Deborah Sow is a sex neurologist, author, journalist, and political commentator. She writes about the science of human sexuality, cultural censorship, and academic censorship. She has appeared on the Megyn Kelly Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, The Joe Rogan Experience, and The Ben Shapiro Show. In her recent book, The End of Gender, Dr. Sow challenges the notion that gender is a social construct, and challenges the idea that there is no difference between how male and female brains operate.
00:00:00.000Parliament unanimously passed Bill C-4, the supposed ban on conversion therapy,
00:00:05.700but this clunky bill with broad definitions not only hampers free speech,
00:00:10.180it could also dangerously enable a radical ideology that tells children that gender does not exist.
00:00:15.960I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.
00:00:22.720Hi everyone, thank you so much for tuning into the podcast.
00:00:25.760Now as you know from listening to the show and tuning into True North,
00:00:28.540I wasn't very happy to see all of Parliament come together to ban this bill.
00:00:32.960First of all, the role of the opposition is to oppose.
00:00:35.940So if the Liberals introduce a bill, the Conservatives are there to point out the reasons why the bill is flawed and try to push back.
00:00:42.620In fact, the previous two times that this bill was introduced,
00:00:45.840the Conservatives came up with a handful of reasons why they didn't support this bill,
00:00:49.780the definitions were too broad, it could needlessly criminalize conversations between children and their parents.
00:00:55.900And yet, when the bill was reintroduced, the Conservatives threw away all of their complaints and issues with the bill,
00:01:02.000and they all unanimously supported this bill.
00:01:04.500We saw a silly image in the House of Commons of all the MPs jumping up and down,
00:01:10.100cheering, congratulating themselves, glad-handing, hugging each other, and dancing.
00:01:14.280They were so happy that they passed this bill, which was really never explained to the Canadian public the way that the media talked about it.
00:01:21.800It seemed like, you know, this was such an obvious situation that we had to ban this bill.
00:01:27.100But my guest on the show today, like me, has some issues and some concerns with this bill,
00:01:32.820and we wanted to go into it in a bit more depth.
00:01:35.660So I'm very pleased today to be joined by Dr. Deborah So.
00:01:38.780Deborah So is a sex neurologist, author, journalist, political commentator, and the host of the Deborah So podcast.
00:01:46.100She writes about the science of human sexuality, cultural politics, and academic censorship.
00:01:51.220She's appeared on the Megyn Kelly show, Real Time with Bill Maher, The Joe Rogan Experience,
00:01:55.980and The Ben Shapiro Show, some of the biggest podcasts and shows in the world.
00:01:59.920In her recent book, The End of Gender,
00:02:02.060Dr. So challenges the notion that gender is a social construct and a spectrum.
00:02:06.500And she challenges the idea that there is no difference between how male and female brains operate.
00:02:11.600So, Dr. Deborah So, thank you so much for joining the podcast today.
00:02:26.860I'm wondering if you could elaborate a little bit and explain to us why you also opposed this bill.
00:02:31.980Sure. So I think at best, it is a well-intentioned move, but it is anti-scientific in that it does not differentiate between sexual orientation and gender identity.
00:02:43.440It treats the two as though they are the same thing, even though they are different.
00:02:47.640So conversion therapy for sexual orientation, I do not support because it does not work.
00:02:58.280So someone who is gay or bisexual cannot be made to be straight.
00:03:01.960Gender identity is different from sexual orientation in that it can change over the lifespan, particularly in young children.
00:03:09.860So it is not appropriate to criminalize therapeutic interventions that are not affirmation or any questioning on the part of a clinician to try and understand someone's feeling of gender dysphoria.
00:03:21.860So gender dysphoria is when someone feels more like the opposite sex than their birth sex.
00:03:26.500If someone says that they want to transition, it's important for a clinician to be able to understand really why.
00:03:32.300And I don't do clinical work anymore, but my colleagues who are still in the field are definitely terrified, and they really feel like they're not able to do their jobs properly.
00:03:42.340They're not able to interrogate their patients.
00:03:44.360Obviously, you would do it in a way that is very sensitive and appropriate to your patient, but the fact that that's completely been taken off the table is very worrisome.
00:03:55.140And so as a result, I do think there is going to be an increase of detransitioners in the future.
00:03:59.840So these are people who transition, realize that it doesn't make them feel better, and then they go back to living as their birth sex.
00:04:05.580Sometimes they have permanent side effects of the interventions that they've undergone.
00:04:09.380And that's another part of the conversation that no one seems to want to really talk about as well.
00:04:14.260Well, so it's funny that you say that you think that this bill was well-intentioned.
00:04:18.000And I think that most people, when they hear the term conversion therapy, their minds go to – I remember there was one movie from the 1990s called But I'm a Cheerleader.
00:04:27.420And it was this sort of really funny, satirical comedy about this woman who – this high school girl who – her parents thought she was gay.
00:04:37.140So they sent her to one of these conversion therapy camps.
00:04:40.500And, you know, being around all these other gay kids, she realized that she actually really was gay.
00:04:58.940But really what it does ban is, like you said, conversations, therapy, you know, some of the work – the clinical work that would be done prior to going through such a life-altering situation.
00:05:11.020And I know you said that gender identity changes over a lifetime, but sexual orientation does not.
00:05:18.560But even if you were – say you were gay or bisexual, you could still go to therapy.
00:05:23.920You could still perhaps want to seek a therapist or talk to someone at your church or talk to your parents about your sexual orientation.
00:05:32.180Did you see anything in this bill that would ban those kinds of conversations that would prevent people from being able to get therapeutic help from a trained professional that they would need to?
00:05:43.500And then with regards to gender identity, like what would the real impact be?
00:05:49.660Would people who are – like would clinical specialists, would they have to shut down their clinics?
00:05:56.300Or does this bill close down some of these offices where there are trained psychologists or clinical therapists?
00:06:07.380How would that impact – what would that impact look like?
00:06:11.140So with, say, conversion therapy for sexual orientation, also known as reparative therapy, some of those treatments in the past were definitely very gruesome and really unethical.
00:06:20.840When I think about the difference between, say, children and adults, I could understand a little bit more – I mean, I'm just generally not a fan of people banning things, but I do – I understand the approach of wanting to prevent harm against children.
00:06:36.080So to ban conversion therapy for sexual orientation that treats children, I'm a little bit more understanding of because kids can't – I mean, if their parents are overriding decisions, they may or may not be making the best decision for the child.
00:06:49.920For adults, it still makes me uncomfortable, really, if someone wants to seek therapy to change their sexual orientation, although from my understanding is some of these conversations are not necessarily about change.
00:07:00.320It's more about how to live with these feelings and not act on them, to which I would still say, you know, I don't think there's anything wrong with being gay or bisexual myself.
00:07:08.720I'm straight, but I grew up in the gay community, so I really think acceptance would be a better approach, but with this bill, even adults are not able to seek appropriate treatment with regard to gender identity.
00:07:22.480So if they're questioning their gender, if they're – people feel like the opposite sex or they identify more with the opposite sex for a whole number of reasons, and we see especially in young adults, adolescents who are born female, many of them, their desire to transition and live as male – this comes out of the blue very suddenly for many of them – is driven by many things that don't actually have anything to do with their gender or their sex.
00:07:49.440So sex refers to biology, gender refers to how you feel about your biological sex, and so it's important to be able to get at why someone feels unhappy about being female.
00:07:59.760So in many cases, these individuals have, say, a history of sexual trauma. Some of them are on the autism spectrum. Some of them are lesbian. So those are important conversations to have, and so now with these – any sort of probing from a clinician, that's been criminalized.
00:08:17.680So they'll face up to five years in prison, potentially, is really going to – I mean, who's willing to take that risk?
00:08:25.860I mean, of people I know in the field, only a very small handful of colleagues are willing to take that risk, and that's because they're close to retirement, and so they really don't have much to lose, or they don't really care at this point.
00:08:37.680But for newer clinicians, especially in less experienced clinicians, they're definitely way too scared.
00:08:44.580So, I mean, there was one very prominent case of my colleague, Dr. Ken Zucker, who had his clinic shuttered here in Toronto.
00:08:51.580This was about six years ago. So that was – that really set another, I think, precedent for many people in the field to look at someone like him.
00:08:59.340He's a world expert in gender dysphoria in children, and so people are saying, well, if he's not safe, what chance do I have to be protected?
00:09:08.540Wow. So what do you think, Debra, what do you think the impact will be in terms of – so say there's a child who feels gender dysphoria, identifies with the other gender, and decides –
00:09:24.540you know, that they can't – well, because of this new law, because of this new bill, they can't access the therapy that they may need.
00:09:32.940They go ahead and transition. You mentioned that because of this, with more people transitioning, that more people will detransition,
00:09:41.600because the feeling may change over the lifetime, or they realize, like you said earlier, that changing their gender doesn't actually fix the root problem,
00:09:50.120because they didn't talk it through. Can you talk a little bit about this idea of detransitioning and what that looks like?
00:09:59.000Right. So for those individuals, I mean, I think it's especially sad, because for – and I do support transitioning adults.
00:10:05.940I always want to emphasize that. I think especially if a clinician is able to do their job and ask the right questions and make a proper diagnosis
00:10:14.240and determine whether transition is actually right for someone, I do think it can help people feel better about their gender disabilities.
00:10:20.120But what we're seeing in this case with, especially the young women, they are not being challenged.
00:10:26.380In many cases, they are affirmed outright. No one is asking them about what else is going on in their lives.
00:10:31.800And so whatever it is that is actually driving their desire to live as male, or in some cases, non-binary,
00:10:37.640which is a third gender, which from a scientific perspective does not exist.
00:10:42.840There are two genders, two sexes. And I go into all of the science behind this in my book, The End of Gender.
00:10:47.440So whatever it is that someone is dealing with, that's still going to be there after they've transitioned,
00:10:53.260if that's not what's really driving their gender dysphoria.
00:10:55.840So they're either going to deal with it now with a good therapist in an ideal world,
00:11:01.360or they're going to wait six months, a year, whenever they're done transitioning and realize that they still have these other issues that they have to deal with.
00:11:09.380And then they're going to detransition and deal with those issues later down the line.
00:11:12.480And so that's what you see happening with detransitioners. They will say, I have anxiety, I have unresolved feelings about me.
00:11:21.000I think one common theme is for young women not really liking being sexualized.
00:11:25.260You know, they go through puberty, their bodies change, and they don't appreciate it.
00:11:28.960Suddenly they have men the age of their father or older staring at them in public, and it makes them uncomfortable, understandably.
00:11:35.640And no one is saying to them, you know, that's a really unfortunate part, sometimes, of being a woman.
00:11:40.920But, you know, as you get older, things will change.
00:11:44.740Sometimes you grow comfortable with the attention that you're getting in some cases.
00:11:49.380And so instead people are saying to these young women, no problem, you know, if you want to have a double mastectomy, take hormones.
00:11:57.740In some cases, surgeries, they remove their uterus and their ovaries,
00:12:01.260so they're not able to have a family if they change their mind later.
00:12:06.760And the other thing that really upsets me is to see that these people are completely ignored, for the most part, by the mainstream.
00:12:12.220They're told that they don't exist or they don't matter because people are afraid that talking about detransition
00:12:18.160and the fact that they exist is going to be used to halt transitioning across the board for everyone.
00:12:23.580Or some people will say the only reason they detransitioned is because of social pressure and that it's, you know, socially unacceptable to be transgender.
00:12:31.200But if you actually talk to them and listen to their stories, you really hear another side to this narrative that's being promoted.
00:12:40.140It just sounds like it's so politicized.
00:12:42.880And it seems to me the solution is more conversations and more talking.
00:12:46.780And yet here we have a bill that every parliamentarian agreed on, including the Senate.
00:12:51.660They just fast-tracked it to say less, less conversation, which just seems to be the antithesis of a free society like Canada.
00:13:00.440Debra had a question about what we're seeing in other parts of the world.
00:13:04.680So it seems that Canada is sort of taking the opposite approach and other countries have taken a step back when it comes to concerns about transitioning.
00:13:13.100Finland last year encouraged psychotherapy before transition treatment.
00:13:17.620Australia and New Zealand recently made psychotherapy mandatory or essential.
00:13:23.440And clinics in Sweden stopped prescribing puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones to patients under the age of 18.
00:13:30.960So why do you think Canada is going the opposite direction from these other Western liberal democracies?
00:13:41.100And I don't know why this is happening.
00:13:44.200It's really disappointing because I do think the rest of the world is waking up to this much sooner than we are.
00:13:50.620And my hope is just that, I mean, I don't know at this point the bill has just passed.
00:13:55.100I don't know what more it's going to take.
00:13:56.740But I don't think most people are actually on board with this.
00:14:00.460I think most people just feel afraid to speak up about it.
00:14:03.900They don't want to be called hateful or bigoted or to be called transphobic.
00:14:09.640And especially to see pretty much everyone across the board publicly who speaks on this saying, or in the mainstream at least, saying that this is a good thing for these kids.
00:14:19.280I think many people also maybe genuinely believe that.
00:14:22.020Maybe they think that the science is in support of this, which it is not.
00:14:26.300But, yeah, I'm a bit at a loss for words because it's not a good direction that we're headed in.
00:14:55.820So for children with gender dysphoria, the vast majority of them, once they hit puberty, they will desist, so they will no longer feel dysphoric.
00:15:05.100And they're more likely to grow up to be gay in adulthood and not be transgender.
00:15:09.600But this larger idea about gender fluidity, I think it comes from this idea that most people feel a mix of masculine and feminine.
00:15:19.100I don't think there are many of us who feel 100% masculine or 100% feminine all of the time.
00:15:24.200And what I really think the movement is about, these individuals are looking to dismantle norms and deconstruct things.
00:15:32.220And you see this in all areas of identity with regards to even race, I would say, or, I mean, just everything.
00:15:38.800This is a larger trend we see in academia really being pushed out now into the rest of the world.
00:15:43.420And it's affecting everybody, doesn't matter where you work or even if you're trying to mind your own business, it's going to impede on your life in some way.
00:15:51.240So the gender fluidity thing, I think it's also people just really want to be special to some extent and show that they're somehow different from other people.
00:16:09.400How come then we see so many people claiming that there's, what, dozens or even hundreds of gender, that there's infinite numbers of gender?
00:16:41.240And then with gender, gender refers to, as I mentioned, so sex is biological.
00:16:46.720Gender refers to how we feel in relation to our biological sex.
00:16:50.000So for 99% of us, our biological sex and our gender identity are in alignment.
00:16:56.320For that 1% of people who are either transgender or intersex, some intersex people identify as transgender.
00:17:03.460So intersex people have a combination of both male and female anatomy.
00:17:08.400But they, too, prefer to live within the binary because some activists say, oh, intersex people prove that biological sex is a spectrum or gender is a spectrum.
00:17:16.480Most intersex people actually prefer to live as male or female.
00:17:20.460They don't want to be considered something in between.
00:17:22.620And it's actually the activists who are, in many cases, not intersex themselves who are going at making these proclamations.
00:17:30.440I would say the same thing about the trans community.
00:17:33.380Everyday transgender people are really lovely, and many of them reach out to me to thank me for the things I say, which is really a relief for me.
00:17:39.620So what you have is non-transgender allies, many of whom will identify as one of these exotic genders, you know, that you mentioned.
00:17:46.840There are billions or however many now.
00:17:48.640And I really think it's just about them trying to get intersectional points and to seem relevant.
00:17:54.220Because if you are just a, I don't know, I don't want to point to specific identity markers, but it makes someone seem like they have more validity to what they're saying.
00:18:05.480If they are this, a gender that is, a gender that is not male or female.
00:18:10.880But I'm trying to think if there's anything else in the science I can tell you about that.
00:18:14.980Well, I don't want to be cruel or anything, but when I look through the list, some of them are weird.
00:18:19.960Like, I don't understand how someone's gender could be gender bender.
00:18:22.960That's one of the listed ones that's recognized in the U.S.
00:18:25.620I don't, gender bender, I don't understand how that's a gender.
00:18:30.200But I think, like you said, people just want to be unique and different.
00:18:33.800And it's just like, you know, you can dye your hair and you can do something to make yourself seem more legitimate.
00:18:38.420Well, you can also claim to have a very unique gender, and that might give you some points in the intersectional community.
00:18:48.360So, you know, we're talking about Bill C-4.
00:18:49.940I know it used to be called Bill C-6, but this bill to ban conversion therapy.
00:18:54.000If you were presenting at committee or you had an opportunity to talk to MPs who drafted this bill or who voted on this bill,
00:19:01.820what would you advise that they change about it so that it still enables, you know, proper and important conversations between children that may be feeling gender dysphoric and their clinicians?
00:19:17.440Or, you know, what could be changed about this bill to make it something that you would feel comfortable being passed into law?
00:19:25.100I think that's a really good question.
00:19:26.660I think gender theory and gender ideology have to be removed entirely.
00:19:32.420But I guess in terms of what's specified within it, I would say definitely clinicians should not be criminalized for how they choose to approach therapy.
00:19:45.880I guess it's difficult to really know because there are some clinicians who could potentially be coming from the perspective of being discriminatory, say, towards transgender people and having that be their motivation for asking particular questions or disincentivizing someone from transition.
00:20:05.520But in that case, I think it should be really up to the patient and parents to make a determination.
00:20:12.520I don't I feel in some ways like I understand it's difficult for parents, but I think they should try to really be as involved in the process as well.
00:20:24.620Like I don't I I'm torn here because overall, I would just say, you know, let the clinicians do what they let them do their job.
00:20:33.400And if there are problems there, then treat that on a case by case basis.