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Colin Wright is an evolutionary biologist and the managing editor at Quillette. Previously, he held a postdoctoral position at Penn State University. His views on gender opposed progressive ideology, which received huge backlash from activist groups. Colin’s critics had even gone as far as to spread false claims to ruin his potential employment opportunities. In April 2020, he decided to leave the academia in favor of a career in journalism due to the current political climate. In this episode, Colin and I delve deeper into the current gender ideology, the risks of exposing children to puberty blockers, and society’s obsession with identities.
Sex and gender are two separate things: the former refers to your reproductive anatomy while the latter refers to your identity. Progressive gender ideology aims to tear down the clear distinction between the two. The liberals insist that biological sex, like gender, exists on a spectrum even though there is no scientific evidence for this claim.
Intersexed individuals do not fall into the typical definition of either male or female. Their physical appearance does not match their reproductive anatomy. Even though they are sexually ambiguous, it does not mean that there is a third sex. For a new category to exist, people must have a third kind of gamete.
People who deny the fundamental aspect of sex essentially deny reality. The current gender ideology is perpetuated through tribal thinking and social policing. Reality should be grounded in science, not politics. Intertwining sex and gender distorts what is real. If we cannot agree on the basic fact that sex is only male or female, then how can we tackle much more complex issues? Trust is slowly being eroded not only in experts and scientists, but in institutions as well.
Allowing children to transition into the opposite sex is also a subject of debate. Gender ideology can cause confusion in children’s gender identities. Parents are expected to unquestioningly affirm their children’s choice to transition. This is a very dangerous precedent since puberty blockers, hormones, and surgery cause changes that cannot be undone. We recognize that children are not yet fully consenting individuals but we allow them to make such delicate, life-changing decisions without parental intervention.
This is an example of how politics undermines science. Activist-scientists push their own agenda in their research and anyone how disagrees will be called out. Journals are reluctant to publish an opposite point of view for fear of “getting canceled”.
The irony of this whole situation is that gender ideology can be taken advantage of. There’s been stories of people who identify as trans in order to get what they want. Gender ideology is so focused on achieving social justice but its work has been counterintuitive. Blurring the separation between sex and gender means that all truth is relative. If we continue to avoid facts to prevent hurting feelings, then there can be no progress in any aspect of society. Denial of biological sex has consequences.
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0 (0s): You know, if, if you're, if you're a young girl and you're, and you're taking testosterone, these are irreversible things. Your voice will change permanently. If you're on not long enough, you'll have to get a hysterectomy because your, your reproductive organs just sort of start to, to deteriorate on the inside. And you're going to get a facial hair growth. And these are, these are things that are 1 (20s): Completely irreversible, you know, 2 (26s): Hello, everybody at your listening to Chatting with Candice, I'm your host, Candice Horbacz before we get started on this week's episode, if you want to support the podcast, you can go to Chatting with canvas.com. From there, you can sign up for our Patrion account, where we get early access to episode's or, or you can click that little link that says, buy me coffee. Both things help a ton. Also a simple way to support the podcast is simply by leaving a review five star review and comment, sharing it with the brand. All that stuff is awesome. So without further ado, please help me welcome Colin Wright. So when we were, when I was doing my research for this episode, I was like, I can't believe we're 3 (1m 8s): Still having these conversations online, especially on Twitter, where I feel like it doesn't highlight the best of humanity all of the time. And then it was watching an interview with, what is her name? Is it Megan? 0 (1m 26s): Megan Murphy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 3 (1m 28s): That was really, really informative. 0 (1m 31s): Well, that was a fun, fun. And I've been in a big fan of Megan's for awhile. 3 (1m 34s): Yeah, it was a lot of people who've been suggesting to have for on, but I'm not familiar with her. So it was cool to be able to see both of you and the, in the same episode, I guess I've feel like this is like a dead horse that I've been kicking. And I loved your analogy of saying that your like a taco bell menu where it's kind of all of the same stuff, and you're just like representing it and like this new package. And you'll feel like you just keep having the same conversation over and over. And I feel the same way when it comes to this. And I still feel dizzy when I talk about it. So when you have people that are arguing on the other side of the differences between like sex and gender, and this is the spectrum for both of them, or maybe the non-existence or that they're all just based off of culture, like there is no biological underlying evidence for any of these things. 3 (2m 23s): Can you give the listeners like a brief description of the difference between sex and gender? Because I know a lot of people, it gets very blurry. 0 (2m 32s): Yeah. So I don't know how many of your listeners will know, but I, I was an academic scientists up until it just a year ago when I left and I got the job at Colette. So he can sort of speak more freely now than I have been, but I sort of came into the, the whole culture war thing, because I had noticed sort of a way that the conversation had shifted around sex and before maybe five years ago or so, or even three years ago, when people would talk about what it means to be trans, that always say, you know, they have this very strict wall between Sex and Gender. You know, you're six is what you're born with based on your anatomy. 0 (3m 14s): And then you're gender is, is how to identify. So there is sort of this idea that we have kind of a hardware and then the software type of thing. And that is something I could get on board with to some degree, you know, would, they would say it like male and female, refer it to your biological sex that, that man and woman refer to maybe the social rules and expectations, or, or more more to do with your identity. And that was the, you know, a little strange, but we have these two separate words that we can use male and man, and the female and woman, and sure. You know, or I'll go ahead and grant that to the, to the people, if that makes him feel better or, or something. And it was maybe three years ago when I went online and I just sorta noticed that there is a shift in the way, a lot of my friend's and these were PhD students in the anthropology department. 0 (4m 3s): And then you get in my own department, which was evolution in ecology. And then we're sharing these articles that were talking about how the there's the five of different sexes or, or sometimes even eight, six is, or they will share articles that said is sexist. And the spectrum, there isn't even just male than female, but maybe there is like an infinite number of them or none at all. It's just, you know, it's just a complete, you know, we can only talk about sort of maleness and femaleness, but not male and female is any like discreet category. And that's is when things is really flu off the rails. And then when I tried to push back at all and just sort of get to the factual basis of it and be like, well, no, these are real categories in there. And like, you can't really change them. And its different than the identity. 0 (4m 45s): I was getting a pushback, but it wasn't like a factual push back. It was like a year or a horrible human being. It would just, people would be piling on me and I just stopped touching it because I was trying to get jobs and academia and, and all that stuff in. And you know, there's a reputational aspect to the academia and, and if you don't get a few, if you have, don't have a squeaky clean publication record and social record, then it's just gonna be really hard for me to get a job. So I was quiet for quite some time until I decided to sort of release all that bottled up and says I had the debate and wrote some articles that got pretty popular, but that was that sort of how I came to it. 0 (5m 28s): So that there's, I think the, the new bait around gender is, is one of the most insane ones and the most confusing to a lot of people because a lot of people think they know what they're talking about when they say gender. So some people refer to it as like a deep sense of how you get the relation of, of your mind or your body, like the deep sense of being male or female. Then there is sort of a more like radical feminist definition that has to do with the way society sort of imposes gender norms and expectations based on your perceived sex. And there's like the Tumblr list of all of the, you know, a a hundred or thousands of gender identities. It just kind of reflect personalities in some weird sense. 0 (6m 10s): So no one really is on the same footing. We were sort of volleying words that each other, but we are not really connecting on the actual concept. And so that's what I'm trying to do is, is address the concept's and, and see where we're going wrong. And then keep that wall between biological sex and gender identity as is, is strong as possible. Cause there's a lot of attempts to sort of blur that distinction or just obliterate the distinction altogether. 3 (6m 37s): Yeah. So I think what's confusing for a lot of, I want to say like regular people write that we don't have a background in research or, or maybe they didn't go to college or maybe they're just not proficient in Sex and gender. We haven't spent a lot of time there because they're busy, whatever the reason is, can you, I guess this might be a hard question, but can you explain how to properly look at S like statistics or, or, or data because I find that you can manipulate it to kind of prove whatever argument you want. So when it comes to sex, for example, I have had Deborah that Dr. Debra. So in a couple of times, and she does a really, really great job in her book in describing all of these categories, but it's really hard for me personally, to re to retain. 3 (7m 24s): So if I go into a conversation, I would have to refer to it to find, I guess, like my argument or like the basis of why I think these things. So if you can take research that says there's only two sexes, but then I've also heard that people are saying, there's the research that shows that there is multiple sexes because of the variants. Can you explain that a little bit? Yeah. 0 (7m 45s): So that, there's a lot of confusion out there. Like, you'll get some arguments that will say, you know, there's five sexes or six because they'll look at just your sex chromosomes. And they're like, will we have X, X, X, and X? Why? And that's what people are taught in school is referring to males and females, but then they'll point out. There's like people with Kleinfelter syndrome for Turner syndrome. And then they have sort of these variations of their six feminism that you can be X, X, Y, or X, Y, Y, or X, and, and have no other accompanying XX chromosome. But I guess the, the, the fundamental flaw in a lot of these definitions, you'll also see definitions like hormonal. Definition's saying, you know, the levels of testosterone, we can define someone to sex or, or they'll try to define sex based on what I call it like secondary sex characteristics, how your body's sort of looks at in terms of the overall body shape. 0 (8m 37s): And if you have a breasts are not, if you're not fast deposited over your body, if you have facial hair, they'll try to use all these like sex related characteristics. And they'll try and say that that is what biological sex is fundamentally or the, you know, there is no real good way that all these things kind of interact in a complex. And so we can't really make any decisive conclusion on the one. Sex is just sort of, he can just sort of pick and choose all these different categories and then amalgamate them. And that's sort of where your six is in some weird way, but they're failing to, to, to really get at is the fact that your biological sex, while it's influenced by, you know, your chromosomes, these things to guide the development of bodies. 0 (9m 23s): When we're talking about what somebody is, six is a, we are talking about basically the, the, the kind of the time of reproductive anatomy that they have that is organized around the production of either large or small gametes or six cells like sperm and egg. So this is true or not just in humans as is true, like a cross the animal kingdom. We can't just define the sex by your chromosomes. 'cause, there's plenty animals that have the sexes males and females. They don't have a chromosomal, determined sex is. So for instance, many reptiles, they determine their sex based on the temperature that they are incubated at M and another S in the summer birds, you know, the mayor or the female's, or the hetero chromatic sex, meaning that they have like the, to different chromosomes to determine their six M. 0 (10m 13s): But the, those are the sort of developmental idea's. Those are the mechanisms that produce sexes, but fundamentally, we're looking at your reproductive anatomy, that's constructed around the production of gamma. And this is true in the humans and reptiles in plants, many amphibians. And this is sort of how, how nature has, has, has evolved to basically to have it, is this the sexual reproducing species. There's a little more confusion when you actually sort of want to get and understand that the techs of a single individual. And I like to sort of look at it at two levels that we can talk about what biological sex is, and sort of a conceptual way when we're looking at a population and that's more to do it with, you know, the mails or the ones that produce for them. 0 (10m 57s): The females are the ones that produce over it. But when we're actually looking at an individual and saying like, what is your sex? It's going to be a little more complicated than that, because, you know, for instance, males don't even produce sperm until they go through puberty. So if they're not producing sperm, when they are in an adolescent surfed baby, you know, and you'll get the act of the state, like will aren't, they, there's not a male them. And so this was sort of why we had to look at the anatomy that is sort of built around in the production. Yeah. And the ability to whether or not you're ever, or able to actually produce them. And some people grow and they have the genetic abnormality or something like that makes it so that they're sterile, or we don't produce the cause of their born without it, without ovaries, or, you know, the, a lot of the internal re reproductive anatomy is not existent or, or sort of compromised in some way. 0 (11m 49s): So yeah, we're ultimately looking at sex as sort of a phenotype or outcome of development, or rather than the mechanisms that you usually guide this process. I hope that it's that sort of clear that we can go into it more of you if you need to. No, 3 (12m 5s): I think, I think that's pretty clear. So when it comes to the argument, I wish I remembered the, the percentage that was really, really small, but there Debra outlined it in her book as well. She was saying that there's a small percentage of people that can actually produce both gametes. And maybe I'm not recalling that incorrectly, or are you familiar with that? 0 (12m 25s): Also to my knowledge, there's never been an instance of a human that can actually produce both the gametes. There's like one paper, I think from the fifties that so that they might of been like an odd relation event and some guys, one of his testicles, it had ovarian tissue or, or something, but they weren't, he wasn't functional. He was a functional Maile. He was a fertile Maile. And there may have been sort of in a partial ovary that he had an operation of in, but this could not of research resulted in actual having pregnancy or anything. It didn't have for the rest of the anatomy for that. You can't get individuals that are intersects. 0 (13m 5s): And there is sort of, sort of, of its is defined as being sexually ambiguous in some way, or having a mismatch between sort of your internal reproductive anatomy and the way you appear on the, on the outside. But this is like a super small percentage of the population. And we are talking one out of every 5,000 individuals is borne or the doctor's, or, you know, unsure whether the individual is sex is. And if this doesn't really call them to question the whole idea of there being two sexes, because you know, sex is fundamentally defined by the propensity to, to produce certain types of gametes. There's only two gametes are, is only the sperm in over it. So you can talk about there being an intersex individual, or they might have sort of an intermediate phenotype. 0 (13m 50s): That doesn't mean that there is a third sex, because it's not like a third Gammy for them to produce a, so that sort of the way I look at it, I use an analogy sometimes of like flipping a coin where we can say that, you know, coin spaces, they don't come in and mixtures it either heads or tails, but to have been studies with sort of like flipping a nickel where one out of every, it think 6,000 flips of the land on its edge, which is pretty close to the rate of, of Intersexed individuals. But just because you might have like an edge result, it doesn't mean that heads and tails now exists on a spectrum or that, you know, the head to tail doesn't exist or something. It doesn't like it doesn't destroy those categories. 0 (14m 32s): And it just means is that maybe there are some individuals that are sort of intermediate and that's completely fine because biology can be complex or this isn't, it, it doesn't mean that we remove the other category is because there might be some sort of some instances where the sex might not be entirely clear. 3 (14m 50s): So when you were, when you were going to school, did you plan on getting into the Sex and Gender discussion or did he, how did it, because I was listening to something that was saying, you thought you were to end up in fitness. I was like, we are that way that's. So that would of been so under uncontroversial, known to man, probably a lot easier. So how did you end up in this? 0 (15m 14s): It's bizarre. I wouldn't, if he told me that is like three years ago, this is what I would of been doing. I would of just, I don't even, I couldn't even fathom to it. I mean, I have, my PhD is in Evolutionary Biology and I studied mainly animal behavior, social behavior of like social insects and, and spider colonies. So that's pretty far away from what I'm doing now, but as, as I sort of mentioned earlier, it was when I just saw people that were being completely factually incorrect about what biological sex was. And even though I, I didn't, I didn't studies sex development and any of like super rigorous, we were in a rigorous away during my PhD sex has a big factor in people studying animal behavior. 0 (16m 1s): 'cause, you know, there are so much that it is the consequence that is downstream from the fax that some individuals who have large gametes that, or sort of a, of a height, height, amount of resources that need to invest in these, or if they are carrying offspring, this has, is tremendous implications for the, the behavior of individuals you'll get sexual dimorphism. And you can predict all kinds of the stuff about the whey they're there, that species interacts and the male male conflict and all of these things. So it's is an important pillar of animal behavior, understanding that the, the sort of downstream effects of biological sex, and I'd sort of always been fond of the, the, the genre sort of debunking things. 0 (16m 44s): I used to have a blog back in like the, the late two thousands, early 2010s, where I would sort of take on a lot of the young earth creationist and intelligent design arguments. I just really liked sort of debunking. These are people who are, I thought we were just to sort of, idealogically messing up to the biology for idealogical purposes. And that is exactly what I feel a lot of the, the gender ideology trans movement sort of doing in the name of, of, of social justice, whereas before it was easy to like combat against the, the, the creationists in intelligent design in people, because it really didn't have like a foothold in the academia. 0 (17m 24s): So I could just, you know, blast their arguments in, blow me out of the water. And it was nothing but the pats on your back from your colleagues. But then as soon as I start saying like, you know, what are you guys talking about with not being real, like sexist, aren't real, and maybe there's five sexes or an incident number that it was completely the opposite because the, the, the sort of political break-down of departments who we are now, I was, that was just like the evil person and students unsafe when I would write about this stuff. So I left academia because there was a whole, the whole thing of people trying to, to cancel me and sending emails to departments about why I was terrible person, people posting on like job boards. 0 (18m 7s): I was a trans film and erase scientists or something, even though I don't talk about race, like at all. And so I left academia and I'm really into fitness. And so I thought it would just be like online fitness coach that really had no major or plan B other than I wanted to be in control of my own, my own future and not be it not to be in the hands of sorts of hiring committees and, and tenure committee is in academia. And then I got, I got extremely lucky that Claire, over at Quillette, they hadn't opening and they ended up getting a job is the managing editor. So that's what I've been doing since, and it's been amazing. So I can, I can work from anywhere and I can speak 100% freely, which is amazingly freeing. 0 (18m 48s): And it is hard to put a price on that. So, 3 (18m 51s): Yeah, that's a huge gift. I don't know. I don't know what I would do if I was in a situation like most people where you do have bosses or board to answer to it, and then you can't really be your authentic self. And then maybe you see yourself wanting to speak out about important topics because you start to see them affect your family or your business, and then not being able to, that would be a really, really tough position to be. And so I think it all worked out 0 (19m 14s): For the best to your case. Yeah. And then that's what I thought I could do. I mean, I ended up wanting to be in academia, you know, since I was, it was pretty young. I wanted to be a scientist because I always viewed academia as a place where that's where the heart of debates were taking place. That's where I could count on my colleagues to be looking at the fax and understanding that I'm presenting an argument. You're not just going to get to take me out in a personal level. And as I just got closer and closer to actually, you know, getting a professor job and applying my whole idea of what academia is, is completely morphed, you know, and I think it's not entirely then I was wrong earlier in the time where I went to school and the 10 years or 12 years, actually both between starting undergrad and finishing my, and my post-doc, it really just morphed quite a lot. 0 (20m 9s): So is it the whole environment changed quite a bit, so it's no longer sort of that, that thing that I, that I thought it was when I started. 3 (20m 19s): Yeah. There's definitely not a lot of diversity when it comes to, I guess, the way that people view the world or there, or politics or, or, or their ideologies, it does seem to skew very hard left. What's interesting. So when I was going, when I was in high school, I remember for some reason there, or at least in my community, it was a really big deal that they weren't teaching creation in science classes. Is there, I don't know if it was just locally. Cause I was in like a small town in upstate New York, but a bunch of parents got together and they were very upset and I'm like, I can't leave our tax dollars are going here and we're not being represented. And everyone just kind of laughed. Like this has to be a joke if that's what you want me to go to like a or a religious school and, and do that. 3 (21m 5s): But we're not going to teach that because there's, it's kind of irrefutable at this point that that's just not how things turned out. And then you were kind of comparing the sex deniers now to the M Evolutionary deniers back then, but there wasn't any push back. Right? Like it, it was all like, here's the irrefutable evidence. And then we're just going to stick with this. And now it's, I wonder why we're ignoring the evidence. Like, is there like it is a collective agenda, possibly do these people are, or is there a compassion, maybe blinding them. And that's what it is. Like its at the cost of S saving her feelings that we're just going to pretend that these things aren't real, that's where my mind starts spinning because I just don't understand denying what the data says now and right. 3 (21m 53s): It is like, is it possible that a hundred years from now we figure something else out. I'm sure there's a small percentage, but as it stands now, this is what the truth. 0 (22m 2s): Yeah. And then that's where my mind were spinning as well that it got me sort of in to this whole thing. I, I really do think it's all coming down to it, to politics really. And the end, it's just the tribal thinking. Or I, I have seen the sort of Gender ideology, six spectrum stuff, just like destroy people's brains. It just melts their brains for some reason because they have these, these, these ideas that they they're, they're super caring people. They were completely for gay rights and now, but at the same organizations that we're championing gay marriage and get right to it. So that was fully 100% behind it. Every step of the way, the same organizations that have all of this cloud in the history of being reliable, all these issues they've noticed sort of pumping all this money cars they've won that issue into the, the, the whole trans debate, the Gender ideology. 0 (22m 57s): And I just don't think, I think there is some like social police and going on where they, I felt myself, the second eye eye sort of stepped down the line. I was just, you know, piled on by it. So many people who were the lifelong friends up until then. And so there is the social aspect of, of sort of whipping people in line to conform. There's also just the political tribalism going on, which is sort of higher than it's maybe ever been in the cold war. You know, that we had a civil works and maybe not quite as high as it used to be, but yeah, maybe in our lifetime for sure. 0 (23m 38s): But it's just been really mind boggling to see how people can't make this clear distinction between sex and gender now 'cause, to me, this it, I mean, I've described at, this is the name of my sub stack. It's called reality's last. And because I really feel like this is like the low-hanging fruit. Like the easy question is, is male and female or are they real categories? Like child knows that these are different categories. They can identify the, and for people to say that these things aren't real and the argument's or just so horrible, it just, I don't know how they can't see the flaws in their reasoning, but if we can get this one, right, like this is just like the easiest question then where do you go from there? 0 (24m 26s): Like w what other thing, it can be completely distorted and, you know, how could we have society trust with scientists, say on like much more complex things like climate change or something where nothing that is ordinary person can observe. And it has sort of a relation, it has a political applications. And so, I mean, if people are seeing politicians just sort of waffle on, you know, does male and female exists, how could we possibly trust people when they're just making policy decisions on much more complex things that, that have sort of any political implication whatsoever? 0 (25m 7s): So that, that is what I'm extremely concerned about is the sort of this, this distrust, this deterioration of a lot of the institution's that we really need to be able to trust, to like function as a society. So we've seen that in mind and, oh, I mean, I've never been like, I'm not like a science denier skeptic, but I've never been more skeptical of any results. I see that it has any relation to politics whatsoever. I'm just like, I don't know what to believe, like, sorry. And I'm not a scientist. Like I'm someone who should have a better grip on it that most people and the I'm completely clueless on some things that have zero confidence. 0 (25m 49s): Like how does the average person have any confidence whatsoever? None he used 3 (25m 54s): To have to do. You're a fear of research. And like, I hope that your making the right decision or coming to the right conclusion on your own. And then you also have to ask the question when you're looking at, I don't know when you were giving that explanation where my mind went was, if you're looking at these organizations that solely rely on people needing help of any store, it's almost like we've done such great work when it comes to like the gay rights movement that it's like, well, what else can we, what else, what else? What's another issue we can, we can tackle. And I mean, it's not to say that there is still not people that maybe disagree with, you know, equal rights and then, and gave people being able to get married or adopt or whatever. 3 (26m 41s): But I feel like that's on the fringes. I don't remember the last time I met someone that was like, you know, they only straight people should be able to get married. Like, I feel like we've done like a lot of positive change there. So it's almost like, because that's almost complete or almost like this really healthy place. And maybe we need to find something else and dig that up. You had a really, I was catching up with your M like your little news articles that I get in my emails. And 0 (27m 12s): I, yeah, yeah. 3 (27m 16s): There was some really interesting in like heartbreaking was when it came to, to children and transitioning. And I think it will, is it called? I wrote it down. It was the sons become daughter's article that you link. And it was just a lot of like personal stories from like the parents' perspective of kind of what was happening. And it was pretty mind blowing to me how reckless, like these quote unquote professionals were being with, with their patients, with like the minor patient. And I've seen so many people that or saying anything but affirmative care is going to cause it, the suicide rate, which has been debunked, that's not true. 3 (28m 3s): And that's also very reckless to say to a parent who doesn't know what the heck is happening. I thought it was great because not a lot of people that are covering it from that angle. It's like the parents not allowed to do anything, but just agree with the child transitioning. And for me, I don't understand how a child can consent. Like that's like my biggest hiccup is week. We, obviously we say you have to be 18 to kiss consent to, to sex, right. Or to smoking cigarettes, or like there's like this age barrier for a lot of important decisions. So how can we say it a 12 year old can go get a double mastectomy and start taking testosterone, but they're not allowed to say who they have sex with. 3 (28m 46s): To me, the sex thing is way less detrimental to their future than then the precursor. So I thought that was like a really spicy article. 0 (28m 59s): Yeah. It was a really great series. There is a couple of more of those coming out too. I think there's, that was a four-part series. And I think it is going to be a six part series and the one might be coming out today, like park for it, I think. But, you know, I mean, it's in super concerning. So I, and I initially got him to the debate on the factual matter of just like these people are wrong about what biological sex, his, and, you know, it's just like, I'm just gonna to correct it with the few facts. And then after I started getting into it more, you know, you, you come to realize that when you're denying such like a fundamental aspect of humanity as a species, you know, you don't just like get away with that. 0 (29m 39s): Like, there's a way that we'll like call in its debt at some point. And it is you, can't just, it's, there's not a free lunch. We can't just deny it, this aspect, it, without having the, the, the side effects will pop-up all around society. And one of the, the biggest issue is I have, is that the way that it sort of genders being defined according to Gender ideology, which is really at its basis, it is rooted in and sort of sex-related stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. And, and this is really causing a lot of confusion in kids, especially when you're saying that male and female, or now like identities are rather than the sexes. 0 (30m 24s): And so I think a lot of kids now, or sort of looking at themselves, they're doing a self assessment of sort of their personality and their, their, their mannerisms in behaviors and preferences in relation to their male and female friends around them. And when they realize that there's they're, or they're more, maybe stereotypically liked the other six, or maybe gender nonconforming or the ideology, he says that that's like an indication that, you know, if you're a male or that maybe you're actually, maybe you are a woman or, or if you're a girl you, or maybe you're actually boy, and then this is being sort of used to, then I watch some videos to say, these are videos that, or given to children and the classes, and it just talked about, you know, if, if this is how you feel than talk to an endocrinologist and maybe they can prescribe to you puberty blockers, it's the pause button. 0 (31m 14s): So you can have more time to think about, you know, your, your gender, but when people don't tell you, was it like almost one, a hundred percent of the kids that go on puberty, blockers always transition into cross sex hormones and then surgery's and stuff. So it is, and there's also no, what like long-term study is on puberty blockers, ah, for the, the time window where people are taking it, like the block puberty. So it's like, I just think its going to be like a gigantic medical scandal because I've, I've really done a lot of the research and looked at it, you know, what's behind puberty blockers, what are the different types of therapies that we're having the affirmative care versus other things like watchful waiting and, and the outcomes with these. 0 (31m 57s): And it's really kind of shocking how bad the research is on the outcomes for the kids who were getting affirmative care. And you can just see how activists basically activists, scientists, but activists first, for sure. Or just sort of pushing the agenda through. And it really just trying to, to smoke anyone who disagrees with him in the field and I'm on the several slack channels with, you know, groups of, of so many physicians that therapists who are just constantly like when new article comes out by, you know, Jack turban, he is like a physician who's really spearheading a lot of this, you know, care stuff. 0 (32m 40s): And he'd just the stores, everything so thoroughly and say, this is constantly and he happens to just be like extremely prolific in what he publishes. And it was just a constant battle. Typ can we go out to respond to this then the other journalists don't really want to touch it because they don't want to get canceled. So it's just, it's wild. I would of it. It's hard to describe behind the scene's how crazy the whole processes. And it really want to undermine your confidence and the medical field in how it comes to its conclusions. 3 (33m 12s): Oh 100%. But then you have to realize that all of the professional's and the researcher's and the scientists that are all people at the end of the day I'm, which means that, you know, there are fallible, what is really cool. It, it actually was sparking some controversy at the other day on Twitter is North Carolina recently passed a bill. I think it was past, or it might've been proposed and maybe not passed yet, but it was if any kid his in school and started like showing signs of M like switching their names, for example, or going by a different gender, whatever it is that the parent has to be notified. And a lot of people we're like, this is so dangerous. 3 (33m 54s): We can't have this, you know, North Carolina, so backwards and kind of an uproar. And it was, I was thinking that, how is it anything but that acceptable? Because if I'm trusting you to watch my child for that many hours a day, five days a week, I think that I have a right to know of anything like that is happening. 'cause then I have to be able to have that conversation at home. Like I shouldn't be left in the dark as the parent as to if they're trying to, you know, identify as anything else because obviously whether they actually have gender dysphoria or maybe it's something else happening, I can't give them the proper care if I don't know what's going on. So it, it was kind of alarming to me that we were seeing the parents didn't have a right to that information. 3 (34m 36s): Or that was like the backlash, obviously North Carolina disagrees with that. I don't know if you saw that happening. I think it was like last week, maybe. 0 (34m 43s): Yeah. It is wild. How the tendency to sort of wanting to distance you from your parents in how everything sort of underground. And there is a lot of internet forums where people will tell you, like, you know what to tell your parents in order to get puberty blockers, and here's what you have to do it. I want to kill yourself. And then there's all these bizarre communities and the ways that they just sort of try to, to vilify and distance you for those around you, it means it's quite cultish in the very literal sense. And you'll note it in some of the articles for the sun to become daughters. This was like a very similar thing that happened to you to have the boys that we go to their school. 0 (35m 24s): And the parents were unaware of that they were, or are being called the opposite sex. They have a new name and, you know, to, to some degree, you know, people might not think it's, it's all that considering. But when you realize what further down that path, you know, if they're just confused about their gender, because they're gender non-conforming and you know, they're or tomboy or, or whatever, and the feminine male, they shouldn't be then put down this path or, you know, puberty blockers lie, or, or, you know, cross-sex hormones, which are gonna feel in a permanent, lifelong stability in, you know, surgeries that or reversible. And you know, or if you're a, or if you're a young girl and your, your taking testosterone, these are reversible things you're voice will change or permanently. 0 (36m 10s): If you're all that long enough, you'll have to get a hysterectomy because your, your reproductive organs sort of start to deteriorate on the inside and you're going to get facial hair growth. I mean, these are, these are things that are completely irreversible in, you know, the path that starts with this sort of social affirming process where he just accept them as, as they say they are, and you can't investigate any sort of underlying causes to their dysphoria because that's considered conversion therapy and some places. And in Canada that I think that is currently the case. Yeah. 0 (36m 50s): And I'm not sure if it was, it might be a state-by-state thing, but like everything is just putting them in one direction in that direction. Is your trans puberty, blockers, cross sex hormones surgery? Is it, it really dangerous, slippery slope that is usually a fallacy, but in this case, you know, you do see this thousands of percent uptick in the number of kids that are presenting to, to clinics following a whole different sort of trajectory that we'd see with normal, the kid's claim to be trans, which we usually starts at a very, very young age and its persistent and consistent. 0 (37m 30s): We are getting kids that, or just in their social groups, having no previous history of gender nonconformity or anything just suddenly claiming that their or the opposite sex. And then they're just all in and they want the cross sex hormones and everything. So yeah, it's, it's a interesting phenomenon. And you know, the last thing we should be doing is just barreling ahead, you know, without the proper safety checks, to make sure that the kids were getting the care that they actually deserve. Yeah, for 3 (38m 0s): Sure. Because as a responsible, loving parent, you're not wanting to make sure that your kid feels comfortable in their body. And I guess like talk these things out, not just accept it as, as face value. I mean, I know it's not like a great side-by-side comparison, but a lot of girls go through or maybe even have like body dysmorphia, right. Like, and I'm sure it's probably gone up since social media. So there was a time in my life where, I mean, I had an eating disorder. I was like very unhappy with how I looked. I couldn't be thin enough. And I was like working out in excess. 3 (38m 40s): So to just say simply because I was uncomfortable with my body, that I had to make like a physical, like an external change, I think is a little bit short-sighted when you compare the two and it's not to take away like that. Some people are actually trans, like we know that that exists. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the, like you said, the uptick that we're seeing, I think the social contagion that's kind of happening. So like for me, the proper parenting, would've been to figure out what was going on with me, what my anxiety or my discomfort and fix that internally. Not externally, like again, I could have worked out until I, whether to weigh to nothing. That's not the solution. So it's being able to, I guess, be comfortable in your body. 3 (39m 21s): And that starts with a conversation that's not necessarily conversion. So given your, your background with Evolutionary Biology can like, what's your take on that social contagion aspect of, of people now, like self identifying as I guess it's specifically with, with green girls to do like identifying as male. 0 (39m 44s): Yeah. I mean, it's, it's both males and females, but the, the ratio has flipped. He used to be mostly males that would claim to have in gender dysphoria or the exhibit silence or gender dysphoria. There's been a huge uptick in, and both males and female, the generally, but the, the prevalence, it is sort of flipped, umm, where it's now almost the majority female young girls who, or who are claiming to, to identify as, as male now. But I mean the, the whole daughters thing we're doing in the call that is actually addressing sort of a much overlooked aspect. And that is the males that are also, you know, having that sort of rapid onset gender dysphoria sort of etiology, which is it concerning because Abigail Shrier, she does an amazing work in her book. 0 (40m 35s): Irreversible damage is fantastic. It, it, it does focus on and young girls and I think that's it, that's the proper thing to focus on, but there are not just young girls, what is happening in it. And so it's good that we are seeing sort of every, every everyone getting addressed right now is social contagion is something that is happens all the time. We'll talk to, or I'll talk to trans rights activists in, they'll say, you know, that this can't be as social contagion because he would want to identify is something that, you know, and oppressed category and things, but there's documented evidence of social contagion happening with things like suicide. Like what could it be more and tight evolutionary it or beneficial to you than, and killing yourself. 0 (41m 19s): And so it's not something that is merely related to the things that you, no, it's not like a fan of beneficial things. And these can be, it can be things that, or have that are harmful to yourself. A it can be the things that signal sort of social inclusivity or, you know, I'll always think of, we seem to be at a time now or we have such a, he being a lot of praise on sort of people for claiming to be victims and things. Well, it's not, not a really big price that you will see people that are sort of identifying and to categories that are widely viewed as is the oppressed. So I think we need to talk about social contagion more. 0 (41m 60s): This is sort of Lisa <inaudible> work. She's the one who did, whose first had the study on rapid onset gender dysphoria. And now she's doing more follow ups studies, but you know that a lot of the activists claim that, you know, she only talked to parents and she didn't actually interview the, the kids themselves. And so she tried to do a follow up study and have it, you know, based on the kids and in these, these surveys. And then all of the activists just bombarded her pull and ruined her study. So the, the clay claim that they want better data, but then they just go in the study and they tried to do it so that she has to go to this other route where she has to, you know, together the data much more overtly and not have it to be this big public thing. 0 (42m 40s): So yeah, it's, it's something we need to study and me claiming it was the social contagion or, or even just offering it up is a possibility is what led to it. A lot of people who've tried to cancel on me and like in about a year ago, you know, calling departments at of time and telling him and such a horrible person. And because they said that was, you know, comparing the trans people to virus's or something like that, where is it? The field of social contagion is, is not controversial. It's something that is documented widely with a wide range of phenomenon. So it's just something they don't like to hear because their, their narrative is that, that it's not social contagion is just greater societal acceptance. 0 (43m 22s): That's the only reason that people are kind of coming out in droves. But it's weird that you only see people coming out who are like of this demographic, like the gen Z and millennials, he don't get like these 50 year olds that are coming out as trans, now that they are the environment's better, which we would probably expect. And we also have like this increase in, in suicide rates too. And in general, so which, which seems to be not completely interpretable with this greater acceptance, if we still see, you know, people committing suicide at such high rates. So the big man and I'm done it, it's a mess. 3 (44m 5s): So when it comes to social contagion, like a maladaptive contagion, like suicide, have you done any research with that? Because to me, I mean, it's horrific, but it's also like shockingly fascinating. Like why, how does that, we, there was a state, I think it was Arizona. Was it that during the lockdowns, they saw like a huge uptick. It was like one community got just absolutely rocked M with their kids, just are all of them killing themselves. So it was like, just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. You didn't really hear about it. A lot of on the, about it on the news, but I was listening to a podcast that was mentioning it and it is, so I just don't understand how by one person doing it. 3 (44m 49s): It kind of like sparks that I guess need or possibility in someone else's and then it just keeps on going. I don't know if you can explain maybe why that happened or like happens psychologically or biologically. 0 (45m 4s): Yeah. And unfortunately I am not too familiar with that. I know someone who's really good on that. Who studies that specifically is Nicholas Christakis. He is, he's done a lot to work on the social contagion. And he was even talking on Twitter about how this isn't even the first time that like gender dysphoria has been a social contagion. So that's actually something I would love to chat with him about that. Cause I, I wasn't aware of like a previous iteration of the whole gender dysphoria contagion that I think he said took place in the nineties or something, which could be fascinating. He is someone we should get on to that. Cause he's is just an amazingly fascinating person. Is he wrote that 3 (45m 42s): Down. Yeah. I'm going to have to, cause to me that is just so fascinating. I think it might've been Deborah that was explaining like her theory on it. So she was, and I, I hope it was Debra, not someone else's, but that she was saying that is specifically with women or like young girl's it spreads a little bit fast or whether it's like a gender dysphoria issue or gender identity issue or whether it was a body dysmorphic issue or eating, eating disorder is all of that. Just because girls tend to talk more about what's going wrong with them. And we just kinda start to see, I don't know, the whole friend groups start to, I guess, like stuff or those consequences. 3 (46m 25s): M and then she was saying that it was kind of like the new, like the new punk rock. So being non-binary it's like the new goth or the new punk rock. So it's just like a way to express like your rebellion against the culture, which I thought it was really interesting. Cause I don't think anyone else is kind of given that analogy and it, to me, it makes sense. Like we all go through it. We're most of us go through that rebellious stage or like, you know, screw you mom, you don't understand. And, you know, screw the government, whatever, like you just go through that angry, like phase M, which is fine. And if it's, if it is a phase for some people, I think it wouldn't be an issue if we weren't medically intervene intervening, but that's where we start to get the hang up. 3 (47m 10s): And then you have the misinformation that it's not permanent and that you can reverse it. And from all of the professionals I've talked to or read about, they say quite the opposite. 0 (47m 20s): Yeah, it is. Is that intermingling with the home medical aspects that is for the most concerning, I can totally see, you know, the emo kids who previously just the, you know, or gauging their ears and all that stuff. And the sort of, that sort of behavior is now, like, I mean, if you look at a lot of the people who claim to be the sort of non-binary the, you know, is it just my idea? These seem to be like, yeah, I think a lot of the kids who used to be emo, it would've probably that they were growing up right now would probably be the non-binary kids, but instead of gauging their ears, you know, they're just sort of dressing androgynously and, and then try to get hormones are puberty, blockers and things like that. 0 (48m 0s): I did hear, and I can't remember who this was. It might've been Abigail Shrier who talked about why that might be the uptick in and girls specifically, and is because of this super or emphasis on the way that they sort of empathize with their friends, where if they have a friend who's going through something that's not so much to just sort of sympathize with them. And we're like, oh, sorry for going through it. But the its sort of take on the pain of their friends in a way, not in a more personal sense and the sort of taken on themselves to, to be part of that pain and participate in it with their friends in a way I hadn't grown up with the female sort of it, they know that type of dynamic, but a, it seems, it seems like an interesting potential explanation for sort of why social contagion, it seems to be more prevalent in females generally for things like eating disorders, as it is a big area of social contagion. 0 (48m 60s): It doesn't spread ah, in males nearly as as much. 3 (49m 4s): Yeah. I heard that when they're like kind of admitted into facilities that they are not allowed to like bunk together because of that. I don't, I don't know where I heard that, but I heard yeah, because if you put them together, then they kind of start competing for who can lose the most weight. And then it just, it's obviously not going to be. 0 (49m 25s): And that's what Lisa live and work. She looked at the groups of friends that have, and if they had a lot of trans friends and their friends that were more likely to come out as trans sort of this, it sort of that I would say its a competition, but its definitely sort of a social group signaling being part of the group, everyone's doing that type of thing and, and, and you can just get hammered if he didn't even bring that up as a possible explanation, even though it would just like so plausible, it it's needs to be looked at 3 (49m 57s): It. Yeah. And he would think that it, if you had everyone's best interest at heart, you would want that number to be as small as possible. Like the people that were truly dysphoric small as possible as possible because that's such a hard road, you have to do all of these things to your body. I had buck on and he was saying, I think he was the first person to do like a full change and no one really knew what was going to happen. And he actually almost died because I forgot something with like the hormone therapy and his like cervix, literally it was like shriveling up and was 0 (50m 36s): Going to get, it was before they new, like prolonged to staff and we would do and sort of your, your, your cervix and it, it literally will deteriorate it. And so it can become, you know, you can, I think going into like sepsis of it, it's like rots away and we get an address too. And soon enough, so the clubhouse with books the other day, he is amazing. I love that. Yeah. I love book, 3 (51m 0s): But he's like if I had gone to the hospital and insisted that I was a man, not a trans man and you know, and denied that I was a biological female, I would have died. Like we are, this is like this. And we can't care so much about how we identify when it comes to medicine, because this is do or dietary Satori. It, it doesn't matter. The science doesn't care about your pronouns. Science doesn't care about your identity. And, and I think it was also in one of your newsletters, you were saying that CVS took off sex on like their COVID form's and it's not just gender identity. 3 (51m 41s): And it was curious like a, does that matter? Does it matter on either end for like something like a vaccine or something like COVID 0 (51m 51s): Yeah. It was probably less important for something like COVID, even though we do, there's like a sex differences in the mail, this team to be more susceptible to, to COVID I think that the exact stats it's like 50% more like the dive COVID. And so with respect to the, the vaccine, I might not be, you know, that important, but maybe will need to know if there is the sex differences in the side effects and things like that. It's important to know if there's actually a sex difference and you might say like, well, it was just so a few people that are gonna actually be, you know, males that are gonna put down female or, or something, but it still data that student you're just adding noise to the data. 0 (52m 33s): And that's just not something we should do to, to, to knowingly make the data mess here, even if it was just a few people. So in some context that might not have really bad consequences, but in others, I mean, it definitely could've, you know, like in Buck's case and he, and he's named is sex on is birth certificate really matters. Did to tell doctors there is, you know, the different ways that a things like heart attacks manifests themselves and males or females are the symptoms. So, you know, if you were telling the doctor or these are your symptoms, you know, if they don't know your sex or the wrong about your sex, so that could lead to a wrong diagnosis. So we just need to be Frank about, you know, someone's sex in certain contexts. 0 (53m 18s): I mean, I'm always seeing that I'm open to calling people by their preferred pronouns in sort of a social situation. And you know, his out of respect for them as an individual. And I don't want to increase their dysphoria. I mean, I'm pretty accommodating, but it's just when it comes to certain areas in society where we need to actually be honest about your sex life in the sports and what prison you are going to go to the medical records and things like that, then, I mean, we needed to be, we need to be like adults in the room and just be like, here's some, sorry, you, I mean, I know you're how you identify, but this is your actual sex and this is important. And here's why, and it shouldn't be a controversial thing to say, but yeah, the, the, a lot of people just want them to be treated as the sex they claim to be in all contexts, even to the case. 0 (54m 5s): We mean, you get some, some people in the sense that this is a very small minority, but there's cases of trans woman wanting to get you going in for pap smear or, or something where it was like, why aren't you have a cervix that there is nothing for them to S to smear you like, but he said in the clubhouse, he wouldn't go in for a prostate exam, even though some trans men claim to, or sorry, trans woman is sorry, not trans men or claim to have one we were doing in for these exams. It completely pointless. It is just medical theatre at that point, it just to reinforce your identity or something like this is a waste of time and, and money and resources. So 3 (54m 45s): Yeah, the prison thing is fascinating as well. And I think what's really curious is buck also brought up a good point with this is we're seeing a lot of biological men that, or, you know, self identifying to switch over to the women's prison, which should be so obvious that this is a terrible idea. But for some reason we are like, no, we want to be compassionate and inclusive. So lets let them lose in there. And buck was like, is anyone thinking about me? Is anyone thinking about trans men? Because if that's the case, do we have to put trans men and male prisons? Because that's also a terrible idea. 3 (55m 25s): He is like, I would be killed, I'd be killed. Cause he, you know, he saw a vagina. We, we see where that's going. And, and I think in the, in your news article, it was like over 200 requests for a set for, as it stood for like the year and a half, 0 (55m 43s): 260 just in California. Yeah. And in the recent attempt in, within the Washington state, someone put in a freedom of information, act request to the state to try to find out how many people that are being transferred or proclaiming to be trans to go to women's prisons are actually being, being transferred. And the ACLU stepped in and, and filed a lawsuit against him to prevent the government firm or the prisons from getting the information now. So it was like what's going on there? I mean, I usually like in this to me, like it, you know, as I said before, you don't just deny a whole aspect of reality without bad, you know, thing's coming up in, in, in exposing it for health a lot. 0 (56m 28s): It really is. And to me like trans or people claiming to be trans exploiting Gender ideology in the six spectrum of pseudo-science stuff to just like transfer prisons to, to, to get the female prison like that, just like as an example of, of the, of this kind of coming back to bite you like, and it's clearly a flawed ideology. This is what you would expect when you're denying in such a big fundamental aspect of reality. And the ECLU instead of sort of trying to stand up for the women who are these prisons who are probably afraid that there are we going to get raped by these individuals, you know, there, or they ignore them. And instead they try to block all inquiry. So sunlight is, I like the greatest disinfecting and stuff. 0 (57m 10s): And this is really telling me that they'd rather their knee-jerk reaction is to just stop all in Korea and to vary the data rather than to sort of embrace the, the ideology that they'd been pushing for so long in the saying, you know why we don't care it they're they're women and they should go to the women's prison. You would expect 3 (57m 28s): To see a similar, a similar request for a transfer from the trans men though, wouldn't you? If it was truly because they were discussing we were uncomfortable or, or being surrounded by, I like the opposite, you know, gender, like that was the main underlying reason what, you know, why people are wanting to switch. You would expect that these trans men or trying to go over to the male camps, I would assume that, 0 (57m 52s): And I need to get there. Yeah. I mean the same thing with sports and everything. I mean, you don't see the trends, man, trying to play and, and men's sports and in every once in a while you'll get one or two, but their not really competitive in, they don't really post the threat to 3 (58m 12s): Yeah, not at all. Yeah. It was gonna say, I haven't, I've never seen anything that was talking about trans men's rights for sports. So to me that's a little bit fascinating and almost like I hate to be cynical or pessimistic, but it does seem a little bit like nefarious. Like there's some funny business happening here because it's so one-sided like, I don't see a lot of this aggression happening from trans men. I actually don't ever see any conversations about trans men really? Aside from like the bathroom stuff once in awhile, I'll see that I'm up. Oh no, I'm sorry. I didn't know that that's still trans women as well. 3 (58m 54s): So yeah. I don't really see any conversations happening with a huge part of that, that group. So to me I'm like, well, something's off here because what it seems on at least like a surface level is that biological women are fucked. We're like almost going backwards before feminism. And before, you know, we were allowed to wear pants or you know, all these ridiculous things 'cause, we don't have space anymore. And to me it, its like the feminists who we are supposed to stand up for women are now supporting biological men and saying to the woman you're now exclusionary or why you're a bigot it or whatever this is that were not allowed to have sports' anymore. 3 (59m 39s): We were not allowed to have her own like space anymore that even rape centers are now taking it in trans women. Which to me again, I think of someone just went through like that trauma, maybe do what's best for them. I don't know. 0 (59m 54s): Yeah. I mean it's the only women's spaces that are getting compromised. I mean, you see it in a lot of it, it was someone did like piece of thread on some bathrooms and buildings where they didn't have a third gender neutral option. So they had to turn one bathroom into the gender neutral one. And which one do you think that was when it was like, there was always the men's room and then there is like the all gender restrooms. So it's the women's restroom or is it just has to like be accommodating to males and females, whereas the male as we get our own, you know, bathroom, because like no one really cared about that. And then there's also the mens bedroom has the, the urinals sort of specialized for males, I guess, but still it's it's it's women who have to give up their spaces or at least being it was going to ask, but they're being forced to sort of, to step aside and not have spaces where they can just sort of, you know, have for themselves and reinforce sort of those types of boundaries. 3 (1h 0m 52s): I think unfortunately there's going to have to be a certain amount of discomfort or pain or for example, that the sports like the loss of scholarships before we kind of see what's happening and maybe course correct. But I was watching this YouTube video and it was the young, I think she was like a college athlete or maybe she was, she might've actually been a high school athlete that was trying to get scholarship. And she got knocked down because some biological males took her and like some of her teammates spot for a track and she's like, I was suppose to get a ride to college and now I lost it and I was like, this is affecting real people are like, this isn't just theory 0 (1h 1m 32s): Anymore. No, that was in high school in Connecticut, I think. And the, the, the girls are suing, I think the, the school or maybe even from the state or something and based on the sort of title IX stuff 'cause yeah, it, it was the case that there were to two trans girls who decide that they want it to run on a track and they don't even require any hormone suppression, even though we know that it's not sufficient to get rid of the advantage that we were just not hormonally transitioned males, they're just in males who identified it just purely based on the self ID. And they went and got first and second and they like beat the cause of the state records in these categories to it, you know, where, or the trans men who we're like shattering the, the men's records like it is, it doesn't happen. 0 (1h 2m 20s): So, umm, yeah, I think unfortunately we might have to get a lot worse and absurd before it gets better because I mean at some point it's just it's, it, it, it, it is absurd to me, but I don't think many people realize the, how bad the problem or it could get in. So it's really gonna to take just a sort of M more trans athletes that is just breaking records and is killing scholarships. It is to get better. And it really is going to come down to at some point female athletes, you know, from when they were at the starting block and just need to not participate in like why aren't there. It is not even run to the gun, goes off or they just stand up and walk away or something like that could end it just like instantly if they could do that. 0 (1h 3m 7s): But it it's really tough because any of the athletes who do speak up just by themselves, they get targeted so hard. They lose sponsorships. I mean, there's athlete named Rachel McKinnon and she's a trans woman whose one, some like world championships of, of bicycling cycling it against women. And it wasn't on Twitter or some people voice, but they didn't think that this was fair. And she realized the athlete who spoke against her, it was sponsored by, I think it was specialized bike company. And she is tweets like, Hey, specialized, you know, your person as a trans Boba and blah-blah-blah, and then he specializes like we were investigating this right now. And like, I think she lost her sponsorship just for the comment on Twitter that she thought it was unfair that Rachel, the Canon was able to compete. 0 (1h 3m 54s): So this is what happens when, when you speak up against it, at least when you speak up in isolation. So I would like to see some, some private pools being done by some athletes, because if you're just going by, you know, everyone raise your hand, who is against the it's like, well, you know, that people aren't gonna want to be, you know, outing themselves. So you need to be some way to get some surveys to see even just for the, so the athletes themselves and know how many people around them or, or, or on their side, because that might help them realize that, you know, they can actually speak up because they are in fact, the majority which you have to be. And I'm pretty sure that that's the most frustrating part of this whole debate is the majority I think is clearly on our side. 0 (1h 4m 38s): And on the side of sanity, it's just, you know, the, the, the activists are just so loud and they want to go for your career. Or it's just the opportunity costs you pay for speaking. That is this, it can be so 3 (1h 4m 47s): High. It's gotta be temporary though. So I was listening to Joe Rogan, I forget who he was talking to someone else who had like a really big platform. And they were explaining how these private companies, or like sponsors for example, will pull out. Or if they get like 200 comments that are negative, or these politicians will start to change the policy. If they get, you know, a hundred people that say you're the worst per person, or you're this, that, or the other, because they're so not to getting what they would consider a Dogpile and social media. But once you get to a certain following, that's like a Tuesday and then you get desensitized to it. 3 (1h 5m 30s): So I'm kind of hoping that's what happens with these big companies. It's like someone goes after Coca-Cola and they just have 2000 people say that their terrible, because they are not doing enough inclusion training or whatever it is that there like, okay, well it's Tuesday and we'll just sign off or the day, and this will just pass. So I think people have to get over that shock value and realized that there's no real meaning behind it or no real consequence, unless you will allow it to 0 (1h 5m 52s): Be, yeah. It, Twitter pile on me. And remember the first time that happened to me and it was horrifying experience, you just feel like, oh my God, everything's, everything's horrible. And the world's coming down on me, but it really isn't. It's really just some people just going mad, but it could be a group. Is it, you know, little as 10 people, or even if it's more than that is just like, they're just little comments on Twitter. And in my case, I think that it can affect your career in some cases that they're sending emails out and things like that. But a lot of the corporations, I think they're just, they're overwhelmed with the pushback on social media and they think that's reflective of society in general and all of the times, they'll just that knee-jerk reaction to it. Just like, oh, just to apologize. 0 (1h 6m 32s): And we'll let our diversity person like write it up. And so it's just like this boiler plate, you know, bladder. It it's just like, oh, well, you know, trying to learn more and we're inclusive and all of this stuff. And they think that it'll just be the end of it, but that's not like, that's just like jump in the water for those people. They see it like a little, the concession and that just, is there a signal to go and then they can extract more to you if they get a little. So I might advice to anyone who is like a target of, of these sort of pushed her pylons. It is like, just don't apologize. And you can really just ignore it for the most part because their attention spans are so femoral. If they, if they don't see that their gonna get anything out to you, there's some of the person who's saying something to that that will just immediately pivot and this like, try and get something out of that. 0 (1h 7m 14s): And so, yeah, having been in the target have a lot of pylons. It just, it doesn't matter anymore. And I'm known to it. 3 (1h 7m 25s): I think that that advice too, not, not apologize is really good. And this is like on the, like the front of my mind, because that was just watching. This is like this bear's documentary with my son earlier today. And it's just like a, just a little bit, it just follows the family of bear's. And there's like a commentary what the bears were saying. And all of this explaining like is the social interactions. And there is this one scene where there is like the mama bear, she's got two baby's and she is kind of trying to find some food. And then she comes across the outside or bear, like he's been exiled from everyone else. And I guess bear male bears can eat baby bears that I didn't know. 3 (1h 8m 6s): That was the thing. So they're explaining that she, even though it is like half the size of this male has to stand her ground and pretend that she's not scared. And that's, she's like the force to be reckoned with. And if she can do that, convincingly enough that the mail bear will just leave her alone and go to try to find food. That's easier to attain, right? Like someone that's not going to put up a fight. And to me, I don't really see much of a difference, especially like when you come down to the psychology of it, it's like, if you leave that opening for weakness, then they're just going to lunge in and attack just the bare wood. So we don't know why it, it just made me really 0 (1h 8m 45s): Laugh. Yeah. It's definitely a good analogy for that. Like the, the, the other route you, it goes just to like our crazy then my suppose, and just hit them back. Is it even harder? I know that some people like is one guy, Pedro Domingos. He is a professor at least was that. I can't remember where it, but he does like AI research and he was the target of a Twitter mob. 'cause he spoke out against, you're not on the, the whole story, but there was people saying that AI was, was bigoted or racist or something. So he, and, and there were people that we were just making list of anyone who like liked and retweeted to his tweets in his field. And all of these people in the researchers were freaked out because they're like the president or vice press or something of this major AI corporation was, was making lists of everyone who free tweeted this guy. 0 (1h 9m 37s): And so Pedro went, he went and them hard and he does like highlight of what they're doing, why its wrong. And he actually was able to snuff this out by just out addressing them and just, you know, the highlighting, what they were doing. And he was relentless. He wrote a piece for a cool that it actually, ah, sort of, of giving tips on how to survive these things and how to push it back. It was really like, I remember the title, something that success and AI research or something to countering them up. But yeah, it was it's really good. There's we had seen a couple of more pieces that are not very wise and substantiate and umm, other places where people were sort of writing these here's what to do it, if you're the target of, of the pylon or, or, you know, a lot of is coming after you and the sort of sharing their story, but like what, what works and what doesn't work. 0 (1h 10m 23s): And I think that sort of what people needed to read, because it can, it can blindside you and they'll come at you with a bunch of nice post-modern language and ideology is that you don't even know what they're saying, so you don't even know how to respond. And so you just want to say, oh, I have in them, sorry, I'll go in research this. Then you realize that like it's impossible the research and just like an afternoon. And then you can't really understand that because it, it makes no sense anyway, so yeah, just don't apologize. And it's all the intentional tu, like the 3 (1h 10m 57s): It's all intentional as far as making it confusing. So there's that quote where if you can explain it in just a few words, then you don't know enough about the subject. And when I listened to some of these people that in it, in the beginning, I was like, wow, that person is so smart. And maybe I should listen to them and learn about this, this topic. Like, I don't want it to not be informed or I don't want to be, I guess like rude or cruel or whatever. And then like the more you listen to this person, like they don't know what they're talking about. Like this is just jibberish and like round and round we go, 0 (1h 11m 30s): Yeah. I mean, its complete is complete gibberish. Just the way that the equivocate between words like fix in gender. I mean the, they do, and I've talked to Helen <inaudible> about that. She is really great on and Gender ideology and he describes it is because she's coming from the mathematical background and he says, well, this idea or ideology does, is it divided by zero or somewhere along the line or the algebra. And when you divide by zero to mean that you could basically get any answer you want after that. Because you know, if your, if your denominators is, is nothing that you can just to make infinities out of thin air and you can make it any equality that you want, you can say it like one plus one equals five or something. 0 (1h 12m 11s): If you're, if you're just dividing by zero, somewhere along the logic. And that's what they're doing when they're just equivocating things that aren't the same. And they just, and they'll do these little quick equivocations and now they're just from that point on, they're talking about something completely else. And then they have so many of these where they can just flip flop back and forth where it's just like a heads. I win tails, you lose, you can't win the argument because they just shift the language under your feet so quickly. And you know, like it's hard to point out when you're not used to it, but as he is sort of interact with them, or you can just see these moves in like in real time. And that's, that's something that I think is important to just try to understand is seeing the moves, they're making, understand what those moves are and how to, how to sort of point them out and try to expose them. 0 (1h 13m 1s): Yeah, it's, it's a lot of work though, because it is, there is a big learning curve for a lot of this like critical theory post-modern stuff. And now not everyone can be in like a James and Lindsay who is just, you know, he can just dice it up, like instantly 3 (1h 13m 18s): Does it stop? 0 (1h 13m 21s): I talk to him once then, you know, like just tell me what critical race theory is like elevator pitch in the beginning and just keep going. Like there's just so much to do. And there's this so many influences on the ideology at the end of the day, you don't, you don't really need to know the history of these ideas to some degree, as long as you understand, like how to just to make like a basic argument and able to point out some sort of logical fallacies along the way. Because really, I mean, a lot of the stuff they do is just nonsequitors or just be equivocating and yeah, it's, I think MI debating creationists it in intelligent design and people back in the day really helped. 0 (1h 14m 4s): Cause I see you see a lot of the same, the same movie that they do. And I was like, I've been here before. This is like the youngest creation has trying to see in the argument from complexity and then you'll get the intelligent design and people were saying that will the, I is way too complex, too involved. And therefore, or evolutions bankrupt. Then you get the same thing with the people who are trying to say the biological sex. Isn't real to be like, oh, we know it's like hormone's and it's this and that. And this is so complex and only really knows what's the biological sex really is fundamentally. And the there's the same types of maneuvers that they do. It's just like I've been here before exactly the same type of thinking. That's the same thing. And it's amazing how you can see these two completely separate groups. 0 (1h 14m 47s): Like there's probably not a big overlap between young earth creationist and the people who, or, you know, the social justice, critical theory type people and its the same, same type arguments just like or modify it is slight different ways. There, it just put out there and again and again, in just like the creation, it is they're debunked again and again. And you just keep seeing the same things. They just don't even, they don't even take the, the criticism. They just keeps saying them. So it was fascinating if, 3 (1h 15m 15s): If this goes to an extreme where let's say they win the argument and you know, a hundred years down the road, theirs, we say that there is no sex and there is no gender, I guess. What is the like where do you see the significance of that or what would be like possible consequences? And would there be any benefits to that, to a solution? 0 (1h 15m 40s): I don't see any benefits. I mean you have, you can't have any sort of, you're going to, you know, in terms of medicine and you're not going to be able to do proper diagnoses on things. You're gonna family planning out of you've and approach that. And when you're not identifying the biological sex as real, you're not gonna have female sports. We were just gonna have one big prison or where everyone gets thrown in to the same thing. And so you're gonna have sexual assaults are gonna get out of control if he can't say for eight people based on the six and it is not even so much to just if six is denied, but it's, it's this the general lack of tethered to reality that like pathway has everything else we are talking about to, I mean, I think denying biological sex is a huge, important thing for us as a species to acknowledge. 0 (1h 16m 30s): But it's really just this, if we, if we can't make any statements about the reality of certain categories, because queer theory does wants to blur every line or obliterate them completely, then you need to just, you can't do anything. You just, you can't make progress. If everything and just be interpreted one way or the other. And there is no, there's no grounding. There is no anchor to, to anything that is fundamental and real. That is just to me, that's like the horrifying, it's just the ultimate state of chaos. I can imagine where no one can can say anything. That's true. It's just like everything is, but your lived experience, you can't actually achieve any sort of real social if you can't actually make factual claims about oppression or the, the, the fax on the ground of what's influencing people and holding them back. 0 (1h 17m 19s): So, I mean, I know that they're doing this and the name of the social justice, but man, I just, I can't think of anything. That's more counterproductive to actually achieving real justice than denying biology, denying it's all the facts are on the ground and being able to make it any sort of distinguishing between any sort of categories. I don't even know what justice would look like if you can't ground it in something real, does it makes no sense to me. Yeah. 3 (1h 17m 52s): Yeah. It does seem like a lot of, a lot of wasted energy. That would be a lot more helpful if we targeted it somewhere else, like some more and more substantial. And I think we're in this really crazy place where people are talking about another war with, you know, the other superpower's and someone brought it up there. It was Tim Kennedy today and his Instagram. And he was like, this is what's wrong with America right now. And he like was showing that someone, you know, this M museum had been defaced and we're trying to deny or rewrite history. And the, the second slide had like a very obese man and a military guard with the mask on. 3 (1h 18m 35s): And he was like, we are so concerned about hurting feelings that we're avoiding facts. Like no one, even today, like there's not a main narrative that saying most people that died from COVID were very overweight. So maybe we should get moving. Like no one's saying that bill Maher did a little bit on his, his show the other day to is, and we do the same thing. We would rather die than hurt someone's feelings and actually be able to change thing. And the scary thing is that it's not like China, doesn't give a shit about your feelings. Russia, doesn't give a shit about your feelings and they're not having these arguments. And we should be focusing on things that could be a really big deal years down the road. 3 (1h 19m 17s): Or maybe even less than that. We have no idea and not to sound like a doomsday or something, but just to point out that there's other things that are a lot more important than whether or not you feel like someone's respecting you or your vision of the world, whether it might be true for you or not. Yeah, I, 0 (1h 19m 36s): Yeah, it seems we were just trying to change the environment to make it, you know, we're, we're trying to, like, I've heard someone describe it as like paving the jungle rather than getting people boots or in order to, to like navigate it. Is that what that is? Yeah, but I mean, I do think that there's a lot of truth to that. I mean, we can, it can, it can be both things we can try to make the environment, you know, accommodating the people, but fundamentally, I mean, I'd rather teach people and try to be robust individuals that can a lot of criticism and being uncomfortable. I mean, we look at people like, but angel, I mean, he's, he said that people will, will still call him and she just to be assholes and he just laughed. 0 (1h 20m 20s): He's like, I don't care. Like why would I care? Like I'm comfortable with who I am. Like, just screw it up. Like, that's just in that to what book, but anyone in someone else, it would just crumble in book's position. And if they were to call them, mis-gender them. And it just like, that's just like in the sense of personal choice that you can make of it, how you're going to, how you're going to take this type of environment, you know, when people are going to be meaning and people are always going to be me and you can't, you can't force people not to be mean, or they will, you just have to not let it get to you. And there's, as long as we all have the laws put in place where like, you know, you can't actually be discriminated against based on some of these fundamental characters and identities and things of, except for it matters like in sports, you know, we need to be able to discriminate between males and females just for, for safety reasons and fairness and all that stuff. 0 (1h 21m 9s): But yeah, I mean, and I think for the most part we're they're to, so we're having these debates that are just, so it was like spinning our wheels. I'm not going anywhere. And I'm like, we, we, we achieved a lot of what we need to, but you know, the existence of some transphobia or some racist personnel, there is this, whoops. If we went into a fury M no matter how, how a few people are actually out there is thousands of these, these bigger to the ideas. So yeah, we don't see that gender debate happening and in China and the pronouns and all that stuff. And I mean, it's, it's, it's really concerning to me. 0 (1h 21m 50s): We were just focusing on something. So, so when important, and I know people will get angry, but here and that, but it's like, I just can't be bothered to care too much about it until they actually trying to distort reality. And that's, that's where I just sort of that, that's why I'm, that's why I talk about it because I feel like they're doing a lot more harm than there in their or fixing. 3 (1h 22m 14s): Yeah, I think so too. And that's why I keep having the conversation because like, I see how it could potentially affect like kids specifically in the school system, because a lot of like the mandated education around it is very confusing. And it's kind of creating that, I guess, like, I guess for lack of better words like that dysphoria. So I'm like, it doesn't, it doesn't matter, but at the same time, if it really matters, because now we're, we're seeing it getting passed into law and then that should be alarming for everybody. And again, like we're having these conversations. If you called me a dude, I or kept referring to me as a man, it'd be like, what's, this guy's deal. 3 (1h 22m 58s): But it, when it ruined my day, it wouldn't affect me on any level outside the conversation. I would just probably think that you were DIC and move on with my life and we can sit there and we can just have these arguments or these conversations and try to force everyone to see the world is you see it, but what's going to happen. I think is the vast majority of people are to say, this is a waste of my time. I'm going to continue on with my life. And as science progresses, and as the world progresses, I feel like those people are going to fall by the wayside. I think once you start talking about like CRISPR, for example, you're gonna have people with a lot of extra means that are going to start, bio-engineering their babies. 3 (1h 23m 39s): And you're gonna be over here having a conversation about your pronouns and how people identify or to include you. And they're going to be making little Superman's that, or just going to outperform your kids if you decide to have them on all fronts. So I think we really need to, I guess, to like, be aware of the importance of these arguments, or we just arguing 'cause we don't have anything else going on in our lives. And this is the most important, meaningful part of my day is to, you know, create social justice and the way that I see, I know you have to ask more why questions. 0 (1h 24m 18s): Yeah. And it's just an obsession with, with identity and it is something I've never understood to much. I remember I had a long-term girlfriend before and I've always been an atheist. And so she, we just didn't believe in God. And then Richard Dawkins, there is a whole episode where he had commented on someone's. Someone got invited that are like an atheist conventions up to the room to, to, to have a cup of coffee. And it was like, you know, that was like a sexual invitation, you know, that it was, it was like to come in for a cup of coffee. And then some woman that thought this was just the most egregious things that ever happened to her. 0 (1h 25m 1s): And then Dawkins' sort of juxtaposed or her story with like that of a Muslim woman, like sari Muslim woman. And you can't talk about genital mutilation because haven't, you heard like some women in the United States get offered coffee and the elevator. And she thought this was like the most horrific thing. Like my, my ex girlfriend did. And then she just said that, you know, because of that, she no longer identified as an atheist. And I remember thinking like, what do you mean? Like you, if you believe in God now because of this and she's like, well, no, it don't believe I've got it. I just want to identify as an atheist. And then like, it's not something you identified like 80 of them is in the conclusion. Why are we identifying with conclusions? And I see this happening now to which is where you get people identifying with, you know, their gender identity and, you know, politics has comes into it. 0 (1h 25m 49s): People that identify with it, like being autistic, it's like an identity, you know, to be like you there's is this move for identifying with certain medical conditions. And when it gets into their own, the politics and conclusions, that's just so dangerous because every conclusion you have should be tentative to some degree, or at least able to be falsifiable and potentially falsifiable. And if you're identifying with conclusions, then if someone shows that your argument is flawed, then this like is going to trigger it like an identity crisis know like you really should keep your identity is, is small as you can. And not like attach it onto things outside of you because things change. 0 (1h 26m 32s): You know, you're, if, hopefully if you're thinking person, you're not gonna think about it, the same thing is you're not going to hold up the same conclusions you did before. And I just can't imagine why anyone would open to identify with these things. Like, it just, it makes absolutely no sense. And this is what we're seeing. We're seeing now, like when I wrote an article for the wall street journal, pushing back against, you know, it was called the dangerous Denial of sex people at Penn state students there, or I was working. And we said that that piece made them feel unsafe. Cause it was denying the existence of non-binary people or something. And it's just like, I don't know, to tell ya, like biological sexist real, and it can be nonbinary and you're still a male or female. 0 (1h 27m 14s): Like, I don't know what else to say. I'm not gonna attack you. I have a little ant biologist. It's like, why are you scared? But that's, I mean, it's just identity is, is rain, the rain Supreme right now. And you can't challenge it because it's considered like an attack on an individual. They can't separate sort of the criticism of, of certain ideas with criticisms of them as like a human. So that's, that just seems to be where everything sort of boil it down to and why people are still upset. Cause the inability to detach those, to those things from one another. 3 (1h 27m 54s): I think the fascination with identity is really interesting. You also posted a thought exercise that someone had tweeted that was comparing identity, like identifying as a different race. And they were saying, well, if you can identify as a different gender than why is it wrong? If you identify as a different race, when the, the, the science and the biology behind raised is a lot more open to interpretation than is sex. And it caused quite a stir and people might say that this is, this is a reach and that's never going to actually be a thing. But I was filling out some forms for, for school for my kid. 3 (1h 28m 34s): And it would say, I identify as like in, in the race collum, it would ask what you identify as, not what you are. And I was like, when did that happen? And that seems problematic because I mean, there's certain like affirmative actions, right? So if I say that, I identify as, as black, is that fair? Like I don't, I don't think that that's right. Or if I identify, so I'm S I'm Asian. So if I want to identify as white and deny that part, because I want to have higher acceptance rate and to a university. Cause obviously we know that Chinese kids are being denied. So like, let's pretend that I'm not this thing. 3 (1h 29m 15s): I don't know. It's just, I didn't know that we could choose that. And then I was talking to Deborah to, and she was saying that there's this phenomenon where people can identify as trees. And that's really interesting. So at what point do we say, this is like a mint, this is, there's something wrong. If you think, if you identify as a tree, that's a mental disorder. That's not healthy for anybody. 0 (1h 29m 36s): Yeah. I mean, there's like the body, what's it called? Body integrity disorders, something like that where people can identify as being like a paraplegic or is it someone who has amputated limbs, even if they don't and they want to get a limb amputated because they just, they identify as someone who shouldn't, or it doesn't have Lake's or something. And, and these are just a lot of people that have no problem. And putting that out as being like, this is a medical condition, this person, you know, it's, it's self harm. If they chop their leg off or have it doctor chop their leg off and should does it in people's legs off. 0 (1h 30m 17s): And I'm actually not sure. I don't, I don't think it is, but it seems like that's a clear case of most peoples saying like, yeah, the people shouldn't maybe be allowed to have their limbs amputated or, you know, maybe, or maybe they should, or I don't know that it seems like this is indicative of, of some sort of mental problem that needs to be addressed. But then if you, instead of saying, you know, this is a leg, well, let's just talk about breasts in your genitals now. And that's somehow it's accepted or, or at least, you know, much more widely accepted then the other, other forms of, and then you have like the other kid, which is Debra. So he was talking about which, for people that identify with object's and other animals and things like that, that there seems to be a delay with like tumbler in what becomes trickles into society. 0 (1h 31m 11s): So a lot of the stuff, and if it puberty, blockers, people claiming that like, oh, we should all be out puberty blockers. Then we can all identify that what we, oh, we know what we are, the gender identity truly it's like, that would be the default. And it got started on tumbler like three years ago. And then like now people are actually making this argument, you'll see signs. People is saying like puberty's options. Like they should, everyone should be on them at first, before the, you know, the figure things out. And so I think that the other kin stuff is, is predicted to maybe start trickling out of the, of the tumbler spirit and into society. 0 (1h 31m 51s): So we'll see how, like, I mean, what's interesting 3 (1h 31m 54s): About that too is so when it comes, I saw that I think you might've retweeted it, or maybe James did. And the way that article that was suggesting, everyone go on puberty blockers until they know. But isn't the issue with that is once someone goes through puberty, like that's like a very, like, that's a very important part of, of knowing if they actually have gender dysphoria or if it's that they're actually just Gaye or maybe they just gender nonconforming, like that's like very pivotal point and knowing where that child falls. So if you delay that, aren't you delaying that conclusion. 0 (1h 32m 31s): Yeah. There's a weird notion that like, you're your true self for something before you go through puberty and then, you know, with you, if you identify whatever you identify before hormones have entered the picture, I'm at least the, the hormones to get. Was it you going through puberty M did that, that's your, that's your true self? And, you know, you can, if, if you're good to go through puberty, that's, you know, you can accept these changes, but that's sort of not as fundamentally you is, is you're pure self, you know, pre pubertal person. It is really, it's really bizarre. Or the way we like are treating children, like they're these little Oracles who know everything about themselves and how they're going to feel for the rest of their life, because I am just picturing myself and I was 12 or 13 and it was an idiot. 0 (1h 33m 25s): Like I didn't or anything when I was younger, I thought it was in India. Tertile and I mean, and there's just there's is no space of where I could of been considered like a mature anything, but I was even 20. Like I would not even like a mature person and in many ways it probably is still not like it. It's still growing a lot. And there's the last decade of it. Yeah. Okay. 1 (1h 33m 51s): And who knows what the other day, 2 (1h 33m 57s): Hey, everyone can to is here. So thank you. First of all, for tuning into this week's episode, I hope that you enjoyed the conversation. We had a little bit of technical difficulty is towards the end of the show. So we had to wrap it up right here. I do apologize, but stick around for round two, I'm going to ask call in to join us again in the near future. So again, I apologize for the technical difficulties and thank you for listening.
