TRIGGERnometry - January 24, 2021


Abigail Shrier： ＂The Trans Issue Shouldn't Be Political＂


Episode Stats


Length

54 minutes

Words per minute

168.2973

Word count

9,243

Sentence count

393

Harmful content

Misogyny

25

sentences flagged

Toxicity

6

sentences flagged

Hate speech

22

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Abigail Shryr is the author of Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze That Is Seducing Our Daughters, a book that explores the phenomenon of teenage girls who identify as transgender and want hormones and surgeries.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.
00:00:11.360 I'm Constantine Kissin.
00:00:12.500 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.
00:00:17.660 Our brilliant guest today is the author of Irreversible Damage,
00:00:20.900 the transgender craze that is seducing our daughters. 1.00
00:00:23.600 Abigail Shryer, welcome to Trigonometry.
00:00:25.580 Oh, thank you so much for having me on.
00:00:27.700 It is a great pleasure to have you on.
00:00:29.400 Francis and I both read your book. I was going to say it was a great pleasure reading the book,
00:00:33.120 but I actually would say it was a great horror reading the book because it's very difficult
00:00:37.540 to read because you weave the stories of individual people together with the scientific
00:00:43.200 data, together with the broader societal issues. But the personal stories, particularly of families
00:00:49.340 have been torn apart by this stuff, are very difficult to read and very moving. And Francis
00:00:55.180 and I have been talking to people for a long time about this. We've had trans guests on the show,
00:00:59.400 to talk about. We've had people like Posey Parker on the show as well. And we really, when we dived
00:01:03.920 into it, it was very sort of like, why are people talking about this stuff? Like, what's going on?
00:01:08.440 Why is it important? We didn't really understand it. We didn't really know about it. And I think
00:01:12.040 your book brings to the fore the real world impact of politicizing this issue. So tell people who
00:01:19.340 haven't yet read the book, and I really recommend everybody does, why did you write this book?
00:01:25.020 Well, I wrote this book because in the last decade, there's been an explosion of young
00:01:29.840 women, teenage girls who suddenly identify as transgender, often with their friends and
00:01:36.580 want hormones and surgeries and are easily obtaining them.
00:01:40.180 And the reason this is significant is we've had something called gender dysphoria, which
00:01:44.600 is the severe discomfort in one's biological sex.
00:01:46.900 That's something we've known about and had a 100 year diagnostic history of.
00:01:51.600 So we know what it looks like. And it doesn't look like this. We've never we've never seen before
00:01:57.460 young teenage girls. This was always something that afflicted little boys and men, never teenage 0.56
00:02:03.620 girls. And now teenage girls out of nowhere, the leading demographic. So whenever you see something
00:02:08.780 like that, it's worth asking why what's going on here. And that's all my book sought to do.
00:02:14.540 And it's something that your book explores brilliantly and incredibly powerfully. But
00:02:20.160 let's start right at the very beginning then why is it that we're seeing this explosion
00:02:24.660 of young girls pre-pubescent and pubescent girls wanting to transition well the way to see this is
00:02:31.140 it's one part of a larger mental health crisis facing teenagers generally and and and teenage
00:02:37.780 girls most acutely we know that teenage girls are and even tween girls so girls who haven't
00:02:44.140 yet reached teenage years but are in the very beginning of adolescence are experiencing rates
00:02:48.840 of anxiety, depression, and other mental health problems that we've never before seen. The rates
00:02:53.700 of suicide, suicidal ideation, self-harm are things we've never before seen. And researchers
00:03:00.060 who've looked into this, psychologists like Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge have been able
00:03:04.800 to link it to social media immersion, that these young girls across the West are immersing in
00:03:10.040 social media. They're feeling very bad about themselves. And they look to the culture to
00:03:14.900 help explain what's wrong and the culture's loud and you know instruction to them if is is you know
00:03:21.280 if you're not feeling great about your body you might be trans and you say it's social media but
00:03:28.960 what your book does very very well is is is we use social media as a blanket term but there's lots of
00:03:34.240 different strands to it for instance you talked about instagram the unrealistic expectations that
00:03:39.460 young girls place on their own bodies by seeing photoshopped images of other women and so on and 0.99
00:03:45.040 so forth. That's right. I mean, social media sort of conspires in a million different sites to
00:03:50.780 make girls feel that they're not good enough, their bodies are bad or ugly, that they are being 0.86
00:03:56.960 left out. They can watch their friends be at a party while it's happening, who seem to be having
00:04:02.080 the times of their life and they know they haven't been invited to. They watch how many likes their
00:04:08.660 friends get, how beautiful the prettiest girl in their high school seems compared to them.
00:04:12.600 They can actually quantify how many more likes and friends she has. And it's a very,
00:04:17.720 very punishing thing for a teenage girl to sit with and experience.
00:04:22.200 I mean, one of the things that people always throw back at people like you who delve into
00:04:26.920 this issue is, well, you know, we've had, as I mentioned, we had a transgender presenter
00:04:31.720 on our show called India Willoughby. And, you know, she was talking about how she knew she
00:04:37.080 needed to transition at five as a boy to being a girl. That didn't happen. She lived most of her
00:04:45.060 life as a man. It was very uncomfortable experience, very unpleasant. And when she
00:04:49.660 eventually did transition, she felt very, very comfortable. And it was really just a clicking
00:04:55.180 into place. And that was great. So people will often throw back examples like that at someone
00:05:00.340 like you. So what do you make of that counter argument that, well, some people need to transition
00:05:05.020 And, you know, why are you interfering with that?
00:05:07.920 That's not a counter argument.
00:05:09.700 I agree with that.
00:05:11.240 I actually have, you know, in the book, I interviewed many, many transgender adults.
00:05:15.640 And I am someone who believes, you know, very much and has been I've been convinced, absolutely, that the transition can be very helpful for mature adults who have lived with gender dysphoria, as you mentioned, your guest did from a very young age.
00:05:31.040 That's what gender dysphoria has always looked like. 1.00
00:05:33.480 It's young. It starts in early childhood and it's young. It's overwhelmingly has been young boys saying, no, mommy, I'm a girl. I know I am. And it's persistent, insistent and consistent throughout their lives. And so as adult mature adults, they make this decision for themselves. My book really has nothing to do with that.
00:05:49.920 It's a copycat phenomenon among teenage girls who fall for virtually every major hysteria, who with their girlfriends, they're in terrible pain.
00:06:00.100 And what they do is they convince themselves that, no, their problem isn't that they're too fat, as they might have said in an earlier generation.
00:06:07.840 But the problem is that they're really supposed to be boys.
00:06:11.000 Abigail, and how has this happened?
00:06:12.480 Because there was a friend of mine who explained it to me in a way that I could never then not understand it afterwards.
00:06:18.120 which she said in terms of transitioning of children,
00:06:21.140 she said children cannot consent, right?
00:06:24.640 So children who are under the age of 18
00:06:26.760 cannot possibly consent to gender surgery 0.76
00:06:29.480 or taking hormones in the same way
00:06:31.800 they can't consent to drinking alcohol,
00:06:34.240 having sex or whatever else it might be.
00:06:36.300 How have we got to a position where it's happening
00:06:39.620 that children are making decisions
00:06:41.360 about their long-term future in this way?
00:06:44.180 You know, there are a lot of lies told around this.
00:06:46.380 And one of the most disturbing really is that that a young child could consent.
00:06:52.760 You know, in America, a young minor is is invited to give assent to their, you know, for instance, elimination of the risk that they will eliminate future fertility by undergoing these treatments as if a child could possibly gauge that loss.
00:07:08.820 It is a lie. We know that. And that's what the High Court of Justice said in Britain when they you know, in the Kira Bell case,
00:07:15.580 when they looked at it and they said basically minors under 16 have no way of evaluating
00:07:21.500 what it is to lose potential sexual function and fertility. There's no way for a child to
00:07:30.180 understand that. But how have we got to this place where you have not even just adults but
00:07:38.580 professional people, doctors, psychiatrists agreeing that a six-year-old should be able
00:07:45.480 to take puberty blockers? That's right. We have a terrible problem with both, you know,
00:07:52.320 bullying and unfortunately cowardice in its face in our medical professions. In America,
00:07:58.680 the standards of all of the major medical professional accrediting organizations have
00:08:03.220 being rewritten to tell the medical professionals that they must affirm. This is affirmative care.
00:08:09.320 So whatever the patient self-diagnoses, whenever a patient self-diagnoses with gender dysphoria,
00:08:14.300 the doctor's job is to agree, not to use their independent judgment, but to agree with the
00:08:19.900 patient's self-diagnosis. This is sort of the sort of Damocles that hangs over all medical
00:08:24.940 professionals today. And if they don't really have the courage to speak up, they just go along
00:08:32.140 with what, you know, out of fear of repercussions and loss of their license.
00:08:39.320 And we'll get to the fear of repercussions because it's not in any way unjustified. The fear is
00:08:45.100 genuine because as you yourself know, and I say we'll get onto it, there are quite a lot of
00:08:49.280 repercussions. But where's this, I mean, where's this come from though? Who is, who are the people
00:08:56.020 who are rewriting these rule books and who are the people who are advancing this worldview?
00:09:01.020 you? Well, the activists in this area are particularly aggressive. But I will say in
00:09:06.920 America, I think one of the reasons we've been remarkably sort of immune to all evidence to the
00:09:13.680 contrary, to all evidence that girls are being hurt, I think that Britain's done a much better
00:09:17.560 job here of being at least open to that conversation, is in America, we have a real
00:09:21.880 weakness for the idea that you can be anything. And, you know, even if you want the opposite
00:09:28.740 sex. Now, of course, you can present as the opposite sex, but we've actually completely 0.99
00:09:33.840 swallowed the lie that you can become the opposite sex. And of course, the problem with swallowing
00:09:40.180 any lie in public like that is it leads to more and more lies. So in California, just this week,
00:09:47.240 the California Insurance Commissioner just announced that breasts in transgender-identified
00:09:53.400 females, including minors, would be considered abnormal developments. They would be considered 0.84
00:09:59.100 abnormal structures that need repair. And of course, the problem, there are many problems
00:10:06.160 with this. But once you have the lie in place that anyone who believes they're a man truly is,
00:10:13.080 then you have to look at breasts and say, well, that's an abnormal structure. I guess we need to 1.00
00:10:17.600 remove it regardless of age. And Abigail, this is a question that I find myself asking many of our
00:10:23.280 I guess, right across the political spectrums
00:10:25.800 when they're talking about issues such as these.
00:10:27.960 But you do think, you know, we talk about a lie.
00:10:31.740 We talk about, you know, the lie that becomes the truth.
00:10:33.900 But what happens to adults watching this,
00:10:37.480 not standing up, not saying what they think,
00:10:40.660 and letting children be irreversibly damaged?
00:10:43.340 Isn't that a form of cowardice?
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00:11:15.740 I do think so.
00:11:17.160 I will tell you that my views on this changed in the last year.
00:11:20.100 you know, as I sort of faced a torrent of backlash myself. I will say that, you know,
00:11:26.660 my inbox has been flooded with parents who are very grateful and have gone through this with
00:11:33.860 their own kids and their own daughters. But it's also unfortunately been flooded with doctors who
00:11:38.880 say, gosh, I'm going to lose my license, but I totally agree with you. And for the first time
00:11:43.120 in the last week, I finally replied to a doctor, you know, usually I just say to professionals of
00:11:48.980 all kinds. Listen, I'm a journalist. You're not. Go ahead and send me your documents. I can keep
00:11:53.240 you out of it. But for the first time this past week, I started saying, you know what? The truth
00:11:58.880 is you're a doctor. And if you believe patients are being harmed, I'm sorry, but I think you have
00:12:04.480 a professional obligation to say something. Right. Right. Well, this is a running theme,
00:12:10.380 as Francis says in our show. We've talked to a lot of people. And the answer in many of these
00:12:14.900 issues is always for people to be courageous in what are genuinely difficult circumstances.
00:12:20.100 But you talk about getting letters from parents. You interviewed a lot of people
00:12:23.620 in the course of the book. You give some of their stories. What was the most shocking thing to you
00:12:28.560 that you discovered in writing this book? I think one of the most shocking early lessons I got was
00:12:35.200 when I started interviewing transgender adults. And I mistakenly expected them to be very energized
00:12:41.680 and pushing transition, but actually I got the reverse from them. I got not only incredible
00:12:47.860 sensitivity, sobriety, and thoughtfulness from the transgender adults I interviewed, but also
00:12:53.540 they were very honest with me that transition is very difficult, that it is not a snap of the
00:12:58.860 fingers, that these interventions are really significant and of course irreversible, and that
00:13:04.480 they did not believe minors should be going through them, and that teenage girls who suddenly
00:13:09.560 decide they were transgender because their friends were all coming out. They did not think these
00:13:14.000 girls should be fast-tracked to transition. In fact, they were horrified. And really finding,
00:13:20.860 you know, getting to know all these wonderful transgender people for whom the activists do not
00:13:25.620 speak was really a revelation to me. And the thing that I found incredibly shocking is the language
00:13:33.800 that was being used for surgery, such as a double mastectomy,
00:13:37.880 you know, like top half surgery or something, top surgery.
00:13:42.700 It makes it sound almost frivolous.
00:13:45.380 But then if you know anything about mastectomies,
00:13:47.960 it takes a six-month recovery period.
00:13:50.640 Francis is an expert.
00:13:52.840 And breasts are complicated structures. 1.00
00:13:55.220 They're not, you know, nothing.
00:13:56.820 You're destroying function, not only erotic potential,
00:14:00.680 but milk production.
00:14:01.440 I mean, when in any other of medicine, cosmetic surgeons are not allowed to destroy human functions.
00:14:07.900 But here they are without even a therapist note, even on minors.
00:14:12.180 And it was it was really shocking to me.
00:14:14.640 They do call it surgery.
00:14:15.820 They do pretend it's nothing.
00:14:17.660 And they are amazingly immune to the burgeoning stories of regret that are out there.
00:14:23.140 If you look on YouTube week to week, the number of young women coming forth and saying, listen, I was convinced I was trans.
00:14:30.000 but now I see I'm not, and look what's been done to me. They're all over YouTube.
00:14:35.360 And as you say in the title of the book, it's Irreversible Damage. One of the arguments that
00:14:41.860 people often talk about is, you mentioned suicidality in general, but one of the arguments
00:14:48.180 that's used very specifically in this context is that if you don't allow people who claim they need
00:14:53.160 to transition, you're causing them to think about suicide, you're causing them harm, 0.89
00:14:59.780 in that way, they're going to kill themselves. What do you make of that argument?
00:15:05.220 You know, unfortunately, I don't think it's a good argument, and I'll explain why.
00:15:09.280 Unfortunately, science and medicine have become so thoroughly politicized in the United States
00:15:13.640 and throughout the West, but particularly in the United States, that people recite these mantras
00:15:19.280 without looking at any evidence. It's incredible. Even scientists and doctors, especially the younger
00:15:24.980 generation are so woke, as they say, they're so activists, they're not interested. And the truth
00:15:31.720 of the matter is we have no proof that gender dysphoria causes suicidality, and we have no
00:15:39.020 proof that medical transition cures it. And especially not for this population, which we've
00:15:45.320 never before seen experiencing gender dysphoria. They seem to be experiencing an atypical form of
00:15:51.900 gender dysphoria that comes on suddenly in adolescence, often with their peers, and as a
00:15:57.020 result of social media influence. It doesn't look like typical gender dysphoria. And we have no proof
00:16:02.880 that transition will cure it. And in fact, if you look at the numbers, we're seeing more and more
00:16:07.200 people not being helped by transition who fall into that demographic. And what responsibilities
00:16:13.480 do these social media companies have to take? Because we've touched on it a few times now.
00:16:17.900 you look at some of these transgender YouTubers, some of whom have got hundreds of thousands of
00:16:23.160 followers on YouTube. How much responsibility do they have to take for what is happening?
00:16:28.540 Well, they're not taking any now. They certainly aren't claiming any responsibility. Look,
00:16:32.680 I think it was Instagram removed thinspiration sites, so sites that encouraged other girls in 1.00
00:16:38.940 anorexia, because we all know encouraging someone to starve themselves is a bad thing.
00:16:43.880 But apparently, encouraging young girls to remove their breasts or take a course of testosterone that will permanently alter their bodies in all kinds of dangerous ways, that's not considered a bad thing. 0.86
00:16:55.920 In fact, it doesn't even come with a warning.
00:16:58.640 And that's really, in some sense, that's the fault line here.
00:17:03.320 My book does not say, and I have never said that no one should transition.
00:17:06.920 My book does not say that transition can never help.
00:17:09.920 My book says that there are risks here, that these are serious interventions and there are risks.
00:17:15.980 And if you believe those risks are worth exploring and discussing,
00:17:19.620 like every other medical treatment and procedure, then you're on my side.
00:17:25.120 You talk about, I mean, Francis brought up the issue of YouTubers,
00:17:28.420 and it's very frustrating for us because they have more subscribers than us.
00:17:31.400 But seriously, the concern there is, you know, we believe in free speech.
00:17:38.140 you have that is enshrined in the American constitution so people should be able to say
00:17:42.920 what they think right I guess it's more a question of protecting children isn't it like how do you
00:17:48.820 protect children from the things people say online about how great transition is or whatever else it
00:17:54.260 might be um I don't know that we have that our speech is so free right now in America you know
00:18:00.880 yeah touche yeah i mean parents who were you know dug into their own pockets to try to promote my
00:18:08.320 book because amazon barred ads and there were so many suppression efforts and instant from from
00:18:13.540 from social media youtube has taken certain of my interviews off and whatnot and um um parents
00:18:19.700 dug into their own pockets to put up billboards parents who believed my book was helpful to them
00:18:24.120 and correct and had watched their daughters gone through this put dug into their own pockets and
00:18:28.320 put up billboards and there was a campaign to do it across the country. And the billboards were
00:18:33.360 taken down because someone claimed that a billboard which said, know the facts before
00:18:42.540 making life altering decisions. They said that constituted hate speech in America. So the
00:18:49.360 billboards were taken down. Know the facts. Now you have to know, to know something about America,
00:18:54.140 you know that every drug requires an announcement and of every possible risk. We're not allowed to
00:19:01.000 prescribe Tylenol, you know, acetaminophen in America without alerting everyone to every
00:19:05.560 possible risk. But irreversible gender surgery, you're not allowed to talk about the risks. 0.95
00:19:11.600 Francis, how is your cyber security? I've got a virus from an unnamed website. Of course you do.
00:19:17.500 You're not alone, Francis. During the pandemic, British online infrastructure has faced an
00:19:22.720 astronomical rise in targeted cyber attacks which is what i'm sure happened to you that is dreadful
00:19:28.520 what can i do to defend myself that is where pocket seam come in they offer businesses like
00:19:34.500 ours a special solution that alerts us to hackers crackers and malicious employees like anton not
00:19:41.280 only that they are the only seam provider to offer pay as you go cyber defense for companies
00:19:47.520 they're british based absolutely and they're from doncaster so they need the work i mean you say
00:19:52.720 that actually they have kept their prices flat during the pandemic to make sure companies can
00:19:57.480 get the protection they need pocket seem are offering trigonometry fans a 10 discount all
00:20:03.700 you got to do is hit them up by email at info at pocket seem.co.uk and make sure the subject of
00:20:10.480 that email is trigonometry and they will give you your 10 discount for managed cyber security
00:20:15.380 That email again is I-N-F-O at P-O-C-K-E-T-S-I-E-M.co.uk.
00:20:25.620 And don't forget to have trigonometry in your subject line so you get your 10% discount.
00:20:31.040 Can I just say, if you needed that spell, you really shouldn't be running a business.
00:20:35.140 But surely there's going to be a backlash to this, as we have seen in the UK,
00:20:40.060 where people who were told that they could transition
00:20:43.120 as prepubescent little girls or pubescent girls
00:20:46.640 will suddenly find that they're in their early 20s,
00:20:48.940 their mid-20s, they have been let down
00:20:51.000 by health professionals, the authorities, et cetera, et cetera,
00:20:54.120 and they are going to inevitably sue, and so they should.
00:20:58.100 You know, I expect the lawsuits to come,
00:21:01.060 but right now in America, this whole, you know,
00:21:04.720 machine of fast-tracking young girls to transition
00:21:08.180 shows no signs of slowing down, and it shows no signs of sobriety. My book was pulled from
00:21:14.260 target.com because of two complaints by Twitter users. My book was, I mean, the number of, I'm
00:21:22.360 constantly facing all kinds of censorship, and all I've ever wanted to do was discuss the risks.
00:21:28.920 That was it. Well, let's talk about the censorship part of it, because something we've dealt with,
00:21:34.440 When we had Posey Parker on the show, that video, it was doing very well.
00:21:39.480 It got deleted as hate speech by YouTube, eventually reinstated.
00:21:43.180 And thanks to them, it's now nailed on a million views.
00:21:45.560 So we appreciate it.
00:21:46.480 But it's something that people face whenever they talk about this issue and many others,
00:21:52.480 where you're coming at it, you know, I would say, from a very constructive, sane, sensible position.
00:21:59.500 You're trying to look after vulnerable children without being hateful or discriminatory in
00:22:06.920 any way.
00:22:08.180 And yet the reaction is literally like you're trying to publish Mein Kampf, but with your
00:22:13.300 own take on it, which, you know, it's just so disproportionate.
00:22:17.380 It almost like it's hard to believe.
00:22:19.560 Like my family live all over Russia and the former Soviet Union.
00:22:22.760 When I try and tell them about some of the stuff that's happening in the West, they don't
00:22:26.680 get it.
00:22:27.080 you must feel like you're living in some kind of weird world that's a whole different thing
00:22:31.520 and not real. I'll tell you the kind of calls I get. And this happens week to week. A couple
00:22:38.120 of months ago, I got a call from a Muslim man living in our country in America who was an
00:22:44.180 immigrant. He was an immigrant from a, you know, he was Muslim and an immigrant from an Arab country
00:22:49.140 and was living in Washington state where the age of medical consent for mental health services
00:22:55.560 has been lowered to 13, which means 13-year-olds without parental consent can get treatment,
00:23:02.860 gender-affirming treatment. But his child didn't seem to have gender problems. His child,
00:23:09.040 this man's child, who was, I'll say, an adolescent, so a teenager, was a minor and a teenager,
00:23:17.860 was suicidal and had had mental health problems. So he checked this teenager in to a hospital in
00:23:29.580 Washington state for psychiatric care. While the teenager was there, they decided that the
00:23:36.680 child's problem was gender dysphoria. And they began to proceed without the parent's permission 0.52
00:23:42.600 to treat the child for gender dysphoria.
00:23:45.660 And the Muslim man called me in a panic
00:23:47.660 because he said, basically,
00:23:49.620 I don't know what in the heck is going on in this country
00:23:52.940 that I just moved to.
00:23:54.520 I want to get my child out and I want to get out of here.
00:23:59.280 Please, who can I call to get my child,
00:24:02.000 you know, out of the hospital?
00:24:04.520 And I, you know, I was able to put him in touch
00:24:07.880 with a social worker who could help,
00:24:09.600 But he was only allowed to collect his teenager if he agreed that the teenager had this new identity. And even then he had to fight to get his teenager back. That's the world we're living in.
00:24:24.460 That's the world no one wants to talk about, that parents who have spent, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of hours with these people, with these kids, and all of a sudden a mental health professional comes in, spends one 45-minute session with him or her and thinks she knows better.
00:24:42.980 And everyone has to listen to that so-called professional or parents risk losing custody.
00:24:49.720 That's what we're living in.
00:24:51.180 and abigail so they say it's a 45 minute session but as you explain in your book
00:24:57.320 these children are effectively coached by some of these influencers for want of a better term
00:25:02.720 of how to go how to jump through the hoops how to make yourself appear to a health professional
00:25:08.180 that you have gender dysphoria could you explain the process of how that works for these girls 1.00
00:25:13.920 so so by and large these these young women are and you know the first real research on this was
00:25:21.520 done by dr lisa litman a brown university public health researcher who looked into this and she
00:25:26.980 hypothesized that there was peer influence and social media influence at play and she looked
00:25:31.680 at because the fact that there was a burgeoning number of of young uh adolescents girls who out 1.00
00:25:38.240 of nowhere after spending a lot of time online had decided they were trans. These were overwhelmingly
00:25:44.080 white girls, middle and upper middle class, highly educated, very precocious girls who had a lot of
00:25:51.220 anxiety and a lot of depression and had a lot of trouble fitting in. So they hit their teenage
00:25:56.580 years, they hit puberty and they went through a very painful time and they went online feeling
00:26:02.260 very lonely. And instead of, you know, in prior generations questions, they would have asked
00:26:07.040 girlfriends like i hate my body what do you think of yours that sort of thing instead they turn to 1.00
00:26:12.140 google they turn to the internet to figure out what's wrong with them and the overwhelming
00:26:16.140 message is you're probably trans wow i mean it's utterly heartbreaking and so that they see that 0.83
00:26:24.980 you're probably trans but yet they're also coached aren't they in order to find what are the way 0.98
00:26:31.060 through the medical systems and the and the gaps in the system etc etc so i interviewed one young
00:26:36.620 woman, Benji, from my book, an adolescent who had identified as a young, at 13, she decided her
00:26:43.460 problem. She was going through a very tough time at home. And she went online and chose age,
00:26:49.760 selected a trans identity on social media. And she was overwhelmed with congratulations
00:26:56.300 and love and encouragement from adults. And adults who would then coach her through transition,
00:27:05.660 encourage her to break away from her parents,
00:27:08.120 encourage her that her parents could not be trusted,
00:27:11.100 celebrate her for this new identity.
00:27:13.420 And many of them, of course, also wanted pictures of her
00:27:16.820 because these were adults online,
00:27:20.320 some of whom were there to prey on minors.
00:27:25.060 It's a very, very difficult subject to talk about.
00:27:28.380 I mentioned it with you before the interview.
00:27:31.500 This happened to a friend of mine, her daughter,
00:27:35.080 was 12 years old and she was telling me about it she was obviously very upset she was crying
00:27:40.020 and she said that her daughter said the words to her uh and she was 12 years old when I transition
00:27:46.880 not if when and to me the the idea that a child would even consider that and let alone it for it
00:27:58.240 to be a certainty it is completely heartbreaking and it's child abuse and and what's more it's
00:28:04.920 not really how children operate. You can't really have that level of certainty about something when
00:28:11.180 you're 12. You just you don't know. It's far more complicated. So this is I think where Francis was
00:28:17.300 sort of going out in terms of the coaching is people are literally being told how to go step
00:28:21.580 by step, aren't they? Yes. And I think the certainty is very much the problem. Look, we all
00:28:26.780 have that. You know, when you were 13, 14, you're convinced that if I just got my nose fixed, if I
00:28:32.580 just got liposuction, if I just, all my problems would go away. It's so normal for a teenage girl
00:28:37.840 to think along those lines. And of course, they're getting a lot of coaching and they're
00:28:42.560 being encouraged in this online. But unfortunately, they're being encouraged in their schools.
00:28:46.620 They're being encouraged by affirmative therapists. They're being encouraged by
00:28:50.400 affirmative doctors. Everyone's celebrating, telling them how brave they are if they just
00:28:55.600 go through with this. So what became a sort of adolescent fixation on the problem, you know,
00:29:01.700 alleged problem with their body becomes in many cases almost an obsession they can't wait
00:29:08.260 and unfortunately certainly in america there are so many doctors who can't wait to oblige them
00:29:13.440 do you watch problematic content online of course they do they watch trigonometry many isps log your
00:29:20.440 internet activity and sell that data on to other big tech companies or other advertising companies
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00:29:55.340 and wired i don't read those publications because i'm not a nerd stop handing over your personal
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00:30:07.900 slash trigger that's e x p r e s s v p n dot com slash trigger i love it but it gets even better
00:30:19.340 than that expressvpn are offering trigonometry fans three extra months free go to
00:30:25.100 anterexpressvpn.com slash trigger to learn more i mean what advice would you give abigail to
00:30:34.320 parents who see that this is happening to their child who are watching this and thinking this is
00:30:42.520 happening to my child i feel utterly powerless i feel helpless i don't know what to do what can i
00:30:48.280 possibly do? So it depends on the child's age. Okay. So if your daughter is 11 or 12 or 13,
00:30:58.200 and she decides out of the blue, I know what I am. I'm pansexual. One of the things I tell parents is
00:31:04.660 number one, there's a very often peer influence and social media influence at play, especially
00:31:10.600 if she never exhibited any kind of gender dysphoria in childhood, which is, you know,
00:31:15.080 a severe, it's not a tomboyishness. It's a severe, inconsistent, and insistent mental disorder.
00:31:21.360 It's a very severe discomfort. It's not a passing tomboy phase or even a committed tomboy phase.
00:31:28.520 It's more significant than that. But if she announces she's pansexual, you don't have to 0.54
00:31:34.520 raise the transgender pride flag over your home, okay? It's okay to just acknowledge that she's 12 0.97
00:31:40.820 or 13 and her sexuality is likely to develop and evolve as she comes to know herself and as she
00:31:46.580 has, you know, real relationships. A lot of the girls who decide these things do so after having 1.00
00:31:52.360 zero romantic experience. They don't know who they are or what they want. They spend all the
00:31:58.780 time with mom and online. So I think, you know, the younger they are, there's a lot more you can
00:32:04.320 do to sort of not immediately encourage and solidify this and perhaps get them some distance
00:32:10.360 from, you know, friends who are encouraging it, but also social media. So social media is really
00:32:15.460 pernicious to all teenage girls. It's just nasty. And it's encouraging all kinds of mental health 0.99
00:32:21.340 problems. So, you know, so that's that. The real problem areas with young teen girls go off to 0.93
00:32:28.620 college and they're the age of majority, but they're often very, very immature. We're seeing
00:32:33.900 that a lot for this generation. And yet the moment they step foot on college, they now have access
00:32:38.880 to a whole array of gender transitioning services
00:32:41.540 that are covered by their college health plans.
00:32:44.880 Abigail, perhaps some even more appropriate question
00:32:48.100 might be what advice would you give to parents
00:32:50.320 for whom that hasn't yet happened?
00:32:52.600 How do you protect your child
00:32:54.880 from being swayed in this way, let's say?
00:32:59.700 Well, one is get them off social media.
00:33:01.780 I do think it's causing a lot of mental health problems.
00:33:04.960 Do whatever you can to keep them off it.
00:33:06.940 But the other thing, you know, if you haven't introduced it, don't.
00:33:10.120 The other thing is, I would say, absolutely oppose gender ideology in the schools.
00:33:15.200 We are confusing an entire generation of young people in the idea that if they don't feel
00:33:20.720 perfectly comfortable in their bodies, they're probably a boy.
00:33:25.060 That is a very confusing message, and it's completely untrue.
00:33:29.160 And, you know, kids are being taught this, and then the moment they experience distress,
00:33:33.100 the solution readily, you know, bobs to the surface of their minds.
00:33:36.940 So I would say we can show absolutely can show trans compassion for transgender individuals of all ages without indoctrinating an entire generation in gender confusion.
00:33:48.580 All right. Well, let me just put one another attempt at a counterpoint. The argument that people sometimes talk about is, you know, gay marriage and gay rights, et cetera. We as a society didn't do well on that.
00:34:02.300 let's say. It took a very long time for gay people to get equality. And, you know,
00:34:08.220 the three bigots like us are just here sort of doing the same thing with trans people. 0.98
00:34:14.100 Gay experimentation, being gay, comes with no irreversible harm. There is nothing, if this 0.98
00:34:23.260 were about a generation of girls declaring themselves lesbian or declaring themselves
00:34:28.420 pansexual, I would not have written the book. Okay. We wouldn't oppose it either. Right. I mean,
00:34:36.300 that's not what this is about. There is no harm in gay experimentation. There is irreversible harm 0.99
00:34:42.480 in young girls, teenage girls rushing to medical transitions. They are likely to regret
00:34:47.960 because they have misdiagnosed themselves with gender dysphoria and no adult, no medical
00:34:53.600 professional, you know, used any medical judgment to evaluate if that was an accurate diagnosis.
00:35:00.040 And Abigail, isn't part of the problem, and you touched on this in your book,
00:35:03.880 that we have a generation that we have mollycoddled, we have protected them from every 0.99
00:35:09.920 single thing that life could have to offer because we want to protect them, we want the best for them.
00:35:14.040 We have a very, very immature generation, you've just touched on that now, who are even more
00:35:19.660 malleable than before because they haven't come into real world crises. That's right. And they
00:35:25.800 haven't had sex or even a kiss. These are young girls who have never kissed a boy through their
00:35:32.600 teenage years going online to discover who they are and what they want. They have no idea. But
00:35:38.780 from a very young age, they've been presented with a buffet of gender options and a buffet of
00:35:44.280 sexualities that they choose online like they choose a sweater. They have no idea who they are
00:35:50.400 or what they want. They've never, as you said, they've been so mollycoddled and so protected by
00:35:54.320 mom. They've never had the opportunity to discover any of their feelings for themselves. So when they
00:36:01.780 try to break free of mom, when they try to individuate, they go online, they do it there,
00:36:06.100 they get celebrated and they choose very extreme options because they really just don't know
00:36:13.160 themselves. Let's move on and talk about the political side of this and the censorship side
00:36:20.060 of this, because this is something you've experienced. First of all, just before I get
00:36:23.380 into my question, tell everybody what has happened to you and your book as a result of you publishing
00:36:29.220 it. It's just been a nonstop, you know, smearing and libeling, but also censorship attempts. First
00:36:36.800 from, you know, Amazon refused to allow my publisher to sponsor ads for the book. So if you
00:36:43.580 typed in the words for my book or search terms, they would suggest another book, one of the
00:36:50.080 hundreds of gender books that celebrate teenage gender transition. Target removed the book after
00:36:56.940 two users claimed it was, you know, transphobic. You know, billboards, parents dug into their own
00:37:03.760 pockets to play for billboards to advertise my book. The GoFundMe they used to create a fundraiser
00:37:10.160 to pay for these billboards was shut down, even though over 30,000 fundraisers are allowed on
00:37:16.300 GoFundMe to pay for top surgery, for breast surgery. But a fundraiser for parents who just 1.00
00:37:22.700 want awareness of the risks, that was shut down. The billboards themselves were taken down. It has
00:37:28.740 truly been endless. Why do you think people feel so strongly, or maybe not so strongly,
00:37:36.400 but why do companies like Target, Amazon, etc., why are they so fearful of a book like yours?
00:37:44.220 Well, I think that the, you know, people underestimate the sort of two questions,
00:37:49.640 okay? First of all, we're seeing the same woke reaction among a lot of a fearful reaction to
00:37:55.700 these, you know, young activists, these young far left activists in all our mainstream institutions
00:38:01.320 in America now and in corporations. Okay. They're, they're terribly fearful. We're constantly doing
00:38:07.520 anti-racism training and whatnot. So you can see it as, as part of that. But, but the question is
00:38:12.880 why this book in particular, why, why this issue in particular? And I think that's the reason is,
00:38:20.020 is because look, my book's not political. It's just a journalist's investigation into this,
00:38:25.120 you know, sudden epidemic, what's going on here and why. And I think that if you take an honest
00:38:30.400 look at the book, if you dare have the opportunity to read it, you will be so horrified by what's
00:38:36.420 been allowed to go on that you will immediately be, you know, extremely concerned. And you
00:38:43.800 certainly want more safeguards for these teenage girls. And I think that the interests that are 0.76
00:38:49.320 committed to fast-tracking as much transition as possible for as many as possible, they're
00:38:55.860 pretty upset that anyone would question them.
00:38:59.400 And Abigail, why is it that this topic inspires such vitriol and the bullying and the anger
00:39:07.140 and the harassment and all these tactics that are used?
00:39:10.580 Why is this particular issue so toxic?
00:39:14.100 Because I'm right.
00:39:15.040 because they know i'm right if they if you read the book you i mean just give it a read you don't
00:39:25.460 have to agree but just give it a read if you dare read the book you're most likely to be horrified
00:39:31.540 by what's going on oh no doubt about that as we said right at the top it's it's a horrifying
00:39:37.080 very beautifully and well put together but horrifying read but i think france's point
00:39:42.240 is interesting because i was just sort of thinking you could probably drop the n-bomb live on on air
00:39:46.340 and you would get less of less pushback than than you've had uh even though obviously those two
00:39:52.400 things are not comparable being racist is terrible whereas what you've done is you're trying to
00:39:56.100 protect people um so it's interesting that that that that seems to be the level of vitriol why
00:40:02.240 why is it even a political issue at all abigail it shouldn't be it really shouldn't be most of the
00:40:09.200 parents who write to me are liberal, but unfortunately the hard left has so corrupted
00:40:14.760 our institutions, even our, you know, from even our scientific journals, we're now seeing just
00:40:21.320 bald, you know, politically motivated conclusions and papers that really have nothing to do with
00:40:28.260 the science. And it really is from this young generation of activists who aren't, who are,
00:40:33.940 you know very much activists first and doctors second so could you give an example Abigail about
00:40:41.160 you know where activism is more important than science a particular paper or so on so forth
00:40:46.720 well I think the New England Journal of Medicine just came out with something
00:40:52.040 recently where they said I'm trying to remember what what what the particular thing is maybe it
00:40:57.560 was either trans women are women or one of these statements but but you see it all over I mentioned
00:41:03.620 the California insurance commissioner just this week announced that, you know, that surgeries on
00:41:12.300 females' breasts, even minors, would no longer be considered cosmetic. They are reconstructive 1.00
00:41:18.440 because healthy breasts are abnormal structures. See, once you start with one lie that a girl 1.00
00:41:24.660 identifies as trans is really a boy, you end up with so many lies in public. And that's what 0.64
00:41:30.380 we're seeing just a complete blizzard of lies in the united states well that's the thing that i
00:41:36.160 think brought this to our attention somewhat as i said initially it was an issue i mean i honestly
00:41:41.220 will tell you two years ago before we really started delving into in any way we were like
00:41:45.580 why is this important like who because we didn't really understand the nuances and then you started
00:41:51.400 seeing all the stuff you've got a six foot four person competing in the olympics against other
00:41:57.380 weightlifters and winning all of that and people literally fighting each other, one of whom who's
00:42:02.140 gone through male puberty and the other person being beaten and badly injured. And you start to
00:42:08.580 see how the reality really has become placed on the altar of whatever this thing is, whether you
00:42:15.860 call that political correctness or politicization or gender ideology or whatever it is. It seems to
00:42:22.380 we've just completely thrown reality out of the window on this issue, haven't we?
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00:42:56.240 we certainly have certainly in the united states i mean um you know the house in the our congress
00:43:04.800 just moved to eliminate all gender terms from the effectively the bylaws the you know what what can
00:43:10.980 be said in the halls of congress so if if this you know passes there will be you can't say mother
00:43:17.120 and father any longer in Congress. Truly concepts that are at the heart of what human life are no
00:43:26.420 longer things that you're allowed to say for fear of offending someone. But there has to come a
00:43:32.320 point, Abigail, surely there has to come a point where the lies unravel. You cannot build a
00:43:39.100 structure on falsehoods. Surely at some point there's going to be an Emperor's New Clothes
00:43:44.580 moment, won't there? So if I didn't believe that, I wouldn't have written the book. I do believe
00:43:52.100 that the truth will eventually out. And I do believe it's sort of right there before our eyes.
00:44:01.080 So, you know, that these procedures need oversight, that there are risks, that transition is not easy,
00:44:09.520 that there are very, very significant health and medical risks, and that a lot of these girls are
00:44:14.480 self, misdiagnosing. Um, and, and, you know, we need to take a look at that, that all of that
00:44:20.460 just, it strikes me as obviously true. You know, what I find interesting about it as well, you
00:44:25.640 know, you've obviously written a book, you know, the subtitle is the transgender craze seducing 1.00
00:44:30.360 our daughter. So you haven't exactly, you know, gone in easy on it. You've gone all the way,
00:44:35.340 but there are people like JK Rowling who've written things in a much more, uh, I don't want
00:44:42.540 to say nuanced because your book is very nuanced as well but less antagonizing way let's say to
00:44:46.680 most people right and yet sorry am i am i not being fair there if you go ahead you're being
00:44:54.240 fair um you know i get a lot of flack for the title of the book um i i will say a few things
00:45:00.680 in defense of the title first of all there is irreversible damage because you know you know
00:45:05.480 unnecessary medical transition is irreversible dynamical definition. And this is a craze
00:45:11.000 because it meets the definition of a craze, which I explain in the book. It's a sociological term.
00:45:19.580 But the question is, is it seducing our daughters? Now, I will just say, I don't know what your 0.93
00:45:25.960 experience is in England, but first time authors rarely write the title of their book. So I don't
00:45:32.480 know why everyone assumes I'm very different as a first time author that I was allowed to choose
00:45:37.220 mine, but let's, let's, um, I would say that I'm, I'm certainly to be held accountable for every
00:45:42.980 word within the book, but, um, you know, you know, do I, do I pretend that I came up with the title?
00:45:49.220 I mean, do, do it, does any author? Right. No, no, I know what you mean. I'm working on my first
00:45:54.000 book as well, and I'll make sure I get to pick the title based on your experience. But what,
00:45:59.020 what i was going with it is more uh that there are people who have been less direct on this issue
00:46:05.220 and yet the vitriol they've received has been just as bad as you have it's almost like like
00:46:10.840 jk rowling being a good example you know what she said about it was very very carefully worded 0.97
00:46:17.320 and yet she is this evil bigot transphobe you know god knows what she is getting death threats 1.00
00:46:23.700 and whatever. Why are they just so vitriolic? We're probably asking this question for the 0.99
00:46:31.980 third time in the last 45 minutes. I just don't understand. Well, there's a whole lot of people
00:46:38.720 who are very invested in the idea that they are heroes, that they're saving these girls from
00:46:45.500 suicide. And if they're wrong, then we'll have to look at what they've done very differently.
00:46:50.460 and we might even look at many of them as monsters it's a good point it's a very very good point
00:46:56.660 I mean you look at this issue and the more you delve into it the more it becomes more horrifying
00:47:04.380 the more layers it has and the more it unravels what options are there for a girl after she's 1.00
00:47:13.360 transitioned and she decides she wants to be she wants to reverse it can she ever go back to how
00:47:19.580 she was or is it too late at that point well it depends what she medically went underwent but i
00:47:25.960 will say this i have interviewed many detransitioners they're wonderful courageous young
00:47:30.680 women who went through something very awful and i will just say there is it's important to remind
00:47:36.120 anyone out there who regrets a transition that there is life after transition there are cosmetic
00:47:41.340 procedures you can get to help with all kinds of changes to your bodies and and to remember that
00:47:46.940 you have a whole long life ahead of you. And, you know, I try to stay very, you know, make sure they
00:47:53.360 get that message because a lot of them do feel very, very bad about what they've been through
00:47:58.280 and what they were, what they, the procedures they underwent. That said, of course, you know,
00:48:03.700 I wrote the book because the changes that a body undergoes through testosterone cannot all be
00:48:10.080 undone. The voice is likely to be masculinized for life. The features may be, depends how long
00:48:15.360 she's been on testosterone, but she may have a permanent five o'clock shadow. The changes to her 0.96
00:48:19.640 private anatomy may never go back. Of course, if you've had your breast removed, they do not come 1.00
00:48:25.300 back. If you've had to undergo a, you know, prophylactic hysterectomy to avoid endometrial
00:48:32.160 cancer from the testosterone, you know, you of course can't have children. So, you know, these,
00:48:37.640 you know, what's involved in transition is a long series of very serious surgeries and hormonal
00:48:42.860 treatments and you talk about before we wrap up you talk about going through a lot what has the
00:48:48.200 last period of time since you since you wrote the book been like for you well it's definitely been
00:48:55.140 interesting i mean i i will i will say this you know um i try to stay positive i get a lot of
00:49:04.800 wonderful comments from parents and i really appreciate that i get a lot of wonderful you
00:49:09.580 know, thanks both from doctors and also from therapists who are very concerned with what's
00:49:17.260 going on, but also from transgender adults. So I try to focus on that. If you look too much at
00:49:22.420 the efforts of suppression in the United States, you know, perhaps in your country as well, I don't
00:49:27.340 know, but certainly in the United States, it's very, very dark. It does not, I mean, the number
00:49:33.680 of efforts to slander me um and and to erase my work it just there there's a relentlessness to it
00:49:42.040 so I try not to focus that and try to focus on um the fight ahead which which I believe I will win
00:49:49.080 um Abigail why did you decide to write a book about this out of all the possible things that
00:49:55.040 you could write a book about it's your first book like you've mentioned before why this why this
00:49:59.780 topic. Why this issue? A reader wrote to me and she said she was a mom. She said my daughter got
00:50:05.100 caught up in this. She had no history of gender dysphoria. She had a lot of mental health problems,
00:50:09.200 went off to college and decided with her friends that they were all trans and they started a
00:50:13.440 course of testosterone. And the woman was very upset. She said she had written to many journalists
00:50:17.760 and no one would take this cause up. And at first I thought, this is the last thing I want to get
00:50:22.500 involved in. And I tried to pass her on to another investigative journalist. And then I waited for
00:50:27.200 four months and no piece came. I was assured that the piece would be written. It wasn't.
00:50:33.580 And so during those months, I thought, you know, if a journalist won't take this up,
00:50:38.660 if a journalist won't look into the biggest, what could be, and I didn't know at the time,
00:50:43.840 the biggest medical scandal, you know, around today, then who will ever expose this?
00:50:51.280 well before we last you our last question let me ask you this how do you think we will look back
00:50:59.300 on this period in human history and the things that that we as a society have done and have
00:51:04.720 allowed to happen i think with shame and regret these girls are teenagers they don't know 1.00
00:51:10.740 themselves youtube is now being flooded with stories of regret that the idea that we can't
00:51:17.740 put more safeguards on to make sure that only mature adults who actually have gender dysphoria
00:51:24.340 go through transition. It's crazy that we don't have those.
00:51:30.240 And lastly, the question that I really want to ask is, there have been links between autism
00:51:36.700 and then these girls transitioning. How much truth is there to that? Is there a real link
00:51:43.180 or is it or is this simple speculation no no no there's been some studies on it there is a link
00:51:49.800 they have been able to show that a high percentage of you know there is a you know a is certainly a
00:51:55.540 link that a lot of the girls who are claiming to have gender dysphoria also have autism you know
00:52:00.640 are on the spectrum so they have sort of very often they're high functioning these are highly
00:52:05.220 precocious girls high functioning you know autism but that was something I wasn't unfortunately able
00:52:12.500 to explore in the book because, um, when I began to interview, um, um, experts in autism, as I did,
00:52:20.180 I started to realize that that was such a scandal of its own because many autism doctors, you know,
00:52:26.660 autism, kids with autism tend to fixate and all these autism doctors, unfortunately were
00:52:33.640 introducing gender. They were inter gender ideology. They were introducing a fixation 0.89
00:52:38.220 to a population that tends to fixate.
00:52:40.900 So I do believe it's a medical scandal all its own.
00:52:44.380 Wow.
00:52:44.960 Well, you've got the material for another book in there, haven't you?
00:52:48.800 Abigail, thank you so much for coming on.
00:52:51.080 The last question we always ask all of our guests is,
00:52:54.080 what is the one thing that we're not talking about as a society
00:52:57.240 that we really should be?
00:52:58.540 I imagine, of course, the subject of your book
00:53:00.980 would be number one on that list, but what would be another?
00:53:03.620 You know, that polite lies do not belong in the public sphere. Polite lies are the things we utter
00:53:11.160 in private. But the moment as a society we adopt what we consider to be a polite lie to avoid
00:53:17.580 offending someone, we end up in a very, very bad place because lies lead to more lies and they have
00:53:24.040 consequences in the public sphere that they don't have in private. So I think that's something we
00:53:29.960 should we should be talking about that's a really good point and very on brand for our show because
00:53:34.860 that's the type of conversations we like to have honest ones like this one abigail shray thank you
00:53:39.620 so much i really recommend everybody reads your book uh irreversible damage uh and thank you very
00:53:45.140 much for coming on thank you thank you very much if people want to find you online abigail where
00:53:50.700 would be the best place to be after we've been slamming social media for the best part of an
00:53:55.260 hour i think uh twitter of course uh at abigail schreier perfect perfect we'll make sure to
00:54:02.680 include that in the video and thank you all for watching we will see you very soon with another
00:54:07.160 brilliant episode like this one or a live stream all of them go out 7 p.m uk time take care guys
00:54:12.800 and see you soon
00:54:25.260 We'll be right back.