The Megyn Kelly Show - A Deep Dive into Detransitioners, with Experts, Doctors, and Those Who Have Been Through It

00:00:00.000 Now streaming on Paramount Plus.

00:00:02.860 Someone is trying to frame us.

00:00:05.160 Until our names are cleared.

00:00:07.720 We're fugitives from Interpol.

00:00:09.480 Like Bonnie and Clyde with better snacks.

00:00:12.880 Espionage?

00:00:13.560 You still as good a shot as you used to be?

00:00:16.600 Better.

00:00:17.400 Is there love language?

00:00:18.860 We like to walk that fine line between techno-thriller

00:00:21.380 and romantic comedy.

00:00:24.180 We make up our own rules.

00:00:25.940 NCIS Tony and Ziva.

00:00:27.400 Now streaming on Paramount Plus.

00:00:30.600 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:32.540 Your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.

00:00:42.120 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.

00:00:43.900 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:45.580 Today, a deep dive into the world of transitioning

00:00:48.940 and de-transitioning.

00:00:51.620 You will hear directly from those who went through

00:00:53.740 the treatments and procedures, hormones, surgeries,

00:00:57.060 but eventually went on to regret their decision.

00:01:00.000 And later, we'll be joined by two doctors

00:01:02.340 to discuss this topic through a medical lens

00:01:05.140 as there's breaking news on the American Academy of Pediatrics

00:01:09.300 and what it's doing to really prevent any debate on this issue.

00:01:13.600 But first, I want to bring you the stories of Walt Heyer

00:01:17.640 and Grace Ledinsky-Smith.

00:01:20.480 Walt says his childhood greatly impacted his decision to transition,

00:01:24.380 but that transition did not come until he was in his 40s

00:01:28.140 when he became Laura Jensen.

00:01:31.380 Eight years later, he de-transitioned.

00:01:33.980 And Grace dealt with gender identity issues in her 20s

00:01:37.400 before undergoing a double mastectomy

00:01:39.740 and then later realizing she had made a severe mistake.

00:01:44.600 She, too, de-transitioned back to a woman.

00:01:47.580 They both speak openly now about their experiences

00:01:50.920 in an effort to help others,

00:01:52.780 but it does not go down without backlash

00:01:56.420 from the trans activists.

00:01:58.620 So it is brave of them to do this,

00:02:00.880 and we appreciate them being here.

00:02:04.800 Now streaming on Paramount+.

00:02:06.980 Someone is trying to frame us.

00:02:10.080 Until our names are cleared.

00:02:12.500 We're fugitives from interval.

00:02:14.280 Like Bonnie and Clyde with better snacks.

00:02:17.700 Espionage?

00:02:18.360 You're still as good a shot as you used to be?

00:02:21.400 Better.

00:02:22.180 Is there love language?

00:02:23.660 We like to walk that fine line between techno-thriller

00:02:26.180 and romantic comedy.

00:02:28.960 We make up our own rules.

00:02:30.880 NCIS Tony and Ziva.

00:02:32.460 Now streaming on Paramount+.

00:02:34.280 Walt and Grace, thank you so much for being here.

00:02:38.940 Welcome to the show.

00:02:40.120 Yeah, pleasure to be on.

00:02:41.280 Thank you.

00:02:42.320 Yeah, thank you so much for having us.

00:02:44.160 Of course.

00:02:44.820 It's absolute nonsense that you should experience

00:02:46.820 any backlash whatsoever.

00:02:49.040 So I know it's somewhat,

00:02:50.960 at this point you're probably used to it,

00:02:52.300 but it's somewhat risky to come on.

00:02:54.080 And you get people,

00:02:54.960 it's not just backlash like,

00:02:55.940 oh, they're terrible.

00:02:56.760 It's backlash like,

00:02:57.480 you dehumanized me.

00:02:59.080 People make it very personal,

00:03:00.640 trying to make it sound like

00:03:02.040 you've issued personal attacks.

00:03:03.840 Meanwhile, you're just telling

00:03:04.600 your personal stories

00:03:05.620 and raising concerns.

00:03:07.520 And I appreciate that.

00:03:09.100 So let's start with your backstory

00:03:10.780 so that people understand

00:03:12.100 how you came to these opinions

00:03:14.320 very honestly

00:03:15.300 and not without some fair amount of trauma.

00:03:18.000 Walt, I'll start with you.

00:03:19.320 I was fascinated to see

00:03:20.740 you were born in 1940.

00:03:22.500 Now, that means you went through all of this

00:03:26.400 at a time when it was verboten.

00:03:29.280 You know, it wasn't like today

00:03:30.360 where you're surrounded by a bunch of pushers,

00:03:33.160 but in your own personal experience,

00:03:35.600 you kind of were.

00:03:36.960 You were out in San Francisco

00:03:37.880 when you decided to actually go through

00:03:39.600 with transitioning

00:03:40.580 and reading your backstory.

00:03:42.060 It seems like you kind of did have some pushers.

00:03:44.960 Let's start before that.

00:03:45.900 When you're a little boy,

00:03:47.280 what happened?

00:03:47.940 Because I know there are a couple of central traumas

00:03:49.420 that you think played into

00:03:50.640 your belief you needed to transition.

00:03:53.380 Yeah.

00:03:53.640 Thank you, Megan,

00:03:54.560 for allowing both of us to share this.

00:03:57.120 But yeah, my story started in 1944

00:03:59.720 before there was any dialogue

00:04:02.540 about, you know,

00:04:03.680 the words they use today,

00:04:05.520 you know, transitioning and transgender

00:04:07.320 and gender dysphoria.

00:04:09.800 Simply put,

00:04:11.440 what I've learned now in 77 years

00:04:14.120 is that when grandma made me

00:04:17.380 a purple chiffon dress

00:04:18.660 when my dad dropped me off

00:04:20.500 and she would babysit me for the weekend

00:04:23.100 and he would go fishing

00:04:24.180 in the California mountains

00:04:25.880 for two or three days with my mom.

00:04:28.540 And so she made me this purple chiffon dress

00:04:31.200 and put it on me,

00:04:32.740 made it specifically

00:04:33.900 for my little four-year-old body

00:04:35.560 and told me how cute I looked.

00:04:37.940 And it all seemed kind of benign

00:04:39.940 and sort of fun.

00:04:41.840 Um, what I didn't realize

00:04:45.080 and what I've learned

00:04:46.480 in that 77 years

00:04:47.960 is that putting me,

00:04:50.340 a four-year-old boy in a dress

00:04:52.120 and then telling him how cute he looks

00:04:53.680 and then dressing me up

00:04:55.300 every time I was over there in that dress

00:04:57.220 really became emotional

00:05:00.120 and psychological child abuse

00:05:03.240 that eventually led to sexual abuse.

00:05:06.880 And so what I really talk a lot about,

00:05:10.500 Megan, is the fact that

00:05:12.040 people don't understand the consequences.

00:05:14.340 We just sort of go through these motions

00:05:16.420 about cross-dressing kids

00:05:18.320 and we think it's cool

00:05:19.900 and it's acceptable.

00:05:21.800 Well, it's not so cool.

00:05:23.500 It is acceptable,

00:05:24.620 but it's also very harmful.

00:05:26.520 And so when my parents,

00:05:28.880 because it was kept a secret,

00:05:30.480 my grandma kept it a secret

00:05:31.920 for two and a half years.

00:05:33.760 And so one time I went home,

00:05:37.680 I took the purple dress

00:05:38.980 in a brown paper bag back home

00:05:41.960 when dad picked me up

00:05:43.200 and my parents found it

00:05:44.920 a couple of days later

00:05:45.860 and said,

00:05:46.220 where'd the dress come from?

00:05:47.360 And I said,

00:05:47.800 well, grandma made it.

00:05:48.840 And then frankly,

00:05:50.320 all hell broke loose in the house

00:05:51.920 and I was never allowed

00:05:53.520 to go back to grandma's house.

00:05:54.960 But the damage

00:05:55.620 in the two and a half years

00:05:57.040 to my young psyche was done.

00:06:01.220 And so dad then,

00:06:03.280 not knowing what to do,

00:06:04.520 decided that he would use

00:06:05.740 a hardwood floor plank

00:06:07.040 as a disciplinary tool,

00:06:09.200 actually like a blacksmith

00:06:10.560 would take a hammer to hot iron,

00:06:12.520 I think,

00:06:12.940 to try to reshape me into a boy

00:06:16.740 and not into this idea

00:06:18.180 that I could be a girl.

00:06:19.840 And that physical abuse

00:06:22.720 that he levied on me

00:06:24.800 was harmful as well.

00:06:26.080 And then not long after that,

00:06:28.900 my dad's adopted brother,

00:06:32.000 Uncle Fred,

00:06:32.900 decided to sexually molest me

00:06:34.760 when I was eight and nine years old.

00:06:36.580 So you have the psychological

00:06:39.180 and emotional abuse

00:06:40.640 of being cross-dressed by grandma

00:06:43.180 and then you have the physical abuse

00:06:44.840 for the hardwood floor plank

00:06:46.020 and then you have sexual abuse.

00:06:47.380 All these things occurred

00:06:48.520 before I was 10 years old.

00:06:51.000 And what we know today

00:06:52.340 is that this is called

00:06:53.580 adverse childhood experiences

00:06:55.320 or ACEs.

00:06:56.800 And it's a traumatic childhood.

00:06:59.680 And at that point,

00:07:01.680 the proper thing

00:07:02.900 would have been

00:07:03.860 to have me treated

00:07:05.500 for trauma

00:07:06.600 and understand

00:07:08.000 that it's adverse

00:07:09.120 childhood experiences

00:07:10.160 cause the brain

00:07:12.340 to be altered

00:07:13.260 at the level

00:07:14.440 of our identity.

00:07:16.460 And this is kind of

00:07:17.960 what we know today

00:07:18.840 has been studied

00:07:19.580 since the 1990s,

00:07:20.820 but nobody's talking about it.

00:07:22.260 And so I thought

00:07:23.780 I should have been a girl

00:07:24.680 when I was 10

00:07:26.340 and 11 and 12.

00:07:27.440 And I took on an identity

00:07:28.640 when I was 13

00:07:29.560 of Crystal West

00:07:30.460 as a secret.

00:07:31.680 I didn't go out

00:07:32.740 because in those days,

00:07:33.900 this is the early 50s,

00:07:35.660 nobody's really

00:07:36.520 talking about this idea.

00:07:38.520 And so I was secretly

00:07:40.460 cross-dressing

00:07:41.380 and hiding

00:07:43.300 everything I was doing,

00:07:44.600 but yet I had all this

00:07:46.320 feelings going on

00:07:47.900 about I was born

00:07:48.820 in the wrong body.

00:07:49.580 And then Christine

00:07:50.300 Jorgensen hit the airwaves

00:07:51.860 and became kind of

00:07:53.660 the big deal

00:07:54.240 in the 50s.

00:07:55.860 And that's what led me

00:07:57.740 to think,

00:07:58.260 oh, that must be who I am.

00:07:59.660 So I had a way

00:08:00.600 to identify

00:08:01.880 what I thought I was

00:08:04.520 through Christine Jorgensen.

00:08:06.100 It was a false premise,

00:08:08.120 but because no one

00:08:10.340 has ever, ever

00:08:11.220 in the history of mankind

00:08:12.300 ever changed their gender.

00:08:13.600 So, but we buy

00:08:15.320 into this idea.

00:08:16.380 And so that led me on.

00:08:18.340 I was never homosexual.

00:08:19.520 I ended up going to college,

00:08:22.300 getting married,

00:08:23.100 having two children.

00:08:24.800 I had a successful career

00:08:26.180 in the automobile industry.

00:08:28.280 I also worked

00:08:29.280 on the Apollo space missions

00:08:30.700 as an associate

00:08:32.060 design engineer

00:08:33.060 in the area of cryogenics,

00:08:35.440 struggled with alcoholism

00:08:36.820 and drug addiction

00:08:37.540 as a result of not dealing

00:08:39.420 with the adverse childhood

00:08:40.640 that I had,

00:08:41.800 the sexual abuse,

00:08:42.760 emotional and physical abuse,

00:08:44.040 which should have been treated

00:08:45.060 much earlier in life,

00:08:46.580 led me to go to a gender therapist

00:08:48.720 who said,

00:08:49.960 well, you have gender dysphoria

00:08:51.280 and what you need

00:08:52.500 is hormones and surgery.

00:08:53.640 But there was no voice

00:08:54.720 like Walt Heyer

00:08:56.100 out there at the time.

00:08:57.180 Nobody's saying

00:08:57.860 the bridge is out.

00:08:59.140 Don't do this.

00:09:00.220 It's not going to fix you.

00:09:01.540 It's only going to cause

00:09:02.760 more harm

00:09:03.360 and ruin your life.

00:09:05.380 And so Dr. Paul Walker,

00:09:07.460 who was the author

00:09:08.920 of the original standards

00:09:10.260 of care

00:09:10.720 that are in place today

00:09:12.220 was my therapist,

00:09:13.720 told me I needed

00:09:14.700 hormones and surgery.

00:09:16.400 I bought into it.

00:09:17.260 I had the surgery in 1983

00:09:18.940 and went on

00:09:21.360 to live the life

00:09:22.260 of Laura Jensen

00:09:23.380 working for the federal government

00:09:24.980 at FDIC

00:09:26.420 and the Postal Service

00:09:28.260 only to regret

00:09:29.260 and realize

00:09:30.240 that I never needed surgery.

00:09:31.820 I never needed hormones.

00:09:33.460 I did need therapy

00:09:35.440 for the trauma

00:09:36.600 that had been caused

00:09:37.480 during my life,

00:09:38.260 the physical, emotional

00:09:39.400 and sexual abuse

00:09:41.080 that I suffered.

00:09:41.860 And that's actually,

00:09:43.440 Megan,

00:09:43.660 what I find

00:09:44.460 in 100%

00:09:46.720 of the people,

00:09:48.420 the thousands

00:09:49.020 of people

00:09:49.900 that I've worked with

00:09:51.120 over the last many years.

00:09:52.340 I mean,

00:09:52.520 I detransitioned

00:09:53.520 well over 30 years ago

00:09:54.800 and my website,

00:09:57.520 Sex Change Regret,

00:09:58.460 has had well over

00:09:59.400 2 million views

00:10:00.440 just in the last few years.

00:10:02.280 So we know

00:10:03.340 this is a serious problem,

00:10:04.980 regret that is,

00:10:06.580 and it's how do we go about it?

00:10:08.380 Well,

00:10:08.540 we realize that

00:10:09.520 things happen

00:10:10.640 in their childhood

00:10:12.220 that cause them

00:10:13.200 to not like who they are

00:10:14.520 and they adopt this idea

00:10:16.840 that they can go through

00:10:17.760 a gender change

00:10:18.500 that is quite frankly impossible

00:10:19.820 because changing genders,

00:10:22.540 quite frankly,

00:10:23.280 was all fixed

00:10:24.520 and innate

00:10:25.280 and unchangeable

00:10:26.460 at the time of conception

00:10:27.620 when the sperm hit the egg.

00:10:28.980 So the game was over.

00:10:30.280 So we're really only able

00:10:32.000 to change our identity

00:10:33.320 cosmetically,

00:10:34.840 but we can never

00:10:35.760 biologically change

00:10:37.040 who we are.

00:10:37.720 And that's kind of

00:10:38.460 where I am

00:10:39.340 and I've been working

00:10:40.060 with people

00:10:40.640 every single day,

00:10:41.900 seven days a week,

00:10:42.860 365 days a year

00:10:44.400 for over a dozen years.

00:10:46.880 So much in there, Walt.

00:10:48.280 When you talk about

00:10:49.240 your grandmother

00:10:50.100 dressing you in the dress,

00:10:51.340 it reminds me

00:10:52.200 of the backstory

00:10:52.780 of Ernest Hemingway.

00:10:54.020 I don't know

00:10:54.340 if you've ever heard that,

00:10:55.660 but he had a mother

00:10:56.920 who put him

00:10:58.060 in a dress too

00:10:59.240 and treated him

00:10:59.920 like he was a little girl

00:11:01.000 and of course,

00:11:01.500 Ernest Hemingway

00:11:02.160 would grow up

00:11:03.020 to be an amazing writer,

00:11:03.980 but also somebody

00:11:04.580 who would take his own life

00:11:06.160 and led,

00:11:07.360 had severe alcoholism

00:11:08.680 and a lot of problems.

00:11:10.120 I'm not saying

00:11:10.460 it was all related to that,

00:11:11.500 but childhood traumas

00:11:12.600 can come in all different

00:11:13.900 shapes and sizes and forms.

00:11:15.860 And it's very different

00:11:16.880 from having a little boy

00:11:18.260 who just for fun

00:11:19.860 wants to put on a dress

00:11:20.920 and parade around

00:11:21.780 or a little girl

00:11:22.560 who wants to,

00:11:23.640 you know,

00:11:23.820 dress as like a football player.

00:11:25.580 Just in terms of,

00:11:27.580 you know,

00:11:27.940 role play

00:11:28.600 and normal childhood development,

00:11:30.520 that's very different

00:11:31.860 from having a grown up

00:11:33.220 dress you

00:11:34.380 as the opposite sex

00:11:35.720 and sort of

00:11:36.920 impose the role

00:11:38.520 playing on you

00:11:39.480 when you didn't,

00:11:40.920 you don't really

00:11:41.280 understand it.

00:11:42.600 That's exactly right.

00:11:44.040 This point that you're making

00:11:45.380 about the unwillingness

00:11:46.920 to examine

00:11:47.440 other traumas

00:11:48.960 that may be leading

00:11:50.160 to these feelings

00:11:51.080 of confusion

00:11:52.000 around gender

00:11:52.680 is the culprit.

00:11:54.000 It's the culprit

00:11:54.660 that we're dealing with

00:11:55.400 on so many levels today.

00:11:57.100 And it's what makes

00:11:57.660 what the doctors

00:11:58.820 are doing so shameful.

00:12:00.280 You know,

00:12:00.560 to the contrary,

00:12:01.600 they,

00:12:02.640 if you try to explore

00:12:04.100 what else is happening

00:12:05.540 and is there a divorce

00:12:06.460 in your family,

00:12:07.200 do you suffer

00:12:07.840 childhood trauma?

00:12:09.160 They accuse you

00:12:10.100 as a doctor

00:12:10.640 in today's day and age

00:12:11.560 of conversion therapy,

00:12:13.500 of trying to engage

00:12:15.340 in something

00:12:16.240 close to conversion therapy

00:12:17.680 as opposed to

00:12:18.320 just figuring out

00:12:19.020 whether you really

00:12:19.660 have a transgender

00:12:20.680 or gender dysphoric

00:12:22.340 person in front of you.

00:12:24.680 Grace,

00:12:25.100 you,

00:12:25.560 you came at this

00:12:26.940 at a much different

00:12:27.540 point in time.

00:12:28.540 You are 28 years old now,

00:12:31.340 so you were born

00:12:32.080 in the 90s,

00:12:33.660 if my math is correct.

00:12:38.040 And I would imagine

00:12:39.960 that so,

00:12:40.800 like,

00:12:40.980 how old were you

00:12:41.720 when you first started

00:12:42.440 to wrestle with

00:12:43.260 issues of gender?

00:12:45.780 Well,

00:12:46.360 I was sort of

00:12:48.180 lightly wrestling

00:12:49.420 with gender identity

00:12:50.480 from,

00:12:52.220 I think,

00:12:52.640 like 19 or 20

00:12:53.720 in college,

00:12:54.920 more along the lines

00:12:56.680 of considering myself

00:12:57.880 maybe non-binary,

00:12:59.380 which is more

00:13:01.160 of a,

00:13:02.120 like,

00:13:02.440 I don't conform

00:13:03.560 to any gender role

00:13:04.680 style identity.

00:13:06.400 And I had really

00:13:07.580 been very,

00:13:08.480 like,

00:13:09.240 socially conscious,

00:13:10.420 very involved

00:13:11.060 in, like,

00:13:12.360 feminist analysis

00:13:13.280 and, like,

00:13:14.240 leftist sort of

00:13:15.540 analysis of society.

00:13:17.300 And I felt,

00:13:18.860 I think,

00:13:20.340 very,

00:13:21.540 I guess,

00:13:23.140 socially anxious

00:13:24.340 and, like,

00:13:24.900 insecure about,

00:13:26.800 like,

00:13:27.280 my place in society

00:13:28.280 and about my body.

00:13:29.700 And that escalated

00:13:31.880 in my 20s.

00:13:36.000 When I was 22,

00:13:37.120 I started to seriously

00:13:38.700 question my gender

00:13:40.220 and question whether

00:13:41.540 medical transition

00:13:42.420 might be right for me.

00:13:43.380 This coincided with

00:13:44.780 a really dark period

00:13:47.260 in my life

00:13:47.960 where I had

00:13:48.620 a bout of intense

00:13:50.500 depression

00:13:51.080 and suicidal ideation.

00:13:53.620 And during that

00:13:55.140 really dark time,

00:13:56.940 the idea

00:13:57.780 that my

00:13:59.600 sort of lifelong

00:14:00.860 body problems

00:14:02.160 and social anxiety

00:14:03.540 could actually be

00:14:05.140 caused by

00:14:06.120 being transgender

00:14:08.280 and actually,

00:14:09.160 like,

00:14:09.760 needing a different

00:14:10.560 shape and sort

00:14:11.800 of body to thrive

00:14:13.000 felt like

00:14:13.900 an epiphany

00:14:14.580 to me

00:14:15.060 that I had

00:14:15.560 just come to.

00:14:17.440 And I

00:14:18.780 was obsessed

00:14:20.320 with the idea

00:14:21.140 and I thought

00:14:22.020 that it would be

00:14:23.000 the thing

00:14:23.940 that would save me

00:14:24.660 and allow me

00:14:25.160 to finally feel

00:14:26.200 normal after,

00:14:27.540 you know,

00:14:28.820 a young adulthood

00:14:29.500 just feeling weird

00:14:30.820 and out of place.

00:14:31.940 And, you know,

00:14:32.600 I could put together

00:14:34.200 evidence from my past,

00:14:36.380 like,

00:14:36.640 asking for a boy's haircut

00:14:37.840 when I was young

00:14:38.560 was something that I did.

00:14:39.700 I often had short hair.

00:14:41.040 I often was,

00:14:42.560 you know,

00:14:43.000 resistant to

00:14:44.060 different ways

00:14:44.700 that people

00:14:45.380 treated me

00:14:45.960 as a woman

00:14:46.740 that I felt

00:14:47.380 were, you know,

00:14:48.700 stereotypical

00:14:49.620 and, you know,

00:14:51.820 putting unfair

00:14:52.340 expectations on me.

00:14:53.380 But honestly,

00:14:53.920 it was a period

00:14:55.480 of intense

00:14:56.000 mental distress

00:14:56.660 and I, you know,

00:14:58.440 I connected

00:14:59.040 all the dots

00:14:59.640 in my head

00:15:00.260 and I thought

00:15:00.880 that I was

00:15:01.500 transgender

00:15:02.200 and supposed

00:15:02.900 to be a man.

00:15:04.280 So I sought

00:15:05.780 out a gender

00:15:07.160 therapist

00:15:07.860 and a hormone

00:15:11.820 providing clinic.

00:15:14.800 The situation

00:15:16.360 with the clinic

00:15:17.320 was they did

00:15:19.320 informed consent.

00:15:20.480 So all I needed

00:15:21.520 to do was

00:15:22.400 answer the question,

00:15:24.500 why do you want

00:15:24.860 to go on hormones?

00:15:25.560 And I told them

00:15:26.560 being a woman

00:15:27.160 is not working for me

00:15:28.380 and they said,

00:15:28.960 sounds good.

00:15:29.640 And they gave me

00:15:30.620 a bunch of papers

00:15:31.920 to sign

00:15:32.480 and I got

00:15:33.520 on testosterone.

00:15:36.720 At first,

00:15:37.860 I felt great.

00:15:39.360 I felt like

00:15:40.280 I was on the right

00:15:41.340 path because

00:15:42.100 I was feeling

00:15:43.660 more energetic.

00:15:44.600 I wasn't as

00:15:45.220 stuck in this

00:15:46.380 quagmire of depression

00:15:47.420 anymore.

00:15:49.100 I took that

00:15:50.000 as a sign

00:15:50.480 I was on the right

00:15:51.220 path.

00:15:52.540 And then

00:15:53.140 very quickly

00:15:54.860 because

00:15:55.980 it was so

00:15:57.500 uncomfortable

00:15:58.020 to bind my breasts

00:15:59.280 and because

00:15:59.900 I thought that

00:16:00.840 when I truly

00:16:01.680 started passing

00:16:02.460 as a man,

00:16:03.100 I could really

00:16:03.900 start to like

00:16:04.520 move on and

00:16:05.080 build my life.

00:16:06.000 I signed up

00:16:06.540 to get double

00:16:07.260 mastectomy,

00:16:08.080 also known as

00:16:09.240 top surgery.

00:16:10.760 I did that

00:16:11.680 after about

00:16:12.460 four months

00:16:13.320 on hormones,

00:16:14.080 I think.

00:16:16.740 So yeah,

00:16:17.640 it was very fast.

00:16:19.800 I was

00:16:20.700 in

00:16:21.920 an obsessive

00:16:23.460 state of mind.

00:16:25.140 The surgery

00:16:26.300 was

00:16:27.200 an intense

00:16:28.500 experience

00:16:31.000 and I

00:16:32.180 started feeling

00:16:33.060 some regrets

00:16:33.740 and doubts

00:16:34.260 afterwards but

00:16:35.140 pushed them

00:16:35.560 down for a

00:16:36.060 while.

00:16:37.740 And then

00:16:38.040 about five

00:16:38.840 months later

00:16:39.300 I was

00:16:40.120 feeling so

00:16:41.160 just

00:16:43.180 distressed

00:16:44.400 and overwrought

00:16:45.760 with doubt

00:16:46.420 at how the

00:16:47.880 surgery had

00:16:48.540 made me feel

00:16:49.120 that I decided

00:16:49.720 to take a

00:16:50.220 break from

00:16:50.580 testosterone and

00:16:51.580 I slowly

00:16:52.160 started to

00:16:52.700 realize that

00:16:53.140 I had made

00:16:53.580 a huge mistake.

00:16:54.340 What else

00:16:56.240 happened to

00:16:56.640 you when

00:16:56.880 you went

00:16:57.120 on testosterone?

00:16:59.380 Well,

00:16:59.980 my voice

00:17:01.040 started to

00:17:01.600 deepen.

00:17:02.580 I started

00:17:03.180 to grow

00:17:03.540 hair on

00:17:04.140 my body.

00:17:05.400 It had

00:17:06.640 a sort

00:17:07.080 of

00:17:07.180 antidepressant

00:17:08.040 effect

00:17:08.460 which was

00:17:09.840 nice because

00:17:10.460 I had been

00:17:11.300 sort of

00:17:12.160 wallowing

00:17:12.900 in deep

00:17:13.760 sadness

00:17:14.640 and like

00:17:15.400 aimlessness.

00:17:16.940 So that

00:17:17.200 ended up

00:17:17.620 giving me

00:17:18.200 a placebo

00:17:18.820 effect for

00:17:19.540 a while

00:17:19.940 that I

00:17:20.280 was on

00:17:20.620 the right

00:17:21.020 path.

00:17:21.680 it also

00:17:26.080 gave me

00:17:26.560 I think

00:17:26.940 energy

00:17:27.400 and it

00:17:27.740 also

00:17:28.040 stifled

00:17:28.860 my more

00:17:29.720 emotions

00:17:30.740 of like

00:17:31.180 sadness

00:17:31.680 and fear

00:17:32.380 which may

00:17:33.200 have

00:17:33.380 contributed

00:17:33.840 to going

00:17:34.720 forward

00:17:35.040 with the

00:17:35.320 surgery

00:17:35.580 so quickly.

00:17:37.180 Right.

00:17:37.660 And what

00:17:38.260 did

00:17:38.560 were you

00:17:39.040 somebody

00:17:39.460 who

00:17:40.100 was down

00:17:41.700 the internet

00:17:42.180 rabbit holes

00:17:42.880 on transitioning

00:17:43.720 and top

00:17:44.380 surgery?

00:17:45.100 You know,

00:17:45.240 we see this

00:17:45.800 very common

00:17:46.740 especially

00:17:47.100 amongst

00:17:47.600 women

00:17:48.440 younger than

00:17:49.080 you who

00:17:49.520 go through

00:17:49.880 this where

00:17:50.320 they've

00:17:51.080 spent three

00:17:51.560 hours or

00:17:52.080 five hours

00:17:52.760 a day

00:17:52.960 on Reddit

00:17:53.420 or YouTube

00:17:54.020 and seeing

00:17:55.160 you know,

00:17:55.600 it's like

00:17:55.900 they talk

00:17:56.220 about top

00:17:57.000 surgery

00:17:57.460 which is

00:17:57.840 like this

00:17:58.260 as you

00:17:59.020 point out

00:17:59.460 the sort

00:17:59.720 of carefree

00:18:00.740 way of

00:18:01.180 saying double

00:18:01.800 mastectomy.

00:18:02.840 I mean,

00:18:03.040 having your

00:18:03.620 body parts

00:18:04.300 cut off

00:18:05.460 and for a

00:18:06.660 young woman,

00:18:07.380 you know,

00:18:07.780 it's a massive

00:18:08.360 decision.

00:18:09.480 But I wonder

00:18:10.200 whether you

00:18:10.720 were one of

00:18:11.240 those people

00:18:11.620 who was on

00:18:12.580 the internet

00:18:12.900 all the time

00:18:13.440 being fed

00:18:14.040 information like

00:18:14.760 it's not a

00:18:15.420 thing and

00:18:15.880 you're going

00:18:16.120 to love it

00:18:16.580 and it's all

00:18:17.220 good.

00:18:17.660 Come on in.

00:18:19.760 Yeah,

00:18:20.060 I definitely

00:18:20.620 think that

00:18:21.580 internet

00:18:22.560 addiction

00:18:23.220 played into

00:18:24.020 my dissociation

00:18:25.640 from my

00:18:26.120 body and

00:18:27.120 also imbibing

00:18:29.160 vast quantities

00:18:30.140 of material

00:18:31.660 fantasizing about

00:18:32.680 how awesome

00:18:33.260 transition would

00:18:34.060 be was a

00:18:35.480 huge part of

00:18:36.240 my routine

00:18:36.960 around that

00:18:37.480 time.

00:18:38.300 Looking back,

00:18:38.980 it's easy to

00:18:39.540 see that I

00:18:40.000 was in an

00:18:40.580 obsessive rabbit

00:18:41.380 hole,

00:18:42.340 but I think

00:18:44.480 that it's a

00:18:45.520 pattern that a

00:18:46.200 lot of

00:18:46.520 detransitioners

00:18:47.380 talk about is

00:18:48.440 getting sucked

00:18:50.100 into this

00:18:50.680 world and

00:18:51.420 exposing yourself

00:18:53.340 over and

00:18:53.800 over again

00:18:54.400 to this

00:18:55.160 promotional

00:18:55.600 material for

00:18:56.340 these surgeries

00:18:56.920 and hormones

00:18:57.500 essentially.

00:18:58.540 It's hugely

00:18:59.340 seductive.

00:19:00.700 I'm going to

00:19:01.020 guess, I'm

00:19:01.500 going to go

00:19:01.680 back to

00:19:01.960 Walt in a

00:19:02.300 second, but

00:19:02.780 when Walt

00:19:04.160 did this,

00:19:04.900 his doctor

00:19:05.760 may have been

00:19:06.200 very supportive

00:19:06.920 versus the

00:19:08.080 rest of the

00:19:08.440 medical community

00:19:09.100 back then,

00:19:09.820 but I bet

00:19:10.760 society wasn't

00:19:11.960 because it was

00:19:13.000 a very different

00:19:13.420 time.

00:19:14.380 But when you

00:19:14.980 did it, so

00:19:15.500 my math is

00:19:16.440 correct, it'd be

00:19:16.900 around 2016, we

00:19:19.860 had already

00:19:20.340 crossed over

00:19:21.420 to snaps,

00:19:23.860 you know, for

00:19:24.520 anybody who

00:19:25.240 declares

00:19:25.720 themselves trans,

00:19:27.120 it had already

00:19:27.540 been placed.

00:19:28.520 We went from

00:19:29.120 like, why is it

00:19:30.460 okay to hate

00:19:31.140 transgender people

00:19:32.600 to every

00:19:35.340 transgender person's

00:19:37.360 decision must be

00:19:38.260 celebrated as if

00:19:39.340 100% unassailable

00:19:40.760 and any doubt

00:19:42.200 expressed about

00:19:43.040 whether it was

00:19:43.520 right for this

00:19:43.940 person makes

00:19:44.540 one a bigot

00:19:45.340 and so on.

00:19:45.760 So did you

00:19:46.840 experience that

00:19:47.620 like sort of

00:19:48.160 snaps and

00:19:48.700 positivity and

00:19:49.580 like society

00:19:50.380 patting you on

00:19:51.360 the back for

00:19:51.840 this?

00:19:53.440 Yeah, I mean,

00:19:54.060 I think that I

00:19:55.940 certainly had

00:19:56.640 people in my

00:19:57.360 life who were

00:19:58.200 like worried

00:19:59.180 about what I

00:20:00.080 was doing,

00:20:00.840 but no one

00:20:01.680 really questioned

00:20:02.960 me all that

00:20:03.540 much and a lot

00:20:04.360 of people were

00:20:05.100 very positive and

00:20:06.160 I think they

00:20:06.660 meant well by

00:20:07.240 that, you

00:20:07.800 know, I

00:20:08.060 don't take

00:20:09.120 that, I

00:20:10.660 don't take

00:20:11.100 that badly,

00:20:11.860 but it's not

00:20:13.820 a cultural

00:20:14.920 script that

00:20:16.980 allows for a

00:20:18.280 lot of, you

00:20:19.740 know, saying to

00:20:20.380 someone like,

00:20:20.920 hey, you know,

00:20:21.600 you seem like you

00:20:22.460 might be in a

00:20:23.040 weird place, you

00:20:24.280 know, what's, what

00:20:27.660 might be the

00:20:28.080 factors going into

00:20:28.800 this?

00:20:29.180 And especially

00:20:29.720 from like, you

00:20:31.400 know, doctors and

00:20:32.140 therapists are the

00:20:32.880 sort of people that

00:20:33.600 I would hope would

00:20:34.360 ask those questions

00:20:35.360 and certainly in

00:20:36.420 those cases I

00:20:37.580 just didn't really

00:20:38.900 get any investigation

00:20:39.720 from those figures.

00:20:41.900 So, Walt, I'm

00:20:42.720 going to guess you

00:20:43.380 did not get snaps

00:20:44.240 from society and I

00:20:45.580 understand you had

00:20:46.540 two kids who did

00:20:48.020 not want to be part

00:20:48.860 of your life once

00:20:50.120 you transitioned.

00:20:51.920 So you must have

00:20:53.380 felt very driven to

00:20:54.320 do it anyway.

00:20:55.140 You know, I look at

00:20:55.880 the people who went

00:20:56.500 through it back, back

00:20:57.440 before we got to

00:20:58.140 this point and

00:20:59.320 think you, you

00:21:00.480 must have felt the

00:21:01.900 need to do it on a

00:21:02.800 very deep level

00:21:03.780 because all of

00:21:04.540 society was telling

00:21:05.420 you back then,

00:21:06.740 you're a freak.

00:21:08.000 I mean, that's, that

00:21:08.800 was sort of where we

00:21:09.440 were for most of

00:21:10.220 society prior to

00:21:11.180 the past 10, 15

00:21:12.140 years.

00:21:13.440 Yeah, I think

00:21:14.480 that's so important

00:21:15.420 to talk about

00:21:16.100 because I was

00:21:17.260 driven, but what

00:21:18.160 I was really

00:21:18.940 driven by that I

00:21:20.540 realized today as

00:21:21.620 we're talking, Megan

00:21:22.560 is, is being

00:21:23.860 sexually abused and

00:21:25.400 physically and

00:21:26.100 emotionally abused.

00:21:27.880 I did not want to

00:21:29.280 be who I was

00:21:30.280 because of the

00:21:32.320 things that happened

00:21:33.020 to me and the

00:21:33.780 only alternative was

00:21:34.960 to become someone

00:21:35.860 else.

00:21:37.020 And so this, this

00:21:38.800 is what happens to

00:21:39.820 many of the people

00:21:40.580 that I work with

00:21:41.400 and I've

00:21:42.320 specifically talked

00:21:44.080 to them and

00:21:44.500 say, you know,

00:21:45.040 why did you do

00:21:45.860 this?

00:21:46.200 And why did you

00:21:47.060 as a man want to

00:21:48.320 become a woman?

00:21:49.020 And some of the

00:21:50.020 people have reported

00:21:51.520 to me that they

00:21:52.440 wanted to remove

00:21:53.260 their genitalia, not

00:21:54.420 because they wanted

00:21:55.220 to be women, but

00:21:56.600 because they never

00:21:57.480 wanted to be

00:21:58.200 touched there again.

00:21:59.480 So it was cutting

00:22:00.740 their genitals off

00:22:01.900 was a defense

00:22:02.680 mechanism against

00:22:04.020 ever being sexually

00:22:05.140 abused again.

00:22:05.940 And so I think

00:22:07.580 this is why it's

00:22:08.560 so important for

00:22:09.660 when I went in

00:22:10.660 and talked to

00:22:11.400 Dr. Walker and

00:22:12.680 told him about

00:22:13.240 my childhood

00:22:13.820 history, it's

00:22:14.820 totally ignored.

00:22:16.300 They don't look

00:22:17.360 at that as

00:22:18.360 reasons to

00:22:19.600 consider that

00:22:20.380 the person is

00:22:21.100 driven by being

00:22:22.300 abused physically

00:22:23.320 or any other

00:22:24.060 way, that it's

00:22:25.100 just about getting

00:22:25.940 hormones and

00:22:26.700 getting surgery.

00:22:28.220 And a good

00:22:29.220 clinician would

00:22:30.800 have been able

00:22:31.300 to see that there

00:22:32.020 was tremendous

00:22:32.740 trauma and that

00:22:34.240 that's what needed

00:22:35.280 to be dealt

00:22:35.840 with.

00:22:36.160 And yeah, I

00:22:36.760 was rejected

00:22:37.540 wholeheartedly

00:22:39.020 by absolutely

00:22:40.020 everyone.

00:22:41.380 But that was

00:22:42.700 that really

00:22:44.100 wasn't that hard

00:22:45.040 on me.

00:22:45.580 I mean, I did

00:22:46.580 go dramatically

00:22:47.640 from working

00:22:49.300 in the auto

00:22:50.140 industry with a

00:22:51.060 paycheck of well

00:22:52.500 over a thousand

00:22:53.300 dollars net per

00:22:54.400 week to being

00:22:56.640 homeless and broke

00:22:57.740 living in a park

00:22:58.720 on Second Street

00:22:59.560 in Long Beach

00:23:00.320 because I couldn't

00:23:01.680 get a job

00:23:02.300 because I was

00:23:03.620 through the

00:23:04.740 divorce, lost

00:23:05.520 absolutely

00:23:06.020 everything,

00:23:06.600 including a

00:23:07.240 car or any

00:23:08.420 ability to make

00:23:09.260 an income.

00:23:09.680 And no one

00:23:10.220 would hire me

00:23:11.320 back in the

00:23:11.880 auto industry

00:23:12.480 because of what

00:23:13.180 I went through.

00:23:14.340 So I ended

00:23:15.400 up doing catering

00:23:16.540 and washing

00:23:17.000 dishes and I

00:23:19.140 estimated having,

00:23:20.420 I don't know,

00:23:20.840 a hundred or so

00:23:21.560 different jobs.

00:23:22.640 Some of them

00:23:23.140 were house

00:23:23.800 cleaning and

00:23:24.500 very domestic

00:23:25.180 kind of things

00:23:25.920 to survive.

00:23:27.220 I lived in

00:23:27.800 houses and in

00:23:29.460 bedrooms with

00:23:30.420 people where I

00:23:32.600 could get a

00:23:33.080 place to stay.

00:23:34.680 And so this

00:23:35.660 was sort of

00:23:36.360 the crawlback.

00:23:37.620 And what I

00:23:38.440 really wanted to

00:23:39.400 find out was,

00:23:40.460 you know, I

00:23:41.500 really wanted to

00:23:42.800 make Laura

00:23:43.760 work.

00:23:44.620 And so I

00:23:45.360 started studying

00:23:46.180 psychology.

00:23:47.960 And when I

00:23:49.080 started studying

00:23:49.760 psychology,

00:23:50.700 strangely enough,

00:23:51.420 I started

00:23:51.940 looking in the

00:23:52.720 books at UC

00:23:54.000 Santa Cruz when

00:23:55.500 I was there in

00:23:56.420 the psychology

00:23:57.300 books and found

00:23:58.140 out, wow,

00:23:58.640 these individuals

00:23:59.660 who identify as

00:24:01.320 transgender have

00:24:02.140 a lot of

00:24:03.160 psychological

00:24:03.920 issues.

00:24:04.600 They, you

00:24:05.360 know, they

00:24:05.640 suffer from

00:24:06.220 body dysmorphia

00:24:07.380 and dissociative

00:24:08.520 disorders,

00:24:09.260 schizophrenia, and

00:24:10.900 separation anxiety

00:24:12.140 was actually the

00:24:12.980 first story that I

00:24:14.240 read about that

00:24:14.860 shocked me to my

00:24:16.140 core, where a

00:24:17.380 young man's, his

00:24:19.040 mother had passed

00:24:20.160 away and he

00:24:21.440 decided to be

00:24:22.240 transgender.

00:24:23.060 Why?

00:24:23.760 Because he was

00:24:25.160 going to take on

00:24:26.120 his mother's

00:24:27.020 identity as a

00:24:28.840 female in an

00:24:30.040 effort to keep

00:24:31.260 his mother alive.

00:24:32.940 And that just

00:24:34.440 jarred me.

00:24:35.240 And I thought,

00:24:35.840 wow, this is,

00:24:36.940 there's some deep

00:24:37.900 psychological issues

00:24:39.700 to this.

00:24:40.740 And that's when I

00:24:41.460 really began to

00:24:42.360 dig in and I

00:24:43.060 studied psychology

00:24:44.040 for two years at

00:24:45.840 UC Santa Cruz.

00:24:46.860 Then I started

00:24:47.460 working in

00:24:48.140 psychiatric hospitals

00:24:49.340 and other

00:24:50.660 recovery centers

00:24:51.660 for several years,

00:24:53.440 learning about how

00:24:54.740 to treat and deal

00:24:56.040 with these issues.

00:24:56.820 And that's what

00:24:57.440 helped me in

00:24:58.660 many ways overcome

00:24:59.620 this whole idea

00:25:01.100 that, you know,

00:25:02.640 you need treatment

00:25:04.460 for what happened

00:25:05.480 to you, but you

00:25:06.340 have to identify

00:25:07.220 what it is that

00:25:08.140 caused you to not

00:25:09.260 like who you were.

00:25:10.660 And once I was

00:25:11.500 able to do that,

00:25:13.000 I began to heal

00:25:14.380 quickly.

00:25:15.140 And that's what I

00:25:16.240 do with the people

00:25:17.000 I work with.

00:25:17.780 And every one of

00:25:18.920 them can tell me

00:25:20.000 when I work with

00:25:21.200 them over a period

00:25:21.960 of time, what

00:25:22.680 happened that caused

00:25:23.680 them to not like

00:25:24.560 who they were and

00:25:25.200 why they dove into

00:25:26.600 this idea about

00:25:27.440 changing their

00:25:28.100 genders.

00:25:28.980 And so it's like

00:25:30.820 you have some

00:25:32.000 sort of pernicious

00:25:32.800 cancer, you know,

00:25:33.920 you have pancreatic

00:25:34.700 cancer and you go

00:25:35.720 to see the doctor

00:25:36.400 and the doctor says

00:25:37.160 you need a knee

00:25:37.980 replacement and you

00:25:40.140 wind up getting the

00:25:40.860 knee replacement,

00:25:41.420 which hurts a lot

00:25:42.580 and is very unpleasant

00:25:43.760 to go through.

00:25:44.800 And when you're on

00:25:45.520 the opposite side

00:25:46.040 of the knee

00:25:46.360 replacement, all

00:25:47.480 those issues that

00:25:48.600 you went to the

00:25:49.040 doctor for in the

00:25:49.740 first place don't

00:25:50.700 feel better.

00:25:51.240 In fact, they've

00:25:51.720 gotten worse because

00:25:52.580 they've gone on

00:25:53.300 untreated even longer,

00:25:54.860 the cancer.

00:25:55.360 And now you have

00:25:56.500 a new problem to

00:25:57.140 deal with, which is

00:25:57.940 a sore knee and

00:25:59.040 pain associated with

00:26:00.000 a surgical procedure

00:26:00.820 that you didn't

00:26:01.360 need.

00:26:02.500 And so that's kind

00:26:03.080 of what we're doing

00:26:03.760 to a lot of these,

00:26:05.040 especially young

00:26:05.720 people.

00:26:06.100 I mean, you guys

00:26:06.600 were of age when

00:26:08.780 you transitioned and

00:26:10.020 detransitioned, meaning

00:26:10.960 over 18.

00:26:12.260 But we're doing this

00:26:13.600 to very young

00:26:14.740 children now, which

00:26:15.640 is what makes it so

00:26:16.820 controversial.

00:26:18.040 But I have great

00:26:19.440 empathy for you,

00:26:20.400 too, just because it

00:26:21.260 was done to you when

00:26:22.000 you were an adult

00:26:22.620 doesn't make it

00:26:23.780 OK.

00:26:24.540 You know, I mean,

00:26:25.360 for you, Grace, it

00:26:26.080 was like, OK, like

00:26:26.960 you say at the

00:26:27.340 clinic, like you're

00:26:28.120 good, you're fine.

00:26:28.940 Yes, let's take off

00:26:29.580 your breasts.

00:26:30.540 We shouldn't stop

00:26:31.380 caring about people

00:26:32.480 just because they're

00:26:33.700 over the age of 18,

00:26:35.120 especially when it's

00:26:35.900 obvious they're having

00:26:36.560 psychological trauma.

00:26:39.300 So what happened

00:26:40.740 to you, Grace, when

00:26:41.340 you decided.

00:26:42.840 I'm going to stop

00:26:43.940 the testosterone

00:26:44.620 and I and like

00:26:46.220 when was the moment

00:26:47.280 you said, not just

00:26:48.060 that I'm going to go

00:26:49.180 back to being

00:26:50.960 a woman as I was

00:26:52.240 born.

00:26:53.680 Well, it was

00:26:55.600 sort of a series

00:26:56.860 of steps, because

00:26:58.320 as you can imagine,

00:26:59.940 it was really hard

00:27:01.080 to admit to myself

00:27:02.460 that I might have

00:27:03.580 made a mistake of

00:27:04.420 that, you know,

00:27:07.020 that scale.

00:27:08.280 And I had to walk

00:27:09.820 it back slowly.

00:27:11.060 So I thought, well,

00:27:12.800 maybe I've overshot.

00:27:14.240 Maybe like I want to

00:27:15.040 be more androgynous.

00:27:16.160 So I stopped the

00:27:16.760 testosterone.

00:27:17.280 And once I stopped

00:27:18.380 the testosterone,

00:27:19.440 a lot of the feelings

00:27:20.960 that the, you know,

00:27:22.600 basically steroid had

00:27:23.820 suppressed in me

00:27:24.780 started flooding back.

00:27:26.500 And it's hard to

00:27:29.420 explain because

00:27:31.600 it's so intense,

00:27:33.260 but I would just

00:27:33.980 describe it as

00:27:35.360 sort of an epiphany

00:27:39.900 again, that I just

00:27:41.460 had been basically

00:27:43.020 like shoving things

00:27:44.140 under the rug and

00:27:45.000 like lying to myself

00:27:46.280 about what was

00:27:47.740 really like going

00:27:48.580 on.

00:27:49.940 And it just became

00:27:51.400 impossible to deny

00:27:53.040 that my expectation

00:27:55.720 for transition,

00:27:56.740 which was that I

00:27:57.600 would feel more

00:27:58.260 like me and more

00:28:00.160 natural, you know,

00:28:01.220 whatever that meant,

00:28:02.400 had not been met.

00:28:03.540 I felt like I was

00:28:04.380 playing a role and

00:28:05.480 I felt like I was

00:28:07.260 trying to bury,

00:28:09.420 bury my emotions

00:28:10.820 and become someone

00:28:11.820 else, which like

00:28:13.520 Walt said, I think

00:28:14.300 is pretty common.

00:28:15.100 And it also was

00:28:17.660 clear that I had

00:28:18.340 just really hurt

00:28:20.040 myself really,

00:28:20.980 really badly by

00:28:22.000 having a mastectomy.

00:28:23.260 And there was sort

00:28:24.120 of a truth to that

00:28:25.200 in my body that I

00:28:26.040 could no longer

00:28:26.580 deny.

00:28:27.880 So it took me a

00:28:29.840 few months to

00:28:30.880 come to terms with

00:28:31.760 that.

00:28:32.340 But then I, I

00:28:33.980 realized that the

00:28:34.580 whole framework of

00:28:35.460 obsessing over my

00:28:36.300 gender identity and

00:28:37.280 like trying to

00:28:38.020 control how other

00:28:38.800 people saw me was

00:28:40.220 just really unhealthy

00:28:41.140 for me.

00:28:41.740 Yeah, I, I can

00:28:44.920 relate to what

00:28:45.400 you're saying on

00:28:46.060 one level.

00:28:46.680 I was born in

00:28:48.080 1970 and never

00:28:50.660 wore a dress, only

00:28:52.200 wore boys clothes.

00:28:54.160 My cowboy outfit

00:28:55.320 was my favorite

00:28:55.980 one.

00:28:56.760 But, you know,

00:28:57.560 boys, navy

00:28:58.400 sweatshirts and

00:28:59.280 little Levi jeans.

00:29:00.800 And my mother, you

00:29:01.400 say, please, please,

00:29:02.260 we wear a dress.

00:29:02.920 And I said, no, I

00:29:03.780 don't want it.

00:29:04.160 And I want

00:29:04.540 Incredible Hulk and

00:29:05.360 I want Stretch

00:29:05.940 Armstrong and I want

00:29:06.920 G.I. Joe and I

00:29:08.080 don't want Barbie.

00:29:09.360 And I had a boy's

00:29:10.520 haircut, just like

00:29:11.220 you said, I wanted

00:29:11.920 to like all of

00:29:13.340 that.

00:29:13.700 And in no way was

00:29:14.620 I trans.

00:29:15.800 No way was I

00:29:16.620 guess back then

00:29:17.560 you'd say I was

00:29:18.420 gender nonconforming.

00:29:19.500 I played on the

00:29:19.960 all boys baseball

00:29:20.720 team.

00:29:21.160 I was the only

00:29:21.500 girl today.

00:29:22.540 They'd be saying

00:29:23.300 you're a boy, you

00:29:24.580 know, and as

00:29:25.180 anyone can see, I'm

00:29:26.080 all woman.

00:29:27.160 And today I have a

00:29:28.340 more androgynous

00:29:29.100 look.

00:29:29.500 I've got my sort of

00:29:30.800 male tank top

00:29:31.780 on.

00:29:32.080 I've got my hair

00:29:32.580 back.

00:29:32.920 But like that

00:29:33.820 doesn't make me

00:29:34.720 anything other than

00:29:36.000 a woman.

00:29:36.680 Right.

00:29:36.820 There's just like

00:29:37.300 no space in

00:29:38.600 today's day and

00:29:39.240 age for gender

00:29:40.800 nonconformance.

00:29:41.840 It's just

00:29:42.340 nonconformity.

00:29:43.180 It's just you're

00:29:44.000 trans.

00:29:44.920 And it's with

00:29:46.400 huge risks that

00:29:47.920 we're doing that.

00:29:50.000 Walt has written

00:29:50.800 and said a lot

00:29:51.460 about this exact

00:29:52.520 issue and we're

00:29:53.320 going to pick it

00:29:53.680 up with Walt

00:29:54.200 realizing that he

00:29:55.340 was Walt and

00:29:56.460 he wanted to live

00:29:58.420 as Walt right

00:30:00.020 after a very quick

00:30:00.720 break.

00:30:01.020 Thank you so much

00:30:01.720 again to both of

00:30:02.580 you for being

00:30:02.980 here.

00:30:03.220 We're going to

00:30:03.460 come right back

00:30:03.920 with our panel

00:30:04.420 in one minute.

00:30:06.160 Walt and Grace

00:30:06.580 stay with us.

00:30:07.300 I've done so

00:30:14.640 many stories on

00:30:16.160 trans kids and

00:30:17.020 trans people over

00:30:17.840 the many many

00:30:18.360 years I've been in

00:30:18.980 media and the

00:30:20.060 backlash to even

00:30:21.000 speaking about it

00:30:22.680 in the in the

00:30:23.440 quote wrong way

00:30:24.600 will get glad on

00:30:26.420 your back for

00:30:27.740 weeks.

00:30:29.000 And I saw it

00:30:29.440 happen to you

00:30:29.820 Grace because I

00:30:30.420 saw that great

00:30:31.220 60 minutes piece

00:30:32.200 they did on on

00:30:33.140 the transitioners

00:30:34.060 and you told your

00:30:35.660 story and sure

00:30:37.040 enough glad came

00:30:37.980 out started ripping

00:30:39.240 on 60 minutes

00:30:40.080 ripping on you

00:30:40.980 ripping us and

00:30:41.860 and what they

00:30:42.720 said was the same

00:30:44.020 thing they always

00:30:44.620 say.

00:30:44.960 Here's here's just

00:30:45.620 one example.

00:30:46.840 Every major medical

00:30:47.960 association supports

00:30:49.240 affirming care.

00:30:50.400 The guidelines are

00:30:51.240 safe and well

00:30:52.500 established.

00:30:53.280 And as for our

00:30:54.540 discussion about

00:30:55.180 YouTube and the

00:30:56.020 Internet rabbit holes

00:30:56.800 they said aren't we

00:30:58.660 past arguing that

00:30:59.720 media can turn people

00:31:01.040 gay or trans which is

00:31:03.360 such a sleight of hand

00:31:04.360 to lump those two

00:31:05.160 things in together.

00:31:05.940 Right.

00:31:06.480 It's like the media

00:31:07.940 cannot turn you gay

00:31:09.320 but social media

00:31:11.240 influencers and

00:31:12.560 influence can

00:31:14.220 indeed confuse

00:31:15.260 young people on

00:31:16.460 the question of

00:31:17.000 gender.

00:31:17.800 That's true and

00:31:19.120 that's been studied

00:31:19.800 in places like

00:31:20.520 Sweden and Finland.

00:31:22.200 So it's not honest

00:31:23.760 of them to lump

00:31:24.700 those two things in

00:31:25.820 together.

00:31:26.940 What did you make of

00:31:27.520 that backlash?

00:31:28.760 Well it was just

00:31:29.640 really frustrating

00:31:30.500 because I came at

00:31:32.400 it from a perspective

00:31:33.560 of just really

00:31:34.340 wanting you know

00:31:35.820 the best medical

00:31:36.880 care for trans

00:31:38.040 people and

00:31:38.540 detransitioned

00:31:39.360 people and you

00:31:40.740 know my experience

00:31:41.960 was of medical

00:31:43.980 care was not of

00:31:45.600 careful assessment

00:31:46.680 of my issues.

00:31:48.320 They just didn't

00:31:49.460 assess me at all

00:31:50.420 really and you

00:31:51.320 know at the time I

00:31:52.080 accepted that and I

00:31:53.120 have to take

00:31:53.740 responsibility for my

00:31:54.860 role in that but

00:31:55.780 you know that

00:31:56.980 experience showed me

00:31:58.720 that there's not

00:31:59.580 you know rigorous

00:32:00.720 guidelines being

00:32:02.100 followed and that

00:32:03.960 someone in my

00:32:04.760 situation who's

00:32:05.780 vulnerable and

00:32:06.480 having a mental

00:32:07.180 health episode can

00:32:08.740 indeed be really

00:32:09.560 badly hurt and

00:32:10.640 the backlash to

00:32:11.840 the 60 Minutes

00:32:12.520 episode was really

00:32:13.940 intense and you

00:32:14.680 can see on you

00:32:16.080 know the 60 Minutes

00:32:16.800 website they did a

00:32:17.620 piece about how

00:32:18.660 there was backlash

00:32:19.900 before the episode

00:32:21.140 even aired and I

00:32:22.180 think the host said

00:32:23.320 there was more

00:32:23.800 backlash than she'd

00:32:24.800 ever had for any

00:32:25.900 other segment.

00:32:27.080 So I really felt

00:32:28.340 like GLAAD was

00:32:29.940 just trying to like

00:32:31.740 shove the detransitioners

00:32:33.400 under the rug and

00:32:34.460 say that you know

00:32:35.560 we're too small

00:32:36.200 percentage to

00:32:37.060 matter and you

00:32:39.520 know like we I

00:32:41.280 don't think we

00:32:41.780 have really good

00:32:42.580 numbers on this

00:32:43.300 kind of thing like

00:32:44.120 a lot of the

00:32:44.720 studies that we

00:32:45.500 have of high

00:32:46.420 dropout rates and

00:32:47.760 you know it's a

00:32:49.320 situation that's

00:32:50.040 evolving really

00:32:50.620 quickly so it

00:32:51.280 really hurt and

00:32:53.440 was maddening to

00:32:54.880 have these

00:32:55.220 organizations that

00:32:55.960 are supposed to

00:32:56.540 be advocating for

00:32:57.580 people's health and

00:32:58.440 well-being especially

00:32:59.440 of like gays and

00:33:00.340 lesbians and just

00:33:01.580 have be totally

00:33:03.380 like villainized

00:33:05.200 by them yeah

00:33:06.080 basically just for

00:33:06.660 talking about my

00:33:07.200 story yeah you

00:33:08.600 get your snaps when

00:33:09.700 you say you're

00:33:10.260 trans but when you

00:33:11.260 say I made a

00:33:12.020 mistake you get

00:33:13.120 attacked I mean

00:33:14.200 viciously and

00:33:15.720 Walt I know you

00:33:16.660 you've spoken up

00:33:17.740 about this let me

00:33:19.280 before I get your

00:33:20.000 way in on that

00:33:20.560 let's we haven't

00:33:21.160 gotten to you

00:33:22.400 detransitioning and

00:33:23.860 sort of realizing

00:33:24.660 after you had had

00:33:26.020 surgery and lost

00:33:27.060 your family and

00:33:28.240 you know your job

00:33:29.280 and you're homeless

00:33:29.740 it's like a lot

00:33:31.480 happened to you but

00:33:32.420 that wasn't that's

00:33:33.760 not why you

00:33:35.040 abandoned your

00:33:37.100 life as a woman

00:33:38.520 it wasn't the

00:33:39.660 losses that you

00:33:40.420 suffered it was

00:33:41.020 sort of a

00:33:41.440 different kind of

00:33:42.360 epiphany so talk

00:33:44.040 to us about how

00:33:44.640 you came to that

00:33:45.340 realization that you

00:33:46.300 wanted to be Walt

00:33:47.020 again yeah once I

00:33:49.380 realized that I

00:33:51.120 had taken my

00:33:52.060 surgeon to court

00:33:54.060 and Dr.

00:33:55.860 Walker to court

00:33:56.980 to have in San

00:33:58.780 Mateo Superior

00:33:59.560 Court of California

00:34:00.400 because I wanted to

00:34:01.600 restore my birth

00:34:03.240 certificate which

00:34:04.100 had been changed

00:34:04.840 to Laura Jensen

00:34:05.720 female I wanted it

00:34:06.840 back to Walt

00:34:07.440 higher male and I

00:34:09.160 asked them to come

00:34:10.400 to court and prove

00:34:11.740 to the court in a

00:34:13.820 document that you

00:34:14.720 could actually change

00:34:16.100 someone's gender

00:34:16.960 that the hormones

00:34:18.140 and surgery were

00:34:19.040 actually effective in

00:34:20.820 changing someone's

00:34:21.720 gender when they

00:34:22.500 sent a document

00:34:23.720 which is in

00:34:24.400 Severe Court of

00:34:25.080 California published

00:34:26.060 1990 that you

00:34:27.840 cannot change

00:34:29.140 anybody's gender

00:34:30.000 with hormones and

00:34:30.880 surgery the only

00:34:31.700 thing it's kind of

00:34:33.420 funny the only thing

00:34:34.500 you can do with

00:34:35.420 hormones and surgery

00:34:36.420 is neuter somebody

00:34:37.540 and I thought that's

00:34:38.300 interesting that's

00:34:39.320 what they do to

00:34:39.880 dogs so the whole

00:34:42.040 thing I realized was

00:34:43.580 a false probably a

00:34:46.560 medical fraud by any

00:34:48.200 stretch of the

00:34:48.760 imagination and at

00:34:50.120 that point I decided

00:34:51.200 to start looking

00:34:52.800 toward my faith and

00:34:55.060 I began to reunite

00:34:57.640 with my faith in

00:34:58.480 Jesus Christ and I

00:35:00.980 through a long

00:35:03.020 arduous journey and

00:35:04.360 my recovery from

00:35:05.460 alcohol and drugs I

00:35:06.600 now have 36 years

00:35:07.780 clean and sober and

00:35:09.660 and during that time

00:35:11.540 doing my fourth step

00:35:12.780 working with a

00:35:14.100 psychologist we went

00:35:15.920 into prayer he's

00:35:16.840 Christian psychologist

00:35:17.860 and the Lord came to

00:35:20.060 me during that prayer

00:35:21.120 and looked at me and

00:35:23.900 said you are now

00:35:24.580 safe with me and

00:35:26.540 and he was holding

00:35:27.920 this little baby in

00:35:28.920 his hand and I

00:35:29.560 realized that baby

00:35:30.720 was me and that I

00:35:31.840 was redeemed and

00:35:32.720 restored all the way

00:35:34.260 back to my birth by

00:35:35.500 the Lord Jesus

00:35:36.120 Christ and I realized

00:35:37.220 at that point I'd

00:35:38.140 been redeemed and

00:35:39.600 restored and it was

00:35:40.660 really my job to go

00:35:42.200 out and share with

00:35:43.760 the world what

00:35:45.520 redemption and

00:35:46.240 restoration is like in

00:35:47.440 Christ and show them

00:35:48.460 that no one has ever

00:35:49.920 changed their gender

00:35:50.760 and that there is

00:35:52.060 freedom through the

00:35:53.240 power and grace of

00:35:54.040 Jesus Christ well

00:35:55.700 you know now now

00:35:57.240 they they don't

00:35:58.620 define it that way as

00:35:59.460 you well know they

00:36:00.180 just say gender is a

00:36:01.080 social construct it's

00:36:02.220 not really necessarily

00:36:03.460 related at all to

00:36:04.440 biology and it's

00:36:06.120 whatever you say it

00:36:06.980 is and you know it's

00:36:07.880 crossed over to the

00:36:08.600 point of absurdity on

00:36:09.580 the show yesterday we

00:36:10.220 were talking about

00:36:10.640 somebody who

00:36:12.000 identifies as a tiger

00:36:13.260 who got hired by

00:36:14.900 some marketing firm I

00:36:16.700 think somebody who's

00:36:17.680 does their moon gender

00:36:18.700 or tree gen I mean

00:36:19.700 they've just taken it

00:36:20.460 to the point of

00:36:20.920 absurdity you are

00:36:21.580 whatever you just

00:36:22.620 invent but I've

00:36:24.900 heard you say I

00:36:25.860 think you run with

00:36:26.640 Laura Ingram saying

00:36:28.300 they're ruining an

00:36:29.560 entire generation of

00:36:31.700 young people that

00:36:33.200 resonated with me I

00:36:34.580 can't stand the fact

00:36:36.100 that this is being

00:36:36.860 pushed on kids

00:36:38.840 including my own by

00:36:40.280 school teachers and

00:36:41.720 society as though it's

00:36:43.060 a menu item they

00:36:43.940 should consider their

00:36:45.100 gender they should

00:36:45.780 reconsider when they

00:36:47.100 never had questions

00:36:47.940 about it yeah well

00:36:50.140 this is this is the

00:36:51.460 horrifying part of

00:36:53.240 this and and back

00:36:54.360 in six years ago I

00:36:56.080 was I've been

00:36:56.780 speaking about this

00:36:57.740 and the schools have

00:36:58.980 become an unsafe

00:37:00.100 place for children

00:37:01.040 sorry to say they're

00:37:02.680 indoctrinating children

00:37:03.920 they're teaching them

00:37:04.900 how to transition

00:37:06.220 today the schools are

00:37:08.880 hiding from the

00:37:10.040 parents the fact that

00:37:11.180 the kids are

00:37:11.920 encouraged to

00:37:12.720 transition at school

00:37:14.420 from one gender to

00:37:15.440 the other and and

00:37:17.360 so to me this is

00:37:20.120 how we are

00:37:20.900 completely destroying

00:37:22.320 an entire generation

00:37:24.160 of children and and

00:37:25.480 see I keep going back

00:37:26.920 the fact that nobody

00:37:27.700 can change their

00:37:28.380 gender so why are we

00:37:29.340 telling them this and

00:37:30.980 why are we suggesting

00:37:32.680 that they're going to

00:37:33.380 be better off and I

00:37:34.580 always look at this

00:37:35.580 this way with over

00:37:36.900 two million views to

00:37:38.160 my website sex

00:37:39.340 change regret dot com

00:37:40.800 if what they are

00:37:42.240 saying is true that

00:37:43.360 this is so beneficial to

00:37:44.820 have hormones and

00:37:45.720 surgery then why have

00:37:47.180 I've got two million

00:37:48.780 views to my website

00:37:49.960 sex change regret why

00:37:51.420 do I have over ten

00:37:52.540 thousand emails that

00:37:54.860 have come to my

00:37:55.580 website from people

00:37:56.660 asking for help

00:37:57.900 whether a psychologist

00:37:58.920 or a doctor or a

00:38:00.880 person or a wife

00:38:02.320 mother you know this

00:38:03.920 is what just drives me

00:38:05.280 absolutely nuts and

00:38:06.800 so you know the fact

00:38:08.520 of the matter is

00:38:09.160 there's a lot of

00:38:09.940 hurting people and

00:38:11.140 you know right now I

00:38:13.100 believe there's a lot

00:38:14.660 more people out

00:38:15.860 there there's no way

00:38:16.660 to track the number

00:38:17.640 of detransitioners no

00:38:18.860 no way to track them

00:38:20.100 because most of them

00:38:21.320 aren't in any studies

00:38:22.760 of all the thousands

00:38:24.240 of people I've worked

00:38:25.160 with including myself

00:38:26.300 none of us have ever

00:38:28.840 been counted among the

00:38:30.000 detransitioners that's

00:38:31.620 very there's no

00:38:32.300 database that's very

00:38:34.340 interesting because I

00:38:34.920 of course I've seen

00:38:35.760 the Princeton study

00:38:36.660 that studied some I

00:38:37.720 think three hundred and

00:38:38.440 fourteen trans I was

00:38:41.740 at kids or let me just

00:38:42.860 see if I make sure I

00:38:43.760 can't remember what

00:38:44.340 those kids are grown

00:38:45.320 ups but in any event

00:38:46.360 trans people and they

00:38:47.960 concluded that ninety

00:38:48.820 four percent remained

00:38:50.820 trans after a period of

00:38:52.840 years and so they say

00:38:54.420 they suggest as do most

00:38:56.020 of the trans activists

00:38:56.780 that detransitioning is

00:38:58.580 very very rare and I

00:39:00.640 don't know whether that's

00:39:01.280 true or not true but I

00:39:02.440 know that it's very hard

00:39:04.560 as you were pointing out

00:39:05.520 grace once you've

00:39:06.280 declared you're trans and

00:39:07.840 had surgery and had all

00:39:09.420 of society give you the

00:39:10.540 snaps to then say I made

00:39:12.440 a terrible mistake so I

00:39:14.100 do wonder if we were

00:39:15.880 more supportive of

00:39:17.320 detransitioners how high

00:39:19.180 those official numbers

00:39:20.620 would climb

00:39:21.520 yeah do you want me to

00:39:25.180 answer that or yeah

00:39:26.180 yeah sure you can go out

00:39:27.060 and then I'll give it to

00:39:27.720 grace after yeah there

00:39:29.580 was a study done by the

00:39:31.120 UK Guardian in 2006

00:39:33.080 where ARF which is a

00:39:37.020 large university in the

00:39:39.060 UK studied they took a

00:39:40.860 hundred studies from

00:39:41.900 around the world and

00:39:43.360 they found out that they

00:39:44.640 what they found was the

00:39:46.800 regret rate to be around

00:39:48.040 twenty percent and that

00:39:49.780 the people that they

00:39:51.020 found in these studies

00:39:52.380 were traumatized to the

00:39:54.140 point of surgery after

00:39:56.380 going through this

00:39:57.520 excuse me traumatized to

00:40:00.480 the point of suicide after

00:40:01.920 having the surgery so what

00:40:04.840 they reported was what I've

00:40:06.820 found is that many of the

00:40:08.500 people regret deeply

00:40:10.600 having I'm working with

00:40:11.920 a young man right now in

00:40:12.900 his twenties and he keeps

00:40:14.500 calling me wanting to

00:40:15.720 commit suicide because of

00:40:17.180 him cutting his genitals

00:40:18.420 off and he cannot have

00:40:19.680 children he was not

00:40:20.740 homosexual I was never

00:40:21.960 homosexual and so this is

00:40:24.860 the the downside to this

00:40:26.700 they're never going to

00:40:27.840 count the detransitioners

00:40:29.840 they're going to continue

00:40:30.700 to call it rare when it's

00:40:32.480 not and if it were rare I

00:40:34.740 would only have maybe 10

00:40:36.680 emails in my inbox and I'd

00:40:38.780 only have 100 people come

00:40:40.080 into the website but that's

00:40:41.520 not the case that study I

00:40:43.800 mentioned from by Princeton

00:40:44.760 University was of kids

00:40:45.960 between the ages of 3 and

00:40:47.360 12 claiming that 94%

00:40:49.720 remained trans after a

00:40:51.840 period of years but it's

00:40:52.940 like those are those are

00:40:54.540 kids and if you transition

00:40:56.220 when you're between 3 and

00:40:57.380 12 that's your parents

00:40:58.500 doing that with you that's

00:40:59.900 that's not an independent

00:41:00.980 choice there's a reason that

00:41:01.960 we don't let minors make

00:41:03.440 massive life decisions they

00:41:04.840 all require the consent of

00:41:05.940 the parents because their

00:41:07.300 brains aren't fully formed

00:41:08.500 you know their cerebral

00:41:09.200 cortex is not yet formed

00:41:10.560 until 25 never mind

00:41:12.460 three it's you know it's I

00:41:15.840 don't know I wrestle with

00:41:16.740 it because I'll tell you

00:41:18.380 something Grace when I was

00:41:19.080 on NBC we did a show with

00:41:21.540 young kids who said that

00:41:23.480 they were trans and there

00:41:24.560 was one family in

00:41:25.960 particular that brought on

00:41:27.340 they had four boys and

00:41:29.280 this was the fourth boy who

00:41:30.700 declared that this boy was

00:41:32.480 actually a girl and the

00:41:33.940 mother really helped and

00:41:35.060 supported and that child

00:41:36.260 was living as a girl and

00:41:37.780 it I think that the child

00:41:39.840 was six years old and I

00:41:42.460 listened to the mother's

00:41:44.380 story and I still feel such

00:41:45.880 empathy for this mom and I

00:41:47.460 loved the family and I know

00:41:50.320 that there are people who are

00:41:52.080 genuinely transgender you

00:41:54.220 know especially

00:41:54.940 traditionally boys you know

00:41:57.100 this is if you look back

00:41:58.080 historically it's been a

00:41:59.060 very small percentage of

00:42:00.000 boys so I look back at the

00:42:03.400 time you know we were still

00:42:04.560 in a phase of like not

00:42:05.620 accepting and I was much

00:42:07.080 open very open-minded to it

00:42:09.500 and now it just seems like

00:42:10.520 we've exploded to be pushing

00:42:13.300 it on kids who aren't really

00:42:15.240 experiencing it and I feel

00:42:17.440 very differently I don't know

00:42:20.040 like how do you square where

00:42:21.460 we used to be with where we

00:42:22.920 are right now I think that you

00:42:26.380 know speaking as someone who's

00:42:27.820 sort of been part of the

00:42:28.740 younger or the more recent

00:42:30.640 like trans culture I think

00:42:32.000 that just the conception of

00:42:34.840 what it can mean to be trans

00:42:36.440 and like the idea of what

00:42:37.720 gender is has really expanded

00:42:40.440 really rapidly and a lot more

00:42:43.240 people and kids are seeing

00:42:45.340 themselves within that

00:42:46.240 definition and you know people

00:42:48.560 will argue about whether that's

00:42:49.980 like a really positive like new

00:42:52.220 vocabulary for self-expression

00:42:53.880 or if it's like you know more

00:42:56.300 concerning and I think that it

00:42:59.580 is concerning in so far as

00:43:02.280 there are serious medical

00:43:04.220 procedures implicated and

00:43:05.960 associated with you know

00:43:07.980 identifying as trans and I think

00:43:10.660 that as the criteria for what it

00:43:13.780 means to be trans expand more and

00:43:16.060 more and you know there's almost

00:43:18.040 no like psychological gatekeeping

00:43:20.640 I think that we're just really

00:43:23.960 running the risk of having more

00:43:27.000 and more people go through these

00:43:28.140 medical procedures and have it

00:43:29.560 really be the wrong decision for

00:43:30.960 them

00:43:31.260 we of course talk about how you get

00:43:35.720 threatened with suicide if you're a

00:43:36.940 parent who doesn't support your

00:43:38.080 kids declaration that he or she is

00:43:39.860 trans right that's the first thing

00:43:41.280 they say to the parents rather have a

00:43:43.040 dead son or a live daughter right if

00:43:45.720 you have a boy who's transitioning

00:43:46.980 and it's a trope and it's unfair and

00:43:50.800 what's interesting to me is these

00:43:52.880 countries overseas whether it's the

00:43:55.540 UK or I mentioned Sweden and Finland

00:43:57.780 and some others they're actually doing

00:43:59.720 real studies our country seems to just

00:44:01.940 be totally ignoring evidence they're

00:44:04.660 actually doing real studies one out of

00:44:06.260 the UK their National Institute for

00:44:08.360 Care and Excellence a governmental body

00:44:09.920 that follows evidence-based creates

00:44:13.040 evidence-based guidelines found the link

00:44:14.840 between transitioning and improved

00:44:17.820 psychological function was in fact

00:44:20.920 extremely weak they did not see

00:44:23.620 evidence of improved psychological

00:44:25.500 function post-transition while that's

00:44:29.280 exactly the opposite of what our

00:44:31.860 authorities tell us that kids are

00:44:34.460 going to commit suicide unless the

00:44:35.700 entire society gets behind them and

00:44:37.320 affirms their gender declarations

00:44:40.020 well you know the advocates will tell you

00:44:43.920 to use the suicide as a way to shut

00:44:46.740 people up in fact I did that I had

00:44:50.020 people telling me this and that and I'd

00:44:52.380 say well you know if you keep doing this

00:44:54.300 to me I'll just commit suicide and and

00:44:56.400 they always came back with well we'd

00:44:58.020 rather have a live Laura than a dead

00:45:00.280 Walt well that's that's what it's

00:45:02.640 intended to do is to stop people from

00:45:05.460 talking about you detransitioning or that

00:45:08.760 you did something wrong and so you know

00:45:11.540 one of the things that's so interesting

00:45:12.920 when you talked if I can go back to the

00:45:14.620 knee and treating the wrong thing is

00:45:17.460 that there was a doctor Charles L

00:45:19.280 Ellenfeld at the Harry Benjamin Clinic

00:45:21.960 in the in the 1970s that had

00:45:25.020 administered he was an endocrinologist a

00:45:27.340 homosexual activist loved the whole

00:45:29.300 idea of transitioning people he

00:45:31.660 administered hormone therapy to 500 men

00:45:34.760 over a six-year period of time and he

00:45:38.080 came out and spoke to therapists in

00:45:40.080 Tappan New York in 1979 saying we

00:45:43.480 should not be giving these individuals

00:45:45.280 hormones and doing surgery on them

00:45:47.760 because it's causing too much unhappy to

00:45:50.020 quote too much unhappiness and too many

00:45:52.760 suicides and he said I want you to know

00:45:55.460 as I speak to you as clinicians I am now

00:45:58.340 going to become a psychiatric doctor so

00:46:00.860 that I can deal with the comorbid

00:46:03.260 disorders that are actually causing their

00:46:05.500 distress and so that's like what you're

00:46:08.360 talking about with the knee your

00:46:10.080 Ellenfeld an activist was saying I need

00:46:12.800 to stop giving them hormones and start

00:46:15.040 dealing with the psychiatric issues that

00:46:17.180 are causing their discomfort mm-hmm

00:46:19.640 listen I I know this from my own family

00:46:22.700 because we had somebody in my own family

00:46:24.760 declare that they were not a man that

00:46:27.020 they were a woman and transition fully

00:46:30.000 transition and absolutely none of the

00:46:32.460 psychological problems were solved I mean

00:46:34.860 none just new ones were added and the

00:46:37.940 suicidal threats all of it it was all

00:46:40.000 there and I believe to this day had some

00:46:44.320 therapy been applied you know who knows

00:46:46.640 what could have happened but this was

00:46:48.240 somebody who was saying somebody who we

00:46:51.360 related to by marriage this was somebody

00:46:53.580 who was saying that by the time this

00:46:56.020 person was a two-year-old boy he knew

00:46:58.160 that he quote was a she I mean that those

00:47:02.740 are the cases where it's true like gender

00:47:04.740 dysphoria from an early onset point in

00:47:06.880 life that confuse the issue for me because

00:47:09.080 I do think there are a lot of non-trans

00:47:11.360 trans people you know absolutely right the

00:47:14.680 crazy it's happening with girls but I

00:47:15.800 think there are a lot of people who are

00:47:18.320 trans who are really trans and like

00:47:20.480 really just are determined to live their

00:47:22.100 lives as the opposite sex and actually do

00:47:23.600 become happier once they do it am I wrong

00:47:26.220 about that Walt well what I have what I

00:47:29.100 have actually come to the conclusion is

00:47:31.200 just from working with the people that I

00:47:33.200 work with so that's all I can address and

00:47:36.180 that is that the adult men that I work

00:47:38.340 with what when I work with them what we

00:47:41.100 find out is that they were actually

00:47:43.060 suffering from autogynephilia or

00:47:46.220 transvestic fetish disorders or they were

00:47:48.860 just cross-dressers that they were actually

00:47:50.740 never really trans but because the gender

00:47:53.220 clinics push this stuff doing hormones and

00:47:56.180 surgery no one wants to talk about

00:47:58.580 autogynephilia or transvestic fetish

00:48:00.840 because it's kind of gory to talk about

00:48:03.340 can I tell you something I gotta squeeze

00:48:05.200 in a quick break but let me tell you

00:48:06.440 something this person I'm talking about

00:48:07.560 was cross-dressing secretly at first and

00:48:12.140 swore that they weren't trans and then it

00:48:13.500 just sort of quickly morphed once this

00:48:15.780 person started seeing therapists that this

00:48:17.820 is the first time I've actually put that

00:48:18.940 together thank you for that bit of

00:48:20.600 insight standby wall and grace they're

00:48:22.560 staying with us and with much much more

00:48:25.000 to discuss and later we have two doctors

00:48:26.540 with different perspectives to discuss

00:48:27.920 what's happening in the medical community

00:48:29.420 on this

00:48:29.920 let's talk about what's happening now with

00:48:36.540 teenage girls Abigail Schreier of course in

00:48:39.220 her wonderful book irreversible damage has

00:48:41.020 taken a deep dive into this and she's been

00:48:42.640 proven right I mean time and time again but

00:48:45.400 of course Amazon still suppresses the book

00:48:47.520 and so on but these studies that have come

00:48:50.180 out here's just a couple of numbers the

00:48:53.120 trans population growth this is from a

00:48:55.580 Williams Institute study they say that

00:48:57.960 today in the United States over 1.6

00:48:59.660 million adults and youths meaning 13 to

00:49:03.160 17 identify as trans the numbers have

00:49:06.200 doubled since just before since 2017 so

00:49:10.040 the numbers are doubling in just five

00:49:12.500 years time and who knows where it's going

00:49:14.620 to go given the way it's pushed by schools

00:49:17.220 and doctors and therapists now similar data

00:49:20.740 from overseas again Swedish Sweden and

00:49:23.500 Finland are some of the two who actually

00:49:25.240 take a hard look at it they found that

00:49:27.680 young people who sought care at Swedish

00:49:30.060 clinics after 2015 increasingly teenage

00:49:32.320 girls with multiple psychiatric diagnoses

00:49:35.680 it rose from four out of 100,000 to 77 out of

00:49:41.460 100,000 young young women coming in same

00:49:45.120 trend found in Finland dramatic increase in

00:49:48.160 female adolescents with gender dysphoria

00:49:49.840 there were five fold more girls coming in

00:49:51.980 according to those running the clinics there

00:49:53.980 who appeared to be very much influenced by

00:49:57.420 other adolescents and the head researcher

00:50:00.160 said quote we were astonished to find that

00:50:02.680 most of the adolescents who were referred to

00:50:04.380 gender identity assessment had severe

00:50:06.700 psychiatric problems and said the regrets of

00:50:11.900 the detransitioners the regrets would not

00:50:14.220 manifest immediately it would be after four or

00:50:17.640 five years but by that point a lot of damage has

00:50:21.400 been done you know you're on cross gender hormones

00:50:23.600 you're on puberty blockers for that length of

00:50:25.640 time that's why Abigail named the book irreversible

00:50:29.500 damage grace what do you make of it as a young

00:50:33.040 girl yourself who dealt with a lot of these issues

00:50:35.440 the spike the enormous spike amongst young girls going

00:50:39.160 through this yeah I think that it is I consider it to be

00:50:45.460 probably somewhat similar to like the spikes and like

00:50:48.720 bulimia and anorexia that happened a little while back I

00:50:52.000 think that many young girls are dealing with real distress

00:50:56.800 around their bodies real you know real pain real issues I

00:51:00.840 don't think this is like you know frivolous or something that

00:51:04.780 can just be waved away but I think that they're finding this

00:51:08.460 this framework of being trans that offers what seems to be you

00:51:13.620 know a solution to these problems of like body discomfort and

00:51:17.360 social discomfort and I think that I mean speaking as someone

00:51:22.720 who sort of went for it I think that it is very seductive

00:51:27.040 solution to think that actually your body is wrong and you need

00:51:31.740 to change it in order to be happy and it could be that easy

00:51:34.460 so I do worry a lot about the spike because I think that like I

00:51:39.520 said it's it's a very appealing idea that would appeal to a lot

00:51:44.140 of like classic you know like time old female sort of anguishes

00:51:50.220 around the body image and you know figuring out who you are

00:51:53.600 yeah I mean when they ask you if you feel comfortable in your

00:51:56.280 body what teenager says yes to that none no one does I mean that

00:52:00.180 that can't be the standard and yet it it is you know while the

00:52:05.260 Biden administration is going a different way they're not going

00:52:08.680 like Finland and Sweden and the UK are pumping the brakes on

00:52:12.840 these treatments for underage people who claim that they're

00:52:17.300 trans saying that the first line of defense should be

00:52:21.000 psychotherapy should be examining what psychological issues are

00:52:25.140 causing you to feel this way and not puberty blockers cross gender

00:52:29.060 hormones or surgery we're going exactly the opposite way in the

00:52:34.300 United States we're making it easier than ever some of the more

00:52:38.220 red states are trying to push back but the Biden administration

00:52:41.040 just came out with an executive order saying we want to enhance

00:52:45.060 protections for transgender children that means make it easier

00:52:48.180 for them to transition we want to increase access to gender

00:52:52.040 affirming care we want to find ways to counter state efforts that

00:52:55.980 are aimed at limiting such treatments and Joe Biden says the following oh

00:53:02.060 and by the way they want to come up with a sample school policy to

00:53:04.780 achieve quote full inclusion of these students and Joe Biden says the

00:53:09.900 following my message to all the young people just be you you are loved you

00:53:14.440 are heard you are understood you do belong which really is just a

00:53:19.640 bunch of nothing because what we're trying to figure out is why are you

00:53:23.780 having these feelings it's not like your proposed solution must necessarily be

00:53:29.820 correct he skips right over the diagnosis part

00:53:32.240 yeah yeah everybody seems to know but Joe Biden

00:53:38.540 that these underlying comorbid disorders the ACEs adverse childhood experiences

00:53:45.940 are the underlying cause for people going through this whether it's even

00:53:50.580 being affirmed and cross-dressed over a period of time by teachers and and

00:53:56.280 therapists telling them they can transition I believe is adverse childhood

00:53:59.660 experience because they're telling them they can do something that's impossible

00:54:03.300 to do and the the studies even Charles

00:54:07.400 Illenfeld in 1979 that I spoke to said I'm going to become a psychiatric doctor

00:54:12.200 why because hormones and surgery don't work to help people and so we've known this

00:54:17.420 for a long time you know the United States hasn't caught up apparently and you

00:54:23.020 know even Biden put somebody at HHS who is obviously a man identifying as a woman

00:54:29.280 and he he himself has said he wants to transition kids at age eight and so I think

00:54:36.700 we're in kind of deep trouble here and that's why I've said repeatedly we're ruining an

00:54:42.780 entire generation of children with this ideology they don't need hormones they don't need to

00:54:48.480 transition we need to find out what's causing them to have the feelings and focus on that

00:54:53.880 treatment and that's what what I refer to as adverse childhood experiences or trauma

00:54:58.020 is that is that Rachel Levine who you're referring to yeah Rachel okay so let me ask you about this

00:55:03.800 because we were talking about this yesterday the Demi Lovato the singer just came out yesterday

00:55:07.520 after saying that she wanted to be referred to as they them for a year now she announced yesterday

00:55:13.620 yeah I'm gonna go by she her and um I was talking about it with some other journalists yesterday on

00:55:20.380 some hits I did saying yeah I feel so uncomfortable about the whole thing it kind of just puts the

00:55:25.520 the lie to the whole gender transition story right like yeah do I have to change every year if she

00:55:34.100 decides to go to he him next year do I have to go and am I a bigot if I won't do it and it's like

00:55:39.020 but I wrestle with it guys because I I've always gone by the pronouns of choice I I have not been

00:55:45.180 somebody who has said you were born male and if you transition to female I'm not going to call you she

00:55:50.140 her I haven't been one of those people but things like the Demi Lovato announcement are making me

00:55:55.680 reconsider whether I've made the right choice I notice you refer to Rachel Levine as he so what do you

00:56:00.640 make of that Walt and why do you use the male pronoun for somebody who says she well you know

00:56:05.000 I listen I I believe that they are who they are and I don't believe you can change who you are

00:56:12.320 and I remember when I was Laura talking to a friend I'd known for 40 years Bill and I said hey Bill I'm

00:56:18.920 now Laura and you're gonna have to use the right pronouns and you're gonna have to do all this

00:56:22.760 and Bill helped me understand this that day when I told him that and he kind of rubbed his chin a

00:56:29.020 little bit and he looked at me like Bill will do and he says okay he said I got your pronoun

00:56:33.200 I said oh good he said it's called wacko and it actually didn't offend me I started laughing my head

00:56:40.880 off and what I realized is that we who go through this are really trying to dictate what people say

00:56:49.220 and do and we're not really telling the truth about who we are and so I appreciated Bill and still do to

00:56:56.740 this day telling me I was wacko and and so whether it's Rachel Levine or whoever it is

00:57:03.600 um I found that I can carry on a conversation with you or anybody and never ever use a pronoun and

00:57:11.400 that's what I do I you know but if I'm talking about somebody that's not in the room with me then

00:57:16.400 I will refer to uh who I believe they are how about you Grace where do you fall on that

00:57:22.100 um I've always uh use people's preferred pronouns um I think that you know it's something that's

00:57:32.180 personally meaningful to them and I try to be polite about it and what's happened now in your life now

00:57:38.540 that you've gone back to living your life as the woman that you are what's happened with your family

00:57:43.820 with your friends and what's happened for you physically um well the detransition um luckily I

00:57:52.380 wasn't on hormones for very long so I'm able to pass well I'm able to be recognized as female I don't

00:57:58.580 get mistaken for male um I still have no breasts and that obviously will not change um it's been hard

00:58:06.800 for me to get reconstructive surgery uh because um insurance only pays for one direction of gender

00:58:15.580 transition so far at least that's what I've been told so oh wow um yeah so that's been difficult um

00:58:22.180 I've just um tried to move on with my life and also write about my experiences I really wanted to

00:58:29.100 sort of extend a hand to other people who might be going through the same thing because I know it's

00:58:34.380 enormously isolating um I write about that on my blog yeah and you've formed a group to try to help

00:58:42.020 people struggling with detransition or just the blowback of detransition and what is that group

00:58:47.820 uh the gender care consumers advocacy network um is a group that I have um with some of my colleagues

00:58:54.760 where we just try to bring together information about uh transition and detransition and uh you know

00:59:02.560 have it be a resource for people who are struggling with the kinds of issues that can come up uh when

00:59:07.360 you're navigating the medical terrain and what what do you want grace what do you want parents

00:59:12.360 who are being told by their minor children I'm trans I'm trans what do you want them to know

00:59:16.280 um I think I want them to know that you know of course like lead with love like your child is still

00:59:24.900 your child um but I would be I would try to look for like therapists who are exploratory and not going

00:59:34.840 to just have you know affirmation only like foregone conclusion that medical transition is the right

00:59:41.280 thing because I think especially when we're young people our identities are pretty malleable and there's

00:59:46.660 just no need to foreclose on uh an identity with like irreversible and like harmful medical procedures

00:59:54.100 um without you know giving people time to explore what it really means to them and the underlying causes

01:00:00.740 yeah because if you just pick a random psychologist or psychiatrist they're being told by their

01:00:06.780 organizations affirm affirm affirm affirm and not to affirm immediately is quote conversion therapy

01:00:12.880 so you do have to be very careful in selecting the therapist otherwise you're you're setting your kid

01:00:20.260 down a path that you may not want and he or she may not need well same closing question for you what

01:00:27.400 what do you want people to know like parents who are thinking about this or or kids who are wrestling

01:00:31.880 with it as a result of society shoving it down their throat yeah I want the parents to really consider

01:00:39.280 strongly uh taking their child if they're struggling with this to a uh a trauma therapist who deals with

01:00:47.960 adverse childhood experiences and have them do a complete study to evaluate the amount of trauma they may

01:00:54.180 have experienced and see if there's underlying comorbid issues like body dysmorphia dissociative disorder

01:01:01.000 schizophrenia or whatever it may be and treat those disorders and not opt for the idea of hormones and

01:01:08.200 surgery and in that way the person will not be re replacing the knee and actually dealing with the

01:01:15.640 real issues and I think that's so important today to prevent those children who would be better

01:01:23.680 off served by adverse childhood experience and trauma therapy than going through hormones and surgery that

01:01:30.780 are absolutely devastating and will last a lifetime wow I could spend three hours with you guys

01:01:38.200 thank you both so much for being here for telling your stories and I hope I hope we can do it again

01:01:43.240 because there's something new on this issue virtually every week I'm I'm really proud to know you I

01:01:48.760 appreciate you being here it's our pleasure thank you so much thank you all the best up next we're

01:01:54.420 getting it into the issues of puberty blockers cross-gender hormones uh and what the medical community has done

01:02:01.640 the absolute abdication of its responsibilities uh with two doctors uh one of whom is trans and you'll hear

01:02:10.600 all sides represented

01:02:12.200 joining me now two doctors pediatrician dr julia mason and clinical psychologist dr erica anderson dr anderson

01:02:23.560 is a transgender woman as well thank you both so much for being here there's a lot to to go through and just

01:02:30.120 preparing for the segment what i found very eye-opening was uh puberty blockers i mean they talk about

01:02:36.980 putting kids on puberty blockers today like they're not sure if they're a girl or a boy you can put them

01:02:41.640 on the puberty blockers delay the decision you know as if it's nothing and reading up on this in depth for

01:02:49.560 the first time it is not nothing puberty blockers do have real risks julia um can you outline what some of

01:02:57.660 them are sure puberty blockers are um medicines that uh shut down the production of all the sex steroids

01:03:09.580 so estrogen progestin testosterone all of them and the sex steroids are important in uh adolescent

01:03:19.840 development this will start as young as age eight or nine in girls and nine or ten in boys um the use of

01:03:29.740 puberty blockers has been associated with significant bone density problems even in kids who use were

01:03:39.460 were administered puberty blockers for the treatment of precocious puberty and i want to mention that

01:03:46.280 precocious puberty is treated with puberty blockers for example a girl at age five or six might get a

01:03:55.840 lupron implant but if a girl seems to be starting puberty at age seven the current recommendation is

01:04:02.600 not to use puberty blockers because the side effects are too uh significant wow um

01:04:08.920 but there have been um case reports of bone problems bone density okay so you can wind up with

01:04:15.880 i'm i was reading in your um your back talk with our with interview with our producer report of spinal

01:04:23.480 fractures subsequent chronic pain in a young patient given puberty blockers in sweden i mean these are

01:04:29.820 things that are just not that well known and there's a question about whether they can inhibit brain

01:04:35.420 brain development and um and also potentially affect sexual attraction is that true julia yeah so the the

01:04:46.920 development of desire is mediated by the sex steroid hormones and if you've blocked them then you've

01:04:56.060 also blocked that development in the child and this is significant because over the past

01:05:05.420 40 years as you've already said the majority of gender dysphoric small children were male

01:05:12.280 and a lot of them had their gender dysphoria dissipate with the onset of puberty as they slowly

01:05:20.520 came to realize that they were gay this wasn't 100 but this was the most common outcome and if you

01:05:28.820 block the puberty you block that development wow and then and so you you just leave them sort of

01:05:38.340 confused and not understanding why they're confused but just chalking it up to the gender dysphoria

01:05:44.680 whereas if they had just been allowed to go through normal puberty they would have realized oh i do have

01:05:49.640 an attraction it's you know more than likely to to guys i'm just gay i'm not trans yeah um and there have

01:05:59.680 been multiple case reports of a loss of iq points and you know kids being held back a grade because they

01:06:09.460 had such sort of brain fog brought on by the puberty blockers wow if you give them to a girl who's already

01:06:18.900 started her periods you're going to put her into an immediate sort of violent menopause um it's a lot

01:06:26.660 worse than when you undergo menopause naturally through your you know 50s it's all at once

01:06:33.860 and i've heard from young people who had to get the puberty blocker removed after six months because

01:06:43.200 they they just couldn't think they were having constant hot flashes which sounds bad yeah it

01:06:50.040 sounds bad at our age never mind a young age um what about um what about the question of orgasm i've

01:06:58.800 seen people raise an issue about whether it puberty blocker somehow will inhibit a child's later ability

01:07:06.040 to achieve orgasm right just like um sex hormones are responsible for the development of sexual desire

01:07:13.260 and thus allow children to sort of figure out if they're straight or gay sex hormones also uh lead

01:07:20.260 to the development of masturbation and the discovery of orgasm and if i mean we have marcy bowers

01:07:31.040 um saying to other doctors in a conference that of all her patients um you know natal males who were

01:07:40.640 blocked at the very beginning of puberty before they had had an orgasm none of them have achieved

01:07:47.960 orgasm wow that she was featured in uh matt walsh's documentary what is a woman dr mercy bowers if memory

01:07:55.100 serves i mean these what's disturbing to me is that these risks just don't get disclosed it's so easy

01:08:00.500 if you want to get puberty blockers in today's day and age it's certainly in the in the blue states

01:08:05.360 you know i mean the red states are trying to crack down on this a bit more they'll just give them to

01:08:09.540 you like they'll just say great it's like a you know it gives you a little postponement of having to

01:08:13.840 make this decision and i don't think a lot of parents understand these risks lower iq possibly no

01:08:19.580 more orgasms for your young child in his or her life um and you know just a lot of confusion and

01:08:26.100 risks that you didn't know you were taking bone density and that's really important to stay well

01:08:29.420 for the rest of your life um erica how do you see it because obviously you have a a personal

01:08:34.600 connection to this issue in a way um and i know that this is not i know it's not considered correct

01:08:40.680 to say you were born a biological male so i'm not trying to offend you i'm just trying to keep

01:08:45.160 things straight you were you were born and labeled uh a male at birth you transitioned to female

01:08:51.480 so how do you see it because the thing the issue with children is particularly dicey right well thanks

01:08:58.320 for having me and these are complicated subjects as we can all agree uh i uh i have a fairly uh nuanced

01:09:07.760 perspective about this and sometimes i'm uh accused and found guilty of being in the middle

01:09:13.640 uh on some of the worst thing you can possibly be on anything today yeah exactly exactly so i i see

01:09:21.540 the problems but i also as you point out earlier megan uh i there are there are transgender people

01:09:29.300 and there always have been and so my sincere obligation is to help all transgender people but

01:09:36.940 as we're agreeing the picture is so complicated now by possibly the promotion of trans identities

01:09:44.700 uh in various ways social media uh you know in circles of of young people and i've been speaking

01:09:52.940 about it for several years and during the pandemic a number of things happened it was kind of like a

01:09:59.020 perfect storm uh with kids deprived of being with each other at school they uh ended up at home doing

01:10:07.080 zoom school and uh have found themselves online uh in larger and larger numbers per day uh than ever

01:10:15.640 before and the consumption of all this social media that is um speaking to them uh i think has really

01:10:23.980 been unhealthy so i've been uh writing and speaking about the potential that we may have a new group of

01:10:31.180 of particularly teenagers who don't fit the model that we've we've uh seen in the outcomes research

01:10:38.700 that's been published in the uh journals and uh is based in europe particularly of the netherlands and

01:10:46.140 sweden and even the united states and so if we have a new group of uh adolescents who didn't exhibit any

01:10:53.740 gender questioning when they were young unlike the the more traditional group that we've seen in

01:10:59.820 gender clinics what do we know and uh and i think that's the problem is there's there are a lot of

01:11:06.860 questions so i've been urging caution the standard of practice actually uh is urging uh individualized

01:11:14.220 evaluation of every child rather than expedited uh treatment with hormones and uh and i've uh been

01:11:22.460 been a bit of a contrarian because there certainly are a lot of people in my work and in the trans

01:11:31.900 community who just think everybody who says they're trans is trans and you should take them at their word

01:11:37.740 and and uh that just flies in the face of everything i know is 40 years a psychologist about self-report which is

01:11:45.420 really not reliable uh and about the challenges of kids who are exploring their identity in all ways

01:11:53.020 that we know yeah and i mean of course transitioning is not easy it's not easy physically emotionally

01:12:02.940 even intellectually i'm sure it poses new challenges and so it's like why wouldn't we pump the brakes and

01:12:08.540 say let's be absolutely sure before we help this child go through something extremely traumatic um

01:12:17.660 even today uh barry weiss over at common sense had a piece a couple days ago about how um we may be

01:12:24.140 getting a little bit more reluctant to push people into transitioning and she talked about the um she

01:12:31.180 wrote about the the closing down of is it the tavistock clinic over in the uk yeah yeah and uh they just

01:12:37.820 said that this has caused too much damage to young people and we're not proceeding appropriately or

01:12:42.700 with enough caution um but here in the united states and the piece was critical of the american academy of

01:12:47.980 pediatrics here which is all about gender affirming gender affirming julia and just today as we were

01:12:53.100 coming on the air the daily mail dropped a piece american academy of pediatrics holding its leadership

01:12:57.980 conference in chicago this week and they are blocking efforts to review according to the daily mail

01:13:03.740 their policy on gender affirming care for teens who say they identify as transgender they're not

01:13:10.380 interested in reviewing their current policies which are definitely on the side of affirming what do you

01:13:17.500 make of it and it stands in sharp contrast as you pointed out earlier to the actions taken by the health

01:13:24.060 authorities in uh the uk uh the national health service and the health authorities in sweden finland

01:13:31.260 and and france who have undertaken serious study about all the phenomenon we're talking about is like

01:13:37.900 are there why is it that there are so many kids who are questioning their gender and showing up at gender

01:13:43.340 clinics in numbers we've never seen before what do we make of that what about the the shift in the

01:13:49.660 population from predominantly male uh kids who are presenting at gender clinics to more than two-thirds

01:13:58.140 female and this is a finding that's been true in the united states all the gender clinics that i'm

01:14:03.820 familiar with i worked in one of the one of the best known uh and and the clinics in in sweden so in sweden

01:14:11.900 they have uh they have pushed the pause button and said we need to study this uh and i have called them brave

01:14:19.100 uh for when they when they came out with their uh decision because they they're known as a very progressive

01:14:26.540 society who has been very uh welcoming of trans identities for many many years and they're the first

01:14:34.300 country in the in the world that recognized harm done to trans people uh and actually uh created reparations

01:14:41.180 for people who were involuntarily sterilized so sweden has taken the lead um as they have in other

01:14:48.460 things and uh i i i'm i'm happy i'm a little disturbed that our colleagues in the united states and i think dr

01:14:57.340 mason uh probably feels the same way that they've ignored what's been going on in europe they've ignored

01:15:03.740 the the new caution the new um judgments uh that have been made and and seem to be going about the

01:15:11.420 the business of of uh doing what they've been doing for a few years um but the the voices of those of us

01:15:18.060 who have uh expressed caution concern are being heard now more than ever uh and and so i i'm hopeful

01:15:26.620 that we're we're about to see the tide turn julia this this reminds me of what happened with the

01:15:33.340 covet dosing where europe said definitely we want vaccines are good and we and we want to make them

01:15:40.220 available for kids but here's what we think is safe based on our studies less they don't need the 30 i

01:15:45.740 can't remember the unit micrograms whatever it is we can go with 10 for the littles and only one shot is

01:15:51.180 really required we don't need to whatever they've just been sort of open-minded to data that would

01:15:56.540 allow them to reassess earlier assumptions and then they go with data and evidence whereas our

01:16:02.460 pediatrics officials seem agenda driven like this i don't understand given what happened at

01:16:08.700 tavistock and given the sweden and the finland and the uk studies why we wouldn't be saying over

01:16:13.820 here for the good of these children let's reassess let's slow down let's change our approach it's not

01:16:20.620 that we're going to be condemning or or cruel or converting we're going to be open-minded to

01:16:28.060 as our earlier guest was saying other childhood traumas that may be confusing one particular child

01:16:34.780 or another yeah the the american academy of pediatrics is in a pickle because i believe that five years ago

01:16:45.340 they were approached by uh young activists who said you know trans is the new gay it's the new

01:16:53.820 civil rights movement and you need to get on the right side of history and you need to do the right

01:16:58.380 thing and they just wrote up that 2018 statement and as far as i can tell there were no adults looking at

01:17:09.980 no experienced clinicians looking at that statement it it as soon as it came out james canter who is a

01:17:17.100 sexologist you know took a look and said wait a second these references don't say what you're implying

01:17:23.820 they say um you know the the 2018 statement said that there's three possibilities for dealing with a

01:17:32.220 child who declares a cross-sex identity you can attempt conversion therapy you can do watchful

01:17:40.140 waiting or you can do affirmative care and the only ethical and proper thing to do is affirmative care

01:17:47.500 but when they talked about conversion therapy they were referencing studies about conversion therapy for

01:17:54.060 homosexuality in adults right right totally different therapy for kids gender identity is not a thing

01:18:01.500 no um and yet we have i was just saying to the earlier yes that we we have a biden administration

01:18:07.420 executive order saying we need to ban conversion therapy in all states in the context of trans kids

01:18:12.300 like what is he talking about like i yeah i don't know it's not a thing they're talking about it's yeah

01:18:17.980 it's it's not a thing um and watchful waiting didn't mean that you just put them in a box watchful

01:18:25.100 meeting meant support the dutch okay so most of this is based on some studies by dutch researchers they

01:18:31.100 were the first ones to have this idea of giving puberty blockers to kids and when they were doing theirs they

01:18:38.140 were trying very hard to isolate the children whose cross-sex identity persisted into puberty and

01:18:47.740 they told the parents don't change the name don't change the pronouns don't tell them oh you really

01:18:54.060 are a girl you know uh you have you know if if a mother referred to their kid as their daughter

01:18:59.660 they'd say no you have a son and possibly when they're older we'll do some cosmetic procedures to

01:19:04.780 help them you know live their life more comfortably but they really didn't want to do early social

01:19:11.020 transition and yet people have taken that research and turned it into this idea that a child's gender

01:19:18.940 identity is internal eternal and immutable and if they tell you that's what they are then that's what

01:19:26.460 they are and i've been a pediatrician for over 25 years and kids identify as lots of things when they're

01:19:35.980 kids i thought i was a magical witch named taffian i had a patient who insisted he was a cat for two

01:19:42.860 years um he was very insistent about the cat thing um yeah and generally i think that if a boy wants to

01:19:55.180 wear the sparkly you know the sparkly nail polish and the dresses we should let him wear the sparkly nail

01:20:00.540 polish on the dresses it's awesome yeah that doesn't mean he's a girl i mean

01:20:05.100 let him have some time if i might i think one of the issues in addition to the ones uh dr mason's

01:20:10.620 talking about which is uh reliance on research on a different population to support earlier intervention

01:20:17.020 with with teenagers which i don't think can be justified uh on that basis that we have some

01:20:24.060 interesting developments in terms of culture we've gotten away from the binary construction of

01:20:29.500 gender a lot of people accept sort of a spectrum of genders but but in this arena there's been almost

01:20:36.780 a renewed policing of gender that the girls who we would have referred to as tom boys are are encouraged

01:20:44.860 to think maybe they're in the wrong gender maybe they're uh trans boys and the effeminate boys are uh

01:20:51.820 are suggested that perhaps their gender is really female so you know among my colleagues who i talk to a

01:20:59.500 lot are are are gay gay uh professionals who say are we actually uh policing out of existence gay identities

01:21:08.300 uh proto-gay identities that was a big subject for the initial screening from the gender clinics in

01:21:14.860 europe as dr mason is pointing out and and i'm concerned that that rather than be more accepting of

01:21:22.140 gender expression and gender exploration we're less less so and i agree with dr mason that you know we

01:21:29.660 should we should be tolerating all kinds of differences and not presuming that it has to do

01:21:34.940 with gender a lot of our teenagers are getting some really uh inappropriate advice saying that if your

01:21:41.740 preferences line up with uh stereotypically the other gender maybe that's true for you as opposed to just

01:21:49.420 saying you're you're atypical or you're non-conforming i i i picked up on the the use of the the word

01:21:56.140 non-conforming uh earlier megan and one of the things that's interesting to me is that's been policed

01:22:02.780 out of our dialogue we we don't use that word gender non-conforming anymore in any of the professional

01:22:09.340 literature we should use it i mean what why wouldn't we call somebody who is unique or idiosyncratic

01:22:17.580 unique and idiosyncratic doesn't mean that we change their gender and we know we know it's not

01:22:24.460 saying there's only one way to look and be female or look or be when we say like those people are

01:22:29.420 conforming it's not like oh yes this is what it's just a way of identifying what we've traditionally

01:22:34.380 understood to look and be female and male one of the things that jumped out at me in reading uh your

01:22:41.020 thoughts on this prior to air julia was you were saying there are some boys concerned about toxic

01:22:47.980 masculinity who are now struggling with gender i mean that's incredible to me i i we always sort of

01:22:53.900 joke about that term because it's like i don't know it's not that we really love toxicity but i mean a

01:22:59.740 lot of us love masculinity in our men and we don't want effeminate men if we're straight women i mean a lot

01:23:05.340 of us feel that way i feel that right but i never thought that it was it was a problem that would

01:23:10.140 affect somebody's gender identity to me to me and i want you to expand on this but to me that's sort of

01:23:15.740 the flop of the flip of girls you know being told you're gonna get me too'd you're gonna get you know

01:23:22.940 sex discriminated against you're gonna be treated as the weaker sex and they're like well screw this

01:23:26.860 i'm crossing over like what are my other options right it's sort of the same but on the boy side

01:23:32.060 yeah yeah i was it's it's kind of hard to wrap your mind about but there are sort of

01:23:40.860 gentle sweet boys who sometimes growing up in an environment without any um positive male figures

01:23:51.740 like their mother had an abusive partner and they you know and they live in a very female-centered world

01:24:00.380 and all they hear about is toxic masculinity and that men are aggressive and that men um cause

01:24:11.420 pain and harm and they're just sort of horrified by that and they're like i don't want to be that i

01:24:17.420 don't want to do that they don't identify as you know as a violent abusive male and they don't see a way

01:24:26.780 forward as a you know as they're growing into being a man i agree and i i think uh that the the conflation

01:24:37.900 of sort of social justice wokeness with advice about gender makes it confusing for a lot of certainly a lot

01:24:45.820 of young males uh uh in that you know they don't want to be associated with toxic masculinity they don't

01:24:52.380 want to be associated with white male privilege that has served to oppress all all minorities uh

01:24:58.620 and colonize uh you know the indigent indigenous populations so it it is a between a rock and a hard

01:25:06.860 place i'm in the bay area and there are a lot of schools that are very progressive and some do it very

01:25:13.420 well to bring up some some of these issues and some create such an environment that i literally have

01:25:19.580 had parents call me and say our boys came home from school today crying that they learned that

01:25:26.620 they were the problem with humanity and uh and i think that's a terrible message to convey to uh to

01:25:35.420 boys in particular my gosh it's so disturbing so what i mean i want to get to what what you should do

01:25:43.260 but let me ask you this question for example we talked about uh puberty blockers julia but we didn't

01:25:47.420 talk about cross-sex hormones and that's i don't is that seems to be a much bigger deal than the

01:25:53.180 puberty blockers so like the the cross-sex hormones as i understand if you go if you're a young girl who

01:25:59.180 says i think i'm actually a boy and i want to start looking like and acting like a boy and you go on

01:26:04.380 puberty blockers into cross-sex hormones you're infertile you that cannot be undone so i mean it's it's 10 out of

01:26:14.780 10 severe in terms of your life decisions yeah um if uh if a child is put on puberty blockers at tanner

01:26:25.820 two which is literally um like the first pubic hair you know like they still look like a child

01:26:32.220 tanner sorry yeah the tanner staging um kids are tanner one until they start puberty and then tanner

01:26:40.940 two is the most subtle of changes and it goes to five you know it's a it's a scale that we use

01:26:48.220 and the current protocol is to put kids on puberty blocker at tanner two and thus stop puberty

01:26:54.540 altogether um then the gonads don't develop and we actually have so little information about what happens

01:27:05.900 if a kid is put on puberty blockers for gender dysphoria and then stops them i mean it's we're

01:27:13.020 told that it's a harmless pause and everything will resume and we're basing that on our experience

01:27:17.820 with much younger children who are given this for uh precocious puberty but i have been unable to find

01:27:24.860 any any good data it's you know one of the problems with the tavistock is they seem to be deliberately

01:27:30.300 not collecting any information um so i lost my train of thought anyway so the just whether you

01:27:39.100 could really whether infertility is likely yeah sterility is likely because the gonads don't develop

01:27:45.900 um the testosterone is this this may be a dumb question but yeah yeah i know we both have gametes and

01:27:54.780 women have gametes that produce eggs and that's what makes us female and men have them that produce

01:27:59.420 sperm and that's what makes them male but like when i was i was asking for example about girls

01:28:03.820 like biological girls and you use the term gonads so do we have you know do we have some sort of

01:28:08.700 gonad internally but i don't know a gonad gonads are ovaries and testicles okay okay got it so

01:28:16.380 actually yeah i'm sorry i'm using too much data gonads produce gametes so ovaries produce eggs and testicles

01:28:22.460 produce sperm okay and uh preview debauchlers block the development of both the ovaries and the

01:28:29.740 testicles depending on who you are okay um then the testosterone um you know starts a cascade of

01:28:37.500 physical effects that are prime that are almost entirely irreversible so if a natal female takes

01:28:47.500 testosterone long enough to develop a beard even if she stops the testosterone she's going to have

01:28:52.860 that beard for the rest of her life if the testosterone leads to her vocal cords thickening

01:29:00.380 she's either going to have a deep voice or she's going to have a really tight froggy voice and i'm i'm

01:29:07.100 curious as to how we know which one's going to happen um but that will also persist for the rest of her

01:29:13.980 life um if a female is using testosterone for more than a few years they typically develop vaginal

01:29:24.540 atrophy um i have a patient who developed stress incontinence so whenever he coughed or laughed pee would

01:29:33.820 leak out um and that was just because the tissues of the urethra were getting kind of thin and frail like

01:29:41.660 a postmenopausal woman um and there's it's generally recommended that if a person takes testosterone for

01:29:49.740 more than five years that they should get a hysterectomy because there's an increased risk of

01:29:55.900 infection and cancer and painful orgasms oh my goodness that's like that's the worst nightmare

01:30:05.420 to another issue if i might um sure we're talking a lot about medical things but one of the the

01:30:11.500 concerns i've expressed as a psychologist is that too many health professionals in the usa are going

01:30:17.660 right to the medical interventions and not pausing sufficiently at the evaluation uh of what's going

01:30:24.620 on with the kids and i think walt or in your earlier segment was was stressing that as was grace for

01:30:30.060 that matter that um we've abdicated in some circles the proper evaluation individualized evaluation and

01:30:39.580 we can't do that uh the the standard of practice is to to to do that kind of evaluation and and we will

01:30:46.460 never really know what all is might be what all might be conflated with gender unless we do that kind

01:30:52.460 of evaluation so there are too many providers in the usa who want to just expedite medicalization i've

01:30:58.860 been decrying this for actually three or four years i've seen it happen i get calls from parents

01:31:04.860 all the time who say they went to a gender clinic and in 15 20 minutes they were told well here's how

01:31:10.300 we go on hormones uh no mental health evaluation uh i think it's just deplorable so i've got a lot

01:31:17.340 of flack from colleagues uh for calling others out uh on this on this issue but it's really really important

01:31:24.140 so eric if you were advising president biden you know let's let's throw out that executive order

01:31:29.900 and start anew what would you tell him like what should we be doing differently well there are trans

01:31:36.700 people uh there are persistent uh trans identities and they're found among young people as well um and

01:31:43.900 the challenge for us is differentiating those who are gender questioning from those who are persistently

01:31:49.740 transgender i think that's a psychological differentiation not a medical one we as yet

01:31:54.940 don't have any laboratory tests to differentiate who will ultimately go on to persist and we do have

01:32:02.540 a new group i'm afraid of teenagers who have looked to medicalization to taking hormones as a solution

01:32:11.260 gender transition is a solution to their other problems there are other very real problems as walt pointed

01:32:17.740 out and i've been you know watching this for all of my lifetime in the last 50 years it was presumed

01:32:24.460 50 years ago that anyone who had a trans identity had a deep-seated psychiatric disorder no longer but

01:32:31.900 the group of teenagers that we're seeing in huge numbers now that we didn't see before are those who've

01:32:38.140 been coached to think that changing your gender is the solution to all your problems i can assure you

01:32:44.140 it is not and so we have lots of kids who are potentially susceptible to this and might end up

01:32:51.980 as grace did believing that you know gender transition will make them happy and unfortunately

01:33:00.220 it's not going to happen i'll give you the last word julia same question you know what needs to change

01:33:07.180 what would you advise well i guess i would i would say the same thing that i had in my resolution i

01:33:12.540 submitted to the american academy pediatrics which is that we need to undertake a systematic review

01:33:19.260 of the scientific evidence um for these treatments this is what they did in finland and sweden and

01:33:27.660 england and this is what led to them pumping the brakes on pediatric medical transition a systematic

01:33:34.700 review is a particular thing and it just it means that you look at all the data not just the data that

01:33:42.380 you like the results of that that's been put in front of you by activists who have an agenda but

01:33:51.260 that may may not be linked to facts you guys thank you both so much julia erica i really appreciate both

01:33:57.820 of you being here again dr julia mason dr erica anderson uh very thoughtful and very heartfelt and i am

01:34:05.980 very grateful all the best having us thank you wow what a show i loved all four of our guests today

01:34:14.860 i hope you feel the same what a thoughtful discussion oh it's such a tricky wicket and the mainstream is

01:34:23.260 going against the side of reason the side of reason what what they're doing to these kids it's not

01:34:29.340 loving it's not supportive it's not fostering wellness to the contrary and you know the rest

01:34:35.420 of us are going to have to get big and bold and brave about pushing back or we're complicit

01:34:40.700 i'm very grateful i mean i i really respect our guests and look at erica i'm sure erica does get

01:34:46.540 a lot of pushback um but comes out publicly and talks about this in the most thoughtful way very

01:34:52.780 grateful anyway give me your thoughts uh go to the apple podcast reviews i read them all you can email

01:34:57.900 me at questions at double make care media.com and i have very exciting news about tomorrow

01:35:05.020 dr laura is back cannot wait to talk to her i have so many issues as you know but i want to get your

01:35:13.020 issues in front of her too so be prepared to tune in live and if you miss it live and listen to us via

01:35:18.940 a podcast or on youtube.com slash megan kelly later thank you as always for listening

The Megyn Kelly Show - August 04, 2022

A Deep Dive into Detransitioners, with Experts, Doctors, and Those Who Have Been Through It ｜ Ep. 367

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript