TRIGGERnometry - The Truth About Trans Medicine - Christina Buttons

00:00:00.000 A lot of the doctors that have signed on and endorsed gender-affirming care

00:00:05.540 believe that they are civil rights heroes they're taking on after the gay 0.99

00:00:11.340 rights movement. Which is kind of ironic, isn't it? Yeah, because they're actually

00:00:16.040 hurting mostly gay kids. What we see with detransition is that it typically takes 0.99

00:00:22.000 between four to eight years for regret to occur. People are not receiving

00:00:28.120 accurate information about their condition. They're lying to people.

00:00:35.700 Christina, great to finally have you on the show. We kind of have stopped talking about trans as much

00:00:42.140 as we have because A, we spent a lot of time trying to work out what a woman was. 1.00

00:00:45.780 Finally succeeded, so now we know. We don't really want to talk about it. And the other reason is,

00:00:50.020 as I think you're aware, in the UK we're actually making quite a bit of progress

00:00:54.480 in terms of rolling back some of the extremes and the excesses of trans ideology and the way it's 0.76

00:00:59.980 being implemented in medicine and maybe even in education and so on. But that isn't the case here,

00:01:05.420 is it? No. US-based medical organizations have so far refused to align their guidelines with

00:01:14.500 the best available evidence provided by systematic evidence reviews, which many European countries

00:01:21.900 companies have done that found that the risks of youth transition outweigh any purported benefits.

00:01:28.280 And they've, you know, significantly rolled back and halted the use of puberty blockers

00:01:33.920 and are prioritizing psychotherapy now as a first-line treatment for youth who are experiencing any kind of

00:01:43.120 gender-related distress.

00:01:44.560 Why do you think that is, Christina, that in the UK we've been quite good on this,

00:01:52.200 but in the US they seem to have held back?

00:01:57.580 Well, a few different reasons, but one of the big reasons was Kira Bell, her detransition

00:02:05.460 lawsuit that she won. And the other is UK's National Health Service. It has been every year releasing its

00:02:19.080 referral data. And we've seen, you know, so the first year available they had in 2009, there were about

00:02:26.540 78, uh, youth referrals to the gender identity service. And as of the latest review, um, for probably the year

00:02:40.880 2023 to 2024, it was over 9,000. And I think that represents like 11,500% increase in that timeframe.

00:02:50.920 So I think the fact that the data has been more available, um, and we've seen this exponential

00:02:59.420 increase, um, those are a few reasons why people are alarmed and recognizing that there's a serious

00:03:08.760 problem. Um, but it's a little different in the United States where we don't really have like a

00:03:14.080 national health service. We don't have any data on the over a hundred gender, pediatric gender clinics

00:03:22.140 in the United States. And, you know, this is where the gender affirming model of care was born. It was

00:03:29.780 created in the United States. Um, and us-based medical organizations have all endorsed it, but

00:03:37.540 they've, you know, they've, uh, they've, uh, they've all been referencing each other for their endorsement of

00:03:49.520 this particular protocol. Um, it isn't actually based on any kind of sound evidence or science.

00:03:57.820 So rather than being lots of separate validation and verification, there's basically a very small number of

00:04:04.580 people kind of quoting each other about how right they are on this.

00:04:07.580 Yes. We recently had a systematic review come out at the same time as the cast review that found

00:04:14.000 that, you know, the initial guidelines that were released by WPATH and Endocrine Society,

00:04:19.520 who both co-authored the guidelines, um, they did what was called circular referencing. So there's

00:04:28.940 a number of like national and regional, uh, medical organizations that relied on the endorsements

00:04:37.500 from those medical organizations. And then when the WPATH and Endocrine Society released newer guidelines,

00:04:44.940 they were referencing those regional and medical, regional medical organizations to support the

00:04:54.320 endorsement of youth transition. And so what you get is just a whole bunch of

00:04:58.780 medical organizations circularly referencing each other, um, which I would sort of liken to

00:05:04.620 a citation cartel. Um, this is when researchers, you know, sort of inflate the number of citations

00:05:15.180 that they have, um, in order to like increase their prestige. Uh, that's something that's done

00:05:21.520 in research. That's a problem, but it's, there's no, there's no good evidence to support youth

00:05:29.520 transition or this gender affirming model of care. It's all consensus based, but they,

00:05:35.120 they portray it as evidence-based, but that actually, it has a specific meaning and they're

00:05:43.680 really misleading the public by representing it that way. Explain that a little bit more when you say

00:05:48.360 it's evidence-based and that term has a specific meaning. Tell us more about that.

00:05:54.200 Well, Professor Gordon Goya, he is the pioneer of the evidence-based medicine movement. He reviewed

00:06:01.480 all of the guidelines for adolescent gender medicine, and he came to the conclusion that they are

00:06:07.800 untrustworthy and not evidence-based. Um, systematic evidence reviews, they represent like the pinnacle of

00:06:15.560 evidence-based medicine and sort of the hierarchy, the pyramid of evidence, uh, and US-based medical

00:06:22.360 organizations have not been aligning their guidelines with the results of the systematic

00:06:29.000 evidence reviews. Um, and that's, that's a major problem. We, we want them to, uh, the AAP,

00:06:36.760 American Academy of Pediatrics for years, members of this organization have been submitting resolutions

00:06:43.720 every single year, asking leadership to align the guidelines with the results of systematic

00:06:50.120 evidence reviews, and they have actively refused calls to do so. Except for last year,

00:06:55.720 they finally said that they would conduct their own systematic evidence review. And we'll see what happens with that.

00:07:03.640 Christina, do you think there's a financial incentive element here? Because obviously in the, in the US,

00:07:11.800 people are making money from these types of, of these types of surgeries. I was talking to somebody

00:07:18.920 who is a surgeon and they were saying, and look, this may be wrong, this may be anecdotal, that you can earn

00:07:24.840 far more from doing trans-based surgeries than you can from doing regular surgery.

00:07:29.960 Christina- There is that incentive, sure, I think. But I'm a little bit less cynical and I think that

00:07:39.240 a lot of the doctors that have signed on and endorsed gender-affirming care believe that they are

00:07:46.120 civil rights heroes. They're doing it because they think it's similar to being gay. 0.51

00:07:54.280 Christina- They're taking on after the gay rights movement. They believe trans rights are almost the 0.89

00:08:03.160 same thing.

00:08:03.560 Christina- Which is kind of ironic, isn't it? 0.98

00:08:06.680 Christina- Yeah, because they're actually hurting mostly gay kids. 0.96

00:08:11.240 Christina- Right. And it's not just gay kids as well. It's, and we see this and 0.97

00:08:17.640 I'm taking this stat from the UK, but it's around about 40% of, I think it's mainly girls, 0.84

00:08:24.600 are autistic when they identify as trans or say that they want to be transitioned.

00:08:30.040 Christina- Yes.

00:08:30.120 Christina- How many of these kids have autism in the US and is it higher amongst girls?

00:08:37.800 Christina- Well, the study you're referring to is the 2018 study of kids. It found 35%

00:08:43.240 Christina- had moderate to severe autistic traits, higher if you're considering like mild autistic

00:08:49.720 traits and mild autism. But that's actually probably some of the best data that we do have is coming

00:08:57.240 from kids. In the US, there are clinics where small sample sizes, but they're as many as 47%

00:09:06.280 at an autism diagnosis. It's, they're highly overrepresented in the cohort.

00:09:15.480 Jason- And what about, you mentioned gay, obviously we were talking about that.

00:09:19.320 What percentage do gay kids make up of?

00:09:21.560 Christina- Well, based on all the research that we've seen on desistance,

00:09:28.120 Christina- It's, it's very high. It's something like 70%.

00:09:33.160 Christina- You know, we had like about 12 studies on

00:09:41.000 Christina- Children who went into gender clinics when they were,

00:09:43.800 this was prior to the gender affirming model of care, but in like the history that we know of,

00:09:50.440 you know, 60 to 90% of the kids who didn't socially or medically transition would desist and no longer

00:10:00.680 have a cross-sex identity by the time they became an adolescent. And I think it was something around

00:10:07.240 like 60 to 70% would just grow up to be like a normal, well-justed gay adult. It's, that's primarily 0.83

00:10:17.960 what we see.

00:10:18.520 Jason- I mean, the awful thing about this is that these kids are being exposed to these types of

00:10:26.120 medications and push back if I'm wrong about this, but a lot of them, we just simply don't know the

00:10:31.960 long-term effects of them, do we? Do we actually know what the long-term effects of puberty blockers

00:10:36.360 are if they're taken by a prepubescent?

00:10:38.520 Christina- No, there's absolutely no long-term data on the safety and efficacy of any of these medications.

00:10:46.040 And that's a big reason why we've rolled back in the UK. And I wish that we, the US would get on

00:10:55.080 board and, and do the same. I'm hoping that will happen.

00:10:59.000 Jason- And I think part of the reason why we've rolled back as well is because there have been,

00:11:05.080 like you said, court cases, but that's, you know, when money gets involved, when compensation has to

00:11:09.960 be paid. And that's really when the rubber starts to hit the road. Has there been those types of

00:11:16.200 court cases in the US because, you know, as a society, you're far more litigious than we are?

00:11:22.520 Christina- There's a number underway. There's a, I think at least like 14 cases,

00:11:27.640 uh, lawsuits underway from detransitioners.

00:11:31.560 Jason- And, uh, I, do you think that, uh, if those are decided in their favor, do you think

00:11:39.560 you're likely to see the kind of rollbacks that we've seen in the UK? Are you optimistic?

00:11:43.720 Christina- I'm hoping so. I think I, a lot of times medical scandals and things of this nature

00:11:51.960 end up, end with lawsuits, um, because medical organizations can't take

00:11:59.800 the kind of risks that they're doing now. I don't know why they're taking them currently.

00:12:03.880 Um, but that's what, that's what happened with the recovered memory movement as well.

00:12:11.160 Jason- I mean, it was just this faddish type of therapy, um, ruined a lot of lives.

00:12:18.760 Jason- Sorry to interrupt Christina, because there's a lot of people going to be listening

00:12:21.720 to us that don't have, that are not aware of that. So if you could give us a little bit of

00:12:25.000 background as to what the recovered memory movement is, because I'll be honest with you,

00:12:28.600 I've got a vague idea, but I, I don't know.

00:12:30.920 Christina- The recovered memory movement took place in sort of like the late 80s and 90s.

00:12:36.440 Um, and it came from therapists had this idea that people possessed these repressed memories

00:12:45.160 of significant trauma that could explain, you know, why their adult patients were coming in

00:12:51.160 to their office. They said that, you know, you're dealing with some kind of unresolved trauma,

00:12:57.080 but what would end up happening is these like susceptible and vulnerable adult patients.

00:13:02.360 Um, they were very, they're just highly suggestible. So therapists would end up like implanting false

00:13:10.600 memories in them and they would become convinced that a lot of times they had to do with like

00:13:15.080 incest with family members and they would become convinced that, you know, their dad molested them

00:13:20.280 or something as a child and they buried the memory. And so they worked through the therapist to uncover

00:13:26.280 the memory and confront their family members. And it ended up just destroying so many families. And it

00:13:33.480 even when this kind of testimony was accepted in court, um, it even put some people in prison and they

00:13:43.720 don't allow that kind of testimony anymore because it's shown to be complete pseudoscience. So that

00:13:49.000 the recovered memory movement ended with lawsuits, um, from the patients who sued their therapists for

00:13:58.600 basically ruining their lives and their family lives based on absolute junk science. And you know what

00:14:05.320 we're dealing with today is junk science. That's what I, I use the term gender pseudoscience. 1.00

00:14:12.920 I've been passionate about science and skepticism and debunking pseudoscience for over 12 years. And my

00:14:23.080 focus now is on what I call gender pseudoscience and communicating what that is to the lay public. And

00:14:30.680 gender pseudoscience is unfounded scientific claims about innate gender identity and medical claims about the 0.96

00:14:39.560 gender affirming model of care that are presented as sound science, but in fact are not supported by any

00:14:46.600 empirical evidence.

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00:15:14.280 Wells theater. Get tickets at murbush.com. Well, on that subject, uh, if you were talking to somebody

00:15:22.920 who's really not clued in, hasn't been paying attention, uh, who probably thinks, you know,

00:15:27.640 the doctors and scientists have got us all under control. Of course they must be doing everything

00:15:32.040 right. You know, blah, blah, blah. Uh, what, what would be a kind of summary that you might give them to

00:15:37.880 explain what's really going on? Well, it's, that's the difficult part is it's not even just

00:15:47.560 the medical organizations and the doctors it's, um, it's academia, it's research institutions, it's

00:15:57.720 the Biden administration, it's activist organizations like gay and civil rights organizations, mainstream

00:16:04.600 media. They're all sort of complicit in, um, promoting this particular narrative that gender

00:16:12.760 affirming care is life-saving, medically necessary, evidence-based. And so in, in a lot of ways it's,

00:16:24.280 it's like other medical scandals we've seen in history, but in other ways it's nothing like ever,

00:16:28.600 we've ever seen before. So why is it like it and why is it not? So what are the similarities between

00:16:36.120 former medical scandals and what is unique about this medical scandal?

00:16:43.320 Well, former medical scandals, I sometimes liken it to like the opioid crisis that we saw. Um,

00:16:53.160 it was these pharmaceutical companies who took a study or even, you know, it wasn't even a real study,

00:17:02.600 but they used that to say that their particular new brand of opioid wasn't addictive at all. And

00:17:13.640 they got it sort of pushed through the FDA and into clinics. And then we saw, you know,

00:17:25.320 terrible things happen as a result of that. And we saw pain pills, uh, pain, um, they were called

00:17:33.080 pill mills. There's these clinics that just popped up all over the country to meet patient demand rather

00:17:39.560 than medical necessity. Um, and that's kind of similar to what we're saying with all these gender 1.00

00:17:44.440 clinics. Like there were virtually none like 15 years ago. Now there's, uh, at least a hundred

00:17:53.640 pediatric gender clinics and probably over 900 clinics that will prescribe medical interventions for

00:18:05.240 the purposes of gender affirming care. So there are a lot of similarities to that, I think.

00:18:12.840 And the differences, why is this particular scandal unique?

00:18:16.920 Because it's sort of disguised in this couched in social justice

00:18:23.400 framework. It's people, people think it's sort of a continuation of the gay rights movement. So

00:18:30.360 they'll dismiss, um, and part of the other problem too, is how mainstream media sort of

00:18:40.520 portrays it as, you know, something that only religious conservatives would oppose.

00:18:47.480 So it's, it's become highly polarized and people will readily dismiss any concerns anyone has, even

00:18:55.240 me, a liberal. Um, I regularly get called a bigot and a transphobe and anti-trans and anti-LGBT

00:19:04.280 for basically just saying that I believe all areas of medicine, including gender medicine,

00:19:14.680 should be aligned with the principles of evidence-based medicine. And that's something that,

00:19:18.360 you know, really should not be controversial at all. I think we all want what's best for these like

00:19:25.800 vulnerable groups of people. They deserve so much better than the current treatment they're getting.

00:19:30.680 And Christina, you mentioned your own views. I, I, I, you're, you have a very measured demeanor,

00:19:37.080 but what people want to see is, is that actually you're very passionate about this stuff. And I,

00:19:41.640 I think it, it'd be interesting to, to, to talk about why that is in terms of your own background and,

00:19:46.360 and views and so on. Yeah. I came into this after reading

00:19:50.200 de-transitioner stories and finding so many similarities. Um, I mean,

00:19:56.920 they'd be, it was like kind of reading my own journal or diary when I, I read their stories,

00:20:02.680 because when I was a teenager, I had a lot of similar problems to what we see with the current

00:20:10.840 cohort that is identifying as trans today, the ones that we consider sort of rapid 0.97

00:20:16.280 onset or late onset who didn't have gender related distress as a child. But suddenly we see all

00:20:24.920 these teenagers with, you know, psychiatric issues and suicidality, cutting, eating disorders,

00:20:34.440 many of whom are, um, homosexual or on the autism spectrum or both.

00:20:42.040 And I relate a lot to that because I had sort of a troubled teenage

00:20:49.720 experience where I was in and out of hospitals. And even in the troubled teen industry, I spent a year

00:20:59.080 at a residential treatment center because I was just having a really difficult time.

00:21:03.960 Um, and that's what I see with de-transitioners today. So I feel pretty confident that, you know, 1.00

00:21:13.160 if, if these beliefs about gender and these transgender narratives were kind of in vogue when

00:21:19.320 I was a teenager, I don't think it would have taken much convincing, um, to believe that I was,

00:21:26.440 you know, really a boy trapped in a girl's body. I think that a lot of young people are encountering

00:21:32.120 these narratives online and attributing symptoms that they may be experiencing from other things

00:21:38.600 to a trans identity and, and thinking that it's going to

00:21:44.680 relieve them of their suffering and the distress they feel because that part is very real. And they

00:21:50.520 are, I think they're just desperately looking for relief, but they're finding it in the wrong places.

00:21:58.040 That's so interesting. So what you're saying is you feel passionate about it because when you were a

00:22:03.960 teenager, you had similar feelings of distress and discomfort and all sorts of other things going on.

00:22:10.040 And it's very understandable that young people who are distressed are looking for a way out

00:22:16.200 of that discomfort that they're experiencing, but then they're being presented with

00:22:22.440 a solution for which there is no evidence that it actually makes their lives better.

00:22:27.800 And in fact, for some of them, it makes it a lot worse.

00:22:31.000 Yes. That's what I'm finding. I've, I've done surveys with the transitioners too, um,

00:22:38.840 all of whom were just immediately affirmed in their trans identity. There was no differential diagnosis.

00:22:46.520 They weren't exploring any other kinds of factors that could have been contributing to this. I mean,

00:22:51.080 there's no other area of medicine where the doctor relies on the patient's self-diagnosis

00:22:59.320 and then immediately affirms it and immediately refers them for medical interventions. There's

00:23:05.880 nothing else like it.

00:23:06.920 Right. So if I came into a hospital and I said, I've got a cracked rib, can you do

00:23:10.760 whatever you're supposed to do with a cracked rib? They wouldn't just like start injecting me with

00:23:14.120 stuff. They would do an x-ray or whatever. Right. Exactly. Um, but that's unfortunately

00:23:21.240 what we're seeing today. I think there's like over 20 states that have basically said that

00:23:29.400 you cannot question a gender identity because that's considered conversion therapy.

00:23:35.800 And so a lot of doctors now are just immediately affirming this self-diagnosis.

00:23:46.840 And why do you think that is, Christina? Do you think that's because

00:23:51.000 they've imbibed the ideology? Or do you think they're worried that they're going to be criticized

00:23:56.200 or call transphobic or have professional opportunities curtailed?

00:24:00.280 Because it's considered the standard of care currently. This is, that's what the gender 1.00

00:24:05.320 affirming model of care is that's been endorsed by all of these medical organizations. It's in the

00:24:12.120 American Academy of Pediatrics position statement. It's the immediate affirmation of

00:24:19.400 their trans identity and then referrals for medical interventions.

00:24:27.240 What is it exactly about autism? Because I think it's very difficult for people who don't have that

00:24:33.160 condition to be able to understand what it is to be autistic. So what exactly is it about autism,

00:24:40.760 particularly autism with puberty, but I think especially for autism as a female, that makes you

00:24:47.480 want to transition that creates this profound sense of discomfort.

00:24:53.720 Well, what we know about autism in girls is that they typically don't get diagnosed until

00:25:01.000 they're an adult. For a long time, autism was sort of conceptualized as like a boy's disorder

00:25:07.880 because they believed that there were about like four to five males to every one female would get

00:25:14.520 diagnosed. But what research has shown in large scale population studies have shown is that that

00:25:22.200 ratio of male to female diminishes as they get older. So what we're finding is that, you know,

00:25:30.520 if there's four to five to one in childhood, that ratio decreases to about two to one in adulthood,

00:25:38.920 once you control for like intellectual disabilities. So that sort of points to like a non-biological

00:25:46.360 reason for why girls aren't getting diagnosed. And we found that there are a lot of diagnostic 0.80

00:25:54.280 criteria and screening tools that were sort of created with boys in mind. So that's one reason

00:26:01.400 there appears to be a sort of female presentation of autism that goes undetected. Girls are also more

00:26:09.320 socially motivated and they're better at camouflaging their traits. So we don't, one of the other reasons

00:26:19.560 was Asperger's was sort of consolidated into autism spectrum disorder in 2013 in the DSM.

00:26:28.920 And with the removal of that, I think we're seeing a lot of what we call like high-functioning autistic 1.00

00:26:36.440 females who are going, flying under the radar, going undetected. And I know from my personal experience,

00:26:42.680 puberty, it's very difficult. That's when social, social things start becoming a lot more important

00:26:52.040 and, and friendships start becoming a lot more important and not fitting in and not knowing

00:26:59.560 why you can't function at the level of your peers, um, causes a lot of young people to turn inward and

00:27:07.880 they desperately are seeking an explanation as to why and looking everywhere for it. And that happened to

00:27:14.760 me. I mean, I, I spent time sort of just trying on different diagnoses to see what fit and desperately

00:27:23.960 seeking an explanation for why I was different. And I think that's what's happening today with a lot of

00:27:31.000 young autistic girls. And I think it could represent at least part of the equation, why we're seeing so 1.00

00:27:39.080 many adolescent teens adopting trans identities today. At least a partial explanation can be

00:27:46.440 some of them just have not gotten diagnosed with autism yet, or they are attributing their autistic

00:27:53.080 symptoms or traits to signs of gender dysphoria or a trans identity. Because we have very high rates of

00:28:01.160 gender non-conformity in the autistic population. And those signs of gender non-conformity are really

00:28:07.720 easy to interpret as signs of gender dysphoria because all of these medical organizations and

00:28:13.640 scientific organizations have broadened what it means to be transgender. And they have conflated

00:28:22.200 a trans identity with common gender non-conformity. Um, and I think that's very confusing to young

00:28:28.680 people, especially autistic who have rigid thinking patterns, social communication problems,

00:28:37.000 identity issues, uh, issues with, uh, feeling, um, body connected to their body and a lot of different

00:28:51.000 other things like that. And it's surprising as well because we know so much more about autism.

00:28:58.840 We, we know, we know so much more about it. We're more aware of it as a condition. We're more aware

00:29:05.240 of the traits that you would think that people would be able to spot this more effectively.

00:29:10.360 Now, I take your point that it presents differently in girls and girls want to,

00:29:14.040 you know, tend to mask it far more than boys, but still, nevertheless, you'd, you'd think that,

00:29:20.280 you know, somebody would be sitting opposite a girl who's profoundly distressed, especially a

00:29:25.640 psychiatrist. And they'd be like, well, this girl is clearly autistic. We'll do a test.

00:29:31.880 Well, unfortunately, a lot of autism orgs have totally capitulated to activists and

00:29:40.280 they're completely on board with gender affirming care. I mean, we have like the most prominent

00:29:46.760 researcher at that sort of intersection of autism and gender dysphoria. And his work is extremely

00:29:58.840 troubling. I mean, he will, he's, he sees it as a good thing. He will endorse transition for

00:30:07.160 even autistic people who have intellectual delays. Wow. Yeah. It's, it's not a good situation. 0.96

00:30:15.000 No, it doesn't sound like it. And one of the things that people, uh, you know, becoming a father

00:30:21.560 has really influenced the way I think about these things, because I can't imagine the distress of a

00:30:28.680 parent who, whose child is struggling with life. They take them to get help. They're told your child

00:30:37.720 is a different gender or they now, they're now going to be called Stacy or whatever. And then when they 0.88

00:30:44.840 raise questions about it, they're told, well, if you don't do this, your child's going to kill

00:30:48.920 themselves. Is there, what is the evidence on the efficacy of transition or social transition or any of

00:30:57.560 these things that are being advocated as gender affirming care and inverted commas? What is the

00:31:02.440 evidence about their effectiveness, those interventions? Um, all they have is very short

00:31:11.320 term follow-ups and low quality studies that show maybe there's like a short term benefit in improving

00:31:20.280 their mood or something like that. It's, I mean, if you inject people with testosterone,

00:31:24.600 especially stressed girls, there's all, there's all, they're very low quality studies that

00:31:29.400 there's all kinds of other things. They also are getting psychotherapy at the same time. So it's

00:31:35.240 very, very poor, poor quality studies that show some kind of like short term benefit. Um, but what we

00:31:41.320 see with detransition is that it typically takes between four to eight years for regret to occur.

00:31:49.080 Um, and it's just terrible the way detransition is talked about in the mainstream media, because

00:31:57.080 it's mostly to downplay, diminish their experiences. You all the time, you see them citing studies

00:32:05.240 on low rates of regret, who these studies were on a completely different cohort than the ones that

00:32:12.920 people are most concerned about today. They were on adults with a completely different model of care,

00:32:18.600 rather than adolescents who are under the gender affirming model of care. And they have a very high 0.52

00:32:26.200 loss to follow up, tons of other kinds of method, methodological flaws. And

00:32:37.080 the, the best, the best research that we currently have comes from a comprehensive review of medical records

00:32:45.240 from, I think 2022, that showed about 30% of adolescents and young adults discontinued hormone

00:32:53.480 use after about four years. And that's much higher than, you know, the, the 1% studies that we

00:33:00.760 sometimes see cited on the different cohort.

00:33:03.960 And in terms of regret, by the way, like I have a trouble admitting to my wife that I regret buying

00:33:09.720 a t-shirt that I bought. Do you know what I mean? Like once you've made a mistake,

00:33:13.400 especially one that really in like, in this case, really significantly affects your life,

00:33:17.640 you know, A, it's going to take time to get around to the idea that it may not have been a good idea.

00:33:24.200 And also some people will, you know, persevere and pretend to not have regret.

00:33:30.200 Like I know that I've done that. I'm not saying every, every trans person is doing that. And

00:33:34.120 I want to talk to you about trans people who are kind of happy with the transition, but just

00:33:39.480 instinctively, I would say that it's quite possible that not everyone who says in a survey,

00:33:46.440 I don't have any regrets actually has no regrets. Do you know what I mean?

00:33:49.800 Exactly. Yeah. There is a bit of like a sunk cost fallacy that I think. And you know, I want people

00:33:58.360 to be happy with the decisions they're making. I want people to be happy in the long term with

00:34:03.240 their transition, but I don't see that being possible right now because people are being lied to about

00:34:11.080 the nature of their condition. You know, gender dysphoria is a psychiatric condition with a high rate

00:34:16.280 of desistance. But in my survey of detransitioners and desisters of a trans identity, I found that,

00:34:27.160 you know, of those who did get medical interventions, 85% said that their, their doctors and mental health

00:34:36.840 professionals conceptualize their trans identity to them as a medical condition that required medical

00:34:44.200 treatment or that being trans was a biological aspect that they had no control over. And they 0.99

00:34:51.800 were not told that this was a psychiatric condition with a high rate of desistance. And I'm thinking if

00:34:57.480 I was in their position with the sort of authority that a doctor has, that kind of power imbalance between

00:35:05.880 the doctor and patient, I would have transitioned to in their position. People are not receiving accurate

00:35:13.160 information about their condition. Their doctors are lying to them. Wow. It's, it's very, very troubling.

00:35:22.440 Do you think that one of the reasons that people are being lied to is there is a stigma around

00:35:28.600 saying that something is a psychiatric disorder in a way that there isn't about a biological disorder?

00:35:34.440 Like if, if you, if you get skin cancer, no one, no one is going to say, oh, you know,

00:35:39.560 something's wrong with you, you know, you're ill and you need treatment. Whereas with the psychiatric

00:35:45.240 condition, there has been historically a lot of stigma around that. Um, do you think that's part

00:35:51.720 of what's driving this? Yeah, that's a big part of what's, what's driving this is activists have

00:35:56.440 worked really hard to deemphasize the importance of gender dysphoria. And now they've moved on to

00:36:03.000 innate gender identity. Um, and this is what activist organizations have been working really hard to do 0.96

00:36:12.280 is try to obtain some kind of trait that they, some kind of immutable trait so that they can obtain

00:36:21.800 civil rights jurisprudence. So in American jurisprudence, if you can find an immutable trait,

00:36:29.480 you'll receive all of these civil rights protection. So they've sort of decided that

00:36:36.920 innate gender identity, which they sometimes call brain sex or neurological sex can override sex,

00:36:44.520 your biological sex. And this is, this is what we've been seeing. I mean, in, in some, it affects so

00:36:52.200 many different other domains besides healthcare. We see it with, in legislation as well is

00:37:00.200 a pseudoscientific concept of innate gender identity, but there is no empirical evidence

00:37:05.480 to support a biological basis for gender identity. And I've looked, I've spent the last two years just

00:37:12.440 obsessing over this. Um, there is research to support gender nonconformity, sexual orientation,

00:37:22.920 disorders of sexual development, but the, there is no evidence for, for an innate gender identity.

00:37:29.880 There's no blood brain or any other kind of objective tests that can differentiate between a

00:37:36.680 trans identified person and a non-trans identified person. Which brings us neatly just to finish this,

00:37:43.240 this line of discussion onto people who transition and who are happy with it.

00:37:47.640 Yeah. How do we explain that?

00:37:51.000 Well, what I'd like to work towards is conceptualizing transgender person

00:37:58.120 as a lifestyle choice and one that, you know, I'm, we totally find accepting other people who decide to

00:38:07.080 live that way. I have no issue with it. Um, but I think that's what we need to work towards. It's,

00:38:13.720 it is a psychiatric condition. Um, and if there are some people who would prefer to live that way,

00:38:22.280 I don't see a problem with it. I just don't want people being misled about the nature of their

00:38:28.680 condition. Um, and I, but I do think that adults should be able to choose that lifestyle for themselves

00:38:35.080 if they want to. It's just, it's, those are cosmetic elective procedures though. They're not

00:38:42.440 medically necessary. And I think it's a huge mistake to, to frame them that way.

00:38:47.320 Christina, one of the things I really enjoyed about this conversation is, and one of the things

00:38:52.040 that I actually really like about you is that you're clearly a very empathetic person. You care

00:38:57.160 about people and you, and the reason you've got involved in this is because it directly affects

00:39:05.240 you and you want to help people in particular children. Do you get frustrated with the way

00:39:12.520 that this issue has been discussed by certain people online and it has become a cultural topic

00:39:19.160 for want of a better way of describing? Yeah, I do. I get pretty upset by it. I mean,

00:39:26.600 as much as I can get upset by something, I guess, but I, I don't like the way that people are demeaned.

00:39:35.640 Transgender people, I mean, are people first and foremost, just like us, but they're

00:39:49.400 struggling to reconcile fundamental human needs of identity and belonging. And I think that's something

00:39:55.320 we can all relate to. And we can relate to that as well. And I just think as well, and push back

00:40:04.040 if you disagree, that it's fundamentally unhelpful the way that some people are having this conversation.

00:40:10.840 Because you're going, what you're doing now is toxifying the debate. I think part of the reason

00:40:16.600 that we've actually managed to push back on this stuff in the UK is because it's not really a left

00:40:24.040 or right issue. There are people who talk about it on the right, but there's also people like JK Rowling,

00:40:30.520 the Labour MP, Rosie Duffield, who are, as far as I'm concerned, absolute heroes who've stood up to

00:40:38.360 the left and some people on the left and actually said, no, this is wrong.

00:40:42.680 And then there's Suzanne Moore, Hadley Friedman, like you could go down, you could find 30

00:40:47.160 left-wing, prominent left-wing women who've campaigned on this. Whereas you left the Daily 0.98

00:40:53.080 Wire partly over your concerns about the way that they were having that conversation, didn't you?

00:40:57.720 Yeah, I wanted to sort of publicly distance myself from public statements that were made.

00:41:04.600 I strongly believe that we have the evidence and the arguments and the moral high ground

00:41:12.520 and we need to lead with that and not attack individual people or make claims about eradicating

00:41:23.160 transgenderism from public life. I think that's a mistake to talk about this issue that way.

00:41:31.720 Yeah, because for you, what is the best way to talk about this issue?

00:41:35.560 I just focus on communicating to people, you know, what the evidence says and trying to explain to

00:41:49.560 people that this is not a continuation of the civil rights movement. I think a lot of people perceive

00:41:55.000 themselves as social justice warriors and this is, it's not that.

00:42:01.240 And what can you tell us about that? Because you kind of used to be a bit of a social justice warrior,

00:42:05.560 didn't you? Yeah. For a long time, I wasn't really involved in politics, but around 2020,

00:42:13.160 I became a social justice warrior during the, you know, I...

00:42:19.240 Was it BLM? Yeah, I didn't have any, I mean, I didn't go out to like protests or anything like that.

00:42:23.880 You didn't burn down any cities, mostly peacefully. No, I... I can't say going around large groups of

00:42:29.240 people like that. I wasn't... I love the way that's the only reason you didn't burn down cities,

00:42:33.720 like you just couldn't be in a crowd. Yeah. No, I just, I did enough damage online. I was a keyboard

00:42:39.400 warrior. Right. Oh, right. And what was motivating you? What got you into that? Because I trusted

00:42:46.840 all of these institutions and I trusted the mainstream media when they told me that we were

00:42:52.120 experiencing a racism pandemic. Um, and that, you know, I finally, I eventually came to my senses

00:42:59.400 and realized that something was, wasn't right with this narrative that they were pushing. Um,

00:43:05.960 and that eventually led me to look and see, like, I, I basically had to reevaluate everything

00:43:12.520 I've ever learned. I just, I feel like the mainstream media has lost its ability to be

00:43:19.320 objective. They, a lot of times are acting just as activist mouthpieces. And that's one of the reasons

00:43:29.080 I became a journalist in the first place a few years ago is because I want people to have access to

00:43:36.440 more accurate information, especially on this topic. It's, they're not getting it currently.

00:43:44.840 I mean, I think since I've, I, I, I started working at conservative outlets because there

00:43:51.320 was no other place where you could publish something that was even remotely critical of

00:43:57.720 the gender affirming model of care and the current sort of transgender narrative. Um, but thankfully 1.00

00:44:03.240 other outlets have sort of stepped up like the New York Times and Reuters. I mean, we're seeing some

00:44:09.720 progress on that front where even the Washington Post in the last couple of weeks has published two

00:44:15.720 op-eds that were sort of, you know, critical of the gender affirming model of care.

00:44:21.160 Does that frustrate you as a liberal that the left side of the spectrum, for want of a better way of

00:44:29.000 putting it, because I know it's not the best way, but let's just use that terminology for the set,

00:44:34.120 for the moment, that they were so slow to challenge what was happening.

00:44:40.600 It's, they're not doing their jobs. They're supposed to be journalists. They're not,

00:44:45.240 they're, they weren't doing their jobs. It's, it's, it's just, we're in a very strange place right now

00:44:55.160 in the United States where journalists have just basically been acting as activist mouthpieces. I

00:45:01.960 mean, Jesse Singel pointed this out the other week where there's a stock sentence that CNN.com will

00:45:09.080 use and it's in dozens and dozens of articles. Even in an article they were writing about the recent

00:45:15.080 cast review. They inserted it stating that gender affirming care is medically necessary and

00:45:20.680 evidence-based. Those words have meaning, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And you, they're lying to people.

00:45:33.080 Christina, I'm really grateful that, you know, this conversation may have seemed dry to some people,

00:45:38.840 but actually I think it's so, so important to have a conversation with less heat and more light.

00:45:44.840 And you bringing the evidence, bringing the facts in a calm and measured way is really,

00:45:49.400 really important because I think it makes it easier for people to hear when you see people,

00:45:53.240 you know, jabbing their finger in each other's faces and talking about this from a really

00:45:58.440 unconstructive place. I think a lot of people switch off from that. And I think you're very calm and

00:46:04.200 fact-based analysis is really, really important. So I'd encourage everybody to follow your work.

00:46:09.720 We'll put all the links in the description where they can follow everything that you're doing.

00:46:12.920 Um, and before we move to locals where we ask you questions from our supporters,

00:46:17.560 uh, tell us what's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be.

00:46:23.080 I think we could be talking about autism more. Um, there's a lot of actual parallels going on

00:46:29.320 between trans activism and sort of the neurodiversity movement, um, which, you know, neurodiversity,

00:46:38.440 it definitely has, there's positives about it. Um, but there are a lot of problems going on there too.

00:46:45.800 Christina, thank you so much for coming on the show. It's been an absolute pleasure.

00:46:51.560 Head on over to locals. We will see you there with your questions for Christina.

00:46:57.240 Do you believe in retroactive justice for the perpetrators of this movement?

00:47:03.480 And would you be active in its pursuance?

TRIGGERnometry - July 17, 2024

The Truth About Trans Medicine - Christina Buttons

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