The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 319. Detransition： The Wounds that Won't Heal

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00:01:30.580 Hello everyone watching and listening on YouTube and on the Daily Wire platform associated podcasts.

00:01:36.120 We have a rough one today, so buckle up. I'm speaking with Chloe Cole,

00:01:42.100 an 18-year-old so-called detransitioner from the Central Valley of California. She started her

00:01:50.260 transition at 12 years old, puberty blockers and testosterone at 13, and had a double mastectomy

00:01:56.960 at 15 years old. She is now a strong advocate against gender ideology and seeks legally to hold

00:02:05.500 those propelling it forward accountable. Hello, Chloe. Merry Christmas.

00:02:10.880 Merry Christmas. Thanks for agreeing to talk to me today and to everybody who's watching and

00:02:15.620 listening. You've been through quite a complicated experience, to say the least, for the last five

00:02:21.900 or six years, and you've decided in recent months to go public with your story and also to initiate

00:02:28.480 some legal proceedings against the medical professionals who, what would you say, aided you in your exciting

00:02:35.920 journey. And so, do you want to tell us exactly, tell us the situation you're in now and tell us

00:02:42.200 about what's happened to you since you were, well, since you emerged from childhood.

00:02:48.740 Yeah, so at the age of 12, I started experiencing some gender dysphoria and

00:02:55.400 I started seeing a therapist and I got the diagnosis and I started going on the path of medical transition

00:03:04.340 at the age of 13, starting with blockers and then moving on to hormones. And at 15, I got a double

00:03:11.020 mastectomy, but it turned out that it wasn't the best decision for me. And I stopped transitioning at the age

00:03:19.820 of 16. Okay, so let's go back to when you were, let's go back to when you were 12. About when did you

00:03:29.580 hit puberty? I had a fairly early puberty, actually. I started, I started developing at around the age of

00:03:39.580 nine, if not a little bit earlier. Okay, okay. And so, so at nine, did that, do you remember if that

00:03:48.520 changed you emotionally? Yeah, it did. I, it was really difficult for me, actually.

00:04:00.040 Okay, so let me give you a little background. You tell me if anybody's ever told you this before,

00:04:05.660 okay? So boys and girls experience, before puberty, experience approximately the same levels of negative

00:04:14.380 emotion. So that would be primarily anxiety and emotional pain, or even sometimes susceptibility

00:04:20.300 to physical pain. And emotions like frustration and disappointment and shame and guilt and

00:04:25.500 self-consciousness are all part of that, what would you call it, network of negative emotion.

00:04:31.540 Now, what happens to girls when they hit puberty, and no one knows exactly why this is, is that their

00:04:36.400 negative emotion levels go up. And so that on average, women, biologically mature women,

00:04:43.840 are more sensitive to negative emotion than biologically mature men. And that kicks in at

00:04:49.400 puberty. Now, there's a variety of explanations for that, but no one knows for certain. And here's

00:04:55.980 some of them. Okay, so first of all, sexual dimorphism and physical strength really emerges at puberty.

00:05:05.040 So boys and girls are pretty evenly matched physically. But once puberty kicks in, boys are taller,

00:05:10.760 stronger, stronger, heavier, and they're much stronger in terms of upper body strength. So women are at a

00:05:16.960 disadvantage physically in relationship to anything that might have to do with physical combat. And so on those

00:05:23.940 grounds, it makes sense for women to be somewhat more sensitive to threat. Okay, so then the other

00:05:29.320 explanation is that women are more vulnerably sexually than men, because they bear a much higher cost for

00:05:37.980 reproduction, obviously, with pregnancy and protracted dependence of infants. And so it makes

00:05:44.420 so they're more vulnerable on the sexual front. So it makes it makes sense for them to be more sensitive

00:05:50.420 to any threat that's associated with sexual activity. And then the third explanation, and there may be more,

00:05:56.320 is that women are charged, generally speaking, with the primary responsibility for infants. And infants are

00:06:04.760 extremely dependent and vulnerable. And so you could make a case that adult women's nervous systems are

00:06:11.640 actually adapted for the mother-child dyad, and not for the, say, emotional well-being of the

00:06:20.040 individual woman. And a woman needs to be threat sensitive, because she's going to be taking care of

00:06:26.340 infants and extremely dependent children. And it makes sense for her to be more cognizant of threats

00:06:32.540 as a consequence, even though the negative consequence of that for women, and all of this,

00:06:38.580 is that women are much more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety than men. Cross-culturally,

00:06:44.920 it's between three to one and five to one. Now, men have their associated pathologies. Men are more

00:06:50.460 likely to be antisocial, for example, and to abuse alcohol. But women predominate on the negative

00:06:57.600 emotion side. And so, and then I would say that's exacerbated, you know, if you hit puberty early,

00:07:03.600 because you have to deal with these complexities of physiological transformation at a very young age.

00:07:10.180 And so that's a difficult thing to handle emotionally. And then there's the additional

00:07:15.460 consequence of whatever hormonal turbulence might emerge as a consequence of the onset of puberty.

00:07:21.880 So it's very common for young women to experience high levels of negative emotion and for those

00:07:29.400 emotions to be focused on their body. Because another thing that's characteristic of female negative

00:07:35.360 emotion is that the self-consciousness associated with that tends to focus very particularly on body

00:07:43.100 shame and self-consciousness. And that might be because women are evaluated more rigorously

00:07:49.980 on the basis of their physical appearance than men. Men are evaluated more harshly sexually,

00:07:56.280 let's say, on the performance side, you know, with regard to socioeconomic status and so forth.

00:08:01.840 But women are definitely evaluated more harshly by men and by each other in terms of their physical

00:08:07.860 attractiveness. So that makes quite a complicated situation for girls who are making the transition

00:08:15.140 into puberty. And a lot of them are depressed and anxious and develop an intense focus on their body.

00:08:21.940 So I don't know how much of that was explained to you by your therapists or the medical professionals,

00:08:27.020 but that's all well documented psychological and medical information.

00:08:32.320 Yeah, none of that was really explained to me by therapists or even growing up.

00:08:36.880 I mean, even so, that all, every single part of what you said actually played a role in a lot of my childhood distress

00:08:46.520 and my transition and eventually my detransition, actually. You know, growing up, I was a bit of a tomboy

00:08:54.700 and also on the spectrum. And I didn't know this until I was diagnosed just last year,

00:08:59.380 but it did play a role in my socialization and my difficulty getting along with other girls growing up.

00:09:05.940 And I found that I fit in more with the boys. And when I hit puberty, it was a bit earlier than most of my peers

00:09:12.560 and I got taller than them. And, you know, I could keep up with the boys then and I had a lot of pride in that.

00:09:19.900 But as the years went on, they started to get taller than me and outmatch me physically.

00:09:25.260 And this did bring on a bit of distress for me. And, you know, as I got older, socialization began to become more sex-oriented.

00:09:37.260 And I found it even harder to fit in with girls my age.

00:09:43.220 But at the same time, I was also starting to notice there was a divide between me and boys in several ways.

00:09:49.640 And there was a lot of loneliness for me because on one hand, I didn't really feel like I was one of the girls.

00:09:55.640 But on the other hand, I was losing my connection with some of my friends who I was close with and really cared about.

00:10:04.800 And I also had some body image issues growing up as well.

00:10:11.200 I often talk about how social media played a role in it, but really it started from a very young age, actually.

00:10:16.800 I mean, I grew up—I was born into a very image-oriented, very sex-oriented society.

00:10:22.540 And, you know, before I hit puberty, I was looking forward to having a developed body and eventually growing breasts.

00:10:29.020 And, you know, once I hit puberty and—once I hit puberty, I was—it wasn't what I expected.

00:10:40.560 And I was really quite disappointed in how I looked.

00:10:42.900 I was very, very skinny.

00:10:45.460 I was on the smaller-chested side.

00:10:47.460 And, you know, I grew up in an age where we kind of glorified bodies that are very, very voluptuous, lots of curves.

00:10:58.800 People often use a phrase like body heavy—I mean, bottom heavy or hourglass pear-shaped, things like that.

00:11:05.440 And I didn't look like that at all.

00:11:06.400 I was, you know, I was quite thin, a little on the muscular side.

00:11:09.540 And if anything, my shoulders were probably the widest point in my body.

00:11:15.700 And I kind of had a complex over this.

00:11:18.940 I also liked having my hair short.

00:11:20.500 And because of all this, I felt like, if anything, I didn't really look like a girl at all.

00:11:24.020 I didn't look like the other girls my age.

00:11:26.700 And I felt like I just wasn't pretty and that I would never really have any worth as a woman.

00:11:33.980 It's a very rare adolescent and probably a particularly rare female adolescent who feels attractive in the early stages of puberty.

00:11:46.680 You know, so everything that you experienced, although you may have experienced it, you know, in an exaggerated manner for some of the reasons you laid out.

00:11:53.180 But everything you experienced is, in some real sense, par for the course for a few years for the vast majority of people.

00:12:00.520 Now, you did add one additional issue, which we could delve into a little bit, which I think is relevant.

00:12:05.740 So, you said that you're on the spectrum and that you had an easier time communicating with boys than with girls.

00:12:11.980 And so, here's something to know about that.

00:12:14.860 So, the biggest reliable difference that's being documented between males and females,

00:12:22.140 and this becomes even larger in egalitarian societies, by the way, is orientation of interest.

00:12:29.180 So, women are higher in negative emotion and they're more agreeable.

00:12:32.940 And agreeableness is both compassion and politeness.

00:12:37.100 And although the difference between men and women isn't massive, it's significant and it also maximizes in egalitarian societies.

00:12:45.620 So, it looks like it's biological.

00:12:47.480 But the biggest difference is in interest.

00:12:49.340 And boys, males, are more reliably interested in things.

00:12:56.820 And girls, females, are more reliably interested in people.

00:13:00.900 But people on the autistic spectrum are also more reliably interested in things.

00:13:06.980 And so, for example, if you're extremely autistic, the psychological phrase for descriptive purposes is lacking theory of mind.

00:13:18.360 And so, extremely autistic people have a hard time understanding what's going on in someone else's mind at all.

00:13:26.260 They tend to be almost entirely thing-oriented.

00:13:28.820 And there's a much higher preponderance of autistic symptoms among engineers.

00:13:34.960 And then if engineers in Silicon Valley, for example, male engineers and female engineers often, by statistical comparison, often marry.

00:13:44.680 And their children are disproportionately likely to be autistic.

00:13:47.720 And so, the fact that you are tilted towards the autistic end of the spectrum, first of all, that might just be an indication of neurological wiring that tilts you towards interest in things, just so you know that.

00:14:03.400 So, that's not necessarily autistic in and of itself.

00:14:05.960 It's just part of the normal variation in, what would you call it, well, in attentional orientation.

00:14:12.460 But the fact that you were on the spectrum, let's say, and more interested in things is going to make it more difficult for you to communicate with girls.

00:14:21.320 Because girls are reliably more interested in people.

00:14:25.320 And so, and then on the image front, you know, this ties in with the idea of self-consciousness.

00:14:31.800 So, if you're on stage and you're talking to people and you become aware of yourself, tends to make you nervous and sweat and to become uncomfortable, to experience high levels of negative emotion.

00:14:45.400 And self-consciousness itself looks like a manifestation of negative emotion.

00:14:51.420 They're incredibly tightly linked statistically, almost indistinguishable from one another.

00:14:56.500 And so, what you see happening very often in girls, because girls are self-conscious in relationship to their body, because that's one of the primary ways they're assessed, let's say, for attractiveness and for social status, is that that self-consciousness tends to take the form of intense preoccupation with body and with image.

00:15:17.140 And so, that can be exacerbated by whatever social trends happen to be in place, but it's a very deep-seated problem.

00:15:25.720 And so, that's part of, and also the fact that you hit puberty earlier is going to make that, obviously, is going to make that more complicated, because it means you're not as neurologically or practically mature when you have to contend with all these issues.

00:15:40.660 So, everything that you described, in some sense, could have been attributed to the difficulties of normative development, just so you know.

00:15:52.760 And this proclivity of teenagers to develop depression and anxiety, I want to take that apart for a minute, too, for everybody who's listening.

00:16:00.780 So, imagine gender dysphoria.

00:16:05.080 Okay, so, 10 years ago, it was comparatively rare, but not unheard of.

00:16:09.020 But imagine it has two components, okay?

00:16:12.160 One is a tendency towards negative emotion, so suffering, anxiety, depression, frustration, disappointment, pain, shame, guilt, self-consciousness, all of that.

00:16:23.340 And then imagine there's a second part of it that's more specifically focused on discomfort with the body.

00:16:30.240 Okay, the first part of that is the bulk of it.

00:16:33.960 So, if you look across forms of psychopathology, like mental illness, the major segment is high levels of negative emotion like depression and anxiety.

00:16:47.640 And a secondary segment is the particular manifestation of that, in your case, in body dysmorphia.

00:16:54.380 And so, and then the claims that uninformed mental health professionals make that you're at elevated risk for suicide if you're gender dysphoric is erroneous because the elevated risk for suicide is actually a consequence of the general proclivity for depression and anxiety.

00:17:15.820 And not a specific consequence of the gender dysphoria, or at least that's only a small subcomponent of it.

00:17:23.940 And so, that's another thing to know is that the main clump of psychopathological manifestation, mental illness, is centered on heightened levels of negative emotion.

00:17:33.940 And, of course, that spikes for adolescent girls.

00:17:36.680 Now, you may have been told this, but perhaps you weren't.

00:17:40.760 So, there are good long-term studies of children with gender dysphoria.

00:17:46.460 Most of them were conducted in Toronto, where I happened to be, by a man named Ken Zucker.

00:17:51.040 And Zucker ran a clinic for gender dysphoric kids way before this became part of the culture war, let's say.

00:17:57.800 And he was a very straight and honest scientist, a very good researcher, not a political person.

00:18:04.080 And what he showed was, what his clinic showed, many peer-reviewed studies, was that gender dysphoria of the type that you described is relatively rare.

00:18:15.240 But if you leave kids alone till they're 19 or 18, 80 to 90 percent of them settle into their biological identity.

00:18:26.000 Although, about 80 percent of them are also homosexual in their orientation.

00:18:32.960 And so, the pathway for him, before this was all politicized, was you'd have a child who was gender non-conforming temperamentally, somewhat like you were.

00:18:45.340 You didn't have a pattern of female interests, let's say.

00:18:47.980 And so, and then prone to depression and anxiety, and then that combination would produce this gender dysphoria.

00:18:55.040 And that would become quite intense around the dawn of puberty.

00:18:59.060 But if you just backed the hell off and waited, those kids would settle into their body.

00:19:05.700 But generally, I'd adopt a homosexual orientation.

00:19:09.420 And so, that was, as far as I could tell, that was the best research.

00:19:12.600 Now, Zucker got slaughtered for this once it became politicized.

00:19:17.500 He lost his job.

00:19:18.600 He was pilloried by the Toronto Star, the newspaper here.

00:19:22.480 He won a lawsuit against them just a couple of years ago, but they demolished his career.

00:19:27.280 And his guideline medically was, don't do any harm, right?

00:19:34.320 Back the hell off.

00:19:35.600 You can provide these kids with support, and you can walk them through their emotional problems,

00:19:40.660 but you should certainly not rush into anything more dramatic.

00:19:45.280 Now, you said you started therapy when you were 12.

00:19:49.920 What were you told about what was plaguing you?

00:19:54.480 I think before I get into that, there's some things that I should bring up before that.

00:19:59.460 I mentioned that I did have a late diagnosis for autism, and this is because in preschool,

00:20:08.760 in my elementary school years, my teachers often told my parents, actually,

00:20:14.160 that I had some symptoms indicative of autism, and they suggested that they get me diagnosed.

00:20:21.120 But when they brought me to my doctor as a kid, they were told,

00:20:24.900 oh, she's too smart to be autistic.

00:20:26.900 She's too socially developed to be autistic.

00:20:29.420 And so I kind of missed the best opportunity window, the best ages, I guess you would say,

00:20:35.480 to get the diagnosis.

00:20:37.560 It wasn't until after I stopped transitioning that I got the diagnosis, actually.

00:20:42.820 And I find that that played a stronger role in the development of my gender dysphoria

00:20:51.560 than my sexual orientation did because I'm mostly heterosexual.

00:20:59.820 I'm mostly attracted to men.

00:21:01.420 And, I mean, I do have, like, a very marginal attraction to other women,

00:21:04.740 but it's mostly sexual in nature.

00:21:06.420 I don't really have any emotional attraction to them,

00:21:08.620 and it's not something that I really ever care about because, I mean, it's not like—

00:21:14.100 I do want to have a family one day.

00:21:15.480 I do want to have children, and I can't really do that naturally with a woman,

00:21:19.060 so I just don't really see a point in it.

00:21:23.540 Yeah, well, there is some evidence, by the way, too,

00:21:26.420 and I would say this evidence is less compelling,

00:21:30.420 but I think it's worth contemplating is that the distribution of sexual attraction in men

00:21:38.940 looks like it's more bimodal than it is in women.

00:21:42.000 And so there seem to be homosexual men and heterosexual men and not much in between.

00:21:49.780 But on the female side, there's some evidence that women are more broadly attracted to what—

00:21:58.480 obviously, most women are heterosexual in their orientation,

00:22:01.920 but a higher proportion of women report a co-attraction to other women

00:22:07.300 than men who report a co-attraction to other men.

00:22:10.780 And so why that is, again, isn't exactly obvious,

00:22:15.360 but—and I wouldn't say that research is incontrovertible,

00:22:19.520 but it's also worth knowing because one of the things that young women

00:22:24.320 who are confused about their sexual identity and their body might be wondering is,

00:22:29.320 well, now and then I feel an attraction to another girl.

00:22:33.140 What does that mean?

00:22:34.600 Does that mean that I'm not, you know, female in my essence?

00:22:39.400 Am I not female physiologically?

00:22:41.060 I'm not female psychologically?

00:22:42.600 And I would say, no, it doesn't mean that at all.

00:22:44.360 It's pretty damn common.

00:22:46.180 It might even be the norm.

00:22:47.900 And I think most women would—when pushed—would make the same statement

00:22:54.040 that you just made about their relative sexual attraction.

00:22:57.080 So that's a good thing to know, too.

00:22:59.660 Okay, so back when you were 12, so you weren't diagnosed with—

00:23:03.060 you were diagnosed a little bit with autism when you were young,

00:23:05.680 but you were told by your medical professionals

00:23:08.060 that you were too intelligent for that diagnosis to be relevant.

00:23:13.200 And so, well, part of that's this distinction, right?

00:23:15.780 It's complicated because what symptoms—

00:23:19.420 what symptoms did you have of autism when you were a kid?

00:23:24.660 It was mainly social and emotional.

00:23:27.240 I was very prone to emotional outbursts

00:23:29.700 and mainly getting along with and maintaining friendships.

00:23:35.000 And also, I did also have some sensory difficulties,

00:23:39.200 like with certain textures of fabrics or certain smells,

00:23:43.140 certain foods I wouldn't eat.

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00:25:25.220 Uh-huh, uh-huh.

00:25:26.520 So, okay, so it was mostly in the social realm.

00:25:28.780 And what about your language development?

00:25:30.860 Was it normal?

00:25:32.400 Do you know?

00:25:33.280 I was advanced, actually.

00:25:35.600 I had taught myself to read and write,

00:25:37.840 and I was further ahead of my peers in that area.

00:25:43.120 Okay, okay.

00:25:44.040 Because one, so yeah, you'd be a complicated case

00:25:46.740 to assess as a child, given your retrospective report,

00:25:51.220 because another one of the stellar,

00:25:54.580 what would you say, cardinal characteristics

00:25:57.240 of autism is delayed language development.

00:26:00.320 And so that might have been partly

00:26:02.360 what the physicians were referring to

00:26:04.120 when they said, you know,

00:26:05.260 that you were too smart to be autistic.

00:26:07.140 But then it's also difficult to parse apart

00:26:09.280 the fact that it is a distribution

00:26:12.120 and the mere fact that you had difficulties

00:26:15.820 in social communication.

00:26:17.420 And were you interested in things?

00:26:19.680 Yeah.

00:26:19.900 Like, were you interested in building?

00:26:21.220 You were.

00:26:21.760 What about mathematically?

00:26:24.600 Um, what do you mean by that?

00:26:29.000 Do you, well, are you interested in,

00:26:31.320 are you more, are you interested in mathematics

00:26:33.120 or are you more literary in your orientation?

00:26:35.480 Um, definitely more, more literary.

00:26:38.180 And I'm also a bit of an artist.

00:26:39.940 I've, I've always liked drawing from a pretty young age,

00:26:42.480 as far back as I can remember.

00:26:44.980 And so what, what do you do on the hobby side?

00:26:47.500 Like if you're, if you're just left to your own devices,

00:26:49.800 what, what, what kind of activities would you engage in?

00:26:55.220 Usually either like, either illustration or video games.

00:27:02.200 And so you, would you regard yourself as a creative person?

00:27:06.140 Yeah.

00:27:07.780 Okay.

00:27:08.280 See, that's relevant too, eh?

00:27:09.920 Because, um, so creativity is associated

00:27:14.000 with this personality trait, uh, openness.

00:27:17.860 And open people have pretty mutable identities.

00:27:21.040 It's sort of the hallmark of being creative, right?

00:27:23.280 Is a creative person isn't that stable in their identity.

00:27:27.280 And I don't mean in the negative emotion sense.

00:27:29.780 I mean, they can be one person or another.

00:27:32.400 They're changing.

00:27:33.580 That mutability is part of being creative.

00:27:35.720 And so in your situation, if you had social difficulties,

00:27:40.320 if you had high levels of negative emotion,

00:27:42.600 if you were characterized by bodily self-consciousness

00:27:45.580 and you were creative,

00:27:47.540 then you're a pretty good candidate for the idea

00:27:51.140 that your gender might not be properly aligned

00:27:54.760 with your physiology.

00:27:56.440 You know, you've got all the, you've got all the risk factors,

00:27:59.820 so to speak, that would put someone in that category.

00:28:04.200 Okay.

00:28:04.440 So when you were 12, you started therapy.

00:28:06.560 And why was that?

00:28:07.920 And what happened?

00:28:10.200 Um, so,

00:28:12.600 I was about 11 when I got my first phone

00:28:15.640 and I started using social media.

00:28:17.420 The main platform I would use was Instagram.

00:28:20.000 So very image-oriented.

00:28:21.680 Very image-oriented.

00:28:23.300 Right.

00:28:23.460 And, yeah, it further reinforced

00:28:26.100 and

00:28:27.000 worsened my body image issues.

00:28:33.120 And, um,

00:28:34.000 I was just force-fed a lot of content

00:28:39.060 that was just very difficult to take in.

00:28:40.640 Um,

00:28:42.480 Okay, so tell me,

00:28:43.280 tell me about that in some detail.

00:28:45.060 So,

00:28:45.320 you're using Instagram.

00:28:46.940 It's a very image-oriented platform.

00:28:48.920 And you said that was really hard on you.

00:28:50.780 You alluded to,

00:28:51.900 earlier,

00:28:52.380 you alluded to the fact

00:28:53.360 that you were looking at

00:28:54.560 socially approved images of women,

00:28:57.060 let's say voluptuous women,

00:28:58.320 and you were drawing

00:29:00.360 a negative conclusion

00:29:01.720 in relationship to yourself.

00:29:03.780 And so,

00:29:04.700 exactly how did that play out

00:29:06.160 day to day?

00:29:08.380 Um,

00:29:09.420 I started comparing myself a lot

00:29:10.960 to, like,

00:29:12.160 my family

00:29:12.740 and the other girls around me.

00:29:15.020 Um,

00:29:16.020 I mean,

00:29:16.380 a lot of my,

00:29:17.200 a lot of my female family members

00:29:18.840 are larger-chested,

00:29:20.060 but I

00:29:20.760 got the

00:29:21.940 smaller-breasted genes

00:29:23.220 and I was really

00:29:24.200 quite insecure about this.

00:29:25.780 And even though

00:29:27.580 I hit puberty

00:29:28.140 earlier than my other peers,

00:29:29.580 a lot of them were

00:29:30.280 outgrowing me

00:29:31.580 and I felt like

00:29:32.920 I just couldn't

00:29:34.040 keep up with other women.

00:29:35.920 Um,

00:29:36.800 and also,

00:29:38.340 in a lot of my conversations

00:29:40.460 or, like,

00:29:41.340 the conversations

00:29:41.880 I would overhear

00:29:42.840 between other girls

00:29:44.980 and women,

00:29:46.020 they often spoke

00:29:46.820 very negatively

00:29:47.540 of being a woman

00:29:49.200 in general,

00:29:49.920 like,

00:29:50.780 about how difficult

00:29:51.740 puberty is

00:29:52.560 and periods

00:29:53.380 and how scary

00:29:55.420 it is to be pregnant

00:29:56.620 and then give birth

00:29:57.700 and,

00:29:58.420 and then have

00:30:00.120 all these expectations

00:30:00.920 placed on you

00:30:01.620 as a mother

00:30:02.140 and then start aging,

00:30:04.480 start having these

00:30:05.060 bodily changes

00:30:05.800 and then eventually

00:30:06.520 go through menopause

00:30:07.440 and it was all painted

00:30:08.380 in a very negative light.

00:30:09.860 I never really heard

00:30:10.880 about the blessings

00:30:11.560 that came with

00:30:12.700 any of these parts

00:30:13.660 of being a woman

00:30:15.380 and so naturally,

00:30:17.280 I mean,

00:30:18.640 I wouldn't want to

00:30:19.300 grow into one.

00:30:19.320 So you were starting

00:30:19.620 to get afraid of that.

00:30:21.380 Yeah.

00:30:21.980 Right, right.

00:30:22.480 Yeah, well,

00:30:23.240 you know,

00:30:23.540 in my,

00:30:24.840 go ahead.

00:30:27.100 I would also start

00:30:28.220 seeing a lot of

00:30:29.220 feminist content

00:30:30.240 at this time,

00:30:31.260 which kind of

00:30:32.140 reinforced those

00:30:32.900 same ideas

00:30:33.480 while also saying

00:30:34.420 things that were

00:30:36.120 pretty scary to me

00:30:37.160 at the time,

00:30:37.680 like,

00:30:38.360 oh, we live

00:30:38.820 under a patriarchy,

00:30:39.680 we're being controlled

00:30:40.460 by men

00:30:40.940 and they don't care

00:30:41.520 about us,

00:30:42.060 they're taking away

00:30:42.880 our rights

00:30:43.420 and,

00:30:44.940 you know,

00:30:46.180 I don't believe

00:30:47.140 that now,

00:30:47.940 of course,

00:30:48.460 but I kind

00:30:50.720 of fell

00:30:52.520 into that line

00:30:53.400 of thinking

00:30:53.800 and I wanted,

00:30:55.520 I mean,

00:30:55.840 with all this,

00:30:56.600 I just wanted

00:30:57.540 absolutely nothing

00:30:58.180 to do with being

00:30:59.200 a woman.

00:30:59.680 I didn't want

00:31:00.140 to grow into a woman.

00:31:01.060 Why would I?

00:31:03.180 Okay,

00:31:03.740 so two things

00:31:04.800 were happening

00:31:05.320 to you.

00:31:05.860 You said,

00:31:07.280 on the one hand,

00:31:09.340 individually,

00:31:10.760 you were suffering

00:31:11.740 from the consequences

00:31:13.740 of your felt

00:31:14.860 inadequacy

00:31:15.840 in relationship

00:31:16.660 to these more

00:31:17.520 voluptuous

00:31:18.280 and,

00:31:18.700 like,

00:31:19.460 clearly,

00:31:20.060 markedly

00:31:20.720 feminine women

00:31:22.100 in relationship

00:31:23.860 to their physiology

00:31:24.840 and so you felt

00:31:26.160 that that wasn't

00:31:26.980 a domain

00:31:27.540 that you could

00:31:28.120 necessarily compete in

00:31:29.500 and then also

00:31:31.240 at the same time

00:31:32.420 you were being

00:31:33.660 exposed to

00:31:35.040 social and educational

00:31:37.040 material

00:31:38.060 that suggested

00:31:39.680 to you

00:31:40.280 that not only

00:31:41.680 was this a game

00:31:42.760 that you couldn't

00:31:43.560 play very well,

00:31:44.700 let's say,

00:31:45.240 in terms of your

00:31:45.920 physical appearance

00:31:46.740 or maybe your

00:31:47.360 temperament,

00:31:48.040 but also that even

00:31:49.060 if you did play it

00:31:49.960 well,

00:31:50.180 it wasn't necessarily

00:31:51.020 a game worth winning,

00:31:52.260 that there wasn't

00:31:52.920 anything positive

00:31:53.680 on the female front.

00:31:55.240 You know,

00:31:55.500 when my wife was

00:31:56.280 pregnant with our kids,

00:31:57.980 one of the things

00:31:58.720 that really struck me

00:31:59.860 and I never really

00:32:02.000 forgot it,

00:32:02.620 was that so many

00:32:04.140 people would tell

00:32:05.020 her horror stories

00:32:06.060 about pregnancy,

00:32:08.500 sometimes their own

00:32:09.480 or sometimes

00:32:10.140 the pregnancy

00:32:11.040 of other people

00:32:11.820 that,

00:32:12.460 you know,

00:32:13.860 that they had

00:32:14.380 known

00:32:14.700 and really

00:32:15.840 do what they

00:32:16.560 could to

00:32:16.880 terrify her

00:32:17.540 and that

00:32:17.860 always used

00:32:18.540 to irritate me

00:32:19.380 because my wife

00:32:20.460 actually really

00:32:21.040 enjoyed being

00:32:21.640 pregnant.

00:32:22.220 I mean,

00:32:22.500 my daughter

00:32:23.500 got quite ill

00:32:24.660 when she was

00:32:25.100 pregnant,

00:32:25.380 so I know

00:32:25.780 there's a huge

00:32:26.340 variation there.

00:32:27.420 I saw that

00:32:27.860 with my clinical

00:32:28.420 clients,

00:32:28.940 but it's not

00:32:29.920 like there's

00:32:30.360 nothing positive

00:32:31.160 about being

00:32:31.880 female.

00:32:32.600 There's plenty

00:32:33.440 of positive

00:32:34.040 about it,

00:32:34.600 but it's easy

00:32:35.980 to fall

00:32:37.600 into a situation

00:32:38.540 where all you

00:32:39.680 hear is that,

00:32:40.560 well,

00:32:41.180 it's oppression,

00:32:42.140 it's suffering,

00:32:43.360 it's vulnerability,

00:32:44.540 it's victimization.

00:32:46.640 There's nothing

00:32:47.220 about it

00:32:47.660 that's positive

00:32:48.740 at all.

00:32:50.080 And,

00:32:50.320 you know,

00:32:51.080 I think part

00:32:51.660 of that's a

00:32:52.080 consequence

00:32:52.460 of the higher

00:32:53.100 levels of

00:32:53.740 negative emotion,

00:32:54.900 right?

00:32:55.360 A necessary

00:32:56.020 consequence of

00:32:56.860 that because

00:32:57.300 women are

00:32:57.860 more susceptible

00:32:58.840 to threat

00:33:00.480 and punishment.

00:33:01.720 But that

00:33:03.800 doesn't seem

00:33:04.400 really to have

00:33:05.300 all that much

00:33:06.220 to do in

00:33:07.080 any real sense

00:33:07.860 with women's

00:33:09.340 actual place

00:33:10.520 in the social

00:33:11.120 hierarchy.

00:33:12.520 And the reason

00:33:13.120 I say that

00:33:13.820 is because,

00:33:14.760 you see,

00:33:15.520 as I mentioned

00:33:17.240 earlier,

00:33:18.260 there are societies

00:33:19.660 that have become

00:33:20.380 more egalitarian

00:33:21.360 and so where

00:33:22.020 women clearly

00:33:22.640 have far more

00:33:23.740 opportunity on

00:33:24.880 the socioeconomic

00:33:25.900 front than

00:33:26.420 they've ever had

00:33:27.120 in the past.

00:33:28.260 And those

00:33:28.600 countries,

00:33:29.520 the countries

00:33:30.180 that have gone

00:33:30.660 farthest down

00:33:31.400 that route

00:33:32.000 are probably

00:33:32.980 the Scandinavian

00:33:33.920 countries.

00:33:35.020 And the

00:33:35.660 consequence of

00:33:36.500 that is that

00:33:37.120 the difference

00:33:38.220 between men

00:33:38.860 and women

00:33:39.240 in negative

00:33:39.740 emotion is

00:33:40.300 actually higher

00:33:41.240 than it is

00:33:42.000 in traditional

00:33:42.680 societies.

00:33:43.940 Women have

00:33:44.680 higher levels

00:33:45.460 of negative

00:33:45.920 emotion in

00:33:46.580 Scandinavia than

00:33:47.440 they do in

00:33:48.080 more traditional

00:33:49.300 societies.

00:33:50.460 And so that

00:33:50.900 doesn't,

00:33:51.420 it doesn't look

00:33:52.260 like the higher

00:33:53.200 levels of negative

00:33:54.220 emotion that are

00:33:54.960 characteristic of

00:33:55.760 femininity are a

00:33:57.060 consequence, let's

00:33:57.980 say, of patriarchal

00:33:58.860 oppression.

00:34:00.320 So there's no

00:34:01.480 evidence to support

00:34:02.480 that hypothesis at

00:34:03.520 all, as far as I

00:34:04.280 can tell.

00:34:04.700 I mean,

00:34:05.460 obviously there are

00:34:06.660 individual women

00:34:08.060 who are in

00:34:09.440 abusive relationships

00:34:10.580 and who are

00:34:11.780 genuinely being

00:34:12.940 victimized by,

00:34:14.380 you know,

00:34:15.160 psychopaths and

00:34:16.000 sadists.

00:34:16.720 But as a

00:34:18.040 sociological

00:34:18.880 explanation,

00:34:20.200 it doesn't seem

00:34:20.700 to hold water.

00:34:21.520 In fact,

00:34:22.000 quite the contrary

00:34:22.720 is true.

00:34:23.500 In any case,

00:34:24.500 you were worried

00:34:25.200 about how you

00:34:26.000 could compete

00:34:26.660 physically.

00:34:27.600 And that's sad

00:34:28.560 too, you know,

00:34:29.180 because men are

00:34:30.760 actually much

00:34:33.040 less choosy,

00:34:34.660 so to speak,

00:34:35.680 than women are

00:34:36.880 when it comes to

00:34:37.620 evaluating physical

00:34:38.720 attractiveness.

00:34:39.560 So for example,

00:34:40.320 virtually every

00:34:41.220 woman can find a

00:34:42.340 sexual partner,

00:34:43.360 and usually very

00:34:44.320 quickly.

00:34:45.000 It's certainly not

00:34:45.720 true for men.

00:34:47.020 Men rate 50% of

00:34:49.080 women as above

00:34:49.880 average in

00:34:50.420 attractiveness,

00:34:51.680 whereas women rate

00:34:52.640 20% of men

00:34:53.940 above average

00:34:55.020 in attractiveness.

00:34:56.400 And so, you know,

00:34:57.640 this variation in

00:34:59.260 body type that

00:35:00.300 you suffered so

00:35:01.620 much from,

00:35:03.040 might not have

00:35:04.080 been an impediment

00:35:04.880 at all to your

00:35:05.860 ability to

00:35:07.060 manifest yourself

00:35:08.460 as an attractive

00:35:09.340 person in a

00:35:10.160 reasonable society.

00:35:11.900 You know, I can

00:35:12.360 understand, because

00:35:13.360 Instagram is a very

00:35:14.360 heavy image-laden

00:35:15.340 platform, and I can

00:35:16.300 understand why you

00:35:17.180 might have been

00:35:18.200 under a misapprehension,

00:35:19.560 but one of the

00:35:20.780 things that a

00:35:21.420 therapist might have

00:35:23.000 done for you is to

00:35:24.160 help you explore the

00:35:25.640 full range of,

00:35:27.120 say, body types

00:35:28.480 that are classified

00:35:30.360 as attractive,

00:35:31.380 and to show you

00:35:32.300 that, you know,

00:35:33.460 it's not, you

00:35:34.520 don't have to be

00:35:35.300 J-Lo to be

00:35:36.200 attractive, and

00:35:37.280 that's definitely

00:35:38.620 the case.

00:35:39.460 And then there's

00:35:39.980 multiple dimensions

00:35:40.740 to attractiveness,

00:35:41.760 too, that aren't

00:35:42.260 only body-focused

00:35:43.500 as well.

00:35:44.140 You know, I mean,

00:35:45.020 men do evaluate

00:35:45.960 women on the basis

00:35:47.340 of their physical

00:35:48.060 attractiveness, but

00:35:49.260 that's not the only

00:35:50.480 dimension of

00:35:51.480 evaluation.

00:35:52.720 There's more to

00:35:53.740 the story than

00:35:54.340 that by a lot.

00:35:56.200 So, okay, so you

00:35:57.260 fell into Instagram,

00:35:58.140 and you also

00:35:58.820 started to become

00:35:59.800 susceptible to

00:36:00.720 this, what would

00:36:02.640 you say, negative

00:36:03.600 propagandization about

00:36:05.260 the female role, so

00:36:06.900 you couldn't see

00:36:07.360 anything positive in

00:36:08.320 that for you, eh?

00:36:09.860 Yeah, and a lot of

00:36:11.600 these feminists

00:36:12.400 would kind of

00:36:12.820 downplay, I guess

00:36:15.140 you could say, like,

00:36:15.700 the traditional role

00:36:16.780 of a woman and the

00:36:18.460 importance of

00:36:19.360 motherhood or even

00:36:20.240 just fulfilling a

00:36:21.260 maternal role.

00:36:22.420 You know, I didn't

00:36:22.900 really value that a

00:36:23.640 lot growing up because

00:36:24.380 I was the youngest

00:36:25.260 of five kids, and

00:36:27.640 I never really had

00:36:28.300 to take care of

00:36:28.840 anybody.

00:36:29.160 I didn't really

00:36:29.560 know what that

00:36:29.960 felt like.

00:36:33.220 And so I never

00:36:34.180 really thought that I

00:36:35.060 wanted to have kids

00:36:35.900 until a few years

00:36:37.980 later, after I

00:36:39.480 stopped transitioning,

00:36:40.180 actually, I realized

00:36:41.080 that I did have a

00:36:42.480 maternal instinct, and

00:36:43.500 I really did want to

00:36:44.180 be a mother and have

00:36:45.100 blood children.

00:36:48.120 And that was an

00:36:48.940 instinct that wasn't

00:36:49.740 really fostered, it

00:36:51.840 wasn't really allowed

00:36:52.380 to grow at all because

00:36:53.240 I was playing the role

00:36:54.880 of a boy and also

00:36:56.520 taking testosterone on

00:36:58.020 top of that.

00:36:59.160 But, you know, at

00:37:01.020 roughly the same time

00:37:02.140 that I started using

00:37:02.940 social media, I

00:37:03.640 started seeing

00:37:04.240 feminist content and

00:37:08.300 just held that as

00:37:11.140 Instagram.

00:37:12.800 I would also see a

00:37:13.940 lot of, like, LGBT

00:37:14.800 focused content.

00:37:18.880 And a lot of it was,

00:37:20.580 like, teenagers and

00:37:23.040 young adults who

00:37:24.540 identified as

00:37:27.680 transgender or

00:37:28.800 non-binary, and it

00:37:29.940 was primarily young

00:37:31.060 women.

00:37:33.660 And I would often

00:37:34.480 see, they, a lot of

00:37:36.660 them had the same

00:37:37.640 struggles as I did

00:37:39.400 socially, and many of

00:37:43.220 them weren't exactly

00:37:44.360 the closest with their

00:37:45.140 families.

00:37:45.540 families, and, you

00:37:47.080 know, I would see

00:37:47.880 them go from

00:37:49.280 struggling to

00:37:51.280 changing their

00:37:52.700 expression, and then

00:37:53.860 eventually becoming

00:37:54.640 more accepted by

00:37:55.940 their families.

00:37:56.920 And it seemed like

00:37:58.420 people really

00:37:59.100 supported them and

00:38:00.000 had their backs, and

00:38:00.900 that they had this

00:38:01.640 sense of community

00:38:02.440 around them.

00:38:03.700 And that was

00:38:04.540 something that really

00:38:05.120 touched me because

00:38:05.880 that was, I didn't

00:38:07.520 really realize it at

00:38:08.940 the time, but I,

00:38:11.280 that was something

00:38:12.500 that I wished that I

00:38:13.380 had.

00:38:13.600 Now, okay, so, so

00:38:17.140 you wished that you

00:38:18.640 had, what, do you

00:38:20.020 mean a peer community?

00:38:21.980 Like, when, when

00:38:22.840 you're, when you were

00:38:23.740 feeling lonesome and

00:38:24.660 isolated, what is it

00:38:26.120 that you were lacking,

00:38:27.220 and what is it that you

00:38:28.120 were wishing for?

00:38:30.240 Um, I think mainly I

00:38:33.740 really wished that I

00:38:35.280 had friends around me

00:38:39.040 who I knew I could

00:38:41.060 depend on and would

00:38:43.140 love me through.

00:38:43.340 Kate, did you have

00:38:44.280 any friends at that

00:38:45.240 period?

00:38:45.500 Did you have any

00:38:46.280 friends at that

00:38:47.020 period of time?

00:38:49.240 I did, but I

00:38:50.000 wasn't, I wouldn't

00:38:52.020 say that I was

00:38:52.980 particularly close to

00:38:55.300 them or that I had

00:38:56.120 very many at school.

00:38:57.220 I mean, um, I

00:39:00.320 didn't really fit in

00:39:01.100 at, I didn't really

00:39:01.980 fit in in middle

00:39:03.080 school.

00:39:03.760 Um, I didn't have a

00:39:04.480 whole lot of friends,

00:39:05.240 and I found that there

00:39:06.920 was kind of a

00:39:07.480 favoritism, um,

00:39:08.840 amongst students by,

00:39:09.880 by staff.

00:39:10.540 And I, you know, I

00:39:13.340 was like a, I was

00:39:14.280 like a new kid, and

00:39:15.600 you know, I wasn't

00:39:16.360 like really involved in

00:39:17.240 any sports or clubs or

00:39:19.660 activities or anything

00:39:20.360 like that.

00:39:21.060 And I was, I was kind

00:39:23.000 of a difficult student,

00:39:23.860 and, um, I found that

00:39:27.160 I was being bullied by

00:39:29.380 both students and

00:39:30.440 staff.

00:39:32.700 Right.

00:39:33.320 And I, I also

00:39:34.040 wasn't, I wasn't like

00:39:38.800 being abused by my

00:39:39.680 family or anything, but

00:39:40.820 I just wasn't very

00:39:41.840 close to anybody

00:39:43.620 really.

00:39:44.040 I mean, my, my

00:39:44.700 siblings are all

00:39:45.340 older than, all, all

00:39:46.140 older than me.

00:39:46.960 Um, there's about

00:39:47.920 like a seven-year

00:39:49.260 age gap between me

00:39:50.120 and the rest of

00:39:50.660 them.

00:39:51.360 And I mean, from a

00:39:53.120 young age, they,

00:39:54.220 yeah, they, you

00:39:55.980 know, they became,

00:39:58.020 they got older, they

00:39:59.360 started like hitting

00:40:00.300 puberty and becoming

00:40:01.100 teenagers, and they

00:40:02.120 didn't always want to

00:40:03.320 be around me.

00:40:05.420 They wanted to do

00:40:06.080 their own thing, so.

00:40:07.220 Okay, so you, you're

00:40:11.200 having difficulties on

00:40:12.380 the body image front,

00:40:13.840 and that's exacerbated

00:40:15.340 by your temperament and

00:40:16.360 by early puberty, let's

00:40:17.620 say.

00:40:18.180 You're not as popular

00:40:19.420 with your peers as you

00:40:20.580 might be.

00:40:21.040 You're somewhat isolated

00:40:22.260 in relationship to your

00:40:23.400 siblings because they're

00:40:24.360 older than you.

00:40:25.660 You're having a bit of a

00:40:27.040 time, difficult time

00:40:28.080 socially in middle

00:40:29.260 school.

00:40:30.220 And now you're seeing

00:40:31.980 on Instagram the

00:40:33.420 emergence of this

00:40:34.340 explanation for your

00:40:35.520 problems that's generated

00:40:36.840 by people who sound

00:40:37.920 like they have the

00:40:38.720 same issues that you

00:40:39.680 do, and what you

00:40:41.080 see is that when

00:40:42.740 they adopt this new

00:40:44.120 non- or gender-fluid

00:40:45.620 identity, that, well,

00:40:47.360 what do you see?

00:40:47.940 What happens when they

00:40:49.180 have a community all of

00:40:50.440 a sudden, people are

00:40:51.400 supportive of them?

00:40:52.460 Like, why did that

00:40:53.220 become attractive to

00:40:54.340 you?

00:40:54.560 I think I saw the

00:41:00.120 similarities between me

00:41:01.780 and them in a lot of

00:41:03.040 ways, and I mean, when

00:41:07.360 I was younger, I was

00:41:08.280 often compared to boy,

00:41:09.960 and I, you know, I

00:41:14.360 liked hearing things

00:41:15.600 like, oh, you're being

00:41:17.740 such a boy, or wow,

00:41:19.060 you're such a boy from

00:41:20.020 like my older sister and

00:41:21.140 mom and stuff.

00:41:21.780 Um, it just, it just

00:41:23.900 made me, I don't know,

00:41:24.980 I don't, I didn't really

00:41:25.740 know why at the time,

00:41:26.480 but it just made me

00:41:27.000 proud to, to hear

00:41:31.340 things like that.

00:41:31.940 I guess it just felt

00:41:32.520 like kind of an

00:41:33.700 achievement because, you

00:41:35.900 know, I didn't

00:41:36.240 particularly like other

00:41:37.060 girls, and I didn't

00:41:37.600 really like the fact

00:41:38.200 that I was a girl

00:41:39.580 either, and especially

00:41:41.520 as I got older, I, I

00:41:43.120 really wanted a way

00:41:43.980 out, and when I

00:41:45.680 started seeing this

00:41:47.000 content, it taught me

00:41:48.100 that there was, and

00:41:49.540 that I didn't have to

00:41:50.180 be a woman.

00:41:50.560 Right, well, there

00:41:52.300 is something, um,

00:41:55.280 complimentary, let's

00:41:56.740 say, in some sense

00:41:58.240 about having those

00:41:59.700 masculine attributes,

00:42:01.440 those masculine

00:42:02.160 qualities attributed to

00:42:03.480 you when you're a

00:42:04.740 young girl, because

00:42:05.500 they're often

00:42:06.080 associated when

00:42:07.060 they're positive with

00:42:07.840 something like

00:42:08.480 courageousness, and

00:42:10.140 the willingness to

00:42:12.400 explore, and the

00:42:13.840 ability to sort of

00:42:14.720 stand on your own

00:42:15.560 two feet, and so you

00:42:17.520 can imagine how that

00:42:18.400 might be attractive,

00:42:19.260 perspective, and then

00:42:19.780 you also were

00:42:21.200 presented with a

00:42:22.120 solution to your

00:42:22.920 problems in some

00:42:24.200 sense, right?

00:42:24.900 You had quite a

00:42:25.460 complex series of

00:42:26.740 issues that were

00:42:27.640 besetting you, and

00:42:29.180 all of a sudden

00:42:30.400 there's a pathway

00:42:31.120 forward, and the

00:42:32.000 pathway forward is

00:42:32.940 something like, and

00:42:34.260 correct me if I'm

00:42:35.140 wrong, I do not want

00:42:36.020 to put words in your

00:42:36.820 mouth, is that while

00:42:38.320 you have a non-standard

00:42:39.440 gender identity, let's

00:42:40.700 say, and that means

00:42:42.020 maybe you're born in

00:42:43.560 the wrong body,

00:42:44.540 something like that.

00:42:45.580 Now, it's

00:42:45.940 interesting, in your

00:42:46.960 case, because, you

00:42:47.820 know, you actually,

00:42:49.060 your basic core

00:42:50.440 fantasy was that you

00:42:51.800 wanted to be a fully

00:42:53.280 developed and, let's

00:42:54.460 say, voluptuous

00:42:55.180 woman.

00:42:55.760 I mean, so that was

00:42:56.560 really driving this,

00:42:58.340 from what I

00:43:00.140 understand, but you

00:43:01.300 were worried that

00:43:01.980 wouldn't happen, and

00:43:02.840 then you started to

00:43:03.540 become concerned about

00:43:04.560 the adoption of a

00:43:05.460 female identity, and

00:43:06.960 then there was this

00:43:07.580 alternative pathway that

00:43:08.800 was laid forward

00:43:09.500 before you.

00:43:10.600 What was happening to

00:43:11.580 you in therapy at

00:43:12.480 this time?

00:43:13.080 Was all this making

00:43:15.120 itself manifest while

00:43:16.420 you were in therapy?

00:43:17.340 And how was, what

00:43:18.640 role was your

00:43:19.220 therapist playing in

00:43:20.160 this?

00:43:21.400 Yeah, so, about

00:43:22.840 around the age of

00:43:23.320 12, I decided that I

00:43:24.780 wasn't actually a

00:43:26.040 girl.

00:43:26.460 After some period of

00:43:28.480 time questioning my

00:43:30.820 sexuality and then

00:43:31.840 eventually my gender

00:43:32.620 identity, I switched

00:43:33.860 between labels before I

00:43:34.940 finally settled on, you

00:43:37.240 know, I think I'm just

00:43:38.200 actually a boy.

00:43:40.320 And I started cutting my

00:43:41.720 hair shorter gradually,

00:43:43.040 wearing more boys'

00:43:44.180 clothing, and I came

00:43:45.380 out to my older

00:43:46.240 sister, some friends

00:43:47.860 that I was closer to

00:43:48.980 at school, and some

00:43:51.920 people online as well.

00:43:54.280 And then, after a few

00:43:55.660 months, I decided that I

00:43:58.460 wanted to tell my

00:44:00.340 parents about this and

00:44:01.180 also start the path of

00:44:03.480 medical transition.

00:44:04.880 And so, I wrote a

00:44:07.260 letter explaining to

00:44:09.320 them that I wanted to

00:44:10.660 be their son and that I

00:44:12.040 wanted them to refer to

00:44:13.120 me by a new name.

00:44:15.080 And they were, they

00:44:17.240 were beyond shocked.

00:44:19.880 They, I don't really

00:44:21.260 know how, as a parent,

00:44:22.460 you could expect to hear

00:44:23.360 something like this.

00:44:24.680 And I knew, I knew at

00:44:26.280 the time even that it

00:44:27.260 would be kind of a, it

00:44:29.680 would be, it would be

00:44:32.400 pretty, pretty shocking

00:44:33.400 to them.

00:44:33.880 And so, I wanted to

00:44:35.800 allow them some time to

00:44:36.920 think it over and think

00:44:37.740 of their response.

00:44:38.340 I was also scared of

00:44:39.700 how they would react.

00:44:40.820 So, that was why I

00:44:42.800 wrote a letter instead

00:44:43.640 of bringing it up to

00:44:44.640 them face to face.

00:44:48.620 They wanted to support

00:44:49.720 me, but they were, they

00:44:51.360 weren't exactly sure of

00:44:52.620 what they should do.

00:44:55.740 And so, they wanted to

00:44:57.180 seek the help of somebody

00:44:58.500 who may be an expert in

00:45:00.860 this, who was more

00:45:01.560 knowledgeable in this.

00:45:03.280 And they thought of it as

00:45:04.300 like a psychological issue

00:45:05.500 and they wanted to get

00:45:07.400 to the root of it.

00:45:08.420 And so, they sent me to

00:45:09.400 a therapist.

00:45:12.100 And do you, do you

00:45:13.760 remember what, what

00:45:14.880 specialization did you,

00:45:16.960 was your therapist?

00:45:18.040 Did you see a psychologist

00:45:19.100 or a psychiatrist, a

00:45:20.300 social worker?

00:45:21.280 Do you know, do you

00:45:22.120 remember?

00:45:23.780 I don't remember the, I

00:45:25.900 don't remember his title.

00:45:26.680 I think he was just a

00:45:27.600 generic pediatric

00:45:29.180 therapist.

00:45:30.420 And he, the first one I

00:45:32.360 saw actually wasn't very

00:45:33.520 thorough.

00:45:33.980 He didn't really, he

00:45:35.480 didn't even give me

00:45:36.040 a diagnosis, I don't

00:45:36.800 think.

00:45:37.080 He didn't really go into

00:45:37.940 the reasons why, why I

00:45:39.800 was feeling this way.

00:45:40.520 It was just kind of

00:45:41.000 like, oh, so, you're

00:45:43.620 a boy.

00:45:44.240 Okay.

00:45:44.880 And then, he just

00:45:46.400 never really went into

00:45:47.460 anything, which was a

00:45:49.300 problem because.

00:45:49.680 Okay, so, let me tell

00:45:50.120 you first, well, let me

00:45:51.840 tell you for a second

00:45:52.940 what should have

00:45:53.600 happened.

00:45:54.600 Okay, just, just so you

00:45:55.900 know, and so that

00:45:56.860 everybody listening knows.

00:45:58.540 So, when somebody comes

00:45:59.740 to see you as a

00:46:00.560 therapist, you kind of

00:46:02.300 have three questions that

00:46:03.680 are paramount.

00:46:05.480 The first question is,

00:46:06.480 well, why is this

00:46:07.140 person here?

00:46:08.760 And you don't know.

00:46:10.300 Now, what you assume is

00:46:12.420 something, generically, is

00:46:13.720 something like, well, this

00:46:14.620 person is suffering and

00:46:16.660 confused for some reason to

00:46:19.000 the point where that's

00:46:20.740 become unbearable enough that

00:46:22.600 they want to seek outside

00:46:23.760 help.

00:46:24.320 And that's not trivial,

00:46:25.480 because people generally

00:46:26.480 don't seek outside help

00:46:27.800 unless they're pretty

00:46:28.680 desperate.

00:46:29.740 So, the first question is,

00:46:31.620 well, this person is

00:46:33.700 suffering, why?

00:46:35.680 And then, the next

00:46:36.680 question is, well, is

00:46:38.840 that something, it goes

00:46:40.520 along with why, is that

00:46:41.580 something that's intrinsic

00:46:42.580 to them?

00:46:43.340 So, is there something wrong

00:46:44.480 with them, say, in

00:46:45.960 relationship to a mental

00:46:47.000 illness or a physical

00:46:47.820 illness?

00:46:48.340 Or is there something about

00:46:49.500 their situation that would

00:46:50.720 make anybody miserable if

00:46:52.120 they were in the same

00:46:52.900 situation?

00:46:54.120 And then, the third thing

00:46:55.240 is, well, having sorted

00:46:57.380 out that the person is

00:46:59.080 miserable and why they're

00:47:00.200 miserable, what could be

00:47:01.760 done about it?

00:47:02.780 And all of that should be

00:47:04.120 open for discussion, right?

00:47:05.480 So, if you came to see me

00:47:06.800 as a therapist, I would,

00:47:08.140 the first thing I would do

00:47:09.000 is kind of what I'm doing

00:47:10.140 in this interview today,

00:47:11.140 is I'd try to figure out,

00:47:12.740 well, what exactly is going

00:47:14.400 on with you?

00:47:15.480 And, you see, that's

00:47:16.440 different than affirming

00:47:17.620 your identity, right?

00:47:19.340 Because you could come to

00:47:20.460 me as a client and say,

00:47:22.240 well, I think I'm a boy.

00:47:23.740 And the proper response for

00:47:25.300 me as a therapist is, okay,

00:47:26.740 well, you know, you've said

00:47:28.540 that, and I want to find

00:47:30.560 out why that is, but I'm

00:47:31.680 not going to take that as

00:47:32.660 gospel.

00:47:33.300 I'm going to find out

00:47:34.060 because we're trying to

00:47:34.820 solve a complicated problem

00:47:35.960 here, which is, well,

00:47:37.460 you're suffering, and it

00:47:39.260 isn't exactly obvious why.

00:47:41.420 In fact, it's not obvious

00:47:42.500 at all.

00:47:43.460 And it's not up to me as a

00:47:45.100 therapist to leap to a

00:47:46.540 conclusion.

00:47:47.780 It's up to me to talk to

00:47:49.140 you, and maybe for

00:47:50.480 hundreds of hours, to find

00:47:52.560 out exactly what it is

00:47:53.920 that's going on.

00:47:54.700 Because I found out

00:47:55.500 already, look, your

00:47:56.460 initial fantasy was that

00:47:57.680 you wanted to be female,

00:47:58.760 but you felt that in

00:48:00.120 some ways your body was

00:48:01.340 failing you on that

00:48:02.220 front, and then you

00:48:03.940 looked for it, and then

00:48:05.140 you found out that being

00:48:06.200 a female wasn't, you

00:48:07.360 know, maybe had some

00:48:08.100 downsides, and maybe all

00:48:09.740 downsides, and so then

00:48:11.260 you were looking for an

00:48:12.640 alternative, and you

00:48:13.800 found one that also

00:48:14.700 explained some of the

00:48:15.700 difficulties you were

00:48:16.540 having socially.

00:48:17.500 That's what you've told

00:48:18.260 me so far.

00:48:19.240 Okay, but that doesn't

00:48:20.120 mean we know what to do

00:48:21.160 about it yet, right?

00:48:22.100 We've laid out the

00:48:23.660 problem landscape, but

00:48:25.600 the logical conclusion

00:48:26.880 of that isn't, you're

00:48:28.380 a boy, and you should

00:48:29.280 go on puberty blockers

00:48:30.640 and then move towards

00:48:31.540 surgery, right?

00:48:32.720 We're nowhere near that.

00:48:34.400 We're dozens of hours

00:48:35.940 or hundreds of hours

00:48:37.280 away from any decision

00:48:38.980 like that.

00:48:40.320 And so, well, so that's

00:48:42.820 what should have

00:48:43.240 happened to you when

00:48:43.900 you went for therapy.

00:48:45.000 You should have had

00:48:45.700 the time to lay out

00:48:46.660 the whole problem, and

00:48:47.680 then to have the space

00:48:49.140 to explore this really

00:48:51.560 deeply so that you

00:48:53.300 could come to terms

00:48:54.280 with what it was that

00:48:55.200 you needed to move

00:48:56.620 forward.

00:48:57.720 Okay, so you said

00:48:58.620 that, as far as I

00:49:00.800 can tell so far, you

00:49:01.680 said your therapist

00:49:02.460 accepted the idea

00:49:03.700 that you should be a

00:49:06.900 boy pretty damn

00:49:08.100 rapidly.

00:49:08.640 I should also point

00:49:09.480 out to everyone who's

00:49:10.300 listening, that's

00:49:10.960 actually now mandatory

00:49:12.000 by law.

00:49:13.820 So in many jurisdictions,

00:49:15.900 so now because of

00:49:17.260 standards of gender

00:49:18.820 affirming care,

00:49:20.260 therapists are required

00:49:21.660 if you say something

00:49:23.200 like you're a girl,

00:49:24.040 you say something like,

00:49:24.940 well, I'm a boy, the

00:49:26.480 therapist is now

00:49:27.180 required to agree with

00:49:28.680 you on pain of

00:49:30.240 license loss.

00:49:32.380 So beware everyone

00:49:33.900 listening and watching

00:49:34.920 because that's now the

00:49:36.220 law in many places.

00:49:37.700 And so to me, that's the

00:49:38.800 end of psychotherapy

00:49:39.800 because all psychotherapy

00:49:41.740 is is a questioning

00:49:43.020 approach fundamentally.

00:49:44.960 You know, to find out

00:49:46.020 what the problem is and

00:49:46.980 then to try to work

00:49:47.820 towards, well, first of

00:49:49.660 all, non-harmful

00:49:50.720 solutions.

00:49:52.440 You know, so I would

00:49:53.100 have with you, for

00:49:53.820 example, I would have

00:49:54.720 explored some of the

00:49:56.980 realm of alternative

00:49:58.680 forms of beauty.

00:50:00.380 That would have been a

00:50:01.080 nice thing to walk you

00:50:02.700 through to some degree

00:50:03.580 so you could see more

00:50:04.720 of what the range was

00:50:06.160 of acceptable and

00:50:08.020 admirable physiological

00:50:09.180 types because that,

00:50:11.220 you know, I don't know

00:50:11.840 for sure that we would

00:50:12.780 have done that, but we

00:50:14.120 might have because that

00:50:14.980 would have been good for

00:50:15.740 you to get a broader

00:50:17.360 picture of attractiveness,

00:50:19.600 right?

00:50:19.840 And then also to tell

00:50:21.200 you about the fact that

00:50:22.240 a lot of the misery that

00:50:23.580 you were experiencing

00:50:24.560 was, well, par for the

00:50:27.240 course for females at

00:50:28.380 puberty, but also

00:50:29.320 exacerbated by your

00:50:30.720 temperamental proclivities.

00:50:33.340 And so that might have

00:50:34.160 helped you calm down a

00:50:35.320 bit, right?

00:50:35.720 Because you get a bit of

00:50:36.740 an explanation for your

00:50:37.800 misery that way and

00:50:38.660 also some hope that

00:50:39.680 you'll, that you'd kind of

00:50:40.900 grow out of it with

00:50:41.740 time.

00:50:43.100 So, okay, so you went

00:50:44.580 to the therapist and

00:50:45.540 he more or less agreed

00:50:47.440 with your prognosis and

00:50:49.760 diagnosis, that you were

00:50:51.040 a boy, okay?

00:50:52.020 So was the therapeutic

00:50:53.460 process of any utility to

00:50:55.220 you?

00:50:56.980 No, he didn't really do

00:50:58.080 anything, actually.

00:50:58.720 I was actually pretty

00:50:59.720 satisfied with him.

00:51:02.300 I did have some stuff

00:51:03.400 going on at home and at

00:51:04.420 school that he just

00:51:05.280 never went into.

00:51:07.940 The full picture of my

00:51:08.900 mental health wasn't

00:51:09.740 really explored at all,

00:51:10.840 actually, throughout the

00:51:11.500 course of my transition.

00:51:13.160 And a lot of what I

00:51:14.880 mentioned, I didn't even

00:51:16.560 know was a problem until

00:51:18.000 recently, until well

00:51:19.520 after I stopped

00:51:20.280 transitioning and I was,

00:51:21.440 you know, I was old

00:51:22.360 enough to really be able

00:51:23.440 to introspect well

00:51:24.660 enough to figure out

00:51:26.300 where it all stemmed

00:51:27.760 from.

00:51:29.260 But it was never

00:51:30.100 explored by the adults

00:51:30.860 who put me on this

00:51:31.540 path.

00:51:33.760 Okay, so, well, so

00:51:34.960 what did they, okay,

00:51:36.080 how often did you go see

00:51:37.980 your therapist and what

00:51:39.540 actually happened during

00:51:41.140 the so-called

00:51:41.860 therapeutic process?

00:51:43.140 Um, I would say maybe

00:51:47.620 about, like, once a week

00:51:48.680 to once every two weeks

00:51:50.580 and, you know, I would

00:51:53.020 talk about, it's hard to

00:51:55.800 remember so far back, but

00:51:57.060 I remember nothing really

00:51:58.740 ever came out of the

00:51:59.540 appointments.

00:52:00.120 Like, I would tell him,

00:52:01.120 like, oh, like, my phone

00:52:03.080 got taken away and I don't

00:52:04.060 really have, like, any

00:52:04.760 contact with the outside

00:52:05.700 world, for example.

00:52:06.500 And he would just be like,

00:52:07.560 oh, okay, how are you

00:52:08.620 dealing with that?

00:52:09.100 And I'd be like, you know,

00:52:11.300 not very well.

00:52:11.880 And he would just, he

00:52:13.640 would just say, okay, and

00:52:15.480 not really do anything

00:52:16.660 about it, not really

00:52:17.460 offer me anything at

00:52:18.240 all.

00:52:19.400 Um, and eventually, I'd

00:52:22.260 say after maybe like a

00:52:22.960 month or so, he maybe

00:52:25.760 got, like, maybe got

00:52:26.980 fired or he transferred

00:52:27.960 somewhere else because

00:52:29.040 he wasn't, um, he wasn't

00:52:31.360 there anymore.

00:52:31.800 And then I got sent to

00:52:32.680 another therapist.

00:52:33.720 And roughly around that

00:52:35.180 time, I expressed to my

00:52:36.240 parents that, you know,

00:52:37.640 I'm not really satisfied.

00:52:38.620 I want to go through with

00:52:40.200 a medical transition.

00:52:42.100 I want to go on

00:52:42.620 hormones.

00:52:43.440 And they actually pushed

00:52:44.820 back on this at first.

00:52:45.840 They were, they were, um,

00:52:47.680 they were very cautious

00:52:48.440 of this.

00:52:48.920 They didn't know why I was

00:52:50.640 pushing for it so much.

00:52:52.020 And they, they wanted me

00:52:54.280 to wait a little bit

00:52:54.920 because at this point in

00:52:56.000 time, I was only 13 years

00:52:57.400 old.

00:52:57.680 I was quite young to be

00:52:58.800 doing such a thing.

00:53:00.060 And, um, they stay that

00:53:04.100 way until I got my

00:53:05.760 gender dysphoria

00:53:06.360 diagnosis.

00:53:07.060 And during one of the

00:53:08.940 appointments that they're,

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00:54:24.360 They, um, I can't remember

00:54:27.680 who exactly it was.

00:54:28.840 It was either a therapist

00:54:30.740 or a nurse, I think.

00:54:31.840 Um, somebody who was

00:54:34.060 involved in my transition,

00:54:35.380 um, they told them that

00:54:37.500 like, oh, this is the

00:54:39.940 only, pretty much the

00:54:41.640 only means of treating

00:54:42.520 dysphoria.

00:54:43.000 There was like no regards

00:54:43.960 to any alternative

00:54:45.180 treatments.

00:54:46.380 Um, you know, they, my

00:54:48.520 dad asked like about the

00:54:49.540 regret rates and they

00:54:50.220 said like, oh, they

00:54:51.300 didn't even, I don't

00:54:53.400 think they even use the

00:54:54.300 word de-transition.

00:54:55.040 They said like, oh, it's,

00:54:57.140 there's less than a one to

00:54:58.840 two percent regret rate.

00:55:00.620 And, um, yeah, they also

00:55:02.700 told my parents that if I

00:55:05.220 wasn't allowed to go

00:55:06.200 through with this, then I

00:55:07.540 would be at risk of

00:55:08.660 suicide.

00:55:10.260 Okay.

00:55:10.780 So I want to, I want to

00:55:11.880 take all of that apart.

00:55:13.000 Okay.

00:55:13.720 Because every single one of

00:55:15.240 those statements is a lie.

00:55:17.600 So first of all, the

00:55:19.220 American Psychological

00:55:20.280 Association in their

00:55:21.420 guidelines for gender

00:55:22.460 affirming treatment makes

00:55:24.260 the case that, and because

00:55:26.040 of prejudice, that there are

00:55:27.500 no good long-term follow-up

00:55:29.480 studies of transgender

00:55:30.680 individuals.

00:55:32.080 Okay.

00:55:32.400 And they attribute that to

00:55:33.540 prejudice against

00:55:34.360 transgender individuals,

00:55:35.620 which is not the reason, by

00:55:37.280 the way.

00:55:37.820 The reason is, is that

00:55:38.800 there's a very low base

00:55:39.920 rate or there was of

00:55:41.540 transgender dysphoria and

00:55:43.120 the follow-up studies

00:55:43.960 haven't been done in large

00:55:45.880 part because the surgical

00:55:47.260 and hormonal treatment

00:55:48.500 regimen is relatively new,

00:55:50.400 but there are no good

00:55:51.500 long-term follow-up studies

00:55:52.620 and they actually complain

00:55:53.580 about that.

00:55:54.120 And then a couple of

00:55:54.720 pages later in the same

00:55:55.840 document, they say that

00:55:57.500 well, it's necessary to

00:56:00.380 affirm an alternate

00:56:01.520 gender identity because

00:56:02.900 otherwise the client or

00:56:04.800 patient is at heightened

00:56:05.680 risk of suicide.

00:56:07.060 Okay.

00:56:07.320 So first of all, both of

00:56:08.440 those things can't be

00:56:09.440 true.

00:56:10.180 There's no way that people

00:56:11.840 can know that suicide risk

00:56:14.240 is elevated if gender

00:56:16.120 transition is delayed

00:56:17.540 unless the long-term

00:56:18.900 studies are in place.

00:56:20.180 And they already stated that

00:56:21.360 the bloody long-term

00:56:22.160 studies aren't in place.

00:56:23.860 So that's all just a lie,

00:56:25.300 but it's worse than

00:56:26.280 that.

00:56:27.260 It's way worse than

00:56:28.220 that.

00:56:29.080 You see, gender dysphoria

00:56:31.280 is a variant of the

00:56:34.500 suffering that's associated

00:56:35.600 with negative emotion,

00:56:36.980 depression and anxiety.

00:56:38.460 Now, depression and

00:56:39.400 anxiety are the primary

00:56:40.860 drivers of suicidal

00:56:42.400 ideation, not gender

00:56:45.600 dysphoria per se.

00:56:48.160 And so they're confusing

00:56:50.420 the source.

00:56:51.200 Now, you were, and then

00:56:52.680 there is no evidence

00:56:54.820 whatsoever that transition

00:56:57.420 of the medical sort actually

00:56:59.420 has a salutary effect on

00:57:01.140 mental health, partly

00:57:02.600 because the long-term

00:57:03.460 studies simply haven't been

00:57:04.740 done.

00:57:05.320 And the idea that we

00:57:07.240 actually know from a

00:57:08.720 research perspective that

00:57:10.500 a child is much safer if

00:57:11.940 they start transition than

00:57:14.700 they are if they don't,

00:57:16.760 that's just, again, that's

00:57:18.460 simply not true.

00:57:19.880 Ken Zucker's work has

00:57:21.080 showed quite clearly that

00:57:22.100 if you just leave the

00:57:23.620 kids alone, then by the

00:57:26.120 time they're 18 or 19,

00:57:27.440 most of them settle into

00:57:28.380 their biological

00:57:28.960 identities.

00:57:30.340 Now, so the reason I'm

00:57:31.840 stressing this is because

00:57:32.880 your parents, like many

00:57:34.560 parents in this situation,

00:57:35.760 were put in a very, very

00:57:36.920 difficult position.

00:57:38.260 And I would say it's

00:57:39.640 corrupt to the point of

00:57:40.800 malevolence what the

00:57:42.480 medical professionals are

00:57:43.580 doing on this front.

00:57:44.740 And that is the

00:57:45.480 insistence, well, would

00:57:46.900 you rather have a live

00:57:47.980 trans child or a dead

00:57:49.460 child, which is, I

00:57:51.120 don't think there's

00:57:51.660 anything more toxic you

00:57:52.760 can say to a parent than

00:57:53.780 that, because that backs

00:57:55.220 them into a corner.

00:57:56.740 Because their alternatives

00:57:57.920 are then, well, you can

00:57:59.460 let your child go ahead

00:58:01.140 with this absolutely

00:58:03.480 life-altering hormonal and

00:58:05.320 then surgical treatment,

00:58:06.500 or your child can die, and

00:58:08.800 it's your fault because you

00:58:09.920 don't care enough.

00:58:11.260 And parents, like, they're

00:58:12.540 accustomed to trusting

00:58:13.740 their medical

00:58:14.280 professionals, at least to

00:58:15.460 some degree, and

00:58:16.600 accustomed to assuming

00:58:17.540 that the knowledge they

00:58:19.300 put forward is valid and

00:58:20.700 reliable, and the

00:58:21.900 information that your

00:58:23.040 family was given was

00:58:24.080 none of those.

00:58:25.240 In fact, it's pathological

00:58:26.500 to a degree that's

00:58:27.360 almost imaginable.

00:58:28.580 It's criminal, in my

00:58:29.560 estimation, what you were

00:58:30.520 told.

00:58:31.480 Because there is simply

00:58:33.200 no evidence that any of

00:58:34.400 that is the case.

00:58:35.600 There's no evidence that

00:58:36.720 transitioning kids are

00:58:38.220 less likely to be

00:58:39.300 suicidal.

00:58:40.700 There's no evidence that

00:58:41.780 that's the only treatment

00:58:42.960 path that works.

00:58:44.200 And there's certainly no

00:58:44.980 evidence that there's

00:58:46.580 no alternative to

00:58:49.100 transition or suicide.

00:58:51.280 It's so pathological, I

00:58:53.840 can't believe it.

00:58:54.600 But it's no wonder your

00:58:55.940 parents were pushed into

00:58:56.920 a corner, you know, because

00:58:58.000 that's a dreadful choice for

00:58:59.260 a parent to have to make.

00:59:02.540 Yeah, they were definitely

00:59:04.080 coerced into it.

00:59:05.040 And, um, after that, they

00:59:11.820 obviously were more open to

00:59:13.800 the idea of me being

00:59:15.100 medicalized, and my gender

00:59:17.700 specialist, um, decided to

00:59:20.940 refer me to an

00:59:22.960 endocrinologist.

00:59:24.660 Um, the first one who I saw

00:59:26.960 actually was the only person

00:59:28.380 who really pushed back on

00:59:29.340 this, um, after the

00:59:33.800 appointment, he said, you

00:59:35.300 know, you are, you're very

00:59:36.940 young, you're, you're 13,

00:59:39.480 and this could have some

00:59:41.860 negative implications for

00:59:43.960 your brain development going

00:59:45.660 forward.

00:59:46.260 So I think it's that, that

00:59:49.060 it's something that should,

00:59:49.900 that should wait.

00:59:50.560 I'm not going to prescribe

00:59:51.500 these to you.

00:59:52.100 And, um, after that, I was

00:59:55.480 just referred to another

00:59:57.500 endocrinologist who, after

00:59:58.760 about two or three

00:59:59.420 appointments, um, gave me the

01:00:01.740 consent forms for blockers.

01:00:03.100 I started about a month

01:00:03.900 after that, and then I had

01:00:06.260 another appointment, um, to

01:00:09.560 sign off on the, the forms

01:00:10.980 for testosterone.

01:00:13.700 Um, and my mom also had to

01:00:17.140 sign off on them.

01:00:17.720 Um, this was around late

01:00:21.480 2017, early 2018.

01:00:24.380 And, uh, I don't know if

01:00:26.660 it's still true now that you,

01:00:27.920 that you need your parents

01:00:28.780 to, if you're a minor, to

01:00:30.540 sign off on forms for

01:00:31.700 hormones or anything like

01:00:32.660 that, because they're trying

01:00:33.500 to, they're trying to push

01:00:34.740 for kids being able to

01:00:36.500 independently make that

01:00:37.280 choice.

01:00:37.880 But, um, you know, I, when

01:00:42.500 I started, when I was

01:00:43.920 reading these forms, you

01:00:44.780 know, they, they, it lists

01:00:45.780 a few, a few side effects

01:00:47.760 for either of them, but I

01:00:48.840 was a perfectly healthy

01:00:49.680 kid before.

01:00:50.900 I started transitioning.

01:00:52.580 So, you know, it was kind

01:00:54.860 of hard to determine which

01:00:56.460 of those I might experience.

01:00:58.580 And I was also, I was

01:01:02.020 fairly a teenager, you know,

01:01:03.980 kid, kids kind of tend to

01:01:05.440 think that they're invincible,

01:01:08.200 that they're, that nothing

01:01:11.680 could, could get them.

01:01:12.660 But I started experiencing

01:01:15.200 some, some complications

01:01:18.380 that affect me to this day.

01:01:21.940 Okay.

01:01:22.400 So three questions.

01:01:24.940 What were you experiencing

01:01:26.380 socially at this time?

01:01:27.880 Like how broadly had you made

01:01:29.700 your transition known and

01:01:31.020 what was the consequence

01:01:31.960 socially?

01:01:33.020 And then what were you

01:01:34.900 fantasizing about your life

01:01:36.820 being like if you were, if

01:01:38.800 you successfully transitioned to

01:01:40.400 a boy, so to speak?

01:01:42.160 And then what were the

01:01:43.680 consequences of the hormonal

01:01:45.040 treatment?

01:01:45.500 So let's go through those

01:01:46.540 one by one.

01:01:47.640 What was happening to you on

01:01:49.120 the social front at this

01:01:50.380 point?

01:01:51.640 So I was in eighth grade at

01:01:52.980 this point and I wasn't

01:01:55.260 really like out to anybody

01:01:56.920 other than family and a few

01:01:58.720 people at school.

01:01:59.500 But my other peers, who I

01:02:03.160 didn't necessarily speak to

01:02:04.900 about this, did notice my

01:02:07.180 change in presentation.

01:02:08.940 That I was, that I started to

01:02:10.060 look more like a boy and they

01:02:12.520 weren't necessarily the nicest

01:02:13.620 to me about it.

01:02:15.580 I was kind of ostracized

01:02:17.660 amongst my peers.

01:02:18.560 They would call me names and

01:02:20.100 there was, there was one boy

01:02:22.140 who would harass me over the

01:02:23.780 course of the school year.

01:02:24.940 Um, and he, there was an

01:02:30.460 incident with him that I will

01:02:32.060 bring up later, but I wasn't

01:02:34.460 necessarily, my peers weren't

01:02:37.420 necessarily the most supportive

01:02:38.560 of me at this time.

01:02:40.780 Um, but once I started on the,

01:02:43.840 the, uh, the hormones and I

01:02:48.940 started having the physical

01:02:49.660 changes, um, I'll, I'll get

01:02:53.420 into that later actually.

01:02:54.940 Okay, so, so, and what were

01:02:57.640 you, what were you hoping for?

01:02:59.700 Now you're, I'm presuming your

01:03:01.380 fantasy life switched to some

01:03:03.000 degree.

01:03:03.420 Now you told me earlier that in

01:03:06.040 your, the earliest stages of

01:03:07.860 your transformation into

01:03:09.720 adulthood, you were thinking

01:03:11.560 about this voluptuous female

01:03:13.540 ideal and then bemoaning your

01:03:16.140 distance from that.

01:03:17.200 But now you've decided to

01:03:18.400 change sexes essentially.

01:03:21.020 And so you have a new vision of

01:03:22.600 who you could be and what life

01:03:24.160 would be like.

01:03:24.940 I presume that would be going

01:03:26.240 along with that.

01:03:27.460 What was, what, what were you

01:03:29.540 expecting slash hoping for and

01:03:31.800 why did you believe it?

01:03:35.080 Um, you know, I wanted to be

01:03:39.320 by this idea of myself in my head

01:03:44.640 that, you know, I, you know, I wanted

01:03:49.960 to be more like a man.

01:03:52.780 I wanted to be, I wanted to be

01:03:53.960 strong both physically and

01:03:55.880 mentally and independent and not

01:03:58.800 really have to worry about how other

01:04:01.760 people felt about me.

01:04:02.660 And I also wanted to be, I guess, just more

01:04:09.440 confident in general and, and myself as a

01:04:12.260 person and also my, my body.

01:04:14.320 And once I started on testosterone, I

01:04:15.800 started seeing all the physical changes, you

01:04:17.540 know, my hair, my eyebrows got thicker.

01:04:20.260 I started developing more muscle.

01:04:21.700 Um, my face and my body became more

01:04:25.140 squarish and I felt, I felt good about

01:04:28.800 myself.

01:04:29.220 I felt like I looked good for pretty much

01:04:31.800 the first time in my life.

01:04:32.740 And I felt like I had some control over how

01:04:35.040 I looked.

01:04:35.460 And initially it felt great.

01:04:40.780 Yeah, well, testosterone can have that

01:04:42.860 effect directly pharmacologically as well.

01:04:45.540 Well, okay, so we can take that apart a

01:04:47.160 little bit.

01:04:47.500 Look, there is nothing wrong with you

01:04:49.860 wanting to have those things, right?

01:04:51.800 I mean, why wouldn't you want to be more

01:04:54.420 confident?

01:04:55.180 Why wouldn't you want to be more

01:04:56.340 comfortable in your body?

01:04:57.600 And, you know, those are perfectly

01:04:59.380 reasonable goals.

01:05:00.960 The problem comes in making the

01:05:02.800 assumption that the only pathway to

01:05:04.620 those goals is physiological

01:05:05.900 transformation, right?

01:05:07.320 Because there's an idea there that,

01:05:09.400 well, if you're female, those goals

01:05:12.740 are obviously impossible.

01:05:14.420 It's like, well, no, they're not.

01:05:15.940 There's lots of women who are

01:05:17.120 confident and who can stand up for

01:05:18.700 themselves and who are courageous and

01:05:20.460 forthright.

01:05:21.180 And like, that's perfectly within the

01:05:22.980 realm of the full range of feminine

01:05:25.340 behavior.

01:05:26.160 And so a therapist who had any sense

01:05:28.520 would have helped you at that point

01:05:30.080 understand that there were practical

01:05:32.280 steps that you could have taken to

01:05:34.240 bolster yourself on all those

01:05:35.940 temperamental dimensions that wouldn't

01:05:37.740 have required anything radical, right?

01:05:39.520 They would have required, well, first

01:05:41.480 of all, a vision and then a strategy

01:05:43.980 and then some diligent practice, you

01:05:46.400 know, and you could have made a fair bit

01:05:47.900 of progress on that, I would think,

01:05:50.160 within six months to a year with a bit

01:05:52.860 of alteration in your social behavior.

01:05:55.200 So the idea that the only pathway to

01:05:57.220 this was through, you know, radical

01:05:59.520 hormonal and physiological transformation

01:06:01.640 is just, it's preposterous.

01:06:04.220 And then, of course, there's the

01:06:05.660 additional complication, which would

01:06:07.360 be, well, you were enticed, let's say,

01:06:11.800 into the idea that you would be better

01:06:14.100 off being a man, but that's really not

01:06:17.140 a pathway that's open to you in some

01:06:18.880 fundamental sense either, because there

01:06:21.100 are physiological impediments to that

01:06:23.600 that aren't, that aren't, they can't be

01:06:27.540 overcome.

01:06:28.620 I mean, I've done a reasonable amount

01:06:31.520 of research into, like, penile

01:06:33.520 construction, for example, and to call

01:06:35.740 that a primitive science is to give it

01:06:37.640 far more credit than it's due.

01:06:39.800 And so that's a huge technical problem,

01:06:42.680 and then there's a problem, of course,

01:06:44.540 that lurks underneath that, which is,

01:06:46.300 even if you do manage that, which is

01:06:48.180 highly unlikely and extremely invasive

01:06:51.380 and unbelievably dangerous and very

01:06:54.460 experimental, and there's no long-term

01:06:56.800 studies whatsoever done on the

01:06:58.900 consequences, you're still not going

01:07:00.620 to be fully physiologically functional

01:07:02.660 as a man.

01:07:03.540 You're not going to be able to

01:07:04.420 procreate as a man, and you're going

01:07:06.780 to sacrifice your ability to have

01:07:08.460 children as a woman.

01:07:09.480 I mean, this is a big, bloody sacrifice.

01:07:11.960 And so were you led through

01:07:15.280 contemplation of those sorts of things

01:07:17.380 by your therapists?

01:07:20.320 Not really.

01:07:21.380 Um, they never really went in-depth.

01:07:25.600 I mean, they would talk about, like,

01:07:27.040 the, to me, about, like, the,

01:07:32.080 they would talk about, like, the side

01:07:33.860 effects and also basically give

01:07:36.560 propaganda to my parents that this was

01:07:38.000 going to make me better, this is going

01:07:39.800 to improve my distress and make me

01:07:41.620 happier, and I felt the same way.

01:07:43.240 I thought, you know, the things I heard

01:07:46.040 from both the physicians and from the

01:07:48.440 research I did online basically gave me

01:07:51.060 this idea that, um, I was going to

01:07:55.740 become my real self, that I would become

01:07:57.680 a whole person in doing this, and it

01:08:00.160 didn't, it fractured my, my sense of

01:08:05.540 self even further.

01:08:06.360 Um, okay.

01:08:09.020 And this is something that...

01:08:09.760 Why did it fracture, why did it fracture

01:08:11.600 your sense of self further?

01:08:13.140 What do you mean by that?

01:08:16.480 Um, there's a lot to that, actually.

01:08:19.920 I mean, I was basically living the lie

01:08:21.760 for a few years.

01:08:22.440 That was, that was very stressful, and

01:08:24.440 I was trying to uphold this idea I had

01:08:28.520 myself in my head that was false.

01:08:30.560 It was a delusion.

01:08:31.180 I genuinely believed that I was somehow

01:08:33.660 a man, despite not, despite being a

01:08:36.340 biological female, and in a lot of

01:08:40.000 ways, I missed out on a lot of, on, on

01:08:44.480 certain developments, mostly social.

01:08:47.740 Um, I'm still, you know, I didn't really

01:08:51.200 go through the crucial social female,

01:08:53.980 female socialization that goes, that,

01:08:56.520 that goes on throughout late middle

01:08:58.140 school or high, and, and high school.

01:08:59.840 Um, I, my dating pool was also affected

01:09:04.020 by this.

01:09:04.640 You know, I was mostly attracted to men.

01:09:06.740 I didn't really have much of an interest

01:09:09.500 in women, but most of the people who

01:09:11.160 were interested in me in high school were,

01:09:12.640 were women.

01:09:13.420 And the few men who, the few, the few

01:09:15.780 guys who admitted attraction to me, um,

01:09:21.560 it was very, it seemed very sexual,

01:09:28.140 um, in, in nature.

01:09:29.580 And it felt like, if anything, I was

01:09:31.200 just like a, like a fetish to them

01:09:33.920 almost.

01:09:34.340 And I didn't really, I didn't want to,

01:09:35.800 I didn't want to have anything to do

01:09:37.120 with that.

01:09:39.140 Mm-hmm.

01:09:40.740 Yeah, that sounds extremely complicated.

01:09:44.420 And there was, there is also another,

01:09:46.580 another element to it that I haven't

01:09:49.660 really spoken on before.

01:09:50.820 Um, but I feel like it does have to be,

01:09:52.920 it does need to be said.

01:09:54.000 It is kind of uncomfortable because I was,

01:09:56.120 just because of my age at the time.

01:09:58.640 And it's also a very sensitive topic,

01:10:00.300 but I, I think I did also have some

01:10:02.440 sexual motivations in, in doing this.

01:10:05.060 I like the idea of like the changes

01:10:07.460 that testosterone would bring on to my

01:10:11.080 body.

01:10:11.820 And, you know, I guess, I mean, people,

01:10:15.340 a lot of feminists and activists who

01:10:18.940 speak against, speak about like transition,

01:10:23.280 transgender people and de-transitioners,

01:10:26.160 they often talk about AGP or autogynephilia,

01:10:29.440 which is like a, I don't know if you're

01:10:32.080 familiar with, yeah, it's, it's like a,

01:10:34.240 yeah, like a man.

01:10:37.060 So autogynephilia is the fantasy.

01:10:39.160 It's a sexual fantasy generally.

01:10:40.800 And then it often characterizes men who

01:10:43.140 become transsexual and start cross-dressing

01:10:46.080 later in life.

01:10:46.900 And they develop a sexual, they develop

01:10:49.900 sexual arousal from picturing themselves

01:10:52.060 or acting out being the opposite sex.

01:10:55.700 And so I think some of that, by the way,

01:10:58.020 you know, you talked about the fact that

01:10:59.940 you wanted to have some of the classic

01:11:01.720 male attributes, masculine attributes,

01:11:04.060 right?

01:11:04.260 Like self-confidence and, and courage and

01:11:06.980 so forth.

01:11:07.520 And that you were complimented when you

01:11:09.480 were referred to in that manner.

01:11:11.420 I think a lot of, a lot of what happens to

01:11:13.840 these men who develop these sexual

01:11:15.640 fetishes later in life is that there is

01:11:18.200 a part of them that's crying out for

01:11:20.920 exploration of and development of their

01:11:23.400 feminine side, right?

01:11:25.480 But instead of having that happen

01:11:26.980 psychologically and starting to integrate,

01:11:29.500 let's say, compassion and care and,

01:11:31.660 and concern for people rather than things,

01:11:34.860 instead of integrating those cross-sexual

01:11:37.320 proclivities, they start to act it out

01:11:39.920 as if it's a concrete reality, right?

01:11:43.080 And you were definitely enticed into doing

01:11:45.360 that, but you also said, and, you know,

01:11:48.360 don't let me delve into this more than

01:11:49.960 you're comfortable with, but you also

01:11:51.300 said that there was a, there was a

01:11:53.460 sexual, the sexual element specifically.

01:11:56.300 So was there something in your fantasies

01:11:58.960 about what is, what was that?

01:12:01.200 Was that about you being a boy?

01:12:02.880 You said you were still attracted to

01:12:04.360 women.

01:12:05.280 So what, we brought this up, we might as

01:12:09.380 well clarify it.

01:12:10.220 What was the nature of the interaction

01:12:12.700 with sexuality?

01:12:13.800 I mean, it's obviously relevant.

01:12:15.560 It was fantasies about like, yeah, about

01:12:17.880 being a man, about being, about being,

01:12:20.800 about being male and having like masculine

01:12:24.920 attributes to my body.

01:12:26.440 And also a lot of it did involve like

01:12:28.480 having like a, like a female partner,

01:12:30.720 which I never really explored in real life

01:12:33.300 because I didn't have any emotional

01:12:35.660 attraction to women.

01:12:36.380 I didn't want to like have, I didn't want

01:12:38.720 to like have a relationship with another

01:12:41.480 woman.

01:12:41.980 And so I never really cared to actually

01:12:43.340 act it out.

01:12:44.740 But, you know, this was, I guess you could

01:12:48.140 say that I did have like a female

01:12:52.520 analog of autogynophilia.

01:12:55.500 If, if there's a word for it, I guess it

01:12:57.200 would be autoandrophilia.

01:12:58.540 But I didn't really understand this at the

01:12:59.860 time because I was, I was so young.

01:13:02.200 Yeah, well, look, I mean, in, in adolescence,

01:13:06.740 the range of sexual fantasy can be

01:13:09.240 extremely broad, you know, and there is

01:13:11.980 a difference between fantasy and real

01:13:13.720 life.

01:13:14.060 I mean, people will fantasize about things

01:13:15.780 that they won't do in their real life.

01:13:17.780 And the fact of the fantasies, it can

01:13:20.480 become pathological if people dwell on

01:13:22.600 it, but the fact that the fantasy covers

01:13:24.760 a wider range than behavior would is

01:13:26.760 actually more an indication of the

01:13:28.580 creative capacity of fantasy, right?

01:13:31.580 I mean, we'll do things in our dreams,

01:13:33.920 for example, or play out scenarios in

01:13:36.060 our dreams that would never occur in

01:13:37.560 real life.

01:13:38.200 And it's because part of the human

01:13:40.000 capacity for ingenuity is the capacity

01:13:42.260 to imagine multiple different scenarios.

01:13:45.200 And, and some of those can be extreme,

01:13:46.960 you know, like I'll find, for example,

01:13:49.460 that if I'm angry with something, you

01:13:53.340 know, I can have quite violent fantasies

01:13:55.300 and I think, oh my God, you know, where

01:13:57.160 did that come from?

01:13:58.220 But that doesn't mean that I would act

01:13:59.860 them out, or at least I hope it means

01:14:01.460 that I wouldn't act them out.

01:14:02.900 You know, so our fantasy life is

01:14:04.540 broader than our actual life.

01:14:06.640 And you, you, you border the acting

01:14:09.480 out of your fantasies by, well, by

01:14:11.820 social necessity in some sense.

01:14:13.740 So the mere fact that you were having

01:14:15.580 those fantasies, that's not an

01:14:17.340 indication of anything that's in and of

01:14:19.280 itself pathological.

01:14:20.440 That's still well within the realm of,

01:14:22.240 of normative adolescent sexual fantasy,

01:14:25.900 I would say.

01:14:26.920 You know, maybe it was a little more

01:14:28.040 exaggerated in your case because of the

01:14:29.720 testosterone, and maybe even to some

01:14:31.780 degree because of your more masculine

01:14:33.340 temperament, but it's still well within

01:14:35.320 the range of normality.

01:14:36.860 So what happened to you when you started

01:14:38.560 taking the hormones?

01:14:39.940 And, and how did you react to that?

01:14:42.600 You know, I started having some physical

01:14:43.820 changes, like with my appearance and also

01:14:45.920 some behavioral changes.

01:14:48.180 Like I felt more confident.

01:14:49.440 I felt, I started to develop kind of a

01:14:51.740 competitive streak with, especially with

01:14:54.700 boys my age.

01:14:55.440 And I started to socialize just a little

01:14:58.180 bit more like they did.

01:14:59.960 And I also, obviously because I was

01:15:03.100 taking androgens, I also started

01:15:04.840 experiencing in a very strong increase

01:15:07.900 in my libido.

01:15:09.040 And it was very difficult to keep up with.

01:15:11.440 And it started to become a problem with

01:15:14.740 me without me even realizing it.

01:15:17.140 I did, unfortunately, develop an addiction

01:15:20.300 to porn.

01:15:20.740 And I also just had a very unhealthy

01:15:24.660 relationship with my body and, and

01:15:28.940 sexuality.

01:15:29.660 And I, I still do to this day.

01:15:32.780 So on the porn front, was that female

01:15:36.160 images or male?

01:15:37.900 It was mostly, mostly female.

01:15:40.780 But mostly female.

01:15:44.220 Okay.

01:15:44.940 So, so it was mostly female, but you had

01:15:47.480 no interest in establishing a relationship

01:15:49.480 with females.

01:15:50.340 And on the dating front, you still

01:15:51.980 wanted to, at least in principle, you

01:15:53.840 still wanted to be with boys.

01:15:55.360 Jesus, that's quite a confusing mess to

01:15:57.440 walk through.

01:15:58.080 So, yeah, no kidding.

01:15:59.620 You must have really been going in five

01:16:01.360 directions at the same time during that

01:16:03.160 period, boys.

01:16:03.800 Yeah.

01:16:05.260 There's no clear pathway forward through

01:16:07.280 that.

01:16:07.780 So how in the world did you orient

01:16:09.600 yourself?

01:16:11.920 You know, I didn't, I, I really

01:16:13.960 couldn't because I couldn't, I didn't

01:16:17.060 really have like any dating

01:16:18.560 opportunities and I just couldn't

01:16:22.560 really explore that kind of thing.

01:16:23.840 You know, I had a lot of, this did

01:16:26.460 become a bit of a source of distress

01:16:28.780 for me in high school.

01:16:31.320 You know, I, I was, I was frustrated.

01:16:33.740 I had urges that I couldn't really

01:16:35.020 fulfill.

01:16:35.620 And on top of that, I was watching all

01:16:37.480 my other peers get into romantic and

01:16:40.380 sexual relationships and have that kind

01:16:42.880 of development while I was just, at

01:16:45.100 least I felt like I was just completely

01:16:47.980 behind.

01:16:49.660 Right.

01:16:50.080 Okay.

01:16:50.520 Okay.

01:16:50.880 So, all right.

01:16:51.640 So now, and what, what, what, what kind

01:16:53.840 of, well, those are complex effects of

01:16:56.280 testosterone.

01:16:57.500 What would you say?

01:16:59.280 And the upside was you had more confidence

01:17:01.340 and more self-assurance.

01:17:02.760 You were more competitive.

01:17:04.100 There was a heightened sex drive, which is

01:17:05.960 a mixed blessing.

01:17:07.320 What, what were the, what were the negative

01:17:09.680 consequences for you of the, of the

01:17:11.960 hormonal treatment?

01:17:15.140 Sorry.

01:17:15.680 I also forgot to mention that, like,

01:17:18.920 because I couldn't find a partner in real

01:17:23.060 life, I eventually turned to dating online,

01:17:27.720 which was, which only made me more stressed

01:17:30.080 because, you know, I had these feelings for

01:17:32.360 somebody that was, that I couldn't even see

01:17:37.000 or touch.

01:17:38.400 And it just added on to my stress, if

01:17:43.360 anything.

01:17:44.240 And I found that if anything, I just, more

01:17:53.200 often than not, I would just get used by

01:17:55.120 other people.

01:17:55.680 Either, either, either emotionally for, for

01:18:00.860 support or for, um, more intimate images

01:18:06.260 of, of me.

01:18:08.860 But it was the closest I could get to real

01:18:10.960 intimacy.

01:18:11.580 And I was, I was quite lonely throughout high

01:18:13.320 school.

01:18:13.840 I did end up developing depression and this

01:18:16.200 was, this was a big thing driving that.

01:18:19.260 Definitely.

01:18:21.460 Um, as for the more negative effects of

01:18:23.140 testosterone, um,

01:18:24.320 you know, at first it made me feel great.

01:18:28.700 Like, it was kind of comparable to

01:18:31.940 stimulant almost.

01:18:33.320 Um, you know, I find I, while I was on the

01:18:36.700 blockers, um, I'd say there was about,

01:18:39.520 like, a month-long period between starting

01:18:40.720 those and the testosterone.

01:18:42.400 And during that period of time, because I

01:18:43.500 had no sex hormones in my body, I often

01:18:45.760 felt very lethargic, a little bit depressed.

01:18:47.920 And, you know, I, once I had, like, the

01:18:50.360 hormones back in my body, so, so was my

01:18:52.820 energy.

01:18:53.120 That, my energy came back, and

01:18:55.120 so there was, there was, you could say

01:19:01.480 that there was, like, a little bit of a

01:19:02.920 honeymoon period, um, that lasted for

01:19:05.460 maybe no more than about a year and a

01:19:08.500 half.

01:19:09.500 Um, but I found that I was more prone to

01:19:14.780 anxiety, and, um,

01:19:17.240 I also, about, I'd say about, like, a year

01:19:25.700 or so on testosterone, I started experiencing

01:19:29.340 some difficulties with my urinary tract.

01:19:31.880 I was, I started, I think I got my, my

01:19:35.240 first UTI, and then eventually it devolved

01:19:38.180 to me having, like, uh, like being unable,

01:19:42.520 unable to fully empty my bladder, or having

01:19:45.700 to urinate frequently, or even getting, like,

01:19:48.140 blood in my urine, and none of this was

01:19:50.420 listed on my consent forms.

01:19:51.940 I didn't even know that it was a problem

01:19:54.740 that arose from taking testosterone until

01:19:57.700 after I stopped taking it, and it got worse.

01:20:00.560 Hmm.

01:20:01.280 Hmm.

01:20:01.480 All right, so now while all this is

01:20:04.200 happening, you're also marching down the

01:20:07.240 transition pathway, right?

01:20:08.760 So you went from blockers to testosterone,

01:20:11.200 and then what?

01:20:13.040 This is when you're about 14, now we're

01:20:15.020 about where you're 14?

01:20:16.600 Yeah.

01:20:16.840 Jesus, that's awful.

01:20:18.920 Yeah, at the, at the end of eighth grade,

01:20:21.420 at the end of eighth grade, um, the bully

01:20:24.720 that I mentioned earlier actually sexually

01:20:27.040 assaulted me, um, you know, before, before

01:20:29.740 this point, but I was about several months

01:20:32.420 on testosterone, I was very confident

01:20:33.980 in myself, and, you know, I never really

01:20:36.460 cared to, like, try to hide my chest or

01:20:38.580 anything, because I was maybe about, like,

01:20:40.920 a B-cup or less, and I was quite thin, I

01:20:43.140 would often wear, like, baggy shirts, and

01:20:45.720 so I never really thought it would be a

01:20:47.160 problem, but, um, he had groped me in

01:20:52.960 the middle of a classroom, um, and before,

01:20:59.060 before this, I actually had a fear, a very

01:21:01.580 strong fear of being sexually assaulted.

01:21:04.580 A lot of my, my female peers and some of

01:21:07.520 the older women I knew had been either

01:21:10.640 assaulted or raped or sexually abused, and

01:21:14.620 hearing these accounts growing up made me

01:21:17.860 fear the same thing eventually happened to

01:21:19.780 myself, and then it did, and, you know, in

01:21:22.940 that moment, it was, like, it was, like, glass

01:21:27.620 shattering. It was, it felt like I was the

01:21:32.020 only person in the room, because it was as if

01:21:36.900 nobody even noticed or cared that this

01:21:39.680 happened to me, and I ended up downplaying it

01:21:43.040 in, in my head. It was, like, well, nobody

01:21:46.440 noticed, and nobody, nobody saw, so maybe

01:21:51.360 it just doesn't matter. What exactly

01:21:52.860 happened? What exactly happened to you, if

01:21:55.200 you don't mind, so that, so that? He walked

01:21:58.260 up to me. You were in class? Yeah, no, it

01:22:00.740 was, yeah, this was, this was in class, and he

01:22:04.160 just walked up to me. He had a hat, he often

01:22:06.200 would do things to intimidate me, and then

01:22:08.520 he took a step further by squeezing one of

01:22:11.800 my breasts. Uh-huh, I see. And, you know, at

01:22:17.660 the time, it was just, like, oh, it, maybe

01:22:19.220 it's just boys being boys, so I'll just, I'll

01:22:21.400 just play it off and be a man about it, and

01:22:23.820 I won't be bothered by it. No, there's

01:22:27.520 definitely, there's definitely malevolent

01:22:30.100 intent behind that. I, I knew, I knew that

01:22:34.140 even if it did bother me, that I wouldn't

01:22:36.100 really have a chance to speak up, because

01:22:37.720 if I brought it up to the school office, then

01:22:40.300 they would just leave the kid with a slap

01:22:42.180 on the wrist, and he'd come back, maybe

01:22:44.280 like a, maybe after, like, a two-day

01:22:46.720 suspension, and then potentially do

01:22:48.120 something worse to me, so I didn't

01:22:49.760 bother. Right, right, right, right, right. So

01:22:52.660 that made you feel more isolated. Yeah. That's

01:22:55.060 what you said. It made you feel, right, that

01:22:57.080 nobody cared. Yeah, yeah, well, that's a

01:22:59.160 real, uh, you know, a lot of people get

01:23:01.300 traumatized by malevolence, say. Like, it, it's

01:23:05.300 not even exactly the physical act, although

01:23:07.840 it's, it's obviously also that. It's the

01:23:10.220 fact that someone is doing something

01:23:12.160 literally designed to hurt you and

01:23:15.420 subjugate you and make you miserable, and

01:23:17.740 so you get contact with that intent, and

01:23:19.780 that's really hard on people to encounter

01:23:22.180 malevolence like that, so it's no wonder

01:23:24.540 it bothered you. You know, and you can

01:23:26.740 think, well, what did it really mean

01:23:28.680 physically? You know, it really didn't

01:23:30.120 damage me. It's like, that's not the

01:23:31.660 point. The point is the intent of the

01:23:34.100 person who did it, and this was a bully

01:23:35.900 who was, what would you say, accelerating

01:23:39.040 his bullying cycle, and, you know, God

01:23:41.480 only knows where that would have gone,

01:23:42.960 because someone like that who doesn't

01:23:44.720 have enough internal constraint, there's

01:23:47.000 no limit in some sense to what they might

01:23:49.000 eventually do. So you had reason to be

01:23:51.120 afraid, and to be, you know, set back on

01:23:53.720 your heels. So that's really too bad. So,

01:23:56.780 okay, so that threw you for a loop. How

01:23:59.940 did that play into your next decision?

01:24:03.500 So, very soon after that was when I

01:24:07.440 decided to start binding my chest. I

01:24:09.620 asked my mom to buy me a binder, buy me

01:24:14.060 some binders online. I don't know if you

01:24:16.660 know what they are, but they're like a

01:24:19.100 compression device to cover part of the

01:24:21.500 torso, and in the chest area, they

01:24:23.640 basically, like, squeeze the breasts to

01:24:25.380 make them look flatter. And, you know, I

01:24:28.780 wore those for about, I'd say, two years

01:24:33.300 before getting a mastectomy, and I got

01:24:34.860 sick of it. Like, I would work out, I

01:24:37.560 would swim, I would walk home in super

01:24:39.560 hot weather and these things, and I just

01:24:42.660 wanted to be done with it. Like, I wanted

01:24:45.860 to be free of wearing this thing, but at

01:24:47.000 the same time, I didn't want my chest to

01:24:48.260 be visible. I was afraid of the attention

01:24:51.660 that would bring me, and also, like, I

01:24:53.640 genuinely believed myself to be a boy. I

01:24:55.440 wanted to look like a boy and be able to

01:24:57.900 take my shirt off without, without any

01:25:01.380 cares. And so, about halfway through my

01:25:05.240 sophomore year, I told my therapist that I

01:25:08.080 was seeking a mastectomy, and through a

01:25:10.740 gender specialist, I was referred to a

01:25:13.000 surgeon, and I had an appointment with

01:25:15.580 him, and...

01:25:16.380 And so what did your therapist say? Okay,

01:25:18.720 so what's happening with your therapist

01:25:20.320 during all this time? I mean, you know, so

01:25:22.560 you're a physiologically healthy young

01:25:26.240 woman, and you've just announced that

01:25:27.760 you want to undergo a form of radical

01:25:30.240 surgery that's generally reserved for

01:25:32.420 advanced stage cancer survivors, and the

01:25:37.160 upshot of that is you're hustled off to a

01:25:39.160 specialist who can facilitate that. There's

01:25:41.920 no investigation into all the background

01:25:43.880 issues that we've been talking about

01:25:45.500 instead.

01:25:47.560 Well, it was just seen as it was part of

01:25:50.940 the process. Like, there is really no

01:25:53.020 psychological evaluation before it.

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01:27:11.960 That's utterly appalling.

01:27:21.480 You know, I'm so, I've been embarrassed for

01:27:24.060 years to be a member of the Intellectual

01:27:26.620 Academy under the current conditions that

01:27:28.600 universities, what would you say, have

01:27:31.880 put themselves into, and I'm equally

01:27:35.040 embarrassed to be part of the therapeutic

01:27:36.480 community to hear a story like yours. It's

01:27:40.320 absolutely appalling what happened to you.

01:27:42.600 There's no excuse whatsoever for it. It's

01:27:45.700 so, it's such a dereliction of responsibility

01:27:48.100 that it's almost, it's almost

01:27:50.280 unimaginable. So it's really too bad that,

01:27:54.380 that you weren't listened to in a lot more

01:27:58.420 detail and with a lot more care, you know,

01:28:01.080 because what you went through, it's not

01:28:03.620 that abnormal. You know, everything you

01:28:05.840 told me about your unhappiness as a

01:28:07.500 teenager, the fact that you were isolated in

01:28:09.420 middle school, the fact that you had some

01:28:11.500 doubts about your developing identity. It's

01:28:13.240 like, yeah, that's pretty much par for the

01:28:15.520 course for adolescents. Some kids get through

01:28:17.400 it with a little less scarring than others, but

01:28:20.280 most adolescents have a pretty damn miserable

01:28:22.460 time for about three years. And so the fact that

01:28:26.840 that led you down a path to hormonal

01:28:28.840 transformation and then surgery, and that

01:28:30.940 adults aided and abetted this, you know, I have

01:28:34.140 some sympathy for your parents because when

01:28:35.900 parents are told, you better support your

01:28:38.280 child or it'll be suicide, it's like, well, that

01:28:40.520 backs them into a corner. But the medical

01:28:42.620 professionals and the counselors who dealt

01:28:44.460 with you, that their negligence borders, their

01:28:48.740 negligence, it doesn't just border on the

01:28:51.000 criminal, it crosses the boundary as far as I'm

01:28:53.420 concerned. Okay, so now you're set, you go off

01:28:56.640 to see a specialist. Who's the specialist and

01:28:59.420 how do they treat?

01:29:00.720 Um, it's important to note that, I mean, it

01:29:04.340 absolutely was negligence because not only was

01:29:06.540 I given surgery for a problem that was

01:29:09.600 psychological in nature, um, and the months

01:29:12.780 before that, I, that was when I had been

01:29:15.340 diagnosed with depression and social anxiety

01:29:17.560 and when my suicidal ideation started, started

01:29:21.560 happening. I was, you know, at the beginning,

01:29:25.860 they told my parents, like, your child will be at

01:29:27.600 risk of suicide if you don't affirm her at ND, but

01:29:30.240 it wasn't until after I started the treatments

01:29:33.360 that I started feeling, like, feeling like

01:29:37.800 committing suicide.

01:29:40.680 Yeah. Did you have a plan?

01:29:44.740 No, I never really had a plan, but it was, the

01:29:48.000 feeling was prevalent enough to that it affected

01:29:50.700 my day-to-day life.

01:29:54.520 Right, right. So when you assess people for

01:29:56.920 suicidality, essentially what you do is you, you

01:30:00.840 investigate the structures of their fantasies and

01:30:03.760 their wishes, and the more developed the plan they

01:30:07.300 have, the higher the probability is that they'll

01:30:10.080 actually commit suicide, right? So if it's a fully

01:30:12.680 developed plan, place, location, implement all of

01:30:17.620 that, then the person's really at risk. Otherwise, and

01:30:21.000 it sounds like this was the case in your case, it's more a

01:30:23.300 marker of generalized depression and anxiety, because that

01:30:26.760 will often spin off, you know, quasi-suicidal thoughts like,

01:30:31.260 well, maybe it would be better for everyone else if I wasn't

01:30:33.680 here, or life is too difficult, and so, you know, it would be

01:30:37.140 simpler, all things considered, just to bring it to an end.

01:30:40.720 You know, that's bad, and it's often, it's also associated with a

01:30:43.700 fair bit of suffering, but those thoughts in and of themselves are

01:30:47.820 not associated with a spectacular, a high risk of, you know, imminent

01:30:51.580 suicide. So, okay, but in any case, you were miserable enough at

01:30:55.200 this point. Well, obviously, then you'd be looking for, what,

01:30:59.620 further alleviation of your psychological symptoms, and you

01:31:03.660 said the binding was very uncomfortable and troublesome, and so

01:31:07.380 for some, so that also led you to conclude that it just might be

01:31:11.280 simpler, all things considered, since you were already on the

01:31:13.940 pathway to being a boy, just to go down the surgical route.

01:31:16.800 Yeah.

01:31:17.560 So you were 14 when that happened?

01:31:19.620 I was, I was 15 at this time. I was in my, my sophomore year of

01:31:22.680 high school.

01:31:23.500 You were 15.

01:31:23.740 They also started, to treat my depression, they put me, they

01:31:27.760 decided to medicate me for it, and, you know, I, from what little,

01:31:32.500 from what little I knew about, about medicating depression, I

01:31:38.980 often heard that SSRIs have all these terrible side effects, so I

01:31:41.840 asked that they put me on something with, with as few side

01:31:44.680 effects as possible, and they decided to put me on Wellbutrin,

01:31:49.080 which I didn't know until after I stopped doing it, but it actually

01:31:52.240 has, like, a huge black box label warning on it for use in

01:31:56.780 children and adolescents, and it actually made me feel more

01:31:59.960 suicidal over time.

01:32:02.540 Okay, okay, all right. So, all right, so now you're, you're 15,

01:32:06.480 and, and you, you go see a specialist in relationship to surgery. How

01:32:12.060 were you evaluated at that point, when you actually moved forward

01:32:16.380 for the surgery?

01:32:19.340 I don't remember much of it, but it was, I mean, obviously, they

01:32:24.680 didn't really do an evaluation of my mental health. It was just like,

01:32:27.980 oh, so you're, you're, you've, you're transitioning, you're, you

01:32:31.800 identify as a boy, and you've been on hormones for such and such

01:32:35.940 amount of time. So, that was, I was eligible. And after my first

01:32:40.360 appointment, I was, that was, the, the, the surgeon told me about a

01:32:45.500 top surgery classroom that was taking place in the hospital

01:32:48.740 building, and encouraged me and my parents to attend it. And I went,

01:32:53.300 and it was, I, we, I learned basically the same things that I

01:32:56.360 learned, um, in the surgeon's office, um, you know, about, like,

01:33:01.880 the different types of incisions, and how it benefits gender

01:33:04.680 dysphoria, basically just propaganda. Um, there were maybe about

01:33:09.000 like 15, 12 to 15 or so other families in there. Um, I, I noticed

01:33:15.240 right away that all the other kids in there looked to be either

01:33:20.360 younger than me, or, like, they hadn't even started on hormones

01:33:23.960 yet. And I was shocked that they were already seeking surgery.

01:33:33.380 But it, it kind of, it, I didn't really question it much of the

01:33:36.520 time. They were just like, oh, um, I guess this is just normal, and

01:33:43.660 I have, I'm not the only one going through this.

01:33:46.200 Right, right, right. Well, and you were already a long way down

01:33:51.020 the road, and so I guess you checked off the boxes as far as

01:33:54.580 the medical practitioners were concerned. But at that point, it's

01:33:57.780 also, for you, it's going to be increasingly difficult to, you

01:34:02.360 know, to reverse your decision. You're already in a couple of

01:34:05.220 years, you know, and that's a long time when you're only 14. And

01:34:08.780 so, so it was on to the next step. So that happened when you

01:34:12.940 were 15. And so, what was the consequence of the double

01:34:17.020 mastectomy for you? What's been the consequence?

01:34:22.080 By, by this point in time, you know, I was two years, two or

01:34:26.080 three years on testosterone. And I'd been binding for roughly the

01:34:31.460 same amount of time. And my breasts had lost their shape. They

01:34:35.600 didn't look like they used to before. They didn't really have, you

01:34:39.980 know, they didn't, they didn't. To me, they, it just looked

01:34:44.340 strange. And I actually just started developing more, more

01:34:48.200 insecurities with my body as, as I went through my transition.

01:34:52.260 You know, like I had like these masculine features pop up, but

01:34:55.680 it was all still on a female body. And there is like an

01:34:59.280 incongruence between different features on my body, and

01:35:02.860 especially my breasts. Like it was this masculine looking body

01:35:05.460 with quite a bit of muscle. And yet these, these things were

01:35:08.860 there, and they weren't really in the best shape. And it

01:35:13.880 became a source of insecurity for me. And, you know, I thought

01:35:17.320 that even if I wanted to, I would, they would, my chest would

01:35:21.900 never be the same again. And so there was not really any point in

01:35:24.340 keeping it. And before I went under this, before I went under the

01:35:27.760 knife, they did tell me that I was going to lose my ability to

01:35:30.080 breastfeed. But it was like, I'm going to be a man and men don't do

01:35:34.540 that. Like, I also, I also wasn't really thinking about being a

01:35:38.680 parent at all because I was, I was a kid. Actually, this was, this

01:35:46.260 is kind of reminiscent of the, of one of the appointments for, for

01:35:52.040 getting the testosterone. My endocrinologist asked me some

01:35:57.020 questions that were very adult in nature. I was basically being

01:36:02.100 sexualized by my doctors. They, it was like, are you, are you aware

01:36:07.320 that you may experience vaginal atrophy? Or are you aware that this

01:36:12.640 may affect your ability to have children as an adult? And I just

01:36:16.060 went along with it. It was like, oh yeah, I know that. I don't, I don't

01:36:18.860 plan on having kids. And I also had, I had, I never had sex by that

01:36:25.180 point. So I didn't know just what, what effect any of that would have

01:36:28.980 on my body. But I was being treated as if I were an adult with the mental

01:36:34.940 faculties to be able to consent to all this and understand what I was

01:36:39.880 consenting to. But I wasn't. I was just a kid.

01:36:49.200 Okay. And so what happened in the aftermath of the surgery? What was that

01:36:53.760 like for you? You know, when I, when I woke up and I was fully conscious, all

01:36:58.060 the meds had worn off and I realized what just happened, but I was actually

01:37:02.340 quite happy. You know, it was like, wow, I just, this is a huge accomplishment.

01:37:07.920 This is a huge step. And, you know, I can finally be myself. And I was looking

01:37:12.620 forward to being healed and eventually being able to go out and swim and work out

01:37:22.520 and just hang out without a shirt and look like all the other boys and not have

01:37:26.540 to worry about wearing this uncomfortable, restrictive thing.

01:37:31.260 And, you know, I got, it was an outpatient surgery.

01:37:38.420 Got sent home pretty soon after that. And I had a comfy, I guess you'd say, a few

01:37:45.420 weeks after that, because my mom had to take some time off work to just help me

01:37:48.940 around the house. It was a major surgery in my upper body and I lost a

01:37:53.420 considerable amount of my range of motion. I couldn't even lift up my arms over my

01:37:58.680 head until maybe about like three or four months afterward. So I wasn't really in a

01:38:03.560 state to be going out all my own. But after about a week or so was when reality

01:38:12.420 started to hit, I had to get my stitches taken out a few days afterward. And the

01:38:20.540 sensation was just insane. Like they had to cut and rearrange some nerve endings. So it

01:38:32.840 was like, it was numb, but I could also feel everything that they're doing when

01:38:38.580 they were taking out the stitches. And I was, it felt so disgusting. And once I went

01:38:47.880 home and I was able to finally bathe again, that was when I started having to, that's

01:38:58.060 when I had to take off the surgical binder and the dressings and look down at what was

01:39:08.180 left of my chest. You know, I had these big scars and all these markings from a surgical

01:39:15.380 marker. And on top of that, I will, just a warning, I will get into graphic detail here,

01:39:24.200 but the type of incision that I got was called a, was called double incision with nipple grafts,

01:39:34.860 meaning that they would not only take out the breast tissue and contour the chest to look more

01:39:40.680 masculine. They would also remove like the, the way it was explained to me, I guess, because I was

01:39:51.820 young and they were trying to make it more digestible to a 15-year-old was that they would,

01:39:57.500 they would leave like a deep scrape, deep scrapes on both sides of my chest, kind of like a deep

01:40:05.400 knee scrape, but more, more controlled. And they would, they would remove my nipples and then place

01:40:13.260 them in that area of scraped skin. And they called it a more masculine positioning and shape.

01:40:19.120 It's barbaric to say the least. And when I took the dressings off, when I looked down,

01:40:29.040 they were, the grafts, they were, they were black because, you know, they, during the,

01:40:34.900 during the surgery, during the operation, the blood supply was cut off. And so the outer layer of skin

01:40:39.480 had died. And they said that that was how it was supposed to be. And that was just part of the process,

01:40:44.460 but I couldn't bear to see that part of my body. And I had to see that every night. I had to,

01:40:50.960 I had to change my, I had to, that was what I had to look at every single night after every bath,

01:40:59.380 after every shower. What, what happened to you in, in relationship to sensation? Like what,

01:41:08.060 because that's a long-term, you know, physiological and sexual consequence. And so you lose the ability

01:41:14.140 to breastfeed, obviously, and there's a profound physiological alteration in your appearance.

01:41:18.900 But what happens to you on the sensation side? What has happened?

01:41:24.080 It's certainly not the same. It's gotten a lot better over the years. I mean,

01:41:29.100 initially I would get like a lot of, it felt like sparks electricity as like my, the nerve endings grew

01:41:37.540 back. But it's, it's, it's, it's, it's strange. Like I can move like a hand over a certain area of my

01:41:48.860 chest and it'll feel like it's in my arm or something. And I have basically, basically no

01:41:53.820 erogenous sensation in the grafts.

01:41:55.680 Yeah. Okay. Okay. So it wasn't long after this that you started to have doubts about what you were

01:42:07.200 doing. Now, you told me earlier in this, in this discussion that at some point you started thinking

01:42:13.100 about having children. And so, but then also that you decided to stop your transition when you were 16.

01:42:20.080 So how did that lay itself out after you had the surgery? And how did you come to the decision

01:42:26.620 that the decision you had made was not a good one?

01:42:36.380 Not long after, I'd say maybe about a month or two, I started realizing that, you know, I miss looking

01:42:46.300 pretty and having softer features in a more feminine form. But this was something that I

01:42:52.780 kind of repressed for a while. It was, I mean, I was about three years on testosterone by this point

01:42:58.860 and I didn't even look like a woman anymore. I thought there was no going back and there would

01:43:02.660 be no point. But at the same time, I would also buy makeup and skirts and dresses and just wear it in

01:43:10.980 the comfort of my room or when nobody was home to see it. And this caused a great deal of distress for

01:43:18.020 me. And after the surgery, I just kept getting worse. I just kept justifying it in my head as

01:43:24.760 it being part of the post-op process, but I never really got any better. And it wasn't until

01:43:31.680 maybe about 11 months after the surgery that I realized what the problem was. And

01:43:41.000 you know, I, I had a, I was taking a psychology class at this point. I had a, I had a lesson.

01:43:50.800 I had a chapter on, um, on child development and parenting. And one of the, one of the lessons

01:44:01.400 was about the Harlow experiments with the rhesus monkeys, the ones exploring like the relationship

01:44:07.260 between mother and her child, how things like, uh, physical affection and breastfeeding affect

01:44:14.760 that. And I realized that my breasts were so much more than just sexual organs. I mean,

01:44:23.260 there were a means of not only feeding my kid, but also I lost so much more than that.

01:44:32.980 Of providing them with love and attention. Yeah. Well, look, you know, there's a woman named

01:44:36.660 Tiffany Fields. She, she studied under, she studied the work of a man named Ryok Panksepp and Panksepp

01:44:42.520 showed that in order for rat pups to develop properly, they had to be physically stimulated,

01:44:47.780 touched, licked, loved. The, uh, experimenters can duplicate that by massaging them with the end of

01:44:54.280 a pencil eraser. Anyways, Tiffany Fields showed that if you took premature kids that were in an

01:45:00.200 incubator and you massage them three times a day for 10 minutes, that they developed as fast physically

01:45:05.080 as children in utero. There's a huge body of research showing that that skin to skin contact

01:45:11.120 is crucial. That's physical love. That skin to skin contact is a crucial part of establishing

01:45:18.160 the, what would you call it? The domain of love that's necessary for children to flourish food,

01:45:24.500 shelter, you know, the provision of adequate water, et cetera. Those basics are necessary, but

01:45:30.300 that physical contact and love is equally necessary. And so it's definitely the case that,

01:45:36.460 well, breastfed children tend to thrive more, more thoroughly, right? And that's partly a nutritional

01:45:42.640 issue, but it's also partly an issue of, well, of the fact that a lot of the love that's maternal love

01:45:48.740 that entices children into life is a consequence of physical contact. And so, yeah, well, that's a hell

01:45:55.820 of a realization. So that started to dawn on you in high school after you had the surgery.

01:46:00.120 Yeah. I felt like a monster.

01:46:02.940 Then you were starting to think about having kids at that point. And so, so why? What, do you think that

01:46:08.480 was triggered by the surgery? Like what switched you?

01:46:12.200 I think it was most of that class. I mean, I was, I was learning a lot about myself and also

01:46:19.560 about the, about parenting and about children. And that was, that was when I realized, like,

01:46:27.200 I think I want to have kids someday. And, you know, I started really thinking about it, like, not only,

01:46:34.960 not only about how it relates to having lost my breasts, but also, you know, my fertility might be

01:46:44.420 affected by having to start testosterone so young.

01:46:48.580 Um, and do you know, do you know whether that is the case now? Has, have you been tested in any

01:46:56.560 manner that indicates whether the blockers and the testosterone have interfered with your fertility?

01:47:02.540 I don't know. Um, I mean, by the time that I started, I was, I did start having periods, but they

01:47:09.940 were, I was so young by that, but at that point, I, they weren't, they weren't regular. I was only

01:47:15.240 having about three to four per year. That was also another source of stress for me about being a

01:47:19.280 woman. Um, I felt, I, yeah, it was, it was scary. Like all the other girls my age would talk about

01:47:24.820 like how, you know, they had, they got theirs every month or every two months. And, you know, I learned

01:47:33.640 it's a myth now, but they would talk about how like their cycles would supposedly sync with like

01:47:37.640 family members or friends. And I was like, that, why isn't that happening to me? And so I, it was

01:47:45.220 just, it was just a thing, another thing that piled that made me feel like I was broken. Um, luckily

01:47:51.900 after stopping. Right, right, right. Luckily after stopping about two months later, I got my period

01:47:56.860 back and it's been surprisingly quite regular since. I don't know if I went through some development.

01:48:02.360 Well, that's a, that's a good sign. It is a good sign. Right. Well, that's a good sign. That must be a

01:48:06.980 relief, so to speak. But I mean, there's so many other factors that play into that. I just, it's,

01:48:14.780 I haven't been able to get tested and I'm, I'm just not really sure of what's to come, but yeah,

01:48:22.680 I'm hopeful. Right, right, right, right, right, right. Okay. So when did you, when did you stop

01:48:30.020 taking the testosterone and when did you announce this to your parents? Well, when did you announce

01:48:35.280 this to yourself and then to your parents and, and all the other people around you who knew?

01:48:40.940 Um, I think after my junior year wrapped up one night, I just kind of broke down crying and I

01:48:47.220 realized that I regretted my transition and I called a friend and I texted my mom. I couldn't call her or

01:48:54.160 talk to her about it in person because, you know, I, I had a lot of guilt. I had a lot of shame and I

01:48:59.800 didn't want to, I didn't want to let her and dad and the rest of the family down after so many years

01:49:06.140 of doing this. And they, they, they invested, they invested their time and their money into doing this

01:49:12.940 and it was pretty much for nothing. And I hated that. It was also just shameful to admit that

01:49:20.920 I was wrong after so much time, especially since I didn't even look like a girl anymore by that point.

01:49:27.260 Right. Yeah. Well, it's quite, it's quite remarkable in some sense that you did reverse

01:49:35.640 your decision and you, you seem to be indicating to me that it was the realization that you wanted

01:49:42.280 to have children. That was the, was that the real, that was the real telling moment of transformation,

01:49:50.920 was it? It was definitely one of the biggest catalysts. And how do you think you figured

01:49:57.640 that out? Because that, you know, it's actually pretty young to figure that out. I mean, I've seen,

01:50:01.080 I've met many women now who, you know, there's lots of women your age who are absolutely hell bent

01:50:06.980 and convinced that they're never going to have kids, that the only pathway forward to them that's

01:50:11.720 valid is the career pathway. But I'll tell you that, you know, I'm 60 years old now and I've worked

01:50:17.120 with women in female dominated businesses my whole life because I'm in the psychological profession.

01:50:22.320 And so that's female dominated. And virtually every woman I've ever met with, with almost no

01:50:31.400 exceptions, and this includes extremely high achieving women on the career front, pretty much

01:50:36.920 by the time they're in their late twenties, their primary goal is to have a child. And that's even

01:50:46.260 the case. Now, sometimes that kicks in for women later than that. I've seen that as well, but it's

01:50:50.960 an extremely rare woman who goes through her entire young life without being seized by the desire to have

01:50:59.940 a child. And so, but it's early in your case. So, and it's strange, right? In some ways, because you'd

01:51:04.920 fought against this so hard, why the hell do you think it made itself manifest as a desire

01:51:10.900 when you were 16? Like, did you, do you think you knew that you were really like on the cutting edge

01:51:16.140 in some sense, you know, that if you kept pushing this, you were really going to sacrifice your

01:51:19.940 ability to have kids? Or what do you think produced the realization? I think, you know, I already had my

01:51:25.660 guard down by that point because this was around when, when COVID hit and all, there were all the

01:51:34.880 restrictions put into place and I was basically doing online school only. And I had a lot of isolation

01:51:42.800 from the outside world. And this, this caused me a significant amount of stress, but it also allowed

01:51:49.860 for a lot more time to be alone and reflect. And so it opened up my mind a little bit.

01:51:56.260 And so, so, so what were you fantasizing about on the family front when you were looking forward

01:52:03.660 into the future, you were thinking about having, did you, did you have some idea of how many kids

01:52:08.100 you wanted to have? Did you have some idea about the, like the marriage or the family structure?

01:52:12.500 What, what was making itself manifest in your fantasy?

01:52:15.080 Um, I mean, when I started, I was so young that I wasn't even thinking about all that

01:52:19.260 yet. Um, but as the years passed and I started to think about like my adulthood, what I wanted

01:52:26.900 to do as an adult, um, that thought started to pop into my head a little bit more. Um, I

01:52:34.420 never really thought about it very much until I learned about, about child psychology and just

01:52:44.060 being a parent. I think I would have naturally had that, um, that realization if, I guess if I knew

01:52:53.080 more about, about parenting and, and, and family.

01:52:57.600 Hey, do you, do you know when you were a kid, when you were a kid, do you know if you played with

01:53:02.460 dolls?

01:53:03.040 Yeah, I did.

01:53:06.000 You did. Okay. So that was there. Do you, can you remember whether or not you enjoyed that? I know

01:53:11.080 that's a long time ago.

01:53:11.800 Yeah, I did.

01:53:12.700 And were they baby dolls or were they Barbies?

01:53:14.500 They were Barbies and Bratz.

01:53:18.500 Okay. So they were teenage dolls. Did you have any baby dolls?

01:53:21.480 Um, not that I can remember.

01:53:27.020 Okay. Okay. See, that's an, that's interesting. You know, even among chimpanzees, if you allow

01:53:32.460 chimpanzee juveniles, free toy choice, the males will pick trucks and wield things and gadgets and

01:53:40.900 the females will pick dolls and the female chimps will carry the dolls around teddy bears and so

01:53:45.840 forth for, for months and develop a very deep attachment to them. And, you know, one of the

01:53:50.260 things it's really necessary for young girls and perhaps for young boys, but certainly for young

01:53:55.140 girls to play with baby dolls. It's really necessary because that's all part of that practicing that,

01:54:00.760 that, that, that deep female role. And, you know, without that, well, you don't have a chance.

01:54:06.160 That's how kids think, eh? They think by playing. And if they don't have a chance to play that out,

01:54:10.280 then, well, they don't, they don't explore that. And so it didn't even make it manifest

01:54:15.500 in your own life until you were like 16 and had gone through all this bloody misery.

01:54:21.500 All right. So when did you start thinking about taking legal action and, and why do you think

01:54:26.640 that's justifiable? That was quite a bit further down the line. I should probably go into first

01:54:33.560 about the detransition process for me and what led up to me eventually starting to speak out and

01:54:39.440 doing that. Yeah. When I had this realization, I mean, that, that night when, when I broke down

01:54:47.720 and I talked to my friend and my mom and my dad about it. But that was the night that I stopped

01:54:55.220 taking testosterone. And I decided that I would just grow my hair out and buy new clothes and just

01:55:01.500 figure things out from there. I went for about a week, just not really doing anything. I was just

01:55:11.700 kind of at rock bottom at that point. And I didn't really see a reason to do anything anymore. I just

01:55:16.780 really, I just stayed in my bed or in my bedroom all day. Didn't really go out except to use the

01:55:22.140 restroom or get some food, but mom and dad would come and check in on me. And it was,

01:55:28.600 it was comforting. And that, that kept me going. Um, and then I had to figure out all the,

01:55:35.780 figure out everything from there pretty much on my own. Um, I, I told my endocrinologist,

01:55:44.120 I told my therapist, my endocrinologist and my general specialist that I regretted my transition

01:55:50.680 very deeply that I was going to stop and I didn't really get a whole lot of guidance on it.

01:55:56.040 I guess they really couldn't because it would be against the law to, um, suggest anything other

01:56:02.660 than, yeah. Well, that's a tricky one, right? Because, well, hypothetically, once you announced

01:56:08.220 that, they're also legally bound to go along with that. Right? So, so they could have, they could have

01:56:16.320 agreed with you. I mean, look, I have a certain amount of sympathy for counselors and medical

01:56:21.520 practitioners because they're facing supreme hell on the, on the, on their regulatory college front.

01:56:28.460 But, but having said that, I would also say that their fundamental duty of care is to the individual

01:56:34.280 and not to the bloody regulating colleges. And so, but they could have, they could have taken your

01:56:40.340 regrets seriously. You said that, did you face opposition or was it just, or was it just a matter

01:56:47.480 of lack of guidance? It was mostly lack of guidance. Nobody really opposed it, but, you know, I started

01:56:52.900 requesting blood tests from my endocrinologist. And, uh, when I got the, I specifically, I specifically

01:57:00.180 told her that I no longer identify as male and I want the guidelines for a female my age. And when I got

01:57:07.680 the results back, they were sent with the guidelines for the average sex hormone levels for a teenage

01:57:14.260 boy. So that was kind of the first, that was one of the first moments that really woke me up to

01:57:20.340 the fact that these people weren't going to help me.

01:57:27.520 Well, you know, it's, it's weird, eh? Because if your medical people were so convinced that you were

01:57:34.160 100% right when you decided to transition to begin with, and they were, you were right enough to take

01:57:40.780 the hormones and have the surgery, you'd think that there'd be some resistance to your sudden change

01:57:45.760 of heart. But it sounds like you, you basically encountered the same lackadaisical response to the

01:57:51.760 second decision that you did to the first decision. So, which it's not surprising, although it's horrible.

01:57:57.840 Yeah, I was basically entirely patient-led.

01:58:02.700 Right, right. Okay. So, all right. So you decided to take legal action. And, and, and so walk us

01:58:09.540 through that. Yeah. Um, earlier this year, I started to, to start speaking out publicly about my experience

01:58:20.140 with transitioning and then stopping transition. Before that, um, I actually had lost a lot of friends,

01:58:26.760 both from school and online over it, um, over the course of my detransition, because, um, a lot of

01:58:35.860 them, I, I had a pretty strong change in a lot of my views, and a lot of them disagreed with me

01:58:41.620 heavily. And they, they were very upset with me. Um, there was one person who kept harassing me just

01:58:50.100 because I regretted it and said that I deserved to feel that way, that I didn't deserve to have parents

01:58:54.320 who loved me enough to let me go through this. And, uh, there were, there were a lot of others who said

01:59:02.160 that I was just making them uncomfortable and that I shouldn't be, I shouldn't be voicing any of this

01:59:08.560 because it would be harming other real transgender people who needed this treatment. And I, I did, yeah.

01:59:16.480 They were the real ones. I see. I see. I gave in to this pressure and I, I did stop talking about it

01:59:21.760 for a while, but I also was, I also got involved in communities online of people who regretted their

01:59:28.460 transitions. And I realized that that wasn't the case at all. And that I just couldn't shut up because

01:59:38.400 this is something that's happening more often than even I thought was, was happening. I didn't even

01:59:44.500 know that detransition was a thing until after, until it happened to me. And, you know, I, I knew that

01:59:51.980 there's gotta be so many other people in the situation, especially kids who are being pressured

01:59:58.440 by their, their friends to stay silent about their pain. And somebody, it's not necessarily that I want

02:00:07.420 to speak out about it, but I feel, I feel called to. And so I started this year and-

02:00:13.500 What do you think, what, what do you think is the core of your claim that you fell prey to say,

02:00:21.040 medical and counseling malpractice? What do you think was done wrong with you?

02:00:30.180 Quite a lot, actually. The most immediate thing I can think of would be the fact that the consent forms

02:00:37.320 didn't weren't, they weren't really comprehensive. They were very vague. They didn't list a,

02:00:42.560 they didn't list a,

02:00:47.860 they didn't have nearly enough information on them. And I was also just too young to really fathom what

02:00:56.040 any of this meant. And they-

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02:01:53.040 You know, you can make the argument that my parents-

02:01:55.040 Well, you know, consent has to be documented, but it also has to be informed.

02:02:02.600 And informed means you have to understand what you're consenting to.

02:02:06.700 And so from my perspective, like, especially when you were really young, say around 12,

02:02:11.720 and you first went into therapy, there should have been a very deep investigation into your

02:02:16.900 background and then a laying out of a whole comprehensive range of options and a lengthy

02:02:22.700 discussion of the consequence of all of those options. And your parents, after the discussion

02:02:28.340 had taken place with you, your parents should have been brought into that and they should have been

02:02:32.280 walked through the same range of options. And then you all should have been offered,

02:02:38.000 what would I say, the opportunity or the necessity to take a fair amount of time to really think it

02:02:44.720 through, you know, on the fundamental basis that, well, we won't do anything precipitous until it's

02:02:51.660 necessary. Right. And that, that harkens back to the idea that if you leave most kids with gender

02:02:56.840 dysphoria be, you know, most of them identify as homosexual, as I said, eventually, but most of them,

02:03:03.080 the vast majority of them accept their biological status. And so, so the consent issue, it isn't only that

02:03:09.760 the forms were vague and didn't detail out the, you know, the full range of consequences, it's that

02:03:15.120 you needed to be walked through in great detail, all of the issues that were relevant to you on the

02:03:23.020 psychological and medical front, all the options that were available to you, and the pros and cons of all

02:03:29.740 those options. And that should have been something that took, I would think that I can't see in any possible

02:03:36.560 way that that could have been done with any degree of thoroughness in something under six months of

02:03:42.620 weekly therapy. And I would say that's an absolute minimum, to walk anyone through something as

02:03:48.560 complicated as what you laid out. So that's on the informed, right?

02:03:54.340 Yeah, they really presented this as, as basically the only option to both me and my parents.

02:04:00.920 And I also, the problem with me starting it so young was not only that I couldn't consent, I

02:04:10.360 couldn't really fathom the full, just the full picture of things. I've also experienced, I'm still

02:04:18.200 experiencing a wide range of complications to this day. You know, from the surgery, you know,

02:04:28.020 I'll never be able to breastfeed. I'll never have that erogenous sensation in my chest back.

02:04:34.860 I, I'll never have my breast back. A reconstruction will do nothing for me and it might make things

02:04:41.880 worse actually, because I'm, I've, I've had some complications pop up this year with the grafts.

02:04:47.180 They, I have to cover them up with bandages or else they, they'll, I don't know what's going on

02:04:54.460 with them. I tried to consult my surgeon about it and she didn't really, didn't really, didn't

02:05:01.880 really investigate. He gave me advice that made my, the complications worse even, and actually

02:05:07.660 temporarily gave me an infection, but I have to wear, I have to bandage up every day so that it

02:05:12.460 doesn't like leak all over my clothing or bedding. And from the, from the, the hormones and blockers,

02:05:21.760 I've been experiencing some joint pains, mainly in my, my arms, my legs, and my back. And I, I still

02:05:35.220 have issues with my, my urinary tract. I have to use the restroom pretty frequently and I didn't even

02:05:41.440 know that this was possible. This is like a pretty huge quality of life issue that I'm experiencing

02:05:46.780 and I'm just, I'm just not really getting any help for it. And on top of that, I'm, I do,

02:06:00.400 I do hate to speak about it, but I'm experiencing

02:06:04.380 sexual dysfunction at the age of 18. That's something that women usually go through when,

02:06:14.300 when they're in their forties to fifties. Right, right.

02:06:27.180 How is this supposed to know?

02:06:36.260 So, so let's talk for a moment about how you got your lawyers and where you are on the legal battlefront.

02:06:44.300 So, not only is what's happened to me completely unethical, completely wrong, it's caused me a lot

02:06:56.540 of physical damage and emotional damage as well. I'm still picking up the pieces of my life to this

02:07:02.420 day. And I often find myself feeling like a broken woman, all because of a choice that I made that I

02:07:10.600 was allowed to make as a kid.

02:07:11.960 And I think it's very clear just how wrong all this is. None of this should have been allowed to happen.

02:07:23.460 What has happened legally? Have you, have you served a set of people with notice that you're

02:07:29.920 taking legal proceedings and, or are you still in the, in the planning stages of that?

02:07:36.380 Um, so we've filed a letter of intent to sue against Kaiser, my healthcare provider, as well as the,

02:07:44.620 the hospital that I underwent the surgery at and the surgeon who did it, the gender specialist who

02:07:50.780 referred me to that surgeon and the endocrinologist who had put me on hormones.

02:07:54.100 Um, we're still, we're still in the 90 day period.

02:07:59.160 Right. So this is all just, this is all just unfolding now. So you're going to end up with a

02:08:03.940 pretty damn thorough medical and legal education by the time you're done all of this and a media

02:08:09.840 education as well. That's for sure. So look, we should wrap this part up. Um, for everyone who's

02:08:17.560 watching and listening, I'm going to talk to Chloe for another half an hour on the Daily Wire Plus

02:08:21.780 platform. I think what I'm going to do, I often walk people through the development of their career,

02:08:26.500 but that's not relevant in her situation. What I'm going to do instead is talk to Chloe about,

02:08:31.660 she was recently at an event with Matt Walsh and I want to talk to her about that. And I want to talk

02:08:37.060 to her about the response she's got from the gender, um, let's say, uh, ideologues and activists

02:08:45.940 in relationship to going public with her decision to detransition. So we're going to delve into that

02:08:52.420 for about half an hour. And so if those of you who are watching and listening found this interesting

02:08:57.120 and you're inclined, switch over to the Daily Wire Plus platform and we'll fill in the political end

02:09:02.580 of this, at least to some degree. And Chloe, thank you very much for talking to me today. And I'm

02:09:07.620 really, it's really, uh, what happened to you is really unforgivable in my estimation. You know,

02:09:16.480 it's, you were very badly mishandled by the people who should have been taking care of you on the

02:09:21.520 professional front. And you were, you were, you know, offered a pathway forward that I can see to be

02:09:32.420 highly tempting for someone in your situation, but there are many, many, many, many other options

02:09:38.960 available to you on the therapeutic front that would have resolved the problems that you've had

02:09:44.460 to the degree that human problems can ever be resolved without having to wander through this

02:09:48.820 bloody catastrophic labyrinth of pain and suffering and confusion that you've been subject to for the

02:09:54.760 last five years. And so I hope that you can get yourself back on proper footing and move forward and,

02:10:02.160 and I wish you all the luck there is on the legal front. I hope your damn legal system in the United

02:10:07.640 States isn't so corrupted already by all this woke nonsense so that it'll be impossible for you to

02:10:12.260 proceed. But I suspect that the medical community who's being complicit in this kind of butchery

02:10:17.280 has an awful shock waiting for them on the legal front. That certainly started to manifest itself in

02:10:22.980 the UK with the closing of the Tavistock Clinic. And I think there's a thousand lawsuits right now pending

02:10:28.780 in relationship to the Tavistock Clinic. So the tide is beginning to turn. And when it turns, there's going to be

02:10:36.080 an awful lot of reparations made on the part of, of culpable medical professionals and their counseling

02:10:45.160 acolytes. So good luck with that, eh? And keep your head up. And we'll flip over to the Daily Wire Plus platform.

02:10:52.480 For all those of you watching and listening, thank you very much for your time and attention. And

02:10:56.640 thanks again, Chloe, for, uh, being willing to wander through this, you know, relatively painful personal

02:11:03.520 territory. Thank you so much. Hello, everyone. I would encourage you to continue listening to my

02:11:10.840 conversation with my guest on dailywireplus.com.

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - January 03, 2023

319. Detransition： The Wounds that Won't Heal ｜ Chloe Cole

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