Juno News - The reality of transitioning from a trans man (Ft. Aaron Kimberly)

00:00:00.000 hello everybody welcome to the rupa subramania show i'm rupa subramania today i'm going to be

00:00:22.440 speaking to aaron kimberly he's a transsexual man and a mental health nurse who's worked with

00:00:28.960 gender dysphoric youth he's co-founded the gender dysphoria alliance which seeks to facilitate a

00:00:36.080 more evidence-based less ideological conversations about gender dysphoria given how polarized the

00:00:43.120 trans debate has become recently i'm very eager to chat with aaron about his own transition journey

00:00:49.120 and the way forward aaron welcome welcome to the show uh it's a real pleasure to have you here with

00:00:54.960 me uh let me just start by asking about your own um you know you've written about um your own

00:01:02.240 gender dysphoria leading to what you've termed opposite sex social mirroring and that in the

00:01:09.040 majority of such cases um young people experiencing this are probably gay and that gender and the gender

00:01:16.560 dysphoria condition may disappear over time could you share with us your own experience uh i believe

00:01:23.440 you went through a period of being a lesbian before you transition yeah that's right thanks thanks for

00:01:29.600 having me it's pleasure to be here um so i would have what you know what the textbooks would call

00:01:36.240 childhood onset gender dysphoria starting at about age three which for the childhood onset type that's

00:01:42.480 usually when it starts as some sort of self-perception of yourself as as the opposite sex um and research

00:01:50.480 has shown that the vast majority of the time that that childhood onset gender dysphoria is highly

00:01:55.760 correlated with being gay or lesbian and tends to as you said um it tends to shed off through adolescence

00:02:05.280 and the with the awakening and the development of a gay or lesbian identity um for a small number of

00:02:10.640 people that that um that doesn't resolve into adulthood and historically um we are typically the

00:02:18.160 ones that we're transitioning as adults most people when they think of a transgender person that's

00:02:25.520 probably what they think of um is a highly effeminate gay man or a very masculine gay woman um you know

00:02:35.120 though though though that's i think i think the reality of the majority people who transition don't

00:02:40.560 fit that that criteria which i think for a lot of people would be a surprise to know that there are

00:02:46.160 different types of gender dysphoria in different pathways um so the the gay or lesbian pathway is

00:02:53.200 one of the the smaller pathways um so in terms of my own experience um it was a very difficult thing

00:03:00.560 to articulate as a young child i could sense that's you know something wasn't right um and i you know

00:03:08.400 i sense this this perception of myself as male so that you know the you know the classic things that

00:03:15.200 we would hear of i would say apply to me you know feeling like something had gone wrong that that a

00:03:20.640 mistake had somehow been made um and i don't like the language of born in the wrong body that's that's not

00:03:28.960 language that i i personally use because i think that's problematic for various reasons but but that

00:03:34.560 that sense that a mistake had been made and that somehow i was in fact male um what i didn't know at

00:03:41.840 the time was that i um also had an intersex condition a very a rare one called the novo testicular

00:03:49.680 um dsd uh which i didn't know i had until age 19. i was having a lot of gynecological problems and

00:03:56.560 hormone imbalances and um i had developed a large cyst on what was thought to be an ovary at the time

00:04:03.840 so the surgeon went in to remove that and um he said that it it was so damaged by the cyst that they

00:04:11.120 sent it they had to remove all of it and um sent it for biopsy and that's when the oval testicular

00:04:17.680 disorder was was discovered and so i he didn't really explain much to me about what that was he seemed a

00:04:24.400 little bit kind of awkward and embarrassed and so i picked up on that cue and his reassurance to me

00:04:32.240 was that it had since been removed and wouldn't pose a problem for me anymore um it is apparently

00:04:40.000 a cancer risk and so he said it was it was good that it had been removed um and i you know he didn't

00:04:47.680 he didn't know that i experienced gender dysphoria though i've since learned you know just in my own

00:04:52.720 reading about the disorder that um it is associated with a very high rate of gender dysphoria um almost

00:05:00.400 a 50 50 chance they they have a difficult time if it was diagnosed as a baby they have a difficult time

00:05:06.560 determining which sex that child is going to feel an identification with it's probably the highest rate

00:05:13.840 of all of the intersex conditions not all intersex conditions are related have an association

00:05:19.600 association with gender dysphoria but when the current dsm criteria for gender dysphoria was

00:05:25.520 written they written it um with a dsd dsd or intersex subtype because certain intersex conditions

00:05:32.800 are associated with a higher rate of cross-sex identification and want to change their sex

00:05:38.800 legally as an adult and wanted to make sure that there was a pathway for for us to be able to access

00:05:45.680 those services because when with the gender identity disorder which was the previous name for

00:05:51.440 for the condition that intersex pathway um hadn't been part of that diagnostic criteria okay so um what

00:06:01.280 made you ultimately decide to transition um and i believe uh you transitioned when you were um in your 30s i

00:06:09.600 believe that's what i read somewhere and so that's pretty late for a person to be transitioning i imagine

00:06:15.520 uh so what what what made you uh decide that uh well well back then i mean 20 years ago that wasn't

00:06:21.760 wasn't late they weren't really transitioning young kids at that time but i grew up in a small town in

00:06:26.800 manitoba so i i didn't have access to either intersex services or um transition services that wasn't

00:06:34.960 something that i even knew existed um and i had a lot of when i did learn about it years later

00:06:40.880 i was skeptical i i assumed that there would be a lot of health risks involved and um so it seemed

00:06:48.640 far-fetched and and i was afraid to take the medical option but um so it really wasn't until i moved to

00:06:56.160 vancouver and and met other trans people and learn more about it and and what the health risks were and

00:07:02.880 and what they weren't um when it started to feel like like a real possibility for me but um the way

00:07:12.000 that because i i had no way of articulating it as a child so i had no help for it as a child i didn't

00:07:17.920 tell anybody about it until i went to the gender clinic as an adult um so i had no framework through

00:07:23.840 which to understand it when i was diagnosed with the intersex condition i just chalked it up to these

00:07:28.400 two things are somehow related um and i did just did my best to kind of limp through it but as i

00:07:34.000 got older and older the symptoms of it became worse and worse and in hindsight you know i've tried

00:07:40.720 to find ways of articulating it with more nuance um because some of these some of these catchphrases

00:07:47.360 like born in the wrong body you know they've become as problematic as they are helpful to helping

00:07:51.840 people understand our experiences so i've tried to sort of dig through my memories and find a language

00:07:58.720 to better describe how it felt and if you've ever been on like a zoom meeting or a phone call where

00:08:06.800 your own voice is being echoed back to you that it oftentimes creates a very strong discomfort i've had

00:08:14.160 people say well i i need to hang up this phone call and and try again because it's such an uncomfortable

00:08:19.120 feeling that's hard to articulate right to ask anyone well why is that uncomfortable for you i

00:08:24.560 don't think they'd be able to articulate why it just causes this kind of this cognitive discomfort

00:08:30.880 and to the extent that people will end a phone call because of that discomfort so that was a similar

00:08:37.440 very similar sensation that i experienced anytime i had to acknowledge my biological sex or consider

00:08:44.320 which sex category i belonged in would cause a very similar sort of cognitive discomfort that very

00:08:52.160 that and that's what i would call dysphoria is just that discomfort and so anytime i saw myself

00:08:57.520 in a mirror or caught my reflection in the store window or uh heard my voice on a recording i would

00:09:05.200 or had any time i had to acknowledge my biological sex i experienced that

00:09:09.600 that that little cognitive glitch that that did cause me a lot of distress so if you can imagine

00:09:16.480 the distress it might cause you on a zoom call imagining going through life with every social

00:09:20.800 interaction every time you saw your reflection it's hard to go through life avoiding that that sensation so

00:09:26.720 it did become an impairment to my functioning because it was such a distraction every time i'm having a

00:09:33.600 conversation with somebody or you know if i'm in a business meeting or on a phone call and and i'm

00:09:38.880 experiencing that discomfort it just it it became it's a burden it's a heavy burden to go through life

00:09:46.000 with yeah and so my intention with transition was opening that that hoping that that little glitch that

00:09:52.000 was happening in my mind would would resolve and and for the most part i would say that that transition did do

00:09:57.920 that um and it did help with my functioning and i mean it caused other problems i mean there it's not

00:10:04.720 a medically neutral intervention um and i you know i experienced surgical complications and those kinds

00:10:11.760 of things but it did resolve that that psychological glitch which has helped me to function better socially

00:10:18.160 and occupationally yeah no i mean that's one of the things that people don't often discuss are the

00:10:23.440 complications that arise from uh from from this kind of uh surgery and this kind of treatment um uh i

00:10:31.840 mean if it's it's really up to you uh what are some things that you experienced um and i also wanted to

00:10:38.880 ask you um that's if you're comfortable sharing that with us i also wanted to ask you i mean you

00:10:43.520 transitioned about 20 years ago it was i imagine it was fairly new at that time um the treatment options

00:10:51.680 things are a lot different now i i believe there's there's a lot of stuff happening in that space

00:10:56.960 uh how do you contrast the two um you know uh the two time periods as far as transitioning is concerned

00:11:05.360 yeah so in terms of some of the some of the differences um i mean in vancouver it wasn't entirely

00:11:12.800 new uh i think vancouver was one of the early adopters and um i mean some of the people that i

00:11:19.920 that i had met had transitioned you know you know six to ten years before i did even but um

00:11:28.080 there was a lot more assessment i wasn't that familiar with with the w pass standards of care

00:11:33.200 at the time that i went into the clinic but it was the beginnings of um the so the previous standards of

00:11:42.080 care so that would have been sock it would have been socks sticks i guess at the time that i transitioned

00:11:47.840 so back then there was in in that standards of care the requirement for the real life test which is

00:11:54.720 a one-year period of living to the best of your ability as the opposite sex before you would qualify 1.00

00:12:00.880 for interventions and a very lengthy assessment process but the clinic that i went to i think was

00:12:06.480 one of the early early adopters of a more informed consent model um and so they didn't require

00:12:14.480 that i do the real life test i did go through an assessment process over about a three-month period

00:12:20.960 before starting hormones and then um i had to see a psychologist again before any surgeries

00:12:27.040 and then another assessment again before um any other surgeries um so there was a lot more assessment

00:12:33.920 back then but it was to be still the beginnings of what we now call the affirmative model so there was no

00:12:40.320 there was no pushback there was no um there was no education about what gender dysphoria is and there

00:12:47.440 was no requirement for psychotherapy or for a real life test and that was 10 years before this the

00:12:53.760 standards of care even changed so they they really weren't following and people say well everyone's

00:12:58.240 following the standards of care but when i transitioned about you know about 16 years ago

00:13:03.920 they they weren't following the standards of care and and they still don't really there's a lot of

00:13:08.320 clinics that don't follow the standards of care so would you say that it's things are a little more 1.00

00:13:14.240 um uh what's what what's the term like things are a little looser now laxer now compared to how they

00:13:20.640 were about 20 years ago yeah well when i was because i'm a registered nurse um it's worked in mental health

00:13:26.720 and um so the clinic i was working for started to do some trans care for young people for youth ages

00:13:34.480 we weren't transitioning anyone at 12 but the clinic saw people from 12 to 25 and so we were

00:13:41.600 receiving training to do that work and the message that i was getting because i had been under the

00:13:46.800 presumption that things were were the same as it was when i went through the system so our clinic was

00:13:51.520 planning on doing careful detailed assessment um and case management with young people and i quickly

00:13:58.320 discovered that that's not how people are practicing anymore i was told you know this could be done in a

00:14:02.880 single visit um and that the purpose of the assessment was really just to determine the

00:14:08.160 capacity to consent that there was no real requirement of gender dysphoria anymore that so that diagnosis

00:14:14.560 didn't need to be made and um we were given a one-page checklist of things to go through with the

00:14:20.400 clients but it wasn't really clear what do we do with that information so it did ask about medical history

00:14:26.080 and psychiatric history but i asked like so if someone does have a psychiatric condition what do

00:14:33.920 we do with that information we're supposed to ask about it but what are we supposed to do with that

00:14:37.440 information and i was told well people have a right to be both trans and mentally ill so basically we do 0.86

00:14:43.840 you know as long as it didn't interfere with their ability to provide consent then we don't really do

00:14:51.200 anything with that information we just give people what they want and that started to really concern

00:14:56.560 me because the the youth that i was seeing in our clinic were highly complex with multiple issues

00:15:03.680 going on like some of them had autism or adhd or trauma backgrounds you know sexual abuse backgrounds

00:15:11.280 and i felt like we needed to take our time and more care to get to know these youth and make sure that

00:15:16.160 they that they knew what they were getting themselves into and that it was going to be an

00:15:19.840 appropriate intervention for them yeah um yeah i mean you've you have this unique perspective of

00:15:27.040 not only having transition but you also worked in the space counseling young people um and uh you know

00:15:34.960 did you see that the medical profession uh and you were sometimes at odds with each other when it

00:15:41.760 came to these young people yeah i really didn't find that my ideas or my concerns were very

00:15:49.040 welcome in the system and that really started to concern me that i felt like it was an environment

00:15:54.480 of coercion and control that people weren't allowed to really think critically or or to have a different

00:16:01.520 opinion or to ask certain questions um those kinds of conversations were were shut down very quickly

00:16:08.960 so i just withdrew myself from the care altogether i didn't feel comfortable in that kind of practice

00:16:14.240 environment i didn't feel like it was safe or ethical um care for these young people and so i

00:16:20.160 just removed myself from from that responsibility of providing that care i did have people message me

00:16:27.200 privately and saying you know other clinicians who shared my concerns but it wasn't an environment in

00:16:32.720 which anyone is allowed to speak openly why is that what is going on here uh i mean i i asked this

00:16:40.720 question to everyone in this space that i uh have these conversations with why is that especially

00:16:47.040 here in canada where um doctors are not necessarily making a whole lot of money given our socialized

00:16:54.000 system in the u.s one could make this argument that it's driven by commercial interest there's a lot

00:17:00.480 of money to be made by some of this some of these clinics and doctors but what's going on here is it

00:17:06.080 ideology that is driving this they're really steeped in this ideology that they will not

00:17:13.680 entertain dissenting voices especially someone who's actually transitioned and and and you're

00:17:19.360 saying hey wait a minute i think we need to take time with these people because there are also mental

00:17:23.600 health issues at play here before we put them on this irreversible path of transitioning uh what is

00:17:31.040 going on here yeah i was really surprised by it because i had been out of the loop for a number of

00:17:36.800 years i mean yes i'm a trans man but i wasn't connected to any trans community i've got a few

00:17:43.120 close friends that i've maintained over the years that i met when i first transitioned and needed the

00:17:48.640 services but then we just went on and lived our lived our lives and one of the things that really

00:17:54.080 concerned me was while i was being told that you know kind of conversation about things like

00:17:58.320 de-transition for example or transition transition regret is just propaganda and and the accusation

00:18:05.440 was a that i was gatekeeping and b that i was sharing propaganda but meanwhile i mean some of my

00:18:12.000 closest friends that transitioned around the same time i did were starting to unpack their their experience

00:18:19.120 and and their transition one and two of them very much regret their transitions they haven't

00:18:24.240 de-transitioned but they do regret it and one has said that his transition had more to do with

00:18:29.840 his childhood sexual abuse um that as he over the years as he worked through that trauma he came to

00:18:36.480 the realization that that was his motivation the other has recently been diagnosed with autism

00:18:43.840 and feels that that is a better fit for for what he was experiencing and he's quite angry about that

00:18:49.520 kind of misdiagnosis because when he transitioned he lost his entire family they they disowned him and

00:18:56.400 um so that was that was a lot of loss for him and now realizing that he probably never even had gender

00:19:02.240 dysphoria in the first place um but back to your question i i do so it's alarming for me because when

00:19:08.880 i transitioned we talked about gender identity disorder within the gay and lesbian community

00:19:13.280 um some of the butch lesbians that i had known over the years very highly masculine women um 1.00

00:19:20.480 physically and you know in terms of you know mannerisms and interests and they would describe

00:19:26.480 having an experience of gender identity disorder some of them transitioned and some of them didn't

00:19:31.760 so that was something that we talked about because and i remember i'm old enough to remember a lot of

00:19:37.120 these people prior to transition and and having seen them go through a transition so i remember who we

00:19:42.400 all were before transitioning and we were highly effeminate gay a few highly effeminate gay men a 0.68

00:19:47.520 few highly masculine gay women and the majority were people that i didn't really have any social 0.97

00:19:54.720 contact with they were heterosexual men um who were maybe cross-dressers are part of the kink community or

00:20:03.200 that i didn't really know well but they seemed to be the majority so that was understood 20 years ago

00:20:09.360 that that there's different things going on different different cohorts of people transitioning

00:20:15.600 um so coming back into the into the work and into the fold um it was almost a creepy experience for

00:20:23.200 me to say things that i just thought were common sense about talking about different pathways to

00:20:27.440 gender dysphoria and um and that the clinicians it's almost as if there's there's a type of amnesia

00:20:35.200 that's gone on that that they don't seem to to remember you know these different pathways and

00:20:41.440 the work that had been done and all the research that had been done into these different pathways

00:20:45.520 and so i do chalk it up to ideological capture i think people that do this work tend to specialize

00:20:51.680 in this work and um tend to socialize in the community as well uh many times come from the

00:20:58.560 community and do this work and i think when you are in a social certain very specific social bubble

00:21:04.880 that that all starts to think and act and behave the same way i think it may be it becomes difficult

00:21:11.200 to think outside of that box and and so that's how i chalk it up is is most of the clinicians that i

00:21:17.760 knew of on the in that um in that um it was a listserv and the mentorship group

00:21:24.240 socialize within the queer community and i i just don't think they interact with people outside of

00:21:30.880 that community very much and have just accepted this very particular way of thinking yeah yeah i

00:21:37.120 mean sticking to this you've written and commented about uh queer theory which is an academic theory

00:21:44.000 i believe part of the broader post-modernism movement uh the basic idea being that gender is

00:21:49.920 just a construction or performance and it's a tool of oppression um uh you you you write that in some

00:21:56.240 ways this is liberating for trans people but but ultimately it it's had a damaging effect on society 1.00

00:22:03.200 uh what exactly do you mean by this well i mean i back in when i was in university as a you know 20

00:22:11.760 something year old back in early 90s um was the beginnings of queer theory in academia and it was a

00:22:18.560 it was a in the department of literary criticism um just to kind of contextualize where these

00:22:24.320 theories come from so you're right that they're they're a branch of post-modernism and when we

00:22:29.120 studied it we were looking at um social philosophy and literature and interpreting literature through

00:22:35.920 the lens of of these philosophies somehow those theories have become conflated with the condition of

00:22:45.040 gender dysphoria and that's my biggest concern is that basically a you know a political movement

00:22:54.480 has co-opted our understanding of both intersex conditions which are rare medical conditions and

00:23:01.200 gender dysphoria which is a psychological condition and so i feel like the the medical community is no

00:23:09.280 longer seeking answers for about these conditions and they're no longer providing people education about

00:23:14.160 these conditions and i i don't know how to articulate how alarming it is for a political movement to

00:23:20.400 have hijacked clinical conditions and have opened the gateway for people who who don't even have these 0.97

00:23:30.480 conditions to access the interventions i guess an analogy i could use is let's say there was this

00:23:38.240 there was this sort of political philosophical movement that has certain ideas about psychosis

00:23:43.200 that maybe they believe that that that the state of psychosis was you know a highly advanced

00:23:49.040 spiritual state and they co-opted the treatment of schizophrenia and not only that but went into

00:23:56.240 schools and and convinced kids well you know if you hear voices you you have this special ability

00:24:02.880 and when we're going to worship you and we're going to elevate you and we're going to celebrate

00:24:06.400 how awesome this ability is and and then also you know medicalized them along with people

00:24:14.240 that had schizophrenia i mean that would be pretty alarming and that sounds far-fetched but

00:24:18.240 that is essentially what's happened with the treatment of gender dysphoria is a political

00:24:21.840 philosophical movement that started in academia in the early 90s has completely taken over our

00:24:27.680 understanding of this condition and our treatment of this condition and is going into schools telling kids

00:24:32.880 that having this condition is somehow brave and awesome and wonderful and more people should

00:24:38.720 should adopt this way of thinking yeah i mean it's extraordinary how this academic theory which you

00:24:44.480 know at one point was confined to left-wing humanities departments at universities has completely

00:24:52.720 come to take over our understanding of gender and sexuality it is quite alarming

00:24:58.640 um right it's yeah it's it's really dividing our society and i think it is um you know i think we

00:25:06.640 we had achieved a certain amount of social acceptance as trans people um you know in the early 2000s i think

00:25:14.000 was our our peak moment and it was through efforts like old civil rights movements like you know and and

00:25:20.960 based on trying to develop build bridges with people and develop trust and help people understand our experience

00:25:28.960 that's how we were trying you know how we we um were able to achieve a certain amount of of social

00:25:34.800 acceptance but i think that's that's very quickly being unraveled because of these theories because

00:25:42.080 you know not everyone agrees with post-modernism um not everyone agrees with how these ideas are being

00:25:47.760 packaged and sold to to our kids um and it's fueling a lot more hostility and a lot more um division i think

00:25:57.840 between the entire lgbt movement and the general public i think we're seeing more hostility more

00:26:05.520 backlash more division and that's not what i that's not what i want i would rather people understand my

00:26:11.040 experience it's it's an unusual experience i don't i don't try to normalize it in the sense that i think

00:26:16.720 this is something that everyone should aspire to feel it's it's a condition that i wouldn't wish on

00:26:21.840 anybody but i think that educating people on the reality of that is is far more effective than

00:26:28.720 than trying to shove post-modern theory down people's throats but i think those post-modern

00:26:33.680 theories are now been taken up at levels of of national and international government

00:26:39.840 and it's starting to be written into law and policy like our conversion therapy laws for example and i

00:26:45.120 in no way condone conversion therapy but the way that that was written it was very underhanded it was

00:26:53.680 very much a backdoor way of writing queer theory into law

00:27:02.080 you've been critical of the way gender dysphoria is treated clinically you're not in favor for example of

00:27:10.560 puberty blockers uh being prescribed right off the bat to a child who's experiencing

00:27:16.160 gender dysphoria uh what do you think should the what do you think should the right approach be

00:27:20.720 and what should the role of parents and teachers be in this process i'm having reviewed a lot of the

00:27:27.520 literature and talked to many clinicians um i'm of the opinion that the watchful waiting approach was

00:27:33.360 most appropriate um for the reason that there are now 13 different studies that all say the same thing

00:27:39.600 that when you followed those kids long enough the vast majority of the kids with gender dysphoria

00:27:46.000 did resolve it through puberty and became healthy happy gay lesbian adults knowing that

00:27:54.880 that isn't the information that families or kids are being given today we're being taught this concept

00:28:01.680 that there is such a thing as a trans child and that these children would benefit from being 0.99

00:28:06.400 transitioned as early as possible now it's easy for adults who have transitioned later in life

00:28:13.200 to have the wishful thinking i wish i could have done this as a child and and imagining some of the

00:28:18.960 benefits of that but i don't see the rationale for slapping a trans label on a child knowing that about

00:28:27.840 85 percent of those kids would resolve it through puberty and it's not that i necessarily think you know

00:28:34.160 it's awful to be trans and that it's an awful outcome but it does mean lifelong medicalization 0.90

00:28:39.680 so for me it's the difference between avoiding lifelong medical medicalization and some of the potential

00:28:44.320 complications versus not having to be medicalized and i i it seems highly unethical to me to transition

00:28:56.080 to tell all of these kids that that that they're trans and that the pathway then is is medicalization 0.85

00:29:03.040 and they're not being told what gender dysphoria really is even though they're you know the two

00:29:07.360 main pathways to gender dysphoria have been well studied um there's still a lot more research that

00:29:12.880 could be done to better understand it but but i don't think that those two pathways are disputable at this

00:29:17.840 point yeah that's extraordinary how does a child benefit from transitioning does their life

00:29:25.440 automatically just all of a sudden change um i mean in your case you transitioned as an adult

00:29:32.720 and you know as an adult you you have this agency you can do what you want with your body

00:29:38.000 so to speak a child really has no agency um they can't vote they can't do a bunch of different things

00:29:45.360 that you and i can do uh but so what what is like how is this being um told to the parents of these

00:29:53.040 children and to the child like you know you um you know you um you get a mastectomy you get rid of

00:29:59.040 your various organs and that you transition to whatever gender you're transitioning to that you know it'll

00:30:07.120 take a few months for the scars to heal but you'll be like a different person uh and you'll be really

00:30:12.960 happy is that really what is being sold to these uh kids it it well what's being sold to the families

00:30:21.280 is that these kids will all commit suicide if if they're not medicalized so so parents are being told

00:30:27.680 that and and there's no evidence to that to that effect so it's i think it's it's really inappropriate

00:30:33.840 to tell families that when when we have no there's no there's no evidence that there's a direct

00:30:39.040 you know path from not being immediately medicalized and and suicide um i mean it there is evidence that

00:30:50.800 people with this condition um are more likely to have other mental health issues like depression

00:30:58.080 and anxiety and are on average have more suicidal ideation but we can't say for certain that that

00:31:04.640 suicidal ideation is directly because of um the gender dysphoria we don't know that i mean the the

00:31:13.920 suicide suicidality rates are higher for for most any mental health condition including kids that have

00:31:20.720 you know adhd autism any number of other conditions social isolation nor being gay or lesbian um and there

00:31:28.160 but there's certainly no evidence that that these kids are all going to act on those thoughts if they're

00:31:32.000 not immediately immediately medicalized so that's really i think a kind of emotional blackmail for these

00:31:38.000 parents who are now afraid that if i don't get along go along with this and accept these treatments that

00:31:45.280 my i'm you know my child is i'm gonna lose my i'm gonna lose my child basically so there's a lot of uh

00:31:53.520 fear-mongering uh uh at play here as well uh as from the medical community um it's all quite tragic i mean i

00:32:02.080 uh was reading something that you wrote and this this quote really jumped at me uh why are we putting

00:32:08.080 all of our resources into escaping brutality rather than eliminating brutality we're cutting up our

00:32:14.320 bodies because our lived reality is worse why do we celebrate that and then and quote and that's

00:32:20.720 precisely what is happening here where i see these horrific photos of young kids who um are not even old

00:32:28.960 enough to drive uh you know proudly displaying uh their bodies uh in these photos that they no longer

00:32:36.000 have breasts and they're on hormone therapy and so on and so forth and um you know i just uh why why are

00:32:44.560 we celebrating this what what are we celebrating here exactly yeah it's puzzling isn't it i mean

00:32:50.960 i would have done this if it weren't for a great deal of distress and poor functioning which certainly

00:32:55.840 isn't something to celebrate um but i i get you know in terms of the some of the youth that i was

00:33:01.760 meeting with and assessing i didn't get the sense that they even had gender dysphoria and in that that

00:33:06.400 concerned me i mean our health authorities website even says that you don't have to be trans to access

00:33:11.120 gender-affirming care so at this point trans has become a very meaningless if it doesn't mean 0.91

00:33:16.960 gender dysphoria and if it doesn't mean i mean i don't even know what trans means um so

00:33:25.680 there's basically no criteria for accessing these interventions except somebody wanting it

00:33:29.680 and i think there could be potentially many reasons for why a young person might think might

00:33:35.360 imagine that their life would somehow be better if they were the opposite sex yeah uh you you 1.00

00:33:40.960 mentioned that a couple of your friends who transitioned along the same around the same time

00:33:45.680 as you did have come to regret it uh for uh various reasons how do people like that deal with

00:33:55.680 their their you know where they find themselves um you know after having transition and now they regret it

00:34:02.560 like um i know you can't speak for them but generally what what happens to such folks uh you

00:34:09.680 know i'm assuming that there's a lot of mental health uh issues at play here you know how do they

00:34:15.360 go on with their daily lives and what's going on are there resources to help deal with such individuals

00:34:21.600 i mean we put a lot of resources uh it seems into getting kids on puberty blockers and getting people

00:34:28.240 to transition but are there resources to deal with people who regret transition there really aren't

00:34:34.720 resources for regret and you know and when it's being when it's being sold as this is you know the

00:34:42.160 very mention of regret is just propaganda anti-trans propaganda it makes it very difficult to even

00:34:49.760 explore creating services because the activists would come after after us saying this is anti-trans

00:34:56.880 so how do you start to talk about and create services for people that do regret it who are often

00:35:02.480 ostracized from the existing services um and uh fortunately i mean the two friends that i have

00:35:10.320 have enough inner resolve and inner resources and friends and family around them that that they're

00:35:17.520 they're okay i mean they're they're grieving they're upset um but i think you know they're they're

00:35:23.600 they're still functioning they're still they're still okay but i mean i imagine that there are

00:35:28.000 people with fewer inner resources right or or not a lot of support around them who would really struggle

00:35:35.520 with that realization that they've made a horrible mistake yeah i mean that's uh that's really quite

00:35:42.080 tragic i don't i can't even imagine what what they must be going through um because i don't really know the

00:35:49.520 medical side of this issue if once you've detransitioned uh get once you um once you've

00:35:57.600 transitioned and you and you're just unhappy with what the decision that you made can you just stop

00:36:02.960 taking all of your medication and if you do so what happens well depending on on what stage someone is

00:36:10.640 at like if somebody has has taken the steps to to remove um either their ovaries or their testicles their

00:36:17.120 bodies aren't producing any hormones anymore so depending on how old they are um you know their

00:36:23.840 their health would be at risk if they didn't have any hormones either testosterone or estrogens so they

00:36:29.120 would have to have some sort of hormone replacement therapy for the rest of their lives okay so they

00:36:34.880 would be on that for the rest of their lives and and for those who transition they're also on uh

00:36:41.120 uh hormones and all kinds of other things for the rest of their lives or does it just like

00:36:47.040 uh you've transitioned that's it that's it um you can you no longer have to take these medicines

00:36:53.120 uh no longer have to undergo these treatments is that is that how it works generally yeah the biggest

00:37:00.080 concern i think would be the um bone health so if i were to just stop taking testosterone for example okay i

00:37:06.720 mean a none of those interventions are going to reverse themselves i'm not going to grow the hair

00:37:11.120 back on my head i'm not going to lose the hair that's grown on my face and body yeah um none of the

00:37:18.080 parts that have been surgically removed removed are going to grow back and so i'm at an age now i mean

00:37:23.360 i'm 50 now so i could probably get through the rest of my life without hormones at this stage i mean

00:37:28.960 i would probably be facing menopause if i still had ovaries anyway okay um but if i was 20 or 30

00:37:35.360 i would be concerned about my long-term bone health if i didn't have any hormones in my body so i would 0.75

00:37:40.720 either have to continue taking testosterone or i would have to switch to estrogen in order to protect

00:37:45.520 my bone health yeah um you've written uh also aaron that uh self-identification by some men who came to

00:37:53.600 be women merely by um self-identifying um as women has created problems uh in various uh places like

00:38:02.400 assaults on women in locker rooms prisons etc um also it's worth noting that it's wreaking havoc in

00:38:09.520 the world of professional sports where a man can self-identify as a woman and break records um obviously

00:38:16.560 this is not a level playing field um how how do you think as a society we should deal with this

00:38:23.120 and i know i've been i've been accused of picking on the trans women a lot but you know it's not an even

00:38:27.760 playing field when we're talking about um biological males who who transition and biological females um

00:38:34.800 i don't think anyone would be concerned if i joined a sports team because i'm i'm not going to beat the

00:38:39.200 men um but self id does concern me i think self id is a is a huge mistake that the trans community is 0.99

00:38:47.920 making you know i see this as um it's a legal fiction that we've entered into as part of our treatment

00:38:56.720 it's like a social contract we don't ever literally change sex it's a treatment for a condition

00:39:05.280 um so a i think we need proper diagnosis of that condition and proper education about that condition

00:39:11.440 and in order to receive a treatment for it um i think i think in the long run that idea is

00:39:19.680 protective of the trans community because this this legal fiction that we've been granted

00:39:24.160 requires that the that that the public at large feels okay with with this social contract that we

00:39:32.480 need we have responsibilities in this social contract not just not just rights and privileges

00:39:38.000 um and i think this social contract has to be mutually agreeable um and if we start to

00:39:48.480 disrupt or put communities at risk of harm in some way i think it then becomes understandable if

00:39:56.240 the community or society says okay this may be this legal contracts this social contract that we have

00:40:01.680 here isn't isn't working so that so i think what self id does is it opens the door for all kinds of bad

00:40:08.560 players to take advantage of the system we've already seen that in canada we've seen um we've seen

00:40:16.960 men who have you know raped children um id suddenly id as trans what in prison and being transferred into 0.68

00:40:31.440 female prisons uh part of the it's my understanding part of the intake process now in so many places not 1.00

00:40:38.080 just prisons but often when you're doing paperwork you're asked about which sex you are what gender you

00:40:43.600 are on a lot of intake forms including prisons and so if you line up a bunch of rapists or murderers

00:40:51.760 and basically ask them would you rather go to the male prison or the female prison 0.97

00:40:57.040 it's not hard to imagine that some men in that position would say well i'd much rather go to the

00:41:01.120 female prison um the prison that this individual who who raped a child um some years ago transferred to

00:41:10.480 a female prison that has a mother and baby um ward in this prison i mean how is that appropriate i mean 0.99

00:41:19.760 that obviously puts people at great risk and it does me no favors as a trans person when people abuse

00:41:25.440 the system in in this way in order to harm others yeah so i i believe we're thinking about the same

00:41:32.720 person i was reading up on this uh about a month ago um this person is has transitioned they have

00:41:42.960 undergone therapy hormone therapy and all of that stuff and now they identify as a woman i believe it's

00:41:50.000 the same person that could be i think there's a few different cases here in canada but um but some of

00:41:56.160 these individuals i because i don't think there's a even a requirement all the time that people have to

00:42:01.440 go through any well any transition process i was going to ask you about that because you know when

00:42:07.280 we say self-identifying i imagine that at least as far as the prison system is concerned i would think

00:42:14.160 that a bare minimum has to be met in terms of well has this person transitioned i i would i would say

00:42:20.400 that that that at least is something worth considering um i mean anybody can identify any by you

00:42:26.320 know i can identify as the king of spain you know but that's doesn't make it true so but so are you

00:42:33.520 saying that you can just as a male prisoner say i you know i'm identifying strongly identifying as a

00:42:38.720 woman even though i've never undergone any of this treatment um and i'm still hanging on to all of my

00:42:44.960 body parts and everything uh and prison is obliged to consider this well that's that's my understanding of

00:42:52.240 how self self-identification works i know in the province of dc they've recently changed the law

00:42:57.600 where anyone can go and change their id their the gender marker on their id without any documentation

00:43:04.240 or without any um expectation of any medical interventions that that they've most provinces

00:43:10.640 are now adopting self-id as as part of law that anyone can just declare which which sex they are and have

00:43:16.560 that written on their on their id there was a case in alberta of a man who self-id as female so that he

00:43:23.440 could get cheaper car insurance okay i can i can see so many possibilities with this but uh and yeah it's

00:43:32.720 it's just uh extraordinary the times that we live in um it appears that big businesses have also embraced

00:43:40.400 trans culture in a really big way there's been a big push i i believe the last couple of weeks

00:43:46.160 uh with uh dylan mulvaney uh um one example really stands out for me uh with nike um giving him a

00:43:56.240 sponsorship uh a deal for a sports bra all things um this has drawn criticism from some very prominent

00:44:05.680 lesbians like former tennis star martina navratilova uh what is your what is your take on this i mean do 1.00

00:44:11.760 you think that um fundamentally we are at a point in our time where women are being excluded once again

00:44:20.880 well it certainly it certainly does seem that way doesn't it i mean i'm i mean i am impressed that

00:44:26.320 there there is an organization i think martina is part of that organization and a number of of senior

00:44:31.440 athletes um women and and some trans women who have who are getting together to really have

00:44:37.680 um thoughtful nuanced conversations to find solutions that are fair for everybody and i

00:44:43.440 applaud those kinds of efforts of balancing social inclusion with fairness uh seeing some of these

00:44:49.760 athletes you know who are a good foot taller than all of the other female athletes you know competing 1.00

00:44:54.080 against them in swimming i mean that's those kinds of cases are are so obviously not fair that it's it's

00:45:01.920 enraging people and i understand the outrage i mean we have to this is and this goes back to this idea

00:45:08.000 of this this is a legal fiction that we don't literally change sex and um we you know we have to

00:45:17.680 we when we're writing policies and laws we have to take biological sex into consideration

00:45:23.600 uh yeah i mean i find dylan mulvaney very interesting i mean it's mostly theater he's he's he's a performer

00:45:30.480 um i i'm actually uh entertained by much of what he does like you know his the sports bra thing you

00:45:38.160 know i think he was exercising it was comical it made me laugh you know i don't even know what that

00:45:42.880 is um and uh but at the same time you know it it uh it made me concerned that you know you know here he

00:45:50.720 is modeling for a sports bra and uh and you know and and women um women's sports bra that too i mean 0.96

00:45:59.040 who else wears a sports bra but yeah it's just uh very it's it's entertaining on the one hand but at

00:46:04.560 the on the other it's also very uh scary if you're a woman that you know once again you find yourself

00:46:10.480 in this situation where uh we're once again uh treated as second-class citizens um by men

00:46:17.280 yeah yeah i mean i i agree with you that you know i think dylan for the most part would be

00:46:23.040 fairly harmless if it weren't for these big institutions propping what he's doing up but

00:46:28.400 i mean who knows if dylan even has gender dysphoria i you know i i follow a little bit of

00:46:33.280 matt walsh's work and you know i think matt walsh had a really good point that looking back at footage

00:46:38.800 of of dylan's behavior on things like the prices right prior to transition was a very performative

00:46:45.520 um very attention-seeking sort of individual um which leads you know to speculation that this is

00:46:53.280 all just a money-making grift that it's a performance it's it's not sincere it's not

00:46:59.040 gender dysphoria it's an opportunity to make a lot of money and achieve the fame that dylan always wanted

00:47:04.960 it's it's entertainment at the end of the day and that's how i view this one particular individual

00:47:10.080 um um at least you know face on face value it's just pure sheer entertainment and i understand if

00:47:16.240 i understand if women find that a mockery because i as a trans person i find that a mockery as well

00:47:20.720 to turn it all into just a performance yeah no absolutely um finally finally erin uh you've been

00:47:27.920 critical of the politicization of uh politicization in debates about gender and sexuality um what is the

00:47:35.680 way forward here um right now it seems like positions are so polarized that there is no

00:47:42.160 that that one feels like there is really no common ground here mm-hmm yeah well our our philosophy with

00:47:50.480 the gender dysphoria alliance is to try to just try to find a third way i mean we we we're trying to 1.00

00:47:56.800 remove ourselves completely from that gender ideology or the queer theory um and are just trying to to dive 0.96

00:48:05.440 into we uh the the research about what gender dysphoria is and we're trying to just have

00:48:11.360 conversations based on the reality of what gender dysphoria is um i i personally think that's that's

00:48:17.760 the way forward is to just have a really honest conversations about what all of this is about and

00:48:23.360 remove that very deceptive lens of queer theory from it um we're not trying to push a specific politic

00:48:31.280 or a certain philosophy we're just trying to understand for ourselves what gender dysphoria is

00:48:35.680 and grapple with that based on what the actual research says and our our hope is that if we educate

00:48:43.440 others that that will be helpful and we can we can problem solve if we kind of really understand have

00:48:49.760 a good grasp of what we're really talking about yeah rather than the smoke and mirrors that we're all being

00:48:56.160 fed yeah i mean i i just hope that uh that i you know i that we find some kind of middle ground here

00:49:04.400 uh at least my own position when it comes to children is that they they have no agency and i

00:49:09.200 don't think the medical community should be pushing them uh on to this down this path uh adults it's a

00:49:16.160 different issue uh it's your body your choice uh that's that's where i you know that's my position on

00:49:22.960 that um but i think you know you rightly point uh point out in many of your writings that anytime you

00:49:31.360 criticize uh something in the trans space one is called transphobic you yourself i believe have been

00:49:37.680 called trans transphobic which is kind of hilarious it's a bit like me being called a white supremacist

00:49:44.000 so um um you know it's just everything has just become polarized and i really hope that we

00:49:50.080 find that common ground uh you know for all our sakes um i at least you know and for the future

00:49:57.040 of our children and i think what the left needs to realize is that there's more than one model for

00:50:01.920 social justice you know because they seem to think that unless people believe in these post-modern

00:50:06.400 theories therefore you're a racist or therefore you're a transphobe or homophobic and they've

00:50:12.320 forgotten that there are other models for social justice one's based on individual character

00:50:18.720 um so i would like to see more of that kind of of politic and social justice uh getting back to

00:50:25.680 the roots of of social justice um or or civil you know civil liberties and um because i think it's

00:50:34.000 these post-modern theories that are creating most of most of the problem and and it creates some

00:50:39.920 that's what's creating so much polarization and division that that people can't criticize

00:50:44.800 critical theory without being immediately branded as as phobic of one one kind or another and and i

00:50:53.120 think you know i i like what the work um fair is doing if you're familiar with that organization

00:51:00.000 of addressing dressing civil liberties you know from from more of the grassroots of what civil rights

00:51:06.080 movements of the past used to be uh and trying to carve out space for a new way of um of addressing

00:51:14.080 things like racism and intolerance in our society without critical theory yeah no i i actually belong

00:51:21.040 to the ottawa chapter of uh fair and uh uh it is a wonderful organization and uh these are conversations

00:51:28.000 that we uh we we frequently have and i think uh and and more people should be having these conversations

00:51:34.400 moving forward uh and i really hope better sense prevails uh uh moving forward uh it's been a real

00:51:41.440 pleasure to have you uh with me aaron and uh and i really uh appreciate all of your insights your um

00:51:50.000 and and sharing uh with us your views it's been incredibly informative for me um and i really hope

00:51:57.840 that you uh return to the show and uh sometime soon and we'll continue the conversation thank you very

00:52:04.240 much it's been a pleasure and i'd be happy to talk to you again okay wonderful thanks erin thank you

00:52:11.440 thank you

00:52:33.520 it

Juno News - April 14, 2023

The reality of transitioning from a trans man (Ft. Aaron Kimberly)

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