brain wouldn't allow you-

00:14:31.640 Yeah, I wouldn't allow myself to think these things.

00:14:34.740 And it made me less mentally healthy.

00:14:36.700 And it made me very uncomfortable.

00:14:38.560 Because I was forced to do and engage with things that I really didn't feel comfortable doing and engaging with.

00:14:46.420 Because I wasn't allowed to not be okay with those things.

00:14:50.060 Were you felt uncomfortable?

00:14:52.120 What do you mean?

00:14:53.180 You said it forced you to do and engage with things that made you feel uncomfortable.

00:14:56.100 Yeah, like working at homeless shelters, like, you know, going to certain parties and being okay with what was happening there.

00:15:04.080 Like, being okay with the way this happened.

00:15:05.260 Like, expertise and stuff, and you were just like, eww.

00:15:07.040 Yeah, yeah.

00:15:08.140 Like, just not super- like, not being okay with it and not being comfortable with it, but having to act like it's okay and having to go along with it and act like everything was fine.

00:15:17.340 And it wasn't- it wasn't fine.

00:15:19.160 At least not for me.

00:15:20.640 But not- not feeling allowed to not be cool with it, which was-

00:15:25.340 Yeah.

00:15:26.760 You talk about, like, a cuddle party or something.

00:15:29.040 Yeah, yeah.

00:15:29.720 Like, if- yeah, if I hung out with friends and everyone was like, okay, we're all gonna, like, cuddle on the couch, you know, I'm like, well, yeah, I'm supposed to be okay with this. 0.91

00:15:39.780 Nightmare is worse for an autistic woman like you. 1.00

00:15:42.140 It really was nightmarish, and beyond that, because I felt like I had to be okay with it, it also gave people, like, super the wrong idea about me.

00:15:53.540 Well, and I think that many people- I mean, this is how this culture, and I think how some sex-pass males weaponize this culture to get past progressive lesbians, like, natural resistance to them, and attempt to- when people are like, you couldn't actually force someone to believe that they were aroused by something they weren't aroused by.

00:16:10.360 Oh, you can.

00:16:11.320 Absolutely.

00:16:12.140 Because, yeah, there were- there are absolutely things that you're allowed to be aroused by and that you're not allowed to be aroused by.

00:16:17.400 And when you're not allowed to say, I don't want this- this pursuit, I don't want to do this.

00:16:21.820 Oh, 100%.

00:16:21.900 I don't want to- and they basically learned-

00:16:24.040 Like, it wouldn't be okay for me to- to- to say, don't touch me.

00:16:28.940 I mean, I know that, like, a progressive person would argue, and they're like, no, of course, you need to express how you feel, et cetera.

00:16:35.000 But, like, I didn't feel like it was okay to express my desire to not be touched by other people.

00:16:42.420 And we see this with trans individuals complaining about lesbians and how they're transphobic if they're not interested in them and stuff like that.

00:16:47.820 And you see them weaponizing this discomfort, which I think is really horrifying that people have been basically treated as, like, ideological slave caste for anybody who's willing to predatorize the system.

00:17:00.340 But to continue, boasting about your unwillingness to listen to opponents probably plays well in some crowds, e.g. Greta Thornburg not even being willing to watch Hamas propaganda about what they did during the October 7th attacks that the Israelis tried to show them.

00:17:19.000 She's like, I will not expose myself to this information.

00:17:21.500 And apparently this plays well in her crowd. 0.99

00:17:24.040 I want my knowledge to be entirely one-sided.

00:17:27.340 Which is really scary.

00:17:29.280 I mean, like, if you're not willing to even entertain opposing views in any way, that implies to me that you are so threatened by them that you just assume that your mind will be changed if you're exposed to them.

00:17:44.240 Like, it's just so weird to me.

00:17:46.140 I even at one point for Lemon Week, the month where we, for our techno puritan holiday, engaged with ideas that we consider to be offensive.

00:17:53.740 And an idea that I consider to be offensive is this idea that there are certain ideas that you shouldn't engage with or that there are certain people that you shouldn't engage with because of their ideas.

00:18:03.020 Because this is a very, like, progressive idea.

00:18:05.340 And I was presented with some arguments that I found to be convincing.

00:18:08.240 But it's only really under specific scenarios.

00:18:11.540 Like, let's say you're having a public debate where you're holding, you know, you're presenting one argument and the other person is presenting the other argument.

00:18:18.920 And that argument is a really harmful argument.

00:18:20.740 And they're also more, like, attractive and charismatic than you.

00:18:23.800 Then by debating them, you are platforming a date.

00:18:27.080 That's why progressives shouldn't debate conservatives in public because they're so often like that.

00:18:30.200 Because we're more charismatic.

00:18:30.980 Well, but, like, yeah, I mean, like, when there are exogenous factors, it will make other people believe someone's argument, not because they have a better argument, but because they're more charismatic.

00:18:40.440 Like, I could see that kind of being a place where it's not worth it to have the debate and to engage with them.

00:18:44.800 But, you know, just her watching that content is not one of these scenarios.

00:18:49.240 Like, I agree now after trying to really engage with this concept that some ideas should not be engaged with, that there are some scenarios where, okay, maybe we should back off, not have the debate.

00:19:00.980 Whatever.

00:19:01.560 But this was not one of them.

00:19:03.240 And, like, what was she thinking?

00:19:04.520 I mean, I wish I could have a conversation with her about that to understand how she justifies that.

00:19:10.540 But it left Stragio badly exposed in front of the Supreme Court, where it became clear that the conservative justices had read the most convincing critiques of hormone and blockers and had some questions as a result.

00:19:23.880 I have questions.

00:19:25.500 Questions.

00:19:26.120 I have questions.

00:19:26.900 Trans rights activists like to accuse skeptics of use gender medicine and publications that dare report their views as fermenting a, quote-unquote, moral panic.

00:19:38.360 But the movement has spent the past decade telling gender-nonconforming children that anyone who tries to restrict access to puberty blockers and hormones is effectively trying to kill them.

00:19:48.180 This was false.

00:19:49.480 And Stragio's answer tacitly conceded, it was also irresponsible.

00:19:55.580 After England restricted the use of puberty blockers in 2020, the government asked an expert psychologist, Lewis Appleby, to investigate whether the unaliving rate for patients at the country's youth gender clinic rose dramatically as a result.

00:20:08.480 It did not.

00:20:09.300 In fact, he did not find any increase in unaliving rate at all, despite the lurid claims made online.

00:20:16.760 The way that this issue has been discussed on social media has been insensitive, distressing, and dangerous, and goes against guidance on safe reporting on unaliving, Appleby reported.

00:20:26.900 One risk is that young people and their families will be terrified by predictions of unaliving as inevitable without puberty blockers.

00:20:36.280 And this study that's referenced here that showed that the rates didn't go up is review of unaliving and gender dysphoria at the Travis Stock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust.

00:20:45.040 And then BBC also did an article, puberty blocker curb has not led to an increase in unaliving.

00:20:49.880 And I note here, all of this, and note here, I just always change out that one word for unaliving because YouTube is incredibly strict about that word.

00:20:58.760 So just, you know, when you're trying to find these studies, use your brain here, people.

00:21:02.180 But I would note here, because we know that unaliving talk is incredibly contagious, in media you're typically not even supposed to report, like, cases where it happens because it leads to huge rises in the rate that it happens.

00:21:17.180 Because we know it's contagious, and because we know that talk is so heavy within these communities, the fact that the rates haven't gone up is uniquely striking, and it shows likely an inverse total effect if you could remove this discussion and these narratives from the public.

00:21:32.700 When red state bans are discussed, you will also hear liberals say that conservative fears about the medical transition pathway are overwrought, because all children get extensive personalized assessments before being described puberty blockers and hormones.

00:21:48.600 This, too, is untrue.

00:21:50.620 Although the official standards of care recommended through assessment over several months, many American clinics say they will prescribe puberty blockers at first visit.

00:21:59.280 I only have seen this in, honestly, the majority of detransition cases I've heard about.

00:22:05.300 The majority.

00:22:06.980 We've heard this from parents, which, you know, is...

00:22:10.420 I've heard this from parents.

00:22:11.380 The doctors will lie to the parents and give it to the kids.

00:22:13.620 That happened to one of our friends.

00:22:14.920 They'll say, oh, we didn't give it to the kids.

00:22:16.720 Actually, we need to do a follow-up study.

00:22:18.740 And by the time the follow-up study happens, because the kid doesn't actually book it, the parent assumes that, hey, the phase is over.

00:22:24.160 But the kid has been on puberty blockers and sterilized themselves six months ago.

00:22:28.560 The kid doesn't realize they've done it.

00:22:30.100 They don't realize they've sterilized themselves.

00:22:31.780 The parent doesn't realize the kid has done it.

00:22:33.740 They were prescribed this under the table because the parent did the very silly thing of taking their kid to a psychologist, which, again, we are radically against.

00:22:41.480 Like, the modern psychologist movement and psychiatrist movement, especially gender, you know, the psychologists do not, do not, do not engage with.

00:22:48.840 They are very dangerous.

00:22:50.020 They cause way more harm than help at this point.

00:22:52.120 I mean, when people talk about, like, the mental health problem of our society and they're like, well, we need more psychologists.

00:22:57.080 I'm like, it seems to have risen in correlation to the number of psychologists, the amount of money we're spending on psychologists.

00:23:03.760 That should tell you something.

00:23:05.040 But you can look at any of our videos on psychologists of how that happened.

00:23:07.720 Because you actually see this in the numbers.

00:23:09.560 It's not necessarily healthy, and especially the ones that focus on the gender stuff.

00:23:14.380 But here we see the sighting that I had above where I was like, many psychologists will give this to them on their first.

00:23:20.680 Routers discusses this.

00:23:22.120 As more transgender children seek medical care, families confront many.

00:23:25.460 Reuters?

00:23:26.180 You mean like the news service?

00:23:27.600 The news service, yes.

00:23:28.400 Mainstream news.

00:23:30.680 Silence yourself.

00:23:31.560 I love with mispronouncing so much.

00:23:33.540 This isn't just a matter of U.S. health providers skimping on talk therapy to keep costs down.

00:23:42.940 Some practitioners view long evaluations as unnecessary and even patronizing.

00:23:47.140 Quote, I don't send someone to a therapist when I'm going to start them on insulin.

00:23:51.780 End quote.

00:23:52.180 Quote, Olson Kennedy told The Atlantic in 2018.

00:23:55.440 Her published research shows that she has referred girls as young as 13 for double mastectomies.

00:24:00.820 Thirteen.

00:24:02.120 For the surgery?

00:24:03.640 Wow.

00:24:04.680 Okay.

00:24:04.940 And what if these children later regretted their decisions?

00:24:08.480 She says, quote, adolescence actually have the capacity to make reasoned, logical decisions.

00:24:14.660 End quote.

00:24:15.240 She once told in an industry seminar.

00:24:17.560 Quote, if you want breasts at a later point in life, you can always just get them. 0.99

00:24:21.900 End quote.

00:24:22.200 I mean, there are some things about this that I love.

00:24:26.640 I think that, broadly speaking, progressive culture infantilizes youth.

00:24:31.200 It's funny that there's this selective de-infantilization.

00:24:34.980 Like, kids aren't allowed to be grown-ups in any way.

00:24:38.260 You know, they're helicopter parented.

00:24:39.600 They're not allowed to walk home from school.

00:24:41.480 But then in this one place, in this one area, they can consent.

00:24:46.580 They're adults.

00:24:48.160 And to whatever they want, right?

00:24:50.380 No matter how crazy, no matter what their parents think, because the alternative is

00:24:54.860 that they will un-alive themselves, even though we know that that is factually untrue.

00:24:59.340 It is really comforting to see, though, that, like, because part of me worried that even

00:25:03.700 if there was not, I guess, a medical or body dysmorphic reason why people would ultimately

00:25:11.500 be more likely to end themselves if they didn't get gender-affirming care, I'm worried that

00:25:19.040 the narratives around that would be enough, basically, because so many people said, you

00:25:24.360 will want to end your life if you don't get this care, that when people started being

00:25:29.460 denying it, being denied it, that they would be more likely to.

00:25:33.580 But it appears that that's not happening.

00:25:35.040 So I'm just, I'm relieved because I thought there would sort of be this nocebo effect. 0.52

00:25:38.680 I think it's important to note what a phase this is, we know from the research.

00:25:42.320 It's funny that she doesn't cite this in her paper, but there is a study, gender discontentedness

00:25:46.360 and gender non-conforming youth that came out in 2023, that showed of 13-year-olds who

00:25:51.560 are not satisfied with their birth gender, over 9 in 10 of them are completely satisfied

00:25:56.400 with it by the age of 23.

00:25:58.220 So this woman who is assigning a 13-year-old a double mastectomy, we now know from the research

00:26:03.060 there was over a 90% chance that she would not have wanted that mastectomy if she had waited. 1.00

00:26:07.860 She would not have wanted to convert her gender if she would. 0.99

00:26:10.900 Well, that's because, I mean, I think most people can, well, not most maybe, but at least 0.97

00:26:13.920 many people can relate that kind of just having a human body during puberty sucks.

00:26:19.360 And it's very easy to think, oh, the problem is that I'm male slash female, whereas like, 0.99

00:26:24.420 no, the problem is that you're going through puberty and it sucks. 0.95

00:26:27.100 And once you get through puberty, you're going to be comfortable. 0.97

00:26:29.180 You're going to be fine.

00:26:29.820 Yeah.

00:26:30.100 Regardless of whether you're male or female, it's the change itself that is not fun.

00:26:34.940 It's not what you're changing into.

00:26:36.420 But the point here being is that now that we know from the evidence, from peer-reviewed

00:26:41.400 studies, over 90% of these people are going to, this is a phase for them.

00:26:46.340 And keep in mind for the final 10%, we can't even say that it's not a phase because of other

00:26:51.040 things, but you can look at our other episodes that go into more research around the trans

00:26:55.240 community and everything like that.

00:26:56.700 This episode is primarily about this article, which I found really fascinating because it

00:27:01.340 shows a changing progressive mindset around what you're allowed to say and what the new

00:27:06.900 mainstream narrative is about this.

00:27:08.420 And I think we might be seeing the dam bursting, basically, was in mainstream Democrat culture

00:27:14.260 and what happens to the crazies.

00:27:17.120 I think they may be pushed aside in the same way that conservatives push aside, you know, 0.96

00:27:21.660 your actual racist.

00:27:22.740 And I think that that's what, or, you know, that we pushed our actual anti-Semites to the

00:27:27.160 Democratic Party.

00:27:28.160 You know, who knows where these people are going to go?

00:27:30.060 They're going to go to some, you know, extremist party, but whatever.

00:27:32.600 Perhaps the greatest piece of misinformation believed by liberals, however, is that the American

00:27:37.020 standards of care in this area are strongly evidence-based.

00:27:40.800 In fact, at this point, the fairest thing to say about the evidence surrounding medical transition

00:27:45.640 for adolescents, the so-called Dutch protocol, as opposed to talk therapy and other support,

00:27:51.080 is that it is weak and inconclusive.

00:27:53.520 A further complication is that American child gender medicine has deviated significantly from

00:27:58.840 this original protocol in terms of length of assessments and a number and demographics of

00:28:04.200 minors being treated.

00:28:05.600 Yes, as activists are keen to point out, most major medical associations support the Dutch

00:28:10.540 protocol, but consensus is not the same as evidence.

00:28:13.060 And that consensus is politically influenced, and it obviously is at this point, and not

00:28:17.820 politically influenced, but influenced by people risking losing their jobs.

00:28:21.280 If I'm at a mainstream organization or medical organization historically, and I said, I have

00:28:26.140 a problem with this, I could lose my job.

00:28:28.600 And if people are like, well, that's not true, look at how hard mainstream, not even just trans

00:28:34.780 organizations, but leftist organizations have tried to get, you know, the people who constructed

00:28:38.900 the Cass report fired for just doing science.

00:28:43.060 Hmm.

00:28:44.000 Right?

00:28:44.920 That if you, if you were right about what you're saying, that you wouldn't try to get

00:28:48.720 these people fired, look at every instance in which somebody has defected and you have

00:28:52.500 tried to get them fired.

00:28:54.060 Right?

00:28:54.540 And the evidence isn't on your side anymore.

00:28:56.220 So now it's like a big problem, right?

00:28:58.800 Rachel Levine, President Joe Biden's Assistant Secretary for Health and Human Services, successfully

00:29:04.360 lobbied to have age minimums removed for most surgeries from the standard care up by WPath.

00:29:12.120 That was a deeply political decision.

00:29:15.100 Levine, according to emails from her office, reviewed by the Times, believed that listing

00:29:19.720 any specific limits under the age of 18 would give opponents of youth transition hard targets

00:29:25.860 to exploit.

00:29:26.700 That's really psychotic.

00:29:30.040 The White House was promoting this to stick it to what they thought were people who were

00:29:37.120 critical of youth, transgender stuff, despite that they knew that the evidence wasn't on

00:29:42.640 their side on these issues.

00:29:43.740 And the amount that this happens, I think, is something that people really need to wrestle

00:29:47.880 with internally, because it is chilling if you are wrong when you look at the evidence

00:29:52.720 of what happens to these people who commit to this.

00:29:55.080 And the 50% to 40% attempted unaliving rates within the transit community, if this community

00:30:03.380 is something that people are being railroaded into when they otherwise wouldn't, you need to

00:30:09.560 seriously consider with what you have imposed on these individuals' lives, with those sorts 0.99

00:30:15.560 of unaliving rates.

00:30:16.760 It is a form of horror and self-hatred above, I think, really anything else you can imagine.

00:30:22.040 And I think if you want to learn what happens to even the individuals who feel like this

00:30:25.540 has been successful to them, what their daily life becomes, check out our The Day in the Life

00:30:29.500 of a Cenobite episode about Anna Valen's life from her own personal blog.

00:30:32.980 This is the trans woman. 0.96

00:30:34.920 Spoiler alert.

00:30:35.780 It's dark.

00:30:36.940 It's dark.

00:30:37.620 It's very dark, even among the people who think that everything went well for them.

00:30:42.300 More recently, another court case over banning blockers and hormones, this time in Alabama,

00:30:49.100 has revealed that WPATH members themselves had doubts about their own guidelines.

00:30:54.080 In 2022, Alabama passed a law criminalizing the prescription of hormones and blockers to patients

00:31:00.340 under 19, after the Biden administration sued to block the law, the state's Republican

00:31:05.340 attorney general subpoenaed documents showing that WPATH has known for some time that the

00:31:12.760 evidence base for adolescent transition is thin.

00:31:15.900 Quote, all of us are painfully aware that there are many gaps in the research to back

00:31:20.780 up recommendations, end quote.

00:31:22.760 Ellie Coleman, the psychologist who chairmaned the team revising the standards of care, wrote

00:31:28.840 to his colleagues in 2023.

00:31:30.600 So the guy who chairmaned the committee who handled these revisions in leaked emails said,

00:31:37.660 and I quote, all of us are painfully aware that there are many gaps in the research that

00:31:43.200 back our recommendations.

00:31:45.860 And these recommendations could lead to children committing to a life path that leads to a 50%

00:31:50.420 unaliving rate.

00:31:52.200 You understand that, right?

00:31:53.700 Do you understand how horrifying that is?

00:31:55.500 A life path that we know nine out of 10 from gender discontentedness and gender non-conforming 1.00

00:32:01.800 use 2023, over nine and 10 of them are going to desist from naturally.

00:32:08.180 Yet the organization did not make this clear to the public.

00:32:11.320 So he didn't say that that wasn't, like when they released the report arguing for this,

00:32:16.220 they didn't say, and the evidence is thin in this.

00:32:19.380 Laura Edwards-Lepper, who helped bring the Dutch protocol to the US, but has since criticized

00:32:25.380 it in a Washington Post op-ed, the unquestioning gender-affirming care model, has said that the

00:32:31.640 specter of red state bans made her and her op-ed co-author reluctant to break rates.

00:32:38.480 So the very person who brought this model into the United States has since said this was a

00:32:43.600 mistake.

00:32:44.000 That's where we are, by the way, in terms of like, what do the expert thinks?

00:32:50.620 The experts that told you to start doing this have said, oops, you guys went crazy with this.

00:32:56.660 We shouldn't have done this.

00:32:58.340 But because so many people have committed to this, and I think a way that causes so much

00:33:04.000 cognitive dissonance, if you look at our John Money episode on the individual that things

00:33:09.400 like sexual orientation and the concept of gender is different than sex come from, when

00:33:13.860 we look at the horrifying research he did that he lied about for a long time to people, where

00:33:18.520 he, you know, said, oh, well, you know, if you're raised a different gender, you're actually

00:33:23.540 going to be that gender for the rest of your life. 0.99

00:33:25.300 And then it turns out that not only is this not true, but it turned out he was likely a

00:33:28.900 PDA file because he made these people like two brothers sleep with each other and then

00:33:33.280 filmed it and they perform more like sexual foreplay in this case, but as children, while

00:33:40.600 he watched and when they tried to resist, he like berated them.

00:33:44.340 But what happened specifically with, long story short, there was a, there was a baby who had

00:33:49.480 had a botched circumcision and he advised the parents to just raise the baby as a girl.

00:33:55.720 And, and he wasn't told, he didn't find out until he was a teen that he was actually a

00:34:00.140 natal male. So he genuinely like had been told all his life that he was a girl raised

00:34:04.840 to be a girl, like performatively told to be a girl.

00:34:07.140 And he detransitioned after that, which I think really does go to show that even if all 0.81

00:34:11.740 you ever knew was being a girl and you went through, and I mean, he underwent additional

00:34:16.480 surgical and hormonal interventions under this man's, under John Money's intervention, he

00:34:21.680 still desisted.

00:34:23.000 So just to clarify here is John Money hid for decades that this person had, had detransitioned,

00:34:29.200 which led to thousands more parents to when their children had some kind of, you know,

00:34:36.200 genital problem as, as, as babies, raise them as, as the, I guess. 0.57

00:34:40.880 Well, get surgical intervention to try to make them conform to a specific gender. 1.00

00:34:44.960 And then basically he, he did an experiment, the experiment failed and he lied about the

00:34:49.080 failure of his experiment and many, many, many more people.

00:34:52.100 But when you ask why did he lie about this?

00:34:54.380 I think that this is important to this context because it's the same thing happening again,

00:34:57.460 is that he would have to admit the horror that was downstream of his original mistake.

00:35:03.400 And I think if you're looking at the existing movement, it's why don't they accept that the

00:35:08.060 evidence now says you are mutilating kids, destroying their lives and leading to a really

00:35:12.820 high unaliving rate that wouldn't otherwise exist.

00:35:15.860 It's because if they admit that, then they've been the bad guys all along.

00:35:20.380 And worse than that, it means that many of these trans individuals who never really intended 1.00

00:35:26.640 to fully pass and are just doing this to sort of force themselves on other people, but now

00:35:30.240 they can't look like anything other than trans individuals. 0.99

00:35:33.060 And they walk out in public, they're like that guy from the end of whatever that movie 0.96

00:35:37.300 is about Nazis, where he, they carve the swastika into his forehead.

00:35:40.940 So, you know, everybody knows for the rest of his life that he, because he was being let free,

00:35:45.800 right?

00:35:46.160 And they're like, we're not going to let you live the rest of your life as a truly free person.

00:35:50.680 People are going to know what you stood for and the harm that you caused for the rest of your life.

00:35:55.100 When you get to your little place on Nantucket Island, I imagine you won't take off that

00:35:59.680 handsome looking SS uniform of yours, ain't you?

00:36:03.220 So, I'm going to give you a little something you can't take off.

00:36:12.660 And being a poorly passing trans person, being an Alec Bade Mennon for the rest of your life 1.00

00:36:17.940 is going to be like having a swastika carved in your forehead as the public begins to normalize 0.70

00:36:22.560 to this more and more.

00:36:23.520 When they realize that even when the evidence said this stuff is wrong, you were still sending

00:36:28.840 13-year-old girls to have double mastectomies.

00:36:30.780 And we note from the WPath files, the other thing that leaked it, they admit, they go,

00:36:36.060 the kids do not understand.

00:36:37.420 This is WPath, the main organization pushing for this in the United States.

00:36:40.960 In internal emails, they said, these kids don't, they haven't had biology classes yet.

00:36:45.160 They don't understand the implications of what these puberty blockers mean, of what it means

00:36:50.000 to never have an orgasm, which is one of the potential effects of puberty blockers, of

00:36:53.560 what it means to be sterile, of what it means to have these complications for your entire

00:36:57.760 life.

00:36:58.000 You know, what bothers me is not only are they not being told about this, but also, even

00:37:03.280 if they were told about it, they're at a phase in their life where they'd be like, yeah.

00:37:06.820 I mean, remember when I was a virgin, I fantasized about, despite having no plans to have sex,

00:37:12.940 having my uterus removed, having a hysterectomy, because I was just so enthusiastic about the

00:37:16.860 idea of not having children.

00:37:17.780 And I mean, now I have almost, you know, five kids, you know, is that the people who run

00:37:23.760 the organizations promoting this internal memos note, these kids definitely don't know

00:37:30.160 what they're consenting to.

00:37:31.280 Yeah.

00:37:31.500 And we don't even try to explain to them what they're consenting to, because we understand

00:37:36.300 they don't have the mental capacity to understand it.

00:37:39.220 Yeah.

00:37:39.660 And they as well know that over nine out of 10 of them desist.

00:37:43.020 So we're also going to talk about that just going forward here.

00:37:45.840 I can't stop mentioning that statistic.

00:37:48.000 The Alabama litigation has also confirmed that WPAS has commissioned a systemic review

00:37:53.320 of the evidence for the Dutch protocol.

00:37:56.180 However, close to publication, the John Hopkins University researcher involved was told that

00:38:01.380 their findings needed to be, quote, scrutinized and reviewed to ensure that the publication does

00:38:06.140 not negatively affect the provision of transgender health care, in quote, which obviously it would 0.95

00:38:10.780 if it showed that bad health care was harming people.

00:38:13.580 This is not how evidence-based medicine is supposed to work.

00:38:16.940 You don't start with a treatment and then ensure that only studies of support that treatment

00:38:21.080 are published.

00:38:22.240 In a legal filing in the Alabama case, Coleman insisted, quote, it is not true, in quote, that

00:38:29.320 WPAS guidelines, quote, turned on any ideological or political considerations, in quote.

00:38:35.160 And that the groups that dispute with John Hopkins researcher concerned only the timing of the

00:38:40.580 publication that is factually untrue.

00:38:43.200 We now know from the leaks of the organization.

00:38:44.920 So the people who run the mainstream organization and WS has tried to frame itself as like a nonpartisan.

00:38:51.460 We're just trying to get to the science on transgender medicine.

00:38:54.600 We now know that they lie publicly.

00:38:57.280 They they they internally know that this is a major problem.

00:39:00.340 They internally know they don't have the science behind them and they just lie.

00:39:03.440 Yeah, I mean, it's enough that I mean, this is an issue that permeates academia and medical

00:39:09.040 research as well and psychological research, a lot of research that like there is a big

00:39:13.040 problem that null results just aren't published and that, you know, only, you know, sort of

00:39:18.000 notable results that also favor people's desired conclusions end up getting published.

00:39:22.280 But this is just a next level worse because they knew.

00:39:25.780 Well, they knew to understand how much they're lying here when they say it only concerned the

00:39:30.380 timing of the dates of publication.

00:39:33.780 Yet the Times has reported that at least one of the manuscripts they sought to publish, quote,

00:39:37.520 never saw the light of day, end quote.

00:39:39.020 So they did quash manuscripts that showed that this was hurting people.

00:39:44.800 So, yeah, yeah.

00:39:45.160 It's one thing to not publish null results because I get it.

00:39:47.760 Like it's it just there's the incentives aren't well aligned.

00:39:51.540 But this is this is really next level, you know, actively.

00:39:54.240 But this is really big because if you come to me and you say to me, quote, well, look

00:39:59.360 at all this research that showed that this, you know, that this doesn't hurt people.

00:40:04.540 And I'm like, yeah, except I can list like these three studies that weren't allowed to

00:40:08.220 be published here, here and here.

00:40:09.640 Right.

00:40:09.840 Like your evidence doesn't matter a load of squat because you were killing other studies

00:40:16.240 and more important, not killing them due to methodological reasons, because we can see

00:40:20.420 here this wasn't killed for methodological reasons.

00:40:22.600 It was killed because of how it could affect people getting access to these treatments.

00:40:28.960 So we know that that's a lie now.

00:40:31.040 We know that that's a lie.

00:40:32.280 Like the world knows everybody who looks at the evidence knows that's a lie now.

00:40:36.200 So they're framing this as like just methodological problems or something.

00:40:39.700 But when you have filtered evidence for a period of decades and note that this filter is

00:40:44.920 now dropping, that's why we're seeing all of these studies that come out now, like the

00:40:48.020 nine and 10 number and everything like that, because this filter has dropped.

00:40:50.960 But for a period of decades, you could lose your career for publishing a study in this

00:40:54.700 space.

00:40:55.020 And people did.

00:40:56.940 You know, so if you give me data that came out, you know, I'd say like up to the past

00:41:01.880 three years for that decade, I basically can't use it.

00:41:06.000 I can't look at it.

00:41:06.960 It's bad data, right?

00:41:08.320 Like it has clearly been filtered and we see the results now of this filter.

00:41:12.920 And so if you're actually interested in what the science says, if you're actually a person,

00:41:16.720 you've got to look at the more recent studies, which all show this is, does it, it's, it's

00:41:21.420 doing the opposite of what people say it's doing.

00:41:23.080 It is not a good intervention.

00:41:25.040 And is that any surprise?

00:41:26.620 When we look at other forms of body dysmorphia, like, like anorexia, you do not intervene by

00:41:32.040 being like, well, I bet I could get your weight down by removing your uterus and then 1.00

00:41:35.340 say, well, the anorexic person said they liked it. 0.99

00:41:37.620 Like, of course the anorexic person would like that. 0.99

00:41:39.860 They want to get their weight down no matter what.

00:41:41.620 Right.

00:41:41.800 But that's, that's not something that you should be indulgent.

00:41:44.220 Right.

00:41:44.900 But to continue.

00:41:46.700 The Alabama disclosures are not the only example of this reluctance to acknowledge contrary

00:41:51.800 evidence.

00:41:52.220 Last year, Oslyn Kennedy said that she had not published her own broad study on mental

00:41:58.500 health outcomes for youth with gender dysphoria because she was worried about its results being

00:42:02.560 quote unquote weaponized.

00:42:03.780 That raised suspicions that she had found only sketchy evidence to support the treatments that

00:42:08.580 she had been prescribing and publicly advocating for over many years.

00:42:13.860 So this woman, this is the woman who said like the double mastectomy for kids, the, oh, well,

00:42:21.900 you can just get this changed later.

00:42:23.600 Even she, even as biased a scientist as her in terms of how, you know, she was constructing

00:42:29.080 her studies, got evidence that said that this was hurting people and decided not to publish

00:42:33.240 it.

00:42:34.760 Even she, that degree of bias was unable to find a way to manipulate the data to make it look

00:42:41.380 like these procedures are helping people.

00:42:44.100 Not ideal.

00:42:46.520 Last month, her study finally forced, appeared as a prepent, a form of scientific publication

00:42:53.060 where evidence of not yet to be the peer reviewed formalization is finalized.

00:42:58.120 It's titled mental and emotional health of youth after 24 months of gender affirming medical

00:43:03.500 care initiated with puberty suppressant.

00:43:06.520 Its participants quote demonstrated no significant changes and reported anxiousness.

00:43:11.380 Or depression, withdraw or depressed, somatic complaints, social problems, thought problems,

00:43:18.160 attention problems, aggressive behavior, internalizing problems, or externalizing problems.

00:43:23.040 What are thought problems?

00:43:25.720 I feel like I have a lot of thought problems.

00:43:29.140 In the two years after starting puberty blockers, I have requested comment from Oslo Kennedy via

00:43:33.440 a children's hospital in Los Angeles.

00:43:35.500 The one who was saying, oh, you know, it's either you do this or your kid dies.

00:43:39.580 She hasn't heard back from them because they're unwilling to engage with the new evidence,

00:43:43.440 which just says this does not help.

00:43:46.820 If anything, it increases the rate of unaliving.

00:43:49.660 Well, this is just one of those things where I think it's just so difficult for a clinic or

00:43:54.140 a researcher to admit to being wrong here after having advised so many families.

00:44:02.640 Yeah, I mean, when those families come back, you're like, wait a second.

00:44:06.600 Well, just think about like the malpractice lawsuits, the liability you're subject to.

00:44:11.200 I mean, I can understand the reticence.

00:44:13.300 Well, and the cognitive dissonance.

00:44:15.060 Yeah.

00:44:15.800 Of the horror.

00:44:16.480 I mean, because you really believed that.

00:44:19.360 So I understand where they're coming from.

00:44:22.940 I do kind of wish the Atlantic piece were a little bit more like,

00:44:26.380 and this has been covered up for a long time.

00:44:28.980 Because that's an interesting thing.

00:44:30.260 They are pointing that out.

00:44:30.780 They are pointing that out, I think.

00:44:32.360 You know, they're reaching out to these people and they're saying,

00:44:34.600 well, I don't know about that study.

00:44:36.640 I'm not going to.

00:44:37.780 Okay.

00:44:38.260 Do you think they're doing a fair enough job?

00:44:39.820 It seems to me more just like, hmm, turns out maybe.

00:44:42.700 We had an episode where, you know, we admit that now when you look at the research,

00:44:46.280 the majority of the research and the majority of educated people know that gender transition 0.83

00:44:49.360 is largely speaking, especially in youth, a bad idea, likely in adults, a bad idea,

00:44:53.760 or a way to treat this, the Dutch treatment, as it's called.

00:44:56.600 Dutch.

00:44:56.960 And we have an episode where we look at how long it took lobotomies to be phased out of

00:45:01.280 society after basically educated people knew it was a bad idea.

00:45:04.880 And it's about 50 years.

00:45:06.780 And that's really sad.

00:45:08.080 But we, we, you can look at our episode on that.

00:45:10.300 But when we published that episode, a Blue Sky user, one of the posts that went viral

00:45:14.260 on Blue Sky about us was like, worst take of the year.

00:45:17.360 That, that pronatalist couple had this to say about trans individuals comparing it to lobotomies.

00:45:23.300 And I'm like, well, it's, it's actually super comparable.

00:45:25.880 Oh, I forgot about that.

00:45:27.500 Right.

00:45:28.260 Lobotomies is that a lot of the people, like the last person who got it, where their surgery

00:45:31.640 went really bad, were requesting it themselves.

00:45:34.520 If you, if you look at later lobotomies, then people think that this was something that was

00:45:37.740 forced on people.

00:45:38.420 And in, in cases it was, but a lot of the later cases was actually sought out by individuals.

00:45:45.060 Absolutely.

00:45:45.420 And it, it bears a lot of structural similarities to, you know, what we're seeing with the transgender

00:45:50.520 movement.

00:45:51.060 But anyway, being overly adopted by progressives, like the Kennedy family, doing it to their

00:45:56.420 daughter and stuff and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:45:58.720 It's about staying in with polite society and not looking weird. 0.98

00:46:03.040 And that's, you know, if you say this is a bad thing, you look like a weirdo, you're killing 0.99

00:46:07.740 trans kids, even though we know that's not true. 0.99

00:46:09.840 And you are killing trans kids literally and by the facts, but anyway, or the kids you 0.99

00:46:14.260 have labeled as trans the Travis stock puberty blocker study, 2011 to 2014 published in 2020.

00:46:19.660 So this isn't from the article, but this is something that I think is important to note.

00:46:22.620 Okay.

00:46:23.240 Kelly et al published a preprint on med Rivixi in December, 2020, after a high court ruling

00:46:30.080 in the Bell and Travis stock case.

00:46:31.640 So Travis stock had tried to cover up these findings and they were forced to publish them

00:46:35.780 during the investigation of their clinics.

00:46:38.160 This was the gender condition clinic. 0.97

00:46:39.840 This study involved 44 children age 12 to 15 who received puberty blockers, G N R H A 1.00

00:46:47.400 to delay puberty.

00:46:49.020 It aimed to assess psychological outcomes, including mental health and gender dysphoria.

00:46:53.460 The study was conducted by Travis stocks, G I D S university college, lesson in hospitals,

00:46:58.680 the preliminary findings.

00:47:00.280 So these were reported from 2011 to 2014.

00:47:04.360 They weren't forced to publish them until 2020.

00:47:06.720 They treated it for you by whom in that, that kid by the UK court system.

00:47:13.580 Oh, okay.

00:47:14.520 They tried to cover this up.

00:47:15.900 It sounds like they were never going to publish them.

00:47:17.980 That's a sort of weird delay.

00:47:19.460 Okay.

00:47:19.680 Yeah.

00:47:20.480 They, they, they tried to cover this up, but the study in 2015 by the Travis stock board

00:47:25.200 of directors cited by transgender trend indicated a statistically significant increase in self

00:47:30.880 harm.

00:47:31.180 After one year of puberty blockers based on responses to the statement, quote, I deliberately tried

00:47:35.880 to hurt or kill myself in quote. 0.77

00:47:37.680 So that is what we call unaliving ideation behavior, right? 0.93

00:47:43.900 You can say self harm.

00:47:45.340 That's what they tried to reframe it as that is not self harm.

00:47:49.140 Look at the question.

00:47:49.900 It's highly effective self harm.

00:47:54.080 And keep in mind that this, this, and the effect was stronger in girls, by the way, it 0.93

00:47:59.840 was, it had more of a negative effect in young girls, which are doing it more now than they 0.59

00:48:03.020 did historically.

00:48:03.940 And I, I, I, I'd point out here that this was done by the Travis stock clinic, which had

00:48:08.560 every reason to attempt to bias the results in their favor in the way that they asked the

00:48:12.420 questions in the way that the, the data was recorded, the fact that despite that they showed

00:48:19.760 an increased risk should tell you something.

00:48:23.100 Wow.

00:48:23.980 Especially when we now know that when this was disallowed across the UK, it did not lead

00:48:28.440 to a spike in these rates.

00:48:30.060 Yeah.

00:48:30.620 Really, really chilling stuff.

00:48:32.280 The, the reliance on elite consensus over evidence helps make sense of W pass flatly hostile

00:48:39.060 response to the cast report in England, which commissions systemic reviews and recommended

00:48:44.000 extreme caution over the use of puberty blockers and hormones.

00:48:46.640 The review was a direct challenge to W pass ability to position itself at the finer arbiter

00:48:51.280 of these treatments.

00:48:52.400 Something that had become more obvious when the conservative justices referenced the British

00:48:57.020 document in their questions and opinions on Scametti.

00:49:00.000 One of W pass main charges about Hillary Cass, the senior pediatrician who led the review

00:49:04.840 was that she was not a gender specialist.

00:49:06.760 In other words, that she was not part of the charmed circle who already agreed with these

00:49:12.920 treatments being beneficial.

00:49:14.500 So they define gender specialists as people who already agreed and had published that these

00:49:19.340 treatments were beneficial.

00:49:22.320 Which is, I just want to note here, people are like, why do you care so much?

00:49:29.600 Why do you talk so much about this?

00:49:31.360 If you want to, it's almost like saying like, well, you're not an electroshock therapist because

00:49:36.280 you don't believe that electroshock therapy is the correct therapy for various.

00:49:40.180 Yeah.

00:49:40.360 Where is your long list of electrocuted patients?

00:49:42.840 Yeah.

00:49:43.140 Like, come on.

00:49:44.100 You don't know anything about this.

00:49:45.780 We even know the person who brought this message to the United States has been like,

00:49:49.360 yeah, this was a mistake.

00:49:50.600 You know?

00:49:50.780 So, so the experts are against you guys at this point.

00:49:53.400 You just define them as not experts at this point.

00:49:56.020 Yeah.

00:49:56.280 Which is really horrifying, really horrifying.

00:49:59.320 But the reason when people are like, why do you guys talk about this given how controversial

00:50:02.560 it is given how one in five to 10 years time, I hope that our society has a good memory about

00:50:10.760 the people who didn't talk about this when they had the chance.

00:50:13.600 Yeah.

00:50:13.960 Because if you look at the harm that is being done to children and we're going to see the

00:50:20.240 harm where you are already beginning to see a flood of detransitioners in online spaces, 0.83

00:50:25.100 but they're not going to be confined to online spaces, the same way that you know, trans

00:50:29.760 people, you're going to know three transitioners, the same way that you have that transfer and

00:50:33.340 you're going to have that detransitioner friend and you're going to feel for them. 0.99

00:50:37.120 I will say that to me, the moment where I really began to feel strongly against this

00:50:40.100 within, I begin to make friends with detransitioners and I begin to know these people and see them

00:50:44.820 not just as statistics like, you know, oh, they were killed in this conflict or whatever.

00:50:50.060 These are real people who were manipulated and lied to by doctors and psychologists and

00:50:56.020 told things that were not true.

00:50:57.520 They were told things that weren't true about the surgeries that they undertook.

00:51:00.720 Usually they told things that were not true about the medicine they took and they, they

00:51:04.960 were told things that were not true about what happened if they didn't engage with us.

00:51:08.220 And, and you guys are not going to look like the good guys in history.

00:51:12.400 You guys are going down and history will have a long memory about what you did and the scale

00:51:18.720 at which you committed these atrocities.

00:51:21.580 But to continue.

00:51:22.660 Any thoughts there, Simone, before I continue here?

00:51:25.820 Just woof. 0.72

00:51:28.800 Because of WPath's hostility, many on the American left now believe that the Cass review has been

00:51:34.560 discredited.

00:51:35.620 Quote, upon first reading, especially to a person who has limited knowledge of the history

00:51:40.180 of transgender healthcare, much of the report might seem reasonable.

00:51:43.500 End quote.

00:51:44.300 Lydian Pilgrim wrote at the Times in late August.

00:51:46.820 However, after, quote, pouring over the document, end quote, end quote, interviewing experts at

00:51:52.560 gender affirming care, end quote, which means people who already agree and have performed

00:51:55.680 the procedure at, at links.

00:51:58.160 Holgar realized that the Cass review was, quote, fundamentally a subjective political document,

00:52:03.500 which anyone who has engaged with it or knows the circumstances of its creation created

00:52:07.480 by progressives within the United Kingdom, which is already more progressive than our country.

00:52:13.300 It was, it was, if it was a political document, it was a progressive political document.

00:52:17.520 It was a feminist political document. 1.00

00:52:19.540 And it did not agree was what they wanted it to.

00:52:22.940 Advocates for youth gender medicine have reacted furiously to articles in the Times and elsewhere

00:52:28.160 that take Cass's conclusion seriously.

00:52:30.820 Indeed, some people inside the information bubble appear to believe that if a respected publication

00:52:36.980 would stop writing about the story, all the doubts and questions, and Republicans attempt

00:52:41.320 to capitalize on them electorally, would simply disappear.

00:52:44.600 Whenever the Times has published a less than cheerleading article about youth transition,

00:52:49.320 supporters of gender medicine have accused the newspaper of manufacturing a debate that

00:52:53.600 otherwise would not exist.

00:52:55.460 After the Scametti decision, Strategio was still describing media coverage of the issue as,

00:53:00.720 quote unquote, insidious, adding, quote, the New York Times especially has been fixating

00:53:06.080 on casting the medical care of, as being of insufficient quality, end quote.

00:53:12.600 And that's really messed up that he's like the New York Times is too conservative on this

00:53:17.080 stuff with the information they're airing.

00:53:19.240 Well, just nobody should be talking about.

00:53:21.240 I'm like, bro, if it's making it through the New York Times editorial.

00:53:25.340 Also implying that there's some kind of, yeah, insidious, that what a word to use.

00:53:29.600 It's about something, and I've read some of the attacks on the New York Times, and they

00:53:33.620 say seven anti-transgender articles.

00:53:35.940 So the New York Times apparently is totally okay with publishing this stuff now.

00:53:38.880 The Atlantic is okay with publishing this stuff now.

00:53:41.180 You have lost the centers of elite society, at least in terms of the media.

00:53:45.800 How long till you lose it within academia as well?

00:53:48.400 I mean, now that we're seeing these publications get through.

00:53:50.680 But then what happens then to the people who basically crowd swastikas onto their foreheads?

00:53:55.800 It's not going to look good.

00:53:57.340 And I think a lot of people don't understand the consequences.

00:54:02.300 And I repeatedly see this.

00:54:03.460 People are like, oh, I've just been on a little bit of hormonal medicine.

00:54:06.780 Surely this hasn't affected my fertility.

00:54:08.920 And I'm like, who told you that?

00:54:11.820 We hear that way too much.

00:54:14.220 Yeah.

00:54:14.720 Yeah.

00:54:15.260 I'm like, no, that would have a severe effect on your fertility, my friend.

00:54:19.220 You should look into that if you underwent that through any window of your life.

00:54:23.520 Now, some people are able to get through this and reclaim their fertility.

00:54:27.260 And, you know, even some of our fans have been able to do that.

00:54:29.740 But it is chilling to me the number of people who just assume that there's not big long-term effects of engaging with this stuff.

00:54:37.940 Can this misinformation bubble ever be burst?

00:54:40.680 On the left, support for youth transition has been rolled together with other issues, such as police reform and climate activism, as a kind of super-savo combo deal of correction options.

00:54:52.840 I love that.

00:54:53.920 The 33-year-old Democratic Socialist Communist, Zorhan Mohandy, this is a New York communist who got elected recently.

00:55:01.040 Momdani made funding gender transition, including of minors, part of his pitch to New York as its mayor.

00:55:08.040 Oh, I didn't know that.

00:55:09.300 Wow.

00:55:09.540 An article here where it says...

00:55:10.720 Even now?

00:55:12.020 Gosh, I figured we were past this at this point.

00:55:14.860 Breakout New York mayoral candidate contender Zohar Mohamandi wants to spend...

00:55:20.300 Momdani.

00:55:21.160 Whatever.

00:55:21.360 Zorhan Momdani.

00:55:22.820 65 million on medical gender treatments for minors and adults.

00:55:27.760 But complicated issues deserve to be treated individually.

00:55:32.840 You can criticize Israel, object to the militarization of America's police forces, and believe that climate change is real, and yet still not support irreversible, experimental, and unproven treatments for children.

00:55:44.060 So I love this where the leftists are like, broke.

00:55:45.980 And we're like, not on this issue.

00:55:47.980 We are definitely the bad guys on this issue.

00:55:51.020 The polarization of this issue in America has been deeply unhelpful for getting liberals to accept the sketchiness of the evidence base.

00:55:59.100 When Vice President J.D. Vance wanted to troll the left, he joined Blue Sky, where skeptics of youth gender transition are among the most blocked users, and immediately started talking about the Scametti judgment.

00:56:09.100 What?

00:56:09.220 It's like that turn, accepting the evidence base into a humiliating climb down, which is true.

00:56:15.100 It should be humiliating.

00:56:16.220 You were messing with kids without any evidence that you believed people who lied to you.

00:56:19.540 Totally, totally. 1.00

00:56:20.400 And you let sex pests into the movement, and you let the sex pests abuse people like lesbian communities. 1.00

00:56:25.120 And they were telling you, the lesbians, for a long time, hey, there are sex pests abusing our community. 1.00

00:56:29.620 Can you please do something about this? 0.99

00:56:31.520 And you guys just ignored them, right?

00:56:33.480 A lot of the people who've been pushing this have been lesbian organizations. 1.00

00:56:37.800 Acknowledging the evidence does not mean that you have to support banning these treatments or reject the idea that some people will be happier if they transition.

00:56:46.240 Cass believes that some youngsters may indeed benefit from the medical pathway.

00:56:50.660 Quote, while some young people may feel an urgency to transition, young adults looking back on their younger selves would often advise slowing down.

00:56:58.360 End quote.

00:56:58.960 Her report concludes, quote, for some, the best outcome will be transition.

00:57:02.720 Whereas others may resolve their distress in other ways.

00:57:05.940 End quote.

00:57:06.240 This is not a conservative extremist who wrote this report.

00:57:09.260 They're just like somebody who is predispositioned to statements like that just found in the evidence there's support for this.

00:57:15.380 I have always argued against straightforward bans on medical transition for adolescents.

00:57:19.580 In practice, the way that these have been enacted in red states has been uncaring and punitive.

00:57:24.560 You know, this is a person writing this who is saying this, right?

00:57:26.780 You know, again, not a conservative.

00:57:28.400 Parents are threatened with child abuse investigations for pursuing treatments that medical professionals have assured them are safe.

00:57:35.660 Yeah, but they shouldn't look into whether those medical professionals are lying.

00:57:38.460 But children with severe mental health troubles suddenly lose therapeutic support.

00:57:43.580 Clinics nationwide, including Oceline Kennedy's, are now abruptly closing because of the political atmosphere.

00:57:49.160 Writing about these subjects in 2023, I argued that the only way out of the culture war was for the American medical associations to commission reviews and carefully consider the evidence.

00:57:58.600 Have an American cast review, of course.

00:58:00.640 However, the revelations from Scametti and the Alabama case have made me more sympathetic to the commenters such as Leah Sapira of the conservative Manhattan Institute,

00:58:09.500 who supports the bans because American medicine cannot be trusted to police itself.

00:58:14.260 Quote, are these bans the perfect solution?

00:58:16.700 Probably not, end quote, he told me in 2023, quote, but at the end of the day, if it's between banning gender affirming care and leaving it unregulated,

00:58:25.340 I think we can minimize the amount of harm by banning it, end quote.

00:58:28.700 Once you know that WPASS wanted to publish a review only if it came out of the group's preferred conclusion, Sapira's case becomes more compelling.

00:58:37.840 And this is something we've seen.

00:58:39.040 The medical community could have self-regulated.

00:58:41.440 It can still go out there and attempt to self-regulate, but anybody who makes this push risks their career at this point, or at least for a period did.

00:58:52.040 Despite the concerted efforts to suppress the evidence, however, the picture on use gender medicine has become clearer over the past decade.

00:58:59.580 It's no humiliation to update our beliefs as a result.

00:59:03.180 I regularly used to write that medical gender transition was, quote, unquote, life-saving before I saw how limited the evidence on unaliving was.

00:59:10.800 And it took another court case brought by the British G-transitioner, Kira Bell, for me to realize that purity blockers were not what they were sold as, a, quote, safe and reversible, end quote, treatment that gave patients, quote, unquote, time to think,

00:59:24.560 But instead, a one-way ticket to full transition with physical changes that cannot be undone.

00:59:30.020 And I note here almost nobody, when those studies have been done, once you go on blockers, even though we know that nine out of ten of these people, they didn't, wouldn't transition.

00:59:37.240 Once you go on them, I think it's something like a 98 or 99% transition rate.

00:59:41.480 Like, it's hard to find anybody who doesn't transition afterwards. 1.00

00:59:44.180 So we know it is biasing people towards transition, and it's basically forcing them to transition.

00:59:48.400 Some advocates for the Dutch protocol, as it's applied in the United States, have state their entire career and reputation on its safe and ineffectiveness.

00:59:56.300 Yeah, if you go out there and you say with the evidence you have now that this is safe and effective, it can be proven that you've lied.

01:00:01.140 They have strong incentives to not concede the weakness of the evidence.

01:00:04.740 In 2023, the advocacy group GLAAD drove a truck, and this is in 2023, after a lot of this evidence had come out, after the study that showed nine out of ten people, you know, detransition, right?

01:00:15.280 around the office of the New York Times to declare that, quote-unquote, the science is settled, they said on the block.

01:00:21.780 Doctors such as Oslin Kennedy and activists of Strategio are unlikely to revise their opinions.

01:00:26.240 What can you do when you, as a group like GLAAD, that was supposed to be looking out for lesbians, was supposed to be looking out for non-conforming use, 0.97

01:00:33.540 when you know that you've now led them on a path that makes unaliving themselves more likely?

01:00:37.760 Wow.

01:00:39.940 But that's where we are as a society.

01:00:41.680 No, I mean, the horror of what's been undertaken, people should be held to account for this.

01:00:50.960 And I think that when we, as a society, like, as things continue to shift, after the wave continues to shift,

01:00:59.080 I think the only way we can make this right is court trials for people who clearly knew the evidence

01:01:04.740 and went out there and pushed young children into this.

01:01:08.200 You know, when you look at something like Travestock Clinic and we see them covering up evidence

01:01:12.220 and we know that people in positions of authority within the clinic were actually arrested for going to local parks

01:01:17.200 and attempting to chat up 15-year-old boys, you know, that they liked getting these kids on these blockers

01:01:22.900 so that they would look underage for the rest of their, or for at least a longer period, up until when they were legal.

01:01:28.240 I mean, we've seen this talked about within these community forums.

01:01:30.600 And, you know, this needs to be addressed.

01:01:33.540 And the people who covered for these individuals, there needs to be some degree of punishment

01:01:38.380 given that they have shown, that people like Strategio have shown that they knew the evidence,

01:01:43.600 that they knew that this was leading to worse outcomes for the people who were engaging with it,

01:01:49.620 and that they attempted to cover this up and increase the prevalence of these treatments.

01:01:54.120 I mean, we couldn't even ask them to explain why they did this, because I don't even know if they could answer that.

01:02:05.280 You know, like, when you ask people why they do what they do, they really honestly don't know most of the time.

01:02:09.820 No, they, to me, remind me of, like, the religious extremists that, like, starve children because they think they're possessed or something, right?

01:02:16.640 Like, they just be like, well, yeah, I saw the child was starving.

01:02:20.320 I saw the child was increasing the rate that they hated themselves.

01:02:23.400 You know, we saw this from the Travis Doc leaked research.

01:02:26.180 But I decided to not do anything about it, right?

01:02:29.520 I mean, I'll note here that they'll be like, well, that study didn't have a controller.

01:02:32.280 That study didn't have a, yeah, because you chose not to create one after you saw the data.

01:02:36.660 It could have had a control.

01:02:38.400 You chose to not collect that data.

01:02:40.820 That's not, that's like they're, they're, you hid the control.

01:02:45.300 You ensured that there wasn't one because you didn't like what you knew it would say.

01:02:49.640 Anyway, thoughts?

01:02:52.180 We're going to close out?

01:02:53.320 I'm really glad this age is coming to an end because, you know, that's, that's fewer lives will be severely disrupted by this.

01:03:00.040 I also wonder what the next thing is going to be. 0.90

01:03:02.540 And I think what we need to change the narrative when people are like, you are killing trans kids. 0.98

01:03:08.000 It's going to be like, you are killing gender nonconforming kids, which is factually true. 1.00

01:03:13.580 When you look at the unaliving rates within the trans community. 1.00

01:03:15.700 And we know that nine out of 10 of these people D desist from this behavior.

01:03:20.560 Also, like, I think the very concept of gender nonconforming runs contrary to progressive ideology.

01:03:27.340 As we've discussed in the John Money podcast, he is the man who in the 1950s and onward pioneered the concept of gender as a construct distinct from biological sex.

01:03:40.040 It's like a behavioral and cultural thing.

01:03:42.220 Right, but before that, like, you didn't, like, you could be gender nonconforming and people wouldn't be like, well, we need to medicalize this now. 0.61

01:03:49.220 They'd be like, oh, you're a tomboy.

01:03:50.740 Yeah, exactly.

01:03:51.620 You're a tomboy or you're a bit of a girly, like, boy, like, whatever. 0.84

01:03:55.200 But like.

01:03:55.660 You're a mama's boy. 0.98

01:03:56.400 Yeah, it didn't mean that you needed to undergo some kind of life-altering, like, permanently biologically shifting treatment.

01:04:05.120 And I think it was a lot more healthy.

01:04:06.580 I'm so excited to go back to that.

01:04:08.160 Because we're all for, like, fine, don't conform with, you know, be you.

01:04:12.580 This reminds me of the meme I sent you that I loved.

01:04:15.280 The next song is called, please don't make me cut off my D because I like the color pink.

01:04:21.040 There you go.

01:04:21.840 And a note here, Homass actually did a comment on this article where he said, summary, they started saying your children will kill themselves if you don't give them a sex change. 0.56

01:04:32.440 And they knew they didn't have the evidence.

01:04:34.880 No one was allowed to argue with it because 100 IQ HR ladies would shut down your entire life if you did. 1.00

01:04:41.760 Then the kids who got sex change hormones became more likely to kill themselves because it turns out that what they were going through was just a weird phase.

01:04:50.380 And that's, you know, I like that he's out there pushing this.

01:04:54.360 We've had him on the show before.

01:04:55.220 Check out our episode with him.

01:04:56.180 Have a great day, Simone.

01:04:57.540 Love you.

01:05:02.180 Tosti, what are you doing?

01:05:05.580 Oh! 0.60

Based Camp - July 10, 2025

The Left is Turning on Trans (The Atlantic Goes Ape on Trans Arguments)

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