Ep 271 ｜ Investigating the New Generations of Transgender Girls ｜ Guest： Abigail Shrier
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Summary
Abigail Schreier is a journalist and author who wrote the book, Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze, Seducing Our Daughters. In this interview, she talks about how she came to write about the transgender craze, why she decided to write a book about it, and what she found in her research.
Transcript
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Happy Monday. So
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today I am going to have an interview. I know typically we don't do interviews on Monday.
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We did last week and we are today. But when I have an especially exciting person that
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I want to talk to and I don't want to wait until Friday to play you guys the conversation,
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then I play it on Monday. And I know you guys are going to gain so much from this conversation
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that I'm having with journalist Abigail Schreier. She wrote the book Irreversible Damage,
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the Transgender Craze, Seducing Our Daughters. If it sounds controversial in this day and age,
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that's because it is. But we simply talk about the facts that she found in her book,
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the implications of what is very much a trend in young girls and in teenage girls and the long-term
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implications and consequences of that. I'm so excited for you to listen to this conversation.
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I gained a lot of insight and I know that you're going to as well. Without further ado,
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here is Abigail Schreier. Abigail, thank you so much for joining me.
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Thank you so much for having me on. Could you tell everyone who you are and what you do?
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Sure. I'm a journalist. I write most often for the Wall Street Journal. And I'm here because I
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wrote a book, Irreversible Damage, the Transgender Craze, Seducing Our Daughters.
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Can you tell everyone how you came upon this subject and decided to write a book about it?
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Yeah. So this was not sort of a subject that affected me personally, and it wasn't something
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that I sought out. I wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal about transgender pronoun laws,
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compelled pronoun use. In California and New York, there are now laws that assign criminal penalties
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if you fail to use someone's preferred pronoun. This is straightforwardly unconstitutional. Under the
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First Amendment in America, the government can't make people say anything.
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And I'm a lawyer. And so I wrote a piece about this. And a mother got in touch with me
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and said her daughter had been caught up in this craze. And in fact, there were parents all over
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the country going through this with their daughters, girls with no history of gender dysphoria,
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hitting their teenage years and suddenly deciding they were transgender. And she wanted me to write
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about it. And at the time, I thought, well, that's that's the last thing I need is to wade into this.
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So I passed it on to another journalist. But what I found found was that no one wanted to write about
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this. So after waiting for a few months, I got back in touch with the woman.
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And what was what was that process like when you reached out to this woman and kind of had the
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conversation? How did that develop into the story that I guess then laid the basis for this book?
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Right. So I wrote I got in touch with her and a whole network of parents who were
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meeting in secret across the country, terribly worried for their daughters who had suddenly
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decided they were transgender daughters who are either on hormones or starting hormones and asking
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for surgeries. And all these parents, overwhelmingly, they were politically progressive, but they didn't
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they accepted gay marriage. They had no issue with that. They even would have accepted a gay
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daughter. But they didn't think this transgender identification was authentic and they didn't
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think it was doing their daughter any good. So I eventually wrote the story for The Wall Street
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Journal last not not this past January, but the January before 2019. And it sort of was explosive.
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It was the biggest article in a mainstream newspaper to address this contagion. And and I got a lot,
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a lot of parental response and as well as professional response. A lot of therapists and doctors reached
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out to me and then I had the basis for a book. And I'm sure you got well, I know you did. You got a lot
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of pushback. I think there was even an article written in The New York Times in response to your article,
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correct? That's right. You know, by Jenny Boylan wrote a piece responding to it in The New York Times
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saying that this wasn't a pure contagion. This was sort of an authentic choice. And, you know,
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I don't want to put words into her mouth. But, you know, I did get a lot of pushback. I would just say
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that the numbers kind of speak for themselves. My book is not based on original research. It's based on
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the research of public health researcher Lisa Lipman at Brown University, who found that the prevalence
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numbers among teenage girls didn't make any sense. They were way higher than expected. And they came
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out of nowhere. This is not traditional, typical gender dysphoria that we're seeing. Right. And we
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we know this because we've had nearly 100 year diagnostic history of gender dysphoria. It's always
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been little boys, you know, preschool emerges in preschool age and they just don't they insist they're
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not a girl. Don't I mean, not a boy don't want to be a boy. These are these are little boys in
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terrible distress. And most often they outgrow it. That's what it always was. In the last decade,
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this this gender dysphoria has exploded as a self diagnosis, specifically among teenage girls. And
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this is true across the West, not not just in America, you know, United Kingdom, Scandinavia. So
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it's a big problem. Right. And how did this come about? This wasn't something that we were thinking
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about as much, at least in mainstream circles, even 10, 20 years ago. So what were the what were the
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factors that played into what is obviously a contagion? So a few things. So these are young
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girls. First of all, I don't want to minimize their distress. They're in severe distress. These
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are girls with high anxiety, high rates of depression, as this generation tends to have,
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especially among its teenage girls. And when teenage girls are in distress, and this is true of people
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generally, but especially teenage girls, they tend to look to the culture or look for ways to describe
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what they're feeling. And one of the things that had become more socially acceptable was to describe
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their feeling as gender dysphoria. Gender ideology has been pushed very hard in the school systems.
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It's been pushed very hard on college campuses. It's very sort of in a college campus to declare
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an LGBTQ identity. And it was something that immediately lifted these girls popularity at a
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time when they were really looking to make friends. And then there's social media, which is which has
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exacerbated the phenomenon enormously. There are all kinds of transgender influencers all across social
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media. These are young teenagers who promise they post these wonderful, you know, exciting videos.
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That are fairly addictive. And they promise that if you just start a course of T, all your troubles
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And so would you say that most of these young women who are kind of suddenly saying, okay, when,
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when they're a teenager that I am transgender, I no longer feel that I'm a girl anymore. Would you say
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typically what led to that was a feeling of being an outsider in other ways and in, uh, an inability to
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kind of fit in socially that maybe pushed them in that direction?
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That that's exactly right. So this is the same old, you know, age old trouble with adolescents that
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young women have always had. Their bodies are changing fast. Social rules seem to change on them,
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you know, all the time with clicks, navigating clicks at school. These girls are very highly precocious.
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They tend to be, um, you know, um, white middle and upper middle class girls, highly educated parents.
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They have a lot of pressure on them and they're not fitting in in school so easily. And, um, the way
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other girls might have, you know, in prior eras, these same girls would have reached for anorexia
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or cutting or bulimia, which were, you know, at various points, very popular. But today the thing to do
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is to decide that your, your real problem is your gender and that you're supposed to be a boy.
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I gotcha. And what is the typical response for a young woman who in high school or in college,
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maybe they don't go to their parents, but they go to, um, a school counselor or maybe an administrator
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and say, this is how, this is how I feel. I want to be a boy now. Or maybe they, you know,
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somehow they have access to a doctor without their parents. What happens from, from there
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when these young women are affirmed in their new found male identity? Right. So, um, the thing
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that makes this so different and the reason it has spread, like it has spread so rapidly, like wildfire
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is that, um, no high school principal celebrates a kid with bulimia. No, no therapist says to a kid
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who says they're bulimic. That's, Oh, if you're bulimic, then I, you know, that that's great.
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I'll call you whatever you want. Let's, let's help you get a, um, you know, liposuction, um, to help
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you deal with your fat. Um, but that is what's happening across schools. The P the school will
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change a child's. This is, this is true throughout California and New York, New Jersey. They will, um,
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take the child's name, new name and pronouns. They will keep this from the parent. They keep it secret
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from the parent. And the child is then encouraged to use the opposite sex bathrooms of their choice.
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They, they stay with the boys on the overnight trip and they are treated as a boy in school,
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um, without the parent's knowledge. So it tends to solidify the identity in the child's mind.
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And at what age can these young women, um, start taking testosterone and going down the path of
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so-called transitioning. So the age of medical consent varies by state and in Oregon, it is 15.
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And it's not only that they can get these drugs so young, but they get them so easily. So, um,
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you don't even need a therapist note. You don't need anyone to confirm your diagnosis of gender
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dysphoria. You simply self-diagnose, you show up at a clinic and say, and it can even be Planned
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Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is one of the major, um, uh, suppliers of testosterone across the
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country. So you go into Planned Parenthood and you say, I have gender dysphoria. I've always hated
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being a girl. I'm really a boy. And they say, okay, sign these forms. Here's your testosterone.
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Wow. And I, I wonder what brought us here to the point of being able to so easily accept something
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that for a very long time, we recognized as a dysphoria. Like you said, we recognize the legitimacy
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of the distress that a lot of times young people felt in their own bodies and they were treated in
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such a way as, as if they had this kind of dysphoria or dysmorphia. Uh, but we have transitioned
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into an attitude and a very aggressive posture of not just accepting it, not just, um, saying, okay,
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you know, we'll call you by your pronouns, but actually helping people without the consent of their
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parents physically transition to me without any thought of the physical and psychological
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consequences, uh, for that young person's life. Is that true? Yes. Um, one of the really insidious
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things about this craze is that the activists were able to, to really take over the profession,
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medical professional organization so that almost every medical professional organization has adopted
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affirmative care as their standard, meaning that when a patient shows up and says, I hate my
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body, body, I hate that. I'm, I'm a girl. I'm really a boy. The, the doctor has to agree with
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them. They have to affirm their self-diagnosis. There is no other mental illness. You know, if a child
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shows up and says, I hate, I'm so fat, I hate, I hate my body. Please call me fatty. The, the mental
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health professional does not respond with, okay, fatty, let's help you get liposuction. Right. But when a
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child says, I have gender dysphoria, I hate myself. I'm really a boy. The doctor is supposed to say,
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okay, Jimmy, what, let's talk about how to get you the hormones you need.
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So that's the standard. It's not, cause I've heard that it has to be persistent and consistent,
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you know, for a certain number of years. Are you saying that the standard is actually a lot lower
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than that? So that is the, that's the DSM definition in the diagnosis, you know, the diagnostic
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manual that's most, you know, the psychiatric manuals used in the, they, that is the definition of
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gender dysphoria. They require, you know, consistent, persistent feeling and biological sex, but no
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doctors are checking for that. Right. So the patient comes in and says, I have felt this way since I was
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a child and they'll be coached on social media, exactly what to tell the clinics. And by the way,
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it's often not even a doctor. They see, um, they, they, they self-diagnose and it's on the basis of the
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What are some of the physical consequences of young girls and teenagers altering their hormones
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and altering their bodies to try to fit what they believe is their new gender identity?
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So the, the really insidious thing here is there there's good stuff and bad. So the stuff that's
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good, the good effects of, for instance, testosterone, and these girls are taking massive doses,
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um, are it suppresses anxiety. So they feel better. It delivers euphoria. So they can't wait to tell
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their friends how great it is. Um, and it even helps them treat, it even helps them treat depression
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and it also redistributes fat. So girls who have changing bodies, who maybe are having trouble
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controlling their weight for the first times in their lives, all of a sudden that's taken care of.
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So they feel great. The problem is of course, um, long-term it, there's a, a very large risk
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of infertility. Very, uh, if they've been on it for five years, um, doctors will recommend a
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prophylactic hysterectomy. Um, it will add body hair and facial hair in ways that don't go away.
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It alters body feet. It also, it alters facial features and it lowers the voice. Um, it also changes
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a girl's private anatomy and, and that does not seem to go away even if you, after you go off of it.
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So these girls who, uh, for a lot of them decided to transition in this way because they previously
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felt, you know, socially isolated or that they weren't celebrated or accepted. Do most of them
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in your, in your study and your experience find that acceptance and that celebration and that
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self-confidence that they were looking for? So if these girls were thriving,
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I wouldn't have written this book, right? If, if, if the book was just about, you know, these girls
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decide they're transgender, but they get, they go to college, they get great jobs. They have great
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friends. They're so happy. There's not a book to write. Maybe it is better to, to transition in that
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case. Um, the reason I wrote the book is because they're often their mental health deteriorates.
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It's important to know that these girls are not what their, their problem is not actually gender
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dysphoria. In fact, it doesn't look like typical gender dysphoria at all. So the things they do to
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treat it, you know, including transition don't alleviate their mental health problems. And
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very often they get worse. They cut off families. They are unhappy. Their depression gets worse.
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Their dysphoria often gets worse because they go through one treatment, but they still don't quite
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look like a boy. Um, so then the question is what's the next treatment they need.
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We're told by gender activists that if doctors and parents don't affirm their child's boy or girl,
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new gender identity, even if they're three years old and they say, you know, I feel like I'm a boy
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or a girl today. I feel like I'm the opposite sex. If that is not affirmed throughout their life,
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if they're not given, you know, dresses to wear, if they're a boy or a new name, if they're a girl,
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whatever it is, then that is actually what leads to depression and, and, and suicide. It's the
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affirmation we hear that alleviates all of those things and allows them to be their full selves and,
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you know, not be depressed and not feel like outsiders. But is that actually true? Is
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affirmation, um, is affirmation what they need to alleviate the problems that they have?
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So there's actually no proof that affirmation leads to better mental health outcomes or that it,
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um, cures suicidality. Um, you know, there's a very good study by Christina Olson, who's a big
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proponent of affirmation, but, you know, there are a lot of flaws with the study, um, including the
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fact that it didn't, it, it looked at the mental health of these kids some period after affirmation,
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but didn't look at the mental health before they were affirmed. Um, it also relied on parental report,
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which is not, not bad enough itself, but of course the very parents who transition their young
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children are, were then asked, are they happier? And of course there's a high incentive for them to
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say, yes, after all, look what they just did to their, their children. It's very hard for the
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same parents to admit that there might've been a problem, but there there's just been no indication
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that long-term this cures suicidality. And in fact, the suicidality rates are extreme and suicidal
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ideation rates are extremely high even after affirmation and after medical intervention. So
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there, there's certainly no cure. I think that it's fair to say that it's fairly irresponsible of
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therapists to trot out the so-called suicide narrative as quickly as some of them do. Um, the moment,
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a parent is uncomfortable or says, I really don't think this is appropriate for my kids. She never
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had gender dysphoria as a child. The therapist will often immediately hit them with, well,
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she may kill herself then it's, it's an incredibly, um, coercive thing for a therapist to say. And I've
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heard from a lot of parents that it happens as an initial suggestion, not, not even something that
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they have to work up to. Um, how often do these young women, um, want to transition back to being
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a woman? How often are there regrets? So we don't know the rates yet. Um, obviously this has been an
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explosive phenomenon in the last 10 years. So we're still waiting to find out. I can tell you that I've
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interviewed a lot of detransitioners because of course, gender dysphoria was never really, you know,
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typical gender dysphoria was never really their problem. This is very often no solution. So I've
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interviewed a lot of women with a lot of regret. I can only tell you that the detransitioner group on
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Reddit, um, now has 13,000 members. So we know that there's a, and, and the early fast, the earlier
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time that I checked, I guess six months prior, it had only 7,000, I think. So, um, we know that this
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population of detransitioners, so-called, you know, people who did medical transition and now are trying
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to go back that this is exploding. Um, and it's, it's very worrisome because we are fast tracking
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transition in this country. Our psychologists and doctors, I mean, they have to know the science
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and they have, they have to know that this physically, biologically, psychologically,
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isn't best based on the data that we have, uh, is it best to rush young women into transitioning
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simply because they feel, you know, socially isolated? Are, are they just scared of, uh, the,
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the gender activists? Are they scared of getting canceled? Do they just want to be politically
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correct? I mean, why, why aren't more doctors standing up and saying, Hey, this isn't medically
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or scientifically right for these girls? So I think there's a couple of different, you know,
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um, reasons for this, um, and explanations. One is that the science has become highly politicized
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like every other area of science. So for every, you know, even though there are a lot of flaws in
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the studies pushing affirmation, if you, if you're not sort of careful and you don't read them
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critically, a lot of, you know, science, you know, um, doctors really push the idea that,
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that transition is better. And it really, it really takes some digging to show that that's
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not the case, but there's something even worse, which is that in, I think we're up to 18 states
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have passed, um, conversion therapy laws. Now these laws were intended to ban conversion therapy,
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the really ugly practices that tried to, that inflicted a kind of torture on gay kids and trying
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to make them into straight kids. Unfortunately, uh, gender identity language was inserted into these
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laws so that you're not allowed to, as a therapist, try to convince a child who has discomfort in their
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biological sex that they trying to help you're not allowed to, um, or, or you, you run the risk of
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running afoul of the laws. If you try to help them become comfortable in their, in their biological
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sex. Um, the reason that matters is because for years, that's exactly how a therapist treated gender
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dysphoria by helping kids get more comfortable. And they were very successful. It's very strange
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that this culture and these generations that are very centered on self-love, loving yourself and body
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positivity are simultaneously saying in many cases that yes, you should hate your body and your body
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is a mistake and you should deny your body and seek to change your body so it can match what you
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feel on the inside. But to me, I mean, that is obviously contradictory. If we're talking about the
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importance of appreciating your body and appreciating, you know, how God made you, we should say, you know,
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your body actually isn't a mistake and it's okay. If you are a girl who likes to play sports, if you're
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a girl who doesn't like to wear dresses, if you are a girl who is, you know, more tomboy or more
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traditionally masculine, we don't have to abide by every gender stereotype that has ever existed,
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but that doesn't mean that you need to alter your body hormonally and even surgically. Uh, where,
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what happened? Like, when did we jump the shark from saying, okay, gender stereotypes don't have
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to be abided by, but it's okay for you to be who you are to actually gender stereotypes do have to
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be abided by and you have to change who you are to match them. I'm just a little bit confused.
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Right. Well, it's not good today to be a white girl. And a lot of these, it's hard to miss that a
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lot of these are white girls. So I don't think it's great to have a white girl body. They're told in so
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many ways that it's better to be a boy and it's even better to have a victim status.
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And that's what this gives them. It's the only victim status that they can choose for themselves.
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They can't choose to be poor because they're not, there can't choose to be minorities.
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They can't even necessarily choose to be gay, but they can choose to be trans. Um, so it's a way that
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young girls can get popularity and sympathy in schools and in the university.
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Oh, that just breaks my heart. You have gotten even, uh, pushback for this book from places like
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Amazon who said that they weren't going to allow your book to advertise. Is that correct?
00:23:54.160
That that's right. They're there. They advertise all kinds of books that are so excited for teenage
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girls with no childhood history of gender dysphoria to medically transition and change their bodies in
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irreversible ways. But if you have a book that's skeptical of that, they don't allow you to
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promote it. Wow. That's amazing. And they didn't change their mind. I'm sure that you guys kind
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of asked them, what's the deal with this? And did they have a response?
00:24:19.280
Yes. They said that it, um, I think it ran, they said that it was, um, offensive conduct
00:24:24.540
contained offensive content, which is interesting because right next to my book, depending on what
00:24:29.520
search terms you enter, you will get silicone undergarments for trans, you know, biological men
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so that they, you know, have the undergarments to look like they have the anatomy of women. That's,
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that's okay. You can sponsor ads for that. But, but my book that's skeptical that these girls are in,
00:24:46.840
are heading anywhere good. That's, that's not allowed. That's offensive.
00:24:50.620
That is crazy. Um, can you talk about the other side of this as well, not for young women who are
00:24:58.920
transitioning, but also for young women who, um, are now having their exclusively female spaces
00:25:07.420
invaded, um, by biological males in the name of tolerance and inclusion? What's the future
00:25:14.940
of female sports, female bathrooms, female locker rooms?
00:25:19.380
Right. So I think the future is bleak. And I think young girls have figured that out.
00:25:23.320
They know that the culture has turned against them. Part of the, part of the crisis that they're
00:25:27.820
experiencing is not just routine adolescent crisis, but also the fact that, um, they, they know that
00:25:34.720
when, that, that they've noticed that mediocre boy athletes are now allowed to out-compete them,
00:25:40.480
even if they've worked very, very hard. Um, they know that biological men who claim to be women are now
00:25:47.180
allowed in their locker rooms because it's happened. And, and they know that it's just not that esteemed
00:25:52.540
or great right now to be a girl. Um, so yeah, I think that's having a big effect.
00:25:56.960
It was amazing to me because you mentioned, it's not that great to be a white girl. It's not that
00:26:01.860
great to be a girl right now. Where are the, the feminist groups talking about this, who claim to
00:26:08.260
be for the empowerment and the protection of young women? I mean, I know there are feminists who are
00:26:13.820
doing that. Um, JK Rowling, for example, speaking up about some of the just illogic of this movement,
00:26:20.480
but it seems like feminism at large right now is all on board with transgender ideology at the
00:26:27.440
expense of the safety and the wellbeing of girls. That's right. There are a few wonderful
00:26:32.260
organizations, but very few, um, women's liberation front is very good on this, but most of the feminist
00:26:38.560
organizations, it turned out were more interested in being woke than in protecting young girls. So
00:26:44.420
they've been silent on this issue and they can't wait to celebrate trans, um, biological boys who
00:26:49.860
say they're trans women. Um, they, they insist that they are really women. They can't wait to give away
00:26:55.120
young girls, hard earned trophies and scholarships. Um, they, they really, they were so fast to abandon
00:27:01.620
girls. Wow. That's amazing. Um, can you, can you give us any encouragement? This is very, I, it's
00:27:11.640
discouraging for me to hear. It's discouraging for, I have a lot of moms that listen to this podcast,
00:27:17.880
a lot of moms of young girls who are scared. They're doing their best, of course, to protect
00:27:23.240
their children. And I think that, you know, one positive of all of this is that moms and dads are,
00:27:29.460
are waking up to this kind of stuff that we can't just kind of, um, idly watch our kids grow up and
00:27:35.880
trust their schools to raise them and to provide them with the direction that we want them to. And
00:27:40.520
so hopefully parents are getting more involved, but can you give some encouragement or advice to
00:27:45.460
parents, um, who want to make sure that they are protecting and guiding their kids is, is wisely as
00:27:52.560
they possibly can. So I have a lot of encouragement and advice for, for parents in the book. And one thing
00:27:57.740
I'll say is that the generation that was raising kids when the iPhone originally came out in 2007
00:28:03.540
had it really hard because they had no idea of the dangers of the iPhone, both how addictive,
00:28:08.560
how isolating and how much anxiety and mental health distress they were producing in young girls.
00:28:13.340
We now have a mental health crisis that we get among teenage girls that we can pretty precisely
00:28:18.120
pinpoint to the introduction of social media, which has really tormented them, you know,
00:28:23.200
girls who always compared themselves to other girls. One thing parents can do is first of all,
00:28:28.340
they, they've got to get their kids off social media. These girls need to spend more time with
00:28:32.520
friends in person talking. Um, that, that's a, that's a big thing that we're missing today.
00:28:38.280
That's so important for young girls. They need to know that they're not alone and social media
00:28:43.120
doesn't, doesn't give them that. Um, another thing is that parents need to be aware of the gender
00:28:48.060
ideology being pushed in the schools and they need to stop believing the lie that you need to push
00:28:53.440
gender ideology in the schools in order to stop bullying. It's simply not true. A school can oppose
00:28:59.320
bullying of all and any children on any basis without introducing gender confusion into the schools.
00:29:06.640
And how can parents speak up to their schools without, uh, you know, I mean, a lot of them fear
00:29:14.000
getting slammed or even fear having their lives ruined. Nowadays, it's just normal to dox people
00:29:19.620
and call them Karen because they say something that you don't like. Um, is there a kind of a strategy
00:29:25.480
that parents can employ to productively have a dialogue with school administration or the school
00:29:31.180
board, whatever it is about these kinds of policies? Well, that's why I wrote the book. I wrote the
00:29:36.420
book to provide that. I mean, the book is not political. It's not religious. I kept everything to do
00:29:42.420
with those things out of it. It's just a journalistic, you know, skeptical exploration.
00:29:46.840
And I talked to everybody. I talked to people on both sides, um, because I really wanted to
00:29:52.320
investigate what was going on. How are these girls faring and what could we do about it? And,
00:29:57.180
and that's what I did. I really hope to provide ammunition to helping parents fight for the girls.
00:30:02.760
Can you tell everyone where they can purchase your book and where they can find you on social media?
00:30:07.860
Sure. Um, I'm on Twitter at Abigail, Abigail Schreier, uh, on Twitter. And then, um, the book
00:30:14.980
can be purchased on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and books a million, wherever books are sold.
00:30:19.480
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. This was a great conversation and I am loving your book. I'm reading
00:30:25.020
it right now. And I know that there are going to be lots and lots of people who go out right now
00:30:29.900
and, uh, and order your book. Is it at, I'm guessing it's also at local bookstores that people can
00:30:36.560
support and go out and buy the book as well? I think it is. I think it is. I haven't actually
00:30:41.320
entered one in a while, but I think it is. Right. Well, I encourage people to do that.
00:30:46.000
And, uh, maybe even instead of buying it on Amazon, just to support their local bookstore,
00:30:51.440
but thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.
00:30:55.620
It's such a great, it's great to talk to you, Allie. Thank you so much. Thank you.